Bippity Boppity Boo!

Freshly Hand made Minnie dress for the daughter? check.

Crazy magician hat with Mouse ears for the son? check.

Glow sticks for waving about at parades? check.

Xanax for the nutso Mama? Double check.

Heh.

Watch out, Mouse, We's a comin'!

red & green find a way

Thank you to everyone for your sweet thoughts and comments on Friday.

You can't feel too very alone in blogland, I'm finding!

teensy red & green lady apples that Ella went ga-ga for at the market.

Finn polished one off in four bites.

Love those fuzzy little stems.

Ella and I made two of these button trees today while Hans was actually baking. Hans Baking?

I stayed very quiet about it and didn't question him. I can't remember the last time he decided to make cakes and muffins. Sure, sure, he's a famous chef in these parts, but won't usually bake unless he has to. Baking requires measuring...he hates that!

But the blueberry corn muffins? To die for.

When Hans went to the market today a man came up to tell Hans how much he loves his cooking show and how he followed him on the Food Network. This happens every day, so not too alarming, except then the man wanted to look in Hans' shopping buggy to see what he was buying. Wouldn't you know this was the day that I sent Hans out to buy a huge supply of Toilet paper?!?

Jeez louise.

Our car still isn't ready. Hopefully it will be by Thanksgiving so we can make a trip to my Grandma's several hours away.

But living in a small town has friendly perks. The body shop manager called me on Friday to give a progress report and was worried that the car won't be ready by Thanksgiving. He has offered that we take his brand new suv on our trip!

How nice is that? Super freaking nice!

I told him no, of course...jeez, we might smack another deer on the road!

pretty girls make graves

He was just a social drinker, but social every night.

He enjoyed a pint or two or three or four.

She was just a silent thinker,

silent every night.

He'd enjoyed the thought of killing her before.

~The Beautiful South

When we were 16 I played that Beautiful South song for my best friend, Tracey.

I remember telling her that it made me think of her and her boyfriend, Dave.

Tracey smiled at those first lines and nodded, but when it reached that last line, "he'd enjoyed the thought of killing her before..." Tracey frowned and said, "No. David would never hurt me."

"No..yeah...of course," I stumbled "I didn't mean that line. Of course he wouldn't really hurt you...just the other lines" I finished lamely.

But by the time we were 20, in 1994, Tracey was pregnant with Dave's baby. Dave didn't want a baby and she told him to Fuck off...she was having that baby girl with or without him.

I was so proud of her.

But David became erratic and he was popping drugs by the handful. He started claiming that he was God of all things. Tracey tried to get him help. One place prescribed something...I think an antidepressant.

On November 17th, 1994 David came to Roffler School of Hair where Tracey was learning to be a hair stylist. He asked to see Tracey and they left together. The other students later said that Tracey was even more quiet than normal that day.

He murdered my best friend and their baby girl still in Tracey's womb on Allgood road in Marietta, Georgia.

He took her car, with her little body still in it, and drove to Alabama where a police officer began pursuit of the speeding blue Honda. David finally stopped at the large bridge in Mobile, Alabama. I remember being told that he jumped off the bridge and that a cop jumped after him, but I don't know if that's really true.

But they got him and then they found Tracey in the car.

And then suddenly, you are expected to go on living as if part of you wasn't just ripped out violently.

Tracey was my first real friend. She loved pigs, wisteria, tea, and Morrissey. Tracey was tiny, barely five feet and under a hundred pounds. Her hair was the most beautiful shade of red that I've ever seen. She didn't walk, she would glide. Tracey had a lovely little throaty laugh that I still hear in my dreams. She was intelligent and quiet. We stayed up late just to watch The Young Ones, 120 minutes and silly old horror movies and would wake up early to catch Pee Wee's Playhouse. She didn't do drugs, but loved a bottle of Boone's farm.

I was six days older than her. She hated it when I told people that.

One of our last conversations was about who would come to our funerals. We were just morbid like that, I guess. Tracey felt that her funeral would be poorly attended. But it was freaking packed.

I go to the grave yard as much as possible. Especially holidays and today. Ella and I brought some tiny white pumpkins and holly bush cuttings today. Tracey was so very good about going to a dear friend's grave and bringing flowers... and she mentioned more than once how important that was to her to honor our friends.

So I carry on.

Not a day goes by that I don't still think of her and miss her. What would she think about now? About the internet, blogs, ipods, me married to Hans and our children? Her daughter would be eleven, almost twelve. She would have been a kick ass mom.

David got off on Insanity. The last that I heard of him, he was working at a restaurant in Atlanta.

During High school, I would pick her up in my beat up old Volvo early in the morning. We would both have a cup of tea and I would bum a Camel light cigarette from her. Tra and I would sit in the parking lot at school, crank up The Smiths, and linger over one more cigarette while we made faces at the cheer leaders bopping by. Christ, how could they be that peppy that early?

In Tracey, I had a soul connection. I was so lucky to know that.

tick tock tick tock

I think that we have about twenty different kids in the neighborhood that we try to give a little something to for Christmas. Yeah, yikes. This year I'm pretty pleased with what we've come up with for most of them; fleece scarves! I found some great striped fleece and got serious with my rotary cutter last night.

