Unicorn revenge

Here's our little monkey, fast asleep in the papasan. I know this is a bit Anne Geddes (although, I suppose she would be dressed like a lima bean or something in that case) but I think it's adorable. :D

We have had sort of a low-profile weekend. Sunday was Mother's Day, of course, which I mostly celebrated by sleeping late and then getting taken out to a breakfast buffet, full of- as Kathy says- piggies and pancakes. Blueberry pancakes.

This is a shirt I made for Ari (I made another one as well). I was surprised that she knew it was (more or less) the Flash symbol, but she took one look at it and said "Sash!" and then demanded that I help her put it on and take pictures. This is her solemn little posing face.

It has been cold and rainy here. It sucks. I want the warm weather now! We were taunted by nice weather, but now it's pretty much coat temperatures again. :P Ari hates it because the cold and wet means no outings to the
park, and being stuck in the house all day.

I hate it because it means that my two year old doesn't get to climb her crazy out. Ech. Hope us for better weather soon, so my baby can play.

We always knew you was a whoopsy...

R&B have had the last two days off for spring break, and we've been hanging out. Tuesday, they came over. We had dinner and watched movies and worked on craft projects (Rick's faaabulous leather tophat, the armored collar Brooke and I are working on, and my lab apron). Rick cried at the end of The Iron Giant, but claims to still be a man. (To be fair, we all cried at the end of The Iron Giant. "Superman...")

Anyway, yesterday, we went to Landoll's Mohican Castle and had a look around and some lunch. It's a fantastically expensive B&B, which used to be a retreat which a rich dude built for himself out in the woods. It's all... neo-medieval. Pretty, though, and there's a nice restaurant attached. We had lunch there, and it was tasty. I had tasty crab cakes, and Thad had a pork loin. Ari had french fries. Have I ever mentioned that my child loves french fries seemingly more than any other food? She does. She will only eat other food if the french fries are gone.

Unfortunately, it was raining while we were there. And cold. Then, it got colder. Brooke wanted us to go for a nature walk, but she was crazy. :) We went to this gorge overlook, and that was about good enough for us. Ari had a great time, though. There were puddles! And ice! And Miss Brooke!

Then, on the way home, it got even colder. Then it started to hail. Then, it started to snow. Then, the roads got really horrible. Ech. Anyway, we got home and I made scones (I love scones) and we played 4x4 HoMMV and worked on our craft projects. Apron: done, and also a copper mesh surgical mask. Now I have to make that blouse. I'm a little frightened. Tailoring is hard.

This is so my child. I'm not sure what it is, but she is super into wearing big people shoes. Like, she got Rick's big ol' stompin' boots and was clompin' around the house in 'em like a little crazy person.

Anyway, it occurs to me that I haven't talked at all about my absence from my life here, or the outcome of anything. So, well, first of all: I passed.

Let me just say that again. I passed.

I only found out yesterday, because yesterday was the oral defense, which was really scary to contemplate beforehand, but not actually so scary in real life. It turns out that when you spend three weeks locked in an attic doing nothing but read stuff about a set of topics, you actually have opinions and thoughts about those topics afterwards. Who knew?

Let me just take a quick break to show you my daughter, in a shirt I made for her. Well, Janessa dyed the shirt, but I put the TARDIS on it. This was not staged, by the by. She went and got the Doctor to play with all on her own.

Anyhow, so I was locked in an attic*. I planned to stay with R&B for a week, and stayed for two. Lovely people that they are, they fed me lunch and breakfast and dinner and let me put enormous stacks of books on their dining table and play my 82-song "work" playlist over and over again. And they let me talk at them- at length- about analogy and grammaticalization and theories of contact-induced change. They even went "uh huh" and "yeah" and "bitch is crazy!" at the appropriate moments, and didn't complain when I seemed like I might just be staying indefinitely.

It was this huge, crazy thing, of me coming face to face with the work. Do or die, moment, right? No excuses, no putting it off. In theory.

