Spelling nemesis

I've always been a reasonably decent speller, but thanks to the proliferation of spell checkers, I notice there is one word in particular that I never ever spell correctly, even when I stop to think about it before typing:

real spelling: definitely
my spelling: definately

I can tell myself all I want that it is "finite" surrounded by "de-" and "-ly" but it never seems to do any good. And for some reason it's a word I use all of the time in email. I'm definately doomed.

DOS Roundup - 12/9

Yesterday I hosted another DOS at my house. It was rather low key - just Donna and Sam besides myself - but the wintry day seemed right for a relaxed, subdued sewing (and crafting, for Sam) session. Here's the roundup:

Projects worked: 9
New projects started: 7
Projects finished: 5
Snacks: cupcakes from Trophy, crackers and yummy cheese spread, chips and salsa

Sam - Christmas cards
Each year Sam makes the most beautiful Christmas cards, and I always look forward to seeing them in the mail. This year I don't need to wait! She had bought a set of coordinated pre-cut cardboard ornaments, stickers designed to decorate the shapes, and coordinating paper. The most awesome thing about watching Sam work with something like this is her adaptability. When something isn't quite the way she had envisioned, a snip here and a tweak there and she ends up with something beautiful anyway. She made it though 30 of 40 cards before packing it in.
(I'll make a special mention of the absolutely enormous tool she brought along that first punched holes for and then inserted rivets. It looked like a kind of double-layered hole punch on steroids.)

Donna - Assorted knitting
Donna took the afternoon to shepherd several of her knitting projects along, bringing them to that point where the next step for all of them is either super un-fun or extra hard. However, she cut and attached a fringe for a cool moss stitch scarf she'd started (and finished shortly with the huge needles she was using) at a previous DOS. She finished up the cowl details on a sweater, with the next task being to do the assembly and seaming. She started a new scarf project containing soft wispy blue yarn with pretty blue ribbon that she'd noticed at Hilltop Yarns, but the yarns kept catching on the size 17 (!) circular needles she'd picked up, so she set it aside until she gets the right needle set.

Me - Assorted sewing
This DOS I was determined to finished those household repair projects that tend to pile up around the sewing machine and get pushed aside until they are completely out of style or don't fit. However, yesterday I made it through the current pile: repaired a shoulder rip in Jeff's shirt, repaired a ripped skirt slit, replaced a broken hook-and-eye hook, and added a missing hook-and-eye to a completed project. I also took the opportunity to complete a project that had been hanging around (and around and around), which was a new set of armchair covers for my parents' two living room armchairs. It was kind of a trick to get the shaping right even with one of the existing covers used for a pattern, and fortunately at the last minute I remembered to reverse two of them so they didn't all four end up as left arms.

All in all, a successful day for clearing out that pending work, making more room for projects ahead.

Longest...project...EVER

Project: Intarsia sweater with lacy panels
Pattern: Rowan Book Number Eight, Design 11, "Lace and Braid"
Yarn: Rowan cream wool and 15 or so other Rowan yarns in assorted types and colors
Started: 1992
Finished: December 2, 2007

So, there we were sitting around at a DOS the weekend before last, and I pulled out this sweater I've been moving, throwing away, recovering from throwing away, hiding, and occasionally dragging out to view for the past fifteen years (!). The knitting portion of the sweater was entirely complete, the front and back were joined at the shoulder seams, and half of the cap of one sleeve was attached. The other sleeve was separate and had 50+ little hanging ends to weave (Intarsia plague). After showing it to my sewing mates, we decided it had potential and identified a recipient who the finished sweater would suit very well. Finally, I had a plan!

Then, I attacked. I weaved all of the yarn ends, finished the cap on the semi-attached sleeve, attached the other sleeve, weaved both side and underarm seams closed, and, finally, tucked all the remaining seam ends.

