Lucky #13

This is a poem that reminds me of myself:

Elsie Marley has grown so fine,
She won't get up to feed the swine,
But lies in bed til eight or nine,
Lazy Elsie Marley.

My kids have a copy of it in their Richard Scary book, with a picture of a sleeping mama pig, surrounded by piglets (all in great need of attention). I think I need to get up earlier, so that my swine don't get into so much mischief.

Tony and I just had our thirteenth anniversary. As per tradition, he got me the coolest gift ever, making my gift look super-lame. You'd think I'd be used to it by now. Modern Family even had a special episode to help celebrate my lameness: Great Expectations. How did they know?

You're thinking, "That's very non sequitor, Annalia." ...but it isn't! My extremely cool gift was an alarm clock - the kind you can actually get excited about - hopping up and down excited. Not only is my alarm clock pretty, but it has me waking up to twittering birds and the voice of my butler, Jeeves, giving me compelling reasons to get out of bed. - a different reason every day, for 6 months!


I am still waiting to hear the one on the box (my favorite!) "Good morning, Madam. I'm so sorry to disturb you, but it appears to be morning. Very inconvenient, I agree. I believe it is the rotation of the earth that is to blame."

I got him a book.

New Moon Fever

My sister Rachel is the most brilliant hostess ever! ...and we're all so grateful to her for throwing a shindig to get us all geared up to watch New Moon. She made us all lots of fun (and thematic) New Moon treats: cds, wolfie treats, fire vs. ice candies, etc.


...and who but Rachel thought of New Moon when these were in the stores? Too, too cute!


I even let Sofia tag along... (Tony had to wait until it was movie time to join us - we didn't want boys making fun of our Twilight obsessions!)


There weren't any questionable photos of me from the party, and luckily Rachel didn't have her camera on her when I was pouring my vanilla syrup in my diet coke at the theater. "Lia - that looks so bad!" ...as if I spike my drinks!

Without Rachel, I would have been completely lost, standing in needless lines, and ended up with no seat (or at least no seat by people I knew!) Thanks, Rachey!

Betsy's Quilt

See, I told you I was going to start calling you Betsy!

My sister-in-law had her birthday, so I can finally post pictures of her present (without spoiling any surprises!)



...and I'm happy to say it looked right at home on her couch.

Left Behind

We always leave something behind when we visit my parents - and I don't just mean the mess either!

We recently went on a wild goose chase trying to find James' shoes as we were leaving. Have you ever tried asking a 3-year-old where they left their shoes?

The most coherent responses I got were:
"...in a hole in the tree" and "not with the goats". Grandpa found them sitting on the riding lawn mower the next day.

Well, this week I left the memory card from my camera at Grandma and Grandpa's. I know right where it is - a lot of good that does me! So, don't expect any snazzy pictures this week! :)

We Have a Rodent Infestation!

But, as far as rodents go, these ones are fairly well-mannered. You'll notice the chipmunk is eating some leftover peanuts from someone's hot fudge sunday.

This table was set up right under our dining room table for at least a week. I kind of miss it....but I had to vacuum!

Snohomish Pumpkin Festival

My hubby has the day off and thank goodness, because he isn't feeling great. ...but well enough to go to a movie with Sofia! 2012 - bleh, who wants to see that! I don't, but I guess I don't mind that they do. ..then I can sneak out of the house and get my vanilla diet coke. It's so hard to indulge in a guilty pleasure when someone adultish is around watching you - making you feel more guilty.

We trying to get some things done today (quasi-vetran's day), but I thought I'd take a moment to share some pumpkiny fun with you. Better late than never.

The real reasons I loved the pumpkin festival:



I get to see a little Mamalia artwork in action. I painted these signs for the Beez Neez some other year. Aren't they cute!

...and speaking of painting, Annika - sporting her snazzy face-paint. The snake is her Lunar (aka Chinese) horoscope.



What would a pumpkin festival be without a pumpkin pie eating contest? ...that we lost.



Sofia was SURE she won! (WARNING: not a good loser!)


Tony sizing up the competition. I was SO sure he'd win. I even tried to bet one of the children $5 that he would. Lucky for me they didn't take my bet, because he got his clock cleaned by some serious eater.


The PikaPals and I had a good time anyhow. If you want to see a picture of me at the festival, hop on over to my little sister's blog. I'm the one with the baby. :)

Romero Miscellanea

How do you play outside in western Washigton?


I think Sofia is dressed as Super Pikachu or a Pikachu Fairy? Either way, the little pikachu is for throwing at people. What a terrible picture! It must have been taken before I cleaned Boo's fingerprints off of the lens.


I would love to show you the other side of this quilt sandwich, but it is TOP SECRET - and the most gorgeous thing ever!


Wait...this is the most gorgeous thing ever....


...and it's even sweeter in my son's arms!

I wish...

How I wish I could show all of you my current projects! Tis the season for secrets; no posting presents! (..until they've been gifted!)


Instead, I'm just putting up a picture of Boo eating noodles, which I think is hilarious. Who knew ramen could be so entertaining?

She's Finished!

What do you know? I actually finished a project! That's such a good feeling. Thank goodness for that extra time sitting in the car - perfect for finishing up the binding on my Jonny Stairsteps Quilt.


