I Lived In Nature; Did Not Die.

So I am not, historically, the camping sort.
I am someone who shrieks hysterically when bugs fly near her face. I get itchy just thinking about mosquitos. I have very poor eyesight and a supernatural ability to manage to walk through spiders' newly constructed webs. I have developed a "special" walk to help me combat the into-web-walking. It looks like a child doing the elementary school favorite "crazy walk", but the child is drunk and has vertigo. Because I love you, I made a horrible-quality animated gif of my spiderwalk. It ain't pretty.

So, we were unsure exactly how successful our first family camping expedition would be. Why did we DECIDE to camp, you might ask? Well, we had DECIDED to go on a road trip to Chicago, but then we found an amazing couch for $150, and though, oh, well, we don't have any other big expenses coming up... Ha. Ha-ha. That's the sound of our air conditioner breaking, and Brian needing a root canal. Ha. Ha-ha. So we opted for a $26-a-night campsite, and told ourselves that Chicago was lame, anyway.BUT, camping is not cheap! Or, it isn't if you've never done it and don't have all the STUFF. We were betting on the fact that we could become "camping people", and bought a GIANT tent (on sale!) and all the other junk that must accompany one in the wilderness, if one is a city-fied sissy. T'was risky, friends, I will not lie. Behold our giant tent, which is larger than our car. It took an hour or more to put up, and I had never sweat so much as I did while helping Brian assembling the thing. Afterward, I busied myself organizing our new tent-home, enjoying the breeze that came through the open tent doors. OPEN TENT DOORS. This lasted about 15 minutes, and then I noticed I had invited EVERY GIANT DUMB BUG IN THE FORST INTO MY TENT. It was a turning point in my life. It was the moment when I turned into a cold-blooded insect killer, and also someone who will CUT YOU if you do not zip up the tent door as QUICKLY AS IS HUMANLY POSSIBLE, thank you. I did what everyone in my position would do: I put a ziploc bag on my hand and started grabbing insects and smooshing them into bug-paste. I got really good. Every time I got one, I would call out to Brian, "That's SIX! I got SIX!" though he didn't seem terribly impressed. I should mention that the bigs were really dumb and slow. If I had to guess, I would say they were the unlit inbred cousins of lightening bugs, but I am no entomologist.Other things happened while we camped. We swam! We cooked! We hiked! All at 95+ degrees, because we went camping in a heat wave! Like geniuses! But what I will remember the most about our first camping trip was how many bugs I killed. The first day was only the beginning, folks, because despite my best efforts, the ants had moved into the tent by the second night. I was ruthless. I am sorry, ants, but you wanted the wrong person's graham crackers.
What would I say are the most essential camping supplies? Bug spray and ziploc bags, my friends. The former I applied about every 90 minutes when awake, and the latter I used CONSTANTLY.

Have you opened a food product? MUST GO IN ZIPLOC.
Are you putting something into the cooler? MUST GO IN ZIPLOC. (Beverages excluded.)
Do you need to marinate your kabobs? MUST GO IN ZIPLOC.
Are you about to form turkey-burger patties? ZIPLOC IS GLOVE.
Do you need to smash approximately 4,000 ants with your hand? ZIPLOC IS GLOVE.
My camping habits... might not be ecologically sound.

We survived, though, and we plan to camp again in the fall, when it will not be as heat-wave-y, and we will not have to seek refuge in the nearby WalMart/McDonalds/public library. It will be glorious, and I will know that if you run away from hornets, they follow you. Life lessons, people.

Very Good Things, Mildly Bad Things.

Oh, blog. I have neglected you. You have been INTIMIDATING me, because I know I have so much to TELL you. I am sorry, blog. Sometimes, just for a little bit, I imagine that I could be fancy. By "fancy", I mean "wearing clean clothes" and "having remembered to put on makeup" and "blogging on a weekly basis" and also "not the kind of person who leaves cherry pits on her nightstand for days and eventually finds herself making fruit-fly-traps at 2:00 am". That's all I mean by fancy. And, blog? I am not fancy. I will try to be okay with it, and not avoid you when I get overwhelmed by my unfancyness, and the fruit flies.

BUT. Moving on, to more important and (hopefully) interesting things: I am frequently amazed by how awesome people can be. People can be really, really awesome. It's super easy to forget.

