facebook is time consuming and addictive

holy crap was the phrase of the day yesterday. if you haven't tried facebook, you could never know...it's like an onslaught of six degrees, the six degrees' mothers have six degrees. you type in your info (name and where you went to high school and when) and then it shows you pictures of people you might know. then more pictures. then you find some you know and look at their friends, then you find twenty people you know and you look at their friends...all these people you used to SEE EVERY DAY! it's insane. it made me giddy and sick at the same time. and yes, i easily found tony ray! and a million other people. mostly i wanted to find tony and jodi, and i did. so i'm happy. but damn if that thing isn't addicting in it's astonishment factor, and the voyeuristic thing of wondering what people are up to now that we're in the realm of thirty.
rodney and i have to joust for a chance to go check our facebook pages and then it's just this constant echoing yell from the back of the house: "holy crap!" "oh my god!" "(insert someone pasty's name here)" (and that was PAST-y, like from the past. yeah.)

i am grateful for:
connections
whimsy
good bread
butter
my bike

oh yeah, and loki for telling me how to get photos in the body of my text. doh!

fortness and other random stuff to suck up time

hey cool--i was checking out loki's blog (at kid drop-offs and pick-ups we sometimes commiserate about how inadequate we are at maneuvering the blogosphere--can never seem to figure out the EASY way to do stuff!) and i was pleased as punch to see that she had done a piece about the girls' woodsy fort (as in, yay! now i don't have to! scritch--that's me crossing it off my really, really long to-do list) here it is, check it out cuz it's cool and there are some great pictures of the girls being all empowered by their creation: http://lokikohall.blogspot.com/2009/03/back-to-land-kid-version.html

as i mentioned i've been sewing up a storm lately and am right this minute in the process of posting some new pictures to my flickr site (see how capably i can multitask)...and i've recently learned about a new thing i have to do: facebook. yeah, i knew it was out there, but ignored it totally. last night rodney got a call from one of his back east best buddies--who we haven't seen since the wedding. he encouraged rodney to sign up with facebook because a lot of their old friends are on there and within the span of an evening he had located a couple dozen old friends. damn! i found out my DAD is on facebook. huh? the thought of re-hooking up with that many old high school friends (actually i don't think i even HAD that many friends in high school) is really weird, but there is one or two people i always wonder about and hey, it's worth a shot. (tony ray, where are you?!)

okay, i'm off to finalize that flickr download and then rodney is taking the kids for a bikeride so i can sew...oh yeah, i'm in mass-production now! i stayed up til two in the morning making peas the other night and today i'm making a bunch of tomatoes. sweatshops unite!




i'm grateful for:
the new bed
the sunshine today that lets a bikeride be possible
computers
wonderful friends
hope

ugh..oooohhh man...ugh

i am sick. i feel so weak and tired and my insides are scratchy. i felt this cold coming on over a week ago, dosed myself with emergen-C and hoped for the best. i got the worst. this cold keeps morphing and mutating, to allow me to feel every potentiality a cold could offer. congestion, sore throat, sore body, foggy mind, weakness, exhaustion, so much pain in my head. on and on. don't come near me! you don't want this.

i am hoping and praying it's over soon--this is rodney's spring break and i have been looking forward to FINALLY being able to sew sew sew until i have a good stock of offerings to post on my poor, neglected etsy site. he took jubal for a longish bikeride yesterday (before the downpour) and i was able to sew a bag from start to finish--even making the handles and overcasting the seams. the whole thing! i've also been making a few zip pouches and have plans for a bunch more. i think zip pouches are one of my new top tens--they are so handy for putting stuff in (i have a weakness for all things that hold other things--shelves, baskets, pouches, etc.) he's planning to take jubal out again today at some point, so i will be sewing some more later--through the fog.

the upside of this cold is that i--totally by chance, as i wasn't even looking for a book for me (i was reading paul theroux's hotel honolulu)--found wally lamb's new book at the library (i was there to get the little house in the big woods to read with the girls) and it's very long, big and thick...you only get the new releases for two weeks and i wondered if i'd be able to finish it. thanks to this cold, i will (though i might not remember any of it!) i'll post more about it when i'm done reading it.

congratulations to loki, who sold a story to fantasy and science fiction--hooray! loki blogs here http://www.lokikohall.blogspot.com/ and asked me the other day if she could post my old bummers and gummers nettle story for spring (yes! of course!) and i'm so excited for her. i need to write again so i, too, can sell things.

when the mindfog and the exhaustion clears i will post a bunch of pictures of my latest creations here or on the flickr site, so you have that to look forward to. until then, it's soup and bedrest (the new bed ROCKS, by the way, it's like sleeping on some very supportive clouds.)