The good: It's done! It's done! IT'S DONE! And, weaving the seams was just about the coolest thing. It makes the seam essentially disappear so the sweater appears all one piece around. Great technique! (Called 'Mattress Stitch' on Knit Picks.)

The bad: I'm not really very happy with the backstitched sleeve cap attachments. I matched the existing attachment to avoid moving backwards with this sweater, but the results seem kind of bulky and uneven. The backstiched shoulder seams are fine, so it likely has to do with handling the decreasing on the sleeve cap.

The ugly: The one thing that has always bothered me about this sweater is the end-weaving for the Intarsia patterns, which were knit with separate bobbins. Each Intarsia bit has between two and five different yarns, meaning four to ten different ends to weave. The colors are at such a contrast to the main body color that weaving behind the cream wool can peek through. So, the back of each Intarsia area is densely woven with ends on the back, adding bulk and inflexibility. In the future, I'll look for a more elegant solution.

Wearability: For a fifteen-year-old pattern, not as bad as you would think!

Stale

Is there anything worse than a stale blog? Possibly one of those Web sites that displays "under construction-coming soon" and has done so since approximately the formation of the Internet. Or pop-up ads.

So, why the long hiatus? Good question, and I have the answer ready: Kindergarten Parent Syndrome, or, with my seemingly unrestrainable desire to use acronyms everywhere, KPS.

This is the term I've designated for the newbie parent who, wanting to support their child's education, ends up overvolunteering for the million activities that the parent-teacher association has going on. The list of activities is nearly endless.

And, I'm such a sucker for those things. So far I've:

• Co-chaired the book fair, which began in early October and which I just finally wrapped up yesterday.


• Staffed the monthly "bank and store", which means running over to school in the middle of the day to help Kindergartners bank and add interst to the little plastic coins they earn for good work or, as in Riley's case, blow it all on the little toys they can buy at the school "store."


• Created presentation boards and fliers for the spring auction, where I designed a replica of a poker table, complete with green felt and real chips, cards, and dice glued on (see mock-up picture), and which took me and Jeff three weeks to actually make (note to self, try not to design things that are nearly impossible to create in reality).

• Volunteered to provide either supplies or staffing for various holiday parties held at the school during the day, including the Halloween party where Jeff and I showed up to help and found so many other parent volunteers that we ended up trailing around after Riley the whole time (actually, that one was really fun).

Combined with the number of times we've needed to be at school for various ceremonies and events, such as PTA and other parent informational meetings, the trimester awards ceremony (Riley won both awards they were handing out--yay Riley!), and the Daisy Scout induction ceremony, we are beginning to spend more time at school than at work or home. Worse yet, my blog is getting dusty.

And you'll recall that she only just started school in September.

So, what's the antidote? I've thought long and hard about this, and I've arrived at a solution that I like to call "no." As in, "We really need someone to create and mail the invitations for the fundraiser. Can you help out?" "No." Or, "We're looking for parent volunteers to prepare 75 paper mache globes for 'We Are the World' day. Are you free to help?" "No."

Of course, this doesn't mean I'll drop out entirely. Bank and Store is still on the list as it brings me in touch with Riley and her classmates and is a lot of fun. Riley's class has a "mystery reader," usually a parent or grandparent, who surprises the kids with a special story time, and that seems a very worthy volunteer activity. I'm planning to chair the Book Fair again next year because I place high value on reading (and because now I know how to run the event). I may volunteer for one of the ski days since it will get me up on the mountain skiing.

It's another example of "so many_____, so little time" that seems to plague me and aggravate my KPS, but with careful triage and judicious use of "no," I hope to make a full recovery.

(P.S. There is no "We Are the World Day." I made that one up :-))

Open-ended indeed

Riley received her first homework assignment yesterday. Kindergartners are to spend about 5-10 minutes a night on their homework, plus an additional 20 minutes of reading (or being read to, or both). Riley's teacher said she was starting off with some really open-ended assignments, which gives her an idea of how our children think and the various approaches they apply to a problem.

