Waiting to be laid off...

This is how my days have been spent recently...

Once upon a time, I had two shirts. I had a purple one and a blue one. I loved my two shirts, they were awesome knit material with a flattering little yoke and buttons down the front. These two shirts got me through many summer days.

Then one day, I made the fatal decision to wear the blue shirt camping. I hauled wood. My shirt collected sap. It was ruined and I cried. (not really, but play along with me here!) And then my blue shirt sat in my drawer, I couldn't bear to throw it out.

A few days ago, I robbed fabric from the back of my blue shirt for another project, forever sealing it's fate of never being worn again.

Until today! Today, I cut my blue shirt up! I cut it up and used the ruined pieces to measure new pieces of blue calico. The calico was attached to the cute yoke and I have a new beloved blue shirt. A blue shirt with some added character.

And my heart can again sing with blue shirt joy... just don't look too close, I'm not a perfectionist!

Waiting for Ben

Giving Thanks

Today Big Ben and I were able to attend Sarah's Thanksgiving party at school. She was dressed up as an "Indian Girl."

I found myself getting a bit choked up at one point, when I realized that after four years of attending with my children, this would be my last preschool Thanksgiving party! I'll probably be crying like a baby next month at my last Preschool Christmas program... but for now I'll take pause to be THANKFUL for my children, THANKFUL for how proud they make me, THANKFUL for the smiles they put on my face and THANKFUL for all of the firsts and lasts I am able to experience with them!

Sarah's list of things she told her teachers she is thankful for:
1. My cat and my dog
2. My mom and my dad
3. My brothers and my sister
4. MY BIG BEN

Good Luck

My Baby

My favorite Sarah-isms:
1. "What that is?"
2. "I just know it!"
3. "I do love you!"
4. "Her did do it!"
5. "I just saw a car that was damaged."

Randsburg

On our way home from Fossil Falls, we stopped in Randsburg. A "Living Ghost Town." It is a ghost town that people still live in. The only store open on main street had two old guys sitting out front. One of them had no teeth and was drinking what he called lemonade, really a can of beer. He told the kids that there was a ghost in the back of his store and got them to go look. Then he gave them each a horse shoe and explained to them that they need to keep the opening pointed up to hold the luck in. He was so difficult to understand that we continually needed to translate for the kids. He was EXACTLY the kind of old guy that I would expect to find in a "Living Ghost Town."

Fossil Falls

Today, we took the kids to Fossil Falls. It is a volcanic canyon in the middle of the desert.

This might be my favorite picture of Ben!

He looks like a gopher coming out of his hole.

Indians used to come here to make arrow heads out of the obsidian rocks.

We tried very hard to find some arrow heads,

but came home instead with just pieces of obsidian.

It was a fun ADVENTURE

Goldie Fox

Are you familiar with Goldie Fox?

Or maybe it is the Free Bears

that you more closely identify with?
I learned so much about these characters from
Sarah!

That crazy Goldie Fox "her did"
do a lot of terrible things to the Free Bears.


The Free Bears only went for a short walk in the forest and while they were gone she ate "them" breakfast, and...
"her did broke them chairs."

Good thing in the end

"them did chase her from their house."

After all "them couldn't be friends because her was very bad!"

Let's get organized

This weekend, I bought a new purse. I love my new purse. However, it is big and doesn't have any pockets. I quickly realized that everything would just be a jumble in the purse and I would always have trouble finding what I was looking for.

With some Thrift Store fabric and an hour of time, this is the project I came up with to solve the problem:

My new purse organizer creates a place for everything, and I can keep everything in it's place.

After creating, I slid it into my purse and I'm all set!
My wallet and eye glass case fit nicely at the bottom of the purse and I clipped my MP3 player on the side. This will also make changing purses a breeze, I can move the whole thing from purse to purse.

If I make another one, I'll make it just a bit bigger. But all in all, I'm quite pleased with the niftyness!

Just a Man...

It all started on a drive with my dad this weekend. In the middle of the foothills, on a country road... we spotted a tarantula crossing the road. Why did the tarantula cross the road, you are probably asking... well, duh, to get to the other side, of course! We stopped, looked and then drove on. Later, we spotted about 4 other tarantulas crossing the road.

This little fella ended up being our unfortunate victim.
Luckily, I'm addicted to soda and pretty much always have soda cups in the car. It became Spidey's new temporary home. His destination... our house to meet the oohs and awes of the kids.

Ben and Sarah weren't with us at the time. In fact Spidey was captured on Sunday and the kids didn't return until it was time for school on Monday. When I dropped them off at school, I let them know that I had a surprise for them after school.

After school, I picked the two of them up and on the way home I heard them talking about a piece of paper that Ben brought home from school. He asked Sarah if she was scared of the picture. The picture was of a tarantula... I couldn't believe the coincidence. Ben went on to tell Sarah that tarantulas jump on you and bite you and that they are poisonous! Wow, that's news to me... I asked Ben how he knew all of this. He thought for a moment and then informed me, "... well, I'm just a man who loves spiders!" I laughed so hard, I was crying. Ben had no idea what he said that was so funny.

They were so surprised when they got home and found Spidey sitting on our kitchen table!

(Ben's Tarantula picture can be seen in this picture on the other side of the cage)

Spidey went to Sarah's school for a visit and will go to the "man's" tomorrow before being let back into the wild.

I'm so glad that we picked up this visitor. I had no idea that we had a spider"man" living with us!