South 47 Farm

Smelling flowers with our friend, a proud boy on a hay ride and feeding goats. We went potato picking at South 47 farm.

Gonzo is Gone!

I was as giddy as a school girl to wake up this morning and hear that Al Gonzales has resigned! I support Harry Reid's statement and Mitch McConnell wins my award for my hypocritical statement. This award comes with nothing and is non-binding.

I actually met Mitch through a program, Presidential Classroom, during High School. He was wormy and non-memorable. I took a trip to DC where we studied government and met our representatives (along with Mersydotes in Elevated Umbrella!). We met one of our senators, I can't remember the old Republican guy's name but the experience made both Mersydotes and myself into Democrats/Greens. He made the most disgusting comments to us, it was two women and three men, all attending based on equal merit and selected by our teachers and this senator says to M, "Mmmm, you smell good, what flavor are you?" I think M was wearing Channel. Or maybe it was Electric Blue, she was a big Debbie Gibson fan!!!! Anyway, Mr. Republican Senator probably did more to dissuade youth from serving the government than the Congressional Page program!

Perfect First Quilt

My aunt, P. Mookie, started me on a new addiction-quilting! I've been practicing and mostly finished one!
This was the perfect first quilting project as it doesn't involve any ironing (or "pressing," as PM told me!), very little pinning and for the most part, if you mess up, you can't really tell, or that's what I'm telling myself. This is a square rag quilt made from flannel, I'm clipping it, then I'll wash and dry it a few times to fray the ends of one side. I'm not a fan of pre-washing, pressing or pinning and my aunt had already done the cutting, so you'd think I couldn't go wrong! It looks okay, and it's given me some great ideas.

Of course, my man said, "I like how it's not all perfect squares, some are trapezoids, it's looks nice." This is a non compliment as it's actually supposed to be squares! It's almost as bad as this non compliment someone told me once, "Everybody hates your nose ring, but I kinda like it."

This quilt taught me:
1. How to do a straight seam (or not).
2. Chain stitching-I think that's what it's called, I sewed the small pieces in a big long chain.
3. I'm no good at holding pins in my mouth.
4. I'm not a perfectionist.

You can see my next adventure in the right corner of the above photo-pinks purples and oranges for my baby girl!

Getting Ready For A Baby Girl

Have you ever seen this much pink in one place?

I'm Perfect!

Those of you who know me may be spitting out your coffee/wine/water right now, but my midwife has confirmed what I (we) already knew! "You are PERFECT," were her words. "Textbook. 33.5 centimeters at 33 and a half weeks." I'm slightly competitive so these words filled me with overindulgent pride. I had to hold my ears in to get through the door, as my mom would say.

When I was in college, a rowing teammate of mine (we'll call her AS to protect her anonymity) said to me after a practice, "You are competitive and you always have to be right." I shrugged it off and went home to my suite mates and asked (we'll call her) Clizzaire, "Do you think I'm competitive and I always have to be right?" "NOOOoooo." She said.

About 6 months later, Clizzaire we were having a discussion and she said, "Remember when you asked me if I thought you were competitive and always had to be right?" "Yeah." "Well, I lied, you are all those things." "Oh," I answered, "You are just jealous because you know I'm right!!"

By the way, if Amy Singler, an old rowing teammate of mine is out on the Internet and finds this, I think I still owe you money and feel terrible about it! I think I offered to knit for you in exchange for my debt and I'm sure that sounded totally ridiculous to you, so if you contact me, I'll send you an actual check for the money!

Whatever Makes You Feel Good

I saw a story on the news the other night that flip flops can be bad for your feet. They recommended varying your shoes each day, I don't think this is what they had in mind.














This is what happens when I don't shop for a long time. The bottom row are my old flops, the ones I was wearing for the last 4 years or so. I decided I needed to buy new shoes and the result is the top row-3 new pairs in one season, actually in one shopping trip! Excessive? Well, the pink ones match when I wear pink or black, the blue ones are for any shade of blue and the sparkly ones I couldn't resist because they make me feel special. They are my fancy flops. It's all I can buy right now, nothing else fits. By the way, people around here call these 'thongs' and that is so wrong!

End of the Summer

The forecast calls for the 60s and rain all next week, the summer is over! I took Butters everywhere this last week to take advantage of the last days of 80s and sun.

We went to the zoo with all our friends. We went to music class and forest park water park and Silverlake for a swim and beach time.

