Craft show

"So, how'd your craft show go?"
"It sucked big donkey balls, Mom."
"Oh, that's a shame."

My excellent show setup before the customers arrived:


Same table at the end of the day:

See the change? Yeah, me neither.

I sold a total of four patterns and one tummy time play quilt, all of which had duplicates hiding under the table and were restocked. Subtracting out the booth fee, I earned $3 for seven hours of standing around listening to the person next to me mention God, Jesus, or "feeling blessed" approximately every 12 minutes. Blessed or not, she didn't even earn her booth fee back.

And then today I sold one of the Christmas ornaments on etsy while I was cooking dinner. I am now up $10 (subtracting out etsy fees and paypal fees) without even trying. Oh, etsy, how I love you!

Tree-riffic

Every year we put up a Christmas tree, and every year Jason complains that even the plastic ones make him break out when he handles them, and every year I complain that Jason has a tendency to try to arrange the ornaments in humorous tableaus, such as Boba Fett trying to blast the baby Jesus out of the manger.

Every year there are ornaments that he doesn't want to put on the tree because they look too junky and homemade, but he won't throw them out because somebody made them for him when he was a kid, or he made them, or he's not sure who made them but somebody obviously put a lot of effort into gluing six beads onto a piece of felt, so we'd better keep it in case they come looking for it one day.

Personally, I'm proud of what another blogger calls the "funky junky" ornaments. I mean, if I'm not going to let my freak flag fly proudly, why even bother to keep the four-pound disco-ball-apple ornament?

And what says "child of the '80s" better than homemade satin-thread-covered styrofoam ball ornaments covered in beads held on with straight pins ... unless it's the same thing, with a giant gold tassel at the bottom?

See that? Even the camera is scared of that puppy.

Know what I'm scared of? Dwarfs with axes.

That little papier mache nightmare is lurking on the "window" side of the tree, ready to scare off would-be intruders. I try not to look at it, especially late at night.

Our recent ornament purchases have been a lot more subdued (thank god). I'm particularly proud of this year's additions, two glass ornaments I picked up while we were in Cape May. Not only can we say we have a bouncing pecker on our tree ...

... but we've also got one Plump and Perky Turkey, as Liza keeps calling it, thanks to the book of the same name we read to her at Thanksgiving.
According to the literature included with the turkey, this bird is a symbol for generosity and altruism - not, as Jason suggested, garish paint and glitter. And, as we all know, it's the symbol of The Best University In The World (go, Hokies!).

And, when asked the small talk question, "Which ornament would you save if the tree was on fire," Jason and I both agreed that we'd be singed for the sake of the handprints, plus Ralph the Christmas Angel:

This is the Mini Me version of the real Ralph, who is over a foot tall and resides at my parents house. Both Ralphs were carved by my father, and I'm looking forward to the day when my parents admit that they haven't actually put up any Christmas decorations since about 2002, so Big Ralph should come live with me. I'll have to reinforce the wall in order to hang that dude up, but I can't wait.

In the meantime, though, I have little Ralph, and Jason knows that he's likely to cause bloodshed if he tries to hang it up for me. He can hang the disco apple, he can hang the giant purple ball, he can even hang the beaded angels I got from Great-Aunt Emma that fall apart if you look at them sideways ... but he'd better step aside when it comes to Ralph.

Unless we get a really tall tree and I can't reach the top, in which case, be my guest.

Clothing I finally got my daughter to wear

Have I mentioned that pants apparently are the work of the devil, and skirts are the only thing allowed to touch the legs of Her Royal Danciness With The Dancing All The Time? And pink, well, pink is where it's at, unless it's floral, in which case it's doubly where it's at. And that blue dress my mother made for my daughter this summer, which is too small to the point where one of these days a button is going to pop off the bodice and take out somebody's eye, is just about the best non-pink thing on the planet.

