Who's a cute little poochy-woochy? You are! Yes you are!

Where did we meet this cutie, who not only will charm the pants off of you but will also fetch your Frisbee with blinding speed and accuracy?  You're going to have to visit the other blog to find out!

Obligatory First-Day-Of-School Post

Liza started going to "school" in 2006, when putting her in a one-day-a-week preschool program was the only way for me to retain my sanity (and get some Lazy Mama work done).  It was a place for her to play with other kids, eat food-coloring-saturated cupcakes that dyed her poop rainbow colors, and run around like a hooligan.  

When we moved to Cleveland, I was able to find a two-day-a-week program for 2-year-olds, and after a bit of adjustment (read, "I spent the first two months sitting in there with her so she didn't scream her head off"), she enjoyed that, too.  Okay, so maybe she just liked the ball pit and the building toys, but at least she tolerated being away from me, which was the whole point.

I wanted to get her into a program a little closer to home the next year, and she really loved it.  We kept her there for pre-K, too, and she made it through graduation with flying colors.

We had originally planned to send Liza to the (very highly ranked) local public school system, seeing as how the kindergarten is like 1/4 mile from our house and our tax dollars are paying for it and all.  I'm a big advocate of public schools, but the more I learned about our local program, the less thrilled I was.  It's only a 1/2 day program, which translates to around 2 hours of class a day, plus almost as much time on buses to get there and back (if we didn't just drive her to school ourselves).  They say they're set up to handle "kids who can read already," but the teacher's descriptions of how they handle those kids basically sounded like keeping them busy while the other kids caught up to them, not helping the early readers to continue advancing.  The kindergarten isn't even in the same building as the other primary grades, so they can't send the advanced kids down the hall to the older grades for reading or math.  Art, Music, and Gym classes all happen ... once every three weeks.  With only 2 hours a day to get even the completely illiterate kids up to speed, there's not much time for things like science or social studies, either, except where they can include it as part of the reading curriculum.

We looked into a Montessori elementary school, which I think would have been a good fit for Liza if we could have justified the cost ($6K a year, I think it was) and the distance (me driving the kid 30 minutes away twice a day really eats up my free time, you know?).  Then an acquaintance mentioned a local community school that's designed just for gifted kids ... and things started to look up.

Community schools are public schools funded by the state but not by any local school district, so they accept students from anywhere in Ohio.  They also operate on a much smaller budget than standard public schools, which means that parents have to step up and volunteer to help keep the school running, and there's quite a bit of fundraising required, too.  They're often set up to fill what parents perceive to be a gap in the standard school districts' coverage - in this case, parents were ticked that budget shortages were causing schools to get rid of whatever gifted programs they had in place for elementary school kids, if they even had them to begin with.

Because this school is specifically designed for gifted kids - kids who generally pick things up with less repetition than typical students - they can meet the state standards and still fit a lot more into their curriculum than standard school districts.  All the grades K-7 take Spanish, for example, and Mandarin is offered as an elective.  Art and Music and Gym happen each week, as does Technology.  Violin lessons are offered as an elective, as are some club activities like crafts and chess.  Things like science fairs and Lego robotics competitions are encouraged extracurricular activities.

The curriculum is also designed to be flexible to meet the needs of kids who may be advanced in some areas while being typical (or even delayed) in other areas.  Reading and math groups are assigned based on ability, not age, so Liza may end up going up to the second or third grade classroom for reading and the first or second grade for math, while spending the rest of the day with her 5-year-old peers.

The school has open enrollment, which means that students are accepted throughout the year.  But to get in you have to score above a certain level on one of a couple dozen cognitive ability tests which are administered free by school districts.  We took Liza in to the community school to be tested so she could begin the year there (rather than waiting to have her tested later this fall in the local school district), and she passed with flying colors.  Actually, her results classed her as "genius level," although these tests are notoriously unreliable for really young kids (and we did prep her pretty thoroughly for the test). 

And because the only entrance requirement is academic ability - not location, not income, not religious affiliation - the students are way more diverse than those in our local school area (according to wikipedia, it's 97% white around here ... it's like we live in WASP-World or something).  Of course, that means that the kid Liza is sitting next to in school right now has a last name that's a "V" followed by about 45 letters, but I'm sure we can all get used to pronouncing some new names, right?

The school is located less than a dozen miles from our house, and best of all - there are enough local kids attending that they actually run a bus from our school district, with pickup and drop off right in front of our house.  The bus ride involves a transfer at one of the local schools (which she would have had to do if she rode the bus to the local kindergarten, anyway), and it takes longer than if we just drove her there - but it's a pretty convenient option to have available.