This weekend we went to Fresh Paint, an art festival in Everett, with T. We bought ourselves a painting, and that means no Cmas presents for either of us! But, we loved the colors and wanted to support a local artist. The painting is a view of the Snohomish valley, or at least the way she saw it! The artist is Ursula Stocke.

Rain means we'll be resorting to our indoor activities, which for Butters, is organizing things. This is what I found when I came back from the bathroom.
He clearly has a plan in mind of how these animals should be lined up. Height? No. Food Preference? No. Spots and Stripes? No, he's not that simple. This is obviously an evolutionary grouping demonstrating split off from a common ancestry according to era and epoch. Or, at least, that's what I see. Have you ever noticed all parents think their child is advanced?


Speaking of evolution, a guest on the Colbert Report had me totally fuming. Mike Huckabee is a Republican candidate for president who doesn't believe in evolution. This is what he had to say, a paraphrase from my memory:
"I don't believe in evolution, but I'm seeing devolution in the congress. Evolution is the belief that we came from apes and I see devolution as we are turning back into apes!"
First of all, don't go giving him the Nobel Prize because there is already theory of 'de-evolving" or evolution backwards, it's called Neotony and he clearly demonstrates it. Second, evolution does NOT say we came from apes, we shared a common ancestor with apes. If you are going to not believe something, at least learn what it is that you don't believe! If you have come to a conclusion about about a theory or a belief and you've studied it, thought about it or even prayed about it and you've made your decision, fine. But, don't decide something is wrong, when you know nothing about it. Hmm. That's probably why 90% of abortion opponents are men!

Okay, enough ranting, can you tell I'm pregnant, I just went from toy animals to evolution to republicans to abortion! My mind is all over the place.

Fake Camping

Ferry ride to Olympic Peninsula.

First kite flying at Fort Flagler. (That's not our tent-we stayed in an RV with T's 'rents, I opted for comfort at 33 weeks!)

Hiking and strolling with family.










Ferry ride back home! We were dirty!

Off to the Post Office

Finally, I can cross some UFO's off my list, I'm off to the post office (okay, tomorrow).

From left: Zigzag scarf for a special friend in France, made with Noro. Sweater is the pattern Darling, one skein (with about a foot left, no joke) of Eco by Cascade and a trio of washcloths in red cotton.

And since no post is complete without a photo of my Butters, here we are in the rain, we took a walk today to splash in the puddles in our very cute frog boots.





Well...I can't play favorites!

Twenty Pounds of Plums!

What do you do with all the plums from 5 trees in your yard?


Make wine! And...invite your friends to come over and eat some...and invite the neighbors....and make jam....and....does anyone else have some ideas?

Killer Elmos, Doras and Thomases

"Don't touch Elmo, honey, it might lead to retardation."

I've been involved in the last three major toy and food recalls involving goods from China. I'm getting tired of trips to the post office, throwing out possibly tainted food, scanning the toy box and (oh yeah) worrying that my house may be filled with lead saturated toys or salmonella in our food! I'm willing to pay more for toys and food if I know where it's made, who made it and if they were paid a fair wage. You'd think at 20 bucks a pop a Thomas engine would be handcrafted by a well paid artist or at least not children in a closed window factory in Hong Kong licking their lead paint paintbrushes adding smiles to cheeky engine faces!

Why can't our government demand that imports from abroad meet the same requirements that toys made in the states must meet? How can Toys R Us and Target and WALMART sell this crap and not have outraged families? Why do toy manufacturers/retailers have to make so much money, when they pass the cost on to us in the form of corporate tax breaks and health care costs?

Well, here's what the little hell raiser in me is thinking. This lasted recall from Fisher Price has an online form and they will send me back a postage paid label for my tainted items. How nice. I won't have to front the postage costs like I did to send in James. BUT, do you know how the pre-paid label works? The company has an account number, the post office weighs the item and deducts the amount of postage needed to mail the item and the company gets a bill that they have to pay. Now, I'm not telling you what to do, I'm just telling you what my cousin's friend's sister's boyfriend heard someone do....and I'm hoping the mail carriers will forgive me! I think I'll send back my Elmo sprinkler with a few rocks, bricks and possibly a dirty diaper. Just an idea, you didn't hear it from me!

Added later:

Here's a better idea, MomsRising has a petition to let Congress and the Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) know that, "Testing children's products for toxic chemicals must be a priority. No more toxic toys and children's products!" Sign it here!