My children went to the library with their father this evening, and brought home 5 books. 2 were about monsters and wild things. 3 were about little girls, alphabets and why there are so few Q’s in the Swedish language. I’ll leave it as an exercise for the reader as to which child was responsible for which choice. 😀 There is a certain flutter to the stomach when one is preparing a gift for someone else. It’s the same with any gift-giving, really, whether it is handmade or store-bought. If you know the person you are giving to, and think...

Okay, I can’t wait any more either! I hope you like it! The Big Surprise for my LJ Friends!

One thing I learned from my mom a while ago, a bit of healthy eating advice that has stuck with me, is how to tell if you’re making vegetables a focal point of your diet. It has to do with whether the way you prepare them destroys their integrity or not. Steamed vegetables retain their integrity. Green peppers on a pizza with extra cheese have had their integrity destroyed. Ketchup is tomatoes without a shred of integrity. Too much butter even on the steamed veggies is the slippery slope into lost integrity. Where am I going with this? Nowhere. I...

It’s not that often that I feel I have nothing to say, as evidenced by the lonely few blank boxes in the calendar view of my journal. Today is one of those days. Maybe it’s the head cold. (snuck) Maybe it’s the weather. (bleah) Maybe it’s the residual malaise I’m feeling from the weekend. (grumble)** Who knows? Who cares? I feel like I could fill a whole page with rambling babbling nothingness, inserted into which might be a few nuggets of wisdom or humor or feeble attempts at philosophy…a link or two…a cute bon mot uttered by my child.*** How...

My faith in humanity got a dent in it last night. This morning, sick with a head cold, it’s still suffering, but it’s numbed somewhat by the Gods of Tylenol. O Tylenol, how I do worship thee! You may be a false god, but you have my devotion. I’m working on a surprise for all you lovely folks on my friends list. It should be done in a couple of days, although I may wait until the election is over and the results final so that my surprise will receive the attention it deserves. I hope you like it. 🙂...

We just spent the majority of the afternoon and evening at the AWC Halloween Party, getting there early to help decorate and set up, enjoying the party, which was a smash success, but total chaos due to the record turnout of over 130 people (!!) and then staying after to clean up and put the restaurant to rights, at which point we noticed that Karin’s Bionicle pumpkin, which won a prize in the pumpkin contest, was missing. Someone swiped my daughter’s pumpkin. I’m so mad my head is steaming. Who does that?! Who steals a little girl’s pumpkin?! *** Yeah,...

Yesterday I made it to the toy store at lunch, and was lucky enough to find a superhero costume for Karin. Even though Martin and I have been trying to convince her to be one of the 3 bears with us (too bad Goldilocks will be hiking with his buddies this weekend), she had her heart set on being either a skeleton or a superhero after we got a toystore flyer in the mail showing costumes for Spiderman, Superman, and Batman. Liz: Well, Martin, I guess we can’t be the 3 bears…it’s too bad Daddy won’t be there. Karin: I’m...

Right in front of me, a brindled hawk perched on a small, winter-stripped sapling, his beak leading his head slowly from side to side. Seconds later he cast himself aloft, only about 6 feet or so, and stopped, as if he’d hit a glass ceiling, hovering in the air, wings bating and talons clenching, ready to stoop. I couldn’t see, of course, what it was that had caused his alert attention to spring to readiness for attack, but he was still hovering in the same spot by the time I drove out of sight. Another blue-sky autumn dawn, but it’s...

I just participated in my first ever ATC swap with members of the , and they came today in the mail…SO cool. It was interesting and fun to see how others interpreted this theme. Each of mine were slightly different, and I promised I’d show the whole set once they had arrived.

Fog blankets were everywhere this morning. The grass glows silver, and the car was shellacked in glitter. The clouds have come down to the ground to roost, they’re slumming. Earth’s got the vapors. As I drove up out of the valley, past the upper limit of the fog, I realized what a gorgeous day it’s going to be. The sun is already striking long shadows against the backdrop of late autumn, and the trees, which burst into flame only a few days ago have dropped their skirts. There are puddles of color along the roads, on the edges of the...