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The Psychotic Month of December

December is a messy month. It’s all filled up with homemade food potlucks and Secret Santas for people you don’t know and uncomfortable extended family gatherings and torturous Girl Scout Mommy and Daughter dinners that go on for hours and don’t have near enough alcohol involved. Students are wiggy and bouncing off the walls because read more..

I Have a Screw Loose

Stop laughing. Jimmy, the amazing guy who fixes my machine at least once a year and always suggests I buy a new one, well he says I have a screw loose…in my machine. It’s done this before. Something to do with an assembly deep inside the machine and he needs to take it apart and read more..

I Killed It

Not the turkey. I killed the sewing machine. Oops. I was quilting just fine, whipping along, and it stopped. It’s done this before, and when I took it in to Jimmy, he said he’d never seen that happen before, but he was able to fix it. I’m taking my mom’s sewing machine home with me read more..

Writing from the Mountains

We have spent every Thanksgiving for the last 20 or so years up in the mountains at Lake Arrowhead. We headed out this morning with clouds looming on the horizon. We’re here now. It’s raining with a little hail. We probably won’t get snow. Usually we have about 20 people here for Thanksgiving, because we have another read more..

Is It Wrong to Make It Again?

I have this thing rolling around in my head. Background: I actually went to college (gasp!) and have a degree in art. Yeah. I also have a couple other degrees that make it legal for me to teach science, but that’s a whole ‘nother story. Shockingly, I had to avoid my parents for some part of read more..

Typical Ex Communication

Him: “I told you I’m reffing (short for refereeing) a game at 9:30, right?” Her: “Nope. In fact the kids and I already discussed this morning that you PROBABLY had a game to ref and you just hadn’t told any of us about it.” Him: “What?! No, I definitely told you.” Her: “Maybe that was your OTHER exwife” read more..

Parenting Middle Schoolers

1. Middle schoolers lie. Even the good ones. I believe them until I catch them in the first lie, and then I mistrust everything they say from then on out. 2. The purpose of the irritating behaviors that middle and high schoolers use to torture parents is so that when they leave for college, we will read more..

Bad Days

You know how when you have a really rancidly bad horrible day and you think to yourself “Self, that was a really freakin’ bad day. Let’s not have one of those again for a while, OK?” and your Self agrees, and you think “I’m going to have a nice cup of tea to try to read more..

Art Stuff

I just signed up for one of the projects at Art House Co-op. A crazy thing to do, I think, considering how much I have on my plate, but it sounded interesting…cool…different. I tend not to do projects where there is no jury process, because they often suck, but this seemed different. We’ll see. Maybe read more..

Better Living through Pantihose

Pantihose has very limited uses in my house. Mostly for the last 3 years it’s been used to keep the cat hair from going down the washer drain. Today we found a new use. The girlchild wants to make some Xmas gifts, and I wanted to try out Judy Coates Perez’ wool-ball-making methods. I had read more..