The first assignment: "Write down all of the numbers you know," with the rest of the paper blank (no lines).

Riley appears to think rather artistically (or haphazardly) about numbers. Her favorite number is 100, so there were a bunch of strings of 1's and 0's, then just random numbers between 1-100. The numbers started off quite large and then got smaller and smaller, then larger again, and then she started kind of fitting them together like a mosaic. The result looked kind of like those sand art bottles you make at the fair, where you pour different colors of sand in layers into an oddly-shaped bottle.

When I dropped her at her classroom today, I saw another student (or her parents) had drawn wide, neat lines on her paper and she had filled in consecutive numbers, starting with 1, in a relatively consistent size from top to bottom within the lines.

Both beautiful examples of hard work, both totally unique. I think Riley's teacher may be on to something here.

YOH update

It is so much easier to report on YOH status when I've actually been making some progress!Along with some friends in my baby group, I've been following some beginner running plans the last few weeks (I'm up to week 3), with good results so far. I like that the plan kind of sneaks you into running a little bit at time and that the 5-days-per week schedule means there is always a rest day coming up soon.

As an added bonus, I got to buy a nifty new watch to track intervals!

Fine dining, elementary style

At Riley's elementary school, every month we get the next month's lunch menu and can choose between one of two offerings each day. These always crack me up. Here's a sample:

• Cod with lemon dill sauce, carrots, and baby red potatoes
• Herb roasted turkey with sage gravy, buttered corn, and whole wheat stuffing
• Lemon baked chicken with roasted summer squash and rice pilaf

Of course, when you ask Riley what she had for lunch, she'll say, "Something with cheese on it."

Ruffly camo

Project: Calf-length cargo skirt
Pattern: Simplicity 3796 (top-right view)
Fabric: Cotton camo

During our last DOS, I made excellent progress on my camo skirt and now have it almost done.

The good: It turned out looking better than I expected. I liked working with the fabric which is more like a soft cotton than a heavy denim. I was able to complete it in a decent amount of time. Also, I decided against a hem and instead will rough up the bottom to give it that cool camo cargo look. On the advice of Chelsea and, strangely enough Jeff, I'll run stitching around the bottom to prevent the rough edges from sneaking up the skirt over time.

The bad: All of those danged curved pockets! The more I did curves, the better I got, but that means the early curves are pretty rough. However, I do value the experience making two types of pockets.

The ugly: I think this must be a design weirdness. There is a thin tie-ribbon that runs around the waist band that you gather up and tie into a cute bow at the front. It was painstakingly created by taking premade 3/4-inch twill tape and cutting it into several sections, then carefully tucking the short ends under on each end and stitching along each long side to create long belt-loops around the waistband. Then another thinner twill tape was run through each of the belt loops (I ended up using masking tape and barbeque skewers for this) and finally tied at the front.

All well and good in the pattern picture.

But, in reality, when I gathered the ribbon at least enough to keep the skirt from falling off, it made this weird pouffy ruffle with the rest of the waistband, above where the tape sits. Not, I think, appropriate for a camo cargo skirt. The obvious answer (thoughfully provided by Chelsea while I was still pondering the incongruity of it all) is to move the ribbon up higher on the waistband. I'm not super enthused about revisiting the fiddly little thing, but I guess I have my next DOS project all set.

Wearability: Medium-low. I probably won't wear it to work, but I can see myself in it on a Saturday. If I fix the ruffle issue. Or wear long shirts.

Zoom zoom zen

Currently lacking better space, I have my "sewing room" set up in the dining room. Some days when Riley is at school and I'm at home in the morning, I'll sit and sew while Reed runs his cars along the window sill. With the great light coming in from the window filtered by the beautiful Magnolia, it's an hour or so of pure peace.

"Second verse, same as the first..."

