Miniature Armadillos

So, the other day I spent some time gathering pill bugs. Yes, that's right. Gathering pill bugs. (also known as potato bugs, doodle bugs or miniature armadillos)

What?!?! Why on earth would anyone do that? Well, Doodlebug is doing something in school with ecosystems in jars and they needed some bugs. The first place we looked was the basement. In the spring, we always get some pill bugs down there. But could we find one when we need one? Of course not. But, spiders are also fairly common in the basement. There are several who have names, who stay politely in their webs, so I leave them alone. The brave and strong hubby attempted to capture one of these, but it was too wily and skittered into hidden spots before it could be captured.

So, we finally headed outside (gasp!) to look for bugs. We found some very cooperative pill bugs in the rocks out front. We gathered up about 5 of them along with some rocks and rotting leaves.

And this morning, Doodlebug headed off to school with his bugs in his backpack. Wait, what? What's that on the table? Is that a jar of bugs??

Quack!

Slowchet

  Sometimes in the evening when I'm sitting on the couch watching TV with the family, Sweet Pea and I will pull out some yarn and the crochet hooks. Most recently we've been focused on little critters - some photos of them are below. But as we go, you may here this conversation:

Me: OK, the next step is to do 12 single crochet, then a decrease, then 12 more
Sweet Pea: OK
Me: 1
Sweet Pea: 2
Me: 2 already?
[pause]
Me:6
Sweet Pea: 12
[pause]
Me: 8
Sweet Pea: 16

That's us counting our stitches. You can see that Sweet Pea crochets about twice as fast as I do. No matter how hard I try to go faster it just doesn't work. I end up dropping a stitch, then have to fix it which slows me down, or I get all tangled up and have to disentangle. We've decided that while Sweet Pea is doing crochet, I'm doing slowchet.

Hey, it works for me. What's the hurry anyway?
 

Quack!

Headbanging!

My family is awesome. The other day we were all sitting around the kitchen table eating dinner. The radio was on and Nightmare, by Avenged Sevenfold started playing. At exactly the same time, about 30 seconds into the song when the guitars and drums start, everyone at the table started headbanging in unison. It was classic!

It's nice that we all share similar tastes in music!


Quack!

Frogs, Dragons, Aliens and Katydids

Here are some pictures from a summer trip to a local nature center:

Staring at the lily pads I said: "You know, I've never seen a frog on a lily pad." . . . "Hey! There's a frog! On a lily pad!"

And yes, there he is:

And a lovely dragonfly, thinking about getting a drink:

 

 And some sort of cool, alien plant:

A wild rose:

And a nice little buggie (katydid) that spent a little time with us:

Quack!

Philadelphia

  Here are a few pictures from our trip to Philadelphia. Some cool architecture:

Quack!

Shrews, Anteaters and Ducks

We had a family trip this summer that included a visit to the Philadelphia Zoo. I must say I was a bit worried when we first got there and saw the sculpture outside the front of the zoo that depicted a grizzly scene involving a dead lion with an arrow through it. There were other similarly violent sculptures throughout the zoo, along with some more standard, peaceful sculptures. I have no idea why they have those strange sculptures, but other than that, we had a great time. It was a beautiful day! Here's a few pictures from the trip:

Not the best picture, but the elephant shrews were by far the cutest, most entertaining animals of the day. We all loved these little guys! I want one!

I've always thought I liked anteaters, but I have to say these guys were a bit, um, yucky. They have much less hair than I thought and really resemble pigs quite a bit. Still, cute, but not quite what I was expecting. I must have watched too much Pink Panther growing up or something.

And we manage to find ducks wherever we go. We love ducks!

Quack!

It Is Possible! It Is!

So I was at the library the other day browsing around the arts and crafts shelves and I found a book on drawing with crayons. I checked it out and while looking through it at home I showed a few of the pictures within to Sweet Pea. She proceeded to inform me that drawing pictures like the ones in the book with crayons was impossible. There was just no way to do that with crayons.

It went like this:

Me: Cool! Look at that. Pretty awesome crayon drawings, huh?

Sweet Pea: What?!? That can't be crayon! You can't do that with crayons!