(I think this is mostly because highways exist, and for the most part, driving on highways does NOTHING to convince me that humans have even the POTENTIAL for good. I am a hateful, vindictive person when I am driving on the highway, because I have been WRONGED and why won't this guy SPEED UP and HOW ARE YOU ONLY GOING 55??? I am roadrageous. But I digress.)

So, a MILLION YEARS AGO, I complained that I had lost my scissors. I am a champion complainer, usually to no effect. But then, lo and behold:

Yeah. So this delightful individual, whom I shall refer to as "K", because she is so awesome she only needs one letter, SENT ME SCISSORS.
GINGHERS. SCISSORS. PLURAL.
They are HUGE and FABULOUS, scissors the likes of which I have never seen before! They are "Tailor's Shears" instead of Dressmakers, and they cut like BUTTAH. Seriously, these are the best things in the world for making tote bags, and cutting through multiple layers of upholstery, something I happen to do all the time. And K just SENT them to me. Because she is a scissor philanthropist! (Note: Use of the word "philanthropy" is in jest. I assure you I am not a worthy cause.) Check K out at her blog, Totes McGoats, because she is awesome, and also the phrase "Totes McGoats" is awesome and she OWNS THE DOMAIN NAME.

(True uninteresting story: for a while I kept saying "totes mcgoats" in place of the word "totally", and I had NO IDEA why. I asked several friends if it was a thing they had said to me, and all of them denied it. So when I saw K's blog name, I laughed a lot, because, what? HA! T'was MEANT to BE!) THANK YOU, K! You are the Totesiest of McGoats.

So, that was Very Good Thing. Mildly Bad Thing? This:
Long story short: I was going into a store to buy pie. (Reason for pie is a MUCH longer story than one post can handle. Maybe later.) My hand was sweaty, I dropped the phone on the sidewalk, hard. BROKEN! Made sad face. Went in to buy pie. Pie store not open. NO PIE! Sad face revisited. WORST EXPERIENCE INVOLVING PIE EVER! (For me.)

I was sad about this for about 15 minutes, at which point I realized that it was incredible that it hadn't happened sooner. I am a thing-dropper, and I have dropped this phone a LOT, but never on its face on the sidewalk. Lesson learned: If you lose the bottom part of your phone cover thing? Get a new one. Don't use half a case for over a year, because at some point, you will realize why it is necessary for the case to go ALL the way 'round. It's been about a month now, and I'm not planning on getting it replaced, because it still works fine. So.

I did went camping, and I did not die, and I enjoyed it. Except for when we thought we might have gotten salmonella poisoning. Photos of ludicrously large tent in the future.

2012 Calendar? Already? Yes. Already. But BIGGER.

So, interweb friends, for the past few years I have made a thing, and that thing is called the Overdue Book Calendar, and what it does is what you might guess it does. (Helps keep track of library due-dates. Yo.) T'was inspired by my friend Raych, of ye olde books I done read (REEEEEEEED EEEET!!!) and it has been used by such notables as Vancouver Public Schools. (That was not sarcastic, I am deeply impressed with anything that exists in Vancouver. Case in point, Raych used to live there.)

But this year it has EXPANDED, and so I am pleased to introduce, the 2011-2012 Overdue Book Calendar, Elementary Edition! Yes, that is a RIDICULOUSLY long name, I am not known for brevity. And since it is 18 MONTHS of awesomeness, and every month has two pages of big spaces and it is pretty sweet, if I do say so myself.

Gratuitous calendar pictures! It's either cats or calendars around here, people!

Now, you might ask, why are you coming out with a calendar in July? Isn't that a bit silly? And the answer is: Yes. It is. But the reason why is this: I was totally honored when I found out that the AWESOME kids at lmnop magazine wanted to put the calendar in their book-themed issue, and I had been planning a version for younger kids for a while, and thought, why not now? Also, school years start in all sorts of crazy months, so why shouldn't calendars?

(True confession time: It feels really silly making a calendar in June. It's fun, but you feel ridiculous, and when you tell people that you can't hang out because you have to finish "making your calendar", they give you they "is-that-a-euphemism?" eyebrow raise. But it was worth it.)

Would you like to get a bit of calendar-taste for free? Well, you are in luck. I have put together a download for lmnop readers, and you, because I love you. Click HERE, dahlings, and get the month of July to do with what you will. And if that little taste makes you hunger for more calendar, there is a whole heaping 18-month pile of it RIGHT HERE.

