Headlights in the Fog

Hello from the beach

Surprise! A post from NC. We are having a great time. Lots of ice cream with my mom's special fudge sauce has been consumed by everyone in the house. We had a few days of rain, but today Thom and Jack got to spend a lot of time building sandcastles. Thom loves building sandcastles. Jack invented a new sort of sandcastle activity I've deemed 'full body sandcastling.' I'll post a picture of it when I get home and you'll understand. Kitty has been getting lots of love and attention from everyone here... we babygate off the top floor of the beach house (where the kitchen/greatroom is) and she scoots her crab crawl all over. Usually, she wants to play with whatever Jack has made from the duplo set we brought with us... and that usually makes Jack unhappy. Today while sitting on the beach with Thom, Jack and Kitty,  I felt a moment of utter bliss. The sound and smell of the ocean truly relaxes me and makes me happy.

On Vacation...

This is where we will be for the next week... the Outer Banks!
The above is a picture of Thom and Jack back in August of 2004. We didn't make the annual family trip to the beach last year because it started 8/13 and Kitty was born 8/14. To say that we are excited to go to the beach is a vast understatement. I'm deep in packing mode... trying to remember all those things we need (baby monitor, for example... we've gone places overnight before without it and it was a big pain.)
My head is still swirling with webpage issues... I've downloaded a new webpage tool, NVU , which is an open source program. It also has a great how-to-use manual... I'll be slogging through that in the future to try and make my website more informational and 'sparkle-y.' For now, my beginner effort will have to do.
Before I sign off for a week (there is no to limited access to the internet at the beach), I'm going to leave you with the below picture of Jack and Karen (the ever-awesome babysitter) playing Jack's version of Lacrosse. And yes, those are plastic orange baskets on their heads.

We're Live

I finally got my first webpage up at my new 'professional' website, Thinking Cap Studio .
The email even works. More pages will follow once I have some semblence of restedness back (this website/html stuff makes my brain hurt!)

Jack and Kitty

You think that one is cute... try this one:

I finally went through and updated all of my links and things in the sidebars of this blog. I've also added a link to my coming soon quilting web site... but I'll be sure to let you know when it is 'live.'
Today was a day of buying lots of stuff for the beach... we leave for the Outer Banks on Saturday so my mind is in its thinking of and remembering to write down and gathering of things to take. I am soooooo psyched to go... the last time my family went, I had Kitty. (It was an easy 'She's Here' phone call... everyone on my side of the family was in the same house at the beach!)

Tracks, man, tracks

Here is Jack last night using his guitar as train tracks. This was his idea. He still (for the most part)
refuses to look at the camera... so the above picture has a sort of Jimi Hendrix beholding his burning guitar kind of vibe to it. Thom's comment? "He's laying down some tracks." (get it? It's a musical pun!) Really, I so enjoy Jack's imagination at the moment. Putting trains on his guitar is just something that I find so original, so in the flow of things.
On the website front: after spending 3 days trying to get GoDaddy's site building software to work, I wrote them an email telling them how frustrated I was and that I wanted a full refund. I've since decided to go with Very Commerce who quickly returned an inquiry email I sent them this morning. The moral of the story for me? Big and cheap (Go Daddy) is not always better. Sigh. I've built my first webpage and will be sure to let you know when it is live.

Go Daddy!

I thought this was a good dipiction of Jack's seemingly endless energy.
He's conducting with two batons while looking at his music which is open on the floor.
SOOOOOOOOO... I have been putting my energies in to trying to figure out what to do to create my website. I asked for help on my mothering board, and got a good lead which was for Vodahost and BlueVoda software. I looked in to those, downloaded the free website creation software and tried to use it and felt like I was way over my head and sinking fast. I then looked in to the options at Network Solutions, which holds my domain name for me. That seemed very expensive... I stumbled upon the term 'Domain Names' at Wikipedia and found that the number one holder of Domain Names is Go Daddy . I looked in to their offerings and decided that was the cheapist and easiest way to go for me. If I become a big time professional quilt artist, I will pay to have my website redesigned. For now, it needs to be informational and show what I am capable of as well as contact info. I'll let you know when the site is up and running... right now I'm waiting for my domain name to be transferred from my old host to my new one. Whew. Yesterday was one of those days where I spent the whole day just trying to understand what it was I needed and wanted and trying to understand the very basics of something I'd never thought about before. It took a lot of brain power and made me very tired.

Books... everywhere books!

