up to date!

Ack! something changed here and i couldn't log on for a while, but it looks like I am okay again. So much has been going on!

1) CLS had their homecoming a couple of weeks ago and I got to go as a chaperone (and chauffeur) so I got to take lots of pictures of the kids. Dan somehow wound up escorting two young ladies, which is an interesting story that I'll have to let him explain later. Sam, fortunately, did not have a date. I say fortunately, not because I don't think he's worthy, but he told me (later) that the girl he asked lives in Lexington! Not a convenient drive for us!

2) I finished posing suits for clients who competed in their first ever show, the Monster Mash in Middletown the weekend before Halloween.

3) our Girl scout troop went camping in Loveland last weekend, which was very fun and interesting...we had to move in with some girlscouts from Milford because our reservations got confused, and we had a great time meeting new friends and having a pampered campout!

4) I am helping Andrea Deis coach fifth grade girls basketball...huh? I stand around and retrieve balls, mostly, because I REALLY don't know a thing about basketball. I have a varsity letter in basketball, but that's because I was the trainer and statistician in high school! fortunately Andrea is good at this, and we have lots of dads willing to help out with drills and stuff.

5) cross country is almost over--what a long season! and swimming has begun. I miss soccer, a little, because I had a great time hanging out with the other soccer parents, but I'm sure glad to have an evening or two at home!

pretty pink suit stuff

I've been working on posing suits, and I have pictures!

This first one is Stephaney's two-piece. It's a slinky glittery fabric with a gross of crystals added...although it's pretty blingy without the extra stones. I was nervous about this fabric, but it worked great and looks AWESOME on Steph!This is a hot pink that we are going to use for Stephaney's one piece. It's a little on the neon side, but the alternatives were cotton candy or plum...which I have all together on Phyllis there, below:

This is a partially blinged suit for another client, Laura: I'm only about a fourth of the way done with this one, but since I had the camera out, I thought I'd let her have an update!

And the following suits are currently homeless! I made them for a couple of people who changed their minds... so if anyone needs suits...

for a client in the #120 range:

for a client about 5'4" and #120-130?for a client about 5'2" and #110...so many of these suits are flexible depending on torso length and stuff. I don't know how those internet vendors can nail a suit without a couple of fittings...but maybe one of these days I'll figure it out...or I'll get an adjustable Phyllis!

Long lost blogger discovered in lab!

wow, it's been a while since I posted!

We are back in full driving season, not that I am sure we were ever out of driving season. The boys are both running cross country, Dan is playing soccer, too (which is mercifully almost over!) and then there is all that school stuff, Karen's scouts, etc.

We've had a great time this fall going to soccer and cross country, and are looking forward to Karen's basketball season beginning this winter. The poor kid has been dragged around unmercifully (or left behind, which she secretly prefers, since she gets to watch TV uninterupted), so it's totally her turn to be the carpool focus.

I'm working on more posing suits right now and hope to get some new pictures uploaded here soon. I have some really nice girls getting ready to do the Monster Mash in Middletown on October 25th. I hope I can find time to get stones glued on here in the next couple of weeks!

I am also getting ready to start a secret project for a friend who has recently been diagnosed with breast cancer. Oh, and there's that Scout troop I sort of lead, the PSR (parish school of religion) class and something else...oh, a JOB!

My boss broke her leg a few weeks ago and has been homebound ever since. I have been trying to keep up my end of things here in the lab, but my slide staining hasn't been working well. This is really frustrating, since my ego says I should be able to do lots of science WELL in addition to the rest of the stuff I do (like blog on lab time?). Okay, back to the bench.

The Life I Always Wanted

I had a somewhat blissed out weekend, in which I decided that I probably have the life I always wanted...except that I don't know that I ever really had a specific life in mind. I guess the point is that I have a bit of serenity at the moment (this, too, shall pass!). I am grateful for the people in my life and stuff I get to do fairly regularly, and nothing too major to whine about.

I have healthy, smart, fun kids.

My husband loves me and I love him.

I have two dogs who also love me...of course, I am also the one who remembers to fill their water bowl, but I'll take it!

I have a home AND a tacky little trailer by the water

I have plenty of art supplies for just about anything I want to do (that doesn't mean I have ENOUGH, just that I recognize that I do have alot)

I have friends and family within a moment's notice

I got to take a nap in a hammock the other day

I am creative and clever and I am almost never bored

How is that for a gratitude list? I little corny, maybe, but it's still good to make a list now and then. I try to remember to make a list of at least five things at night before I fall asleep, but alot of the time I fall asleep before I get very far. Which is something to be grateful for in itself...the ability to fall asleep relatively easily most nights!

