Wah! Now I have the darn cold that's laid my family low for the past week. Wasn't I just complaining about being sick last month? No fair! My oldest is the only one who has remained unscathed, she's practically been locking herself away in her room to keep away from the germs. I can't do that, can I? I knew I would catch it anyway, my 4 year old is always touching my face and mouth and eyes all the time when I lay with him at bedtime.

I made the ATCs above this afternoon, just for the heck of it. I have some collage sheets with vintage images on them and I just love them. It's a gorgeous sunny day today, I must get outside with the kids to forget about my sore throat and stuffy nose.

Look, it's Clocky!

The alarm clock that runs away and hides when you don't wake up. Clocky gives you one chance to get up. But if you snooze, Clocky will jump off of your nightstand and wheel around your room looking for a place to hide. Clocky is kind of like a misbehaving pet, only he will get up at the right time.

No stock in the company, I just think it's funny and perfect for me, the one who is impossible to wake in the morning.

It's spring, it's raining, I have 2 sick kids in the house! oooh, thunder and lightning! cool!

Well, the vomits are over but the sore throat, coughing and runny noses remain and that would be ok if not for the fact that the girls and I had some really fun plans this weekend that we now probably should cancel due to illness. I am so bummed!
We were going to go up north to my parent's cottage with 3 of my friends and their daughters for a Mom and Daughter weekend, we have been looking forward to this for months. Damn germs, I really hope we'll be able to reschedule.

Argh, I let myself get behind on a bunch of Swap-Bot swaps and I'm paying the price with bad ratings! I'm mortified, I'm usually a relatively conscientious swapper and I hate seeing those bad ratings in my profile. So I've been diligently working on them all week and feeling guilty everytime I get a cool swap in the mail. I'm almost caught up and have vowed to not join anymore swaps until I've finished everything.

Still have these to go:

1. Dragonfly ATCs make 3 for 3
2. Dollar Store Easter Swap
3. Altered Vintage Tin (this is way late!)
4. Photo Scavenger Hunt
5. Latin Matchbox Shrines 1 for 3
6. I Love Paris ATCs
7. Cute Socks and a Card

I know, I've got to get out of here and back to work!

BTW, the first ice show performance went very well last night. My girl looked so poised and confident out there. She says she wants to join the figure skating club and the sychronized skating teams now, oh boy. :-)

The biggest girl has her ice show this weekend. They are having 4 shows this year! Rehearsals have been going on since early March. Tonight is the 4 and 1/2 hour dress rehearsal, oh jeez, she is going to be so whipped. I think I'll let her go into school late tomorrow so she can sleep in a little bit.

Needless to say, this week has been rather boring, just driving back and forth to the ice rink. My parents have been great about watching the other kiddos while we're at the rink. Back in the old days (3 years ago), the ice shows weren't nearly such a big deal, the kids all wore black pants and sweathsirts and that was that. Now they are huge productions with props, curtains, fancy costumes and lighting. I think the kids like it better and it does make for a more interesting show but I've been writing checks like crazy since January.

I am way behind on a bunch of ATC swaps, I was trying to catch up last night and David was watching me slave away and he said I was running an ATC sweatshop. I was trying to crank them out as fast as I could, I hope my partners like them even though they weren't the best work I've ever done.

What does it mean when you dream Eddie Vedder comes to your house distraught because you told him his best friend Giavonni Ribisi has been murdered and you have seen evidence of it online? Then you continually try to log onto IMDB to show him and you cannot get to it no matter how hard you try. All the while poor Eddie is about to collapse from dread. Then you are in the street with your husband who is holding the plug in your stupid iBook cos it won't work unless plugged in. Real handy for a laptop. Giovanni Ribisi? WTF?

Then you and your husband are in the streets of Seattle (not San Francisco) being chased by drug dealers because you accidentally messed up their client list. Um, yeah.....

There is much, much more but I won't bore you with the rest, it involves rain drenched fanzines in alleys, vodka on the rocks and Eddie Vedder again.

I sometimes have these epic dreams and they freak me out with their realism.

