A Time to Laugh

Good Golly!

I don’t think I’ve introduced the Dollie family yet. They are fairly typical, but a little too-too. They’ve been waiting for 29 years to move into their dream house. The Dollies originally had planned to live in the Midwest, but the winters were too harsh for their arthritic joints. The Sunny South was their final choice. Rumor has it that the crazy landlady is just now putting in electricity! Reports of how she has treated past Dollies are far from glowing. One R. Ann Dollie lost all her beautiful red hair in a laundry accident. Another Francis Dollie (younger sister to Barbie, residents of Malibu) through some freakish twist of fate lost an entire arm! To her credit, the landlady still loved Francie for years, but dear Francis did spend the summer at the bottom of the pool with little Stacie. Both were a sickly green color come August. So the Dollies have very little confidence in their caretaker, but it’s just too late to change now.

First, the head of household, Oliver Dollie. He founded the local trolley company, but he continues to run the family’s successful llama farm, Dollie’s Llamas. Look at him — he just oozes wealth, doesn’t he, with that fancy cutaway and that perpetually shrugged posture? He does need a new tailor, however. His pet llama is Lloyd, whom he raised from birth. It’s amazing that he’s able to farm at all given his unbendable joints. He is making sure that his family has the very best in their new home: crown mouldings, hardwood floors, brass fixtures, and stone foundations.

It was love at first sight for Mollie Dollie. She, too, has joint trouble. And she insists that satin ball gowns are appropriate for everyday. She’s happy to putter around the house doting on her three lovely children. She’s none too eager to move into the new place with the bathroom all the way up on the third floor and no actual interior access. Climbing out on the roof to visit the WC is not her idea of lady-like gentility or modern efficiency.

Jolly Dollie was born on Christmas Day, and his silly practical jokes live up to his name. Doctors corrected that Dollie shrug shortly after birth so that Jolls hold his hands properly at his side, like a good future Admiral. His mother wants him to join the Navy someday (a more respectable occupation, she believes, than herding those smelly llamas and chasing those doomed-to-fail trolleys.). Jolls would rather be a vampire, so he pulls up his collar to pester his mother and frighten his sister. He’ll share a room with his sister until the attic gets finished. It’s pretty drafty up there now, but it is closer to the bathroom.

Polly Dollie is a spittin’ image of her mother but was unfortunately born with her father’s wiry curls. No cream rinse can tame those follicles! She likes ruffles and lace and collecting large novelty coins.

Holly Dollie is the baby of the family. Mollie believes that bonnets are a form of discipline, so Holly’s head gear prevents her from habitually scratching at that ear infection (Molly’s own clever invention after seeing a schnauzer in the park). The bonnet ties are extra long to tie Holly down to the nearest table leg. It’s the only way Mollie can get any peace.

Then there’s crazy Uncle Sol. He got the lion’s share of the shoulders in this family by secreting tipping llamas at midnight. He dresses like the family butler so he doesn’t embarrass Mollie (”You just can’t get good help these days,” she sighs to the Garden Club). No one wants to talk about where Solly will stay after the move. And, last but not least, the family pet, McColley the Collie. Notice how Polly got her freakishly large nickle in the portrait again.

On your mark, get set. . . . CRAFT!

I’m done buying stuff. After some dear friends recommended that I find creative activities to occupy my evenings, I took their advice to heart. And I think I have enough to keep me occupied now.

• The Dollies’ house is ready for wiring. I have the pencil marks made and the wiring book is read. I just need to get up the courage to do it.
• I am ready to spider tie-bleach shirts for the boys. They are so into spiders these days with our resident family of Orbs.
• I found a steal on a free freshwater cultured pearl 18″ necklace from overstock.com. Go check it out. I’m going to cut it up and use it for the rhinestone rondelles I’ve been saving for something special. The colors are the birthstone colors of all my babies!
• I’m going to give knitting with wire a go. This stuff at Knitting on Impulse has me hooked. I’ve started to pay with crochet thread first. I finished a rose last night. Tonight leaves and daisies. Tomorrow silver-plated and copper wire!
• I need a Fall purse. But I’ve got two in mind — both felted from this special issue from Interweave. One is that interesting circle purse there on the cover. And the other is that Kokopelli Tote a little further down.
• And a scarf. There’s always a need for a scarf. I want to do the circle I-cord one from Nicky Epstein’s Knitting Over the Edge in a dark teal. Yummy.

That’s enough for now.

Families Where Grace is in Place

“This junk is out there,” a Lutheran believer concludes about none other than our most-widely-recommended conservative Evangelical parenting gurus. She’s right. I really, really wish she were wrong. And while we have our share of whistle-blowers, they still aren’t enough to shake the monopoly of this bad advice and even worse theology. How can Christ be first in our lives if we unapologetically teach that parents can remove the weight of sin from their children? How can we call ourselves Christians if we think we hold the power to forgive sin? How very neonomian, arrogant, ignorant, and unScriptural!