Now today my rat allergies are cranked up to about 11 on a scale of 1-10, we are in the middle of a big old experiment at work and I am just an itchy, sneezy mess. I look like hell, and I can't put on any makeup to hide that fact because it would just run off with the eyes and the nose...but I am working at being grateful for a job that I like (with the obvious exception of our research animal!), and grateful that the guy who invented benadryl. Nothing else works quite as well. I a bit foggy, but I'm functioning!

I also have a "be careful what you ask for" item: One of the Goodyear Guys is also a shepherd...and I told him that I am a spinner so he brought Tom three big bags stuffed full of raw fleece--woo hoo! so I dumped one of the bags in the driveway last week and started to 'skirt' it...which means pulling out anything icky, like "dung tags" which might also be referred to as 'dingleberries' or simply 'poo' and burrs and stuff...there were LOTS AND LOTS OF BURRS! What the heck were these sheep doing all last fall? My goodness! I tore my hands up and make a big mess in the driveway, but I managed to get a laundry basket full of de-burred fleece to wash...there is alot of lanolin in that fleece, too! three trips into hot water and the spin cycle in the washer...and I now have a laundry basket full of hay and fleece...I have been carding the wool so that I can spin it, but it's still pretty nasy stuff...I think I might have to learn to weave rugs or something.

THEN, I took the next bag down to camp to dump it, and bought some gardening gloves to protect me from the burrs...and SURPRISE! No burrs! Not a one! This bag had a good bit of poo to pull off, but I think this must me lambs wool, because it's got a much shorter staple length and lots of hay, but very few burrs. It's much finer stuff. I washed it a bunch down at camp and it was nice and sunny on saturday so it dried out pretty well. I haven't started to try to card it because I am still working on the first batch...but I'm learning that maybe I don't want to retire to the side of a mountain and raise sheep after all!

Norris Lake

Sam, getting his comeuppance from Luke. Sam has been regularly beating the tar out of Grandma Mary, so it was refreshing for the rest of us when Luke won. Sam is still smarting, but I think he needs that!


We have been back from vacation for over a week, so I really think it's time to get those pics uploaded!



We had a great time at the lake. Our house, named "Bullwinkle" for reasons I am not privy to, was very nice. Ninety three stair steps from the house to the dock, so we all came home with serious glutes! The weather was beautiful, too. It only rained on the last day, so we got lots and lots of sun and fun.

Getting ready to go boating. The water was so clear and green there!

I have to practice relaxing. I am so used to being needed somewhere that I was a little nervous with all of the free time I had...I kept feeling like I needed to be doing something somewhere else. This was probably the first vacation we've been on where we didn't have to pay attention to the kids 100% of the time. The cousins were there, so our kids hung out with them alot and didn't really talk to us very much!
Mark, Nancy and the kid from the house next door relaxing on the mega station floaty thing


I did wind up needing to go to Walmart to buy fabric while we were there because even though I took a quilt to work on, it wasn't 'getting it' for me, so I had to buy something and start a new project. I'll post pictures of it one of these days.
Niece-in-law Danean with great nephews Mason and Johnny.


On the way home we stopped for dinner at the Sander's Cafe--across the street from the location of the first place that the colonel made fried chicken. It was a KFC and a museum in one. Interesting. It made me want to take one of those road trips across the country to see all of the obscure monuments and such...you know, like the world's largest ball of twine.



Peace!

Pre-Vacation Anxiety

Here is Karen, week before last at the twilight camp overnight. The girls made rain sticks. Now, look below:

That is Karen minus about 9 inches of hair! She donated her locks to Lock of Love through Great Clips. I think she looks awesome! If it wasn't for that thumb in her mouth half the time, I might think she was almost 11 or even 12 (she really is almost 11...I just have to harp on the thumb thing as often as possible.

Now, here are some interesting people that I just met last week: my friend Carolyn's parents. Okay, not really. I've known them for about fifteen years, but at Carolyn's birthday party I was introduced to her dad about three or four times. It was really nice to meet him each and every time!
This is a picture of our lot at Camp Turn A Bout the same weekend--pretty, isn't it? As you can see, we were a little under water there! Poor Tom has had to move the trailer out three times this spring, which is a little more often than usual--usually once we move in in May, we are good for the season. A couple of times we've had to move out in May, but never in June! Next thing, the four horsemen will be galloping through!