Speaking of epics, Lydia and I were home alone last night and we watched The Godfather together. She sat through the whole thing, I think she liked it. It is one of my faves, of course. I made her close her eyes during some of the more gory parts, she hates blood. Needless to say, she didn't watch the horse head in the bed scene.

My new work area, I am so happy that I *finally* have one area where I can store my tons of supplies and work on my many crafty pursuits. The taple top and shelves it rests on are from Ikea as is the groovy green storage cart (on wheels) and the stool. Note that they both conveniently fit under the table when not in use.

Our house was built in 1929, a bungalow of sorts with an unfinished attic when we bought it. My husband finished the attic and we cut out part of it to have a loft area and get more light into the house. This left the upstairs as one big room and we have slowly been turning it into a more functional living space. We're gettin' there. :-)

The last pic is one the little man took, I was instructed to "look like a goofball".

Here are my cards for the Fabric ATCs swap, I used wool felt and felted the pieces on with wool yarn.

Today is Thursday and I think I'll take K to the indoor soccer field again to play, he really needs to let off some steam as evidenced by the antics I mentioned in my previous post. Crazy kid.

5 reasons why you should never fall asleep with a 4 year old around.

1. Lemons and knives are not a good mix (no blood was spilled thankfully, just lots of juice and pulp)

2. A whole bottle of glue on your brand new Ikea tabletop mixed with paper towels (well, he did try to clean it up)

3. Glue marks on your brand new Ikea footstools (yes, I went on a spree)

4. Blue Tortilla chips imbedded in rug

5. The 'fridge door left open for at least an hour

Yes, I know, I should not have taken a nap, I learned my lesson.

It's winter break here at our house this week and we've done a whole lotta nuthin' and no one seems to care. We went to Kai's play group yesterday and off to Border's so Lydia could use her giftcard, I love shopping at bookstores but it's not as enjoyable with 3 kids who only want to look in the children's section and that other problem of being broke and not being able to buy anything anyway.

Tess had her best friend over today, she spent the night last night. She is really a sweet litttle girl and they've been having a lot of fun together. Lydia is having her best bud over tonight for a sleep over, they will inevitably end up in her room with the door closed all night. You know how those tweens need their privacy.

We had a bunch of friends and their families over for a fondue party last Saturday, there were 10 kids and 8 adults and 4 fondue pots. We had 2 cheeses, one hot oil and one chocolate. yes, it was delicious and fun. The thing that got to me was the older kids, 3 girls and 1 boy, all 11 or 12 years old and I've known all of them since they were babies. One of them being my own 12 year old daughter, of course. It's such a bittersweet time, they are still kids that like to play and goof around but at one point they were all in Lydia's room just talking for over an hour. Just talking.....oh, to be a fly on the wall in that room.

Wah, I have a crummy cold and I'm so struffed up I can barely hear out of my ears. Yucko, it is no fun to have a cold when it's below freezing outside. I have been in an ATC mood. Quite contrasting ones at that. The one with the cicada image is for a Haiku ATC swap, the other set was for a Sideshow Freaks and Geeks swap. Anyone ever see this creepy movie from the 1930s?
*shudder*

The Haiku goes on the back:

In the cicada's cry
No sign can foretell
How soon it must die.

-Matsuo Basho

More ATCs, these were for a No Glue ATC swap. I like sewing on the cards, it's fun.

Kai and I are off to Target, then Jo-Ann's and the post office. Very exciting, right? I have an idea for some No Paper ATCs I need to make and I have to buy a felting needle. Have a great day!

Cutesy alert! I made these ATCs for a We Love Hello Kitty swap at Swap-Bot. I know, you either love her or hate her. The girls and I fall into the first camp.

So instead of just doing whites sorting all day on my husband's birthday, we went to Ikea where he exchanged a defective transformer and I took Kai and Tess to the cafeteria for a snack. Good thing I did because after that we decided to go out for Indian food and of course, the Boy child would not eat anything there. So the not so healthy PB&J Uncrustable he ate at Ikea turned out to be his dinner. Mine and David's on the other hand was delish, Vegetable Pakora, Samosas, Channa Masala, Onion Kulcha, Naan, Vegetable Biryani and Chicken Tikki Masala. Oh so good. I was disappointed in the side of pickle, but you can't have everything, I guess.

