mary makes merry

Ah, summer

From Easter to the height of summer: that's Healthy Tension.

 

 

 

I do, however, promise to post again before this cucumber vine has turned black from frost!!

Easter fun

Ellie's teachers asked each child to bring in 6 plastic eggs with NON-EDIBLE treats (that's how the memo expressed it). I actually started ahead and had to do only one face the morning they were due -- pretty good for me. After the egg hunt in a nearby park, Ellie reported that she found her eggs buried in the dirt. Hmmm. Anyway, they were cute when they left the house!

They were super easy, and fun, and I had everything I needed in my stash. Sometimes, everything works out juhhhsstt right! The pattern is "Hare Finger Puppet," which is offered free on Ravelry, though you must e-mail the designers to get it. Too much fun, I have to say! I will probably make six more tomorrow!

Raffle happiness

This post is almost two weeks late -- apologies! But some time back, Carolyn posted a link to a raffle. I probably follow about 99.9 percent of the links Ms. Duff puts out there for us, and thank goodness I followed this one! It was at Carrieoke's place, to raise funds for a team spelling bee in which she was involved. I actually won a prize! And what a lovely, lovely prize -- a freshly designed and knitted cowl from the Wry Punster (who, I notice, has recently announced that she's engaged -- HUGE congratulations on that happy development!!)

Unbelievably, I have needed said beautiful item into April here in Chicago. I'm sorry this isn't the best picture, but it really is gorgeous. Wry Punster has placed the pattern on Ravelry -- can you believe it? Its name is "Flock Together," and there's a great picture of it at rest, so to speak, there. Thanks, Carolyn, Carrioke, and Wry Punster -- I hadn't won a raffle since 2nd grade, I think, when I won a baseball from my local Baskin-Robbins!

Cake Days

We celebrate ("celebrate" is the word, but it's not quite the word!) Lent chez HT, and Clark gives up sweets every year. He's darn good at it, too -- plenty of willpower. I thought I'd try to start a family tradition in the days leading up to Lent...does trying to start a tradition doom it to failure? Only time will tell. Anyway, the tradition is Cake Days. The weekend before Ash Wednesday, we'll make cupcakes and eat them like crazy so that they're all gone by Tuesday night. Clark and Ellie provided the inaugural fleet using the great recipe from Martha Stewart -- One-Bowl Chocolate Brownies. They were a big hit, in both their preparation and their consumption.

Backlog

I thought I'd be really clever and make Christmas-tree ornaments for Ellie's teachers from drawings that she made. They came out coaster-sized...who doesn't need one Christmas coaster...you know, for your mug of coffee Christmas morning?

  

   

I have some tracing paper and one of those old-school tracing wheels (think tiny pizza cutter), so I transferred a little drawing of Ellie's onto an Osnaburg-esque fabric and embroidered it. Those are Ellie's pigtails atop her head! She used to draw me with two pigtails, too, but now I get one big, dark line coming out of the side of my head. Clark's hair is a series of short lines on top of his head. It's wild to watch her develop this great artistic style.

Anyway, doing this was really easy -- anyone can do it. Obviously you could gussy up the background, etc., if you had more than an hour to do three of them the night before they needed to be delivered. Draw your own stick figures and make a pin for your jacket!

Winter is wearing on me

But this helps. Portrait of girl with (first-ever) snowman. Taken a few weeks back, before the Worst Cold Ever settled over our home, unbudgeable.

First FO of '09

I love this pattern, available on Ravelry from a person named Yvonne Boucher!

This fellow was created for Carolyn and is running rampant through her digs at this very moment, I'm sure.

Meet Claudette and Henry

 

healthy tension: the first half-decade

Today is my fifth birthday as a blogger; it's a good time to blow months of accumulated dust and neglect to the chilly Chicago winds and begin again. I have a bit of a backlog to work through, but first, the Valentine's Report (Preschool). Executive Summary: Cardstock and a corner rounder + a generous blogger somewhere out there = happiness.

Among the wealth of cute downloadable Valentines, Ellie and I both liked the zebras at bunnycakes.typepad.com (Jan. 25, 2009 post). This person is serious about Valentine's Day! I loved all the V. posts on this blog. I got some vellum envelopes and Snoopy stickers, Ellie wrote her name 17 times, and all was good.

One of Ellie's classmates gave out these valentines from the Black Apple. I just mentioned this truly exciting fact to Clark and he said, "Ah, a friend [for Mommy] in the making." Indeed!

I used an envelope template I found online (the link is broken now, oddly; sorry) for the ones that needed to be mailed. I am making my own envelopes; can churning my own butter be far behind?

A Happy Valentine's Day to one and all! May all your tension be healthy. I love that February is Heart Health month, by the way. I made a grilled-cheese sandwich an hour ago with olive oil instead of butter; can I have half credit for that?

We have a winner!

I used an online random integer generator to find our winner -- congratulations, Ashley, a dear friend of the family! Thanks to all who entered!!