I've been very impressed with how welcoming the other parents have been so far.  This summer one of the mothers of an incoming kindergartener organized a series of "get to know each other" playdates at the school playground, and we had a good time getting to know some of the kids Liza is going to see in class every day. And one of the local parents had a picnic for all the students from our school district so that they could meet each other before that first awkward bus ride to school.

Liza has been trying to make up her mind all summer - is she super-excited or completely terrified about school?  She was really excited ... then she found out about the dress code (white or navy tops, navy or tan bottoms, NO PINK OR TUTUS WHATSOEVER JUST KILL ME NOW) and decided she hated school.  She was super thrilled to pick out her school supplies - PINK SCISSORS AND A BACKPACK WITH A PINK STUFFED KITTEN KEYCHAIN CLIPPED ON IT OMG THAT'S SO COOOOOOL - and then horrified when I mentioned that she wasn't going to be the only kid in the class, she was going to have 19 strangers in there with her.  She loved riding the bus at Safety Town this summer, but sitting with strangers on the bus was thought to be a fate worse than death.

Sometime last week she made up her mind, though, that she was excited beyond belief about going to school.  We made up a poster with her morning before-school schedule on it, and we practiced getting up early and getting out the door by 7:10 without forgetting lunches or overlooking the rat's-nest hair problem.  We laid out her outfit for the first day ("Stupid uniform.  At least my backpack is the coolest thing ever!") and got in lunch supplies.  We checked out her class list on the school web site and read the bio of her teacher ("She likes art and music!  Could she be any cooler?  And look, she likes to crochet, so you'll have something to talk about with her!").  We had a ceremonial Last Field Trip of the Summer, and Tuesday we went to the open house at school to meet her teacher.

I think we got really lucky with the teacher assignment this year, because she seems like such a good fit for Liza's personality.  She's artsy and friendly and kinda goofy and enthusiastic and honest and she was smart enough to assign Liza to a desk that's right smack next to hers, which pleased the kid no end.  The teacher sent each kid a postcard at home telling them how excited she was to have them in her class, and she made up a scavenger hunt for them to do during the open house so they would get comfortable in the room.  I thought we were going to have to peel Liza off of the poor woman, she loved her so much.

Yesterday Liza was cranky all day because it wasn't a school day and she wanted to be at school NOW, darn it, not TOMORROW arglflarblgahhhhhhhh!  I ran her into the ground at two separate playgrounds with two different friends, then threw her in bed early and prayed heartily for a good night's sleep.

While I wouldn't say she popped out of bed all bright-eyed and bushy-tailed, at least we didn't have to deal with the gnashing of teeth and rending of garments that sometimes accompanies an early reveille.  Clothes on, hair and teeth brushed, breakfast ignored, lunch packed, backpack on, and out the door with plenty of time to spare.  My big girl is ready to face the first day of kindergarten!

I'm generally not the sappy type, and I've been planning for years what form of partying would occur at my house once I got that kid on the bus (final decision:  blogging, followed by a pedicure).  While I was nervous this morning, it wasn't because I was horrified that they were taking away my ittybittylittlepreciouswumpkins, it was because I was afraid she'd have a last-minute change of heart and I'd be stuck manhandling her onto the bus and it would be all tear-streaked face and blubbering for her all the way to school.  But I will admit I was a little nervous about her ability to make the bus transfer at the local school, so I went into StalkerMama mode and drove over to the school to make sure she got on the right bus. 

That would have been a much better plan if you could actually see the bus loading area from the car parking lot ... as it was, I could confirm that her bus made it to the school and the kids were waiting there for the transfer bus to arrive, and then at the next stop I'm fairly certain that I saw a small blonde head in the window at the front of the bus before all the other kids got on.  I haven't gotten a panicked call from the school (or a neighbor of the school who found a kid wandering on their lawn), so I'm assuming everything went fine.  I guess we'll find out for sure tonight around 4 when she gets home.

Missy and Kissy

This morning in a fit of sleep-deprivation-inspired lunacy I announced that we would go over to the river to catch some tadpoles in the frog pond.

I know.

Luckily, it was early enough in the morning that we didn't have an audience.  There's just something unsettling about the idea having people watch me balance on one hand and knee while leaning precariously over and scooping rotting leaf debris out of a pool of fetid water.  Thank goodness neither of us lost our balance, as it would take weeks to get the stench out of our clothes.

One "extremely nasty kitchen strainer and a tupperware bowl I'll never use again" later, we've got two tadpoles.  Since we didn't bother to do any research at all before we caught them - that would have made too much sense - we just filled up the bowl with scummy pond water and brought them home in that.  Thank goodness we remembered the lid, because the water is, um, fragrant.