It's not like I don't have enough to do to stay busy right now, but I am finding that I am worried about which craft project I am going to take with me on vacation. I have half a dozen UFO quilts that need quilting, but I really don't feel like taking the machine and all the crap--batting and such--to put those together. But on the other hand, I do want to take my machine and start a new quilt of some sort. Or start a new hand-piecing project. Or a new knitting project. I have plenty of knitting UFO's that I can do, so maybe I'll just take those with me and quit whining about wanting the perfect project to do while I sit and do nothing else!

only two weeks behind schedule!

Okay, I took these pictures week before last at Camp Michaels during our ill fated stormy evening of twilight camp. I was playing around with when to use flash and when not to. I like the colors that I get without the flash, but I can't get the clarity. I am sure there is some sort of manual shutter speed thing that I could do and then lighten the pictures up in photoshop, but I am not that sophisticated at the moment.

This one, above, is a rotten stump, very fuzzy, without the flash. The shot below is the same thing with the flash...more sharpness, but I think I lost a good bit of the contrast...the dark icky rotten parts of the wood are all washed out.

Down here is a little creek. I love to take pictures of water and get the motion. There is just something cool about a mossy creek. It makes me think of King Arthur and Robin Hood stories for some reason...that middle ages fantasy thing. I expect to see little fairies flitting around.

Moving Week

The Pixley Lab is moving down a floor this week. I have been in a bit of denial, I think, not getting too worked up about things. This really is a big job...or maybe I'm just getting sucked into the chaos in other people's minds...I am trying to be laid back and "in the moment" if I can be all recovery-ish about it. But now that the moving guys are coming in the morning, I realize I'm not all that organized about things. Well, I will be or I won't. Sitting here updating my blog might be a tiny bit of a procrastinating mechanism, but hey...at this point, fifteen minutes isn't going to make things much different!

here are more pictures...Dan got a haircut last week in preparation for his new job at Goodyear Tire and Auto Service...he looks really good! I loved the long haired rock and roll look thing he had going on, but I think I like clean Dan even better. Poor baby got braces put on yesterday, so his next picture probably isn't going to be so smiley...he's pretty miserable right now.

Karen is planning to get her mane removed next and donate the ponytail to Locks of Love...we'll do pics of that next!

Last day of School, belated edition

Dan, Philip and Sam, the last day of school!

Well, the kids all got done with school on May 30th, but I was a slug and didn't get pictures up until now (I've been celebrating the end of homework too hard!). On that day, I picked the boys up after finals and took them to Newport on the Levee where we had lunch with my mom and dad at Johnny Rockets. Then, the boys were feeling so big and strong that they went out in the parking lot and posed with the various architectural elements available. After that they came to work with me and donated snot for our human mucus study (I love being a scientist!)

Here is Sam, holding up the actual Newport on the Levee building. The Purple People bridge is in the back ground.

This is Philip Dunn, with whom we carpool to Latin School. His mom and dad have become great friends of ours, and we also are all in the same scout troops and their girls go to St. Paul with Karen. I am not sure he was thrilled with having to balance the Big Mac Bridge on his finger, but once he got to my work and had to watch Dan and Sam donate snot, I bet he was wishing he could go back there and balance that bridge some more!

Daniel just decided to lean on the purple people bridge (do other cities have such goofy names for their bridges?), he worked pretty hard to grow that hair, so he was pretty wiped out.

Meet Alex

This is Alex. He's the son of my best friend from college, Robin. They live in Dayton, Ohio, which means I get to see them once every six months or so. Robin and Alex came to visit us a couple of weeks ago, and here he is coming down the stairs.
Behind him is the quilt I made from leftover millenium quilt squares. It's covering a hole in the wall that we didn't fix really nicely.

delayed gratification

Wow, I have REALLY been a blog slug lately! All this fresh spring air has kept me doing lots of other things. On the crafting front, I finally finished the quilt from hell! I am ready to send it back to California as soon as I know where to send it. And then I'm getting another one to work on, but in the meantime, I've had time to spin and knit and work on some other stuff. I actually finished a sweater (not a vest!)that I made of yarn that I spun all myself--and it fits! Its actually chilly enough today that I got to wear it to work before it has to be shoved into the sweater pile in the closet.

Let's see, what else? Well, the boys are busily with finals this week (finally!). Sometimes it's a close race to see if we will be in summer school or not! We will all be relieved to be done with school and take a break from carpooling and so forth for the next couple of months. Karen and Sam will be going to Camp Goodridge again this summer, a Boone County park program. Sam will actually be a "Counselor in Training" which means that he's a halfprice camper and full time counselor's assistant. This should be educational for all of us!