Project: Black 1/2-circle skirt
Pattern: Simplicity 3834
Fabric: Medium-weight black linen with embroidery

Voila! I finished skirt number two from my starter pattern, and I have to say I think it turned out well. A few glitches here and there, but nothing major. Not like, say, the following project, still in progress, where I'm making a camo-print cargo skirt with what seems like a thousand curvy pockets. But that's another story.

The good: The second time around was faster and turned out better overall. The zipper went in without a hitch, and the lace edging turned out really well. I like the fabric very much. My mom was admiring it as well, so perhaps a future project for her in the offing.

The bad: The zipper fit so snugly against the top of the skirt that there wasn't much room for the hook and eye. I was thinking about leaving it off, but Chelsea suggested squeezing it in there. A good idea, since one doesn't want to find out one's zipper is coming down by having one's skirt suddenly fall off.

The ugly: Well, if you look very closely at the hemline, the stitching kind of waves up and down rather wildly rather than sitting in a nice, neat line 1/4" away from the lace edging like it is supposed to. I'll keep practicing this one.

Wearability: Just great! Fits well and feels really solid. The newness of the lace edging makes the bottom stand out a bit like a poodle skirt, but it will calm on washing, I expect.

(PS. The post title is from a Violent Femmes song, one of my all-time favorite bands. Well, their early stuff anyway.)

Ugliest fabric ever, revisited

In an earlier post, I commented that it is nearly impossible to find fabric that I like in stores that are entirely devoted to displaying fabric. Upon further investigation, I discovered that you can, in fact, find several fabulous fabrics if 1) you do not have a project in mind for which you need fabric and therefore don't have any idea how much of it you might need, and/or 2) you don't have money to spend on fabric. Under these circumstances, great fabric practically jumps off the shelves into your cart.

On your mark, get set...

Today was Riley's first day of kindergarten. People keep asking if I cried when I dropped her off. The answer is...no.

For one thing, she and I had already been through the traumatic separation bit when she went off to preschool more than two years ago. In her case, this lasted exactly 2-1/2 hours and 5 minutes (the 5 minutes was when I dropped her off on day two. Apparently as soon as I was out of sight she was as happy as a daisy the rest of the day, though I spent the time in tears, certain her spirit was being permanently damaged by this abandonment).

One way to look at the first day of kindergarten is to think of it as a transitional ending, where your child is moving from babyhood to childhood. But in Riley's case, it seemed much more to me to be like opening the starting gate against which she has been straining. Riley has always been our independent child, certain she could handle anything. While this makes for a harrowing parenting experience, I have always hoped that this quality will serve her well into the future.

She and I both have been excited anticipating her first day. I have been ordering and returning uniforms like crazy, wondering yet again how companies can have such different ideas about what "size 5" means and why Blackwatch plaid with red stripe is "bad" while Blackwatch plaid without the despoiling red stripe is "good." She has been listing the people she knows will be there, the teachers she has met, and which are the good spots on the playground.

Finally the day arrived. Riley got up, showered, dressed in her shiny new uniform, ate a big breakfast, put on a cheesy smile for the camera, and proudly led the way to the car ("Come on, Mom! We're leaving!"). I walked with her up to her classroom, watched her stow her things in her new locker, and walked in behind her when she confidently opened the door to her classroom, made her way past the throng of parents assembled at the back, and sat down with the other kids to hear the teacher read a story. After a moment, she turned back for a second look, and I waved and indicated I was leaving. As I reached the door, she ran back to give me one quick hug and kiss before hopping over to rejoin the group.

As I was leaving, one father was gently tugging his wife on the arm, saying, "Honey, we need to go now. Come on, it's okay, it's time to leave here..." But, rather than feeling sad and nostalgic at the passing of her early years, I had a huge smile on my face. I was so proud and thrilled to see Riley race out of her starting gate full speed. I loved learning at school - the books, the activities, the teachers, the new facts and ideas, the creative projects. I don't know if Riley will love school as much as I did - I hope she does - but in the end she goes her own way, as always.

