We're heading to South Carolina on Wednesday. I'm bringing my poncho project, which I'm finding a bit nerve-wracking so far. Dagny's basically talking me through it stitch by stitch. I love the yarn, though. It's got just about every color you can think of. Dagny said it looks like a rainbow threw up. In a good way.

I'm leaving my computer at home, so I'll be disappearing til sometime after April 6th. Rowan and I are pretty sure our roadtrip's gonna be jumbo large.

I leave my camera in the living room. I like when I turn it on and see pictures someone else took. The puppies are a popular subject. Dammit doesn't know that she sticks her tongue out while she's sleeping. She fancies herself very dignified and I don't think she'd believe it for a minute. But now we have photographic evidence.

Today Dagny took some pictures for me - our new dining room table and my completed blanket.

The blanket's really big, but I like these pictures of bits and pieces of it. My next project is a poncho. I'm copying Kelli, because I like hers so much. I'm using the Kathmandu vegan yarn from Wool Peddler. I'm a little nervous because it's my first crochet project with a pattern, but Dagny checked it out and thinks I can handle it.

Here's some pretty fun: Boomshine

Anybody who enjoyed Sprout will probably like Sphere. If you get stuck, like we did, you can go here and read the instructions posted by mykos. It's hard to read it without getting more information than you might want, though, so you may want to ask someone else to read it and give you a hint.

That game led us to MOTAS, another good one.

Then there's Frostbite. We haven't tried that one yet but it looks like fun.

This is what the table in our dining room looked like for quite a few days. We had the idea for a window seat in our mudroom shortly after moving in. (7 years ago!) Last week we finally had everything we needed to make it happen. Jon cut out a base, we got some foam and batting, and we ordered some ridiculously expensive upholstery fabric. Based on what we saw at the fabric store, there are people who pay $2-300 for a yard of fabric. We are not those people. But still, I had to gather my courage before I could cut into this fabric. Then I had to look at it for another day or so before I finally picked up the staple gun.

I'm ok with a staple gun. They're fun, they make a good loud noise, and you can do cool things with them. What scared me was corners. I googled my way through a bunch of sites to try to get some idea of the best way to upholster corners. Pretty much everything I found said something along the lines of, 'start in the middle, work your way to the corners, then do the corners.' Um, ya. Very helpful.

With Dagny's assistance I finally did it. If you ever need someone to encourage you that you can do something, Dagny's the one. She's very convincing :o). One cushion down, one to go.

Hey, wait - there's a table in our dining room! But, no, not a dining room table. I went to an antique store last weekend in hopes of finding one, and instead came home with this 8 foot table, which we think will work great in our craft/sewing/doing fun stuff room.

It needs a little TLC, but so far we've eaten on it, crafted on it, and sat on it, and it seems to belong here. Dagny's very happy to have somewhere to put her sewing machine.

Rowan, meanwhile, is sick and has spent the past 5 days in bed, which is really not her style. Ok, she did jump out of bed and run outside when it suddenly started to snow the other day. And a good thing too, since the snow only lasted about ten minutes.

Here's a little entertainment for her:

String Spin

Draw Toy

Some neat stuff to look at:

Dirty Car Art

Gummi Bear Sculptures

And some interesting reading:

Coins

Dad at Comedy Barn

Meet Doug...

There are two kinds of people: People who don't get a headache from games like Sprout, and people who do.

My head a splode.

A couple of years ago Rowan read a book about chocolate and learned that the streetlights in Hershey, PA are shaped like chocolate kisses. She decided that was something she really wants to see.

Vacation, chocolate, streetlights shaped like kisses - sounded like a good idea to the rest of us. The only thing we could think of to make it even better was to invite some friends. And heck, why not drive to the Lovejoys' house in South Carolina while we're out and about for a concert and what looks like it's going to be a heck of a party with bunches of people we don't get to see nearly often enough?

We had our usual logistical issues to figure out - aka who will take care of the puppies-who-think-they're-human? We're bummed that Andrew has to work and can't come with us, but very relieved to know that he will be here to take good care of Godiva and Petunia. Dammit, of course, insists on staying with Amy because she has put so many years into training her in proper princess puppy care.

So off we go, March 28th, to play with unschoolers and see all there is to see in Hershey. Yay!

Speaking of our fabulous unschooling friends, I got a surprise in the mail today. Kelli sent me the felted tapestry from Lactation Nation.

It's even more beautiful in person and it feels really cool too. And every time I see it I'll be reminded of people I love. How lucky am I?