1. There are just so many ideas for Marie's next Christmas gift now that I know she is utilizing reading glasses. #brattybigsister
2. I am watching the election results like a hawk and unofficial results are showing that Proposition 7 is leading by only 87 votes. It also looks like only 21% of registered voters in the county turned out. I do not understand it. [Edited: It failed. I'm so disappointed.]
3. I crossed off one of my major work projects today. I am still hard at work on three others, plus upcoming photo shoots, plus a thousand other things that aren't on fire... yet.
4. Gracie and Bridget are participating in the elementary school track program, which means we're a two sport family for three weeks. Timehop reminded me today that this arrangement nearly did me in four years ago, much like it is now. But it's worth it, because the track meet next week will be fun. Gracie is running anchor on a relay team, running the 70 meter dash, and doing long jump. Bridget will be doing high jump, hurdles, and something TBD. Gracie will be OK if she is never presented with a high jump situation again, which is funny, because we thought she would ace it with all that vaulting experience. BUT NO.
5. I am struggling to find the time to sit down and watch full playoff games (see #3) but I am starting to get a case of the basketball nerves again as the Cavs keep winning. That is all I'm going to say about that right now.
6. If the laundry fairy doesn't show up in this joint soon, we're going to have some problems.
7. Did you know the Pioneer Woman has her own line of kitchen gadgets and baking dishes? I did not know this, probably because I don't go in Walmart very often (except when I have a lard emergency). But she does, and it's cool stuff—I bid on a Pioneer Woman basket at an auction we went to recently and won it.
8. Something I didn't know about Cheyenne until this time around: you could probably attend a charity function 1-6 times a month, every month of the year. It's crazy how many auctions and benefits there are. Which is actually a pretty cool feature of Cheyenne. But also a busy feature of Cheyenne. (Fact: one or more Dillows attended four separate charity functions in the month of April)
9. What is your oldest continuously used possession? Mine is either my skirt hanger, my little wooden footstool, or my Paddington Bear birthday book. (circa 1976 for all, continuously used without interruption ever since)
I just discovered the function in Typepad (yes, the service I've used for 12 years) that allows a search of drafted but not published posts... goodness, I have a lot of them. A Loaf of Bread is still one of my favorite shorts.
While looking for something else, I found this, which may well be one of my top ten favorite Sesame Street memories from childhood.
November 23, 2009
A post titled "Montie Montana" with NO FURTHER CONTEXT OR WRITING. What??? (I had to google this, and I came up with a cowboy who died in 1998. I have no idea why I might have started but not finished writing about a cowboy I don't remember.)
November 4, 2009
Oh, but I missed this! A partially started Ten on Tuesday post that totally explains who Montie Montana was and why he was on my brain. Among some other random, funny stories. I still hate goats.
1. On two separate occasions in the past two months we've spotted what can only be described as a roving goat mob on Dell Range Blvd., one of the main drags through Cheyenne. The first time it was kind of dusk-like light, but while stopped at a stoplight we saw what looked like 50+ GOATS in the little gully-like backyard of an apartment complex. We all saw it, so we know it wasn't a trick of the fading light. And then yesterday, Bridget and I saw the roving goat mob in a different apartment complex on Dell Range. In broad daylight. More than 50, definitely. Matt's theory is that someone is renting out goats as an environmentally-friendly way to cut the grass at local apartment complexes. I say that the minute any landlord of mine plunks 50+ goats down in my backyard just feet away from my backdoor, I AM OUT OF THERE. The only thing creepier than one goat is 50 of them, all eyeing you blankly while plotting to eat your shoes.
2. On this same trip down Dell Range we stopped at the drive-through pharmacy (!!) at Walgreen's. I remember being fascinated by the magic send-you-your-stuff system at drive-through banks when I was little, and this drive-through pharmacy worked the same way. On the magic send-you-your-stuff machinery, a town called Maineville in Ohio was imprinted as the manufacturer. I am constantly amazed at how many towns in Ohio I've never heard of, even after living there for 22 years. Ohio: state of 8 million small towns. Maineville is northeast of Cincinnati, I already looked it up for you.
