Almost everything Jo owns is suddenly too small. I'm not joking - we just cleaned out her closet and more than half the clothes had to go! Luckily, I've been on a sewing jag lately - and Jo has lots of new clothes to show for it. Clothes that fit.
I drafted a new A-line skirt pattern for her last week and made a couple of simple skirts - but I haven't photographed those yet so I'm going to start the show with this butterfly skirt. I hacked the pattern up a bit. I made a yoke out of the top few inches and then split the rest of the skirt down the center. Then I cut the lower half on the bias so I could chevron the stripes. The fabric is a really soft sheet I got at the Goodwill. Jo liked the result, but thought the skirt was "kind of plain" and asked me to add a butterfly.
So I did. We doodled a couple of pages of butterflies before we got one that Jo approved of and I spent a lovely evening stitching and watching a couple of episodes of Jeeves & Wooster. Aaah. . . bliss. If you want this butterfly to do your own stitching, you can
download the line drawing here. It's all split stitch, and I have a tutorial for that
here. I highly recommend a quiet evening of relaxing stitching. It's good for the soul.
Jo liked the results - so there's one new skirt hanging in the closet.
It even passed the swing test.
When we moved into our new house and assembled Jo's loft bed, we realized it was really too tall for her room. She could just barely sit up in it. "No problem!" we said. We'll just cut a foot or so off the bottom and it'll be perfect! That was over a year ago. Jo LOVES hanging out in her bed, but she's been getting taller and things were getting ridiculous.
We finally got to work a few weeks ago. First we had to clear everything away from the bed area - no small task. Then Alan did some fancy sideways cutting with the circular saw while kneeling on the floor. I very helpfully held up each corner of the bed while he cut.
We propped the cut legs on a pair of cinder blocks to keep everything level(-ish) while we worked. You didn't think we were going to disassemble the bed to do this, did you? Silly!
Amazingly, it all went really smoothly. And now that the bed was at the right height we could FINALLY curtain off the lower part into a "meditation room" - as promised many moons ago. By the end of the next day we had rigged up some curtains (those are shiny iridescent stars on an indigo background), some tiny purple lights threaded through the bed slats, and a couple of lamps for reading and crafting. The rest of the decor is all Jo.
She's strung beaded necklaces, added a little nightstand and a very special lamp that belonged to my grandmother, added a million stuffed animals, quilts, a
Jo and I have been busy, busy, busy all week long - so today was for sleeping in, relaxing, and having some fun together. We started out by breaking open our new
Princess and Dragon expansion set for
Carcassonne. Thanks Alan! We've been eager to give it a try and it didn't disappoint - adding a different strategic twist to an already terrific game.
Then we got to play Mad Scientist. I saw
this online last week and knew immediately that Jo would love it. Growing colored crystals inside eggshells - what's not to like?
We made super-saturated solutions of table salt, kosher salt, ice melt, granulated sugar, powdered sugar, baking soda, and kitty litter crystals. Yes - kitty litter crystals. We'll see.
Jo tried out all the different color recipes on the back of the food coloring box. Of course, like a good scientist, she took excellent notes.
She documented what color she made each solution - even noting how many drops of each color she used. She also looked at the original salts under a magnifying glass and predicted what shapes the new crystals would take - drawing a picture of each prediction. We're already seeing some very cool results from the baking soda solution.
Some of it seeped through a hairline crack in the egg and crystals have started forming on the outside of the shell. Ooooh - magic! Now Jo's watching
I've spent a good bit of my free time this week helping Jo make some labels for her egg business. There's a Farmer's Market tomorrow (indoors, of course) and it'll be her first chance to sell to people besides friends and our favorite pizza restaurant. She drew lots of colorful chicken pictures (and a pretty buxom version of herself!) and chose her five favorites to represent our five hens. I scanned them and then GIMPed them together into labels for her egg cartons. A little busy - but cute, no?
She wanted Wooster (her rooster) in on the action too, but he's not a "chick" so he only got placement on one of her business cards. He is authentically noisy.