Ella and Finn are thrilled with them and now have a couple of new scarves each. It's nice how something so simple to do can impress the munchkins. Hopefully, it will impress the neighborhood munchkins too. If I have time, I'm going to make some clothes pin dolls to tuck into the scarf roll with a note on how to work a 'Worry Doll'.

Going crazy stuck at home with no car.... day three.

Yesterday, I stuck myself in the kitchen and made a cake, snickerdoodles, and a casserole.

I also made a dress and bloomers for Ella, more fleece scarves and more Lumplings.

Hans thinks that it's good for me to be stuck at home with all that I'm getting done.

Oh no...it's not.

There's no telling what will happen next... I might organize my desk. God forbid!

mmm...snickerdoodle!

Like a Deer In The Headlight

We hit a deer...or the deer hit us, really. But if this would have happened a second earlier, the results would have been a lot more severe. The deer could have hit the windshield, and the airbags would have gone off and we would have probably gone off the road. Yeah, that's how I try to make myself feel better, by going over how it could be worse. We weren't speeding, and the deer came out of someone's yard at such an amazing pace that we didn't see her until she collided with the car.

I'm so so glad that my children weren't in the car to see and hear that.

As it was, when we finally came to a stop, and I looked up, there was a large white cross and drying flowers there. A man had just died at that spot recently, and his name, as it was written in marker on the cross, was Tommy.

Do they do that all over the country, or is it just in the South? When someone dies in a car accident, a cross and flowers are left there.

Places to hold your breath as you drive by.

Our nearest neighbors both work at the body shop in town where my poor scooter pooter car is now. They told us that our car is the seventh car to come in since last week that was involved in hitting a deer. It's rutting season, they explained, and the girl deers are trying to get away from the boy deers and running all willy nilly.

Our deer ran off, even after flipping several times when the car hit her. I hope that she's alright, but I honestly don't see how she could be.

pin, little doggy, pin!

Have I introduced my little pin dog? I have a habit of adopting old planters from antique/junk stores, and for years they've just been sitting around looking cute. But once I started to sew and realized that I must have a pin cushion for every room in the house, my planters gained a new life! I've also attacked vintage egg cups and small tea cups with my pin cushion making frenzy, but this little pink dog with his blank stare and cracked body is my favorite.

If you would like to make your own little pin pal:

First, weight the bottom with either pea gravel or sand.

Next, cut a circle of fabric and run a loose stitch around the edges with sturdy upholstery thread.

Pull the thread ends a bit to form a pouch, and stuff it firmly with poly fill or wool.

Now pull the threads tight and knot them.

You can now tuck this little poof into the planter. If it doesn't feel sturdy enough, you can run a bead of hot glue around the edges before putting the poof in, but I usually just lodge it in there tightly in case I ever want to change the fabric.

I've been making a little dress for Ella this week, and that has required a lot of ironing. Hans gets a bit giddy when I'm on an ironing spree and unloads all of his shirts on my ironing table. He says that he likes the way the house smells when I iron, and I have to agree that it has almost as much of a welcome home smell as cookies in the oven. But I think that he's really just playing on my domestic side so that I keep ironing and he keeps smooth shirts.

I keep a silver creamer filled with water and a drop of lavender water next to the iron for frequent refills, and that Dritz ezy-hem? It's a handy gadget for the hemming impaired like me.

If anyone makes a pin pal, send pictures! I'd love to see them!

Empty House, Warm Egg

Our son, Finn, has taken to eating soft boiled eggs in the morning before school. It's not a very common for children in the states and when I went looking for fun egg cups online they were all in England. Except for this little guy, the Egg Robot! He keeps the egg warm and holds the spoon for Finn when not in use.

Finn's eyes bugged out of his head when I surprised him with it this week. I love those eye popping happy kid moments.

From the same seller on Ebay I also ordered a toast press that was supposed to leave the impression of the Virgin Mary on my toast. I was really looking forward to toast with pictures(obviously, I am easily amused), but sadly, you have to squint really hard to see Mary.

We found this old farmhouse last weekend while driving some backroads. The people living here would have had a fantastic view of pasture and mountains beyond. But it was obviously left empty years ago, and it feels forlorn now.

Lumplings are coming right along and I hope to have an update soon. One of the Lumpling adoptions fell through with that last batch, so I'll be putting that Lump back on the site tomorrow probably.

Gettin' an itch and scratchin' it twice.

The Halloween decorations are down and I'm feeling that Christmas itch. The past couple of nights I've been ordering vintage ribbons and fabrics for the Holiday Lumplings. Where would Lumplings be without late night Ebaying and online fabric stores? We live rather far out from decent fabric and thrift stores, and the internet is a blessing for supplies.

~Single layer pink dress on a green minky Lump~

I've been working on the Lumpling dresses again. The newest style is just like a child's pillowcase dress...a tube of fabric with armholes cut out and ribbon threaded through the top.

I made a darling one for Ella out of a vintage embroidered pillowcase and she refuses to wear it, so we'll see if the Lumplings prove easier to please!

I dunno though...they do kind of look like maternity dresses. Roly poly waddling pregnant Lumplings? Noo...lumplings don't do that!

~Double layer pillowcase dress on a velveteen Lumpling~

My favorite book lately is this fantastic guide of Japanese children's fabrics. Full of adorable and inspiring images like the bunnies below.