So you'd think that a replica of the dress, made by Grandma from denim with embroidered pink flowers and green sequins, would be a hit. Not so much, unless you count "screams and cries and hides naked in a corner whenever you suggest wearing it" as a hit.

I'm willing to tolerate this for a while - I used to hate it when I was forced to wear something I didn't like - but eventually I draw the line at not even trying the thing on. If you try it on and it itches or is too tight or looks dorky, fine, we'll scrap it. If you scream your head off at the idea of putting it on for the first time, you're just being Two.

I finally took the gloves off this week, pulling out that dress and one she hates even worse (Dora the Explorer denim cowgirl dress, in case you care) and telling her that she WAS going to wear one of these dresses. I didn't even have to dangle her beloved tights over the trashcan or anything - she just said she'd wear the Grandma Dress.

And then she spent 15 minutes twirling in the sunlight, watching the sequins refract the light onto the walls in little dancing dots. It was pronounced a "pretty dress." Thank god.

Now, if we can just convince her that the track pants and shirt that go with this gift from Aunt Susan are the EXACT SAME PANTS that Elmo wears in one of the Sesame Street online games we play, we may even get THOSE on her.

Sorry, Susan, but we may be using that gift receipt.

I'm done! I'm done! I'm done!

Hoo-Whee! I made it! Unless I'm grossly mistaken, I did manage to post every single day during the month of November, despite two 10-hour car trips, slow Internet access over the holidays, a ridiculous amount of crafty stuff going on in for the etsy shop and my craft show this weekend, and my general inability to follow through with projects like this.

I'd like to thank Jason, who gave the kid a bath every night so I could fart around on the computer, my loyal readers (most of whom spent the month in Italy in an apartment without an Internet connection ... boy, is MLF going to have some catching up to do this weekend ;) ), and all the new folks who stopped by and decided to stick around for a while to see where this was going.

Here's a small token of appreciation for my readers: If you buy something from my etsy shop between today and the end of the year, just include the word "NaBloPoMo" in the notes to seller in your order, and I'll give you free shipping! And I might even upgrade it to Priority Mail, especially if I'm feeling too lazy to calculate what the regular postage would be!

If you're going to take advantage of this, please wait for me to send you a corrected invoice via PayPal, so I can remove the shipping charge for you. Now, get shopping! (please note that most of my shop will be inactive from about 11pm Friday through about 11pm Saturday, since the stuff will be going with me to the craft show and I don't want to accidentally sell the same thing twice)

And now, back to our regularly-scheduled posting plan, which means you won't get new stuff every day, but it might suck less.

Zucchini in my taco

I have decided (again) that my diet is missing several essential things, such as, well, anything other than cheese, whole-wheat bread, and diet soda. Previous attempts to remedy the situation have obviously not worked, so I'm resorting to sneaking veggies into unsuspecting main dishes. It's not exactly like I'm trying to fool myself, since I'm the one fixing dinner, more that I'm less likely to avoid the stuff if it's mixed in with other foods I like.

So earlier this week I added a small zucchini (shredded) to the ground beef when I fixed tacos for dinner, and it wasn't noticeably different from zuke-less versions. When I used the leftover taco stuff to make a salad the next day, I threw a handful of baby spinach leaves on the plate before adding the regular lettuce. When some friends came over for a playdate, I made frozen pizza for lunch, but we also had veggies and dip and grapes. I made chicken enchiladas last night, and not only did I sneak another zucchini in there with the filling, but there were also so many diced tomatoes and avocados sprinkled on top that you could barely see the actual enchiladas, and the salad we had as a first course was about the size of Liza's head.

Tonight I'm going to wimp out and do a "Chinese" meal made out of canned stuff in my pantry, but it's going to have a side helping of Asian green beans to go with it, and I may bust out the last of the brown rice to use as a base.

And then we'll be out of fresh veggies, and it will be time to start eating for shit again. But at least I've gotten a FEW vitamins in there.