She's got a gallery of ten cards to choose from - she had a great time coloring all the chickens with the fancy new Prismacolor colored pencils she got for Christmas. She came to work with me one day and used the quality colored pencils there - and promptly asked if we could throw away the cheap ones at home and replace them with Prismacolor. What can I say?
So if you're local, come see us (and lots of other farmer's market favorites) tomorrow at
Mountainside Wine on Upper Street in Spruce Pine. I
really hope Oak Moon Creamery will be there - I want some of their orange goat cheese for my roasted beet salad!
To give our daughter Jo every advantage I can, I'm passing along to her the accumulated tips and tricks I've learned from my 38 years on Earth.
Life Lesson #3: Don't worry; Worf isn't really going to die. The main characters on a TV show never die unless they posed in Playboy or pissed off the producers.
So, we're heading to Japan in a couple of months and a lot of Jo's lessons have been learning Japanese, reading books set in Japan, using an abacus for math, and learning about Japanese geography and history. If we were going to visit
ancient Japan, Jo would be so ready - that's what has really fired her imagination. We watched a National Geographic special a few weeks ago and she loved learning about
Tokugawa Ieyasu. I heard her telling her dolls in the bath about the kamikaze that prevented the Mongolian invasions in the 11th century. And now we're reading
The Ghost in the Tokaido Inn and Jo is
loving it.
She spent most of yesterday pretending to be a samurai who was pretending to be a merchant so he could investigate a murder and a stolen ruby. Awesome! She built a kago (an enclosed litter used for travel) out of pillows and an umbrella. Her kago had the extra twist of also being a traveling toy store. (She was disguised as a merchant because nobody respects merchants and so nobody pays attention to them. Clever!)
When the sun went down she had to stop traveling "because all the checkpoints are closed at night" but she continued to investigate by questioning potential witnesses.
Here she is threatening a reluctant witness. She explained to me that she only has to threaten to draw her sword, because everyone knows that if she actually draws it she'll be forced by honor to use it - and nobody wants that.
My favorite quote of the day? "I'm not lazy like Nero Wolfe. I actually go out and investigate things. I even use a magnifying glass!" I love it!
To give our daughter Jo every advantage I can, I'm passing along to her the accumulated tips and tricks I've learned from my 38 years on Earth.
Life Lesson #2: If you're going to eat one glazed doughnut and one chocolate iced doughnut, eat the glazed doughnut first. That way, it doesn't just taste like another chocolate iced doughnut.
I love doing math lessons with Jo while we cook. One of my favorites is to give her a recipe and two small measuring tools (like 1/4 cup and 1/2 teaspoon) and tell her to make the recipe using only those measurers.
Tip: If you do this at home, measure large quantities into a separate bowl so if you lose count of all those 1/4 or 1/3 cups you can start over. We figured that out after a bad batch of cookies. We got to chatting while Jo measured out three cups of flour with a 1/4 cup measure and lost count.
It's a fun way to learn fractions, conversions, and also estimating. Sometimes I like to really throw Jo a curve ball - like make her use a 1/3 cup measure in a recipe that calls for 1/2 cup of something.
We made this red velvet cake for Valentine's Day and I thought I'd share the recipe. It's absolutely fabulous! Nom nom nom nom nom. . .
Grandma June's Red Velvet Cake1 1/2 cups vegetable oil
1 1/2 cups sugar
2 eggs
1 cup buttermilk
1 teaspoon vinegar
1 oz. red food coloring
1 teaspoon vanilla2 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon salt
2 tablespoons cocoa
Beat together the sugar and the oil. Add eggs and beat well. Add the rest of the wet ingredients and beat well. Sift the dry ingredients together. Add the dry ingredients to the wet and beat well. Pour into greased cake pans. Bake 30-35 minutes at 350 degrees.
My Mom always uses three pans but I only have two that match in size so mine is a two-layer cake. It works well both ways.
Cream Cheese Frosting1 stick butter
1 8-oz. package cream cheese
4 cups powdered sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla
1 cup chopped nuts (optional)
Cream together the butter and cream cheese. Add the vanilla. Add the sugar and beat well. Stir in the nuts if you're using them. I love walnuts or pecans in the frosting, but Jo doesn't like them so we left them out this time.
