i got nothin'.

well, i got somethin'. but it ain't much today.

seems there's a million and one posts stuck in my head, and i think... "after i feed the cat. after i walk the dog. after i work for an hour. after i make dinner." then it somehow never happens.

blake is singing "you give love a bad name" on bon jovi night on american idol in the background, and somehow beatboxing just doesn't mix with 80's big hair rock.

anyhow, i'll offer you a piece of s art. she's budding into quite the little designer these days! here's the process on this one:

she's OBSESSED with pets. dogs and cats particularly, and ads or catalog photos of these pets make her screech at a decibel only HEARD by most pets. she cuts out these photos and usually adds them to her animal collage, which i will need to feature in another post as i don't have a photo of it and the camera's dead.

this particular kitty pic must have struck her fancy for she chose to make a puppet of it instead. first we tried a paper bag puppet, but it just wasn't happenin'. then we decided a stick puppet would be better, so we stuck the kitty head on a popsicle stick. it wasn't quite enough detail for my kindergartener, so she broke apart other sticks to make arms and legs. the stick-tail inexplicably got stuck to the FRONT of the cat, making it look a bit more like another kind of appendage, but i'll let that go. she added the cute little a-line dress and a picture drawn by the kitty herself in the hand and VOILA! instant stick puppet.

cute, huh?

deterioration

monday was a teacher workday, so the kids had a vacation day from school. yahooo! it was SO enthralling that they each came up with their dream for the day.



s's dream was to have her face painted like the one in our face painting book entitled "japanese doll." we did her hair in flowers and bows, and altogether i think it turned out pretty cute.

h's desire was to go to the "wooden park"... a big park with a wooden playstructure that we hadn't been to in a long time. the upshot was that we had to pack a picnic lunch also. done! what a fantastic idea for such a lovely 70 degree and sunny day. they bounced...
they pretended...
then they swang...

...ran, rolled, climbed and got red-faced and exhausted. we ate our picnic lunch of peanut butter sandwiches...

and by this time, with all the activity and fun, s's look had deteriorated to this...


she looked like she had mascara running down her face and was completely bedraggled and happy.

it was a good day.

bag lady

here are the bags i've been working on, initially for teacher gifts, but the project evolved. last week my folks and i went to grandaddy's antiques mall which houses uncles billy's (i think) fabric depot in burlington. this place is the size of a large walmart, stuffed back to front, floor to ceiling and side to side with antiques and bolts of upholstery fabric on rolls.

the sheer quantity of textiles made my head spin at first, and i thought that no way in a million years would i be able to accomplish the handmade bags task for teacher gifts. that is, until i ran across the remnants section. here is where they take the bolt ends and clearance all of them out for $3 a yard. i happily mixed, matched and sorted, then marched out of there with more fabric than i could ever use for $130.

through my invalidism (is that a word?) i cut through almost all the fabric... making it into a standard bag pattern. they are roughly 9" wide X12" tall X 3" deep. just the other day i started mixing up the colors and sewing entire bags. since i did all the prep work first, the assembly went rather quickly... maybe 45 minutes.

as you can see, i've finished 4, and have 3 ready for assembly. and enough cut fabric to make maybe 40 total bags! they are all fully reversible to another matching pattern on the other side. hopefully the teachers and a zillion other people will be happy to get one of these puppies. i feel like a factory!

hey! i'm not dead (yet) but i am struggling to overcome a sinus infection turned bronchitis. mom and dad are here, babying the hexk out of me so i can actually take the time to BE sick. they're taking care of the house, the kids, the cooking and the cleaning. i have rarely been so spoiled. meanwhile, i'm taking the down time to work on teacher gifts (handmade bags!) for christmas. looks like i've gotten in over my head, as usual, and quite possibly everyone i know will be getting a homemade bag. i'll post some photos when i've got time. i broke my last sewing machine needle an hour ago, so it's forcing me to think of another sit-down task... reading!

i'm doing the "from the stacks" reading challenge... 5 books that are sitting around just waiting to be read. i chose:

the inheritance of loss by kiran desai
the reader by bernhard schlink
the death of vishnu by manil suri
a sky so close by betool khedairi
balzac and the little chinese seamstress by dai sijie

i have to finish by january 30, so i chose relatively short books. i'll let you know how it goes, as it goes. first up is "inheritance" as i am tandem reading it with lotus. we're sure to have a spirited discussion of it over at her site soon, so check it out.

tomorrow is yet another field trip, this time with the second graders to see a production of "the wizard of oz" in greensboro. hopefully i won't hack up a lung in the middle of the performance! i'll take along an extra dose of delsym, just in case.

promise to be back to myself soon, just bear with me.