Here's an incident that really sort of sums up the week:
Wednesday AnnaBeth and I worked on school subjects in the morning. After lunch and read alouds, I mowed the yard (bagging the grass clipping and dead leaves, and dumping them in yard waste containers), cleaned out the chest freezer, exercised, and worked on my own Latin lessons for half an hour. I was feeling pretty triumphant as I started supper -- wow, we had accomplished a lot! And it suddenly hit me that AnnaBeth and I had forgotten to do math! Never even crossed our minds. And it was too late, as after supper was 2.5 hours of dance class.
So, what did we accomplish this week?
Thalia studied algebra, Latin, Spanish, finished Alice in Wonderland and discussed it with me (using prompts from Lightning Lit 7), Earth Science, watched a PBS show on fractals, danced, played piano, and continued to re-read Eldest as a run-up to reading Brsinger. Also, decorated the house for Halloween, and cleaned quite a bit of it in the process.
AnnaBeth worked on First Language Lessons (finally got to diagram conjunctions, which is always fun), Writing With Ease (still using Five Children and It; this week we tried a French dictation as per Bravewriter), French, Minimus Latin, learned about the nose/smell, danced, swam, and played piano. And 3 (not 4) lessons of RightStart D math.
I read aloud from The Little Duke, which is now FINISHED. Also read aloud Five Children and It, and started Little Farm in the Ozarks (Little House, the Rose Years, book 2). The kids discussed the fact that we've ditched several read alouds, most of which were from Ambleside Online. I was trying to quietly extricate ourselves from that reading program and start something else. Sometimes you just have to admit to yourself that you don't feel like reading all of Pilgrim's Progress aloud in dribs and drabs over the course of several months, which is where we were in Ambleside.
Today we'll finish up odds and ends -- maybe do some more science, definitely practice piano. We will avoid reciting Edgar Allen Poe's The Bells, as it's been an earworm for me the last few days. Last night I kept waking up with the thought, "the tintinnabulation that so musically wells". I supposed it's better than having, say, old ELO songs running through your head all day. At least it sounds classier to say that you have an earworm of Poe's poetry than one of 70s pop music.
Friday, October 31, 2008
Thursday, October 30, 2008
Outed
AnnaBeth started swimming lessons at the Fish level for this session at the Y. This is pretty exciting stuff -- it seems as though she's been a Minnow forever and ever.
Of course, beginning a new level meant going to the Y at a different time. And having a different teacher and different kids in the class.
Much is the same, though. Same routine of changing into the swimsuit, stowing stuff in lockers. I change into flip flops, same as before (no street shoes on deck). I take the same items with which to entertain myself -- my Latin and my knitting. My personal routine is 30 minutes of Latin, then the rest of the class knitting.
As I open up my notebook and my Henle Latin text another mom glances at me.
"Is that Henle?" said in that tone -- you know, the one with the subtext of "I can't imagine a sane person voluntarily lugging that around."
"Umm. Yeah. I never took it in school, so I'm trying to catch up now."
"Oh. I recognized it because my son had a class."
I reveal that my daughter is studying Latin, and I'm trying to keep up. She says that she tried to study it some, too, while her son took it. Although she admits that she's forgotten a lot of it now. Yes, I agree, while staring at the page wondering how I am expected to translate "on account of the welfare of the tribes" into Latin given that I have no memory whatsoever of seeing the Latin word for "welfare" before.
I give up on "welfare", and decide to fill my time writing propter at the beginning of every phrase that starts with the words "on account of", since that's sort of a gimme. A few moments pass.
Finally, she asks, "Do you homeschool?"
Ack. Do I look like some weirdo? Is that why she's asking? Well, of course I look like a weirdo -- we've already established that. I'm reading Henle, for pete's sake. But I had this faint hope that she'd think I was just a really, really involved public school parent. And not one of them. Because, you know, when someone asks if you homeschool they are likely to have an agenda. It's beyond a simple yes/no question. Way beyond. When a stranger asks you this question, they're likely to have strong views on the subject that they will feel compelled to share with you.
But, aha, it turns out her family homeschools. And the class her son took was simply a class in Latin he was taking while otherwise homeschooling.
I'm thinking, perhaps we can list this as another reason to study Latin -- carrying around Henle texts allows you to find other, sympathetic homeschoolers. It's sort of like our gang symbol.
Of course, beginning a new level meant going to the Y at a different time. And having a different teacher and different kids in the class.
