Music to my ears

I never thought that Aubrey would like any of the same music I like. But all of that has changed recently. She has decided that the music I love from the 60s and early 70s is pretty dang awesome. One year ago she would have a fit if I tried to listen to John Denver or Simon and Garfunkel. Now sometimes I will walk by her room and hear the aforementioned or The Everly Brothers or something else awesome playing on her sound dock. I must say that her affinity for John Denver does make my day.

Aubrey got a guitar for Christmas, and I introduced her to some of the awesome folk songs that are not too hard on the guitar. I also finally uncovered my John Denver piano and guitar book for her to enjoy.

A few weeks ago she asked me to order a guitar strap for her. She wanted a plain black one but the only one I could find in the material she wanted had the very traditional woven pattern on it. But it had a black background so I gave it a try. When it arrived Aubrey opened the package and wasn't sure about it at first. She said she had to go put it on the guitar to see. I thought it was a no go. But about 2 minutes later Aubs walked into the kitchen with the guitar strapped on and her eyes were sparkling. She asked me how I liked it and I told her it looked awesome and like something John Denver would have used. She said, "That's what I was thinking! I LOVE IT!"

Music to my ears.

Boy crazy

Savanna is boy crazy.  Not about the boys in her class, for sure.  Not crazy for anyone she actually knows.  But almost every day there is some guy she talks about who she thinks is just so cute.  I remember as a pre-teen crushing on Ricky Schroeder, C. Thomas Howell,  and John Schneider.  But this girl of mine likes some older guys.  Like really old.


We watch an episode of Hogan's Heroes nearly every night, and Savanna thinks Col. Hogan is just so charming.

 Michael Buble is also on her list, both for his looks and for his voice.

 And Carlos Pena--not the baseball player--the actor/singer from Big Time Rush.  This is the guy she is craziest about.

 We also watch The Dick Van Dyke Show a lot at our house.  Savanna loves the episodes that feature little Ritchie Petrie.  I don't dare to show her pictures of what he looks like now.

 Ned's Declassified is also one of our favorite shows, and thanks to Netflix we can watch it every day.  Savanna thinks Ned is a cutie.

One of our favorite movies is Ramona and Beezus.  Savanna IS Ramona, after all.  But she likes to watch it not only for the charming, sweet story but also for Ramona's Dad and also

 The dreamy Uncle Hobart.

 And last week we got Real Steel from Redbox.  Savvy went crazy for Dakota Goyo who played Max in the  movie.  Somehow she overlooked Hugh Jackman because she just couldn't get over "how cute" Max was.  At least he is sort of close to her age.

It is funny to have an 8-year-old girl so boy crazy.  What will she be like as a teenager?

Wonder of wonder

I always like to get a good showtune stuck in my head, and today was no different.

When my car was broken into on Friday night, the police officer told me that almost always the thieves go through the bags, take cash and leave everything else in a bush or trash can somewhere.  It  made me so sad to think about my knitting bag that was so valuable to me, and I  knew had no value to the hoodlum who broke into my car, sitting out in the rain or in a dumpster somewhere.

Well, we got a phone call today from a man who had our stuff!  He was calling from a church and said that yesterday someone had found a black bag under a trailer in their church parking lot, which was about 6 blocks from where the theft had occurred.  The people at the church went through the bag just enough to find Aubrey's ID and then used the internet to find our home number!

Aubrey and I jumped in the van and headed down to claim our stuff.  Indeed, the man handed me my knitting bag, with Aubrey's purse stuffed inside of it.  We were absolutely amazed to find EVERYTHING there, except for Aubrey's $200 (why she had all that cash in her wallet Friday night is another story, and a lesson learned for sure).  But everything else was there--her ID, credit card, mini Book of Mormon, graphing calculator, leather Roots pencil pouch from Canada, pocketknife, and my entire knitting bag had every needle, hook and stitch marker there.  They even left my reading glasses and Paul Revere And The World He Lived In.

So of course the song that has been stuck in my head is from Fiddler on the Roof, "Wonder of wonder, miracle of miracles."

We had been praying for a miracle that somebody would find our cast-off stuff and return it to us, as improbable as that sounded.  But it happened, and we are so happy to have our stuff back.   As scummy as the criminals were who broke into my car, at least they had the decency to leave bag out of the rain and in a place where someone could find it.

I think I will knit something to celebrate!

One crazy night

Aubrey and I had an adventure last night that we will never forget.

