Creative Friday, and then not

A week and a half ago, we celebrated the return of Creative Friday, complete with day clothes and makeup! It felt so very good to be well again and game for our usual get-together.

Jill was kind enough to bring lunch from Taco Amigo, though, as I was still off my cooking/hostessing game. (I love bean tostadas! Why do I never make these?)

The number of hot sauces they gave Jill with her order – despite her polite refusal of any such sauces – totally cracked me up.

The boys were very obliging by playing outside and downstairs, but Eva was lonely and therefore our companion for quite some time. (Again with the hanging out in her swimsuit!) She made Jill a drawing of 7 dinosaurs to give to Whitney.

I cut some roses to bring inside. It's the one time of year when I actually have flowers in my yard for cutting and it brings me great pleasure. And as Jill said, it's aromatherapy.

These photo trimmings represent a lot of work and just make me happy. The only way they could be improved upon would be if the tiny slices were curling tendrils...

I got an action shot of Jill working her Mod Podge magic with a mini composition book. She claims she has no skills, but I beg to differ.

I enjoy these pages of notes where Jill keeps a record of her correspondence sent. That's a whole lot of cards and letters!

She made up all of these photo cards with pictures from our impromptu rainy day photo shoot. They were kind of killing me with their greatness.

Still, I managed to assemble 18 packs of cards to send as blogger birthday gifts, so I was feeling pretty great about that as well.

Right before she left, Jill showed me the pathetic state of her left heel! It's so cracked and calloused she had to cover it with duct tape. What the? The strange thing is that her right heel is normal. I feel obliged to discover a miracle cure for that heel. (I'll let you know if I come up with anything.)

Sadly, last Friday Jill was sick, so we only had one week of good health all around. (She sounded really awful and I feared she was going to come down with something involving long-term incapacitation like what I just got over, but I should have known better. That doesn't happen to her!)

I picked up her kids so they could play here and she could rest in peace.

The boys played basketball, board games, Guitar Hero, and generally entertained themselves, as usual. Whitney played with Eva in her room, and then they all went outside to play capture the flag. It ended up being a gift to me that Landon and Whitney were here entertaining my kids!

I was so delightfully unneeded that I decided to have my own Creative Friday anyway. It wasn't the same without Jill, of course, but I did manage to be quite productive without all the usual kid interruptions and sent out 10 belated birthday packages! Oh happy day.

miscellaneous musings

• Why do so many contestants on American Idol forget the lyrics to their songs? I know they're nervous. I know a lot of them are young. But come on, they practice for hours and hours, and they only need to remember a portion of a song. Some of them have great voices and then they're disqualified for forgetting their words. It's sad, really.

• Eva drew a picture and named it Pridiculous Shadow. And now we can't stop saying that.

• I am really good at procrastination. Really good. I have been meaning to take Max to an orthodontist for almost two years... (I'm not proud of it.)
  

• Lately, whenever I am sitting up very straight, I can feel the vertebrae in my spine aligning, almost like they are clicking into place. I can't say that I've ever been aware of my vertebrae before. It's disconcerting.

• Eva informed us recently that "you can't have a family without a pet!" Although I knew her Aunt Jessie would be proud, I just cannot concur.

• Why do fevers, earaches, vomiting, etc. so often have a sudden onset in the middle of the night?

• I really think I might be a hermit, if such a thing is possible in a warm cozy house instead of a remote, chilly cave. Last Sunday at church, a neighbor approached me about doing family search indexing. I've never really had a desire to do family history work, but I'm game for just about anything, if it doesn't require me to leave the house. Do you think I have a problem?

spt -- welcome home

At our house, everyone uses the front door. You'd have to go through the gate and up the stairs to the deck to use the back door, and for a few months now, something strange has been going on with the sliding glass door so that you can't open it from the outside... Because of our dumb split-level floor plan, there would be no point in coming in through the garage, that would just land you in our chilly basement.

So, the front door it is. It needs a fresh coat of paint, it is flanked by ugly old textured glass, but at least it has spring flowers on it now! I finally got the flowers out today, thanks to Lelly's challenge.


Home, sweet home. Most of the time, there's nowhere I'd rather be. If only all my friends and family could come socialize with me here, ah... that would be heaven indeed. (Yeah, I'm bordering on hermitage these days.)