If Sears or Kimmel or Clarkson or VanVonderen’s voices were just heard alongside the more typical ones! Perhaps then the more sound theology could win the day, and our children would be safer.

Love/Hate

 

Inspired by my dear friend and play date, a list of love and hate.

Love

• Intense HoH competitions.
• A new HD Tivo.
• 4 straight hours of sleep, thanks to a kind husband. That alone spoke a thousand I-love-yous.
• Dreaming about this bracelet while I drift off at 1am.
• A new display table for my childhood dollhouse.
• Precious napping Superboy.
• Playing baseball for the first time.

Hate

• Dick Donato’s insult-slinging.
• Charter.
• 5am.
• Shipping charges.
• Broken dollhouse roofs.

Gimme Five!

Wrap your graphical shell around this (and a few 5.25″ discs won’t hurt either)!

Knitting Lace

This isn’t a craft blog. There are so many wonderful ones out there, and I’ve been slurping them up this week — like the last drops of Breyer’s Mint Chocolate Chip ice cream in my bowl. I would love to just gush about string and colors and beads all day long.

I bought this book for myself as a birthday present: Victorian Lace Today. Oh, yummy. I literally gasped at every page. The knitter-author resurrected old Victorian lace patterns in new colors and fibers. Fans have even started a blog just to account on project progress. This blogger has scanned in some of the yummiest pics. Knitting lace is amazing. It’s just string, metal sticks, math, and carpal tunnel syndrome. All mixed together, you get something celestial.

  

Now that I’m the ripe old age of 39, can I get away with wrapping these little numbers around my shoulders? On all those chilly nights that I go to the theatre?

I do have one lace project I can officially call completed. It, too, is an old pattern from a Dover book translated from German. In wool.

  

So whatchas think? Is my model as willowy? My camera as jazzy? Our environs as noble? I’m sure the professional model doesn’t floss her two teeth while on the job!

Now you see why I don’t have a craft blog.

39.

 

Today I am 39. My Dad is still 39. So’s my Mom. I think my brother’s 46 though.

I remember when I realized that my mom wasn’t actually 39 anymore. We were in one of those annoying mall consumer survey things testing out ice cream sandwiches. And the questioner asked my mom her real age (52, I think). I was stunned! How’d that happen!? How’d my mom age 13 years just as we tasted the ice cream sandwiches? Now, I guess I was a pretty dopey twelve-year-old to not wonder why my mother never aged, but I think kids probably do have a pretty idealized view of their mothers, right? Yeah, let’s say that’s it.

So I – the youngest child of Hank and Lorraine, the perpetually-thirty-nine – am now 39. I have 3 college degrees under my belt and am now what I like to call an “independent scholar” (a.k.a. unemployed). I am married to Grant, that gentleman who always adds several months to his age (”I’m 42!” “No, honey, you’re only 41.” “Meh. What’s the difference?” “About 4 months.”). I wait to meet four children in Heaven. I now enjoy two gentleboys, aged 42 months and 12 days and 17 months exactly. I own a Westie, aged 25 months, who likes to save her outside duties for me alone.

I am eating my birthday breakfast of cinnamon toast (made from old hot dog buns) served on our “You are Special Today” plate and coffee in my “Snap Out of It” mug (lovingly purchased by my gentle hubby during a tiff we were having in the mall). My Hubby drinks from our “Support Your Local Rhetorician” mug. Gavin shares his Diego yogurt from his new Ikea frog dish with Sugar (25 months) who leaps in the air like a circus dog for anything that’s not kibble. Isaac consumes “coffee” (aka H2O) in a math mug. We discuss the differences between a DirecTV DVR and Tivo. And Grant calls me to watch MST3K’s ”Mr. B’s Movie Shorts” while Gavin begs me to play the concertina to hear Sugar howl.

This year Grant found my first grey hair. We took our kids to Walt Disney World for the first time (a life-long dream since we spent our honeymoon there). I signed a contract to publish my first book. I wore pants to the local mall for the first time. And we have Labor Day off for the first time in 20 years. Inside I still feel like I look like this:

When did I change? I don’t remember it. When did I get less pig-tailed, taller, heavier? When did I stop wearing yarn in my hair and cutting my bangs straight across and curling my hair with pink foam rollers? When did I stop twirling in my mint green prairie dress?

Nonetheless, these dear souls, who have all aged 19 years since this Olan Mills masterpiece, plus all the other dear people who have joined our family since will celebrate this day today at someplace that’s not “Daddytown” (aka Gattitown). To me, we will all still look like this at Olive Garden today. Mom and Dad still look 39 (while they are actually 49 and 54 respectively in this photo), Steve still looks like a fresh-faced BMOC. and I’m still the most thrilled by reading Charlotte’s Web for the umpteenth time and watching Gilligan’s Island all day. Sounds like a perfect day!