My Budding Artist

"Ta-Da!"

I was loading the dishwasher while my adorable Two-year old terror was finishing her dinner a few feet away, when I heard her newest phrase-mocked-from-mama (who does magical feats throughout the day, like tying shoes and finding lost toys with a "Ta-Da!" and flourish). I look up and I am speechless.

There, on the shiny tablecloth protector, is a sweeping masterpiece rendered in sour cream and salsa (the toppings of tonight's cheese, pepper, and onion quesadillas). Large whorls and splats sweeping out as far as her little arms could reach, and her little face shining with pride and excitement at her accomplishment.

So what is a Mama to do? I don't want to scream and rant and possibly squash her little spirit, but at the same time I do not want to scrub a sour cream Pollock off of my table every night. How do you walk that fine line?

In the end, I took the proud Mommy approach and smiled and said "How lovely!", wiped her little hands, and sent her on her way. I figure that there will be better things to rant and rave about in the future.

Knitted Babes

Well, even though I have skeins of lace-weight yarn staring reprovingly at me from my work-basket, I haven't moved on to learning lace-knitting. Instead, I've been puttering around with a few crochet doillies and working on Christmas presents (yes, I know, I'm disgusting!) Then, the other day I came across this lovely book at the library called  
"Knitted Babes", and I fell in love! The patterns are very simple, even for young girls and the little wardrobes are fun and easily alterable. At left you will see my first attempt, whose name is Mina. She is just sitting around in her shift for now, as I haven't finished any clothing for her, but I'm in the middle of a dress and she should be decent soon. Peanut is enchanted and has been carrying Mina everywhere, even before she had arms and legs. If you are looking at a fist attempt at knitted toys, this is the doll for you! 

Hi All!

Where have I been?

Nowhere really. I just haven't made the time to sit down and blog lately. I've thought of a dozen witty, opinionated posts while walking through the grocery aisles and scrubbing the toilet, but they have just disappeared from my mind (like most of my thoughts) the minute that I sit down to type. Despite the loss of these irreplaceable nuggets of joy and wisdom, the world will have to continue turning, lol!


What I do have for you today, is a bit of a review. A television review, no less.

We constantly have these silent battles about TV in our house. My husband loves it and cannot function without it's blue, brain-sucking glow in the background at all times. I personally could chuck every set we have out the window. We don't really argue out loud about this, but there is much sighing and huffing by both parties. It's always been like this, he is a watcher and I'm a reader. We accepted each other's frailties with mostly good grace and life was good.

That is, until digital cable came into our lives.

Literally 1500 channels pumped into our house at an exorbitant price just so we can watch "The Jetsons" in French and die laughing at 3:00 AM. The deal also came with one of those DVR's (digital video recorders) that allows us to "Pause, rewind, and fast-forward live TV at the touch of a button" and makes it insanely easy to record any show including "Gilligan's Island" four times a day.

You can imagine my chagrin.

So, while I silently fumed about the new, electronic mistress in our home, my husband was in couch potato heaven. He even started recording things that he thought I might be interested in and sending me emails to let me know about my recorded itinerary. This made me curious to see just what he thought I might like to watch, so I sat down with the "Royal Scepter of Control" (which, by the way, has too many buttons) and began to peruse the list. There was very little that I wanted to watch, but I made a discovery that has changed my idea of children's television.

A lovely little channel called "Noggin".

This channel is a joint venture by Nickelodeon and PBS, but it is tailored completely for preschoolers from dawn to 6:00 PM. It's completely commercial free and I have yet to find a show objectionable or even overly saccharine. The programming is wonderful, and includes a few foreign shows that we wouldn't get to see otherwise, and it is truly educational and fun.

Peanut's favorites include a hand puppet show called "Oobi" that uses actual hands as puppets and has me mesmerized watching the skill of the puppeteers. Plus the storylines are so sweet and family oriented that I have found tears in my eyes on more than one occasion. She also is crazy about "Jack's Big Music Show". I love this show! It features all sorts of music from Jazz to Folk and you will find none of that Barney-fied sappy kids stuff either. We have added a few new CD's to our collection that the whole family likes because of this show. We always end up dancing and singing!

The best part is, thanks to that dratted DVR, we can record the shows when they are on and watch them when it's convenient. It makes me feel less tied to the "brain-sucking" machine.

Yes, humble-pie was forthcoming on the menu.

Real Estate Craziness

Apparently, we live in the most disgusting neighborhood in North America. I've had at least fifteen people tell me as much in the last two weeks.

"Hello! I'm calling about the three bedroom ranch that you have listed for sale?"

"Yes, how can I help you?"

"I was just wondering where it's located. We would like to drive by."

"Were on So-and-so Street in Anytown."

"Oh,(slight pause) So-and-so Street?"

"Yes. Are you familiar with Anytown? Would you like directions?"

"No, we don't want to live in that section of Anytown. It's not very nice there."

-Click- (buzz of the dial tone)

I can see now why people pay realtors. I don't know if my fragile ego can take much more of this rejection, lol!

Paperback Swap

Ok, I am going to do a little ad here, but only because I found something really wonderful and want to share it.

Someone posted on my local trading post about a site called Paperback Swap, so I thought that I would check it out. It's great!

If you have stacks of books just lying around, like me, you will love this site. Basically, it's a hub where people can trade their paperback (and hardback) books with other people for just the cost of shipping (media mail, around $1.60 a book). It works on a credit system, so for every book that you send out, you get a credit to take one, plus they start you off with three credits as soon as you open an account and list at least nine books. Membership is free at this point, but it does say that they will probably start charging for the service somewhere down the road (you are guaranteed at least a year's worth of service without charge). I'm really rotten at explaining, so it's probably best that you visit the site and see for yourself, lol!

So far, I have found two books to fill in some gaps here in my collection, plus I have already gotten rid of a book, all in one day! It's definitely worth a look.

Oh, if you sign up, let them know that I referred you, (my email is shanana@neo.rr.com) or just click on the link to the right. I'll get credits for turning you on to such a great find, lol!