Little Sweatshop of Horrors

OK, so there was, in fact, no horror, but I did force my kids into some sweatshop work for Craft Hope.






The idea met with enthusiasm from some, and slight reluctance from others, but in the end, everyone had fun, and 3 of them wanted to do MORE sewing (Fishy included!) We had a pretty nice assembly line of sewing, clipping corners/turning/pressing, and stenciling, and after 2 days (and a little bit of stenciling learning-curve on my part) we have all 26 letters of the alphabet. :-) All that remains is to fill the bags and close the tops.





In other news, Mollusc was excited to see the return of the Red-breasted Grosbeaks shortly after we put up our new feeding tray.


This weekend, we'll be sojurning to Toledo for the biggest birding week in the country. Mollusc hopes to see tons of warblers. Of course we'll have to take the camera(s), so hopefully we'll come away with some good pics.

The weather was gorgeous today, and I took some of the herd to the park after all the school-type stuff was done. Prawnie and I played catch with a tennis ball and her barely used baseball mitt -- a new and exciting interest for her since Daddy is starting softball on Wednesday. The tennis ball was a good choice as I beaned her a few times. :-P We made dandelion-chain crowns and peered into the creek, and of course there was the obligatory game or 2 of Poohsticks for all of us.

On the homeschool front, I'm looking into the "Key to _______" math series for Sluggie since she's hit the point in Algebra where it appears that Math U See is just not perfect for her learning style. We'll likely keep on with MUS, but I want to supplement with other things, and so far, the Key to___ series looks promising. There's nothing worse than rushing past shaky subject matter and continuing on to the next stuff in math, IMO. I have a growing "things to order on Payday" list. :-/ Oh, and while I was hanging laundry on the covert line I have stretched across the back deck (Shhhh! Don't tell the Nazis Homeowner's Association), Fishy made this comment about his copybook: "I can remember so much more at once now. I used to only be able to remember 2 or 3 letters, but now I can remember about 2/3 of what I have to write. I just remember the words now, because I'm a much better speller." He's right -- the copybook has been great for his spelling (as, I'm sure, has all his reading), but it was great to hear that he notices it, too. I know I'm not as unschooly as I used to be now that everyone's getting older, but we're still pretty relaxed and tend to do what works for us.

Tonight is my last soccer game until Fall, which is a bummer. I was really nervous when I first started, because I'd never played the game on any kind of team before, but now it's just plain fun! At least there will be pickup games during the summer. :-)

And finally, here's the kind of thing you tend to find lying around when you've created a houseful of geeks and happen to have alphabet letters handy:

How's it Bean?

One of my friends pointed me at MAKE magazine's podcasts about making Bean Bots. Since then, I've managed to get my hands on this book. (And hey, is Hrynkiw a hockey name or what?) I forsee a trip to Radio Shack in our future. Also the dismemberment and parts-scavenging of those no-longer working CD and tape players we have lying around.

Tomorrow is Holy Wednesday again, and BG is coming over to see if we can make her laptop work. Most likely, we'll end up sitting around finding weird stuff online and trashing Dell. BG has her very own blog now, so if you want to laugh, go check it out. Because it's funny, I mean. Hopefully she won't abuse it to dish dirt on me. ^_^

Wednesday Eve

Ahhhhh. Wednesday eve. Tomorrow is my Holy Day. My Day of No Commitments.

No doubt I'll be in the throes of rewrites, but perhaps I shall also make more soap. Shall I tell you about my last batch? I had Sweetgrass, which is a fantastic fragrance, amazingly similar to the real item. In case you're not familiar with sweetgrass, here's what Wiki has to say about it. Lovely stuff. I have a braid of it that I can never resist sniffing, and so I was forced to buy some when I saw it at Brambleberry.

I had visions of making a batch of pure sweetgrass scented soap for my mom and myself, and then selling leftovers at the co-op. But I didn't have enough of the oil, and honestly, what fun is soaping if you can't do some experimental mixing? So I mixed it with Black Tea, and that was really lovely. But I was still a little low on fragrance, so then I added chammomile, and I kinda wish I hadn't, though it still smells good. Live and learn. Such are the ups and downs of soapmaking. You have to be part chemist and part perfumer, and what doesn't work out, I hear you can grate and use in the washing machine.

