The real fun is just beginning

i have three boys, aged 12-16. I never wished i had girls instead of boys. In fact, i consider myself very fortunate to have three sons. But, ...

Teen-aged boys are not the same as little boys. These kids like that activity called parkour. Basically what it is, is you take a physical stunt, like leaping from one precarious point to another, determine what your farthest successful jump would be, and then find a situation where the distance you need to jump is about 4 inches further. And you have to do it high up enough so that if you didn't quite make it, at least one bone will break when you hit the ground. (Or at least that's what it looks like to me, the mother.)

Or how about this fun activity that one of my boys did the other night: eat a slice of habanero pepper, just to see how hot a famously hot hot pepper is... Perhaps it is just as well that i didn't think to grab my camera and photograph the result. But a few words will fill in that missing picture for you: all fours, saliva streaming from nose and mouth, screaming. It only lasted for fifteen or twenty minutes and then it was mercifully over. And a few days later, when asked if he would ever do it again, i discovered that that sort of agony has a price. And that price is somewhere between $30 and $40. Boys. Gotta love 'em.

Area Man Creates Best Cookie Ever

My husband likes to make cookies. He recently took the recipe for chocolate chip cookies from the back of the package of Hershey's semisweet chocolate chips and added his own inspired touches and came up with The Best Cookie Ever. Try this, and if you have a better recipe, send it, and we'll bake it up and see if we are wrong and you are right. Now that's good research!

So you take the recipe off the chips pkg., and you add about a teaspoon of Mapleine and a couple of heaping Tablespoons of peanut butter. The result is a soft, melt-in-your-mouth cookie, with a complex and delicious flavour.

Stuff Happens

I did it again. I let the kiln heat up to anneal my beads, and i went and did something else, and before i remembered it again i got a little bit of hell going on in my workshop. These are some very melted, slightly charred, BirthBones glommed on to the bottom of my kiln. I've been at a bit of a loss as to how to remove them, plus i was bummed out, so i think it has been at least 3 weeks since i've made a bead. But i've been distracted by many other issues, too. Perhaps some people like to do beads to relax, but i think i look at it as more of a job now. Maybe that's what happens when you try to make something you love into a career. Family-related worries, two part time jobs, visitors, home repairs,... I'm a little relieved to be able to put at least one thing on the back burner for a bit.

And after a very uncharacteristic (for New Mexico) fortnight of dark, cool, gloomy, damp weather, the sun has returned and it has been gorgeous. And the cool dampness has made everything so green and lush! I am a weeder by personality. Picky, picky. It is a great feeling to pull a big weed up by the roots. I do as much of that as i can after a rainy spell. :-)

i lol'ed

You know how sometimes you just have to google "baby guinea pig" images? (I just wanted to see something really sweet.) I laughed a bit when i saw this sparky little mug, but i also checked out a photo of a cooked guinea pig --people eat them in their natural stomping gounds. It didn't shock me, but the person who posted the photo, along side a live, pet guinea pig photo, took some real aggressive heat from his readers. But i think that person's blog is aimed at getting a rise out of folks.

Which made me wonder what other people do with their blogs. There's a handy "next blog" button on blogspot's header, and i'm under the impression that it randomly takes you to another blog. When i tried it before, it took me to several foreign language blogs. This evening the selection of blogs it showed me had an eerie trend of goats and homeschooler subject matter. A christian homeschooled rural teenager photographs herself daily as a model and describes what she's wearing (turquoise peasant blouse from GoodWill, flower print tiered skirt from GoodWill) and how she's styled her hair (ponytail). She looks and sounds happy, but surely she's dreaming about being somewhere else. Then there was a goat farm's blog, with close up photos of the south end of a goat, ostensibly to give the readers a really good look at Tirzah's udder... This blog had dreamy celtic music playing. It didn't really help. Then there was a blog that appeared to be about ocelots, but the entries were all about "the goat" learning song lyrics, or "the goat" teaching somebody about apostrophes... i should have had a closer look at that one, but there were no visuals so it didn't hold me. And the last blog that randomly came forth was by a homeschooling, living-off-the-land family, who apparently are getting into poultry in a big way with tons of pictures and videos of their chicks.

So i'm adding a chick pic and a goat butt since that's what everyone else is blogging. Oh, and for good measure: plaid shirt and track pants (thrift shop), police academy t-shirt (BIL), loose hair. Hey, i think i'm really getting the hang of this blogging thing! ;-)

Spring Break in Big Bend

It's always hard to return to the grind after a perfectly awesome vacation. We spent the week in Big Bend camping and hiking and now it's back to business as usual.

If you have not been to this National Park, it is huge and rocky and spiky and gorgeous. We only had two really cold nights, and only one day was what i would call "too hot" (but while i tried to stay in the shade and had to keep dunking my steaming head and feet in basins of water, my husband and oldest son thought it was a perfect afternoon for a stroll in the desert sun, searching for cool cacti to photograph...).

We took many of the day hikes (Emory Peak, and Window Rock) and struck off into the rocks and shrubs on our own. The rocks are amazing. Water eroded cobbles of all colors, conglomerates of all sorts, volcanic spew,... Over 80 species of cacti have been documented in the park, and it is hard not to step on them--but you make a pretty serious point of not stepping on anything, since everything has spines. :-)

Portales First Annual Sidewalk Chalk Event

The weather was near perfect for the event and there was some good talent, too. For this the first year, organizers sought entrants from the local schools, reportedly K-12 and the college. It is my understanding that next year the event will be open to schools outside the municipal area, and hopefully your average citizen will be able to enter as well. I think it would be really fun to use those special chalks--the pigment is so intense! Middle son took part (center of the top photo) and after 2 1/2 hrs of chalking, he was about as colorful as his block of sidewalk.

Houston Gets BirthBones, and What You Need to Know About Spring 2010 Fashion Color

The Pawty Palace of Katy, TX is the exclusive dealer of my BirthBones in the Houston area. The proprietor has submitted my BirthBones in the New Products section of the March edition of Houston Pet Talk Magazine (a substantial, full-color journal!). I hope they attract a lot of business for her, and she has to call me to restock. :-)

I developed a new color in my Aqualith pattern of beads. I called it Green Fire & Ice, which was descriptive, but not really catchy. They had incredible flash and would be really great as spring jewelry. Those in the fashion biz really talk in terms of people buying jewelry specific to each new season. Did you know that you were supposed to accessorize with terra cotta, navy, and cream toned jewelry last spring?? I'm not sure what you need to be wearing this spring, but pale icy green would be IT, if i had any say in the matter. They sold quickly. At least one person will be stylin' this season.