3. On this very same driving adventure, I was brought to tears by a set on the Morning Music show on Wyoming Public Radio (which is one of my very favorite things about Wyoming). A singer named V-The Gypsy Cowbell (!!) sang a song her father had written about a famous (but not to me) cowboy named Monte Montana; her father had seen him perform (he was, among other things, a trick horse rider) at his elementary school when he was little. That experience made a huge impression on him, and when this Montie Montana cowboy died, her father wrote a song about him. Years later and after her father died, she heard that Montie Montana Jr. was performing at some cowboy poetry reading in Pinedale, Wyoming, not far from where she was living, so she worked up the song and came down from the mountains to find him and sing it to him in the middle of downtown Pinedale.
Despite the fact that I don't understand Ms. V's name, it was a touching story.
4. I spend more time driving from one location to the next and then back again in a week in Cheyenne than I did in an entire month or more in Arlington.*
April 15, 2010
A post titled "First Sign of Spring: Catkins"
Apparently I used to know what catkins meant but don't anymore because I just now had to look it up. Here's the picture that went with that post (catkins!)
January 25, 2012
Ten on Tuesday—I bet $10 this is the post that I was writing when the computer crashed and I lost part of my soul. Either that, or I have a short attention span and regularly stop lists at four things.
1. Matt and I just finished watching our first DVR-ed episode of Portlandia, which apparently is already in the second season... it was laugh-out-loud funny. I first learned of Portlandia by stumbling across the "Put a Bird On It" sketch somewhere online. Also laugh-out-loud funny. Especially if you are a scrapbooker/crafty type.
2. Juliette is four years old today!
3. The county spelling bee is tomorrow.
4. I ran out of time to get my unblogged stories blogged before Chinese New Year. Ah well. Here's a quick one: in October, I finally, at long last, became a giddy owner of an iPhone. We paid off the van in November (condition) and I also ran five miles** (condition, though it was a few weeks after the purchase vs. before). I love it : )
January 30, 2013
Aw, a never-finished post titled "Missing" about how much I miss these friends of mine. I get to stay with the one on the right this weekend in New Mexico! 🎉 For the record, I still miss them all very much.
July 22, 2013
An unfinished Ten on Tuesday post in which I made it to five things!
New Things We've Done/Seen/Experienced in Louisiana in the last three weeks
1. Purple hull peas. We bought a batch at the Shreveport farmers' market two weekends ago, and cooked them up as directed by the man who sold them to us. They taste a lot like black-eyed peas to us. We missed the Purple Hull Pea festival, sadly, which was a little bit north of here during the last week of June. There is nothing quite like a local food festival.
2. Mayhaw jelly. We bought some at this small gourmet grocery we went to check out last weekend. We were hoping it would be a glorious fish market (it wasn't exactly) but it had some interesting finds. We are fans of oddball berries.
3. Driving in Shreveport. I have driven back and forth to Shreveport 39 times in the last 10 days, not counting the farmers' markets. If you want to learn a new place quickly, register one of your children for a camp on the other side of the town next door from where you're living, or all of your children at a gym on another side of the town next door from where you're living. (More on that soon)
4. Chiggers. Bridget and I were attacked by chiggers last week while we were poking around the lakes on base. I will spare you the horrifying details. Just know this: if you haven't been bitten by upwards of 30 chiggers in one fell swoop, consider yourself VERY VERY LUCKY.
5. Beignets. We ate three orders of fresh mini-beignets at the farmers' market the second time we went. They were very good. Maddie thought they tasted like bananas.
Incidentally, I turned this incomplete post into two scrapbook pages for Design Challenges III.
The chigger nightmare remains among the most nightmarish things we have nightmares about.
August 22, 2014
A post titled "Things My 20th Century Childhood that my 21st Century Children Will (Most Likely) Never Experience"
+ carrying a comb in their back pocket
+ cassette tapes
+ Kasey Kasem's Top 40 on Sunday afternoon
+ rotary phones
+ school rollerskating parties
+ writing notes to friends
+ folding said notes in various forms of note origami
+ being dropped off to shop at the mall (Lerner's, Express, Limited, etc.)
Indeed. I heard The Limited closed all its stores earlier this year, too. End of an era.
Determined not to let the rest of March slip away on my blog
Learning some new tricks in mini-film maker extraordinaire Xanthe Berkeley's latest Time Capsule workshop
(Exhibit A, first project, stop-motion)
Planning a few things for spring break next week: going to see Cinderella, walking from City of St. Jude to the Capitol building on Wednesday and a day trip to Gee's Bend is what's on the list so far
Researching everything there is to know about Albuquerque, New Mexico, where we'll be moving in a few months. Two weeks ago I knew nothing, but now I can give you a 30 minute presentation. What do you want to know?
