I meant to post this weeks ago but it slipped my mind. Lucas made all these cutie pies with modeling clay. Modeling clay is really fun when you’re stuck indoors!
I forget what the critter at the back right is, but the others are a turtle and a bluebird. In the front are a swan, a dolphin, a duck, and a penguin. But you knew that.
Later this month we’ll be attending Love Auction #9 at the Sacramento Waldorf School, the annual fundraiser auction. I’m finishing my handcrafted items to donate by Friday. Here’s a peek:
A birthday bunting (or playroom/bedroom decoration) made from three recycled, thrifted, 100% cotton shirts that my friend, Anne, found and gave to me. I love the variegated fabric; it lends a definite Waldorf, watercolory feel to the bunting. The bunting is three yards long. (I’ve never cut up a garment before to salvage the fabric for another purpose. It felt very strange, but oddly satisfying.)
A birthday crown (or dress-up crown) for a boy or a girl (or a king or queen or wizard or astronomer) made from 70% wool felt and sewed by hand. I started this on the plane to New Jersey a week ago. The nifty thread-cutting pendant my mom let me borrow was very useful! Sewing on the plane was a soothing way to pass some time. I still have to put the elastic on the back of the crown to finish it off.
Last year, my donation was needle-felted gnomes and a fairy and a book of Tiptoes Lightly stories. No idea how to assign a value to these items for the school to use as a starting bid. Suggestions?
Yesterday at about 6:30 Pacific time: I’m finally one of those people on the airplane using a laptop. I’m maybe halfway through my flight now. The flight was delayed two hours and I didn’t leave SF airport until 3:45. My day has been fine, but a little long. It seems like more of this time should be productive, but there is a lot of waiting to move and when I tried to get Internet service in the airport, both Mozilla Firefox and IE said they couldn’t find the network connection. I could see the free public network, connect to it, but couldn’t surf. Frustrating. My boss has been worrying about my traveling today. The taxi company that’s supposed to pick me up at the airport knows my flight has been delayed.
I’m already missing my family. Yes, I’m having a small adventure. Yes, I got to see snow-covered Rockies out my window. That’s wonderful and I wish I was better at enjoying my time alone. It is a strange unease, though. Kind of like maybe I forgot to bring along two arms and a leg on this trip. There won’t be much time for fun or sightseeing, though. I’m working almost all the hours I’m in New Jersey.
I packed a tiny sewing project with me this time. A few pieces of felt, about six pins, needle and embroidery floss. And Mom lent me the niftiest little device—a little thread cutter with no visible (forbidden) blade. It’s a small brass pendant hanging around my neck. Pull a thread through any of the slots around the edge of the pendant and it goes in past the blade and cuts, just like magic! I am wishing I had had more time at home to cut out all the pieces of felt I need because I’ve already sewn the bulk of what I did bring and now I’ve run out of project. The whole thing was well conceived except for its duration. I didn’t bring along my knitting.
Today 8:30 pm Eastern time: I’m exhausted! After I’m done with writing this I’m calling home and then going to sleep. I didn’t get to my hotel until 1:45 am today. Got 4.5 hours of sleep and then hit the ground running for 8 hours of meeting today, plus a dinner. It all went well and I think this could be an awesome project. I’m kind of wishing that in this room full of PhDs and EDDs that I had more than a BA under my belt. This is textbook publishing, so that stuff matters—kind of. Anyway, everyone is warm and friendly and very knowledgeable.
Tomorrow we meet from 8:30 am to 2:30 pm, then head to the airport. I’ll arrive in Sacramento sometime near midnight—if everything goes perfectly and my two flights aren’t delayed. Rain tomorrow here, but snow in Chicago. Keep your fingers crossed for me.
I’ve only seen a teeny-tiny slice of New Jersey, but what I’ve seen is very pretty. Bare, deciduous woods with snow on the ground, punctuated by gorgeous, big homes. No fences, not much yard, just woods. I’m truly grateful to be here and to be doing this. I just miss my family and my husband’s strong arms around me. Tomorrow I will rock it, and then I will make a long trek home.