So, my exam was due the 27th (a Wednesday) and it became clear by Monday that I just wasn't going to make that deadline. Brian told me I had to have it in by the morning of Monday the 3rd at the absolute latest. And there I am, on Sunday morning. I had 8 pages of question 1 and 5 pages of question 2 and 4 pages of question 3 and no pages at all of my dissertation proposal. At all.

After three weeks of not being able to write much at all, I suddenly went into overdrive. The final version of the exam was in the vicinity of 30 pages, and the proposal (written in about 4 hours straight on Sunday) was 28 pages long. It's been years since I wrote that much in one place. Hopefully it bodes well for the future. I've certainly been in a funk as far as work is concerned.

Anyway, I turned in the exam at about 3:30 in the morning on Monday. Then I went to bed around 5, and got up at 8 and taught. Thank god, I wasn't lecturing- it was presentations from the students.

Then, I didn't think about the exam for a solid week. Didn't read over my answers, didn't even look at a book. I moved back into my own house again. Then, after months and months of not feeling motivated to do anything except mess around on the internet, I suddenly felt like making stuff. So, I did that shirt applique, and started making myself costume pieces for Unhallowed Metropolis, and cooked a five course gourmet Victorian dinner for game night, and planned all kinds of fun stuff for upcoming days. Like Friday, when we're going to play Sheherezade and have a delicious Middle Eastern dinner that I've planned. There will be pastry involved.

Then, it was time for the defense, and I hadn't looked at or thought about my exam for a week. I ended up just reading over my answers in the morning. And, shockingly enough, when they asked me questions, I knew the answers- or at least, I knew things to say. I had ideas and responses. The exam was two hours long, and it was 15 minutes shy of over before I even noticed the time.

I turned my paper in to the Graduate School yesterday afternoon, so it's official. I swear, I didn't know whether or not I was going to finish the exam until that Sunday morning. It was that close, and there were moments when I thought it might well kill me. But here I am, and I passed.

There's the dissertation, now, of course, but I refuse to think about that for a while now. I have creative food to cook, and Victorian clothing to sew.
____________________
*To be fair, it was a lovely attic. It had a nice desk, and shelves, and a comfy chair next to the window where I did part of my reading. It also had an enormous bathroom with a gorgeous clawfooted tub, which is where I did most of my reading- with my sonic screwdriver and my postit notes balanced on the edge of the tub.

Men in steampunk

This is Ari, dancing with Mr. Kitty. I actually tried to take a video, but she didn't want to dance for the camera.

The last few days have continued to be kind of rough, what with this tooth coming in. As a matter of fact, Ari is pulling the bright-eyed bushy-tailed thing right now. At 4:30 in the morning. It's the same old story- didn't nap, passed out at 8, woke up at 2 and will probably pass out again in an hour or so, just in time for mama to get a couple of hours sleep before papa gets home. Yay! :)

Ari got a new book from the library today, for filling in her summer reading log. Well, we filled it in. She just read alot. She picked out a book about animal walks, and Thad bounced her all around on his knees reading it to her.

I went to the Jo-Ann's the other day, and I succumbed to their tempting, tempting sales on cute prints. This one was actually passed onto me by another mama who sews, who heard Ari likes cats. I think I made it a bit big, so I'm going to just put it away 'till she's bigger, I think. More pictures will follow as I finish more dresses!

Ari likes hanging out with me while I sew. First, she likes to sit on the fabric I'm actually cutting out. Then, she likes to poke her little fingers near the needle on my sewing machine, and then she likes to pull pins out of my pin tomato. Not to mention unwinding my bobbins!

Oh, and tomorrow is the Jazz and Ribs Festival. I'm so excited! :D Now, if you'll excuse me, I need to go stop my child from ripping open the bagel bag.

Yellow sign

Look what I made today. :) I found this fabric on sale at the Jo-Ann's and bought half a yard and made this. The other fabric is all from my stash, so at least I'm using it up. I think it looks really nice on her. It looks pretty comfy, too.

