Not So Far After All

I've been watching my odometer quite a bit lately. I'm not sure why, but the sequences of numbers it's been hitting lately have been so fascinating to me:

160,000 was certainly a milestone, but so was 165,000 and 166,000.
Even 165656 and 166666 caught my eye.

But one day recently my car flipped 167,000 and I did my typical mention-to-no-one that I have now driven 17,000 miles since Christmas last year (when my odometer flipped 150,000). "So, I've driven 17,000 miles in 8 months", I said.

Mike responded that almost half of that is from my road trip around the country, so yes, the numbers are inflated this year.  But it also dawned on me that in order for that to be true, that would mean that more than half of those miles were done driving around here in California, not far from my home.

I couldn't name more than half a dozen places I've visited that were any kind of countable distance in those 7 months (subtracting the one month for the trip), because most days consisted of driving around town or to local (less than an hour away) entertainment.

So, even though driving around the country seems so exotic, so far, most of you have probably driven that far this year already as well.

I've driven the equivalent of traveling across the entire country and back this year without even noticing it. Have you? It kind of makes everything seem a little more within reach, doesn't it?

Adventures in Crocheting

After two crocheting classes I had managed to learn just about everything there was to know about crocheting, or so I thought. Being the only student in the class meant we raced through the single, double, and treble-crochet stitches and had plenty of time left over for half-double, slip stitches and even crocheting in the round and granny squares. We covered yarns, patterns and even some fancy stitches as well. Feeling very accomplished indeed, I decided I was ready to make something on my own. A and C both had made requests, so I got to work putting my new skills to the test. 

A wanted a blanket, which I decided to do in a very simple pattern of alternating rows of single and double-crochet stitches. It is easy to do, but very time consuming. I still haven't finished it, and now I can see why people do granny squares because it's so much faster than making row after tiny row. I'm sure I'll finish it someday, and it is actually quite pretty.

C wanted me to make her a snake. A simple request, so it seemed. After thinking a bit about the pattern of her snake and how complicated it is, I figured that the easiest thing to do would be to make a series of rows in one color, with a few rows of a lighter color for the belly, and then to use a needle to hand-sew the patterns in with black.

So, we headed to the craft store to pick out some yarn. Although I felt that we should use olive green or some type of greenish brown, C insisted that her snake had to be totally brown with no green (like she says Ginger is), and in fact picked a really dark brown for the body color. There was no talking her out of it, and this project was for her anyway, so we left the craft store with three balls of yarn in ivory, black and dark brown. It was a ridiculously soft, bulky yarn with tufts all over. Now I wasn't really looking forward to this project quite as much. This yarn was going to be difficult to work with.

Eventually I began to make the rows that would make the snake. It actually started to look much better than I thought it would and my confidence grew that I'd be able to pull this off, making a completely free-form snake. I even tapered the ends and everything.

One evening while she was in bed, I realized I had made way too many rows, but I came up with a great solution. Instead of connecting the two edges and stuffing the snake, I simply rolled it up and sewed the edges together that way. So proud of my work, I set it down and suddenly realized in horror that I had just crocheted my daughter a soft and fuzzy piece of poo. Yes, you read that right. Don't believe me? See for yourself....

Now, granted I did not pick the color of yarn here, but Mike and I still giggled every time we looked at the thing. The above picture was taken after I sewed black eyes on one end, and you can see a little bit of the white underbelly on the right side. But it doesn't help. It really doesn't.

Determined to do better, I began to search for patterns online. I was elated to find a pretty realistic pattern for a carpet python, especially since most of the other snake patterns were meant to be silly or cutesy and definitely weren't very realistic-looking.

Carpet Python crochet pattern!

I read the pattern over and over and felt really good about it. We headed to the craft store again for more yarn, this time choosing an olive green for the body and a patterned black and white yarn for the diamond print, so it wouldn't look like such perfect diamonds when finished.

I made the first row easily, but then when I got to the second row, something was wrong. The required number of stitches wasn't possible based on the first row, and I was (pretty) sure I was reading it right. After meeting with one of my friends who has been crocheting for years (thanks, Libby!), I found out two things:

1. 5-ply yarn is not the same as size 5 yarn, which would explain my confusion about how I was supposed to crochet this super-thick yarn with that super-tiny hook. I had bought the size 5 Bulky yarn, instead of the 5-ply very thin yarn. This meant my snake would not only be ginormous, but the holes in between the stitches would be much bigger, and the yarn would prove to be harder to work with later since I had gone with a smaller hook than the yarn really needed (trying to split the difference between the hook the pattern called for and the hook the yarn called for).