And check out this issue of lmnop, for reals. It is totally children'sbookland, and even has paper figure illustrations of Roald Dahl books. (True fact: in 4th or 5th grade I was involved in a "Night of the Notables" where everyone had to dress up as their heroes and tell about their lives. I was Roald Dahl. I think I wore khaki shorts? Maybe a hat? I handed out chocolate, that's all that I remember. Second true fact: I spent the majority of one summer talking like the BFG. I am told it was insufferable.)

But wait, what was I talking about? Just kidding! Ha! The magazine! It has printable bookplates! ANd lists of amazing children's books I have never heard of, but will probably buy now! (Hush, I know I don't have kids yet. It's an investment!) And amazingly photographed pop-up-book reviews! And absurdly cute Australian children, who wear far nicer clothes than I ever will.

Ok. That's all I got for now. Coming down the chute next: my NEW SCISSORS, and our CAMPING TRIP. The camping trip has not yet occurred, so there is a slight chance I might not make it back alive and that post will remain unwritten. My ability to camp is yet-to-be-determined, so. Should be interesting?

Most Narcissistic Blog Post, In the World, Ever.

What also has the most narcissistic post title, ever, if you consider that the internet is 60% narcissism, 13% actual information and 27% dirties. These percentages MIGHT not be accurate. But most likely they are.
So, remember when I whined, hard, about getting a bad haircut? Because I was SO attached to my long, lustrous*, locks?

I got over it.

I find that when my hair is short, I dream of having ponytails and in the few times I have had ponytail acceptable-ish hair, I dream of cutting it all off. Literally I dream, like wake up in the morning and remember it. my hair is eternally indecisive. So, summer has come, and it was hottt, and Brian was dropping not-so-subtle hints that my constant doo-rag/ponytail combo was perhaps not what I had dreamed about, hair-wise. Because I complained about it all the time. I had to DO something to it! The horror. Also, he's a big fan of the short hair.

Laziness and public opinion won. I wanted them to. I was dying to do it.

But it was HARD, because it took me TWO YEARS to grow my crap-hair, and that is a lot of time to dedicate to something that is ultimately a failure. But my face, it is not built for long hair, and my hairstyling aptitude is lacking. The only way I could make myself feel better about cutting it all off? Spend three hours doing it, and have AS MUCH FUN AS I POSSIBLY COULD. If I can't keep it, I better darn well enjoy the removal process. And, I photographed it all. Because I am hopelessly vain and self-absorbed. It's a fact. I apologize in advance for the photos in which I am making my "prison-inmate" face. There is a reason my product shots do not include face, and it is because my face either looks DEEPLY depressed or somewhat insane in photos. Y'all've been warned.

Without further ado: Narcissism!

Pre-cut. The sitch was kinda dire, as you can see. Prison inmate face alert!
Snippage! Dumb upward-looking face! Hoo-ha.
Continued snippage. This part is kind of boring, I should have done a bit more. The mushroom-cut of my childhood was attempted, but failed. Show of hands, who else had the mushroom haircut? How of hands, who ALSO had an eyepatch? Oooh, looks like I win the pathetic-child award.

This is me pretending to be a bored model, ANTM-style. I have no explanation or excuse, the bob just made me feel classy and silly.

Note: I do not have an abnormally hairy neck. It's just hair-sawdust. Do not judge.

I forgot my quail-piece in that last one.

Closer.... I am verrra serious when cutting hair, as you can see. Not accurate, or technical, but serious. I finished off most of the back with my husbands clippers, because it was way easier. No photos of that. Saaarry. I know you are just DYING for more. Ha.
Ta-daaa!!! I made silly faces.
Final product. Yes, I was going for the thatched-roof bangs. Blame the wip-hairport flickr streat (which is awesome!) Spaniards (is that the proper word? I think it's correct but it sounds a bit wrong. Please correct me if it's wrong.) have the best style, I think maybe. Or, the women do- jury's still out on the men.

Summer-hair! I have got you!

Thank you for indulging me. I am fully expecting my subscriber-numbers to go down after this post.

*Yeah, this is a ludicrous exaggeration. "Lank", "bedraggled", and "frequently dirty" would all be more appropriate adjectives.

Things I Made, Thing I Lost.

Ok, so, I had another post planned for today, but it has MANY PHOTOS and requires MUCH WORDS (not really, just SOME WORDS), but it was stressing me out and sucking up time and so this is the one you get.

