{ a swoop and a dart }

Ten on Tuesday, Which is Actually Friday

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 2 this 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.

 

 

 

Ten on Tuesday

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)

: )

Ten on Tuesday: Random Thursday Edition

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!

Ten on Tuesday

 Some things we've been up to lately...

1. ReadingRidiculous amounts of reading for all of us.

2. School registration
Not for the faint of heart, but we're almost done. School starts August 8. (!!)

3. Uniform shopping

Mama approves of the sign, but the actual uniform part is an exercise in character building in more than one way.

4. Visiting the farmers' market a lot

We've only missed once since we've been here (it was raining this past Saturday and the Dillows are not yet to the point where they do activities in the rain on purpose). We like to take pictures of selections from our haul. We are both sad and perplexed that the farmers' market ends on August 31.

5. Eating breakfast outside and trying to take pictures like my friend Holly

We sold all our outdoor furniture in the garage sale and haven't replaced it yet, so eating outside is makeshift at best but the only time of day that it is halfway pleasant to be outside at all. It is harder to get a non-deformed-hand reflection picture in one's coffee mug than it looks. Plus, our backyard is still firmly in the ugly category. Need to gussy it up on the cheap, and soon.

6. Eating Hawaiian Shaved Ice

A clever friend sent a Hawaiian Shaved Ice kit as a housewarming gift, and it is a hit.

7. Joining a new gym

I haven't talked much about it (or at all) here, but the girls had been gymnastics-less since May 1 until a few weeks ago. Their new gym and coaching staff has been the bright shining star of our move, and they've fallen back in love with gymnastics after a very difficult year. They are training at the level they competed in two years ago, which initially was a little bit of a disappointment to them both but they're so happy with their coaches and all the corrections/rebuilding of skills they're working on that they don't care about the demotion at all now. It makes the 26 minute drive each way worth it to hear them chatter happily about gym again. It's been a long time since that was the case.

8. Cloud watching

As Jill pointed out, if you squint you can almost pretend those are mountains.

9. Thoroughly enjoying The Phone Photography Project

I've managed to stay almost entirely caught up with the challenges in The Phone Photography Project—the first time I've ever played along with one of my own classes in real time. It's been very fun. Only two more days... and there will be 15,000 photos in the #bpcphonephotographyproject hashtag when I wake up tomorrow! Next week I'll start work on my next class (Design Challenges will run for a third time with a few new features in September) and I'm excited to do some scrapbooking again. It's been a while.

10. Daydreaming about what's in my refrigerator right now
I bought some film for my dad's old Polaroid Spirit 600 CL as a reward for surviving the garage sale and the move. It arrived this week, and I'm very excited to use it—thinking very carefully about it, though, because you don't just willy-nilly use up a pack of Impossible Project film. : )

 

Ten on Friday

1. Last week I ran over to Target to get boring things like Windex and toothpaste and whatnot, and discovered a magic portal where I ended up at a whole bunch of stuff from Rifle Paper Co., Paperchase, plus some beautiful new things from Greenroom/Clementine Paper. I blinked my eyes and it was still there. NICE WORK, TARGET, NICE WORK. You make buying Windex and toothpaste and whatnot ever so much more fun. 

2. Matt's birthday is tomorrow. Day 3 of the NSI (big inspection) is tomorrow. Needless to say, birthday #41 will be a little less exciting than birthday #40 was last year : )

3. I'm working furiously on many things at once, which tends to make me a little on the crazy side. Ahem. But they are fun things! Photo shoots, and photography/design for some stores downtown, and something new and big you aren't going to want to miss coming soon (also from Big Picture Classes). Also, did you sign up for Finding Your Photo Style yet, photography types? It's going to be so much fun and thoroughly educational.

4. See? Fun stuff.

5. May is 19.5 days away. <cue ominous music>

6. Bridget was singing a little 1970s Melanie Safka to herself in the shower last night. Which falls into the category of never a dull moment with that one.

7. Speaking of which, on Wednesday she tossed her backpack inside without actually coming in the house and went out to play in the snow for an hour. Normally she prefers to wait for a sister or two to come outside and play, but when there's snow on the ground she becomes very focused on getting out as fast as possible. Bonus: do you see the weird thing in this picture? Heh.