I think she likes it, also; I caught her flouncing around in front of the mirror.

Ari's been having a pretty hard few days. She's been sick, and I don't know what to do about it... I think it's time to go to the doctor. I'm going to call for an appointment tomorrow morning. She's been having a fever (but only at night), and a cough (all the time). She doesn't act sick all the time, but every time she tries to sleep, the coughing wakes her up, so she's clearly not feeling well now. Hard to tell how much is sleep deprivation, and how much is sick.

This is Ari a few days ago, running around with her duck and my hat (stolen off my very head!). She greatly enjoys having someone chase her with the duck and quacking.

Today, Ari said "Bunny", with the "n" and everything. That's the first time I've ever heard it. Oh, and she knew without being told that Thad was sleeping in our room. When we went upstairs to change her, she ran over to our door, and said "Papa seep! Papa seep!", and then knocked on the door. Where'd she learn to knock on doors?

Later on, I told her that I was going to wake Papa up soon, and she took it upon herself to run up the stairs and knock on the door until Thad woke up and came and got her.

A lack of tomatoes

Well, before I go on about silly things, I should let you all know: Thad had his hearing, and was cleared to go back to work, which is an enormous, incredible relief. Thad intends to sub as little as possible, of course (he will probably sub some more this year, but not renew his license), but it's so good to not have that hanging over our heads, and not have to worry about it anymore.

Now, back to silliness:

Check out my first attempt ever at needle felting! I feel that it turned out pretty good. The color mismatch is less... apparent in real life, too. I will be making her a little merbaby and a sling to put over those boobies as well, though. :)

She's going to be for the art show I'm buying space in this fall. If I can sell one piece, it'll more than pay for the entry fee, so that would be really cool. I'm going to try to do maybe five larger things (like the mermaid, and the dice gremlin) and then maybe a few smaller things. We'll see what I can get done this summer... I have a million monsters in my head.

This is Ari, having some tasty lunch.

Today, we went on an enormous long bike ride downtown. We went down to the main library, and then Ari and I hung out there while Thad went over to his hearing (a block away). Ari ended up napping most of the time Thad was gone, so I had a nice time sitting outside the library in the shade with a book while she slept in her trailer.

We are loving the bike trailer now that the weather is nice, by the by (thanks, Mom and Dad! :D). It's so nice to be able to get downtown without driving (or, more to the point, parking), and Ari seems to really enjoy going for rides.

Out of ink

These are some pictures from a week or two back, when we went to the Viking festival. Contrast, if you wish, with last year's Viking fest pics... Ari was much smaller then, and trying to climb into things less.

(I swear that I put down the camera and hauled her out of there before she damaged even one of those delightful gay pride foxtails. :D )

Today is interesting, because I couldn't get to sleep. It's now five in the morning (as you can see), and I just haven't been sleepy. Poor Ari also suffered from insomnia; she passed out around 2:30, I guess. But it was clear that she desperately wanted to sleep before then.

Tonight was my craft night- I was pretty busy. I made all these guys. So, that's good. Now I will give them to someone else, and she will try to sell them.

Other than that, I spent all day grading. I promised my students I'd have their papers back to them today, and I shall deliver. Now, I just need to have a decent lecture prepared. Sleep might help.

Bullet dancing

Here's Ari, enjoying the box that we brought our groceries home from Sam's Club in. She spent a good long time getting in the box, and then getting out of the box. And getting in the box, and out of the box. And then she went and played with things in the kitchen. :D

Ari's been pretty grumpy the last few days. I'm not sure if she's still feeling sick, or what. She's not sleeping very well, anyhow.

Other than not sleeping well (late, short nap) and being on-and-off grumpy, we've had a pretty good day. We put Ari's dining room books (as opposed to her bedroom books, or her living room books) in the new bin we got at the Walmart- there were getting to be too many for the little wagon. Plus, she tends to like to pull the books out and sit in the wagon, and that's clearly not behavior we want to discourage. ;)

Tonight was my craft night (I made this, and this and this other thing), and as you can see, Miss Ari was very interested. Aw. Now, by the by, my fingertips are covered with superglue, which is really irritating.