"Fragrant," as in "I haven't smelled that particular smell since we had to culture pond water for biology class in junior high school."  Yech.

So now I have a gallon of the most disgusting water imaginable sitting on my kitchen counter, waiting for our new aquarium to equilibrate so we can transfer the little darlings in there.  In addition to the rotting vegetation and other debris ("Look a dead snail shell!  Let's throw that in there so the tadpoles feel at home!"), I can count at least a dozen different types of nasty swimming microscopic creatures, and that's not including those slimy grey squirmy things down in the leaves.  Seriously - every tiny little dot you see in the water is swimming.

Meanwhile, after five hours the two tadpoles are still alive, despite their rather rude removal from their vernal pool and the subsequent jostling trip home.  Certain people have been cautioned repeatedly against thumping on the side of the tupperware "to say hello" and/or getting any of that filthy water on their hands/their clothes/my kitchen.  They've also been taught the words "Giardia" and "explosive diarrhea," as well as how to wash their hands with blisteringly hot water and half a bar of soap any time they so much as look at that end of the kitchen.

A quick bit of google-fu determined that the tadpoles are probably bullfrogs, and bullfrogs are ridiculously slow to mature, so we decided we'd better get set up for the long haul now.  One plastic aquarium, two plastic plants, a bag of gravel, and a cute little purple net later, we're only 22 hours away from being able to see the little dudes without looking through water made hazy by so many flagella.

They've acquired tentative names, too, despite the fact that they're currently indistinguishable.  Whichever one is currently making puckered fish mouth movements is called "Kissy" (he's on the left), and whichever one is hiding under some piece of putrescence is called "Missy" (she's on the right, partially lurking under a leaf).

I know.

I tried to convince her that "Casanova" and "Godot" would be better, but somehow I lost that battle.  I couldn't even get her to agree to Bonnie and Clyde, Max and Ruby, Thelma and Louise, or Frankie and Johnny.  I think I'm losing my touch.

My walk

It started before dawn on Friday, with 900 walkers plus countless crew and support staff gathering in the shadow of Browns stadium in downtown Cleveland.

Water bottles were filled, pink bunny ears were distributed, and port-a-potties were visited.  The sun rose, the opening ceremony was held, and we were all psyched and ready to go!

We weren't doing it alone, though.  Spaced out along the 60-mile route there were official cheering stations where our friends and family could come to support us.  They were there with candy, and water, and cheers, and candy, and signs, and candy ... did I mention the candy?  I'm pretty sure nobody lost weight on this walk, thanks to all the proffered Tootsie Rolls and Jolly Ranchers.

The crew and support staff were right with us, too, keeping pace with us in "sweep vans" that would take walkers to the next pit stop if they didn't feel up to walking the distance.  Each van had a different theme - here's my favorite, the Boob Marley, complete with enormous pool-noodle dreadlocks on the back and reggae music blasting from the sound system.

Not all of the cheering went on at the official stops, either.  All along the route our families and friends - and even complete strangers - set up unofficial cheering stations in front yards and parking lots.  They made signs, put up balloons, wrote messages in chalk on the sidewalk, set up sprinklers to cool us off, and even handed out things like beer and cinnamon rolls (although not at the same stop - that would have been gross).

As we walked, we carried dozens of flags used in the opening and closing ceremonies.  Each listed ideas or people that we might be walking to honor.  One person would carry a flag until they had had enough, and then leave it at the next pit stop for another person to take up.  I grabbed the "My Daughter" flag on the second day, because part of the reason I walked was so that Liza won't have to worry about the disease when she grows up.

My support system was incredible, with Jason taking full responsibility for Liza while I trained and did the walk.  He chauffeured me back and forth each day (because I wasn't about to sleep in a tent when my comfy bed was only 10 miles away) and made sure that he and Liza made it to as many of the cheering stations as possible. It really helped to know that there were friendly faces waiting for me twice a day, and more than once I decided to skip the Sweep Van so that I could walk into the cheering station under my own power.  By day 3 he had managed to supplement his abysmally pink-free wardrobe with a pair of ginormous pastel Crocs that were a gift from another spectator.  He says they're amazingly comfortable.  He even wore them to mow the grass today.  Now that's something I never imagined I'd see!

My friends came out in force, too, with signs and hugs (and candy, and popsicles).  They've had to listen to me for months as I yammered on and on about my training and mileage and blisters and the wonders of Epsom salts.  They didn't shun me when I tried to guilt-trip them into signing up to walk with me, and several of them went out of their way to keep me company during training.  I couldn't have done it without your support (and indulgence) ladies!