Because all I make is Birdie Slings, the pictures are of a Birdie Sling I made. Awesome sentence award! This one was for my wonderful mother for Mother's Day. Side note, mom, you're awesome, thanks for not killing me or locking me in the basement between the ages of 13 and 17! I surely deserved it!

In more whiny and self-absorbed news, I have lot my scissors. The IMPORTANT ones. You know. The Gingher 8-Inch Knife-Edge Dressmaker's Shears. THE scissors. I took them to work when I was teaching my class (FOOL!) and now they have disappeared. They had a gold ribbon tied to them. I still managed to leave them.

If you sew, and if you own these scissors (which, obvs, you SHOULD), and if you lose them, you feel like you have lost a hand. Or, not a hand, but some important part. A hand accessory? Wait, that is exactly what you have lost. I lose at metaphors. But WHAT I AM SAYING IS, they are important, and you will constantly feel sad, because NO OTHER SCISSORS can pretend to be these scissors. Not in my house, anyway. All our other scissors are scuzzy and dull and are lazy and lack the ability to cut fabric entirely. Sorry, scissors, it's the truth.
SCISSORS! Come back! Mama misses you! And will never take you for granted again, or drop you (no, I will probably still drop you), or curse your not-very-sharp-ness. You are sharp enough for me! You are my favorite fabric-photo prop! You are SHINY!

TOFUTTI! Where ARE you when I NEEEEED you?

Things I Made In the Interlude, Vol. 3.

So, I work at a quilt fabric store. We have a lot of classes, and starting this summer we will have one more: Improv Studio! And, fr some reason, they are letting me "teach" it. Quotation marks because I would consider myself to be more of a facilitator than a teacher- I'm sure that some of the people who will participate will be more accomplished sewers than I am. The basic structure will be a brief presentation (Powerpoint! Woot?) of some images of whatever the theme of the month is. Since improv isn't about patterns, but inspiration, I think it's a good place to start. This will be followed by a demo of the technique, and then SEWING TIME! I'm kinda jazzed about it, and if you're local and interested, you can sign up on at Harper's, by phone, and eventually it will be up on the website. It will be the third Tuesday of every month, from 6-9, and the cost is $20 per session. This is the ticker-tape quilt I did as a sample, as that will be one of our first sessions. I'm kind of in love with the technique, because it's pretty much a color study and a puzzle all in one, and also pretty quick and simple. AND, I finally have a use for the itty bitty scraps I used to throw away!

Things I Made In the Interlude, Vol. 2.

Messenger bag for my sister-in-law, Mandy. I have to say that I was insanely fortunate to marry into the family I did, Brian's parents and sister are all really amazing people. Mandy and her husband Robert and their kids (Noah, Riley, Lily, Gabriel and Aiden) have been in missionary training for the past 7 years. This fall, they will be leaving for Senegal, to work as church planters in a tribal setting.
Now, I'mma gon get a bit serious here for a minute, which, not standard for me, but I promise we will soon be back to cat photos and craftastrophes. I met Mandy and Robert and the kids right before they started down their path to be missionaries, and it has been an extraordinarily inspiring and beautiful journey. When I met them, I wasn't even a Christian, but regardless of one's religious convictions, you really have to respect people who believe SO strongly in something that they will sacrifice an easy and comfortable life for it, despite numerous challenges. It can't be easy leaving all of your friends and family to begin YEARS of schooling that will then lead to YEARS of being overseas, all the while having to find support and also deal with those who don't understand what you're doing-- but I'm sure it's exponentially harder when you are a family of seven. Watching how God has always provided for their family, sometimes in bizarre and completely unexpected ways has really been awesome. In my opinion, they are doing the most important work that there is, and it is difficult and beautiful work. Like I said, I was blessed to have been made a part of this family, and am really excited to see them again this summer before they leave for West Africa.A few notes on the bag-- As far as I can tell, Mandy carries boulders in her messenger bags. This is a replacement for another I had made her, hopefully it will prove tougher than its predecessor, which came back to me looking as if it had lost the war. There is SO MUCH THREAD in this bag's innards, as well as LAYERS of interfacing and roughly 40 pockets. I'm hoping that now that they are out of school, this bag will not have to deal with the roughly 700 books that the other one had to carry. The fabric is a wax block print that I got in a local African grocery store, and it is lovely stuff.
If you are curious about Mandy, Robert and the kids' travels, you can follow their blog here.