The dice gremlin is nearly done now. I just need to get some wee little dice to have him hold, and we'll be all done. After the dice gremlin, I start on brain-and-tentacle man.

Well, Ari's grumping at her papa upstairs. I should go help him get her ready for bed. Plus, it means I get to read my book.

Unidientified hurty spot

Aw- check out my little sleeping pixie. I'm not sure why she likes to sleep with her arms up like that, but it's her usual way to sleep. Maybe she wishes for a pillow? That shirt, by the way, is my most recent and most ambitious foray into machine embroidery.

We went on our big shopping trip this evening, and it was everything it usually is. We had a moment of feeling like morons when we suddenly realized why Ari had gotten so grumpy- namely, it was 10:00 and we hadn't fed her any dinner. To our credit, neither had we. But boy, did we feel like crap when we finally figured out what the problem was. Poor little hungry monkey.

Ari's generally feeling better, but she's still not totally well. Today was her day to be glued to the papa, as you can see. Not me- she definitely wanted papa.

Cool stuff from the last while:

• She knows some shapes ("suh-coo", "cwawe")
• She knows some numbers ("sits", "se-un", "at"), mostly from playing with dice. I first noticed this because she was flipping the dice to different faces and naming the numbers on them. Ah, dice.
• She gives kisses now. If we ask for a kiss ("kess!"), she'll grab our faces and give us a little baby kiss. Awwww.
• She also gives hugs, if you ask and she feels like it.
• She's all about saying please ("pees!") lately. I think she realizes that we're helpless before the onslaught of a baby saying "pees?" and making doe eyes at us. And she does make doe eyes, plus this "little old me?" sort of gesture. ;)
  
• She knows the word "bacon", and likes to eat it. Poor girl- Rick and Brooke came over and fed me on Saturday with bacon and french toast. And little miss asked so nicely ("bakun pees!") and she so couldn't have any. I felt bad eating in front of her, but I really needed to eat (it was like, 5:00 and I hadn't been able to get food that day).
  

Agrael

Well, I'm gonna make this quick for reasons that should be obvious upon checking the time stamp of this post. :P A little someone refused to nap, passed out at 8:30, and then woke up again at 11:30. She didn't get back down until around 3 or 3:30... lucky me.

This is the shirt I made for her today. :D She loves it; she squealed "DICE! DICE! DICE!" as soon as she saw it.

This, on the other hand, is my baby in a steamer basket. She had been playing on the floor there, putting things in and out of it, when she decided to put herself into it. She was pretty funny, too- she'd get in, realize she was stuck, burst into tears until I rescued her, and then proceed to jump right back into the basket. It took her about 4 of these go-rounds for her to finally figure out how to get back out herself, and about another 4 before the entire exercise got boring.

Oh, and Grandpa Marcus is here; got here this evening.

Honeysuckle, lavender and rosemary

This is what I made for Ari today. :) The shirt was dyed by the same woman who dyed Ari's dragon costume, and I used the last of the cat fabric from Ari's dress. Although, technically, I bought the fabric for this project and made the cat dress with the extra. I'm experimenting with machine applique... I think I need to acquire an iron of some sort. I have another shirt or two in the works. I already have her dice shirt half done- all that remains is to sew it down.