Christmas timeline

No, I'm not planning already for next Christmas. (well, I guess in a way I am...)

After Christmas, I started working on this timeline for the 2008 Christmas season. Christmas 2007 was an enormous improvement for me over Christmas 2006 (the worst ever), but I still felt like there were things I would like to change, ways I can do it better next time. Because my memory is notoriously bad, I knew I had to make a record of my intentions, and thus the Christmas timeline was born.

I am keeping it in the Christmas book that Collette made and gave to us at a book club in the Fall, so very useful. But just in case I misplace it, I am recording it here as well.

Here's the plan:

beginning of October:

-- decide on handmade gifts (although sooner would be even better!)

end of October:

-- start shopping

beginning of November:

-- start making handmade gifts (again, sooner would be even better)

mid-November:

-- make book club gifts
-- decide on Christmas card photo plan

end of November:

-- take Christmas card photo!
-- prepare advent calendar (possibly make new one)

December:

-- first Family Home Evening of the month -- discuss how we can help someone during the holiday season and make plans

-- make cards (or buy, it's better than not sending them like I did this year...)

-- finish, wrap, and ship gifts to family by the 12th

-- send cards

-- finish shopping by the 18th so there is plenty of time for relaxing!

Obviously, I haven't planned out every detail, but I'm hoping that if I stick to this timeline I will have an even less stressful, more enjoyable holiday season this year. (fingers crossed)

** Does anyone else need to give themselves instructions on how to enjoy Christmastime??**

tagged by angie & annalisa

OK, I had to think awhile about 6 unusual things about me. I thought I had pretty much covered it in my 100 list, but once the ideas started coming, of course I had more than 6!

1. I am a hair twister, and have been for as long as I can remember. My mom tried to stop me when I was little, but to no avail. I enjoy twirling it, and I also tie it in knots. Sometimes a tiny knot will form that I can't undo, so I pull it out, with a few strands of hair attached. Then I twist THAT hair into knots. Sometimes at night I twirl little sections all over my head until they twist up into what my kids call my antennae. Yeah, pretty weird.

2. One of my pet peeves is open cupboards, drawers, closets, etc. I can't stand it! Too bad Marc doesn't share my passion for closing everything. He opens a cupboard to get out a glass and leaves it ajar, leaves the drawer open after putting toothpaste on his toothbrush...

3. I don't really have a problem with spiders, which is good news, since we occasionally have black widows in our basement! (I found out it's because our neighborhood used to be an orchard, which black widows love.) But I absolutely detest earwigs and "-pedes" of all kinds.

4. I sucked my thumb for a VERY long time. (My mom tried to get me to quit that too.) Marc came home from his movie group the other night and told me I was curled up in bed sucking my thumb! So embarrassing...

5. I love singing. It's one of my most favorite things in life. Yet, I rarely sing anymore. My mother is a wonderful singer and I used to wonder why she never really sang anymore, I thought it was so sad. Now I'm in the same boat, and I'm not really sure why except that I don't have a lot of opportunities anymore. (That doesn't explain why I don't even sing in the shower now, though!)

6. I hardly ever feel afraid. When our book club got together the other night, we talked a little about this, and it's been on my mind ever since. It's a happy discovery for me, since I was plagued with recurring nightmares growing up and used to be terrified of fire. I was also terrified of being kidnapped. I once woke up in the night (I was about 11 or 12) and saw something on the screen of my window. I was convinced it was a burglar's hand in a baseball glove. I laid there, too scared to move, for a long time. Then I finally decided I was going to get up and confront that damn glove, only to discover it was a cat! (My bedroom was on the second floor, so that possibility never entered my mind.) I was absolutely furious and pushed the cat off. Now the only time I ever really feel afraid is when I am somewhere high and there is a chance of falling -- driving up a mountain canyon with a big drop-off definitely scares me.

Sorry, but I had to add a number 7!

7. I have one brother and one sister. We are spaced 6 and 4 years apart. I didn't really enjoy that growing up because I didn't have much of a relationship with them until we were much older. I swore I would not have similar spacing in my own children. In fact, it was almost a phobia with me. So what happened? Max and Lucas are 4 years apart. Lucas and Eva are 6 years apart. You just never know.

I'm working on a separate post about things that make me happy!