whale, wouldn't you know...

if you happen to have a small child handy, could you ask them if this snack would pass for a beluga whale?



next weekend is whalefest in sitka, and today i found the CUTEST whale cupcakes in a book i bought at the scholastic book fair. unfortunately the body of the whale is made with a twinkie covered in frosting. adorable, but really not a healthy choice for preschoolers. so cassie and i went to the store and bought bananas and nilla wafers. the whale is resting on a sea of marshmallow fluff (marshmallow cream mixed with cream cheese and blue food coloring).

room to work

With Cassie finally moved into her new, bigger bedroom, I now have a workroom! Have I done any work in it? Hmm. No. Not yet. Though I did sit in there this morning to write a letter to Arnold. The table is next to the window and the sun is shining in.


The first project to be: a t-shirt quilt made from Arnold's old shirts. See? All the supplies are ready!

Any bets on how long this project is gonna take?

happy alaska day!

we've had it ALL today -- rain, wind, hail, lightning and thunder -- and a parade! an hour before the parade when i picked cassie up from school it was raining and hailing so hard it made driving difficult. we waited it out at Subway, though, and the rain stopped long enough for our 25 minute parade. lots of candy was thrown, bands played, and a whale made it's way through the streets of Sitka.


good thing the dooney & bourke picnic tote is waterproof. :-)

photos by cassie.

makeover

Doesn't seem like Arnold's been gone over a month, but Cassie is finally getting settled taking over his room. She's also gone a bit crazy with the masking tape.





I got to do bra art on the wall behind her door. She had a lot of cute bras that she's outgrown!



Save the ta-tas!

planning ahead

This is the shirt Cassie and I will be wearing to Arnold's graduation. Just putting it out there in case anyone else wants to play along!

http://www.bootcampgrads.com/index.php/san-diego/san-diego-kilo/kilo-sd-proud-ega-short-sleeve-t-shirt.html

Platoon 3225. You know the rest! :-D

Graduation --- December 10! Can't wait!

the hour of power

sitka had a really bad windstorm on tuesday that took out a major power line. while the repairs are being made over the next few days, our power is being rationed because the city is using diesel fuel, and because they don't have the capacity to power the whole city without the hydroelectric plants. so the downtown area has power most of the time, and the north and south ends of town have power every other hour, alternately.

it's been kind of fun.

yesterday at the grocery store all the moms were watching the clock (the grocery store has a generator). we were all calculating how much time we had before we needed to be home and ready to cook dinner when our power came on at 6:00.

i know that the city utility department has had a lot of angry customers this week, but i'm really happy that i have a warm house and cold beer, and when my power goes off, i'm fairly confident that it's going to come back on in another 67 minutes.

things we chose to do when the power was off:

• write letters to Arnold
• move Cassie's curtain rod and mirror to her new room (with a human-powered screwdriver)
• have light saber duels with emergency flashlights
• watch DVDs on the laptop
• sit in the dark and enjoy how quiet it is without the humming of appliances
• play with Arnold's night vision goggles
• shower by candlelight
• make a masking-tape mural on the wall (I didn't do this -- Cassie did)

the city expects us to be back on full power by tomorrow afternoon, but if they don't, it will be a great excuse for putting off laundry and vacuuming yet again. just doing our part to conserve electricity during this power emergency.