Enjoy!
To give our daughter Jo every advantage I can, I'm passing along to her the accumulated tips and tricks I've learned from my 38 years on Earth.
Life Lesson #1: Always save right before you fight the big boss, in case you have to restart.
The big news here at Gratz Industries: we're going to Japan!
After years of dreaming about a Japan trip, we're finally going. At the end of last year, the
American School in Japan invited me to apply for a scholar in residence position at their school, and I was one of two people selected to join them this year for an extended school visit! I'll be the guest of ASIJ for six weeks, all the while working with the middle school students on a school-wide historical fiction writing project that will take the place of their usual research papers they write at this time. (It's an English-speaking school, in case you're wondering.)
My first involvement with ASIJ came in the spring of 2009, when the seventh grade read Samurai Shortstop and posted responses to a series of creative and analytical questions on a school-sponsored blog. By invitation, I tuned in to read their work and make comments, and at the end of the project I did an hour-long Skype visit in which I announced the winners of each writing contest and answered general questions about Samurai Shortstop and the writing life.
I'm thrilled to build on that connection now by going on an extended school visit to ASIJ, which is located in Tokyo. I'll be staying in an apartment in Tokyo for six weeks, and commuting to my temporary day job via subway and bicycle (which they're loaning me!) Then, toward the end of my tenure at ASIJ, Wendi and Jo will join me to explore as much of Japan as we can see in a couple of weeks.
And the kicker: it's happening very soon! This spring, in fact--less than three months from now. I've already begun preparing my historical fiction lessons, and we've bought a book or six about traveling around Japan to prepare. Jo is even learning a bit of Japanese, via her Nintendo DS--we found a Japanese language game for her, and she's getting pretty good!
I'll still be blogging from Japan, and should have great pics and stories to share. I'm also expecting to be creatively inspired by the trip, and hope to have a notebook full of great ideas when I return.
Thanks again to ASIJ for the wonderful opportunity!
I've been meaning to put out bird feeders ever since we moved into the new house (a year ago now!) but I just got around to it the other day. Of course - we don't own any bird feeders, so Jo and I made a couple.
First up was the paper-towel tube feeder. Want to make your own? Spread peanut butter all over the outside of a paper towel tube and roll it in bird seed. Tie a length of twine (more than twice the length of the cardboard tube) around the center of a popsicle stick. Thread both ends of string through the tube so that the popsicle stick acts as a stopper at the bottom. Tie the ends in a knot and hang it outside.
We had to wait for an empty milk carton for the second one. Poke a hole through the top of a milk carton. Thread some string through it and tie it at the top for a hanger. Cut openings in opposite sides of the milk carton - not too close to the bottom - the seeds will only go up to the bottom of the opening. Poke holes an inch or so below each opening and thread a dowl through these holes. Fill with seeds, hang outside, and wait for the birds to find it.
No birds have found them yet. It's been so cold and windy out that I hope they're all hunkered down. I think I've seen one bird in the last week. One. Except for our chickens, of course. We did see one ENORMOUS opossum yesterday, walking down our driveway in the middle of the day. It was the biggest one I've ever seen - the size of a smallish dog. I wonder why it was out during the day. It certainly didn't look hungry.
Anyway, until I have photos of actual birds to show, I thought I'd leave you with
this lovely wool bird from
Cat's Miaow. Isn't he a cutie?
Alan and I both love to play Spades, and we've finally taught Jo the game. No tricky partner play yet - we just play three-handed - but it's a start. Next up - cribbage!
We took more than four hundred photos during our five days at Disney World this December. Here are the best of the best.
Waiting for the acrobats at the Chinese pavilion in Epcot's World Showcase.
The hippos at Animal Kingdom, slumbering under water.
Through the bridge rail, crossing over into Animal Kingdom's Asia territory.
Not all the wildlife in Animal Kingdom lives in cages or enclosures.
Animal Kingdom: Asia, shrouded in morning mist.
Jo on the people mover.