Knowing that we'll miss Montgomery, and trying to cram a whole bunch of things in before we go
Reading a lot; I am currently in good shape to beat my previous few years of total books read in a year
Gobbling up fresh Turkish Delight straight from Turkey
Driving a lot, but not nearly as much as I drove while Matt was out of the country (1086.2 miles in two weeks, ack)(I am not making up the ridiculous amounts of driving we're doing here)
Missing DC as usual during this time of year, but enjoying my beloved tissue paper cherry blossoms right on schedule
Cheering on our favorite NCAA basketball team and hoping that they plow through the bracket this year (Go Pokes!!)
Wondering what our life will be like in four months. WE HAVE NO IDEA, and that's disconcerting. The waiting game to find out where we've moving next is doing me in. Also wondering about: how the heck February snuck up on us with such force.
Cheering Matt's first cousin Rachel (and the flower girl in our wedding) on at her last meet ever as a University of South Carolina swimmer at the SEC Swimming Championships in Auburn this past weekend. It was so much fun to see her race. For reference:
I'm so old.
Listening to Maddie's District Honors Band concert in Auburn on Saturday night. It was an all-Auburn weekend, which is kind of funny to me. If you'd told me two years ago I would be spending so much time at Auburn in 2015 I wouldn't have believed it.
Finishing up two projects this month, with a possible Hail Mary pass at one more.
Hiking part of the Bartram National Recreation Trail in Tuskegee National Forest, where there are benches located here and there with lovely quotes from William Bartram, the first American-born naturalist.
Replacing my old hiking boots and water bottle with new, life-changing ones. I'll do a 15 second review soon.
Watching the Oscars. Lots of movies, of which I'm keeping track of this year on a list on my phone. The trees in my neighborhood, looking for one to adopt as my Phases of Spring Tree. The occasional Jimmy Fallon clip from The Tonight Show. Xanthe Berkeley's amazing mini-videos on Instagram (@xantheb).
Logging lots of miles every week with the dog. We passed the 900 miles mark last week... though a couple hundred of those miles were added to my Nike+ account before we adopted her. But still! For two old ladies we're doing OK.
Driving back and forth and back and forth and back and forth again. Repeat. Wherever it is we're living next, we're going to try very hard to live within a three mile radius of All the Places.
Giggling at Gracie's and Bridget's Box Troll costume. (It really was a suitcase box originally)
1. It is very cold this week—not -30 degrees kind of cold, but in the 20s and 30s kind of cold.
2. We've had to have a few talks in the Dillow house about keeping our weather snark to ourselves. "COLD!? THIS ISN'T COLD! LET ME TELL YOU ABOUT COLD!" They sound like 94 year old curmudgeons. We get it, you survived -44 with the wind chill in a 100+ year old house that operated on a flagging boiler system, but it does not give you the right to insult the native Alabamians. Or if it does, at least do it after you get home.
3. That said, I'm worried I might be losing my cold weather chops after almost 18 months away from true cold. It was kinda chilly out this morning at 29 degrees.
4. Thanksgiving! It's fast approaching. We're hosting the Willis-Taylor-Pershey families, which adds up to a total of 16 people at the table(s). Matt bought a basketball hoop last weekend to lure some of those people outdoors at least part of the time.
5. I really, really miss Cheyenne at this time of year. Cheyenne is especially good at November-December.
6. Maddie has had a sub in algebra this week who is A CHARACTER, based on her stories. I begged her to write them down and file them away for the future if she ever needs a character for a novel.
7. I've seen TWO movies in the theater in the past few weeks—Matt and I saw St. Vincent which I didn't think I'd like very much at all but ended up liking a whole lot, and even got weepy at the end—and all of us went to see Big Hero 6 last week and liked it as well. There are so many good movies still coming before the end of the year. It's a pity that it costs the five of us nearly $50 to see a matinee. I understand that it's 2014, but I guess I still expect at some level that matinees ought to be like $3 a ticket. Ha.
