27 posts from February 2008

No, really. It's free to watch! Is it me, or is this sort of event tailor-made for homeschoolers?

Saturday, March 1st - Mock Surgery Day at Seton Hospital (9 am - 2 pm).  This is another free event and is an open house tour of the surgical suites.  Free parking at Seton Medical Park Tower next to the hospital (http://www.goodhealth.com/events/2008/03/01/mock_surgery).

What inspires you to blog?

My awful memory. I have to write things down or else they are forgotten. It's important for me to remember when my kids did what, who we saw, what we learned, and how God is working in and through us.

At the time when I decided that I would move my blog to Vox exclusively (instead of use Word Press), I read through a lot of my old blog posts and had a good laugh---and cry. So many memories! It's nice to be able to share them with my family who isn't near, of course.

It wouldn't be entirely honest to leave out the fact that, ahem, this is also a venting and plugging place. A girl's gotta have a place for that!

central park hoodie
Originally uploaded by Phisch

Dusty mirrors. Surprised? Oh! Merry Christmas ;)

So this is the Central Park Hoodie, sans ribbing on front and hood and sleeves. Oh, the sleeves are done but not attached. I'll get to those eventually, right now I'm eager to get to the ribbing.

Dilemma: it is the next-to-biggest of the originally published sizes (chest size 42") because it was cast on for my auntie. In the mean time, my SIL, gracious gifter of yarn---this very yarn---is interested in this and was just after I cast on.

Are you ok with a huge sweater, E'sa? I could make a smaller one and that might work better. Hubby's first comment was "Christmas!" and then "It's huge!"

Does it really look that big?

What's the best thing about today?

1.) I'm alive.
2.) I'm Alive.
3.) I feel so much better! That's the nice thing about spending two days in bed when you're sick.

Have you done the audio book thing? Like it?

I hedge. I hem and haw. The thing is, isn't it like reading Peanuts all your life and then watching "A Charlie Brown Christmas" and feeling like you're let down because TV Charlie Brown sounds nothing like the Charlie Brown of your imagination? Granted, there are visuals involved but when I read, my brain gives a definite voice to characters and I feel really disappointed when they don't sound right (I'm not quite happy about Liam Nieson being Aslan in the movie adaptation of the CS Lewis book, for instance).

Is my take on this an issue of being a visual vs. auditory person?

For my own good, that is.

- Yarn store with a good supply of yarns that aren't made of wool (cotton, linen, alpaca, silk) and a dye-your-own-hank set up (is there a LYS with such a thing?)

- A really good fabric shop that carries nice quilter's cottons from designers like Joel Dewberry, Heather Bailey, Amy Butler, Alexander Henry, Denyse Schmidt, Michael Miller

- A store that sells vintage cotton fabrics, wool, linen, vintage hats and shoes and accessories, other vintage natural fabrics

- A used book store with inventory that changes regularly and has lots of kids books and pre-1960s illustrated children's books

- A bakery and/or chocolatier that goes beyond the typical fluffy stuff but not so far that you wonder what they were thinking when they combined such odd ingredients and forgot to try it themselves first before they served it up

- A book store full of of used Christian literature (are there those? or do they mostly get passed along?) especially biographies, which is something I want to get into.

Somewhat OT, but I am curious: besides some kids books on---gasp!---vinyl and a couple of freebies from Chick-fil-a that came in kids meals, I've never listened to audio books. Friends of ours managed to enjoy a long (12+ hr) drive with the accompaniment of a Harry Potter book on CD.

I didn't get to see the entire show called "The Joy of Lex" which was shown, I think, on the History Channel. Maybe they'll bring it back. If you have a thing for word origins and how language develops and changes you'll want to try and record it.

It reminded me a lot of the series that PBS did a long time ago called The Story of English which covered everything from Chaucer to modern Rap to accents, dialects and colloquialisms. Fun stuff! Too bad I can't find the series on Netflix.

That's it, I'm losing the fight. I feel snippy, nauseous, tired, dizy, grumpy, venty (venti?!), am being insipid and obtuse to boot. I have it: the flu. The weird flu my hubby got.

I've been fighting but I can tell it's a losing battle. J has it, has been fighting but for a couple of nights has complained of a painful tummy. For once I did wish he liked soda so he'd drink a bunch so he could burp and get relief but the few sips he had didn't work so we gave that up. He's better and I'm glad I've not had to deal with the same thing he did (so far, I should say).

Someone told me the genesis of the yearly batch of flu vaccines is Chinese chickens. Or was it geese? I don't remember and I can't remember if it's true, either, but if it is, do we then say that the flus we get originate there, too?

Day 27/365: Two years
Originally uploaded by { karen }

So go here if you like what you see and are interested in prints/posters for your walls.

Shameless plug, yes, but I have a bias towards the direction of my sister's work. So I have to mention her gallery even though I'm jealous of her lens collection and camera.

I might just get a Canon one day to show her Rebel who's boss.

IMG_5151
Originally uploaded by Phisch

I'll go ahead and post this before all the photos are done uploading and they get their proper captions. Promise you'll go back for those.

Photos are here.

We drove 20-ish minutes to Hamilton Pool Preserve today. The drive was through some farm land full of what I think are called "gentlemen's ranches" which is another way of saying "I have cattle so I can have a tax write off, not because I necessarily like cattle." Granted, we did see someone with a few bison.

We get to the preserve which has a hiking trail of a little over a mile long from one end (Hamilton Pool) to the other (Pedernales River). The water looked so pretty with blue-green colors but at 53 degrees or so F, not at all inviting! Sorry, too cold. The trail was rocky in parts but the boys did well and really had a blast. I mean really, really enjoyed themselves. There were so many smiles and NM was asking me to take his photo. The only trauma was at the end when someone twisted their ankle but that was over quickly. We ate out afterwards and had well-deserved naps. We were all so tired!