This was Ari's response to the shirt:

The Queen of Air and Darkness

Here is a picture of Ari in her new cat dress, whipped up in a fit of crafty-ness this afternoon. She picked out the fabric; she near hurled herself out of the sling trying to get at it when she saw it in the fabric store. :) She was really excited the whole time I was making it, too- she kept trying to get to the sewing machine, saying "DATS! DATS! DATS!" This is the first non-costume I've made for her, and it was really easy. Didn't take long at all... I'd better not keep it up, though. :)

We had a nice day today... the weather was lovely, and Ari went for a bike ride with papa to the library, which she greatly enjoyed. Oh, cute thing: this evening, Thad was holding her and he grabbed me and gave me a big kiss. After a bit of watching us kiss, Ari decided she wanted in on that, and stuck her face in the middle of us to get kisses. :D

School starts again tomorrow, and I must get into writing my paper in a serious way. No more vacation for me.

Here's a video from yesterday, though:

Feelin' woozy

This is what I did this evening. I have a Goal, and that Goal is to make enough of these little monsters (I have a page full of designs) to have space at a convention art show in the fall. Anyway, I've had this little dude kicking around in my head for over a year, and it's kinda cool to see him in 3D now.

It's been pretty warm here the last couple of days, and Ari and I have been out at the park. Ari no longer likes the swings, for whatever reason, which I thought was interesting. She definitely likes the slides, though, and climbing on the playground equipment.

We're going into the department tomorrow; maybe I'll try to remember to bring the camera and take a few shots of her there. She has good times.

We haven't been helped.

Hurrah for a baby who sleeps! Last night, I relaxed to the fact that Ari was just not going to sleep by herself at all, and brought her into bed with me around midnight. She slept all night, and woke up at a normal hour (around 9:30). Then, she napped around noon for two whole hours, and went to bed tonight at a fairly reasonable hour. We're all much happier. :D

We spent today cleaning up and getting ready for school to start back tomorrow. We set up my office upstairs (that's where Yggdrasil- the old computer- has moved) and put away a whole bunch of laundry. Oh, and I finally finished my backpack.

Check out Ari and Thad, all ready to go work at the Target. Thad says he doesn't think she could work there, though, because they wouldn't let her have a box cutter.

This is a picture from our New Years party. We just had a few friends over, and had gaming and tasty tasty food. Lynda and Jeff brought their traditional sausage rolls with mango chutney (they also brought the champagne). I experimented with fillo some more.

This is from the Munchkin game where we mixed all the sets together Munchkin, all four expansions for basic munchkin, Super Munchkin, Munchkin Impossible, Munchkin Bites (and the "Pants Macabre" expansion), a Munchkin Fu expansion and the Blender. It was pretty crazy.

We also played a game of Arkham Horror, from about 1 AM to around 4:30 AM. We made Ithaqua our prison buddy, so to speak. He had three tokens on his doom track when we finished, and one of our players had an Elder Sign she didn't even bother using.

Anyway, here's Ari in the "Level 1 Human" shirt we gave her for Christmas, playing with her crayons. She has taken to coloring things lately. She also likes them because she can sort them and rearrange them, which is also a popular hobby lately.

Shedding

I hope all y'all had a great Christmas Eve. :) Ours was pretty low-key, with it just being us, and all. We cleaned up some, and I made Ari a stocking, and we went on a nice walk downtown. It's surprisingly warm for this time of year, here, and the walk was very pleasant.

In this picture, Ari is wearing one of her Christmas presents from Brooke- which is so appropriate to us. Have I mentioned that our games shelf is full? It has no more room.

On our walk, Ari actually stopped traffic. A couple in a truck were waving at her and making faces, and didn't notice the light had changed until Thad pointed it out. Anyway, we walked down to the North Market, where we got pheasant pot pies to bake up for dinner, and some stollen for breakfast from the Austrian bakery, and some delicious ice cream from Jeni's. Ari very much liked the ice cream.

Then, we came home, and baked our pot pies (pheasant and morels, very tasty) and watched a movie, and played a game of Carcassonne. Then, I went and did Super Secret Christmas Stuff in the basement while Thad played with Ari.

Despite getting a late post-walk nap, Ari went to bed at a relatively okay hour, and we just spent time getting the house cleaned up so we have a nice place to have Christmas in. We'd best get to bed soon, so Santa can come. Since no one will see this until tomorrow at the earliest, Merry Christmas, y'all!