By the third day I was barely trudging along, so it was a good thing one of my training partners was able to join me for a couple miles along the route.  The fact that the route went right past my house could have been a problem (bed!  air conditioning!  pizza!  quiescence!) if she hadn't been there to make sure I kept on going.  Thanks for all the miles and support, Tab!  

Why yes, I am wearing socks and sandals, thanks for asking.  As you may remember, I was having some, ahem, issues with my blister-prone feet during training.  About two weeks ago I decided that I was either going to have to take a knife to every blistery part of my sneaker (i.e. the whole damn thing) or walk in something that didn't give me as many problems.  I had a pair of "hiking" sandals in my closet that seemed to fit the bill, but my feet were already torn up enough that I didn't trust them to go barefoot in the sandals for 60 miles.  So I bandaged and taped up all of the known problem areas on my feet and wore my sandals with my best walking socks.  Worked like a charm, with one exception, which I'll get to later.

My most frequent training partner was too young to walk with me during the event, but her hugs at the cheering stations helped me stay strong.  Liza clocked countless miles in the strollers at the mall, and in the wagon in our neighborhood, while I was training for the event.  She rarely complained (especially if I bribed her with enough hot pretzels and brought along enough Magic School Bus books), she pestered me to go walking when I didn't really want to, and she told all of her friends how I was walking "to help save breasts."

It was hard.  It was grueling.  It was boring, and funny, and sad, and motivating, and depressing, and uplifting.  I was thirsty, sweaty, hot, cramped, and blistered.  I've never been thanked or blessed or hugged by so many people.  I have never been so happy to see a frozen Peppermint Patty in my life (frozen chocolate?  Served at the bottom of the big hill we had to climb out of the park?  Bless you, anonymous supporters in the park!).  Only professional athletes get more high-fives than we walkers did this weekend.

I perked up every time I heard Lady Gaga music, which meant the Kids' Crew was coming down the street with speakers taped to the roof of their dad's minivan and kids hanging out of every door and window, waving and shouting.  I cracked a huge grin every time I heard Jerry's voice, hoarse from shouting his football-coach-style encouragement to his wife and all the other walkers as he popped up in random places along the walk all three days.

I buckled down and kept walking, no matter how much my feet hurt or how much I wanted to quit, especially when I saw the walker who was 31 weeks pregnant (I asked) and the other lady who did the whole event in a walking cast.  Every time I felt sorry for myself and my aching feet, I saw someone ahead of me with bigger blisters, more swollen legs, or even more weight pounding down on their feet with every step.  I realized that while I didn't have to walk the whole way - that's what the sweep vans are for, and there's no shame in admitting you need help - I wanted to, more than I wanted to stop.  And so, with metered doses of Advil, caffeine, and some really stubbornly vehement walking meditation (thank you, Frank Herbert, for the Litany Against Fear), I made it all the way.

Been there, done that, got the t-shirt.  Decided to skip the closing ceremony, which wasn't going to start until more than two hours after I finished the walk.  I was hot, sore, and really wanted to treat my injuries someplace that wasn't right next to a horse paddock or a port-a-potty.  Compared to what some of the other walkers suffered, I got off pretty easy.  The toenail I damaged during my training doesn't hurt at all, and trimming off the dead bits every few days is kind of fun in a sick way.  It stuck around for the whole trip and never complained even once.  Way to go, mutilated toe!

My heel, on the other hand, suffered a bit.  The sandals that I was wearing were my usual shoe size, and as all long-distance runners and walkers know, you have to get your athletic shoes at least a size larger to account for all the swelling your feet will experience during the event.  I didn't have time to break in a larger pair, so I went with what I had.  This meant that the very back edge of my swollen left heel was sort of hanging off the edge of the footbed of the sandal, so every time my heel struck down the edge of the footbed sort of poked the very back of the callous that was already there.  A couple of long-distance training walks thickened the callous up nicely, and while it wasn't super comfortable, it was a lot better than dealing with the Sneakers of Multiple Very Painful Blisters. 

After the first day of the event I had an even thicker callous, but it still hadn't crossed over from "uncomfortable" to "painful."  It certainly hurt less than the blister I got on my pinky toe from the sneakers I changed into for the last four miles of the day.  By halfway through day 2 things were the same (or so I thought), and at one pit stop I decided to go ahead and change into sneakers to give my heel a break.  I pulled down my sock and found ... a stealth blister I didn't even realize I had!  