Yesterday we listed
our top ten favorite attractions at the Disney World theme parks. Today, the opposite end of the spectrum: our ten
least favorite attractions. We should clarify here: we didn't ride everything. Some rides and attractions we
knew we wouldn't like, so we avoided those. Those rides and attractions don't appear on this list. What follow then are the ten rides and attractions we
thought would be fun, but turned out to be terribly disappointing. It probably goes without saying that we think you should give these a pass when you go to Disney World, but as always, your mileage may vary.
1) Dinoland USA
"Did they build this part of the park on an old parking lot?" That's the first thing we asked when we arrived in Dinoland USA, where there are no trees, no shade, and no respite from the oppressive Florida sun. What we learned, eventually, was that the parking lot was fake (like everything else at Disney), meant only to pretend that we were at a real American roadside amusement park. But Dinoland USA is not an homage to those roadside amusement parks, it's a literal reproduction, one that lacks any of the charm or whimsy of the rest of the parks (particularly the rest of Animal Kingdom, in which this cancer sits.) One of the reasons to go to Disney, perhaps the thing that really sets it apart from all other amusement parks, is its imagineering: the fake "Beware of Yeti" posters on line for Expedition Everest, the bellhop costumes on the Tower of Terror cast members, the tombstones outside the Haunted Mansion. But in Dinoland USA, even the art is horrible, bearing none of the Disney style or imagination. We couldn't wait to leave Dinoland USA, which we did immediately after riding the one (painful) roller coaster we went there to ride.
Dinoland USA is also, not surprisingly, home to the absolute worst Disney cast member uniforms ever created:
Tragic.
This month we took Jo (age seven) on her first trip to Disney World in Florida. After five days, six nights, and countless miles walked, we returned home tired but happy. We went armed with good information, and learned even more, so this week we thought we would chronicle our experience in list form, for the edification of anyone planning a similar trip.
Why don't we begin with the things we loved? Today's list: our top ten favorite attractions! We enjoyed many more things than are listed here, and often the things Jo loved we didn't, but these were the consensus favorites among parents and kid alike.
1) Toy Story Midway Mania
If you've played the Buzz Lightyear Space Ranger Spin in the Magic Kingdom park, you may be tempted to skip the Toy Story Midway Mania ride at Hollywood Studios, thinking you've already been there and done that. You'd be wrong. Yes, both rides put you and a co-pilot in a car with laser guns, letting you shoot targets, but Toy Story Midway Mania is lightyears better than Buzz Lightyear's Space Ranger Spin--so much so that once we played Midway Mania, we swore we would never stand in line for the Space Ranger Spin again.
What makes this ride so incredible? For one thing, it's in 3-D, and GOOD 3-D. Wearing 3-D glasses, you are pulled through six "mini-games," where you shoot at targets on richly animated screens with art straight out of the Pixar movies. Your shots translate into paint balls, baseballs, rings, or plungers depending on which mini-game you're playing, and the interface is so seamless and real you'll feel as though the little toy gun on the car is actually shooting things. The ride is massively addictive--so much so that we used every single Fast Pass we could on it, and stood in line another two or three times without Fast Passes.
2) Expedition Everest
We're sick of wrapping gifts and then throwing away a mountain of paper after the gifts are all opened. So this year I was inspired by
maya*made and we finally got around to painting some of the cardboard boxes we've been hoarding for a couple of years. These are all the kind of boxes that close with a built-in flap - so no tape or anything is needed. Easy-peasy.
We opened the boxes out flat and then used two paint colors on each one. Just your basic acrylic craft paint, dribbled directly onto the box and brushed together a bit as we spread them out. We had planned to stamp them or add stickers after the painting, but we decided they were perfectly pretty as-is.
Happy Thanksgiving, everyone! We're feeling pretty thankful ourselves lately for all the readers we have, the friends we've made, and the people who enjoy, support, and share in our creative endeavors. Like Lydia Her and East McDowell Jr. High, who presented me with this incredible framed manga portrait of Sotaro and Toyo from Samurai Shortstop. (That's going on the wall in my office!)