It was a concert celebrating 100 years of John Cage.  Aubrey participated with Fear No Music which presented the concert.   I'm not sure that is something to be celebrated.  As far as John Cage's "music" goes, I felt like it was a modern-day Emperor's New Clothes.  All of the high-society, educated, elite, snobby people just acted amazed at the genius of the performances, just like the people in the old story talked about the beauty and elegance of the Emperor's clothes.  The regular people with brains like me saw it for what it was--not music, just noise and dissonance.  I could see plain as day that the Emperor was parading around in his birthday suit, and I wasn't afraid to say it.

 But it was the hot ticket in Portland--all of high society was there.  Aubrey "played" her harp along with 15 other harpists for a piece called "Postcards From Heaven."  There were a lot of interesting performances last night, each one stranger than the next.  It ended with the famous 4'33".  If you don't know how weird John Cage music is, go to youtube and search for Inlets, Lecture on Nothing, Litany For The Whale, Fourteen, or any other crazy thing that comes up.

Aubrey had a rehearsal at 5:00, where I had my first glimpse of the bizarre evening that was ahead, and then we headed to Portland for some fun as she wasn't on until 10pm.  We had dinner at Swagat, where I watched my daughter fall head-over-heels for Chicken Makhani.  Then we went to Powells where I purchased a copy of Jim Croce's Greatest Hits for piano and guitar.  A treasure.  Next up was Voodoo donuts, and then back to the venue for the concert.  We got there just in time to hear two grown men speaking "whale" back and forth to each other, each word on a particular note.  Next, we went upstairs for the riveting "Inlets."  This was where 3 grownups each had a conch shell, and they used a horse trough full of water to fill their shells and swish the water around under microphones.  Not kidding.  The maestro of the Oregon Symphony was there performing "Lecture on Nothing."  This is basically where in a monotone voice someone reads nonsense phrases for 90 minutes.  The Jabberwocky makes more sense than this did.  It was ridiculous.   During "Fourteen," a tiny man used strings to "bow" the piano strings.  There were about 15 instruments surrounding him, each one playing out random long notes.  20 minutes of this.

At this point of the night I spotted a very fat guy with a white beard that stuck out from his face.  Immediately my thoughts went to Mouse Tales by Arnold Lobel, one of my favorite books from childhood, and one of our children's favorite books.  If you don't have this book, order it RIGHT now. In this book there is a story about an old man who cannot get his pants to stay up, and the children of the town save the day by using their chewing gum to stick his pants up.  The man we saw was identical to the old mouse in that story...and he was dressed just the same!  I got Aubrey's attention and said, "Aubrey!  That guy looks exactly like the old man in.."  And she cut me off with, "MOUSE TALES!" We both had the same reaction to this guy.  Keep reading for Aubrey's drawing of the crazy man.

Then it was Aubrey's turn.  16 harps in a circle, each one playing every which way but the way a harp was meant to be played.  It started with everyone singing into the back of their harps, and then 24 minutes of random glissandos and notes, plus each person had an implement of percussion to beat their harp strings, tuning pegs, soundboard, etc. and make some really strange sounds.  At the end, each person picked up her music from the stand and rubbed it up and down the strings.  And then, on signal each person dropped her music into the middle of the circle on the floor, making a dramatic rustling sound to end the piece.  The applause was deafening.  Seriously, it was the best-received and possibly strangest performance of the night.

I headed out of there to go get my car to load the harp back into, and discovered that someone had broken my window and stolen my knitting bag.  Every knitting needle and tool I owned was in that bag, along with 1/2 a hat and 1.5 mittens.  When they broke in to get the knitting bag, the thieves also discovered Aubrey had left her purse in the car under the seat (I was unaware of this), and they got away with her wallet, a bunch of cash and a very expensive graphing calculator.  It made me sick, but all I could do was file a police report and drive home missing a window.

It was a bummer of a way to end our evening.

Aubrey made me this book to remember the night.  Aubrey is such a great daughter to have.  She makes life a party.  Every picture looks exactly like the person we saw that night; except for the hoodlum.  We have no idea what he looked like.

Grammar Lesson

This one is from Zachary.  He has always been very good at speaking English correctly.  At his 18 monh check-up I was a little worried about him because he didn't talk AT ALL!  And then about 2 weeks later the complete sentences started flowing from him.  He had all the sounds of speech right and made sure to get the words right.  Even when he was a little guy he would go to extremes to avoid using a preposition at the end of a sentence.  For example, he would ask, "Whose turn is it to tuck in me?"  Somehow he just picked up that it was not ideal to end a sentence with a preposition.

Another thing he has picked up is the proper use of adverbs.  Always, always he uses a word that ends with -ly to describe a verb.  Too much Schoolhouse Rock?  Perhaps.  But he just figured it out.  When there is not an appropriate actual adverb to use, he creates one.  My favorite is "sneakily."  Such as, "I sneakily slept in Aubrey's room last night," or, "We sneakily played the wii while you were gone."  Another good thing about Zachary is he doesn't keep secrets.