This makes me want to throw up

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20071129/ap_on_re_us/child_s_remains;_ylt=AqRmPTW.AGkgi6HO72RxlR1H2ocA

And cry. A lot.

Yikes!

I almost went to bed without posting today! That would have been bad, right, Oh Great Goddess of NaBloPoMo Who Hands Out The Gifts To People Who Complete The Month Without Missing Any Days?

I've been up to my armpits in price tags and merchandise for my craft show this weekend. If you're a Clevey and want to come, it's in North Ridgeville at the First Congregational UCC from 9-4 on Saturday. Mention Mind Flush, get candy. Buy things. Get holiday cheer. Be there!

X marks the spot

A couple weeks ago Liza decided she didn't want to leave the house - ever - for any reason, even if it involved chocolate and lollipops. One of the develpmental milestone books we have said this is pretty normal for 2 1/2 year olds, which was comforting, but it didn't make running errands any easier. I had to get all wily on her ...

I told her we were going to go on an adventure, and before we left we needed to make a map. We got out the crayons and a piece of paper and made the world's simplest map - our house, Home Depot with a big orange sign, PetSmart with a goldfish on the sign, and Chik-Fil-A with a sandwich on the sign. We made a dotted line to go from one place to the next, starting and ending at our house. Then we packed up our backpack with the essentials (map, snack, handkerchief, rubber duck) and she was happy as a clam to go exploring with me.

She held the map in the car, and after every stop I asked her to tell me where we needed to go next, and darned if she didn't get it right each time.

It was a great way to involve her in planning the trip, and having the map helped keep me from trying to cram in a few extra errands that would have pushed her over the edge (No shoe store, mama! Not on map! PetSmart next!). I'm definitely going to have to try this again when I'm tempted to cram too much into the pre-holiday weeks.

*****

After the success with the errand map, I tried a variation of the idea on a recent trip to the art museum. Liza is old enough to actually look at the art, and we've read books that involved art museums and we've talked about what they're for, but I didn't expect to get more than about 30 minutes of art appreciation out of her before meltdown. In order to give her something to do while we were there (other than run amok and/or whine), we made up a "map" of things she needed to find in the museum.

I didn't do a ton of research about what would be in the exhibit, although I did check to make sure there was something by Mondrian (because I wanted to get a shape on the list and be sure she could find it). In case you can't read the photo, we had "flower, squares, woman, sculpture, fancy frame," and a late addition - "oval" - which she insisted we add after she identified one in a painting. I wrote out the words, and made a little pictogram to help her remember what it was, and a box we could check off when we located each thing.

Liza clutched that map all the way to the art museum, and she wanted me to pull over and mark off "sculpture" when we saw one in a park on the way there. She didn't want to put the map down to take off her coat - darn it, she was determined to find those items FAST.

I won't say the map made the trip through the museum any more leisurely, especially since Liza has the attention span of a gnat when she's hungry, but it did give us something to talk about and look for while we were there.

She was very enthusiastic about the Degas ballet paintings (go figure - Liza? liking dancers?), and she seemed to understand the whole concept that "it looks like dots and lines up close, but from the other side of the room it looks like a restaurant with a waiter and tables and everything." Some of the other patrons seemed to enjoy the fact that Liza announced "That's a spul-cher!" every time she saw any 3-D art, although I think some of them would have appreciated a lower volume.

Before we went to the museum, we talked about how art doesn't have to be pretty or look like anything you recognize, it just has to make you feel something, so a couple times during our museum expedition I asked Liza what that painting made her feel. My favorite answer: "hungry." Time to hit the cafe and get a Dega ballet kids' book at the gift store on the way out. Mission Accomplished!

It's a shore thing

A roundup of photos I took during a walk on the in-laws' farm the evening before Thanksgiving

light like liquid gold

greenery

Outstanding in my field

$500 fine if you don't take this photo when walking through a field with a camera

This is what 10,000 chickens looks like

Decorations were hung from the boughs with care

Moonlit drive

The farm

Pick a color, any color

Still life with poison ivy

Fluffy!

