our days: art, reading, being us...

Dude. Our winter fashion sense is mutating into something very spectacular. We are so ready for a replay of the springy days of last week; Ani is taking it personally and feels really let down by the weather these days! I am hoping that her expectations for March are not too grand...

There has been some duct-tape fashioning this week - shoes for a friend's birthday present, and a bag.

(no, it it not really this warm. do not be deceived.)

Yesterday dawned without a plan. Or rather, with many plans that just flowed and merged and...happened. It was a day that was messy and meandering (lunch? um...how about apples and peanut butter? carrots and bean dip?) and we went to bed with a sink full of dishes, but the satisfaction of a day well spent.  Stamp carving, present making, a stop at the thrift store, "Scenic Routes Around the World: Sahara", and the first episode of "An Idiot Abroad" (The jury is out. I see the appeal, and we definitely saw things - like the inside of the men's bathroom in a village along the Great Wall of China and a woman slowly enjoying her snack of deep fried scorpion - that other travel shows don't show, but Ani found it upsetting that someone who didn't want to be in China in the first place had to stay, and while parts of it were funny the overall feel is really negative. Eliza loved it.).

But, ah the stamping. We got lost in it for a good long while. So lovely...

Yes, this is the kitchen counter.  It's under there, somewhere.

Some spontaneous letter-writing...

We listened to the end of Mr. and Mrs. Bunny: Detectives Extraordinaire! by Polly Horvath, and read our books (Mother-Daughter Book Club for Eliza, Otherwise Known as Sheila the Great for Ani, who is eating Judy Blume books this week - all of the Fudge books have been ingested, and I'm reading the YA book The Perks of Being a Wallflower and Ann Patchett's book of essays, This Is The Story of a Happy Marriage.).  Eliza explored the social media website (does saying that make me sound so old?) DIY, where kids can post tutorials and earn badges for their new skills, kind of like an online scouts forum.

Dan is deep in busy-town: teaching, rehearsing As You Like It, writing a presentation for a conference next week...He pops in when he can, for dinner, and we see him at Homeschool Marching Choir, but we are missing him.  I think I cope with this better than I used to, in part because the girls are older and offer help around the house and are such amazing company.  Yes, there have been several grilled-cheese dinners (with a glass of wine for me) and eating-while-watching-a-documentary, which always feels like getting away with something, but overall, we are doing pretty well.

Today was games with a friend all morning (Frog Juice, Wildcraft, Pente); listening to Jim Weiss talk about Egypt for a bit, then down some rabbit holes online with touring an Egyptian tomb, which lead to...making world music on the National Museum of Scotland website? Ani and I made applesauce, Eliza is making cookies for a friend's tea party tomorrow and is madly scribbling out a story that came to her while washing dishes after lunch...LIFE!