From what I can tell, the area underneath the callous was so irritated it tried to form a blister, but the skin was so thick it wouldn't stretch out to accommodate the fluid (or break to let it out).  So the pressure from my heel hitting the footbed forced the fluid up into the softer skin at the back of my heel, where it formed a completely useless, completely pain-free blister of epic proportions.  My first thought upon seeing it was, "AAAAAAAAAARRRRRGGGGGHHH," followed closely by, "Where's my camera, I've got to show this to my blog readers!"  The other walkers got a good laugh out of me photographing my injuries before treating them.

Needless to say, I wasn't about to put a sneaker on over a blister that was maybe 1.5" across and almost 1/4" thick, so I did the rest of the event in the sandals.  I drained the blister on Saturday night (several times - I'm a prolific serum producer, apparently), modified my shoes a bit to change my gait so I might have a shot at avoiding a repeat, and I hit the trail again on Sunday.  Sucker puffed right back up like a balloon, and even got a little larger.  It didn't weep serum all day like the blister on my other pinkie toe did (squish), and it didn't hurt, but it sure was impressive to look at.  I named it "Hercules."  Herc was at least 1/4" thick and about 2" across at his widest point, and had a lovely translucent quality that was really fun to poke at.

Somehow, after walking for 60 miles, sitting on the ground under a tree with untreated blisters and nothing to read or knit just didn't appeal when I had more important things to do at home ... like take a shower, wear anything other than a sports bra, and eat huge amounts of barbecued ribs and corn.  So Jason came and got me, and Hercules and I went home.  Mission accomplished!

I slept in on Monday, then I spent most of the day staggering around like an arthritic drunkard, but by the end of the day I was doing much better.  It's now two days after the event, and aside from some lingering stiffness in my behind (which isn't any worse than after a long day of gardening), I'm pretty much back to normal.  I've got all the blisters deflated, and as disgusting as it sounds, cutting the top off of Hercules was one of the most satisfying moments of my life.  Don't know if it's a sick fascination with cutting off part of my own body, or just the knowledge that with the opened blister on my foot I won't be able to put on a pair of socks for at least a week or so, but daaaaamn, that felt good.

Every single person I've talked to since the walk has asked one question after they've finished with the congratulations and high-fives:  Will I walk again next year?  I honestly don't know.  If you had asked me while I was walking, I can guarantee I would have said no, then smacked you and possibly kicked you in the private parts (if I could have lifted my leg that high).  My thinking during the walk was that I would try to crew next year, which would require a lot less of an up-front time commitment (no training walks!) and no minimum fundraising quota.  And I still may do that, especially if I can get together a few friends to crew with me.  But the idea of walking again does have a certain appeal.  I enjoyed the training walks, enjoyed watching the town come to life throughout the spring and summer.  I enjoyed parts of the actual event, especially the parts that passed through sections of town I didn't even realize were there.  I also found the house I will force my husband to buy me next time he gets a promotion (or I get a really, really high-paying job in radio - ha!).  I think if I could find a really, really good pair of shoes (or sandals) the walk would be a lot more comfortable.  And I think if I was there as part of a group the time might have gone by a bit quicker.  And training walks would be easier to do this year, with Liza in school all day ... assuming I'm not working at that high-paying job so we can afford the house I found, of course.

Holy cow, we changed the weather with our minds!

Fri Jul 30		Partly Cloudy	79°/64°	0 %
Sat Jul 31		Isolated T-Storms	80°/66°	30 %
Sun Aug 01		Partly Cloudy	80°/66°	10 %

http://www.weather.com/outlook/health/allergies/tenday/44138

Seriously, people, it's been in the 90s for weeks, and then I tell my online peeps I need good weather mojo, and the forecast for the 3Day suddenly becomes "highs of 80F" all three days?

You rock.  We rock.  Everyone rocks.  I love the world. And the Internet.  And you.

Also, this:

Click to donate to Gretchen in 2010! MY PROGRESS Goal:  $2,300.00 Achieved: $2,182.00 I'm $118 short.  That's $118 tax-deductible dollars you could feel good about donating to a worthy cause that uses only 15% of its donation money for administrative costs and the rest for actual research and programs to help defeat a disease that kills one person in the US every 13 minutes.  Not that I'm trying to be pushy or anything ....

Shameless plea for donations

Dudes, I'm running out of time here.  If you haven't already, please pony up a few bucks to support breast cancer research.  And start sending some good weather mojo my way for Friday, Saturday, and Sunday.  Mid-70s and overcast would make all 900 walkers very, very happy.  Surely if we put the power of the Internet behind this, we can control the weather, right?  After all, if eating chocolate that has been meditated over can improve your health, a bunch of moms and nerds ought to be able to effect massive weather shifts with their minds, right?  Or is that just the desperation talking?