And 2. The pattern was completely wrong. Sigh. My friend assured me this would be 'no problem'. I could figure it out, which meant that I'm pretty much back to where I started, using the wrong yarn with the wrong hook, making a pattern that is wrong (i.e. making it up as I go). Grr...

I barely followed the pattern adjusting just about every instruction, and once I managed to finally finish it, I decided I'm done with snakes, at least for now. I'm a little scared to start a new project now, even though there are a few I really want to try. My bad luck with crocheting can't keep up forever, can it?

This snake turned out pretty cool, actually, even though it's really big. It's probably pretty close to life-size when Ginger is an adult (it's probably about 4ft long). But at least it looks like a snake and not something that you don't want to touch!

It's Learn Nothing Day!

Today is the unschooling holiday known as Learn Nothing Day. Haven't heard of it before? Well, then technically you've just failed (although I'm sure you already did today long before you had a chance to read this).

Unschoolers believe in the natural process of learning that both children and adults possess. We know that humans are born to learn and our insatiable quest for knowledge and understanding is just as much a part of our DNA as our fingers and toes.

Sadly, the rote memorization and impersonal presentations of elementary school often serve to quell, instead of encourage, this innate desire to learn, which is why we choose to encourage our kids to pursue their unique passions, following them down the rabbit holes, enjoying the ride alongside them.

But then we get the questions, "How will your kids learn anything if they don't do math books?" or "How can they learn things if you don't teach them?" and although our answers are many, the best answer we have is certainly the celebration of Learn Nothing Day.

(Think about it. What did you learn from school? You might be surprised to discover that you didn't learn what they tried to teach you. Maybe you learned how to take a good test, or how to get by without studying. Maybe you learned how to look like you were paying attention, or maybe you went home after school and read endlessly about the subject your teacher presented to you in school.)

So, how long did you make it today before you learned something? All four of us had failed already by 9:30 am, and yet our failure IS the celebration, as we share it with everyone all over the world, for no one has ever successfully completed a Learn Nothing Day.

We hop online and post our failures, spreading the fascinating information we've uncovered today (and thus causing potentially premature failure in others ;)

What did you discover today? What did you learn? Take some time to treasure that information and the curiosity and drive for knowledge that led you there. Follow a tangent. Seek an answer. Celebrate a distraction. Fail with us.

A Farm and a Museum

A farm and a museum. Ok, so those two things have nothing to do with each other... except that we happened to visit them on the same day.

Our day started with a visit to the local farm, where you can reserve a spot to be in a group that feeds the farm animals in the morning. The two little girls have done this before, and they love doing it. A had never experienced it before, so we booked this day for them all to help out. These days only happen once every month or two, so we've been waiting to go for some time now.

The morning started with feeding the chickens, ducks and even some peacocks.

Those Muscovy ducks are a little intimidating

But they also were confident enough to eat right out of your hand

Next came mealtime for the two pigs, Hamlet and Rachel. The guy who was leading the group did a great job of explaining what they were eating and why. The girls got to see that pigs have different tastes, just like we do, and while Rachel was happiest eating the piggy pellets, Hamlet went nuts for the zucchini.

After the piggies were all fed and full, it was time to turn to the goats. They have three different breeds of goats: one has long, droopy ears, one has tiny little stubby ears, and one has ears that are kinda in between. Their names are Mathilda Milkshake, Mrs. Oldie Sour Cream, and Emma Crema Friday. Very elaborate names for goats, don't you think?

Now that all the small farm animals were fed and happy, we ventured out to the big animal area to feed some of the larger sheep and goats, and to avoid the big domestic turkeys out there (who are very aware how scared the kids are of them, and know that a scared kid means dropped food!) It was a little harder to feed those big animals through the fence, but the kids did the best they could. Before we left the area, the farmer showed us a brand new pygmy chick that had hatched the day before. He was so unbelievably tiny and the girls were thrilled to get the chance to pet him.

Just look how tiny he is next to those little pebbles and sticks. The mother hen is about half the size of a normal chicken.

The cool thing about this farm park is that they have a huge grassy hill and a big playground, so you can really spend the whole day picnicking, walking around, and admiring the endless supply of chickens, ducks and peacocks that roam freely around the grounds (including the parking lot). But today we had to drag the girls away because we made plans to also visit the DeYoung museum in San Francisco. I thought it might be something fun to do with Mike, and I got two for one tickets (the girls were free), so it's kind of hard to argue with museum admission for only $11 for 5 people. We've never been there before, so we were curious what all the fuss was about.