Much is the same, though. Same routine of changing into the swimsuit, stowing stuff in lockers. I change into flip flops, same as before (no street shoes on deck). I take the same items with which to entertain myself -- my Latin and my knitting. My personal routine is 30 minutes of Latin, then the rest of the class knitting.
As I open up my notebook and my Henle Latin text another mom glances at me.
"Is that Henle?" said in that tone -- you know, the one with the subtext of "I can't imagine a sane person voluntarily lugging that around."
"Umm. Yeah. I never took it in school, so I'm trying to catch up now."
"Oh. I recognized it because my son had a class."
I reveal that my daughter is studying Latin, and I'm trying to keep up. She says that she tried to study it some, too, while her son took it. Although she admits that she's forgotten a lot of it now. Yes, I agree, while staring at the page wondering how I am expected to translate "on account of the welfare of the tribes" into Latin given that I have no memory whatsoever of seeing the Latin word for "welfare" before.
I give up on "welfare", and decide to fill my time writing propter at the beginning of every phrase that starts with the words "on account of", since that's sort of a gimme. A few moments pass.
Finally, she asks, "Do you homeschool?"
Ack. Do I look like some weirdo? Is that why she's asking? Well, of course I look like a weirdo -- we've already established that. I'm reading Henle, for pete's sake. But I had this faint hope that she'd think I was just a really, really involved public school parent. And not one of them. Because, you know, when someone asks if you homeschool they are likely to have an agenda. It's beyond a simple yes/no question. Way beyond. When a stranger asks you this question, they're likely to have strong views on the subject that they will feel compelled to share with you.
But, aha, it turns out her family homeschools. And the class her son took was simply a class in Latin he was taking while otherwise homeschooling.
I'm thinking, perhaps we can list this as another reason to study Latin -- carrying around Henle texts allows you to find other, sympathetic homeschoolers. It's sort of like our gang symbol.
Wednesday, October 29, 2008
Work in Progress Wednesday
The next set of sleeves has been lengthened.
(Action shot)
And I spent quite a bit of time examining the dress bag that dancer uses for her dress. Her mom made the bag herself. Without a pattern. I have a bazillion photos of it now, along with notes and measurements.
Here it is with Thalia's dress in it:
I'm inspired. But it will involve shopping for fabric, batting, long zippers, velcro, a dowel, plastic, and webbing for straps.
In the meantime, I'm still knitting the Basic Chic Hoodie. I have it back to the spot it was before I ripped it out -- ready to divide the body from the sleeves:
Check out those stitch markers! The pumpkins I was wanting!
Only 3 of them, though. I need to go get another ring from Hobby Lobby, as I broke one while twisting the wire pin around it. The pumpkin itself was unscathed, thankfully.
You too can join WIP Wednesday over at The Place of H. It's a great way to track your progress on all of those projects you've got simmering.
(Action shot)
And I spent quite a bit of time examining the dress bag that dancer uses for her dress. Her mom made the bag herself. Without a pattern. I have a bazillion photos of it now, along with notes and measurements.
Here it is with Thalia's dress in it:
I'm inspired. But it will involve shopping for fabric, batting, long zippers, velcro, a dowel, plastic, and webbing for straps.
In the meantime, I'm still knitting the Basic Chic Hoodie. I have it back to the spot it was before I ripped it out -- ready to divide the body from the sleeves:
Check out those stitch markers! The pumpkins I was wanting!
Only 3 of them, though. I need to go get another ring from Hobby Lobby, as I broke one while twisting the wire pin around it. The pumpkin itself was unscathed, thankfully.
You too can join WIP Wednesday over at The Place of H. It's a great way to track your progress on all of those projects you've got simmering.
Monday, October 27, 2008
Weekend Recap
At some point Sunday afternoon Thalia commented that it was going to be really hard to deal with Monday because it had been such a different weekend.
She started out with a camping trip -- in the rain. And cold. She said she was toasty warm in the sleeping bag, though -- the long underwear, 2 pairs of flannel pants, nightshirt, 2 sweatshirts, socks, gloves, and wool hat, plus flannel sheet and fleece blanket might've helped. We do NOT own one of those fancy sleeping bags that keeps a person warm, but the sheer application of fleece, wool, and silk seems to have done the trick.
I picked her up Saturday evening. The camping trip was supposed to last until Sunday, but she needed to come home and put more tanner on her legs and generally get ready for the Oireachtas rehearsal that our Irish Dance studio was having on Sunday.