Karen has had a busy spring. Her class went to Frankfort, the capital of Kentucky a few weeks ago and then they had a 'state convention' which was a kind of a science fair thing where the kids did a research project on a specific state and then made a display and a 'food item' from their state for people to sample at the convention.

Can you guess which state Karen was assigned? No? Hint: there are a lot of weddings there (just in case you are wondering, that is a wedding cake there. We made it and decorated it ourselves).

Okay, here's a hint: the Bride and groom on the top of the cake could have been Elvis and a Stripper.

TaDA! It's NEVADA!

And then next, her class performed the play "Blame it on the Wolf" for parents and the younger students. Karen plays the part of TurkeyLurkey along with her friends Chloe and Audrey, who are Chicken Little and Henny Penny. I think they were a kind of a Greek chorus, because they would run out periodically and sing a little song and then run back offstage. Very excellent choreography. Camp has opened and we only had to move the trailer once because of flooding---what a pain--for Tom. I held down the fort here.

next installment, hopefully before the end of the summer, will be about camp and the new Goodyear Store!

Soggy grounded Grunts

Me, enjoying life!

This past weekend was the Flying Pig Marathon in Cincinnati, and the Pig has come to encompass a whole bunch of races over two days. Covington Latin School provides the volunteers to pass out water and gatorade at two fluid stops during the 10K race and the 5K Hope and Possibilites run on the Saturday before the 'big pig' race. I didn't look away quickly enough when the Latin School Boosters were looking for someone to be the volunteer coordinator for our fluid stations, so I got the job of getting all of the supplies and organizing as many kids (and parents, gratefully) as I could find to show up and help with this.

The thing I really love about this race is the humor that goes with it. First of all...it's called the Flying Pig...you have to smile at that. And the volunteers are all called "Grunts"--and we get t-shirts that proudly declare our status! The spectators are called "Squealers". People both in the races and along the way are known to dress up in all kinds of pig suits...some people Saturday were running with pig noses on , some had ears...very cool.

That is Sam in the camoflage rain poncho. He says next year he might run if it will get him out of having to stand around in the rain.

This is the crew at Newport on the Levee. What a mess! See that cluster of kids standing down there on the left? Interestingly, the people passing out water are PARENTS!

It really is alot of fun, and the weather cleared up for the majority of both of the races we worked at...but the before and after times were pretty miserable there in the rain!

Here is Daniel, in the middle, and Ellen and Christopher, having a blast raking up cups. Don't you love Dan's hat? That is mine from when I worked at Hardee's in high school. I can't believe I have carried that hat along with me as I've moved around--what was I thinking? Now I can't get it away from him to throw it out!

Shameless Self Promotion

I am thinking that I might start a campaign to get myself a 'mommy makeover'. Now if you look up celebrity plastic surgery crap, you might see that a mommy makeover is actually a tummy tuck and boob lift; and while I could certainly go for that, I think I need more. Okay, I don't NEED bubkus. I have all that I could ever NEED, but let's face it...I WANT MORE--and I haven't even started!

Here's my thinking: I've done a good thing for myself and my family by losing so much weight (115lbs right now). I have probably added a few good years and reduced the cost of my healthcare in the future (until I get Alzheimers, but by then I won't know what's going on so I won't care). heck, I've probably reduced the cost of my current health care! So it kind of sucks that the insurance company won't pay for a tummy tuck...after all, they'd pay for all kinds of crap related to obesity--I think they should give me a reward!

But since they won't, I'll go to the public: HEY! I AM SAVING YOU MONEY BY LOSING WEIGHT! Really...it's not just MY health care premiums that I'm shaving, it's YOURS, too! And I'm still paying for YOUR BIG MAC HEART ATTACK! You don't think my bills are going down because I lost weight, do you?

Not only am I saving YOU money by losing weight, I'm doing more for society as a whole! I am more capable of volunteering to help people (not just CAPABLE, I'm actually out there doing it!) I am so much more energetic, that I am capaple of punctuating an entire blog post with exclamation points sometimes!

I eat less overall, so there is more food for the homeless! I eat more vegetables, so I am reducing my carbon footprint!

I don't think it's too much to ask to get someone to pay for a little plastic surgery and maybe a new wardrobe and some makeup tips! Think of how much more energetic I'll be when the anethesia wears off and I can get out there and help save the world without fear of slapping someone in the face with excess skin!