8. One of my old speechies made her debut as ESPN's newest anchor last night. I am so super-proud of her.

9. I got my cholesterol test results back yesterday, and the dr was concerned about how high it was. I startled him with my glee, because HELLO, 35 points lower than last time. That's grounds for a party. : )

10. Recurring theme in my life: the need for an extra six hours a day. With that, I'm off and running. Happy weekend!

Ten on Tuesday (The December/Christmas Break Edition)

Since December 13....

1. Gracie turned 8 and we threw a big party. It was a wonderful party, and should have been a 100% joyous occasion. However, it was hard to pull off a wonderful party that fit the 100% joyous occasion bill on December 14, 2012. We were able to shield Gracie and Bridget from the tragic news though Maddie wasn't so lucky—it's hard to play the shielding game with a ten year old. Jonah and Gracie share a birthday, and it helped tremendously to know that someone else was planning a celebration shielded from the outside world. It's hard to compartmentalize joy and sorrow.

But there were owl cupcakes

and a whole bunch of second graders building gingerbread houses (which kind of put me in a panic leading up to the party, but it went amazingly well—there's a tip on that, just a minute)

and many beautiful handmade owl greetings and donations to the Rocky Mountain Raptor Center in Fort Collins, CO

and a very happy 8 year old with her first-ever invite-friends-from-school-birthday-party.

Two tips for throwing a successful gingerbread house birthday party:

1. Host at a location that isn't your house. Like the Arts & Crafts Center on base or similar. Even better if there are three adults from the Arts & Crafts Center staffed to help with the party.

2. Prepackage all the supplies. This step may do you in at the time, but it is worth it.

2. We had lots of Christmas programs to attend. Gracie was the star of the second grade portion of the show (as Frosty the Snowman) while Bridget generally sang as if she were on Broadway and not in the school gym, Maddie sang and played in the bell choir at her school, and the annual Christmas carol piano party at their piano teacher's house was great fun. Both girls played duets with their teacher, with each other, and the three of us played a "Tree-O." Ha ha. There was a terrible, horrible, no-good, no explanation gate-closure that nearly caused both Matt and I to miss Maddie's program—we slipped in separately after it started and it's a Christmas miracle that I didn't get a speeding ticket once the gate finally opened after 43 minutes of waiting (I was supposed to pick Matt up after dropping Gracie off after her 8 year checkup, but that didn't happen). Anyway:




3. There were parties to attend. Gracie was sick on the last day before break and missed her very fun party (the horror!), but Maddie's class had a little celebration, Bridget's class got to wear jammies and bring a stuffed animal (she brought her pygmy puff) and drink hot chocolate and watch The Polar Express. We skipped the Wing Christmas Party so I could go to The Nutcracker with the girls and their friends and their friends' mamas (one of my favorite things to do during December). Matt's squadron party was at The Plains and we spent an evening with our CFD family celebrating, well, life in general.

4. We hung out with school friends over break. Bridget and her preschool friend Cora got together twice, Gracie had a friend over from her class, and Maddie and her musketeers had a sleepover and an ice-skating date. We had lunch with Ms. Deb. We had a great post-holiday brunch with Abby and Wes, in which wonderful gifts were exchanged, including this one:

5. We made stuff. 8 billion chocolate covered cherries, multiple batches of pine bark, birthday treats and banana bread. A whole bunch of Christmas cards. Banners, mixtapes, framed gifts and needlepoint ornaments. Drawings and paintings, beaded jewelry and the beginnings of braided bracelets. Reindeer food and lots and lots of meals at home.

6. Someone got the biggest gift of her life and played with it nonstop. It might be plastic and ginormous, but there was never a child who wanted the Disney Dream Castle more than Bridget. She's been wishing for it for over two years now, and has organized art shows and rock shops to try and save up money to buy it herself. She told everyone for the last six months that Santa was going to bring it to her because she wanted it so much, and in the end, that's exactly what happened.

I will be very surprised if Bee doesn't grow up and work at Disney.

7. It snowed! It snowed! It snowed! The snow totally messed up the ONE DAY Melissa and I were able to meet in Denver for our annual Christmas shopping trip, but I still love snow. We're planning a New Year trip to IKEA in January as consolation. : )

We had the best Christmas Eve walk in the snow, too... oh, how I'm going to miss snow when we move.

