Oct 7
Originally uploaded by Dancing Crow.

Our front door, open to catch the breezes, looking out onto the porch and through the porch to the street (you can’t see that through the screen…)

I like that we can, and do, leave our door open when we are at home. I am appreciating the last of the weather where that is possible.

Oct 6
Originally uploaded by Dancing Crow.

Saturday’s postcard, done with every muscle quivering from climbing again in circus class. BUT – I was stronger this time, and I will be stronger again next time, and stronger again soon.

Oct 5
Originally uploaded by Dancing Crow.

Oct 5b
Originally uploaded by Dancing Crow.

two for today

The first one got me started, and the second one got so exciting I kept adding to it until the thread started breaking. Then I had to stop because it was frustrating.

The squirrel who wants to live in my house found a Nilla wafer in the garbage, and couldn’t be shooed off the back porch. Later he climbed up the back door, inspecting the (now undercover) garbage to see if he couldn’t acquire another piece of yummy carbohydrate goodness. And then, because it was apparently "feed a rodent processed flour day" we gave Pumpkin a club cracker, which made his whiskers twitch.

lots of circus tomorrow

I am having deep sloth issues.

I’m going to see if simply standing in my room will make any difference. Certainly sitting in front of the computer is not getting me anywhere.

Oct 4
Originally uploaded by Dancing Crow.

Pumpkin the perfect hamster’s door.

sooo tired. must sleep.

must also either NEVER read Questionable Content again, or pursue to bitter end and then never touch again. I’m having dreadful trouble stopping. (The link takes you to the most recent. There are links to the first, and then I just kept clicking next. I forgot Aerin’s flute group and she missed it. I am being a bad mother and a bad person reading about these people. aaaagh)

Oct 3
Originally uploaded by Dancing Crow.

I will simply cop to missing a day. Every time I settled down to work, someone important called that I had to talk to. I never got a chance to make my second, I still haven’t had a chance to do more than push the pennies about on the August Journal page (thank goodness I have another week, to finish August and September and start October).

I have to mention in passing that Aerin and I had a great time in NYC. We saw a green woman in Wicked, and then three blue men in Blue Man Group. It made for a colorful day. Although I am embarrassed to admit that Spamalot has spoiled me for any other romantic song that will ever be sung. The leads start staring into each other’s eyes, the music swells, and all I can think is "once in every show, there comes a song like this, it starts off sweet and low, and ends up with a kiss…" and I can’t think about what is happening right in front of me.

And then we had fun in the Museum of Natural History walking around the geology/history of the earth exhibit and patting all the rock samples they left out for exactly that purpose. I am such a science museum geek. I love when they get it right, I love seeing how people try to get across these ideas that feel like second nature to me, and I am always impressed when they come up with some new way of hammering home a point. Watching Aerin learn things without me telling her was instructive too.

I climbed fabric in circus class yesterday and today feel as though I was beaten about the shoulders and ribs with a hose. With luck, I will be less stiff in time to share a class with Flexagon this Sat. That will be fun too.

Oct 1
Originally uploaded by Dancing Crow.

A day late due to running out of postcard guts and having a mid year meltdown. OK, an equinoctial meltdown.

This month’s theme is doors. This one really opens, onto a view I wish I had…

May I be excused please? I did yoga, I cleaned stalls, I rode a geezer, I drove to Vermont and did circus climbing fabric and hanging from a trapeze, and drove home AND made a cake, and I am very very very tired.

Sept 26
Originally uploaded by Dancing Crow.

Sept 27
Originally uploaded by Dancing Crow.

A pile of cards for today – four finished that I started yesterday, plus a mess of flickr toy experiments on my self portrait. The foursome was drawn looking at pictures of Mattie and Jes, but I’m not convinced they look anything like them. They do feel like them (I think) and they look like interesting other people, so I’m not too bummed. I did the drawings on paper, and copied them onto fabric. Then they needed color, so they got markered and re-copied onto more fabric. I am thinking of doing it again with paint, to get more subtle colors, in one more round.

Proof that this is not a food blog – we had a box of the most lovely pastry from the greatest bakery in town (Woodstar, for anyone local enough to wonder) including 4 eclairs, one lemon cupcake (for the candle) two lemon bars, one piece of flourless chocolate cake, and a (small) banana cream pie. We ate most of it before it occurred to me that we might have had an image for posterity.  Then we finished it before the batteries had recharged.  urp.   Delicious.

I had thought for years that I shared a birthday with Frodo and Bilbo.  I was led to believe this by a very old Tolkein calendar (circa 1979) that had a picture of Bilbo riding a barrel into Laketown on his birthday, and the birthday itself marked on the 27th. BUT (the wonders of the internet) when I googled it, Wikipedia insisted that their birthday is/was Sept 22. So I’ve been deprived of some fellow revellers, which is a small bummer because I could really get behind the Hobbit custom of giving things away on my birthday. Not that I can’t anyhow. It just takes a little more strenuous rationalization.

But all around, it was a very nice day. Thank you all for you kind wishes.

Hippo Birdy Two Meese
Originally uploaded by Dancing Crow.

Brought to you today courtesy of my patient parents, developed and extended some after leaving the nest. I am one whole year older today and celebrating mightily.

1960. I can’t remember how old I am but I can always remember the year I was born. You can do the math. Especially considering they don’t make years as long as they used to… Honestly, how can I (or anyone else for that matter) be expected to remember what my age is when it changes so fast. It used to take a year or so to get from birthday to birthday, but now it seems like weeks. I hear from those older than myself that sometimes a year will vanish altogether, without even a small pop or zing as it goes by.

I find that I do not feel a year older. I feel a day older than yesterday, but not necessarily a whole year older. Al points out that the planet is in the same place it was this time last year, and we are celebrating something like that. That plus the fact that I am still on it.

Let’s have more dessert.

Sept 24
Originally uploaded by Dancing Crow.

Sept 25
Originally uploaded by Dancing Crow.

It took several attempts to make viable postcards today, I don’t know why. I liked making the first pair, but the resulting faces looked crooked and demented. I liked these, but without embroidery they were boring. I drew a pair of people that resemble my brother and Jes, and copied them onto fabric and put them on postcards, but they need something else, probably color. So I added thread to these, and am calling them done.