I wasn't expecting to be able to have too much time to look around the place because art museums aren't typically a place my girls like to be for hours on end, but then we hit the jackpot with a girl who was offering little walkman-type devices where you could type in the number assigned to a piece of art and hear more information about it on your headphones, like a tour with your very own tour guide who only tells you about the paintings you're interested in. I wasn't sure if the girls would really make good use of the things, but I was pleasantly surprised to see them darting around each room, searching for the numbers in the blue circles (the blue numbers were the kid's version for some of the pieces of art. There were fewer blue numbers than red 'adult' versions, but it was a nice and very appreciated offering).

K even listened to the tour guide all through lunch, randomly typing numbers into her device and listening to information about paintings and things she hadn't even seen yet. It was funny to see her walk through the upstairs gallery after lunch and say, "Hey, I know about that painting!" Her and A probably got more out of the museum than Mike and I even did. Sometimes they would "parrot" the information they were hearing to tell me about the paintings or photos we were looking at. That was definitely the best $14 I've ever spent!

the fern garden

It looks like I was trying to take some fancy, artistic shot, but that huge piece of wall art was actually out of focus. We stared at it for a long time, experimenting with walking past it and noticing how we could feel our eye muscles trying to bring it into focus. Here in this photograph it actually looks like it's shrinking into itself a bit.

An interesting castle made entirely of guns, bullets, shot, steel, and glass, with a little bit of creepiness added in the form a tooth and some bones. It was supposed to be a political and religious statement, but I thought it was just really creative!

A collection of snow 'goggles' made of wood and animal skins by native Alaskans, long before sunglasses were cool.

One of A's favorite things - crystal raindrops hanging from the ceiling and casting cool shadows on the wall in this open, two-story room

After we had seen every room and just about every piece of art in the museum (including the giant safety pin outside on the lawn), we headed up to the observatory for a bird's-eye view of the city. The girls were a little disappointed that we couldn't really see anything they recognized, like the bridges or the Coit Tower, which were blocked by other hills, although we were able to see the 'growing roof' of the California Academy of Sciences across the street, which they recognized right away.

As we headed out of the museum, I turned the exact opposite direction than the way I should have turned to go home, which if you know me very well or have ridden in the car with me often, will say is completely normal for me. At any rate, we ended up on Skyline and caught sight of some hang-gliders (for some reason, I always thought it was "hand-gliders", but it's actually "hang-gliders", who knew?) We pulled over and parked to watch them soar around and land and take-off. We were all pretty tired by that point, and it was a little windy and cold up there, but that's ok, because it turns out that you can watch them just as easily while you're sitting in the car. :)

Looks a little scary, doesn't it?

Happy 1st Birthday, Ginger!

Today is Ginger's first birthday! Well, technically it's the day C picked last year as Ginger's birthday based on her estimated age when we got her, but good enough!

It's a little hard to know what exactly to do for a snake's birthday. The only gift I could think of to give her was a mouse (which worked out great since today was feeding day anyway), but wouldn't the mouse be more like the birthday cake? And then where would you put the candles? (Don't answer that!)

We skipped the frosting and the candles and just went ahead and gave her the mouse. I think she enjoyed it. For anyone who would like to watch Ginger enjoying her birthday present, here you go. If you're worried about furry trauma, you'll be glad to know that I skipped the striking and constricting part and stuck to the swallowing only, which is actually really cool to watch.

I also made the little girl a party hat, but she didn't cooperate very much. She doesn't quite have the right head for it, and she doesn't really stay still very well either. Our favorite shot was the last one. At least she knows how to party!

Happy 1st Birthday, Ginger!

Two Days At The Fair

We visited the second fair of the summer in our area, but we did something new for the first time this year. We visited it twice - two weeks apart. It was on our list of "50 Things To Do" to go to the fair two times, so we decided to give it a shot. However, I think next year we'll just go back to going once to each fair. Partially because it's so far away. Partially because even though there's a little more there than you can comfortably see in one day, there's way too little to make two full days out of it. And partially because I can only take so much begging for ride coupons, pony rides, and fair food.

The first time we went, we took Jessey with us. It was fun to have him around since we don't see him all that much anymore, and we even took advantage of the $1 per-ride tickets that day and let him ride a couple of rides with his sisters. After walking through the midway at this fair, I think we may also decide to buy wristbands for this one next year since it had roughly twice the number of rides as the other one, including some really awesome roller-coasters, some really insane inverted rides, and even a log ride.

At this fair, our first stop is always the Puppy Party Palooza. This area is loved by my girls even more than the petting zoo, if you can believe it. The dogs are often scruffy or goofy-looking, but I love that this agency pulls dogs from all the local county shelters that are about to be euthanized, and that they manage to adopt out between 80 and 100 dogs each time the fair happens. Way to go, guys!

