Two

Libby turned two recently. I love two year olds. I know, that makes me somewhat strange, but that's only a small part of my strangeness, so I'll keep it. She is growing so fast and changing so quickly, I don't want to even blink.

She says thank you when you give her something. "tant to," quickly spitting it out as she runs off to play. She also says "k," as in "'ilk? . . . . kay? kay?" I agree and she says "kay! kay!" and jumps up and down without leaving the floor the way toddlers do, her legs bending and springing up to her tip toes and back down again, never with enough height to overcome gravity. Kay means yes. She would ask me something and I would say "ok," so now that's what she says when she wants me to say yes.

See? two is perfect.

stealing my brother's story

but he doesn't have a blog, so I hope he forgives me. He did tell it better than I will.

My brother is on the fire department for a very small town. It's all volunteer except for the fire chief. So he's sitting home yesterday morning with his call radio on and it starts crackling.

"dispatch, we have a potential dynamite threat at a yard sale."

long pause.

"call the fire department!" They did and my brother was called out along with rural fire and every fire department for sixty miles around and two bomb threat units from larger cities.
so yeah. there was dynamite at a yard sale. Two and a half sticks. Over sixty years old. Apparently this makes dynamite very unstable. So does the completely corroded metal between the blasting caps and the nitro.

So the fire department shows up and they start trying to evacuate people and no one wants to leave. The police department had to threaten them with jail to get them to get out of their houses and get out of the area already. There were fire fighters and bomb sniffing dogs all over the place. The big city sent a news crew who filmed as long as they could before they had to go to make the five o'clock news. (it's five o'clock news here on Sunday.)

The dynamite was brought to the yard sale by a family that lives several miles out of town. They decided to participate in a multifamily sale so they had gone out to the barn, loaded up all the old stuff, and brought it in to town packed in the back of a pick up. It was hidden in a Korean War era back pack and they had no idea it was even there.

So they finally get the civilians cleared out enough to do something. My brother made a sled out of plywood for the dynamite to be pulled to the middle of the street on. Apparently, you don't want to carry around unstable dynamite close to your body. huh. who'd of thunk?

They separated the blasting caps from the sticks and proceeded to make a nitro bonfire. My learning something new yesterday was discovering you can burn nitro glycerin without it exploding. The blasting caps were set in a sandbag bunker (just a small thing) and set off with plastic explosives. Just a little bit. The bomb squad was explaining how they were going to do it and said the sand should absorb most of the explosion. It shouldn't been too big anyway. So he suits up in his hazmat suit and carefully carries the blasting caps in front of him at arms length, slowly scooting forward a bit at a time. He places the caps, gives them wide berth and sets them off.

BOOM! huge explosion. Sand blasts straight up thirty feet. Everyone is looking just a bit dazed and the hazmat guy says "that was a bit bigger than I expected."

So ended the Big Event of the Year for my hometown. It will be a story for everyone for a long time. You might hear it in person sometime, after all, who can resist telling about the time there was dynamite sold at a yard sale.

Almost Famous

Remember way back in October when I was bragging about getting a story picked up for a Chicken Soup book? Aparently, the Chicken Soup people send out press releases to the local papers of each of the contributors.

I got a call from the local paper. They sent a reporter to my house and she interviewed me. Now, keep in mind that Bedlam is a small town with a very small paper. My reporter graduated from high school two years ago. She showed up with a blank steno and says "I'm not sure what to even ask you." She managed to put together a story, though. It appeared in the paper yesterday along with a cute picture of me with my three girls. Well, my girls look cute.

It was fun and a bit surreal. I've been laughing about being in the paper. I'm sure my attitude about it is perplexing a few people. Honestly, to me being in the local paper with a circ of a few hundred isn't a big deal. And it's a bit of a joke for me. I know so many extremely accomplished women who every day do the most amazing things. They never have the newspaper call. Most people don't even know what they do. I manage to get accepted to a book that does press releases as a brilliant marketing tool, and I get an inteview. It's one of those ironies that I find funny. It's not that I'm making fun of being in the paper. It's just so not deserved, that I have a hard time taking it seriously.