Happy first day of kindergarten, baby girl.

Aaaannnnnd, GO!

Ugliest fabric ever

Okay, I don't really have anything specific in mind, but I'm wondering how I can search an entire store dedicated to the sale of fabric and find one thing I like. Sort of. If it was in a different color maybe. Either I'm super picky (entirely possible), or I seriously overestimate the good taste of the general sewing public. Or I overestimate my own good taste (also possible). In any event, I find I'm choosing the same fallback fabric: embroidered linen. I just purchased two more variations for my next two projects, one white-on-tan and the other multi-on-black. I guess that means I will be communing much more with my iron than I would like!

(BTW, I exclude Chelsea from the "general public." She seems to be able to whip into an actual or online store and find the perfect fabric combinations that I never would have even dreamed of. I hope to learn.)

Managers of the round table

I just received a new piece of furniture in my office: a round table. This is separate from my desk and a great place to hold a small meeting in an overcrowded building with little conference room availability. It's not non-standard furniture or anything, but you have no idea how hard it was to come by. Our creative admin managed to acquire one for me by somehow suggesting that my manager needed it (and he did, in fact, come in and lean on it for a bit this morning). Apparently, you must be a lead or manager before you can score one of these tables legitimately. Because no one other than a lead or manager could possibly have a use for a round table.

DOS Roundup

For my birthday a couple of years ago, a friend gave me a quilting-themed book that got me started thinking about quilting circles - groups of friends getting together to quilt. Thinking further about my mounting pile of unfinished projects, several months ago I asked a couple of friends if they would be interested in getting together for a day of sewing. Encouraged by their enthusiastic response, I invited them over for a day of sewing: DOS. No kids and no spouses, just potluck snacks, chatter, and sewing.

So, approximately monthly since then I've hosted a "DOS" for sewing and crafting friends. Typically there is a mix of clothing-makers, quilters, knitters, and, most recently, a scrapbooker. People bring new projects, old projects, and stalled projects, and over four or five hours on a weekend afternoon, we joke, laugh, chat, and eat snacks while somehow also making terrific progress on our projects. I cannot tell you how fantastic it is to have a room full of experts when working through a tough projects.

Over time, group tastes have shifted around a bit - several of us are off on a knitting kick, I recently tried my hand at clothes-making, and some upholstery work is not out of the question. Next time I will remember to take some pictures, but below is a recap of our most recent meeting.

DOS roundup

Chelsea: My sister-in-law and fabulous clothing-maker, Chelsea cut the pattern for a brand new dress project, then worked through the tough final steps - hemming the double-layer skirt and adding lace edging - on a beautiful wrap dress she began at our last meeting. The fabric is a deep black heavy-ish shirting (I think) with tan-ish-mauve-ish embroidered flowers. The pattern itself is Vogue, with a narrow waist, wide skirt, long pointed collar, and great matching half-sleeve cuffs.

Samantha: Sam is knitting a fun, soft, light-blue hoodie for her son with a cute kangaroo pocket in the middle. The sleeves had come out a few inches too long, so she needed to rip out the decreasing, take down a few inches, then reknit up the decreases. She made it all of the way through one sleeve and halfway through another before calling it a day. She also showed us a cool verrrryyy stretchy bag she had made. You can see it on her blog.

Heather: Having made her way though a fleece tied baby blanket the last time she came, this time she brought her travelling closet-on-wheels filled with scrapbooking supplies. As is ever the case with scrapbooking, she had fallen a few years behind reality, so took the uninterrupted time to begin to catch up. She made it through 10 new pages throughout the day, mostly filled with her three-year-old son (now almost six). She is determined to work through her existing stash before buying more, so she made fun, creative use of what she had on hand.