In the meantime, Rick spent Saturday painting the family room woodwork. If you've been in our family room you know what an undertaking this is. And yes, I do mean that panelling. Half of it is now antique white, and it looks fantastic.
Before:
After:
The peeling wallpaper that is stapled to the wall will eventually be torn down, the old carpet replaced, and we'll have a pleasant room. Finally.
I ran errands Saturday, one of which was at Hancock Fabrics where I picked up some flannel on sale. I hate that store, but it was convenient and like I said, SALE. Anyway, with the onset of cold weather I realized that I'd thrown out all of my casual sweats, probably because they'd reached that level of skankiness that I didn't even want to wear them at home. And I needed something warm to wear around the house in the early morning while doing traffic control with the cats, who don't seem to understand that on weekends we're allowed to sleep later than 6a.m.
Saturday night I made flannel jammie pants for myself:
They're big and baggy, but I only washed the fabric once before I cut, and I think it has more to shrink. I picked the fabric because the groups of white Christmas trees sort of looked like Totoro. As a matter of fact, when Rick saw the finished pants he thought the images were ghosts or Totoro.
Rather than sewing flannel jammie pants, I should've been preparing for the Oireachtas rehearsal -- laying out all of our stuff. And reminding the kids to polish their shoes. Ah well.
The Oireachtas rehearsal Sunday was at a local hotel. It's a sort of dress rehearsal for the Big Competition that each region of the Irish Dance community holds in the fall. All the dancers from our school who are going to Oireachtas participated, and were judged as though they were in a real competition.
AnnaBeth had a chance to try dancing in a borrowed solo dress:
She loves this dress, and her teacher would really like her to wear it for Oireachtas.
(By the way, this was the only photo I got all day that didn't include people other than my kids, so it's the only one I'm comfortable sharing here.)
We were thrilled to get out of there earlier than expected -- about mid-afternoon. We loaded up all of our baggage -- dresses, wigs, shoes, snacks, an extra dress I'd offered to alter since I now know how to lengthen sleeves, etc. etc. -- and I had a nagging feeling that I'd be driving back there looking for something we'd left.
Later than evening I realized that what I'd left was my PURSE! Rick headed back to the hotel to retrieve it (we tried calling the hotel, but they said housekeeping was closed ... he thought he could at least look around). As soon as he walked out the door the phone rang -- one of the other moms had it. She'd been trying to call me on my cell phone, which had apparently gone on the blink and stopped receiving calls (really, we had to mess around with it for awhile afterwards and finally got it working again after a hard boot of taking out and replacing the battery) and finally decided to try our regular line. Rick was at the gas station filling up before he went to the hotel, so a quick call sent him over to their house instead. Wow. That's all I can say -- WOW.
So, the kids had planned to sleep in a bit, I was relieved that I wasn't going to be spending Monday cancelling credit cards and getting a new driver's license; and planned to spend a quiet morning doing yoga and puttering around ... too bad the smoke alarm decided to spazz out and go off at 7a.m. Thus we find ourselves hurtling into yet another week ....
She started out with a camping trip -- in the rain. And cold. She said she was toasty warm in the sleeping bag, though -- the long underwear, 2 pairs of flannel pants, nightshirt, 2 sweatshirts, socks, gloves, and wool hat, plus flannel sheet and fleece blanket might've helped. We do NOT own one of those fancy sleeping bags that keeps a person warm, but the sheer application of fleece, wool, and silk seems to have done the trick.
I picked her up Saturday evening. The camping trip was supposed to last until Sunday, but she needed to come home and put more tanner on her legs and generally get ready for the Oireachtas rehearsal that our Irish Dance studio was having on Sunday.
In the meantime, Rick spent Saturday painting the family room woodwork. If you've been in our family room you know what an undertaking this is. And yes, I do mean that panelling. Half of it is now antique white, and it looks fantastic.
Before:
After:
The peeling wallpaper that is stapled to the wall will eventually be torn down, the old carpet replaced, and we'll have a pleasant room. Finally.
I ran errands Saturday, one of which was at Hancock Fabrics where I picked up some flannel on sale. I hate that store, but it was convenient and like I said, SALE. Anyway, with the onset of cold weather I realized that I'd thrown out all of my casual sweats, probably because they'd reached that level of skankiness that I didn't even want to wear them at home. And I needed something warm to wear around the house in the early morning while doing traffic control with the cats, who don't seem to understand that on weekends we're allowed to sleep later than 6a.m.
