Some nights you need to go and get cookies at 11:43pm. You don't fight it, you just go, kids in tow. And on a school night too! We are just positively lawless!
Good night all! xx
]]>Some nights you need to go and get cookies at 11:43pm. You don't fight it, you just go, kids in tow. And on a school night too! We are just positively lawless!
Good night all! xx
]]>In two days I will have been blogging Vox for two years. (I'd mention it in two days, but it's quite likely I'll have forgotten it by then.) I'd say that deserves a pretty flower, as seen growing in my front yard.
Today I am also celebrating that I passed an exam by the skin of my teeth that I was so sure I was going to fail, I tried to reschedule it to allow more time to study. Thank goodness that's over.
Bring on the doughnuts.
]]>-- Remind me again why I am in school. Why am I stressing out up to my eyeballs when I could be, I don't know, doing crosswords, taking photos, making a really awesome quilt? I need to remind myself that I am setting an example to my children that a college education is important for mums as well as dads. But, ugh!
-- This morning I nearly signed an e-mail to my professor with "Love you." I'm telling you, I'm ready for the weekend already and it's only Monday.
-- What is it about months with only 30 days that makes them so super? There's only one day less than usual and yet I love them a whole lot more.
-- Alexander McCall Smith, one of my favourite authors, (tied with John Irving and Charles Dickens), is writing his first ever online book. A new chapter will appear daily and you can either read it online or download the podcast. He has done a similar thing with the Scotland Street series but this time we all get to enjoy, not just the folks who subscribe to "The Scotsman."
-- Me, in an e-mail to Todd: "Jacquie comes wandering upstairs, kitty litter on his breath."
Todd, in reply: "And strangely, his breath is actually a little fresher than before."
-- Best utterance heard today. "French would be so much better without the verbs. People don't have to do stuff."
I couldn't agree more.
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Feast of the Hunter's Moon is a local annual event that is a lot of fun despite being quite commercial and over-priced. Today we went for the first time as a family (the kids have gone with school in previous years.) Imagine history buffs (and by "history buffs" I mean, quite honestly, "dorks") all dressed up in period clothing and playing instruments and firing muskets and drinking flagons of ale. Can't really say better than that!
(more photos on Flickr)
Libby invited a friend to come with her. I enjoyed capturing the little moments I noticed in our family today.
Then it was home to enjoy a restful afternoon (for some) or crying over an Excel spreadsheet (for others).
100% inspired by Carolina and her wife Sylvia's amazing creative ideas and game collection, I decided to not just give the kids the new games I had bought them, but make them hunt for them instead. We play a lot of games, but the great thing about the games that Carolina and Sylvia have are that they are games not your everyday games usually found in the store.
I bought Primordial Soup and Chrononauts and whipped up some clues. Hey, I am not an artist. What we had was a great Friday night activity (which was so long ago that if I don't blog about it now, I'm going to forget it entirely.)
The first clue was easy, U for umbrella. The kids searched around the coat closet where we keep the umbrellas and eventually found the second clue, an R with some Scrabble tiles. "Games!" yelled Jesse and raced down to the games cupboard in the basement.
Libby located the next clue, "such," in the kids Scrabble set. You can't really see it in this picture, but each letter is supposed to be made up of recyclable items.
The trouble is, we have about three places around the house were we collect recycling and after exhausting those options the kids ran outside to the "recycling table" outside. (What can I say? I am a hardcore recycler; my family doesn't appreciate it when I make them take their garbage home from the restaurant so that we can recycle it because the restaurant won't. I happen to mention that now because it just happened (again) tonight.)
The next clue "A" showed an apple, which made the kids race to the fruit bowl. (Ignore the bananas. I was cultivating them for banana bread.)
No clue.
They noticed that there was also a little picture of Jacquie there. "Or is it a cat?" they asked. After a few moments Jesse twigged "Apple Jacks!" and off to the cereal cupboard they flew.
The next clue was pretty easy "N+ice". They went to the indoor freezer first, then when they found nothing, the outdoor freezer.
"Person" showed a photo album which they didn't immediately get, more due to my artistic abilities than their intellect. Libby found the clue among some of the family photo albums.
I was talking to Esther on the phone while I was making the clues and I asked "What shall I do for 'to'?"
"You should draw a poo," she said "because that's a number two."
Never let it be said that I ignore good suggestions.
The kids checked the bathrooms and then Jesse suggested the cat's litter tray, which indeed is where the next clue was (although not in it.)
"B" is for bread maker...
and "around" means a globe because globes are round, right?
Good cheap fun. Oh, and of course the clues ended up saying "U R such A Nice Person 2 B Around!"
Libby, just now: Um, Mum? If I promise to bring hand sanitizer for you and me, will you take me to Goodwill?
]]>What have you lost that you wish you could get back?
Submitted by, Witch Hazel
A simple gold/diamond band my sweetheart and I bought together one evening in Amsterdam.
]]>When I look back on these few short years that I have left with my children at home, I'm pretty sure I'm not going to say, "I sure wish I had spent more time with my blog."*
If something has to give (and it does) then it will be this. I still plan to blog, just not as often.
Life is great. School is crazy busy but it turns out that my three education classes are very easy and undemanding. French is, as always, kicking my butt but I have a French tutor three times a week now which will help. My history class on World War II is fascinating and the award-winning professor gives fantastic lectures. My American Lit. class is... a lot of reading.
In between that it's all the usual quotidian things that make family life so chaotic and so much fun.
In the meantime we also have school projects to complete...
nature to contemplate...
skills to master...
t-shirts to design...
history to change with a card game...
and social engagements.
*Besides, facebook is so much more fun to me right now. Of all my facebook friends there's maybe ten people I've never met in real life (and they are all from Vox anyway) and I'm really enjoying catching up with people I've known for years.
]]>Where: The dinner table
When: This evening
Who: Jesse
"Jacques says that he's starting a new business called JacquesMart. He plans to go into small towns all over America and put small local establishments out of business. He plans to buy crap and sell it cheap. He also plans to force his workers to work hours of unpaid over time or they'll be fired."
Looks like someone has been listening to why we won't ever shop at Walmart.
]]>Mere du Lulus had sewn a fantastic skirt for this IKEA sofa table a few years back. It is still beautiful, but I wanted to mix it up a bit and bring in more black and white, so I made this table skirt from a zebra print I really like.
*golden tray courtesy of WELLS...where is wells these days? Maybe I should look on Facebook...
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