Sometimes the long days of sewing dolls, writing third drafts, and blogging about swell stuff feels a bit overwhelming, and we wonder why we don't just take a break. Wouldn't it just be easier to sit back and watch Firefly again? Or play Beatles Rock Band? Or read that new Scott Westerfeld book we just bought? Then someone sends a nice e-mail about Wendi's dolls, or Alan's books, and we remember all over again why we do all this stuff--because we love sharing it with all our friends.
Thanks for being a part of our lives!
Time for the Gratz Industries annual Halloween party! Once again this year, Jo chose to be a witch. The old witch costume was too small, so she got a new one made up by Wendi, the whiz in the Gratz Industries costume department. The feather trim at the bottom and on the hat was Jo's idea though, and we all agreed it pretty much made the costume.
We met up with friends at a funeral home in Bakersville (it seemed apropos) and hit the town for trick-or-treating.
We did a combination of the town's organized downtown trick-or-treating and a few side streets. We live out in the boonies, where neighborhood walking isn't really possible, so the downtown festival is a really nice way to get out and trick-or-treat without having to drive to some subdivision closer to Asheville.
This time we brought a back-up bag for Jo, so she could keep loading up on the candy when her little cat bag got too full. We saw a lot of store-bought costumes (as usually) but some more creative efforts as well:
Not sure what that last one is supposed to be...but it gets an E for effort. Hope your Halloween was happy (and not to soggy) wherever you were!
By: Alan Gratz,
on 10/28/2009
Blog:
Gratz Industries
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Stumbled upon this scene on the dining room table. Jo said the Buddha did something bad.
I've been reading
Anne of Green Gables aloud to Jo (and Wendi) for the past month, and we're all having a blast. None of us had ever read L.M. Montgomery's classic about stodgy old Matthew and Marilla Cuthbert, who are mistakenly sent a red-haired, talkative, and radiant orphan girl instead of the boy they thought they were getting. I was the only one of us with any expectations going in to reading this, having read some selected passages in preparing to use Anne in a cameo role in my new Fantasy Baseball novel. But we're all having a more terrific time than we could have anticipated. Jo in particular has really fallen in love with the characters, immediately insisting we create Anne, Marilla, and Matthew as Mii characters on the Wii.
Curiously, Anne is super-popular in Japan too. I first learned of this through
Wikipedia, which mentioned that the Green Gables farmhouse that inspired the one in the books is visited by many Japanese tourists--some of whom come with their hair dyed red, and some of whom choose to get married there. Then, this week,
Mental Floss blogged more about Anne's impact on Japan:
Anne is huge in Japan. Like Harry Potter huge. Anne of Green Gables was translated into Japanese by a respected and well-known Japanese author; in 1952, when Japanese officials were looking for translations of enriching, inspirational Western literature to teach in schools, Anne became part of the Japanese curriculum. Japan fell head over heels for Anne, finding her red hair exotic, her hardworking attitude and kind nature endearing, and her story of winning over the town inspirational.
Anne has become an entrenched part of Japanese culture: There is an Anne Academy, a nursing school nicknamed the “Green Gables School of Nursing,” and several national fan clubs. People get married in Anne-themed weddings, thousands of Japanese tourists visit Prince Edward Island each year, and surveys still consistently find that the book is the most favorite of young women across Japan. In 2008, Canada and Japan created anime-style Anne stamps featuring characters from the book. The stamps were so popular in Japan that they sold 10 million of the 15 million run in the first month of their release.
The stamps:
How wild that L.M. Montgomery's story of an imaginative little farm girl and her world could have such an impact on a another culture half-way around the world! We're certainly fans too in our little part of the world. Perhaps we'll plan a trip to Prince Edward Island as well. I'm sure Jo wouldn't mind dying her hair red for the occasion...
It all started with this game -
The Stars Are Right. We picked it up at
Dragon*Con and have played twice since then and I love it! Your goal is to arrange the stars to summon the Great Old Ones and/or their minions. The rules are very simple so it's easy to jump right in and play, but the actual play is totally brain twisting. Too much fun! And the graphics are wonderful. My favorite Old One is Hastur.