The day started with blueberry smoothies
and Lego construction of video game hardware
Like Wii and DS
That’s all he needs, really—little Lego devices on which he can pin his imaginary games
The boys left to play at our friends’ house and indulge in a little real Wii Sports
Then for me, some light reading: a fundamentals of nursing textbook
I was lured outside for some photography
Gotta catch these plum blossoms before they’re gone
See the little star?
An unexpected visit from Mom and a cup of coffee
More nursing reading on topics of theories of caring, cultural sensitivity, and the ADPIE nursing process
I jogged through the sunshiny neighborhood to pick up the kids from their play date—oh boy, am I out of shape!
Walking/running home with one son in fast, new white trainers and the other wearing the jumpiest pair of firefighter galoshes you’ve ever seen
Second lunch of meat for Baby Asher Dragon
Lunch of leftover vegetable soup for me
A little planting of primroses, which will probably do fine where we put them until it gets too warm
Finding a worm
Watering plants lead to spraying children who cavorted with great glee and got soaking wet
In February!
High of 65° F
Ahhh!
We met a garden foefriend
Who couldn’t find his way off this plate
Dry clothes for everyone
Then a cuddle and some stories; the children are into playing Monkey and Dragon these days, so we read books with, what else?
Monkeys and dragons
Hug (Thanks, Auntie NoNo and Uncle Mars!)
and—what the hay—a Japanese fairy tale called “Kuzma and the Fox”
Sweet afternoon slumber for the wee one
Lucas and I headed back outdoors for some Winter Olympic Games
Like speed skating, long track
Figure skating
and ice hockey
On the lawn with bare feet!
More work reading
A few moments of “DragonFly TV” and “Fetch with Ruff Ruffman” on PBS Kids for Lucas
Asher wandered out, crawled into my lap and slept on
So sweet
Cuddling sleeping boys is just about the best thing in the world (unless you have to pee)
“Wake up, Asher, or you’ll never sleep tonight!”
A shower for me
Pretend video games for Lucas
Daddy’s home!
Lucas reading Jamberry to Asher!
Just a tad of stream-of-consciousness blogging
Sounds of some kind of Dragon and Monkey game with lots of sound effects and shouting
Soon, dinner and bedtime
Then project prep
More work reading, like the Roy Adaptation Model
G’night
Sleep tight.
It’s teacher in-service week around here, which means my kids have the week off school and daycare. I’m getting help from grandma and some friends here and there, which is great because I have a big meeting to prepare for. Next week I’m flying to New Jersey for two days of meetings. I’m excited and nervous. It’s my longest trip away from my kids ever—three days!
The weather has turned so exquisitely springlike it’s making me feel a little drunk. Crocuses and daffodils are blooming. The quinces in the neighborhood are bursting out coral blossoms. Today I noticed my flowering plum tree has its first blossoms. Hallelujah! I know more rainy, cold weather is ahead. It’s OK. I’m just glorying in our false spring and enjoying the moment. The sun on my face feels spectacular. Yesterday we enjoyed some late afternoon time at our local schoolyard.
Today, Lucas and I left the house in short-sleeved T-shirts. Out of habit and a belief that Asher still doesn’t regulate his own temperature all that well, I made him wear two long-sleeve shirts. At about 1:30 this afternoon he turned to me and stammered something I couldn’t make out. Then he gathered his thoughts and said, quite clearly, “I’m so sweaty!” Oh! Sorry kid. Let’s take off a shirt.
The boys and I visited Great Grandmother RoRo and Great Grandaunt Nana today. It was good to see them, but also strange. My children don’t relate well to Ro at all, which makes me sad because she was such fun when I was a child. These sweet ladies look pretty well and we sat outside in the sunshine together and watched the boys play.
Later at home I gave the kids haircuts. Asher really hates this procedure. He cries and says I’m hurting him, and freaks out whenever the shorn hairs touch his skin. To get him to stay in the chair so I could do the job, I had to give him a Valentine chocolate cut into four pieces. It took a lot of patience on both our parts, but we ended up with an OK cut.