Oh, and Cleveland folks - you can come and cheer for me and the other walkers.  Here's the link to the cheering stations that will be open along the route.  Signs, cowbells, and offers of piggyback rides are all great ways to show your support!

Summertime, summertime, sum-sum-summertime ...

Yay!

End of day one:

(and nobody fell in the hole, not even the dog from next door who thinks our yard is her territory)

Beginning of day two:

Worker: "By the time we're done, you're going to know so much that Ken is going to have to offer you a job."

Day three:

Now all I have to do is buy a bunch of topsoil and reseed the areas right around the patio, and buy a few plants, and I'm done!  Huzzah!

Carnival of Construction

A few months ago Jason and I ripped the deck off the back of our house, leaving an ugly scar of gravel/sand/weeds/rusty screws just outside the back door.  All summer we've been picking our way across it, trying not to track too much junk into the house or end up contracting tetanus from the debris.

Meanwhile, we were talking to various contractors about pouring a patio and building a screened porch.  As with any decision that costs a lot of money and impacts the resale value of the house, Jason and I had different ideas about what needed to be done and when, which is why we've had the debris field in our back yard since April.  We finally reached an agreement - patio now, screened porch next summer - and work on the patio started today.

Needless to say, with all this construction work going on just outside the back door, not a whole lot is going to get done around here today.

Hope the guys don't mind an audience - Liza hasn't had so much fun since we had the trees trimmed.

Updates on all the excitement will be posted throughout the day, so check back often!

Wanderlust

There's something wrong with me and Jason - that's the only explanation.  Because every two or three years we start browsing house listings, even though we have no intention of actually moving.  And then we get a job someplace else, have to sell the house, and end up looking for a house in a different state entirely.

Well, we've been here for more than three years (second longest in any one location since high school - woot!), and last weekend I picked up a brochure for one of the houses for sale on my usual walking route **.  Not because I plan to move to a house that's only a mile away from my current home, but just because I wanted to look at someplace I could move, if we wanted to.  If we wanted to lose money on our current house, pack up everything ourselves for the first time since 1995, pay closing costs and Realtor fees for the first time since 1995, and go through the months-long hassle of changing addresses and phones and all that jazz.  Not to mention moving away from the friends we've made on the street, whom we'd see a lot less often if we couldn't just pop down the street when the spirit moved us.

So instead of moving to a new house, Jason and I spent this weekend moving things around in our current house.  Same amount of dust and hernia-inducing lifting, fewer Realtor fees.  After planning things out on Saturday (tape measures and graph paper!  Huzzah!), we started moving things around shortly before lunch today.  At one point we had managed to render no fewer than five rooms completely unusable because of the clutter and awkward furniture rearranging going on.  Even now, with most of the worst behind us, I still have a sofa lying on its back in the middle of my living room floor, and it's going to be there until I can get the front door off its hinges and arrange for a neighbor to help us move the sofa out to the garage.  So, like, August, I guess.

I also have a guest bedroom that's up in Liza's old room, a really small television room in what used to be the guest room, and a spacious craft studio (with separate spots for me, Jason, and Liza) and office in what used to be our family room.  We're planning to cancel our cable subscription (again) since most of our favorite shows have been canceled, and we don't honestly have that much TV time in the evenings now that Liza goes to bed a bit later.  So why would we need to devote the largest room in the house to watching television when we actually spend most of our time doing crafts or on the computer?  Once we get the television moved and purchase a loveseat that will actually fit through the door to the new television room, I'll even have a comfy chair to sit and knit in next to the fireplace while Jason works on his Warhammer guys and the kid draws yet another picture of a butterfly.

There's still lots of organizing to do (although frankly, my craft area looks neater than it did this morning in the old room, which just shows how horrifying it was back then) and I get to look forward to a week of evenings going through paperwork with Jason to see what we can get away with shredding, but I feel really good about how it's turning out.  And tonight, while I was puttering around putting my craft stuff away as best I could, Liza and Jason tried out their new haunts.

Despite her exhaustion-induced glare, she had the colored pencils hauled out within five minutes of Jason bringing the table up from the basement.  Both Jason and Liza gave their areas a thumbs-up, which means all of my 14,948 trips up and down the stairs today were worth it.  I'll remember that tomorrow as I chug down 14,948 Tylenol and ice down my aching knees.