What it looked like for real

What my computer thinks it should have looked like (autocorrect)

New neighbor

Well, I guess he has the right

So, Liza, did you have good dreams last night?

Yessssss!

What did you dream about?

Football! And ballerinas!

****

See what happens when I put my husband in charge of bedtime for a few days? Next thing you know, she's going to be asking for cleats and toe shoes for Christmas. Sheesh.

teehee

http://wendi-aarons.blogspot.com/2007/11/some-more-accurate-names-for-frozen.html

Those of us who eat Lean Pockets for breakfast can totally sympathize. Or we would, if all of the oral burns had healed enough to pronounce the word "sympathize."

Very

We're very, very happy to be home, especially certain people whose fairy dress has been in the wash for two days and who was about to go into withdrawl. Plus, fast internet! And new batteries for the camera! And cats!

Liza and her Chinese Faux Fighting Fish

Unexpected conversation

P: "I don't know why we have to pay for all these channels where there's nothing on them to watch. Who needs 200 channels of Mexican stuff?"

G: "Well, you know, those telenovelas have all kinds of half-dressed pretty women on them. You might enjoy watching that."

P: "Shoot, you know Susie won't let me watch that. I'll tell you, though, I keep finding that stuff by accident. They have the biggest mess of junk on television. That other night, when I couldn't get to bed until 3 am, there was the dumbest thing on. They had these crazy girls on the television. They spread glue all over their vaginas - it was just the stupidest thing - then they put themselves in all sorts of positions on a car bumper. Then that car took off and took all that hair with it! Just ripped it right off! I'll tell you what, that must have smarted."

Twenty-seven

That's how many people were at the family Thanksgiving celebration yesterday, including most of Jason's immediate family, grandparents, cousins, aunts, uncles, parents and siblings of in-laws, miscellaneous dogs, etc. And this wasn't even a particularly well-attended year ... we were missing one aunt and all of her assorted kids and grandkids, which would have added another 10 or 12 to the guest list. And it's just Jason's mother's side of the family - the actual Woods clan is in another area of the country, and we'd have to rent out a church hall to fit all of them in, too, although I think we had enough food for them if they had come.

Luckily, Jason's family is used to these big gatherings, and his Aunt Pat's house is well-designed for entertaining large groups of people who may not all want to be in the same room. Plus, it was 73 degrees outside, so most of the kids and dogs were out running amok in the leaves, throwing rocks in the water off the dock, seeing who could get the best explosion by throwing rotten osage orange fruits against a tree, etc.

Liza sees this group of people about twice a year, and while I think she remembers them, she still requires at least an hour of warm-up time before she lets go and removes her face from where she's embedded it in my neck. But yesterday she was doing pretty good, eating a huge lunch ("Liza LOVES dumpins!" gotta work on the pronunciation on the noodles, dear) and running around with the kids for hours. When asked what her favorite part of the day was, she told us "Aunt Susan!" which translates as, I really loved it when Aunt Susan stood in one place and I ran around her in circles for 15 minutes straight until I collapsed from vertigo. Good times, good times.

Seriously cool

We've been promising Liza that when she finishes seven accident-free days, she gets a fish. I expected that her training would take a lot longer than it has so far, and had projected that she'd meet her goal sometime after Thanksgiving ... but the day we left for the Shore she had six of the seven days under her belt, so we had to sort of scramble to figure out how we were going to handle it if she got her seventh day while we were 10 hours from home.

She made it, and while she's not exactly been harping on the fact that we promised her a fish, on principle I don't like to disappoint her if I can help it. But fish don't travel well, so I was about to the point where I was going to have to tell her she'd have to wait until we got home. Then we went shopping at Tuesday Morning, and I found the perfect answer.

