look ma! I can spin!

Lately I've been feeling the itch to change my appearance. I feel as though I've allowed myself to slip into a more "normal" or mainstream appearance and I don't really feel like it's true to who I actually am. I feel as though I'm not standing in solidarity with all the other freaks and geeks out there in the world by masquerading as just your average mom with small children when the truth is I am actually quite different than most people in my ideas and ideals and general outlook on life and society. I've been toying with the idea of a nose ring but I have concerns about it getting yanked on by my small children. I'd like to get a tattoo or two but they are expensive and I have concerns about injecting strange substances into my skin. I doubt they have organic tattoo ink.. I'm not sure it's a good idea even if they did, from a health perspective. I know that it may seem silly to be concerned about tattoo ink but then to go ahead and slather a bunch of bleach on my hair but I figured it's been 8+ years since I dyed my hair last and that it was probably the easiest way to alter my appearance drastically without costing an arm and a leg and not being too permanent.

Well, it was my paranoia about my hair becoming brittle and strawlike that threw a wrench in my plans for purple hair. I left the bleach on my hair for 45 minutes and I could see that parts of it looked pretty light. I thought it was light enough to show of the purple in a few key spots and so I prematurely rinsed. I should have left it in for another 15 - 30 minutes. As it was, when I put the manic panic in it only gave me some very subtle purple highlights. Not at all the dramatic change I was hoping for.

Ah well.. Maybe I'll try again in a month or so.

I got closer to setting up my online shop a few days ago. I now have a new checking account that is exclusively for my store paypal account. This is to avoid any possibility of a paypal glitch wiping out rent money. Now I'm just waiting for the debit card to arrive in the mail and I'll be ready to start listing stuff. Woohoo! I've got a variety of fiber art, wood burnings and paintings ready and I'm thinking about maybe figuring out how to do prints so I can sell some photography, digital art or prints of original paintings or burnings.

Another thing I've been doing lately is learning to spin. I made my own drop spindle and spun up my first yarn. It was and is still very challenging but it's quite fun learning and playing with the oh so soft merino wool. I'm still pretty darn slow but I think my first attempt came out rather nice. I'm now working on some beautiful blue and brown roving that I bought from Allspunup.etsy.com and it's just wonderful to handle and gaze upon. I was a big fan of fondling yarn before this but making it myself just brings it to a whole new level of enjoyment. I'm now fantasizing about a spinning wheel. Something to work for I suppose. They are pricey and it will motivate me to get busy creating things to sell in my shop.
Here's a small portion of the roving after I fluffed it all up in preparation for spinning.
Playing with this wool has been my beacon of light the past day or so amidst all the barfing. Quinnster and Zayzae have been fighting off a nasty stomach bug they caught from our neighbors. No fun at all when they only thing that stays down is water and maybe some toast or crackers. It's especially difficult for Zay because nursing is such a source of comfort for her and she's not able to keep the mama's milk down. She's doing surprisingly well understanding that right now having nummies= throwing up and therefore she's not begging for it and has been drinking water instead.

So it's late and I really should be going to bed.
One last thing... my brother transferred some really old home movies to digital and uploaded them to YouTube. I'm the one with the thick bangs and pony tail. Interestingly Quinn runs just like me it would seem.

freaky weather and kiddo updates

Well the old man's grip seems to have loosened considerably in the few days since that last entry. Now the daytime temps are in the 50s and our backyard is more than a third melted. That also means the dog poo glacier has melted and our front yard is so so icky. Tomorrow is to be a poop scoop marathon day. yay.

Oh more fun topics, Meara's first two teeth broke through on the 16th and now they are emerging in full force. She's getting so grown up! Also doing lots of rolling. I think she may become our little athlete. Zay wasn't quite so active at that age but she's definitely making up for it now. She's like a wild monkey girl running around the house using the biggest voice she can muster half the time. She also loves to sing. She's surprisingly good at carrying a tune for a two year old, I might add.

Quinn hung out with my dad on Sunday and got to drive his first snowmachine. It was a last chance sort of thing, with how quickly it's all melting but he had a great time anyway. It was one of those little kid size snowmachines (that's Alaskan for snowmobile in case any of you lower 48 folk were wonderin) I wasn't there but dad said he took right to it and commented that he seems to pick things up very quickly. He's a sharp one, that Quinnster. We signed him up for soccer this summer. Unfortunately I don't think we're going to be able to do that and teeball since they take place at the same time. He's bummed about that but I think he's really going to like soccer... and if he doesn't he can go back to teeball (little league??) next summer. His best friend who lives across the street is into soccer so he wanted to give that a try and see if maybe they could be on the same team.

I took this picture today and got a serious case of deja vu and then realized it was because I took a very similar picture almost two years ago.. check it out.
( I know it's blurry but I love it because it shows off that lower lip action that I love to death)
Now compare it to the one with Zay.. she's older than Meara is now but I'm wearing the same shirt.. I swear I did not set that up on purpose..
Serious deja vu....

old man winter won't let go

ugh.. it's snowing... again. Twice now our backyard has gone from being 1/3 snow free to being a winter wonderland all over again. Big fat fluffy snowflakes are falling for for the second major accumulation in two weeks. I wish I could say at least it's been warm but that doesn't seem to last either. Two days ago it was 20 degrees, which would normally be considered somewhat warm but the wind was gusting so hard that it felt like 20 below zero out. Brrrrrrr. I just want it to be spring already. We keep getting taunted with the promise of it only to have it snatched away again. blech.

kiddos

Here's a little video of the kids goofing off yesterday.

Our favorite things...

This song is hilarious. Any knitter will understand. It was performed at a gathering of Yarn Harlot fans and recorded by The Heathen Housewife

I can't believe it...

, originally uploaded by harpyr.

My wee bonnie lass is already a quarter of a year old! Sweet Meara is a dream of a babe. So easygoing and happy. I think it helps that she has the most entertaining brother ever. He can make her laugh like nobody else.. even me! Zay is getting better at eliciting some laughs from Meme but it's only because she's caught on to employing the same crazy antics as Quinn.

In other news, I'm actually trying to avoid sitting at the computer much lately because my back has been super achy. I think it's because I don't have a decent chair to sit in and I need to get more active on top of that.
It's good and bad.. Good because I'm working more on my art but bad because I really want to spend some time playing around with The Gimp since I just downloaded the latest version and found a whole slew of really awesome brushes to use. I created that new patchwork tree banner with a few of them. I'm playing around with banner ideas and that was my first finished result. I hope to have my etsy shop up soon. I have enough inventory but I need to get a different bank account set up so I don't have to worry about a paypal mistake wiping out our rent money. I've heard that's been known to happen before.. not too often but enough that I don't want to take any chances.

Well gotta run. Quinn's couch cushion fort is collapsing in on him and he's hollering for some help.

Nick Drake

I wrote a little something about the day my husband and I discovered the music of Nick Drake. Pop on over to the site I posted it on to check it out.-
http://www.fanpop.com/spots/nick-drake/soapbox/2362

Edited to add- the link wasn't working so I broke it. If you copy and paste that link it should work. By the way, after rereading this little essay a few days later I realize that it's pretty corny. Be forewarned.