An historic load of dishes

This is what I did last night, and this morning. I mentioned that we had a length of fabric that we'd used as an emergency sling? Well, the reason I had it is that some of the moms in my group got together to donate slings to some low-income moms. Several moms donated materials, and I mostly donated time (and those gold rings, those were mine). The fabric was donated by another mom- the blue was our emergency sling. Isn't it gorgeous fabric? It's hard to find good sling fabric, and those turned out beautifully. I made a new kind of shoulder, thinking that it would be nicer for moms with only one sling... I hope they see much use with little babies. :)

The last few days have been the suck here, though. I've been doing the lion's share of Ari care in the wake of Thad's horrific current schedule. To make things even worse than working two jobs might naturally be, the Target is ignoring Thad's availability request, so this is how the last while has gone:

• Tuesday night: 8 hr shift, off at 8 AM
• Wednesday day: 4 hr teaching, 1:00-5:00
• Wednesday night: 8 hr shift, 9:30-8 AM

And then tomorrow, he has to watch the girl from 9 to 6. Suck. Fortunately, Thursday is a night off, so he can sleep and sleep and sleep, before he has to go back in to work on Friday day, and all weekend nights.

I start classes again tomorrow, and I haven't even been able to think about getting my stuff packed. Ari's been in a Mood today; very very grumpy. Maybe she's teething?

We biked up to the store today; I think I won't bother with the trailer for short distances when I'm on my own in future. It's too hard to wrangle the baby and the trailer alone. It's still totally worth it for longer distances, though.

Solomon Grundy want pants too!

I've been up near to 3 the last two nights costuming... Ari's party was awesome, and I have great pictures. But, later... Sleep now. I know you must be waiting anticipatorily for them, though, so I uploaded one at random. Look! It's Ari playing with her new O-ball!

Days to D*Con: 2
Costumes to finish: Little touches on various different costumes (I may have stayed up to 3, but my sluagh costume is basically done, and looks awesome).

Happy birthday to me

Well, today is my 27th birthday. I didn't really do much birthday stuff- Thad had to work tonight, so we're going out to dinner tomorrow night instead. We figured we'd open presents there, but I wanted to open one present, and the present Thad's parents sent was too big too take to the restaurant gracefully, so I went ahead and opened it. It's a Le Creuset stockpot! I tried it out on soup tonight, and it was awesome.

Thad did make me waffles this morning (afternoon, technically), and that was nice. It was kind of a slow day, all things considered, though.

Ari, unfortunately was pretty fussy today (this is her hugging her papa's leg, by the by). I just realized that I didn't mention this yesterday, but Ari had two horrible falls off the steps yesterday. The first time, she toppled off the top step (of three, if you'll recall) and hit the bottom step with her face, and then flipped over and hit the pillows at the bottom on her back. I was right there, but couldn't get to her in time.

She hurt her mouth, and it was bleeding, and I utterly panicked. I haven't dared look at it since, in fact. Specifically, she hurt that little bit of skin between her upper lip and her gums- I hope it just got hurt and not totally torn or anything (although that would be a kinship with Grandpa Marcus!).

The second time she fell, she missed the bottom step, but hit the pillows at the bottom head first- like, with the top of her head. She was totally vertical when she hit. It was horrible.

She's been up and down those stairs umpteen times since I posted saying that she had figured out how to get down safely, so I don't know why this happened. Twice. The moms in my group say that she's testing the boundaries of her environment, and trying new things. I think they're right, but it's terrifying! Anyway, I think she might have been kinda sore today, hence the fussy. She went to bed pretty easily, though (after crying her little eyes out about papa going to work, mind).

I did actually get some costume work done today; mostly during nap and after Ari went to bed. This is for my sluagh costume. The skirt still needs to be sewn up, but I'm waiting to do that last seam until I finish the embroidery on the other panels (I've just done the one so far).