For those of you interested in the books I mentioned on Facebook, I will be weeding out more tomorrow, so fear not; the list will be ready soon. For those of you who aren't on FB, LMK if you want a list of the books I'm getting rid of, free for the cost of shipping.

I've had the extreme pleasure of introducing my kids to Dr. Who recently. I've been a fan since 5 BCE (the 5th Dr, before Christopher Eccleston) and CE was their first Dr. Tonight I saw what is one of my all time favourite scenes. But now we are in mourning because we're out of episodes. At least ones that we can get our grimy mitts on.

And while we're on geeky admissions, Mollusc has informed me that today was Square Root Day. I'm not going to make any ROM bus or tuber jokes. I'll just say I hope you had a fair one.

Geekery

This is just a random geekiness post. You may experience turbulence as it jumps rather abruptly from topic to topic. Please fasten your seatbelt.



When we lived in CA, I started a tradition of blowing up as many balloons as possible and trying to fill a room with them, then letting the kids frolic. This started on Sluggie's third birthday, when MuNKi was out of the country on her special day. With just the four of us (me and 3 kids aged 5 and under) I was feeling a little bummed, and not "festive" enough, so voila: Balloonorama was born. We've missed a birthday or two here and there, but I think the tradition has been re-revived. All I can say is that whoever invented the air compressor is my hero! ^_^ (I used to have to do these all by lung.) There are at least 4 kids in this picture. Maybe more.

We're going through a massive Star Trek phase here. When I learned that Pfaltzgraff had made some Enterprise dishes, I was totally geeked up. Then I saw the price tag: $300.00. Um, no. Thank goodness for eBay! 10% of that was much more reasonable. We use these every day. The kids take turns with the cup ("Tea, Earl Grey, hot") and share the plates. I need to find more! :)

And speaking of being geeked up about stuff, I tried Paper Piecing for the first time yesterday. Here's what I made:


I started with something simple, but I can see a lot more of this happening. In fact, I'm off to look for Star Trek and LOTR piecing patterns now. ^_^ I love the web!

Come On In and see the NEWS!!!!!!

I made that yummy creme de menthe cake from the Chinaberry cookbook again. It's gone already.



But you can still have a virtual bite.



Then I made these from the King Arthur Flour Cookie Companion



They're basically just oats, brown sugar, corn syrup, butter and vanilla, with chocolate chips, cocoa butter (my substitution for shortening) and walnuts on top. They didn't get a great reception, but they're disappearing anyway. They seem better on the second day.

For our Ancient History class, Fishy made a scale model of the Ark. (Noah's, not "of-the-covenant.") He was going to make it out of Play-Doh, but changed to this paper print-out model when that proved too awkward. Whether you are into arky stuff or not, I find it fascinating that there are hundreds of cultures around the world that each have their own world-wide flood legend.


It's really hard to glue something made of paper that's so long and thin. ^_^

Sluggie compared 3 flood legends from different cultures (China, Egypt and Greece), Mollusc drew a scale model of the ark, and Prawnie made a lapbook about Paleolithic People.










I have a new project in the works: a Wheel of the Year quilted wallhanging. I have yet to decide whether it will be circular or octagonal. I want to be able to turn it throughout the year so that the current season's wedge faces right-way-up.

So far I have these fabrics for Mabon, and Imbolc or Ostara:



And finally, the BIG NEWS! Meet MY NEW BABY Xavier! He is soooooooooo lovely. He sews like buttah. I'm in love. :) The adoption fee was only $75. His mother had to give him up because he had too many siblings. He's currently slightly disabled because he has no feet, but I plan to remedy that tomorrow if possible. Welcome, Xavier!!



My other machine (a Singer from Sam's) has served me well for at least 11 years with no servicing at all. My big girls will inherit it, but it needs reconditioning, because right now when I use it, it goes DONK DONK DONK DONK DONK instead of hmmmmmmmmm. They have yet to name it, but I suspect it will be something like Boromir or Aragorn or Legolas. ^_^