8. I am casting around for a 2015 project. I haven't decided on one yet, but I like to have a yearlong project.
9. The voice in my head is screaming that I could also just finish up some of the unfinished projects around here and call it A Project. (Touché)
10. It is a week of Early Morning Adventures; last time Matt was traveling for school, Gracie, Bridget and I dropped Maddie off at oh-dark-thirty and then took our van down by the river to eat breakfast and then wander around downtown to kill time before their school drop-off time... but as it will be 22 degrees tomorrow morning we're headed to Panera again. To kill an hour and 20 minutes. Should be fun! Or something. : )
This post is part of a list-making project called Lists With Friends 2014, an effort to document the year in lists of all types. I love lists, and I love a good project.
My favorite #accidentalselfie yet, from the Montgomery Zoo
1. OH MY GOSH. This is so good. Though I am skeptical of the claim that Aussies love pumpkin pie, especially since my attempts to introduce it in New South Wales ended me up on the International Smuggling Watch List.
3. This is hands-down the most intense and well-reported story I've ever heard on This American Life. It's a must-listen, though here's a disclaimer: the internet archives version is a little more censored than the podcast version. Still, I recommend listening to the podcast version with headphones or after children have gone to bed, because it illustrates how absolutely terrible and complex the situation is.
9. Halloween Decision Day is this week and Gracie is leaning heavily toward this. I might need to fly Abby in to help.
10. I've been dreaming of visiting here, which is highly unlikely at any point in the foreseeable future, but still.
And a bonus:
Matt and I did this when there was a discount coupon recently, and we're both VERY IMPATIENT FOR THE RESULTS. We're hoping for more than trace amounts of Melungeon (Matt) and Scandanavian (me). We'll see.
This post is part of a list-making project called Lists With Friends 2014, an effort to document the year in lists of all types. I love lists, and I love a good project.
2. I don't recommend forgetting to put the gold filter in the coffee maker before setting the timer the night before. The coffee will be drinkable, but not very desirable.
3. Did I mention we had to replace our beloved Cuisinart coffee maker because the cabinets come down so low in this kitchen that it didn't fit? This wasn't even a problem in The 1938 House. I guess we could have just kept it on the dining room table, but... now it's ground coffee for us because ain't nobody got time to grind beans separately this year. We bought a DēLonghi coffeemaker because it was short.
4. It works out for Matt to pick up Maddie today; it also isn't a gym day, so Gracie and Bridget ride the bus to Little Korea (their Monday/Wednesday afternoon bus stop is like momentarily being in South Korea). THIS MEANS I DON'T HAVE TO DRIVE DOWNTOWN TODAY. It feels like I've won the lottery.
5. Are we the only people who are shocked and saddened by the killing-off of the 160 GB iPod Classic? I think we might be. Ours is a 2008 model. It can't last forever, and there won't be a replacement.
6. I KNOW I'm not the only person shocked and saddened by the killing-off of Aperture. The Aperture user websites I frequent are full of people like me. This might be the first time I've ever been dreading the big September Apple announcements, because it's been looming for months.
9. Maddie got all haughty with me yesterday about my lackadaisical attitude toward the Metric system. What can I say? What you're like as a 4th grader will pretty much be what you're like as a 41 year old, and I remember very distinctly not caring that much about the Metric system back then, either. Heh.
10. There are so many good movies coming up! Gracie most recently pointed out this one:
1. This girl turned 12 last week, and I am feeling all sorts of panic about SIX MORE YEARS and kid time is up. She is smart as a whip, happy to play in the mud, missing her French horn terribly, checking out far more books from the library than any normal human being can possibly read, working on Für Elise for piano, and proud of her multiple bruises and rips and scrapes earned at gym. We celebrated her birthday by eating crawfish for lunch with live Zydeco in the background, and are extending her birthday celebration by going to see Maleficent tomorrow with some friends. I made the best invitations but they are totally in violation of copyright so I will not share them here. Heh.
Here is the last day of 11, which was also the last day of school, which was also the day we had a great celebration of ending the difficult school year with our Wyoming friends.
2. While at the post office this morning in Shreveport I discovered that instead of cutting up my credit card (which had to be replaced after some tree lover mysteriously tried to charge $6600 worth of trees at a nursery in California) I cut up my debit card, which happened to be the same color. This can only mean one of two things: I am not getting enough sleep, or USAA ought to spring for another color besides blue for all its cards. Actually, it probably means both things. The post office lady was not really into hearing the story, even though I tried to explain it to her.