One other word he says that kills me is "crunkled."  You know, the past-tense of "to crunkle."  This word is used as an adjective to describe, say, a wadded up piece of paper that you are trying to straighten out--but it is crunkled.  Or it can be a verb, such as crunkling up your towel to put in the laundry chute.  You can modify this word to be the adjective "crunkly," which can describe a wrinkled shirt or my dry heels (he told me my feet looked crunkly yesterday).

It is really fun now that he is reading everything he sees and figures the world out through words, but I am hoping he does not figure out any time soon that crunkle and sneakily are not actually words.

A Valentine treat--No Bake Cookies!

I realized today that I have never posted my recipe for "No Bake" Cookies.  These are one of my very favorite things to make and to give.  My mom made them many times during my childhood.  At Easter time she would shape each cookie into a little nest and put jellybeans in it.  My favorite thing to do with these cookies is to shape them into hearts.

This is very easy to do using heart-shaped cookie cutters.  Just fill each cookie cutter with the cookie stuff (it's not really dough, so I don't know what to call it).  I use a little scooper to fill the cookie cutter, and then use a spoon to push the cookie stuff to the edges of the cutter.  I usually make the cookies about 1/2 inch thick. Leave it for about 5 seconds to take shape, and then lift the cookie cutter off and move on to the next one.  It speeds things up a bit if you have multiple cookie cutters, and small shapes work the best.  Also, it is easier if you have a helper around to either scoop or to spread.

So here's the recipe.

No Bake Cookies
1/2 cup butter
1/4 cup cocoa powder
2 cups sugar
1/2 cup milk
Melt butter in a saucepan and add sugar, cocoa and milk.  Stir as it comes to a boil.  Let the mixture boil for about 30 seconds.

Remove the pan from heat and add 1/2 cup of peanut butter (although I am a creamy PB girl, I prefer crunchy in the cookies), 1 tsp vanilla and 3 cups of oats.  Stir well and allow to cool in the pan for about 10 minutes.  Then use a scoop to drop the cookies onto parchment paper.

Sewing mamma

I finally got some sewing done this week.  I made this dress out of an old shirt, some 2" black elastic and a yard of fabric.  I made a first attempt at it last week, but I didn't like the shirt and fabric combo once I got it together, and the bottom half was a bit snug as I hadn't measured my booty very well.  So I unpicked the bottom half from the elastic and replaced it with this version that was made to fit over my huge hips.  The girls at church thought it was fantastic, and I think this will be one of our weeknight activities coming up soon.  Really, really an easy first sewing project.

I got the idea from this cute blog post at mommybydaycrafterbynight.com.

The success of this dress made up for my sad attempt at a baby quilt last week.  My mom had very nicely cut all the pieces for me for a darling quilt--about 6 months ago!  I never got around to sewing it, and I finally got it out and sewed all the little pieces into rectangles.  When it came time to sew 2 rectangles together to made a square, I realized that one set of the rectangles was exactly 1/2" narrower than the other....

My mom had scanned and emailed the pattern to me.  Apparently when that happened, the template for the 1/2 rectangle piece shrank by 1/2".  It says it should be 5.5" long, but the pattern template itself is only 5" on the paper.  My mom has made several of these quilts for gifts, so she had no reason to stop and measure the template to make sure it was the right size--because it WAS the right size on her original.

So now I am trying to convince myself to go buy some more fabric and re-cut the 96 pieces of fabric I need to make 48 rectangles.  On the bright side, all of the other pieces were cut the right size, so half of the piecing is done and I wouldn't be entirely starting over.

What else happened this week?  Oh, yes.  Our iMac died.  It is only 1.5 years old, and it suddenly kept shutting itself off and wouldn't come back up.  I went to take it to the Mac store Wednesday, only to remember when I got to the mall that I had forgotten to bring the computer  in the car!  So I went back Thursday, remembering to bring the iMac, but it would not shut off for the guy at the Mac store!  It was acting like it was perfectly fine.  So I took it back home and started to run a backup, only to have the computer shut down mid-way through and leave me without a backup.  So I took it back to the Mac store Friday, and this time it shut itself down after about 20 seconds of being turned on, and alternated between a white and a black screen for a while before shutting off.  I figured it was a bad power supply, and left it there.  Indeed, it was a bad power supply, and we should have it back on Wednesday of this week.  Almost everyone I know has never had a problem with their Mac, but I figured that streak of luck would not extend to me.  I just have a special way with things, you know.  The queen of broken machines.