It’s not, like, perfect, but, like, that’s ok, and, like, you still love me, right?

See you there!

~unknown

Yes, Fernando, that’s one to be proud of.

And, ugh, look at this wee pic of Russell Crowe:

For the last year I’ve been writing a screenplay about William Tell, and I have been imagining Russell Crowe as William.  Well, he can’t very well be Robin Hood with the long bow and William Tell with the crossbow now can he?  This completely messes up my visual!!!!!!!  Who will be William Tell now?!!  In the very likely scenario in which I bump into Russell and his wife while they’re vacationing in rural east Tennessee and I happen to be carrying a draft of Tell, what will I say now?

I am still quilting, you know.

My neighbor lends me all his Discover magazines, and last night I finally got to sit down with the March 2010 issue and the main headline reads: The New Rules of Time Travel–What To Know Before You Go.  I think that’s great.  That’s some positive thinking right there.  Apparently, all we really need to initiate time travel is “an extremely strong gravitational field, like that of a black hole, to bend space-time (Sean Carroll).”  Now, I do know some people who are emotional black holes, so maybe if I invited them all over for a dinner party we would end up travelling before the night was over.  Hmmm.

If you do not homeschool your kids, fine, really, carry on;  but if you see some homeschooled kids out and about with their mom don’t say, “Ohhhh, you homeschool, huh? Well, how do you like your teacher?” and grin and wink and nudge the mom, because she’s heard that, like, five thousand times already and it’s not funny anymore ever, and she will purposely avoid your checkout line or gas station or library or family reunion if she smells a serial chain yanker.

If you do homeschool your kids, that’s fine too, but don’t start talking to me like we’re sorority sisters and spraying me with your Latin, and trivium, and Charlotte Mason, and milling your own wheat, and denim jumpers, and unschooling.  Leave me alone, I’m reading Twilight.

My daughter wears pajamas and cowboy boots and thinks Trixie Belden and Robin Kane are her new best friends

 and my son has been staying up late to work on a system of ropes and pulleys

 and sometimes I start to panic because they’re so weird, but then I think it beats boring. 

Wouldn’t this be funny for a t-shirt: Homeschooling.  It’s not just for Scientologists and delinquents anymore.

I like Deuteronomy 6:7 Write these commandements that I’ve given you today on your hearts.  Get them inside of you and then get them inside your children.  Talk about them wherever you are, sitting at home or walking in the street; talk about them from the time you get up in the morning to when you fall into bed at night…

Like I said.  Random.

…I’ve started her quilt.  If you should want the words for your own baby quilt, I’ve saved them for you. ( So small. So loved.)

And I want you to know that:

All the pounds of flour and sugar that I’ve had to toss over the years are biodegradable.

My family and friends would never let you and the kids starve.

I think Scout buried some cookies in the raised garden beds, so if you discover them while planting this weekend, it’s not his fault–he didn’t know what they were.

It was me who put the regular dishsoap in the dishwasher that one time and made the first floor bubblicious.  Not the kids. 

Sorry about the fire, but the air was really dry in Denver.  Everything was an absolute tinderbox to begin with.

Thank you so much for this:

Clockwise from top left:

Rosalie Quinlan’s Grandmother’s Flower Garden

Heather Bailey’s Nicey Jane

Amy Butler’s Love

RJR’s Everything But the Kitchen Sink (4th and 5th spaces)

Cosmo Cricket’s Girl Friday

And that’s just a beginning.  You know how it is.

What does your menagerie look like?  Copy and paste the carnival tent to your own blog if you wish (But I do hope you wish! Yes, I do!), and then come back here and leave a comment with a link to your menagerie.  Maybe in a week we can vote for our favorite?  Hmmm.

I knew in my heart of hearts that it could’ve doubled as a hearse.  In fact, I think I did actually die from mortification while sitting in it a few times, only to be revived by my Mom’s inevitable need to press the gas pedal, which in turn would cause a backfire.  But the real treat, for me, was when the car lost its muffler.  You just have no idea how it feels to ride home in a poo-colored hearse that backfires as it accelerates from every stop and sounds like a semi-truck. 

Anyhow, this…

…is what got me thinking about mufflers and old station wagons and all that.  I think I had blocked it all out until today.  You know, I just want to add something, if I may, (Oh, look! I may! I may!)…which is that I spent the first ten years of my married life in Dallas and Denver, but never have I been more entertained and amazed than by the people who live within a five mile radius of my house in a little town in Sevier County, TN.