How Cold Is It?

It is so cold that when a little grease fire started up in one of the burner plates of the stove this morning, The Player and I just stood there warming our fingers over it instead of putting it out. (I did reach up and turn the fan on and made sure it was a self-limiting little conflagration.)

That's cold.

In other news the kids took a Babysitting Safety Class today at the Center for Healthy Lifestyles at St Joseph's hospital.  They loved the class, and now they have "Certificates of Excellence" and are full of new information like a.  how to reduce pain after a bee sting and b. never feed an infant popcorn!

Now they just need some toddlers to practice on!

(Don't look at ME!)

Americans for Responsible Solutions I Salute You

Gabrielle Gifford and Mark Kelly have started an organization, a PAC to be specific, to counter the influence of the NRA.  Gabby Gifford is, of course, the Congresswoman shot 2 years ago while speaking in public in her home state of Arizona.  Mark Kelly, her husband, is an astronaut.  Their website Americans for Responsible Solutions tells more.  I suggest you take a look at it. Gabby and Mark are both people who own guns and hunt but they seem to epitomize the word "reasonable.    I will be mailing them a check this week. 

I don't know what else I can add here on the one month anniversary of the events at Sandy Hook Elementary School. 

Wait, I can add their mailing address:

Americans for Responsible Solutions PAC
PO Box 15642
Washington, DC 20003

Chasing Ice

The Player and I went to see Chasing Ice at the Normal Theater last week.  It was an interesting documentary about a professional photographer who becomes obsessed by ice and the retreat of glaciers due to global warming.  Today's weather brought some ice to us here in Central Illinois as well.  Samarra wanted to play outside and every time I let her out she slid across the deck before she hit the frozen grass and could get her footing. 

Big sad puppy eyes finally got to me and I found a way to get out to the grass without falling on my kiester.  I threw a couple of her favorite toys around for her to chase, then I kicked the soccer ball she loves to play with. 

I felt like I had kicked a brick.  The derned thing was frozen through and through.  But watching her chase that slippery ball across the yard and not be able to stop it or get a grip on it with her teeth was worth the pain in my big toe. She had fun and I laughed and wished I had a video camera with me.

Sisi decided to make some special ice skates today...we call them Finger Figure Skates.

 

Slightly out of focus, sorry, but looks like the Zamboni needs to come and clean up the bread crumbs on the rink.

 

 

Skates are made from paper clips, masking tape and thread.  O My!

 

Well I'll Be A Monkey's...Aunt

 

I managed to upload photos to my blog by first uploading the photos to Picasa Web Album.  Why this works I don't know.  But here is a pile of 26 monkeys on my piano keyboard:

 

 

 

Here are 2 cuties close up and personal:

 

 

Creepy?  You bet!  Or as Sisi has been saying since she got home from Ecuador "SI!"

 

This pink lady was very popular with the girls in Sisi's class:

 

 

In the end, Sisi realized she had one extra monkey.  She gave to Samarra, our adorable dog.  Samarra carries it around like her baby.  It's the only toy she doesn't try to shake to death.  That's puppy love if I ever saw it. 

More Fun than a Barrel of Monkeys

The kids went to Ecuador with their dad over their Winter Break.  Lots more exciting than rearranging the house, for sure!  They were in his wedding as the gringo-ringo-bearers.  I will post photos if I ever get to see them.  I hope that will happen soon.

Sisi is also the bearer of gifts.  She brought goodies for The Player and for me, and also she talked her dad into dropping some bucks on gifts for her classmates.  How she convinced him to pay for 26 stuffed monkeys is beyond me....but here is the evidence...


Oh my goodness. I can't upload a photo now.  What the Heck?  Does anyone know what 'as 'appened to me blog?  Bloody heck!

What I did over my Winter Vacation

My kids left Christmas Day with their dad to head to Ecuador for 10 days.  I miss them like crazy man.  They'll be back, weather and American Airlines cooperating, this Friday night.  Three days, 3 hours and 27 minutes but who is counting.

I am.

While they are not underfoot, I have been rearranging furniture and rooms.  I decided I would turn the guest room into my mosaic studio.  Guests will now be sleeping on beds of tile chips and glass shards.  Or on the pull-out sofa if they prefer, which is still there but moved to a different spot in the room.  We have also moved the TV to the living room (dang that sucker is HEAVY) and the top of the buffet is stuck out in the garage.  That means that the dishes and pitchers formerly in that buffet are now atop the kitchen cabinets (looking quite nice up there) and the stuff formerly on top of the cabinets is...mostly in the Goodwill Box.  The top of the kitchen cabinets got a serious cleaning (ick ack).

Next, shopping for a work table for the studio.  Several thrift stores failed me, but finally Office Max made me a deal I could not refuse on one.  Boxes of tiles and supplies from the dark downstairs corner where I previously worked were hauled upstairs, bookcases too.  I thought I was done but I opened the closet door in that room and ... away went another 3 hours.

I think I'm done.  The house looks good.  I like having the TV in the living room (although that might be because it's not going to be hooked up to Cable until tomorrow so no one is watching it) and I love having my own room to work in.  In which to work.  To make mosaics.  With lots of light and a view of the snow on the lilac branches.  And a cleaned-up closet. 

Lest you think that is all I have done since little people left, do not fear.  We also drove to East Peoria and joined Costco.  I love Costco!  It's being touted as the "anti-Walmart" because it's kind of like Sam's Club but they pay their employees really well and give them great benefits.  We bought a lifetime supply of hummus, kleenex, breaded mozarella sticks and Fiber One bars.  Here's what a lifetime supply of hummus looks like:

 

And here are a couple of recent  mosaics:

 

 

 

 

Happy New Year y'all!  Love love love!