3. We had dinner twice with Don and Anita this week, which was great fun. It's a pity that we're moving from here to Montgomery and they're moving from Montgomery to here in a few weeks.
4. Bridget had what we hope was her last ENT visit for a while (forever?) this week. She was very excited, despite the fact that neither of us has ever had a single complaint about an ENT or audiologist she's seen in the last 5.5 years.
5. This week we learned that our house will be put up for sale and needs to be show ready and gussied up immediately, at the same time it needs to be torn apart and prepped for packers in three weeks. This makes my brain hurt.
6. I downloaded a free desktop app called Lost Photos tonight (and quickly paid $2.99 to get the full version). It finds every image buried in your email and extracts it into a folder. GOOD HEAVENS THERE ARE 2417 IMAGES IN THIS FOLDER ALREADY. Note: I only really delete completely worthless junk email and ads, so my inbox archive is enormous. But still—it's like Timehop exploded. I can only identify about 75% of the people and places pictured... huh. Here is a funny one someone emailed to me years ago:
She was so LITTLE.
7. I get to add ballpark #9 to the list next week! I will save that list for next week.
8. Summer gymnastics started this week: Monday, Tuesday, Thursday, Friday, 8-1. While that sounds like a lot (and explains why I was at the Shreveport post office at 8:05 am) Maddie and Gracie are just loving it. And, they come home, eat lunch, and put themselves to nap like they did when they were little, which is kind of funny. We are all trying not to count how many days are left until they have to leave this wonderful gym. I have a monster gymnastics post percolating about our experience there this year...
9. I like this picture.
10. I wrapped up the last of the content for The Phone Photography Project 2this week! I can hardly bear the wait until July 17... good thing I have house showings, packers, a moving truck, unloading a house two states away, and a trip to Disney to distract me until then. Hahahaha [thud]
This post is part of a list-making project called Lists With Friends 2014, an effort to document the year in lists of all types. I love lists, and I love a good project.
1. I cannot seem to time a Ten on Tuesday with an actual Tuesday to save my life these days.
2. I am working on about 80 million disparate projects all at once: photo editing, LA business research so I can revive my photography business, trying to figure out how to make Bridget a poodle skirt for her 50s Day on October 18, overseeing Maddie's Egyptian necklace made out of pasta (it's a long story—but I swear she is going to learn something while she makes it even if her teacher isn't making her), finishing up a few unfinished layouts for my class, getting ready to take a short class myself on Skillshare, making another registration video for BPC and listening to 8000 stock Christmas songs until I get the perfect one, trying to stay three steps ahead on the piano lesson teaching, making some projects for Cosmo Cricket, etc. etc. etc. My poor little notebook looks like a crazy person owns it. Oh wait.
3. Are glockenspiels too hipster? I don't know. My top two favorite stock Christmas songs in the running for the video have glockenspiels in them. I googled this question and came up with a funny picture I cannot share here. I might just forge ahead anyway, since it is cut with other instruments.
4. Who googles that, anyway? Someone with a crazy notebook, is who.
5. It's the sixth annual Scott Kelby Photo Walk this weekend! You should sign up. It'll be fun.
6. It has been so humid in the mornings with such a high dew point that I a.) actually read an article about dew point and b.) imagine myself running in a terrarium in the mornings. A neighborhood-sized one, but a terrarium all the same.
7. I finally got this done last week: Nana and Papa will be here next week—there is nothing like company-on-the-way to light a fire on the rest of the undone stuff around here! I am thinking of adding this to my sorely neglected 52 Projects list, even though we did it once before. But this time I did it by myself! Only three stray nail holes thankyouverymuch.
8. Another evil thing to add to the list of evil things lurking in our centipede grass: mushrooms. More mushroom shapes/colors/varieties than I have ever seen. There are above-grass level mushrooms and underneath-grass level mushrooms. Matt is the best and most wonderful husband ever for not making me mow (a job we've always shared)(that was for his benefit).
9. The Red River Revel is coming up here, and we're excited to check it out (something big to do!). Arrested Development will be performing on one of the stages! I love Arrested Development! Matt isn't sure we're the target demographic for that show here. Whatevs. Maddie and Gracie will also be performing on one of the stages with their gymnastics team, which means they're listed on the same peformance page as Arrested Development. Tee hee.