Aren't you glad I am not posting photos with this one?

Happy April 16th!I

I'm so glad I am not the tax person in our house. I would totally be running to get to the other side of the international date line to get my taxes mailed! I would need Superman to fly around the world and spin it backwards to make time go back.

Anyway, I'm recovering from my major surgery very nicely. I had that cyst removed on Monday morning, and by Monday evening I was running up and down the street begging people for drugs. If I lived in a nice neighborhood, there would be more doctors, and if it was a crummier neighborhood, there would be drug dealers. But alas, just regular people on my street!

But today I am better, I'm barely even whining any more. I'll have to find something else!

That's really all I have to say today. I did some spinning the past couple of days, but no pics yet. I have some really delightful brown merino that is very very soft...it smells like maybe it came from the home of a smoker, but that is getting less icky, so I think it's going to be okay. I'm doing a strand of brown/light brown/grey plied with a strand of white. I'm going to make myself a nice stripey sweater for next winter.

Many Congratulations!

Three of the women wearing my suits placed in Figure over the weekend! Tonya placed fourth in her category...her first show ever, and she's MY AGE! OMG...can you visualize ME in this suit? Please, don't try...shudder
Stacey placed second in her category (the categories are based on height), also her first show! And Maja, who placed second in her height class at the Northern KY show a few weeks ago took first OVERALL on Saturday! That is SO COOL!

Now, I realize that this is probably inspite of, not because of the suits, but I can feel pretty good about not hindering anyone's performance!

I spent the weekend putting my workshop back together and making sure that I have the patterns for everyone's suits organized so that if they want more suits, I won't have to start from scratch. I am also making some "standard" size patterns, so that hopefully in the future I'll be able to take someone's measurements and actually know what to do with them to modify a pattern!
I haven't figured out how to turn a picture right side up once it's loaded, but this is Abbie's two-piece. She was smokin' hot in it when she tried it on for me on Friday, but alas, I didn't take pictures in the bathroom at work...

Meanwhile, in other exciting news, I had a cyst removed from my back this morning. I thought I was just going in for a consultation, but they had me down for a procedure. The surgeon got in there and took it out before I was fully awake, which was probably good. Now that I am clocking in, I think this is going to be a little uncomfortable here in a little while. The huge, undulating wound is on my left shoulder blade, so I probably need to take the rest of the week off to recover, since I am left-handed.

Actually, as long as I can wear a bra, I'll probably be okay...if the bra strap starts to be a problem, the administration of the university will give me a free week off. The do NOT want me and the girls flapping around work this week!

T

On to the Next Disaster!

Okay! I have been through the "hell week" of bodybuilding suit designer business initiation. I have made and remade enough bikinis and one-piece suits to qualify for the lycra hall of fame this week. I've glued on enough Swarovski Crystals to require the boiling of a herd of hooves (do they still make glue from horses?). I have missed hours and hours of quality sleep, stuck myself in all kinds of interesting places with various instruments of sewing torture, and managed to grow spiritually along the way.

I now know that I have more things to clarify with clients BEFORE the job starts...hopefully there WILL be more clients! I don't think I totally scared off the women I was working for, but we certainly had some educational moments!

1) do not EVER EVER EVER use pepto-bismol pink wet-look spandex for ANYTHING, especially not a swimsuit. It sucks. I remade the suit about 5 times before we tried it out of a different fabric and hit it on the first try. I was sure her butt was changing shape on a daily basis. I even tried boning in the suit (the stuff used to stiffen corsets).

2) boning doesn't help swimsuits.

3) Go for the thicker elastic...1/4 inch elastic is too wussy to hold a suit on to the buttock area appropriately

4) Poor Phyllis needs a brazillian butt lift. I have to stuff the bottoms of my suits with socks and stuff to fill them out for putting on stones.

but I finished and delivered six suits this week--four of them with 48 hours to spare before the show! Here is the biggest thing I learned:

5) It takes more than six weeks to make a good suit, even though I can make a suit in a day...sometimes it takes five or six fittings to get it right.

although hopefully I'll be better at this and not need QUITE so many fittings next time.

Craft Camp Recovery Zone

Oh, my! What a weekend! Our junior girl scout troop went to spend a wonderful weekend at Camp Judy Layne near Cave Run Lake in Eastern Kentucky. To say we got off to a cold damp start is to say that Simon Cowell is a little bitchy, but we really wound up having a great time. There were lots of adults, which REALLY helped things flow...we were able to keep things moving for the girls while taking turns being "on duty".

