Boo!

I think I liked it better when Mom bought costumes for me instead of going through Dad's closet. This year for Halloween, I'm supposed to be "Dad".
But don't you think I look more like "Gangsta Dad"! Sure it's his shirt, his hat and his boxers but - - look! My pants are hangin' way below my butt. My hat won't stay on.

And I know Dad - he would NEVER go out with his tail sticking out the hole in his boxers. But if this is what Mom wants, and there are cookies in it for me, I'm all in.

And while I suffer this humiliation, look who saunters in to show his disdain. Oh well, at least it's not the the little black kitty. Everyone knows you don't want to get the stink eye from the little black kitty on Halloween. It's bad luck.

"Heh! "Dog in Drag!" I'm ready for Halloween just sitting here! With my stink eye of course!

Happy Halloween from all the WTT animals!

Open Letter

Dear Large Clothing Retailer Geared Toward the Pre-to-Teenage Kid Market:

I have a daughter who is 11 12 years old. I have been shopping in your stores now for 4 years. Your overpowering perfume and loud music no longer have any effect on me. I am immune to them.
This however, will be the death of me. Please tell the former NASA rocket scientist who designed your boxes that they are impossible to put together with the two hands which I was given at birth.
They might also like to know that a simple scored line along the edge of the box does not really constitute "directions" in that I still don't have a clue as to how to turn this cardboard flap this into a box.

Putting more little designs inside the box-to-be further frustrates the issue. I hope by now you are getting my point, Mr. or Mrs. To Whom it May Concern.If, by chance, you can get close to something that resembles a box, trust me, brute force becomes necessary to jam this baby into box-like submission. And then a whole new set of problems present themselves.Your one-size-fits-all box makes the "little something" I picked up for my precious daughter's birthday look pretty lonely, all by itself in that big box. Yes, I am aware that this is your grand plan. You know that we mom's will just go back and get more stuff to fill out that box. Well, I'm here to tell you, Mr. or Mrs. To Whom it May Concern, I am not about to waste that precious box space!

Or the space in the next box that the first box filling up so quickly created!
Lastly, would it have been so hard to make your boxes the size that regular wrapping paper would cover. You are off by about a smidge and that my friends, is VERY wasteful.

In short, Large Clothing Retailer Geared Toward the Pre-to-Teenage Kid Market:

You are bad box people!

See you at Christmas!
Love,
Kathryn's Mom

12

Yep - another year has gone by and it's time once again to join me in wishing good cheer and a very happy birthday to the best daughter a girl could ever ask for.

Tradition holds that dad takes a "wake-up" shot first thing in the morning. She used to hold up her fingers to show us how old she was. That has become difficult these last two birthdays.

Every year's birthday shot is posted on the pantry door on her birthday. For one whole week I stare at these photos and cry. . . for the child she was . . .

. . . and for the beautiful young lady she is becoming.

Happy Birthday Kathryn!

You are the one true, perfect thing in the world and I love you T & B.

Love, Mom.

U

. . . is for Uniform.

Gone are the days of hand-made princess costumes for Halloween. Costuming the pre-teen girl brings a whole new level of angst for which I was ill-prepared. Seeing as I would not allow her to go to the 6th grade Halloween party at a classmate's home dressed as a bum (no creativity whatsoever) she was left to her own devices. When I failed her, she turned to Dad. He called from Target on Thursday night while they were shopping for "the costume" (the party was Friday night!) and asked if he could just leave her there. U is also for unflappable - her, not him. I had told her: "No ideas - no trips to Target!" He had not made such an announcement.

With an idea in her head, she dragged him through the aisles until he figured out what the plan was: white shirt, athletic pants, black tape, whistle. And then dad took ever. Measuring each and every line, cutting each piece of tape, placing them just so. So that every stripe was . . .

. . . U is for Uniform.

Finished Friday

Somehow I've managed to finish two little projects, both of which will come in quite handy this weekend as the temperatures drop down into the 30s for daytime highs!


Cap'n Crunch was finished well over a week ago. Buttons were purchased but it took until this morning to weave in the ends and attach said buttons. I think I love the buttons almost as much as the warmer!
Also whipped up and finished is Morning Surf Scarf. And this has me giddy as it is made with my own hand spun yarn. I searched through lace pattern books forever and just couldn't find anything that made it feel the way I wanted it too. But this simple and easy to remember pattern was just perfect for the merino / silk blend.
And in three short nights, I had a lovely little scarf to wrap around one's neck (it may still be a gift - although now I'm feeling sort of keepy!!) See how nice it looks on my neck!! I think I might be in love with little bitty scarves!

Really Random

Just a couple of little things on my mind today:

I got called to substitute for the music teacher (out with laryngitis) at school on Tuesday. Great, I thought, I LOVE music. I can sing and be happy all day with the kids. Wrong. Apparently, when you substitute in music, you have the kids watch videos. Which begs the question, if all you have is laryngitis, can't you just press the play button?

What do the items in this picture have in common? Give up? 7th graders. I've been spending time reinforcing the bindings on all the new books for our Middle School curriculum. What happened to hard backed books?I'm always a little nervous when this t-shirt gets to the top of the PJ rotation. It bothers me for a couple of reasons. Why wasn't he chosen for Team 1? What kind of "teams" are we talking about here? Are the members of Team 1 still out there - looking for Team 2 people? Am I safe here - sleeping with a Team 2 member? What does this mean for Kathryn? Maybe I should just do some laundry today.This is the equivalent of "stash-diving" for dogs. She went looking for "just the right something" and in the process had to take almost everything out of the bone box. She chewed each one for about a minute then went looking for something else. Finally, she settled on "Genie in a Bottle".

"Mom, just put the rest of these in my Bone-ery queue!"