Marge: Chelsea's mother is not often able to come to these because she works on weekends, but fortunately she was able to show up this week. Her project was a cushion for a bench-seat in the entry way of her home. Showing up with a large piece of foam, some backing, and some great rusty-orange suede, she took a few minutes to size up her project, then spend the remainder of the time making a remarkably accurate and visually flawless cushion.

Me: Studiously avoiding finishing the five quilts I made for my birthday hunt that I have yet to finish, I embarked on a new skirt project: a camo-patterned long cargo skirt. My lessons for the day were in curve-sewing and pocket-making. I found that each curve I completed became a little smoother and each pocket became a little more accurate, and I appreciated the valuable advice of the group while working through the sometimes incomprehensible (at least to me) pattern steps. I managed to make it through a back yoke, four pockets, front seam, and fake front fly before calling it quits.

At the end of these productive days, I am both so invigorated to continue sewing and so tired out that I just can't, so I end up laying around doing nothing for at least an hour or two. Jeff calls it being "run over by the sewing truck."

Gaming the penguin

I have a penguin in my office that I received as a gag gift. I believe it was originally intended to be a lawn ornament. It has a hole in the bottom with a stopper which would allow it to be filled with sand to keep it from wandering off in high winds. Why anyone would want to put this penguin in their yard is beyond me (though I can see why they would not want it wandering). However, its architecture makes it the perfect piggy-bank. I cut a slot in its head for coins, and have been contributing to the "penguin fund" off and on for several years.

However, I recently decided that I needed to begin contributing in earnest, wondering how long it would take me to fill the thing and how much money it would contain in the end. So, every day after lunch, I drop the coin change I received from lunch into the penguin. I have filled the base and am about up to the bottom of the plastic wings now.

But here is the gaming part. At lunch I typically buy a salad, paid for by the ounce. So every day I attempt to create a $5.01 salad, netting me $.99 in change. However, yesterday I experienced a catch. If I'm too close to even, the cashiers just round it up. Rather than holding up the entire line by demanding my $.99, I slink off without any coin change, cursing my new full dollar, and the penguin gets nothing.

Apparently this will take both skill and art, but I feel I am up to the task. And so, the penguin fund s-l-o-w-l-y grows.

Knowing when to give up

In an effort to make progress against my YOH initiatives, I finally contacted a professional organizer. Doing some checking around, I have the feeling it's very much a personality-based business, where you want to find an organizer with similar organization philosophy. It's a bit daunting starting out though - if I knew what my organization philosopy was, I would be more organized. Anyway, I started with an Angie's List recommendation. Wish me luck!

Ten things I like about cross-stitch

1. It's portable, easy to take out and put away.
2. It doesn't require long commitments at each sitting.
3. It's fun to see the design slowly develop.
4. It's methodical and all mapped out: one square=one stitch.
5. I love handling all of those different DMC colors.
6. There is a wide variety of designs available.
7. You don't need to be the most skilled sewer in the world.
8. Equipment needs are small.
9. It doesn't take a lot of space.
10. I can hand it off to my husband to finish (frame).

The weight

Do you remember that old song by The Band, The Weight? Old projects hanging around and around always make me think of that song. I'm not talking about the started-last-month-and-am-waiting-for-a-rainy-day-to-plow-through projects (you can see my list of these to the right), but rather the started-back-in-college-and-have-been-moving-around-with-me-ever-since projects.

Notably, I have three of these of the knitting variety. One is a light pink cabled mohair sweater that resembled a large, fuzzy leg-warmer (I have no idea why I thought this was going to be a lovely sweater - chalk it up to youth). The second was a painstaking lacework and intarsia sweater, where I'd gotten as far as completing the back, front, and sleeves but had not completely assembled them, tucked the millions of colored ends, or knit the collar. The third is a dark green chenille simple center-cabled sweater that could conceivably be worn if it was finished, but I'd only completed most of the back.

So, what to do with these old projects? Here, I think, is weight that should be easy to lose. But, it's hard to throw away those old projects that I worked so hard on, and, worse, could be finished. I think it is the possibility of completion that is so difficult. I look at them and think, "All I need to do is just rework this bit and then..."