This is one of Lucas’s shots from yesterday evening. I like the color.
Life is good. We are fine. Hope you are too!
Grandma visited today with Valentine’s presents for the boys. When they saw these lollipops, their eyes became wide as (heart-shaped) saucers! We love you, VoVo!
Sometime last year I found a project on the Great and Glorious Internet for making crayon heart Valentines and I saved it up for months. I really looked forward to actually doing this with Lucas! Last year, our Valentines for Lucas’s classmates were wonderful and handmade. They also took days and days of concentrated effort, which was (in hindsight) more than Lucas really was ready for at 6.5 years old. I wanted to do something easier this year, and this project turned out to be perfect for three reasons: 1) we used up years’ worth of crayon stubs; 2) they truly are beautiful and useful treasures; and 3) I invested in a groovy Wilton mini heart muffin pan that I can use for all kinds of goodies, not just crayons!
Before. We stripped the crayon stubs of their paper and *gasp* broke crayons into smaller pieces on purpose.
We filled up my groovy new silicone baking pan (safe up to 500° F), set it atop another cookie sheet covered with a sheet of aluminum foil (just in case), and popped it in the oven for 20 minutes at 250° F. We found the crayons (of mixed brands and qualities) melted at different rates. It took 20 minutes for them all to melt. We removed the pan and let the melted hearts cool. When they were completely cool, they easily popped out of the silicone shapes. You can actually turn the heart inside out and the crayon comes out perfect and unmarred.
After. Here are the first two batches, which we actually finished in January. Aren’t they lovely? We made 36 of these gorgeous multicolored crayon hearts—more than a class set.
We found the pigment sank to the bottom (the top in this picture). The paraffin wax of the crayons was less dense than the pigment and it floated to the top (or bottom in the photo). They have an interesting stripy effect when viewed from the side, no? The paraffin side of our hearts doesn’t color all that well, but we take comfort in knowing it will be useful for magical watercolor paintings. A child can draw with the clearish wax, then watercolor over the wax drawing for a batik result. Anyway, I’m really curious whether we’d get a better result that colors on both sides if we used higher quality crayons.
Here are Lucas’s finished Valentines 2010, wrapped, signed, and ready to go for Friday’s exchange at school. I hope the children like them. I think they will be a hit!
I made another thing—one that you can hold in your hand. Before, it wasn’t there. Then I made it and now it is! This making stuff is quite miraculous to me still.
Ever since I read Amanda Soule’s book The Creative Family, I had it stuck in my head that I wanted to make Asher a birthday crown. I tried talking myself out of doing it a dozen times—after all, Asher’s really picky about what he’ll wear on his body and we have had more than enough fights tantrums disagreements over clothing during the past six months. Honestly, I thought he would never wear a birthday crown, and I try hard not to set myself up for disappointments of the kind that might come with hand-sewing a special gift for the birthday boy to wear and then finding that he won’t wear it.
But, two days before Asher’s birthday, I still couldn’t stop thinking about making him a crown. And so I started. I had the felt at home already.
I drew several designs before settling on flying birds. Then I noodled around with the birds till I liked their arrangement. I dragged the kids to the fabric store to find the right kind of stars and some pretty thread.
And I worked diligently with my rainbow stitches. And Lucas helped with some, but not many because Mama is a control freak.
I used silver thread to make the stars sparkle. And the Gingher embroidery scissors my boys bought me for Christmas sure came in handy!
I made the inside lining green like the leaves, hand-sewed the two pieces together, and attached the elastic to the back. And I finished in time.
And Asher wore it! I’m so proud of this! This photo is one I took the day after his birthday party because I wasn’t satisfied with my shots from the party—he just wouldn’t sit still that day! Doesn’t he look regal?
(Lucas wants a crown for his birthday, too.)
I guess now I pack the crown away to use again on his next birthday, but I kind of hate to do that. I think I have to for it to be a special, though. What would you do?