Saturday night I made flannel jammie pants for myself:
They're big and baggy, but I only washed the fabric once before I cut, and I think it has more to shrink. I picked the fabric because the groups of white Christmas trees sort of looked like Totoro. As a matter of fact, when Rick saw the finished pants he thought the images were ghosts or Totoro.
Rather than sewing flannel jammie pants, I should've been preparing for the Oireachtas rehearsal -- laying out all of our stuff. And reminding the kids to polish their shoes. Ah well.
The Oireachtas rehearsal Sunday was at a local hotel. It's a sort of dress rehearsal for the Big Competition that each region of the Irish Dance community holds in the fall. All the dancers from our school who are going to Oireachtas participated, and were judged as though they were in a real competition.
AnnaBeth had a chance to try dancing in a borrowed solo dress:
She loves this dress, and her teacher would really like her to wear it for Oireachtas.
(By the way, this was the only photo I got all day that didn't include people other than my kids, so it's the only one I'm comfortable sharing here.)
We were thrilled to get out of there earlier than expected -- about mid-afternoon. We loaded up all of our baggage -- dresses, wigs, shoes, snacks, an extra dress I'd offered to alter since I now know how to lengthen sleeves, etc. etc. -- and I had a nagging feeling that I'd be driving back there looking for something we'd left.
Later than evening I realized that what I'd left was my PURSE! Rick headed back to the hotel to retrieve it (we tried calling the hotel, but they said housekeeping was closed ... he thought he could at least look around). As soon as he walked out the door the phone rang -- one of the other moms had it. She'd been trying to call me on my cell phone, which had apparently gone on the blink and stopped receiving calls (really, we had to mess around with it for awhile afterwards and finally got it working again after a hard boot of taking out and replacing the battery) and finally decided to try our regular line. Rick was at the gas station filling up before he went to the hotel, so a quick call sent him over to their house instead. Wow. That's all I can say -- WOW.
So, the kids had planned to sleep in a bit, I was relieved that I wasn't going to be spending Monday cancelling credit cards and getting a new driver's license; and planned to spend a quiet morning doing yoga and puttering around ... too bad the smoke alarm decided to spazz out and go off at 7a.m. Thus we find ourselves hurtling into yet another week ....
Friday, October 24, 2008
Weekly Report -- Oct. 24
Science
This week AnnaBeth studied the ear. What we did: she read about it and made a little cut out model from a Scholastic book. That's all. Sigh. Most books have some interesting things to do regarding the ear, but we haven't gotten around to it. Maybe later today....
Thalia continues to answer every question and do every experiment in Prentice Hall Science Explorers. She wants the answer key so she can check her answers -- I need to figure out where to get that. She is disturbed by the inaccuracies of the maps in the book.
Also, she made Mt. Cardboard to illustrate the concept of contour lines:
Latin
AnnaBeth is learning about bathing customs in Minimus. I was surprised to discover what a font of knowledge Thalia is regarding Roman toilets. It was one of several occasions this week where I found myself sitting back and saying, "Where did you learn that?" Sort of reinforces the notion that I'm not so much teaching them stuff as I am facilitating their learning.
Thalia is in Chapter 20 of Latin for Children B -- 3rd declension. I hope she's learned it better than I did in Henle a couple of weeks ago. I don't think LfC requires you to learn all of those pesky rules about masculine = ERROR, feminine = SOX, and neuter = LANCET, etc. etc. My Henle grammar automatically falls open to that page now (actually, it's all the freaking exceptions -- crivens, it's as bad as English language spelling rules).
As for me, I once again determined that I would study Henle 30 minutes per day for at least 5 days this week. After 3 days I got distracted, so I didn't follow through. Also, I had planned to study last night during dance class -- honest. Except dance class was cancelled, so it's not really my fault.(Okay, I'd also wanted to watch House reruns on Hulu while the kids were at dance, but at least I considered studying Latin.)
Other Languages
French -- AnnaBeth is glad to be finished with the family unit of Ecoutez-Parlez, which she apparently hated. Now she's learning animals. She keeps changing the words of the sentences to reflect her personal preferences about various animals, refusing to say she doesn't like cats, etc.
Spanish -- Thalia has learned to ask Donde esta ...? and De quien es? -- handy phrases around the house, as she's constantly loosing track of stuff.
