R is for Rest

After a tough night of

Jumping in and out of the window,
Playing with the cord of the window blinds,
Running over the beds (and everyone in them),
Chasing the other cat, and
Sniffing everyone's faces to see if maybe they're awake even though it's only 4:30 a.m.

You just need some REST!



Thank goodness the bed is empty now so she can get a good nap.

And, could you get that camera out of here? It's keeping her awake.

Q is for Quantity

This is the amount of coffee I can drink.



Any more and I'll be too jittery to sew, crochet, knit, or read a book. Or type, for that matter.



(Actually it's a Starbucks Frappuccino Mocha -- every once in a while I buy a small bottle, drink about a fourth of it over the course of a week or so, then pitch the rest in the trash. This is what I consider exciting and daring. Also, a fairly cheap thrill.)

P is for Peach-Blueberry Crisp

Gluten-free, soy-free, dairy-free ... also free of tree nuts, although after I made it I thought, "wow, pecans would've been good on top of this."



Unfortunately unable to support birthday candles, so we just used a candle in a holder instead.

O is for Open Window

St. Louis in July is usually sweltering, so opening the windows is Big News.




She's looking at a cat that's out on the pavement. I think she's trying to use the force of her eyeballs to make it go away. She'd like to be a Sith Lord someday.

N is for ...

North American

Nationals in 

Nashville

More later, when we recover.

M is for Muny

Every summer since we moved here we've said, "We should really go to the Muny," but every summer we decided not to because ... it's too hot, the shows are so late at night, blah blah blah.

Rick used to go when he was little, but I'd never been, nor had the girls. And it's such a St. Louis thing to do -- the Muny is as St. Louis as the Arch or the Cardinals or Ted Drewes (Ted Drewes has a website? Since when?).

But our dance teacher got a block of 80 tickets to see Annie, and Thalia, Annabeth and I decided to go. Rick declined since it was on a Monday night and he had to get up early the next day.

We got there early and had a picnic supper in Forest Park:



The weather was gorgeous. The food was provided by St. Louis Bread Co.(better known as Panera).

Then into the theatre to find our seats:



Except everyone kept switching around within the block in order to sit with friends



and by the end of the musical we had sat in about 5 different places.

Overall, a great experience. We'd love to go back, especially to see the Music Man. Especially if the weather is as good.

L is for Lemon

Annabeth is so excited to see this finally sprout. We planted the seeds several weeks ago.

K is for Kitchen Floor

If you're going to be ripping it up all the way down to the sub-floor, should you bother to mop it?

What if you're not ripping it up until next week?

What's the cutoff point for cleaning things you know are going to be destroyed?

(Actually, it's more than 2 weeks away, but I'm anticipating that Last Mop Job. I really dislike this floor. It's cheap peel-and-stick.)

J is for Jalie 2804

The other day we pulled out a bunch of fabric to see what would be appropriate to use for various items the kids like in the latest Ottobre.

They didn't like this fabric at all:



They said it looked too "old". I'm not sure how old it looked, given their ages. There's a huge range there, from "old enough to drive" to "old enough to check into a nursing home, and have your driver's license taken away".

(It's a cotton fabric with some lycra in it, with 4-way stretch, by the way. It's from The Fabric Fairy.)

Anyway, I decided it was just right for my age, and for making a test garment of Jalie 2804 "Women's Empire Crossover Top in sizes 2 (Toddler) to 22(Women's)":



I did the version with the 3/4 sleeves. For the future, I need to shorten the body, learn to do better hems (I know I've done blind hems with the serger before, but it just wasn't working out on this fabric -- partly because I was slapping it together quickly between Latin and math worksheets -- so I need to actually sit down and play around with super stretchy fabric until I understand this), and figure out how to do whatever is the opposite of a FBA (full bust adjustment). I made the upper sleeves a wee bit larger, based on reviews that Jalie tends to have tight sleeves.

But it's still wearable.



Actually, I'm pretty pleased with it.

I didn't put in the modesty panel. I'd read reviews that it pulls in the fabric of the upper chest too much, so I thought I'd wait and try that on version 2, after I see how much width I actually need. So I'm wearing a white cami under it. And did you know that Jalie makes a pattern for camisoles? I'm so addicted to these Jalie patterns.

In the meantime, Thalia has put together an AMAZING wish list at Fabric Fairy. She came home from the mall the other day and announced that she wants to start making all of her clothes.

I is for Irish Dance Competition

We spent Valentine's Day at a feis.

But I won't go on and on about it, because I know you're jealous because your dream in life is to spend an entire day in a crowded hotel ballroom with a splitting headache, listening to an accordion and fiddle play reels and jigs.

Afterwards, time to collapse on the couch with slices of pizza.

H is for Hearts

Valentine cookies! These were a fundraiser at our dance studio. I think they're so cute!

G is for Glorious

After weeks of temperatures in the teens, we're having record highs.



Of course, this article in the newspaper yesterday sucked some of the fun out of the glorious weather. (Synopsis: Feb.9-10 1959 had much the same weather pattern as we're having now, and ended up with a major tornado -- the newspaper article had more pictures than the online version, so less was left to the imagination.)