Make Up Spinning

"Pssssst. Hey, over here." "Behind the yoga ball thing. And the stool with the sheep on it. Can you see me?"
"Remember me? Before you got real busy and shoved me in this corner, we used to hang out for about ten minutes every day. I miss you!"
"Yeah - I know. We had some problems with the stuff with the tencil in it. But, that's why we have more bobbins isn't it? Can't we look around in the stash buckets for something that might be easier to work with and try getting back together again?" "Look - look what the sheep found! Some alpaca! We love alpaca! I heard alpaca is really easy. And soft. You love soft!""And look at those colors. You know you love those colors. C'mon. It'll be great! I promise."

Piles

As soon as she was up, it was clear she had a plan. Out the door and into the front yard she flew. Rake in hand . . . . . . and supervisor at the ready. Being an only child, and living where we do, there aren't any other kids around to jump in the leaf pile after a couple hours of work.

But, Holli, she'll stay until she's released. And suffer through all the piling on of leaves that other kids normally wouldn't put up with!

Yeah - it was a good day off.
A damn fine good day off! I just can't bare to tell Kathryn that we have a leaf blower and that the pile actually makes it much harder for Jon to blow the leaves. And for God's sake - don't any of you tell her either. It'll wreck the whole day!

Two Days

Here in Minnesota, after a whopping 6 weeks of school, 31 days to be precise, the teachers have two days off to attend the MEA (Minnesota Education Association) Conference. I have never met a teacher who actually attends this conference but I'm sure it's a fine thing - if that's your deal. Most years I'm fairly vocal about these two wasted days of learning time. But this year I find that I need them. I'm still recovering from the weekend and I find that the extra time I'm volunteering at school is taking it's toll on me in other ways.It's a beautiful, crisp, clear fall day so I feel as if we should embrace it and do beautiful, crisp, clear, fall day-like things. I'm up and ready to go.

And so is companion number 1. In fact, she has been in and out four times already. She knows something is afoot today.Oops. I'm just going to guess that companion number 2 might have needed a little bit more notice than 10 minutes. Learning (and late night TV watching) is taking its toll on her as well. Not to worry - we have tomorrow off as well!

T

. . . is for tresses.

While "tresses" generally refers to long locks or curls of hair, when I've missed two appointments with my hairdresser, that's how my hair starts to feel to me. Long. And in the way. Of everything.

After two missed appointments, the tresses can also start to look like an experiment in dyeing self-striping yarn. And you all thought these tresses were naturally bright and blond. My tresses are both my favorite and least favorite feature. While they require a lot of maintenance, mostly because they are short and can't just be thrown back in a ponytail, with one trip to the salon (and a tidy sum!!) all is better with the world.

Or at least I can see it better!

T is for tresses.

One More Timing

Here in the Upper Midwest we take weather watching to a new level. A few weeks ago when the daytime temperatures dipped into the 50's and I began sleeping at night with hooded sweatshirts AND my bathrobe, I began to worry about Oktoberfest and how cold it might be. I knew I had my feet covered, in spades. Hands would be no problem either. But I'm not warm unless my neck is warm. I have scarves but, those will just get in the way of thinks like the Duck Pond and Water Wars and Cotton Candy and Prezels. So in between ticket packeting and 8 gozillion other things, I began this little knitting project:

Cap'n Crunch in a "matchy-matchy to my jacket" shade of green Malabrigo. I've gotten this far in just two evenings of late-night knitting. That includes one morning of chasing it up and down the steps in a game of "Catch Me if You Can" with Sammy!

I expect to have this done tonight or tomorrow night and to have it warming my neck all day on Saturday. And won't it look lovely and feel lovely against my skin?

When it's 75 and sunny? I'm so lucky!

More on Timing

Our Oktoberfest is this coming weekend and everyone is working feverishly to pull things together for a fun and successful fundraiser for the school and parish.. There's just so much to do. Some people are busy dotting the "i"s and crossing the "t"s.

Some people have been sent off in search of the elusive "t"s. Others of us, not in charge of spelling, have been tasked with the responsibility for bundling tickets into little packets of ten.

Ten is a good number when you're selling and when you're buying the tickets ...

25 rolls of 3000 tickets is not such a good number when you're the ticket packager. But because time is of the essence, I've hired some good, cheap help.

"I can haz a prezel wit cheez for how meny tiketz?"

Blessings

My timing is just so off these days. For instance, this post was in my head and ready to be worked on bright and early Monday morning. As was my hair - ready to be worked on later on Monday morning. Instead here it is Tuesday morning (when I have WAY less time) all because I answered the phone on Sunday night and accepted an opportunity to sub for the 3rd grade teacher. I can barely think straight I'm still so tired and I look like the long-lost, half-blond Beatle - but here I am. On with the story.

This past Saturday was the Feast Day of St. Francis. You probably don't even have to be catholic to know that Francis is the patron saint of the animals. Like many churches, we have a Blessing of the Animals to celebrate St. Francis' day.

They animals all bring their owners and stand quietly awaiting further instruction.

This Golden (not Holli!) needed to be reminded several times to ignore the camera and pay attention to the man up front.

Holli, having run a 5k race earlier in the morning, was very obedient. Mostly she was laughing at the fact that the kitties had to be in their cages.

Ah - but not for the actual blessing rite. We wanted to make sure both kitties got a good dose of Holy Water. In fact, we asked for an extra helping for Sammy.

OK - truth be told, we asked for an exorcism for Sammy but that request may have to be taken up to a higher level.

"CSI: Deephaven" Dog!.

This little guy never met a camera he didn't like. He followed me around everywhere and when the camera came up, he sat down and posed. I almost stole him. Then I remembered the whole church thing.

"Thanks for bringing me here mom. I feel all goodness and light inside."