English -- AnnaBeth continues to practice narration, copywork, and dictation using models from Five Children and It, and suggestions from Writing With Ease. I love this program.
She also works in First Language Lessons. This week we've looked at adverbs that tell to what extent. We also discussed use of nominative pronouns in the predicate -- not a big deal since I'm one of those people who has a nerdy tendency to say "it is I" rather than "it is me". Really, sometimes I find myself hesitating when I talk or write forum posts/blog posts because I realize that it sounds so uppity to use the predicate nominative, and then I'm all flaked out about which to use -- what I know is right? what people want to hear? Feel free to explore the deep psychological meaning of that. In the meantime, AnnaBeth is also memorizing the first stanza of Poe's The Bells, which happens to be a poem I really like. If you don't know it, go find a copy and read it aloud.
Thalia is still working on Alice in Wonderland in Lightning Lit 7. I suggested that she might want to do another review week in Analytical Grammar. She apparently didn't feel the need. It's hard to push her on that, since she's so much better than I at grammar.
Math
AnnaBeth has started RightStart D. This means we've entered the portion of the program that I've done before. And suddenly I hate the entire program and want to throw it out and do something else. It seemed so exciting when I went through RightStart D with Thalia; it's just dull to go through it again with AnnaBeth, particularly having done B and C.
We were discussing her math trajectory -- that she only has Level E, then Geometry, then she's finished with RightStart and can begin pre-Algebra. She asked it she could then start college once she's done Algebra. Thalia explained that, no, she'd still need Geometry, Trig, more Algebra ... then burst out with, "and I'm doing them ALL with Life of Fred!" So, a ringing endorsement for Life of Fred from Thalia.
And what is she doing this week in Algebra? Graphing equations. She loves graphing. Life is good.
Read Alouds
Understood Betsy is DONE. I love that book. AnnaBeth loves that book. Maybe we'll read it again. Oh, I know -- maybe we'll use it for models for Writing With Ease!
And we're about to finish Little House on Rocky Ridge. We should finish it up today.
Overall, though, I doubt much schoolwork will be done today. Thalia is leaving on a camping trip, and needs to pack. We also need to figure out if any of the long underwear in the house fits her, as it's cold and wet and generally not the sort of weather that makes you think, "hey, let's go camping!" (then again, I'm wimpy about such things -- I'm sure there are people who prefer camping in crappy weather). Anyway, I feel like our week has pretty much wound down. I think it's been one of our more productive weeks for autumn 2008.
This week AnnaBeth studied the ear. What we did: she read about it and made a little cut out model from a Scholastic book. That's all. Sigh. Most books have some interesting things to do regarding the ear, but we haven't gotten around to it. Maybe later today....
Thalia continues to answer every question and do every experiment in Prentice Hall Science Explorers. She wants the answer key so she can check her answers -- I need to figure out where to get that. She is disturbed by the inaccuracies of the maps in the book.
Also, she made Mt. Cardboard to illustrate the concept of contour lines:
Latin
AnnaBeth is learning about bathing customs in Minimus. I was surprised to discover what a font of knowledge Thalia is regarding Roman toilets. It was one of several occasions this week where I found myself sitting back and saying, "Where did you learn that?" Sort of reinforces the notion that I'm not so much teaching them stuff as I am facilitating their learning.
Thalia is in Chapter 20 of Latin for Children B -- 3rd declension. I hope she's learned it better than I did in Henle a couple of weeks ago. I don't think LfC requires you to learn all of those pesky rules about masculine = ERROR, feminine = SOX, and neuter = LANCET, etc. etc. My Henle grammar automatically falls open to that page now (actually, it's all the freaking exceptions -- crivens, it's as bad as English language spelling rules).
As for me, I once again determined that I would study Henle 30 minutes per day for at least 5 days this week. After 3 days I got distracted, so I didn't follow through. Also, I had planned to study last night during dance class -- honest. Except dance class was cancelled, so it's not really my fault.(Okay, I'd also wanted to watch House reruns on Hulu while the kids were at dance, but at least I considered studying Latin.)
Other Languages
French -- AnnaBeth is glad to be finished with the family unit of Ecoutez-Parlez, which she apparently hated. Now she's learning animals. She keeps changing the words of the sentences to reflect her personal preferences about various animals, refusing to say she doesn't like cats, etc.