10. It's MLB playoffs time. We are most excited. Go Cleveland!!! There is nothing redeeming about Florida baseball teams. (Sorry Florida baseball fans)(OK not really)
1. It's going to RAIN tomorrow, ya'll. I mean, it's not like the Dillows have been keeping track of the days in the mid-high 90s since they got to Louisiana (all of them) like prisoners who tally their time on the cellblock wall or anything... if that were true, we'd know that today is Day #80. But oh, to have some different weather... of course, Maddie believed for a long time when she was little that the purpose of umbrellas was to keep oneself warm. We aren't really good at rain preparedness, so tomorrow might be a bit of a shocker.
2. Speaking of which: it is heartbreaking to watch the news from Colorado, especially as we've been yearning for some rain to break the heat wave here. We are very much attached to the Front Range, and the devastation is hard to witness. I had family that lived in Loveland during the Big Thompson Canyon Flooding in 1976, and I have vivid memories of looking at a book about that flood at my Grandma Watson's house (she kept it in the blue room) when I was little. If you want to help with flood relief, here is a good place to start.
3. If you say "the blue room" everyone in my family knows which room I'm talking about. It was the room with the air conditioner and all my grandma's fancy dance dresses.
4. Gymnastics is going very, very well here. Pictured: Bridget with an ICEE post-gym on Monday.
5. Matt and I are very excited to receive our Avett Brothers tickets for their Nov 9 performance TEN MINUTES FROM OUR HOUSE. I ordered the tickets vs. printing them myself, because concert tickets are important. Confession: I first heard the announcement on our local NPR affiliate, which I almost missed because they pronounced "Avett" incorrectly. In the last week we heard it pronounced incorrectly four different ways by multiple radio people, and yesterday I broke down and politely emailed the station to let them know that it's an emphasis on the long "A." Sigh.
It will be fun to hear them play from their new album that comes out in October. Makes missing them at Red Rocks this year not quite as painful.
6. I had to replace my nearly 20 year old/second favorite pair of Fiskars scissors (what, not everyone rank orders their scissors?) because one half of them went missing in the move. I have always believed these scissors were defective, and came apart because their mechanism wasn't working correctly, but this was also the same thing that made me love them so much: you'd be surprised how useful this feature is. Matt pointed out last week that they are designed to do this. I had no idea.
I mean, now that I see it and know this, it is very clear to me. Perhaps this should be filed in the category of "sometimes it's best not to say things out loud."
7. Matt and I took a whirlwind trip to Natchitoches on one of his use-or-lose leave days last week (which we think is pronounced Nack-a-tish but keep not quite catching it when people tell us). It was kind of a long drive for a school day adventure, and we had to come back early because leave is sometimes pronounced "schmeave" in the Air Force, but I still had fun. It is the town where Steel Magnolias was filmed, and there is a little star walk on one of the sidewalks. My favorite picture though: this one, which I snuck of this woman fishing while Matt was on the phone. He remembers hearing stories about his grandmother fishing with a cane pole, and cleaning up with it while everyone else was using something more advanced.
Another fact: Natchitoches is also the meat pie capital of Louisiana. I had a meat pie for lunch at Lasyone's Meat Pie Kitchen and Restaurant. I would eat meat pies all the time if only I could get away with it.
8. NPR did a "Dumpling Week" recently on Morning Edition and I thoroughly enjoyed listening to all the stories about dumpling-like foods like meat pies and pierogues and spring rolls and ravioli and whatnot. It is definitely one of my favorite categories of food, which is why I have always been so perplexed about Maddie's utter hatred of all foods of the world that are dumpling-like. I might have written to Morning Edition to comment on this. Heh.
9. Last weekend Gracie and Bridget went to a birthday party at a local party center for a little girl down the street that they know from the bus. This place had batting cages (!) so after the party, I turned in a few tokens so I could hit 90 pitches. After a kind of scary slow start (0-10) I immediately regained my ability to hit a fast-pitch. Gracie and Bridget could not have been more bored. But whatever. It was reaaaaaaalllly fun. Though five days later, my hands still hurt. The last time I batted for real (I am not counting the stupid slow-pitch league I played in for one summer in Montana) was 1991. Old lady.
10. There's still time to enter the giveaway for a spot in Design Challenges if you scroll down!