**Built in the '80s, and based on the kitchen and bathroom, not remodeled since.  I can vividly remember when my mother's friend Jane got those same kitchen cabinets installed - they were the height of fashion back in, oh, 1983 or so.

Today I discovered ...

... walking 20 miles isn't really any more painful than walking 10 miles, if you've got a good book on the iPod and a decent pair of shoes.
... my (new larger size) sneakers are only good shoes for about 10 miles, and even then only if I use $10 worth of various blister prevention aids before I start walking.
... my Rockport "sports" sandals are perfectly good walking shoes for at least 10 miles when worn with socks.  Dorky, but blister-free.
... I now get a speckly red rash on my calves every time I walk, presumably from where I kick up grit onto my skin and it somehow irritates the shit out of it which thanks to Google I now know is Golfer's Vasculitis.  It's completely painless and itchless, but it looks like I was attacked by a swarm of fire ants or something.  Last weekend it lasted for a couple days after I walked - wonder when this batch will clear up?
... when I run out of audio book, I can entertain myself for at least two miles or so by counting paces, but I lose interest after I hit 1,000 or so.
... when I run out of interest in counting paces, I can entertain myself for about four miles by practicing my intentional breathing - two paces inhale, three paces exhale.  My diaphragm is going to bitch about that for the rest of the week, I'm sure.
... blueberries are Nature's Most Refreshing Exercise Snack.
... bored hawks can fly incredibly high, so high that they are literally the size of a pinprick in the sky.  At least, I assume it was a bored hawk, because I can't think of any practical reason it would be up in the stratosphere.
... toenails - really not as necessary as you would imagine, based on their popularity.  I'm down to having about 9 1/2 left, with no negative results so far.  Using a pair of tweezers to scrape the hardened scab out from under the loose parts is strangely compelling, like picking the dried glue off of the glue bottles was in elementary school art classes.  What, like you never picked at the dried glue?  Really?  Weirdo.
... there's a whole page on the 3-day website devoted to what friends of participants can do to help.  On it I learned that I'll be starting at the Port Authority parking lot at 6am on July 30, and finishing at the fairgrounds in Berea at 4:30pm on August 1.  Cheering stations should be announced soon, so check back for more details on where your sorry butts will be with HUGE signs to cheer me on (and/or cookies.  I think the cookies might be better than signs, as long as there are enough to share with the 900 other walkers).
... I only have a couple weeks left to come up with a really cheesy last-ditch solicitation e-mail to send to all the deadbeats concerned citizens who haven't donated to the 3-day on my behalf yet.  Strangely enough, I'm not the first person to think crying kittens will do the trick ...

... all of my donations have come from people I know in real life.  I would really, really like at least one of my online-only acquaintances to step up and donate.  Really, really, really.

It's disappointing when you plan to use "I think I just peed myself" as a post title, then find out you've already used it, darn it

Because I did, when I saw this:
http://the-panopticon.blogspot.com/2010/06/proof-that-no-matter-how-bad-it-is.html

Especially because it makes me remember this:
http://oxymoronassoc.livejournal.com/462027.html#cutid1 which is not safe for work, seeing as how it's rather crude, but hilarious all the same, as it imagines Edward Cullen of Twilight fame as someone who picked up a lot of hobbies while everyone else in his family was hooking up.  A small sample:

oxymoronassoc: i bet he went through a phase where he knitted shit
oxymoronassoc: to keep from strangling emmett
oxymoronassoc: everyone got a lumpy pullover for xmas that year
welurklate: ESME GOT SOMETHING WITH A CAT ON IT
oxymoronassoc: EMMETT'S HAD NO NECK HOLE AND EMMETT TRIED TO PUT IT ON ANYWAY AND STRUGGLED AROUND A LOT UNTIL HE JUST RIPPED HIS HEAD THROUGH

Did I mention we went to the zoo last week, too?

Liza has found a new career goal -

Camel Driver.

Meta action shot!

Why yes, I am tweeting one-handed while holding a butterfly and being photographed by my daughter.  Why do you ask?

First of the year

Look at that beauty!  And way earlier than previous years.  Shame this is my only tomato plant that's even set flowers, much less produced fruit.  We may be relying on the kindness of strangers Tabitha for our tomatoes this summer.

Guess what I did for two hours today?

Good thing I had the radio on, as pitting eight cups of cherries at one sitting is a bit on the tedious side.

Finally, I'm writing again

It's just not here.  Check out a post I'm sort of proud of over on the new blog:
http://sustainablesummer.blogspot.com/2010/06/meaning-of-cherries.html

Nom nom nom

Turning my family room into a sweat shop

Why yes, I am encouraging my 5-year-old to help me iron fabric scraps so that I can rend them into useful sizes before I store them.  And she loved it so much, she wants to do it again tomorrow morning.