The brave thing to do would be to take nice pictures, throw away the partial pieces, and sell the remaining yarn on eBay. But here is my inevitable solution: remove the needles (they are still on the needles - yikes!), pack them away in a box, and put them in the garage to be discovered another day, when I'll pick them up and think, "All I need to do is just rework this bit and then..."

Who knows? Maybe pink mohair will be all the rage by then.

Cross birthday

Projects: Alphabet and Maze puzzles
Patterns: Original
Materials: 14-count Aida, DMC floss

Here are the two of the cross-stitch puzzles I made for my birthday hunt this year: the maze for team green and the alphabet for team violet. The alphabet turned out to be a tougher puzzle than expected, but the violet team marshaled forward anyway. Great job!

You have to start somewhere

Project: Flowery 1/2-circle skirt
Pattern: Simplicity 3834
Fabric: Linen/cotton blend with embroidery

After making five quilts over the same number of months for my birthday hunt this year, I was ready to try some other kind of sewing--any other kind of sewing. With encouragement from my sister-in-law Chelsea, expert clothing sewer, I picked out an easy pattern, matched it with fabric suggestions from Chelsea, and made a 1/2 circle skirt.

The good: It only took me about one long sewing day to get the skirt finished. The zipper went very well the first time. It was nice to sew with such expansive seam allowances.

The bad: Going by the sizes on the pattern envelope, Chelsea and I sized the pattern up one then two sizes, but when we got it together, we sized it back down two sizes again. At least I got some pattern-resizing practice!

The ugly: The lace edging I'd gotten initially was a wide-ish eyelet. Once I had it sewn on and tried to join up the ends, I realized there was about a 1/2 difference in width. Looking at it more closely, the width varied along the length of the lace, but at such wide intervals that it was totally unsuitable for the skirt. Besides, it was so stiff that it made the skirt stand out as if there were several petticoats under it. I replaced it with more sedate netting lace, which I think works nicely, though it still stands out a bit.

Wearability: I've worn it twice so far, though I keep expecting someone to stop me and say there's a gaping hole somewhere or the lace is falling off.

I'm in the process of making the same skirt again in a different fabric.

Aliens

When Riley was smaller and first started writing her name, I thought her capital R's looked like little aliens. Then one day she switched over to the more regular loopy kind of R. The new R's are more correct, but I miss the little aliens.

Yoh!

Because we had to start somewhere, Jeff and I decided to have a "Year of Health" beginning 8/1/2007. As part of this Y.O.H., these are the things I'm trying to work on (in no particular order):

• Exercise regularly at a moderate-to-high level
• Eat better foods with smaller portions; eat at least two meals per week together as a family
• Floss daily
• Maintain a skin-care regimen of some kind
• Reduce visual and actual clutter at home
• Drink water every day
• Take vitamins
• Be on time for things
• Sleep 7-9 hours per night

Jeff has his own list, but it's pretty similar. So far I am finding exercising regularly and reducing visual clutter the most challenging, but I still have high hopes.

Your mission, should you choose to accept it

Recently I held the third "birthday hunt" that I host for a few friends and family during July each year. The first year, it was my way of reconciling my love of puzzling with my dislike of turning one year older. I had so much fun the first year, I put on another, and then another. Each couple (seven total this year) is assigned a color encoded into the party invitation. Along with their RSVP, they verify that they decoded the correct color successfully. This year there were some really creative costumes that went along with the spy theme.

I write all of the puzzles for these events (with much help and from my husband Jeff), usually around 25 or so in all. This year each team recieved a crafty puzzle of some kind--either a cross-stitch work or a quilt--that was itself a puzzle. Other puzzles included identifying spice names from little unlabeled jars and a kind of four-person dance that two teams executed on a large letter grid to spell the answer.

Good times!