And this one is staying in my house. Can you see my vision for the living room beginning to come together? I can, and it gives me all kinds of warm fuzzies!


This quilt was my stippling experiment. Things went pretty smoothly after I had to take out an entire corner and start over again. Now I think I have it down, and I'm enchanted by its cuteness!

Fun Loot

Before my Mom left for England, I slipped her a little cash and asked her to bring me back something cool (so I could pretend I went somewhere cool!)

Things that fall into my cool category: vintage books, seeds (although I think there could be some legal issues there, fabric (a category that includes all sewing stuff), or food.

Wish fulfilled.

When I got to my Mom's house, she had a beautiful little bundle waiting for me, all tied up with a bow. There was poppy fabric and a pair of embroidery scissors on top.



It wasn't bought at 84, Charing Cross Rd. , but I have a copy of Sanditon and a 1870 printng of The Swiss Family Robinson (published in chapters no less!) from the Portabello Road market. How fun is that?





...and chocolate! Yum. I love little hazelnut hippos.

Nothing Interesting or Eventful

The wild animal in me must have instinctively known it was going to rain like crazy today (I know - that's SUPER hard to predict in the Pacific Northwest), because yesterday I felt a driving need to mow the front lawn! Just in time.

The rain has made all of the leaves fall off of my red maple, and they look just gorgeous, scattered and wet on my lawn. I think they're the same purple as the fading sedums I have planted underneath my ONLY tree. I would post a picture, but, with my current internet situation, that would take approximately....a billion years.

I can't remember all of the funny/interesting things my kids say, because they are frequent - to say the least, but here are a couple recent gems.

Jonny: If you don't do what I say when I'm a Grandpa, I'll poke you with my old-person-stick!
He meant cane, but we all think old-person-stick is brilliant! We've begun threatening each other with old-person-stick-poking pretty often.

Sofia: In seven years, when you're forty, can I have your bed?
Me: What? I won't need a bed when I'm forty? Do you think I'm going to die when I'm forty and leave you my bed?
I think she's pretty nervy counting down til that particular birthday. I'm totally not ready for that. (Really scary thing - she'll be 17!)

Tony gets home tomorrow, and I'm going to try and talk him into a cheap fix for the computer he wants to replace. Either way - fast internet MUST be restored. (I spent at least 2 hours trying to place an Amazon order today! Bleh.)

Aaaaggghh!

I struggle with some very lazy tendencies. When Tony is home, I think I indulge them even more, because I delegate things to him, rather than trying to do them myself. What do I delegate? Hmmmm? ...anything that involves the 3 manly "t"s: tools, trash, or technology.

I really don't think Tony even minds. (We're into gender roles at our house.:) No doubt it assures him that he is needed. However, I think some household Karma has caught up with me. Tony's gone. Our high-speed internet is not working. I've finally figured out that it's our Ethernet card, and I'm thinking I had better replace it before my honey gets home and decides we need a new computer! Why me?

So, here I am, blogging via dial-up (bleh!), dreading tomorrow.

As for today, here's what we did:
We celebrated Odie's 12th birthday! He's so old!...which means I'm so old! Still, it was fun. He was thrilled with the giant lego set Tony picked out, ate his fill of sushi, and got moola in the mail.

I ate a billion evil, addictive haystacks (with marshmallows in them) that my nice neighbor brought over. (..plus 3 diet cokes. I'm a horrible, horrible addict. I'm so blessed that diet coke is the hardest drug I've ever done!)

We did some school - it's so hard when everyone else has half-days! We LOVE our zoology textbook! Even if the kids and I don't agree with all of it's creationist ideas (Do you think Noah's flood wiped out the dinosaurs? I don't. ...at least it just mentioned that as one possible theory.), I love how thorough and scientific it is.
Besides, birds are such a fun and accessible topic. We read a bit out of the textbook, wrote down some vocabulary words, listened to some bird songs, and Odie put a birdhouse up in the back yard.

Made a trip to the library. It was monumental, because James found the first book he has ever been interested in checking out - Max and Ruby, of course. I think the librarian was frustrated with our craziness, but he'll just have to get used to it. :)

Cozette still hasn't pooped out the lego? she swallowed, but we're keeping watch. Maybe we'll be at the doctor's office tomorrow? ....oh, that dang tomorrow again!

Happy Not-Rainy Halloween!

I'm sorry, but it seemed like a minor miracle to me that it wasn't pouring cats and dogs on Halloween (like it was every day leading up to it!)


We had a great time trick-or-treating. Boo had to be forcibly shoved into his costume and dragged to the first house, but once he saw the candy, he was totally on board. (He's 3. You'd think he would have figured this all out by now.) He did pretty well on the "trick-or-treat"s and "thank you"s, but at one house he went up to the door and said, "I want a piece of candy!" That's my children - always so polite.


I came back twice to refill the candy bowl on our porch, but by 8:30, we had to suffer the shame of turning off our porch light. I thought I had enough candy - dang!

Getting My Zig On!

I don't know why it's been such a struggle to finish this quilt! ...but the more quilting I finish, the more I love it. I can't wait to see it in my living room!