It was fun once and the girls got a kick out of their pictures being in the paper.

ps. Mom, I have a copy. I'll bring it for the birthday party so you can see.

All New Inside Jokes!

I went to Park City this weekend to hang out with some Squirrels. They were all cute and chittered on about paper and beads. They are also a group of friends of mine and in no way furry because they are quite dilligent with using razors. and not squirrels anyway.

I have a group of friends that meets together every year for a girls weekend. We met on 2 Pea and still talk every single day. I love them all dearly and I very much look forward to our Squirrel retreat every year.

We rented a condo and hung out. I learned how to make jewelry, well as long as someone sits in front of me and I can get all whiny and needy about directions every two minutes. I almost finished our Disney mini album, and would have finished it but aparantly I neglected to print two photos I needed.

I also laughed. a lot. I laughed so hard I cried more than once. We have all new inside jokes and there are words that will send me off giggling that would make the rest of you say "huh?" So I will spare you that.

I've chatted already with them since I got home but I have to say, hey squirrels, I miss you already.

My latest time waster

I do almost all my layouts from sketches. I like to draw these myself and I have them all together in a notebook. They aren't organized in any way, and that's been fine. However, I decided the other day it would be nice to have a way to see them according to photos on the page. So today I spent some time scanning my sketches. I have created a blog to post these on. It's a fun way to organize them and it's free.

Of course, I was half way through when I realized that using PSE would be a much easier way to go through the layouts and choose one. ah well. This way I can share. You can see my new blog here:

The Sketch Library

feel free to save the link and use the sketches if you like, just make sure to leave me a link to your creation. I'd love to see it. I will be posting more sketches next week. I haven't even come close to posting half yet. btw, the link is also in my sidebar under cool websites. let's pretend it fits there, ok?

Upright

just scrapping an old photo of Libby. isn't she the cutest?

Talking to Herself

Libby plays with dolls now. Ok, she played with them before, but not like she does now. She prefers little dolls. Ones that fit in her hand and she can manipulate easily. She takes them to the step between the kitchen and addition (really bad remodel here that we did not do. bad explains the step.) anyway, she takes those dolls and faces them toward each other and they visit. They visit in the cutest little baby talk. We can't understand a word they are saying but those dolls understand each other and that's all that matters.

Finished

I realized it's been ages since I updated. I think summer just slips by and I forget to say things. There isn't a lot happening in Bedlam. Kids are wild. I send them outside. They come back in because it's too hot. They are wild again. Rinse, repeat.

I have accomplished one thing this summer, however. I made this:



I still have to put it together, but this is the front for Sarah's new Christmas stocking. I'd say there's at least 100 hours in this. My goal was to have it done by July 31. I missed it by two days. I finished up at midnight last night.

This is the stocking that started the whole thing:



I started that one when I was pregnant with Sarah, when I was positive I was having a boy. I knew I was having a boy. I was so sure. I didn't guess with any of the others. ;) I set the stocking aside after Sarah was born, and ignored it for years. About four years ago, I picked it up again and finished it for Joshua. I intend to do one for Rilla by Christmas, Matt's and Libby's the next year, and the year after that Steve's and mine.

Many years ago, when I was a teenager and gas was a $1 a gallon, my mother subscribed to cross stitch magazines. (There's a magazine for everything.) Better Homes and Gardens had one that was my favorite to look through. They started publishing a Christmas stocking every year designed by the same person so they coordinated with each other. I loved those stockings and I determined when I was married with babies I would make one for all of us. BHG published a book with all the stocking designs I loved together, so my mom got it for me as a birthday gift after I had already started Joshua's stocking. Now I have them all and the book has our names written on it next to each design I'm doing. These stockings will be the last cross stitch I ever do. It's just not my thing anymore. I'm glad I will have the stockings though. Heck, I may even do some for grandkids eventually. gotta keep everybody matching. ;)