Here is Karen's cabin and Stephanie Reynolds setting out to learn how to measure the distance to the bathroom by walking...

We earned 7 badges each! I am really proud of how well everyone did. There was minimal drama, of the 10-11 year old girl variety, but the girls deserve a badge in drama for their self-motivated and self-organized production of American Idol. I am so impressed with that...while supper was cooking on Saturday night, the non-cooking girls all went to the "Thicket Theater" and made up their own version of Americal Idol, complete with Randy, Simon, Paula and Ryan. The other girls did singing, dancing and comedy routines that they just made up there! So cool.

If we had tried to organize them to do something like that it would have never worked.

smiling happy Karen, inspite of the cold and damp!

Unfortunately, my camera pooped out very early on, so I don't have many pictures, but when the rest of the troop shares their pics, I'll post those, too!

playing catch up

Oh, boy--I am in arrears here I fear! I had those suits to finish for the competion on the 22nd of March, and I have several more due in a few more days, I had the flu, the kids had spring break, and so on!

Here are some pics from the Northern Kentucky NPC competition on March 22. Abbie is front and center wearing the tan one-piece:

We love the suit, but it seems the color didn't quite work for her, it's almost the same color as she is! My solution was to add about six hundred million more stones, but we're holding off on that one for a while...I'm in the middle of making a poppin' red suit for the next show, on April 12. Here is the back view:

Abbie placed sixth in her class out of about...alot of women...maybe 25 or so, so I think she did great! Of course, we all want first....

And here is Maja--she placed second in her height class! I'm so psyched for her! I would like to think the suit has alot to do with this, but I'm pretty sure I still have alot of design work to do before I can call myself accomplished in this market...

I have two more women I am working with right now and just when I think I have things worked out, I am pretty sure I am clueless. Hopefully we'll get it straightened out with this next go-round, because I am running out of not only time, but fabric!

My next learning experience here will be working with underwires! I found a website where I can buy them, which is huge--not too many people sell that sort of thing, because honestly...how many people make their own bras, and how many people put wires in swim suits? Well, I'm about to be one!

Stay posted...

Green Monday

Ahhhh. The wearin' o' the green! I actually remembered this morning and managed to find a green sweater to change into on my way out of the door this morning!

I had a great weekend, very busy as usual, and fairly productive! I got 4 competition suits finished and delivered for next weekend's NKY show, and took two suits for another client to be tried on--and remade. Not quite enough fabric in the bootie area, there. I was being so overly conservative as I cut these things out before, that my girls were all sending them back to be redone...I guess I went too far the other way!

I got those suits re-done and ready to be re-fitted and cut out two more suits, for a different client! I'm so enjoying this work, I hope I turn out to be good at it so that people keep coming to me!

I also finished a set of blocks for a swap, which I haven't participated in forever, but am looking forward to getting back in contact with quilting friends. Not that I have time to quilt, but I have time to think about it and wish!
I am actually taking a few days off over the next two weeks and hopefully I can get in there and get some quilting done...and maybe another set of blocks for the swap!

No pictures this time...I took some, but I don't want to post the finished suits until Abbie and Maja wear them next weekend...I want to post pictures with them all fixed up and be-youteeful on stage.

More suits, carbon footprints, and it's Friday!

what a week! I have been in a total fog the past few days, but I think I'm coming out of it. My diseased mind tells me that I probably have a vitamin deficiency as a result of my protein/fruit and vegetable only diet, and I should probably eat a loaf of bread. On the other hand, I have been eating this way for 18 months and haven't really suffered as a result of it up to now, so it's maybe some sort of temporary (but very serious and requiring lots of sympathy) 24-hour cancer or something. Or it could just be PMS, winter and stress combining to get my attention: HEY! Get some sleep!

but Hey...I'm having the time of my life making these posing suits and getting the embroidery thing going, working all that.

We had a girl scout meeting last night and talked about our Bronze Award Service project. I presented my idea to the girls and they loved it (a minor miracle). Now I just have to suck up the energy to get things rolling. Here is my idea: We are going to have a Carbon Footprint Education Station: We will set up a Kroger or somewhere like that and offer free tire pressure testing and filling ( to increase fuel efficiency), and provide starter plants for home-grown produce (to promote sustainable, locally grown agriculture) and maybe even make recycled recipe books...recipes taken from other sources, printed on recycled paper and bound with handmade/recycled paper. We'll also pass out footprint shaped fliers with information about reducing the Carbon Footprint. I'm so excited (in my mind)...getting this off the ground might take a little more than I can do.