It's a small aquarium that has five tiny magnetic fish, and a moving magnet built into the base. When we turn it on, the fish dart around in a relatively realistic way, especially considering that the sucker only cost me $8. It even comes with a small magnetic wand we can use to lure the fish over to the side to "play" with us.

Liza loves this thing almost as much as I do. She loves turning the light on and off, loves playing with the wand, loves attempting to scoop the fish out with her hands (which is a good reason we didn't get her a real fish). And when she gets too rowdy with it, we can tell her it's time for the fish to take a nap and shut it off. Brilliant!

Reality bites

Your cat has cancer - have a happy Thanksgiving!

*****

Well, they were a little nicer and more informative than that, but that's the gist of it. The lump on Zach's head was a mast cell tumor. Apparently we hit the jackpot - a type of tumor that is rare but (sort of) treatable in cats. We always knew you were special, buddy.

The treatment for this sort of tumor is surgical removal, and the biopsy results show that they "think" the edges of the biopsy are clear, meaning it's likely that the surgeon got all of it on the first go-round. But the standard for removal on these tumors is to cut out an area about 1cm larger than where they think the tumor is, just to make sure there aren't any mutant cells left behind to regrow and/or metastasize (oh, how I hate typing words like "tumor," "metastasize," and "biopsy" in relation to a member of our family, even if he is a cat that regularly pukes in places where I subsequently step first thing in the morning). And the biopsy doesn't have 1 cm of clean edge around the tumor, so the surgeon says to be safe he'd like to cut another chunk out of my cat's forehead.

But there's a good chance he DID already remove the whole tumor, so it's hard to say whether he really needs a second surgery or not. He seems to have responded to the first one well, with no lingering after-effects that we know of. But a larger incision - almost an inch across - means more stitches, more drugs, more chance of infection, and an even bigger facelift for our aging kitty. Not that he couldn't use the wrinkle removal, but we're going to have to start dying his beard if we want the maximum anti-aging effect.

From the stuff I can find online, it looks like even if we do remove this tumor entirely, it's likely to come back someplace else, and survival rates range from 2 months to 18 months. So maybe we'll wait a while to buy any new carpet.

Looks like Jason and I will have plenty to talk about on the way back to Ohio this weekend.

Quite warm

Somehow it's just wrong for it to be warm in November in Cleveland, but the fact that it's going to be almost 70F here on the Shore today and tomorrow? Niiiiiiiiiice. See ya later - gotta go to the zoo!

Pennsylvania Turnpike - Now, even more boring!

Oh, Pennsylvania, you have some lovely sights to see. But the PA Turnpike is not one of them. I understand that you were somewhat limited in the size of the road by the twistyness of the mountains, but my god, couldn't you have made it a LITTLE wider than a cattle shoot? Driving through the western section is like spending hours in a rat maze - twisting and turning and hemmed in on all sides.

The one bright spot - the Oakmont rest area, with its lovely family bathroom. A rest area bathroom that's well-lit, doesn't smell like a men's room, is well-stocked and functioning? Hallelujah!

Still, all in all, I'd rather be stuck on the Turnpike than drive through West Virginia for 6 hours straight. That trip from KY to MD was grueling, and so unimaginably dreary this time of year that by the time we got to MD, I was ready to kiss the (non-grey) ground we were driving past. Yes, I know it's pretty during the summer, and there are some beautiful vistas and views, but 98% of the drive is remote-coal-town ugly.

****
So yes, we made it, with little incident other than the five restroom breaks we took between 9 am and 2:30 pm. Only one minor accident, which was more a "there's no place to pull over where we won't get blown over the siderail by passing trucks" than Liza's fault. One of the highlights - when Liza chose to visit Taco Potty instead of the one at the McDonald's next door. I just love the phrase "Taco Potty." Don't you?

And the dial-up is just as slow as I remembered.

Fulfilling my NaBloPoMo obligation

Peace, I'm out of here. Catch you on the flip side ....