Am I awesome or what?  Now if we can just get her trained to do Jason's collars and cuffs, Daddy will look much more dapper at work :)

Carpentry project of the day

"Mom, what's wrong with my swingset?"

"Nothing's wrong with your swingset."

"Yes there is.  Look at the end."

"What, did a bird poop on it again?"

"No, look!"

"Oh. ... Well, I guess we'd better fix that, huh?"

Yes, the end of the swingset fell off completely with no warning.  The bolt holding the uprights onto the beam pulled right out, as did the screws on the L-bracket that was supposed to be holding the bolt in (great engineering job, there, former owners of the house who built the thing).  Luckily, this happened when no kids were on it, although I'm pretty sure the beam the swings hang from wouldn't have crashed to the ground under the weight of the 11-year-old next door.  $100 in supplies, two weeks to wait for the mail-order bars, and an entire day of work later ...

I still have to drill the hole on the little extended piece to hang the disc swing, and cut off the old support the swings used to hang on, but that hasn't stopped somebody from using the monkey bars continuously since the moment the concrete footings were cured.

You can't see it in the pictures, but it looks pretty funny to have all of the new construction (pretty close to) square and plumb, and the old structure ... really not.  Maybe I'll get around to fixing that some day, since I had so much fun doing the monkey bars all by myself.  If I ever pry the kid off of the bars, that is.  Of course, she only goes hand-over-hand for one gap, then she stretches for the rest of it, the little cheaterpants.

Oh, well - stretching is good for the body, too.

What do you say when everything was just ... perfect?

One week ago today I was in the car, driving through five states with a friend, en route to Squam Lake, New Hampshire.  The trip was easy, if long, and while we didn't see any moose ...

... we did see a deer fly off the hood of a car in the next lane on the highway.  Did you know that deer bounce when they hit the pavement at 65 mph?  Now that's something I never expected to learn at ...

Four and a half days of crafting bliss - just me and 150 other crafty people taking over a historic family summer retreat on an idyllic lake ...

... for classes, camaraderie, and (at least for me) a lot of this:

Our first class was at a cabin that was, as I fondly referred to it, at "the ass end of nowhere," which was reached via a brisk 10-minute hike through the woods ...

Luckily, I had a hearty breakfast that morning, so I even after the hike I was ready to tackle my first class - Latvian fingerless mitts in five color stranded knitting.  I've done colorwork before, but never with so many colors, and she really opened my eyes to some of the things I've been unintentionally doing wrong.



Really, it's not that hard once you get used to the whole idea of controlled chaos on the back side of the piece.  Don't give me that look - you know you want to try it, too.  Look how easy it is - I didn't even break a sweat!

My class the next day was even farther away from our home cabin, which gave me plenty of time to gather inspiration from the woods around me.  I'll spare you the approximately 48,000 pictures I took of ferns, and instead show you the most interesting bit I stumbled upon:

I swear, those puppies looked so fake, I was tempted to see if somebody had hot-glued plastic mushrooms to the tree.  Anyway, I needed all the inspiration I could get, because I was supposed to be designing botanical-inspired things to print on fabric.  I was also totally copying designs out of that Japanese book on the corner of the table :)



Squam wasn't just about crafting, though - there was plenty of time to enjoy the facility and its surroundings. I decided to use a free afternoon to drag myself up to the top of a mountain the hard way (i.e. on the shorter path that went straight up the side of the damn thing, which meant there was a lot of actual "dragging myself  up the hill" involved).  Luckily, the view was totally worth the schlepp.

My last class was only half a day, which was a shame because I really had a good time meeting Jared Flood and starting the blanket he designed.  The thing was so fun that I couldn't resist working on it more in the car on the way home.  

Luckily for me, wool is very absorbent, because there may or may not have been a few sniffles from my side of the car as we drove off into the sunset (well, actually just away from the sunrise, since we were heading west at an ungodly hour of the morning).

I'm not a normally effusive person, but I have to say, this was among my best vacations ever.  Nothing went wrong, everyone got along, I didn't forget anything, the people were nice, the place was spectacular, there was plenty to do, nobody thought you were weird if you didn't want to do anything but sit on a dock with your feet in the water, and everybody was crafty.  I'd go back in a heartbeat, and while I don't know if I'd say it was life-changing, it was certainly awesome.  And fun.  And inspiring.  And only slightly mosquito-filled.  So if you're even slightly crafty, go check it out.  You'll be glad you did.