The Bunny Did It!

Last spring my youthful assistants helped me plant some petunias near the patio. The are experienced gardeners and very helpful boys.

They completely took over watering the little plants. Fortunately, the kindergarten and the preschool class had both recently visited the fire station. So the boys knew exactly how to hold the hose. "Just like the firefighters hold the hose, " said the younger one.

The petunias bloomed prolifically, despite my neglect. They were filled with flowers all summer long.

But a few weeks ago, we saw a bunny hiding in the petunias. We love to watch the bunnies in our yard. But we thought that this was not a very good home for a little bunny. After a few days, we noticed that the bunny had taken care of all the petunias. Bad bunny! Please move to a different home!

Big Birthday Bash!

It was the Big 0-1! And a fantabulous birthday celebration was held! James, the Birthday Boy, was in great form, enjoying all the people to play with, crawling after the balls, and pushing the new truck. Ah, to be one-year-old!



This is the Birthday Banner I made for James. It shows James wading in the lake during the All Together Week in July. Unlike his cousins, James loved the water. All he needed was someone to hold onto his hands, and off he went! Splash! Splash! Splash! It was pretty darn cute!


James has an unusual decoration in his room. The wall of painted onsies. These were made at the baby shower in the summer of 2007. His grandparents, aunts, uncles, and cousins were the artists. The Jackson Pollock look-alike in the middle was done by his then three-and-a-half year old cousin.

The highlight of the party was the sour cream chocolate cake. We had been promised the "requisite frosting in the hair," but who knew it would be like this? After a first tentative fistful, James decided he liked chocolate. Really liked it. It was good enough that he didn't mind us taking pictures or laughing. He just kept eating. And then smearing. On the face. In the hair. In the ears.


This is the result--the boy with werewolf eyebrows. Don't worry, Mom! It all comes off in the bathtub.

Happy Birthday, James!

The Wall Street Journal

Not the Bead Journal...

I was recently gifted with a subscription to the Wall Street Journal (Thanks, Bro!) in conjunction with my recent academic promotion. (Thanks, again!) It certainly has been an interesting few weeks to read this paper. A few observations follow:

1. I am not as dumb as I look. I am amazed at how much I can understand in the Wall Street Journal. And this is without ever having taken Econ 101! I take it as proof that the old brain is still functioning, very good news. How much of what I've read do I remember? That wasn't the question.

2. My new glasses really are that great! And I mean the bifocal part. The WSJ is printed in a considerably smaller font than our local paper and I am having no trouble reading it. I attribute the difference in font size to the difference in audience (draw your own conclusions) and the difference in amount of information each paper wants to share (again, draw your own conclusions). As far as the glasses go, I told my ophthalmologist that I did a lot of needlework, and since my arms were fairly short that I was holding it closer to my face than the average reading distance. He made the appropriate modification in my prescription. Now I can see!

3. There have been two WSJ articles recently about Bloomington, Indiana, where some of my favorite people live. The first was about the number of Eastern prep school students enrolling at IU. Apparently it can be a culture shock. I understand that. Bloomington is not Ann Arbor or Madison or even Northfield, Minnesota. But it's a very nice town. The second article was about Bloomington as a great retirement location. That sounds good, too, especially with some of my favorite people on the local entertainment committee. The article, however, did not mention the major drawback to Bloomington as a retirement location. That is the lack of a fabric store that sells good quality fashion fabric--the fabric you use to make clothing. Every town needs a store like that. Or two. And a really good bead store.

4. What's with all the ads for fancy men's shoes? Or maybe I should say fancy shoes for men. Sneakers, Rockports, even Birkenstocks, these are manly shoes in the Midwest. Who buys Belgian shoes? Besides Belgians. Maybe I should check out the website.

5. There are no ads for high-heeled, peep-toe pumps. Is that a political statement? A feminist statement? A fashion statement? Or has the Wall Street Journal been taken over by a group of activist podiatrists and orthopedic surgeons? One wonders...

6. And in some of the latest news, well hidden on a back page, information that a hockey fan can subscribe to live streaming NHL action. $169 per season.

And now back to our regularly scheduled beading.

It's Baaaak!

After two and an half months on the lam, the X-acto knife is back. Prior to the visit of the grandsons in mid-June, all the dangerous tools were to depart temporarily from the Room Eventually to Be Known as the Room Formerly Known as Pink. The X-acto knife resisted. Luckily, it was discovered just before the boys arrived.

I fear I may have spoken too sharply to the knife about the situation, because it left in a snit, only to return in its own good time. Its whereabouts were unknown until yesterday when it showed up in the Fabric Storage Cave, aka the basement. In the meantime, numerous searches were conducted, and an enormous amount of time was wasted in unnecessary cleaning and the disruption of the spontaneous organizational system. One fears that other important items may have escaped during this process.

All I can say is the X-acto knife is lucky nothing rusted while it was in the basement.

No Controlled Substances

Just to make this perfectly clear: The Crackpot Beader is not involved with any controlled substances.

Except chocolate
and beads
and fabric
and fibers
and more chocolate
and more beads
and more fabric
and more fibers.

Hmmm... The Crackpot Beader may be in deep trouble!