New this year was a special puppy area where you could pay $5 to go inside the cage for 5 minutes and be with the puppies. I wonder how that worked out for them. By the time we came back for our second visit, it was noticeably empty, although I'm not sure if that's because they adopted nearly all the puppies, or if no one was willing to fork out $5 to go inside and pet dogs they could just reach over the fence to pet.

Next to the Palooza is the show area for Rocket's Comets K9 All-Stars, the really cool frisbee dog show. We've seen it every year, but I still like to see it every time. The show opens with a battle of boys vs. girls with Jenny and Chowder competing to see who can catch the most frisbees. Chowder won the first time we watched and Jenny won the second. 

 
Jenny on the left and Chowder on the right

Instead of just sticking her head in the bucket, Jenny likes to put her whole body in when she drinks

The next part of the show included a pretty impressive dog named Mick Jagger. He is still a very young dog but was so naturally good at catching frisbees that they were planning on entering him in a national competition. He'd barely seen a frisbee for the first time a few months ago and is still very shy in a crowd, but he covered that entire field grabbing all the frisbees Rocket threw at him.

Did you know nearly all dogs are either left-eye or right-eye dominant (and will always turn the same way to see a frisbee before they catch it), just like we are left or right-handed? Well, this amazing little dog is apparently ambidextrous (or whatever you call it for eyes) and he can catch frisbees by turning both left and right. In fact, Rocket says that the first time this dog ever saw a frisbee in his life, he caught 15 of the 20 that were thrown for him.

The last dogs to come out this year were Sadie, a border collie, and Lucky, a rare Irish-bred short-haired retriever in a brindle color - one of only 70 of these dogs in the entire U.S. This time Rocket threw two frisbees at once and they would split apart in the air and each dog would catch one. Sadie jumps so high, she just springs off the ground!

Lucky's beautiful brindle coloring

The first time we were at the fair, we had to leave the dog show a little early to rush over to our volunteer job. We had signed up to do a food-packing event, which my girls have done before and really loved. The food is a perfectly balanced combination of protein, veggies, vitamins and carbohydrates, that is the ideal nutritious meal for children. The meals are packed by scooping servings into little baggies that are vacuum sealed and then sent off to other countries to be distributed. The dried ingredients are heated in water to make a perfectly balanced meal for several hungry children. It's a little bit like Rice-A-Roni, I guess.

A is on the veggies, K is on the soy, C is loading bags on the funnel, Jessey is dishing out protein (or the magic powder/golden powder), and the rice sits unmanned.

Now that's a lot of food!

After we were done volunteering, it was time to look around some more. We noticed a sweet prize atop a rock climbing formation, although we also noticed that the second tier from the top was totally rigged (but somehow several other people didn't seem to notice it and plopped down $8 for this total scam).

After watching one person after another attempting to hold onto nothing and falling (don't they notice the pattern?), we headed to the small animal area and I prepared myself to face the onslaught of begging and pleading. C wanted a duckling, but A and K had their hearts set on a bunny. I must admit, the bunnies were pretty cute. I'm still way too traumatized to think about getting another duck, though.

As we were looking around outside at the birds (where of course there were more ducklings), we were stopped by two geese that were out for a little exercise. They were very noisy and very unafraid of humans, so we took it slow for a minute wondering how forgiving they would be if we walked across their path. Turns out that they could have cared less. But still, those guys were big!!

We looked around inside some of the buildings, and even ended up in a vendor tent where I stopped to look at a hat shop. I've been looking for a new hat (literally) since I lost mine in Florida, but I haven't been able to find one anywhere I liked. But this Australian hat company booth in the vendor building caught my eye, and even more amazing, their hats fit me! (I have a pretty big head, apparently). I was torn between the black and the khaki and went back and forth many more times than the kids had the patience for, so I finally took pictures and sent them to Mike, who replied back that I should buy both... "You're going to lose one anyway," he said. Gee, thanks. Turns out I did actually buy both, and I still have them right now - both of them! Hopefully my hat losing spree is over for good now!

the Lego building table

There's just something so disturbing about calling them "the snack-size sheep"

K tries to figure out just the right angle to get the marble to the bottom

And once again, we saw some amazing handicrafts. The rooms are a little more mixed up at this fair, so the crocheted blankets share a room with the cakes and pies and the table settings, and the art is mixed in with the youth crafts, but one room I always love here is the "Collection Room", where people display their pretty cool (and sometimes really weird) obsessive collections of themed items. I didn't take any pictures in there, but here are some of the unique and interesting things people made this year.