Me: What? What do you mean? It's right there! Of course you can do that with crayons. *I* could do that with crayons.

Sweet Pea: No you couldn't. It's not possible!

So of course I took that as a challenge. I got out my box of 24 crayons and some paper and set to work. And, ha! I proved my point. It is possible to do art with crayons! Not too bad for my first try:

Quack!

Collapsing on Stage to Laughter

I am not meant to perform in public. It's just not me. I prefer to remain in the background, well-hidden if at all possible.

But a few weeks back Snickers, Hubby and I got our black belts! As part of the Black Belt Graduation ceremony we had to participate in a demonstration. And not just any demonstration, but a demonstration in front of about 100 people.

In a public place.

On a stage.

With spotlights.

About as far out of my comfort zone as I could be. (In face, I was having flashbacks to my botched kindergarten play where I ended up in tears on stage in front of a laughing audience - scarred for life! But in truth, I don't actually remember that experience, but I've heard the stories. I think I must have walled that unpleasantness off in some far corner of my mind where it would never surface again.)

But in any case, back to the topic at hand. We performed as part of a group and solo. Snickers and the Hubby were fine - relaxed even. And while I wasn't too nervous, I did manage to mess up in just about every possible way (just minor things thank heavens!). But the good news is, I managed to fake my way through it without being too obvious, without falling off the stage and without collapsing in tears on the stage (I have a history of that as I mentioned above). But as Sweet Pea so nicely pointed out, in all the group demonstrations I was about 1/2 step behind everyone else. Oops. Maybe I secretly like to be noticed.

But it's over and done with and as long as I never see any recordings of it I'll continue to think I did just fine.

Just fine.

Quack!

Because What Fourth Grader Doesn't Want to be Toast for Halloween?

 So for Halloween Doodlebug was Domo. If you're not familiar with Domo he's a big fuzzy brown square-ish monster. He's the official mascot of Japan's public broadcaster. You can read about him here. And I've blogged about Domo before -here and here.

 

Anyway, a few years back I made an awesome (if I do say so myself) costume out of foam board, duct tape and fuzzy brown fabric. It's like trick-or-treating in a huge cereal box. But Doodlebug loves it and gets lots of compliments. The candy goes into the mouth where there is a box to hold it and it's nice and cozy inside, protected from the elements.

 

There are a few downsides though -
A few people tried to jam the candy through the eye slot. Ouch! I told Doodlebug if they do that, he just needs to grab it with his teeth.

It gets rather heavy when the candy builds up. It has shoulder straps inside, and when there is 10 pounds of candy in the mouth hatch, it puts some pressure on the shoulders. Doodlebug suggested some memory foam for the shoulder straps next year.

And for those who are not familiar with Domo and who do not recognize the big red mouth and white teeth as being from a monster, he may look a bit like toast. Two years in a row, the same house complimented him on his 'toast' costume.

Because what fourth grader doesn't want to be toast for halloween?

Quack!

Dunkable, Drizzlable, Delicious

  So I finally got a chocolate fountain. I know I know, what took me so long, right? I mean, a chocolate fountain! Flowing with sweet, chocolately goodness! How could I have gone so long without one. I even managed to find one with a timer so each morning at 6AM it starts up and I wake to the smell and sounds of trickling chocolate drizzling down.

Ok, so the timer and the morning chocolate are just a dream, but I did get a chocolate fountain.

For the last few birthday parties we set that baby up with an array of dunkable, drizzlable, tasty treats - cookies, pretzels, strawberries, Krispie treats, cake, marshmallows, potato chips. I have to say, a Krispie treats dunked in chocolate is one of the most delicious things ever. EVER! Really!

In any case, a chocolate fountain is an incredible invention! The only downside was that I grossed out all the guests when I stuck my face under the fountain and just drank it straight up. It was messy, but wow! That was delicious!

Quack!

What Time is it? Adventure Time!

I like to decorate my shoes. It's part of my weird crafty nature. My latest venture into the world of shoe decoration was done at the request of Sweet Pea. She has a favorite TV show - Adventure Time. It's a fun show - I like it too. So, to pay homage to Finn, Jake and all the other characters, I made these:

Quack!