Also, G is for Geometry Panels:



AnnaBeth was messing around with the Geometry Panels from RightStart, for no particular reason. She then had an extensive photo shoot involving and old tablecloth. We've come to the conclusion that our camera doesn't do purple, by the way -- those panels that look blue are actually purple.

F is for Flyshooter

F was going to be something artsy craftsy, like Fabric or Finished Sock or something of that sort, in hopes that y'all would think I was one of those cool bloggers whose life is filled with creative moments.

But we went to Cabella's this morning to get a new arrow rest for Thalia's bow, since she'd been using the cheapy plastic stick-on one, and the adhesive has pretty much given up on life (by the way, the crowd at Cabella's on a weekday morning is interesting, to say the least). And while we were waiting to check out I noticed a display of Flyshooters!



Whoa, I haven't seen one of these for years! I used to have a blue one.

Have you ever seen one? You use it like a gun:



Squeeze the trigger,



and the little white thingy flies off and hits the insect:



Make sure to retrieve the little white thingy, or else you'll just be left with a flat plastic piece that looks like a child's drawing of a gun. And you'll spend years trying to explain to people that it's a Fly Shooter, and trying to describe how it works, and how cool it is.

I can't wait until warmer weather. Look out, flying insects! This spring I'm prepared for you!

E is for Eyes

AnnaBeth's science book says that if you took people's eyeballs out of their heads, the eyes would all look pretty much the same.



What is so memorable about eyes, they say, is really what surrounds them, not the eyes themselves.



I wonder.

(Also, Chris, I never did A, which is why you couldn't find it. It seemed trite to start with A. Didn't Hilda warn us against being trite?)

D is for Down

It is easier to go down



than to come back up.



And, yes, we know there's hardly any snow on that hill (which makes it lots easier to come back up, by the way), but this is the most snow we've had this winter. On a positive note, the school kids aren't out on the hill because there's so little snow (plus it's 8:30am, so they're enjoying sleeping in for once -- our kids usually get up about now, and this was the one day they didn't sleep in).

C is for Camping

This past weekend Thalia's troop went camping.

It wasn't as rugged as it sounds, in spite of the cold temperatures. They camped in a lodge that had baseboard heating, electrical outlets, a stove and refrigerator, and (best of all) indoor plumbing. So even though it involved sleeping bags on thin mattresses, going on a hike in the cold, and star gazing at night in the cold, it was a fairly plushy set up. I arrived Saturday morning (the camping trip really started Friday afternoon, but I had other obligations), and quickly realized that it was really a giant 3-day/2-night slumber party. The difference from most sleepovers, though, was that the adults also had to sleep on the floor in thin mattresses and share one bathroom with all the girls. Also, everything had to be cleaned spic and span for inspection before we left, including the outdoor latrine, the outdoor firepit and outdoor kitchen area, etc., even though we didn't use them; I'd rather stay home and take the next week to recover and clean up. But, hey, it was certainly an adventure.

The troop worked on their Interest Patch for games



(they loved this game, but it took forever)

and photography



I have no idea who took this picture of Thalia -- they were obviously messing with the settings on the camera. By the end of the weekend that battery on the camera was totally shot, by the way, but Thalia had scads of pictures of widely varying quality, as well as movie clips of some of the girls dressing up as Leia and Ahsoka and battling with light sabers (they had taken the broom handles apart to make the sabers).

Since the scouts were pretty well self-contained, working on their stuff, cooking the meals, cleaning up, etc., the adults were just sort of hanging out. I worked on a sock:


I did this heel 3 times before I got it the way I wanted it. The other adults now have a totally warped view of sock-knitting, since I knit a while, then ripped everything back out and started again continuously. But I didn't have access to google all weekend, heaven forbid, so I had to come up with a heel on my own -- I had to think instead of google, and that's not something I'm used to doing. For the record, I ended up making a 10 row gusset, then a short row heel down to 50% of the underside stitches; I think I wrote all of this down somewhere so I can knit the other sock to match, but here it is again just in case I can't find my notes.

The troop moms are asked to go to at least one camping trip per year, so now I've fulfilled my obligation -- on a no-bug, indoor toilet trip! I'm feeling pretty smug about that, let me tell you.

B is for Books

Some of the books that we've added to our bookshelves in the past week:



Mostly homeschool related. Homeschooling and piles of books seem to go hand in hand.

(And there's an even larger pile from the library this week. Wowza, can you even imagine homeschooling without a library?)

By special request, the title are:

A Student's Guide to Natural Science by Stephen M. Barr
A Little History of the World by E.H. Gombrich
Once Upon a Curse by E.D. Baker
Sir Cumference and the Great Knight of Angleland by Cindy Neuschwander
Sir Cumference and the Isle of Immeter by Cindy Neuschwander
Geography of the World (Jayne Parsons is listed as editor on the DK website, but I can't find her name in the book)
Living Memory: A Classical Memory Work Companion by Andrew Campbell

All but the last are available at Amazon.com; Living Memory is available through Lulu.com