Spanish -- Thalia has learned to ask Donde esta ...? and De quien es? -- handy phrases around the house, as she's constantly loosing track of stuff.
English -- AnnaBeth continues to practice narration, copywork, and dictation using models from Five Children and It, and suggestions from Writing With Ease. I love this program.
She also works in First Language Lessons. This week we've looked at adverbs that tell to what extent. We also discussed use of nominative pronouns in the predicate -- not a big deal since I'm one of those people who has a nerdy tendency to say "it is I" rather than "it is me". Really, sometimes I find myself hesitating when I talk or write forum posts/blog posts because I realize that it sounds so uppity to use the predicate nominative, and then I'm all flaked out about which to use -- what I know is right? what people want to hear? Feel free to explore the deep psychological meaning of that. In the meantime, AnnaBeth is also memorizing the first stanza of Poe's The Bells, which happens to be a poem I really like. If you don't know it, go find a copy and read it aloud.
Thalia is still working on Alice in Wonderland in Lightning Lit 7. I suggested that she might want to do another review week in Analytical Grammar. She apparently didn't feel the need. It's hard to push her on that, since she's so much better than I at grammar.
Math
AnnaBeth has started RightStart D. This means we've entered the portion of the program that I've done before. And suddenly I hate the entire program and want to throw it out and do something else. It seemed so exciting when I went through RightStart D with Thalia; it's just dull to go through it again with AnnaBeth, particularly having done B and C.
We were discussing her math trajectory -- that she only has Level E, then Geometry, then she's finished with RightStart and can begin pre-Algebra. She asked it she could then start college once she's done Algebra. Thalia explained that, no, she'd still need Geometry, Trig, more Algebra ... then burst out with, "and I'm doing them ALL with Life of Fred!" So, a ringing endorsement for Life of Fred from Thalia.
And what is she doing this week in Algebra? Graphing equations. She loves graphing. Life is good.
Read Alouds
Understood Betsy is DONE. I love that book. AnnaBeth loves that book. Maybe we'll read it again. Oh, I know -- maybe we'll use it for models for Writing With Ease!
And we're about to finish Little House on Rocky Ridge. We should finish it up today.
Overall, though, I doubt much schoolwork will be done today. Thalia is leaving on a camping trip, and needs to pack. We also need to figure out if any of the long underwear in the house fits her, as it's cold and wet and generally not the sort of weather that makes you think, "hey, let's go camping!" (then again, I'm wimpy about such things -- I'm sure there are people who prefer camping in crappy weather). Anyway, I feel like our week has pretty much wound down. I think it's been one of our more productive weeks for autumn 2008.
Thursday, October 23, 2008
Dance Class is Cancelled!
This throws the schedule for the entire day into a spin.
I had planned to drop of kids at dance, then go run errands. When I do errands by myself I tend to stick very closely to my list, not deviating.
When the kids go along they are easily distracted. They end up wanting to buy cat wigs
And have visions of putting little iridescent wings on the cat's back, and take her trick-or-treating
"People would just coo over her!" (We've obviously been reading too many British novels -- no one talks like that in real life, do they?)
Really, though, her personality is more suited to dressing up as a monster.
If they had cat costumes based on Sith Lords, that would be appropriate.
Please note that I had nothing to do with this entire affair. If she decides to kill everyone in the night maybe I'll be spared.
Really, though, she seems to have already forgotten the entire incident and is concentrating on her new obsession: trying to eat those little packing pellets that are corn based and dissolve in water.
Just another rainy day at our house.
I had planned to drop of kids at dance, then go run errands. When I do errands by myself I tend to stick very closely to my list, not deviating.
When the kids go along they are easily distracted. They end up wanting to buy cat wigs
And have visions of putting little iridescent wings on the cat's back, and take her trick-or-treating
"People would just coo over her!" (We've obviously been reading too many British novels -- no one talks like that in real life, do they?)
Really, though, her personality is more suited to dressing up as a monster.
If they had cat costumes based on Sith Lords, that would be appropriate.
Please note that I had nothing to do with this entire affair. If she decides to kill everyone in the night maybe I'll be spared.
Really, though, she seems to have already forgotten the entire incident and is concentrating on her new obsession: trying to eat those little packing pellets that are corn based and dissolve in water.
Just another rainy day at our house.
Wednesday, October 22, 2008
Work in Progress Wednesday
The Basic Chic Hoodlie looks almost exactly the same as last week. This isn't due to lack of knitting. I'd progressed to where I needed to divide for the sleeves and body (knitting from the neck down), realized that I'd made a critical error way back there, and unraveled about 3 or 4 inches -- most of the first skein.