This zucchini doll is just really weird. I don't think I would have liked her even before she lost her eye. I found the neon pink Barbie purse especially disturbing

A Chandelure Pokemon cake. If you don't know anything about Pokemon, don't worry about it. It's one of the primary languages spoken in this house, though.

Although everyone can appreciate this Pokemon Treehouse cake, where the kid actually took the time to mold and color all of the Pokemon figures out of fondant

Felted wool wildlife scene

So cool!

Machine gun rubber-band gun

Fried fair food. We tried to order the Fried Nutella the second time we went because it was supposed to be amazing. One girl said she'd pay the fair admission price just to get in and buy another one. It must have been good because they were all sold out before we could buy one. From left to right, these fried beauties are Fried Bacon, Fried Donut Dog (in back), Fried Doritos, Fried Choogs (??), Fried Peanut Butter Sandwich, Fried Cheeseburger on a Stick, Fried Pickles, Fried Relleno Dog, and Fried Mac & Cheese. C said they all look the exact same to her. We also saw fried pineapple, fried watermelon, fried Reese's Peanut Butter Cups, fried brownies, and of course the staples of Twinkies, Oreos, and the like. Although noticeably absent was the fried butter from last year. Thank goodness.

The first time we were there, the girls and Jessey rode a couple of rides each, although the girls choices were highly unimpressive. Jessey ended up riding the Gravitron by himself, and said he earned widespread admiration by doing sit-ups during the ride. :)

A & K went together on Pole Position, which was surprisingly like the Triceratop Spin ride at WDW.

The other rides they picked were nothing special, including the walk-through funhouse for A and the same Zillerator ride from the other fair for all three. Oh well, at least the ride tickets were only $1.

The second time we went, we had a neighbor kid with us, and she was brave enough to go on the Vertigo ride with K. It's a swing ride on steroids - one that goes ridiculously high up in the sky. And for the record, our neighbor kid screams really, really loudly!

"No problem"

Screaming!

That ride is WAY up there!

"I'm okay now."

One ride that the girls didn't go on, but that I couldn't take my eyes off of was one called Evolution. I've seen rides that spin, rides that go upside down, and even rides that swing back and forth, but until this, I've never seen one that does all three at the same time. This ride was nuts!

And of course, the fair wouldn't be complete without visiting a couple of shows while we were there. We went to see a circus show called Jest In Time Circus. C was playing it cool, sitting with me instead of up front with the other kids, but within a few minutes she was laughing out loud along with the rest of the crowd. Cheesy? Yes. Funny? Double Yes. And these two people must enjoy their jobs more than anyone else on Earth. Either that, or they are the best actors alive.

A tossed the clown's hat back up on his head and got a clown nose as a prize!

But then everyone wanted a clown nose!

Well, almost everyone...

And this was definitely the kids' favorite part of the show

We also watched an Extreme MotoCross show, which featured three amazing, and crazy motorcycle riders, one of which was a medalist at the X-Games (Dustin Miller). They were really awesome to watch, in spite of the fact that the put the bleachers right under a tree - a great place for shade - but not a great place to watch the motorcycles 75 feet in the air.

The triple-backflip at the end. The tricks these guys did were amazing! I just couldn't get any pictures or videos because of that tree. Dustin was particularly spectacular and did several stunts where he completely let go of the bike and just floated above it in the air in several different positions before grabbing on again.

The last show we watched on the last day was a Weird Al Yankovic concert. Well, when I saw we watched it, I mean we watched it all except for the being-able-to-see-it part. The amphitheater filled up very early and by the time we got to the overflow lawn with the big screen monitor, the lawn was invisible under the sea of bodies. Not only that, but the walkways, bleachers, concession areas, dirt areas, and just about every single speck of land with even the tiniest view of the screen was packed with people. I shot a photo early on while K was buying her dinner (I had promised her a turkey leg) before it got completely packed in the walkways. By the time we sat down, the crowd was so swarmed that even if I had taken a picture, you would have only seen the people around me. Bet you didn't know Weird Al was still so popular, did you?

The concert was fantastic, even though I only saw bits and pieces, and the girls thought the video clips between the songs were hilarious. I was impressed at the number of costume changes he did. He wore a Kurt Cobain wig and flannel, a maple-leaf jacket for Canadian Idiot, donned a full Amish costume, rode a Segway across the stage, and even came onstage in his full-body fatsuit for Eat It.

Luckily we left just before the mob scene as everyone rushed the entrance and exit gates to try and catch a glimpse of him getting in his trailer to leave. Seriously, people. It can't be that exciting!

My own personal "view" of the concert ;)

the crowd of people before they took over the walkways

The girls and their turkey leg. They were like animals ripping that thing apart.

We love the Fair!!