Halloween with the Eddys

Since I now work every Saturday until I die, Halloween was spent at the library for me. Brian was sweet enough to bring the kids over to see me in my getup (and visit my new digs - more on that later). Here my smile is sweet, soft, serene...



Now here is me at the end of the day - we're at a church party. The kids are high on candy and Brian and I are so tired we're barely holding it together. Look at that manic smile on my face!


And look what happens when the husband leaves out a bowl of candy (ill-gotten gains stolen from the kids) on the couch before going to work. And mommy doesn't get out of bed to see *why* the kid is sooooooo quiet...

Walking the Walk

A few posts back, I talked about the woe I felt over not being able to have another baby. Instead of just clucking her tongue, a friend of mine, Holly, did this...


All the way from Hawaii, a package was delivered to my doorstep. I opened it to see this.


Then I unzipped it... ooo... suspense...


Ta da!


Kid, that little thing spells your doom. Doom, I say! Bring on the baby sister!

BTW, Holly will be selling these pouches in her etsy shop as soon as she gets a move on and OPENS IT! (Not that I'm being anything but lovingly encouraging, eh?)

I Like Bakersfield Today

My hubby would die if he could read this post because he has known that it was a true sacrifice for me to move to Bakersfield after we got married. I had always heard jokes that started: "If Stockton is the armpit of California, Bakersfield is the..." Yeah.

Anyway, I love rocks. I briefly considered geology in college. Bakersfield is close to a few places where you can find fossils and stuff. When I was at work on Saturday (*sigh*), Brian went with his brother and family to go fossil-hunting. I wanted to go so bad that I asked him to take me where they went [but I won't do any digging because it's Sunday...] so I could, uh, look.

So we went just outside of town, about five miles (that's all!), drove off the road to this dirt-moguled area by the bike path and parked. We three (Kiff, Brian and me), got out and walked up the bike path about 2/3 mile before we got to this steep trail that led up the side of the hill. We don't have mountains here in Bako - just hills. This valley we live in was once an ocean (Temblor Sea, I think), and there is a strata of fossils that peeks out of the hillside every so often. So, up we went to where you could see the layers of rock/dirt and treasure.

Brian showed me the hole where his brother had dug and found six shark teeth and a huge vertabrae (whale? - no I'm not kidding). I looked into the hole and said, "I'm just going to see how hard it is to dig." [It's Sunday! Keep the Sabbath day holy!]


I figured if I didn't use tools, just my hands, I wasn't breaking the Sabbath. I'm not even Jewish - where did I get THAT logic? Anyway, I didn't find anything where my bro-in-law had looked, but I decided to turn around and dig on the OTHER side of the hole.


Bingo. Found a shark tooth in two minutes. Then a couple of bones, then a cup-shaped thing.


I love where I live although, I'm allowed to change my mind in the future.

Ooh... hooked on motifs

Have you seen this book? It's AMAZING! If I had time to crochet, I'd be making tons of these!

This is one of the problems of working at a library. It's all "free" so you end up getting greedy with all the books you can check out. Then you have a billion types of crafts you want to learn ALL AT ONCE and then you don't have time to do any of them because you are drooling over all the books. *sigh*

Okay, in my next life, I will have more time. Yeah, right.

Last Day

Today was my last day at the Southwest Branch. Every few years they like to shake us up a bit and have us get experience at another branch. And yes, keep us from getting territorial at "our" branches.

I start tomorrow. I have a key and an alarm code. I don't know where the branch is very well, so I need to get directions. I don't know where the staff entrance is, so I'll have to wait for a co-worker to show up. I hope they like me.

Literary Boy

The other day I was talking to Kiff, trying to use my time as a Mommy wisely by having a teaching moment.

"What sound does a doggie make?" I asked.

"Ruff ruff!" Kiff answered.

"What sound does a kitty make?"

He hesitated, although I know he knows what sound a kitty makes. "Meow," I prompted. "Meow! Meow!" Kiff chimed.

Thinking that I had to help now, I said, "What sound does a cow make?" and said, "Moo-ooo!" with him.

"What sound does a pig make? Oink oink!"

"NO Mommy! Pigs say, Not by the hair of my chinny-chin-chin!"

Humility

I am at the main library today where I work one day a week to fulfill my 40 hours. There are often down times at the desk when I don't have patrons to help and I have a few minutes to explore things.

I am working on a tutorial for my folded books. In order to make this, I asked Odile from woollyfabulous for pointers. She kindly obliged, showing me the layout for her tutorial and giving me ideas. One suggestion was that I use Microsoft Publisher for my layout. We have this program here at work and I decided to try it. I'm pretty good at Word, but Publisher, not so much.

While I was playing around with it, a colleague of mine came over and sat on the desk, watching me work. He then gave some suggestions. I listened patiently although what he was telling me, I already knew. This went on for a while and I wondered if he would just leave me alone. It was then that I let him guide me through a series of steps to make a text box. Text boxes are duh-easy. Well, guess what. He taught me something about them that I never knew. And then he taught me something else. And then another thing. I have learned that I don't know everything and I should listen with intent to learn instead of just with pseudo-patience.

Thanks, Dave.