Birthday presents for Daddy.
The girls got out their polymer clay and made these adorable creations for their daddy. The 8 year old made the two bears and giant birthday cake tableau and the 12 year old made the bear with neck tie and cute little 'Happy B-day' sign.
Hee, hee, don't look too closely or you'll see some fuzz attached.

Happy birthday to my dear husband! We are the same age now until my birthday in July. Birthdays sure do change as you have children and get older. As he left with Lydia to take her to ice skating lessons, he told me what he really wanted for his birthday.
Was it a nice dinner out? A new power tool? A night at the movies?

Nope.

The poor guy said he really wanted for us to sort through the whites wash and get all the socks paired up.
Pathetic, no? What have we become? LOL

Yes, I am a dork.
I just got this in the mail today and boy, am I excited! I am a total Columbo/Peter Falk fangirl. I own seasons 1-5 and now 6 & 7 on DVD and I watch at least one episode a week. I can quote episodes, I know how many times Jack Cassidy played the killer (that would be 3), which episode starred Martin Sheen as the murder victim (that would be Lovely But Lethal).

I am a complete and total Columbo nerd and I'm not ashamed to admit it. Should I be?

I've always wanted to make microscope slide pendants, here is a sample of my first few tries. I need more practice with the putting on the silver foil tape. Some people use solder to hold the pieces of glass together but I don't mind the look of the tape. I made the group of 3 last night and Lydia did the one with the giraffe. They are really fun and I will definitely make more soon.

I somehow ended up with a subscription to Body & Soul magazine, I think I got it from a freebie site. All I know is that I never paid for it. Anyway, I was reading an article about an American woman who married a Swedish man and now they live on some Scandinavian island with their twins. She wrote a book about Scandinavians and their relationship with the outdoors. The article said that instad of nesting and hibernating in the cold weather months, that we should embrace the change of seasons and go out into the cold and experience winter to the fullest.

Well, my first reaction to that was, yeah, not a bad idea. I get depressed in the winter, I should go out and become one with nature and all that. So this morning I decided that Kai and I should go out for a walk around the block. We bundled up, headed out and I was miserable the whole darn time. It was even sunny but I just could not get into the spirit of it. Kai was fine but I was grumpy and mad at the cold. Yes, a 4 year old was more mature about being cold than I was.

Moral of the story? We won't be moving to any Swedish islands anytime soon and that's the last time some free magazine is going to get me outside in below freezing weather.

Another swap completed. This was a Recycled Stuffie/Softie, the point was to re-use materials. I made a sock doggie out of 3 of my little boy's mismatched baby socks. hee hee, I like the way he came out.

My oldest daughter has had a milestone moment in her life, I won't go into exact details of what that is. Suffice to say, she's growing up and it's bringing all sorts of different feelings up for me. The first one I felt when she shared this news with me was happiness, she's passing into a new world now, something that we can share, she's becoming a young woman and while I am first and foremost her mama, I also feel like I am her friend. We talked about my passing onto this stage of my life, I just happened to also be 12 and in 7th grade at the time. I told her how her grandma reacted when I told her. Not much hoopla, of course, my mom is not known for being very emotional, just very practical. That's ok.

I made her a bracelet and told her I hoped she would remember this day when she wears it. She was very reserved about it and non-plussed, like it's no big deal. Maybe it is no big deal, maybe she talks about it with her friends, I doubt it though. She is not one for talking, I wish she was but I can't force her to be something she's not. I do keep yapping at her about growing up and changes and yes...boys...ugh, she still seems uninterested but I told her I hope she's never embarrassed to ask me anything.
I wish my mom would have told me that, I never talked to her about anything personal, I wish she would have opened that door just a crack.

Oh well, one more daughter to go through this. Not for awhile, I hope, she will be another story entirely.