So, no picture.
On the sewing front, I'm supposed to be altering the sleeves of the girls' Irish Dance school dresses. We have a big whoopy-do rehearsal this Sunday, and everything needs to be just right, so I need to get the sleeves just right.
So far I've removed the cuff from the sleeve, and am starting to deconstruct the sleeve end:
Our Dressmaker Extraordinaire said I could do this myself. I didn't ask for this designation -- she just sort of said, "You know how to sew, you can do this yourself." Then she handed me fabric and gave me a 30 second tutorial. Part of me thinks this is very cool, and part of me is very nervous -- what if I blow it? what if I don't blow it, and she asks me to do progressively harder stuff?
AnnaBeth has been working on the Sculpey pumpkin stitch marker concept. She made the pumpkins from some Sculpey we already had, and I found the doodads we needed to make them into stitch markers at Hobby Lobby. Bonus: the doodads were 50% off this week.
I think I'll be in charge of bending the pins around the little rings on the toggle rings.
She also made some extra pumpkins
for use by the autumn fairies
that live amongst the Indian corn
in a village currently spread all over the family room floor, but sometimes appearing on the back porch.
Given the number of dead leaves used in this scene, perhaps you can see why I prefer the back porch -- less vacuuming of leaf-crumples.
There are some spring Flower Fairies in there, too, They're the pink ones. I used to be the type of person who made little Felt Wee Folk inspired by Sally Mavor's books, and so we have several sets for various seasons. They've spent quite a bit of time this week hurtling down the stairway in a shoebox. I think it's supposed to represent some sort of thriller amusement park ride. I know this is not how I pictured they would be played with -- good thing I've gotten over my inner vision of some cozy Waldorfy lifestyle, since my kids don't seem to conform to that vision.
Those days of making fairies are pretty much over for me, but I still have lots of little painted heads and pipe cleaners and embroidery floss around (the floss was from back when I used to be the type of person who did counted cross stitch, but then got transferred to the dollmaking box when that got to be my new interest).
AnnaBeth and Thalia decided to make some babies for their fairy families:
Not in autumn colors, but we are operating an integrated fairyland here.
So, no picture.
On the sewing front, I'm supposed to be altering the sleeves of the girls' Irish Dance school dresses. We have a big whoopy-do rehearsal this Sunday, and everything needs to be just right, so I need to get the sleeves just right.
So far I've removed the cuff from the sleeve, and am starting to deconstruct the sleeve end:
Our Dressmaker Extraordinaire said I could do this myself. I didn't ask for this designation -- she just sort of said, "You know how to sew, you can do this yourself." Then she handed me fabric and gave me a 30 second tutorial. Part of me thinks this is very cool, and part of me is very nervous -- what if I blow it? what if I don't blow it, and she asks me to do progressively harder stuff?
AnnaBeth has been working on the Sculpey pumpkin stitch marker concept. She made the pumpkins from some Sculpey we already had, and I found the doodads we needed to make them into stitch markers at Hobby Lobby. Bonus: the doodads were 50% off this week.
I think I'll be in charge of bending the pins around the little rings on the toggle rings.
She also made some extra pumpkins
for use by the autumn fairies
that live amongst the Indian corn
in a village currently spread all over the family room floor, but sometimes appearing on the back porch.
Given the number of dead leaves used in this scene, perhaps you can see why I prefer the back porch -- less vacuuming of leaf-crumples.
There are some spring Flower Fairies in there, too, They're the pink ones. I used to be the type of person who made little Felt Wee Folk inspired by Sally Mavor's books, and so we have several sets for various seasons. They've spent quite a bit of time this week hurtling down the stairway in a shoebox. I think it's supposed to represent some sort of thriller amusement park ride. I know this is not how I pictured they would be played with -- good thing I've gotten over my inner vision of some cozy Waldorfy lifestyle, since my kids don't seem to conform to that vision.
Those days of making fairies are pretty much over for me, but I still have lots of little painted heads and pipe cleaners and embroidery floss around (the floss was from back when I used to be the type of person who did counted cross stitch, but then got transferred to the dollmaking box when that got to be my new interest).
AnnaBeth and Thalia decided to make some babies for their fairy families:
Not in autumn colors, but we are operating an integrated fairyland here.
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