One of Kitty's self-imposed tasks each morning is to take a good portion of books out of the bookcase and spread them about the floor. I usually leave them there for a bit... if she sees you cleaning them up, she thinks it is a fun game you are playing.
Two days ago I took the kids out on a few errands. I was asking Jack to get his shoes on to get ready to go... the conversation went something like this:
B- I need you to put your shoes on so we can go.
J- I don't want to go.
B- That is not an option. Now please put your shoes on.
J- I have a good idea, you and Kitty go and I'll stay here.
B- Jack, I can not leave you alone, now get your shoes on.
J- Why?
B- You are too young to be alone and I do believe it is illegal for me to leave you alone.
J- Well, you can leave Kitty here to keep me company!

and on and on. We actually had a great outing... we went to Home Depot for lightbulbs and then to Joanns for a big sister present for Lily. When we left Joanns, I asked Jack if he wanted to get his haircut, and he said yes... as long as he got a lollipop. I was happily surprised that Jack handled the whole haircutting experience this time with steely patience. Last time (his first 'professional' cut) he was not a happy camper... this time it was like it was old hat to him.

Creative Musings

After psyching myself out of doing anything for the past week, I finally spent some time sewing today. You know what? I really enjoy making something for the sake of making it to be sold. Whenever I make a quilt, it always is for a particular someone or occasion. That leads me in my decision making about the size and design of the quilt... with no one specific in mind, I can just go wherever my creative self wanders. Above is a detail from the first piece specifically being made for the Ivycroft show.
Today after Kitty's afternoon nap, I was changing her outfit and diaper. The thought occured to me that it feels impossible that there was a time when I didn't know Thom, Jack and Kitty. They are my daily world now... but for so many years it was just me... or me, Gus and Lulu. I love my family... I adore them, I really do. I think this thought process sprung from the rereading of Thom and my first emails to each other... we are so intertwined now... it's odd to read something Thom wrote me when he didn't even know what I looked like. His emails were so careful, thoughtful and formal with a dash of my kind of silly humor thrown in for good measure.

Freaking Out!

Here is Jack giving Kitty a good morning hug. You can see that Mary, his faithful rabbit companion, is tucked under his right arm. So cute, so very cute.
The theme for today and yesterday has been FREAKING OUT! I am so excited about getting in to Ivycroft... but I am paralyzed in the thought of where to start. It doesn't help that the weather has been rainy and that I pulled a muscle in my back at Curves this morning. I think I just have to jump in with both feet and SWIM... thinking too much always shuts down my creative process.
Jack has been coming up with some surreal thoughts lately. Today's odd thought was, "Why won't the wall talk to me?" He was standing in the open window between the living room and playroom holding on to the brick wall. Earlier, he asked me how he could disappear... I asked if he meant becoming invisible and he said, no, I mean disappear. I asked him where he had heard about disappearing and he said, "Well, sometimes children disappear..." This took my breath away. He's so innocent and yet he's trying to grapple with these new concepts. He also asked me what it would be like if he went on a trip by himself. I explained to him that he is too young to travel alone, but that when he gets older he'll be able to. The world must be a very large concept to get your head around when you are 3.

Babyzilla

Thom remarked last night that the stereotype for a child's first word is "NO!"
That didn't happen with Jack (actually, we don't remember what his first word was...)
but it is sure to happen with Kitty. Why? Because at least 5 times a day Jack bellows at her, "NO KITTY NO!" Sometimes it is justified (like in the above picture... she dismantled the tracks) and sometimes he is anticipating her behavior before she does anything. Today he got very upset that she was moving towards his beloved fire trucks. I solved this by moving the coffee table over to block the doorway between the living and dining rooms. Jack then got caught up in a drama involving the sofa cushions, Mary the rabbit and burning buildings. While Jack wasn't paying attention, Kitty figured out how to crawl from the living room in to the hallway and then in to the dining room. She spent about 10 minutes playing with his firetrucks (I was sewing at the dining room table) before he noticed. After his anguished cries for her to stop, I pointed out to him that he wasn't using them and that it was her turn to play with them. Believe it or not, he accepted this logic and went back to his living room drama.
On the creative front: I am tying up the loose ends (a sewing pun!) I have in my creative queue of things to do (next up: repairing my friend Marie's wedding quilt) before I launch wholeheartedly in to making items for the show. I spent some time today investigating web site design options... one thing I am sure about myself: I am NOT an HTML editor, nor will I ever be.