gratitudes:
1) magazines are still buying stuff!
2) soup is easy to make
3) bodies heal
4) nothing lasts forever
5) wally lamb FINALLY wrote a new book, and just in time

updatia

i have to be off to go to the gym to torture myself in the name of good health, so this is just a quickie update slice-o-life:
i've been sewing stuff, which is so fun and i'm noticing a lot of improvement in my skills (yay!) stuff i've sewed lately: bibs, pants, crayon roll-ups, zip pouches, clutches, and baskets. oh, and a flag for vesta to decorate for the fort she is building with ronan and hazel in the woods. some pictures on flickr, more to come. and another oh yeah--a shopping bag with veggie appliques to donate to the kindtree auction.
i've been working on more home improvement projects (and purchases): i moved the big bookshelf from the kitchen to the bedroom (i'm sewing the fabric baskets for this shelf to store jubal's clothes in--our room is too small to fit a dresser AND a king sized bed). i put up four foot pine board shelves in the kitchen to hold the extra gallon jars and canned goods that won't fit in our cupboards--vesta and i did this all by ourselves and it was so rewarding--we ROCKED! we can find studs and drill things and make stuff level, woohoo! lots of various moving shelves and cubbies around to hold toys and cook books and whatnot. rodney started putting in posts for the new garden fences---yay! yay! yay! it's gonna look so good and keep the dang dog from digging up my seedlings. and we picked out a new mattress for ourselves--this is such a treat for us! we picked out an englander natural model with inner spring coils and a latex core, bamboo topper with an extra layer of latex foam, plus extra lumbar support. my back is dancing in anticipation. we'll have it in a few days and i am SO EXCITED!
oh my, there is lots more to tell, but if we don't get to the gym soon we'll turn into pumpkins. the gym is feeling so awesome lately, by the way. i recommend it to anyone feeling sluggish or burned out, it really helps and i love being left wobbly and worked, but feeling so strong.
gratitude abounds for the strength of the human body and spirit, clean water to drink, fertile ground to grow in, the fun to be had with children, and resilience.

the worst experience of my life

jubal had a cavity. i took all the kids for their yearly tooth check-in exams last month--and jubal had a cavity! you don't understand how shocking this was for me. i diligently brush his teeth twice a day, plus he likes to brush his own teeth several times a day, whenever he's near the sink, basically! but i didn't think about flossing him. are you KIDDING me?! if you have babies out there: FLOSS BETWEEN ANY OF THEIR TEETH THAT TOUCH!!! he has really tight contacts (i now know) and got this little teeny cavity between his front teeth. they wanted to fill it, insurance doesn't cover for him to be anesthetized to sleep while they do it (which is INSANE). i was feeling horrible about this appointment for the whole month leading up to it, not sure i could follow through with it, wondering how necessary it was, etc...the appointment was yesterday morning and it was the absolute worst experience i have ever had. and i was just watching. they wrapped him up in this brightly colored, pretty torture device meant to hold his arms against his body so he can't mess with the dentist's tools or hit anybody while they work (which i totally get and was even somewhat expecting, but the hygienist actually said to him "isn't that pretty? it's like a big hug". that was the first time i wanted to smack her), he's already fully disturbed at this point, i'm at his feet holding his foot and rubbing his ankle and calf, telling him i'm right here and trying to send him some kind of reassurance. which didn't work. he screamed THE ENTIRE TIME. i'm not sure how long that was, because it felt like forever. i think it was fifteen or twenty minutes. they worked as fast as they could, which i appreciate...but they kept saying to him "you're okay, you're okay" which was infuriating me--it was completely obvious to him that he was NOT okay, that he was being tortured by strangers, and made to hurt and bleed and the notion that anyone would actually think he could be made to feel better about it by them lying to him that he's okay is just completely mad. imagine the scene from the stanley kubrick film a clockwork orange, where they paste the lead guys eyes open and show him all kind of horrible things and he's crying and screaming in agony--but make him a baby and add dental. i could see his little hands clutching each other under the pedia-wrap, or whatever that thing was called, in this way that was totally heartbreaking--it's a universal human reaction to pain and fear.

when it was over i just held him. the hygienist tried to joke with me about how it's always worse for the parents and that's when i wanted to smack her again. i couldn't speak properly. i just held jubal and patted him and thanked god he wasn't mistrustful of me for putting him in that horrible situation. i left the dental office as soon as i could and just stood by the car and held him and talked to him until he felt better. and fortunately, once he felt better--he felt better. it was over. we did some errands and had fun and he was able to laugh and smile and smell the herbs and spices at the kiva and just be.

that's what i'm grateful for today: jubal's awesomeness and his trust in me and his ability to move past that horror into a wonderful day with his mama.

what HAPPENED to michael jackson anyway?!

we finally got the re-release of michael jackson's "thriller", which i've been wanting since it came out a few months ago. it is so awesome. i cannot believe what a revolutionary m.j. was back in the day. i listen to it or watch the accompanying dvd and part of me just loves it--the music and the short films...and part of me feels so totally sad for michael jackson. what the hell happened to him?! i feel for the lost innocence and the lost potential. i feel for whatever he went through, it was obviously horrible. i don't know what the hell he's up to or what he's done, and i don't condone any of his insane behavior. but i know it's a result of a horrific childhood that messed up that whole family--and that makes me sad. i see his little tiny self singing "ABC"...and i remember "the wiz", and i remember with perfection the first time i saw "thriller" (i was five and it scared the crap out of me and thrilled me at the same time) and i feel sad for the little him, and all the little ones out there born to the WRONG people who had no business raising kids. then i love and adore my own some more and pray for peace in the world and give thanks to all the terrific families out there, doing the wonderful, quiet, graceful work of raising a family and being good citizens.
that's what i'm grateful for today: the good families and good citizens of the world.

ps. check out the flickr link on the sidebar if you want to keep up with my crafty photostream...i've got a couple of bags up there and will soon post pictures of jubal's new pants and some shopping bags and whatever other awesome stuff i can whip up.