For Ninjas Up North - Where It's Cold

So you know I've made quite a few sweaters for the Ugly Doll collection. Well, here is the whole crew - pull-overs, cardigans and ear-cozies:

I think I'm finally finished. Whew! That's a lot of tiny little sweaters. I'm all ready if I ever need to make one for one of those tiny vampires I'm always going on about.

And of course the next logical step after sweaters, was the ninja sweater. You'd think I would have made the ninja sweater for Ninja Batty Shogun, but no. Ninja Batty Shogun is pretty cool and ninjy all by himself. I made the ninja outfit for Picksie. I thought it would be a nice complement to his red eyes. It took me a while to find him for this photo (Ninja's are very good at hiding) but I did eventually find him and here he is.

And of course, for a recent birthday we had to make some Ugly Cakes. Here's a few of them:

Quack!

Splish Splash Backsplash

I'm back. It's only been a month and a half. Stop complaining.

Moving on . . .

The backsplash is done. Almost a year ago I bought the tile, then for the last month 2 months 3 months OK! OK! For the last 6 months at least I've had the tiles laid out, marked for cutting, ready to go. For 6 months I've been trying to ignore my carefully laid out tiles. It wasn't too hard because they were out of the way for the most part. But the kitchen wall wouldn't stop nagging me. I tore the old backsplash linoleum off the walls 8 months ago and it wouldn't let me forget that it was still sitting there, all ragged and naked and pathetic.

So last weekend I finally broke out the wet saw, fired it up and in a single very wet, hot, noisy weekend, I cut all the tiles. The cat really enjoyed it - all her favorites - noise, water, heat. Ok, so the cat cowered in the basement while I worked. Come to think of it, the entire family was pretty scarce that day. But anyway, the cutting was done. Which meant the tiles were now not only laid out like they had been for the last 6 months, but now they were laid out in the middle of the floor - yes, the middle. Right in the way. So now I had no choice but to finish the job.

So, this past weekend I got to work. Saturday was a long day of mixing mastic, slathering it on the wall, on the tiles and on myself, sticking tiles and tile bits into the sludge, cutting and re-cutting tiles that weren't quite the right size and cleaning up my many, many, many messes. There was a little bit of cursing, some lost snacks, some takeout (we can't very well cook or prepare anything in the kitchen when it's covered in plastic, toxic dust, sludgy gunk and bits of tile!). But finally it was done.

Then Sunday was another long day of mixing grout, slathering it on the tiles and myself and trying not to stick myself to things. And of course the grout involved lots and lots and lots of wiping the tiles and wiping them and wiping them and wiping them.

And then, once the tiles were done it was hour after hour after hour of cleaning. Cleaning up grout and bits of mastic, plastic and dust and grime and slime. Cleaning the saw and the buckets and the tools and clothes and the floor and the counters. The cleaning up took longer than the actual work.

But overall it was very successful. There was only one 'oh crap!' moment where I realized my measurements were slightly off and I had to quickly reposition some stuff. And only a few minor things that will drive me crazy for the rest of the life of the kitchen - a slightly uneven edge on one side, a couple of missing bits in one spot and a few tiles that stick out a bit farther than the rest. But even though it's not perfect, it's done. And that's all that counts! And besides, once we get the microwave, coffee maker, bread machine, breadbox, toaster oven and other assorted crap back in place, you won't be able to see any of it anyway.  And by doing it myself I saved $600-$1000 bucks. Not a bad deal for a weekend of work.

And I even managed to fit in a few bikes rides, some meals, grocery shopping, snuggling, plant re-potting and a bit of sleeping.

I'm exhausted!

Quack!

Dried Up Leaves, Porcupines and Very Tall Trees

So, the other day we visited a nature park in the area. It was pretty cold out still, and there were no animals to be seen, and not even any plants or buds to be seen yet, but it was slightly warmer than it has been and we wanted some fresh air.

And despite the appalling lack of spring-like stuff, we managed to find some nice things to look at:

Some dried up leaves against the blue sky:

A tree masquerading as a porcupine:

A tree in the distance lit by a ray of sun:

Interlaced tree roots:

Some very snake-like roots:

And lots of very tall trees:

A cold, but fun day.

Quack!