He looks a little like Max from
Where the Wild Things Are - if Max grew tentacles and went mad. I love the Hastur's Spawn cards too - with their little Max masks.
So we've been talking a lot about
Cthulhu and summoning demons around here. And then I saw
this nightmarish post over on
Bookshelves of Doom. Ron Howard directing a Lovecraft movie? Shudder!
And then
@bookgrrl twittered a
link to this videowhich has now been stuck in my head for days.
I believe I'm going mad. Mwah ha ha ha ha hee hee hee hee hee aaaaaaaargh. . .
Alan's been teaching Jo about all kinds of energy this week. They've built a little windmill generator for wind power. They blasted the vanes of the same generator with the hose for hydroelectric power. Today they're learning about solar energy. By setting things on fire using a magnifying glass.
Fun times!
For today's homeschooling lesson about citizenship (part of the North Carolina second grade curriculum) Jo and I had an election. All good citizens voted! One bad citizen (Reginald, a particularly recalcitrant spotted dolphin) didn't bother to vote--and then complained when he didn't like the outcome! Sorry, Reginald, if you don't vote, you can't bitch. That's the rule.
First we made up ballots that included the two candidates: Leia and Amidala.
Next, the electorate showed up to vote.
The voters went into private voting booths to fill out their ballots.
Giraffes turned out strongly in favor of Leia.
The secret ballots were collected in a voting box, and the process was overseen by both parties to ensure fairness.
Election officials counted the ballots...the tension was palpable...
Despite carrying the My Little Pony vote, Amidala loses! Leia wins, 22 votes to 10, on a platform of healthcare reform and destroying the Death Star.
One last batch of DragonCon costume pics. These are the pics that were hard to classify, so we'll just call them "Around the Con."
The forbidden love of a Starfleet officer and Rorschach!
A Jedi and Amidala from Clone Wars have a picture taken of taking their picture.
Jo and Tink
A great prop at the Venture Bros. Fan Club table.
Jo meets a rave Hello Kitty.
Anubis?
Um...?
A great historical costume.
Not the best picture, but there was a phalanx of Greek soldiers, ala
300, who put on a show in the Marriott one night. Hrm. A phalanx is Roman, isn't it? What's the word for that in Greek?
Thriller! This guy got his picture taken so many times he almost fell over.
A great Red Queen in the costume contest. Once that Tim Burton
Alice in Wonderland comes out, costumes like this are going to be
everywhere.
Darth Elvis!
Um...?
Bippity-boppity-bo!
I think that's the cheerleader in there. Is that a clue? Is she from
Cinderella? Or am I getting that confused with
Snow White? It's been a while since I've seen either movie.
A Greek pantheon!
A great installation costume piece.
Carry on!
You can always find great sci-fi themed costumes at DragonCon, and this year was no exception:
This poor robot had a cup in hand--that was attached to a change sorter. We saw the guy who owned him collecting change from it. He was making a killing!
Star Trek costumes had been waning of late, but the new movie saw a reboot in Original Series costumes...
...including Captain Pike! This poor fellow sat by the escalators all night, communicating only with a beeping red light on his wheelchair. Somebody get this guy back to Talos IV!
And check out this Scotty! No, it's not James Doohan, but dang if he couldn't pass for him!
There are always plenty of Klingons around too.
But this is the first time we've seen First Mate Piggy from Swinetrek!
There were a great many homebrew bounty hunters this year...
...including a young bounty hunter in training...
...and there are a growing number of R2 units from the
R2-D2 Builders Group--one of Jo's favorite places to hang out.
There's always a bunch of Jayne hats floating around...
...but this Kaylee dress took the cake!
These
Alien space suits were immaculate, and well-deserving winners in the Friday Night Costume Contest. Just amazing detail on these suits. Like they walked out of the movie.
Let the wookiee win!
A couple of biker scouts mix things up among the hundreds of stormtroopers that always represent well.
But our favorite might have been this Mighty Mugg version of Chewie!
And this was a hall costume only--it never appeared in either of the costume competitions. Come on, people, get those costumes in the shows! More people need to see them!
One last round to go--random photos from around the con...
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