It took me a while to figure out what to do for a top, but I'm quite pleased with the result- and I had just exactly enough fabric, too. It's a very nice vest thing. Now, I just have an underskirt, and a shirt, and finishing the skirt to do. Whee! I hope to finish by Sunday at the latest and have Monday and Tuesday to do my touches and get ready for the trip.

Days to Dragon*Con: 5
Costumes to finish: most of 1, touches on 4 more.

Squeak, squeak, squeak

August 22nd? How did it get to be August 22nd already? Time has just zoomed right past, and my summer break will be over before I know it.

Check out Ari, modeling her superhero pants. :) They are a little droopy in this picture, but I have since added elastic. I need to do the last touches on her costumes- I may do some of that during the car ride, though.

Today and yesterday were devoted to the Inara costume. I figured it out in my head yesterday day, but sat down way too late at night to start on it. I cut in the wrong places and had to completely redesign the whole blasted thing.

I still like how it turned out, though. it's got a bit of a train now (I'm not sure where it came from!) and it's a little more cohesive than it was originally going to be.

We had a lovely breakfast this morning, at a cafe down the street. They have an absolutely gorgeous garden in the back, and that's where we ate. Our waitress was very nice, and brought Ari some bananas and orange bits in a plastic cup, free of charge. :) Smart woman- Ari dumped that cup on the ground, first chance she got. But she liked the bananas and oranges.

Ari is totally an eater baby these days, by the by. This is the list of what she ate today:

• bananas
• oranges
• a cracker
  
• a vinegar/salt potato chip
• yogurt
• leftover orzo with tomato sauce
• feta cheese
• potato chips and onion dip
• several prunes

She particularly liked the prunes- like mama, like daughter! I gave her those, and she acted like they were the best thing she'd ever tasted. Big grins and all! She's also very much a beggar baby these days. :) When I was eating my shrimp leftovers for lunch, she came right up and demanded that I feed her my orzo. And then she cried when it was all gone.

Days till Dragon*Con: 8
Costumes to finish: 1 with any seriousness, 4 more that just have touches left.

Jack? Pallino? Panini?

Today: Baby costumes!

I worked on Ari's costumes today. None of them are totally done, but they're all mostly done. On the right, we have Ari's monster costume. This is to accompany our monster-hunter redcaps. But how could we kill a monster this cute? This costume is made possible (and extra awesome) by a custom dye job from a mom I know. I gave her a onesie and a scrap of white broadcloth and shabang! I have fabric all dyed to match. I think having access to custom-dyed fabric is WAY too much power to give a costumer. :D

I could have tried to do this costume from scratch, but I got the onesie for 1$ at the thrift store, and I figured it would be more comfortable for my little girl to wear- which is of vital importance! I'm not making her wear anything she objects to.
This is Ari as Sandy the Golden Boy. The costume's half finished-although I did finish the outer-wear underwear after she went to bed. Mostly I need to figure out how to do boots... Do I do spats? Booties? hack off the existing feet and redo them? I must think.

After Theresa and I did some sewing today, we had a nice time playing Bocce in the little park across the street. T&G beat us both games, but it was close.

Thad, bless his heart, went to bed at 11 AM, determined to wake up again in a few hours. I actually tried to wake him at 1:30 (per his instructions) but he was completely insensate, and didn't wake till 5:00. I was having conversations with the man, and he didn't remember them, he was so out of it.

Anyway, he worked again tonight. Ari's been crazy fussy most of the day (it's been making me batty) and she didn't go to bed until midnight. Thank god, Theresa's been here. Otherwise, being alone with a fussy baby all day would have really sucked. And, more importantly, I wouldn't have been able to pull together the delicious flaming cheese and seafood dinner that I served tonight.

Well, I thought it was delicious, anyhow. I mean, how can anything with near a pound of shrimp and a whole cup of feta cheese be bad?

Working days till Dragon*Con: 10
Costumes to finish: Still 7... but 4 of those are in wearable shape, if not completely finished.