8. We watched a lot of movies. The girls watched all four (FOUR! I know, ridiculous) Home Alone movies. The first one is practically a classic, the second one is OK... and I cautioned that the third and fourth were probably totally stupid... they were all in until the fourth one, when they agreed with me: totally stupid. We also watched Red Dog, E.T., Singin' in the Rain, and Hotel Transylvania together. Matt and I watched Lawless and Knuckleball and planned the next few months of nerdy documentary watching on Apple TV. I could easily be convinced to watch a movie every day.

9. I worked some with my camera. I took 100+ Santa photos for Operation Provide Joy and did a last minute photoshoot just before Christmas. It was terrific because a.) I have known a branch of the family since the first few months we moved back to Cheyenne, b.) I have photographed a branch of this family before and c.) they were really just happy to be together, and chose to have it in the grandparents' backyard. Everyone happily cooperated even though it was freezing, including four dogs. A sample:

10. We hosted a New Years session of Camp Dillow-Karahalis. But time is up and that deserves a post of its own anyway, coming soon. : )

Ten on (Actual) Tuesday

1. I am 90% done with the shopping portion of Christmas gifts and about 10% done with the making portion of Christmas gifts. Gold star for me! We'll see if I actually get things mailed on time. Mailing on time = Achilles Heel.

2. My Christmas cards are designed and ordered! I noticed on my way to Maddie's school today for an emergency forgotten item drop-off that there is an auto body shop on South Greeley Highway that uses very similar fonts in its signage as I used on my Christmas card. Heh. Uhm.

3. As of today I am officially the Scripps National Spelling Bee coach for Maddie's school. I have a log-in to the website and everything. Now I just have to figure out how to coach spelling and run a spelling bee. Again: Heh. Uhm.

4. She sleeps exactly the same way as she did when she was three. 

5. I did some blog maintenance last night; photo albums are listed like normal again, sidebars are cleaned up a little, and there is a link to a new blog-garage sale page that I hope to continue adding things to on a regular basis. Right now it's just the gargantuan Halloween supply box, but more is coming. Oh! I updated my 52 Projects album, too.

6. While we were at the eye doctor's office last week, Gracie and I entertained ourselves by taking pictures of interesting things in the magazines available. Gracie took this picture for Maddie:

It's Helena Bonham Carter as Madame Thénardier in the upcoming Les Misérables movie! Another HBC literary character Maddie can add to her Halloween possibilities list.

And I took this one from some sort of southern living magazine (interesting choice for Cheyenne):

This is NOT what I wore to watch the Ohio State vs. Michigan game, for the record. My team spirit looked more like pajamas. Is this real? Do people really wear sequined dresses to watch football in their own homes?

7. Related news: Gracie is extremely unhappy that she can't get glasses yet because her eyes aren't bad enough. [all the Willis and Dillow family members just rolled their eyes]

8. I have a new favorite pie (OK, OK, almost all pie is my favorite):

Nantucket Cranberry Pie before adding crust

I made two of these for Thanksgiving—one stayed here, one went out to the field. Here's the recipe, adapted from Laurie Colwin. I feel very smart because I know who Laurie Colwin is and I even read one of her books a long time ago. I have enough cranberries left over from Thanksgiving week that I might make another one. Cranberries are good for you!

9. Gracie got selected to be Frosty the Snowman in her school's Christmas program. She is VERY EXCITED.

10. This post is a little light on Bee, so here's a November picture of her... from five years ago.

: ) 

Ten on Thursday

1. Here's a riddle: how do you make a probable move to Louisana more palatable? Get served a 75 day relocation notice TO THE HOUSE ON THE OTHER SIDE OF THE WALL (sounds like a bad college prank to me) in Feburary, 4.5 months before the actual move. Then cancel said relocation. Ta-da! At least we only have to move to Louisiana! Well-played, Balfour Beatty.

2. Understatement: I'm a little behind on photo sharing.

3. But having said that, I finally got my 5th Annual Worldwide Photo Walk photos sorted. If you're interested, check out the beautiful Wyoming Hereford Ranch a little more closely by clicking on the mosaic:

4. Random: I was at the Wyoming Hereford Ranch four times in one week during October.

5. I made a flyer for something Air Force related yesterday and left a draft of it on the desk to attend to when I got back. Matt came home and saw it and wondered what in the heck the crazy lady he is married to was tearing out magazine ads about missile alert facilities for. I took that as a giant compliment, that my draft flyer passed as a magazine ad : ) I suppose the flip side of that is why the crazy man I am married to would think I subscribe to a magazine that runs ads for missile alert facilities in it. Whatever.

6. We had a ridiculously busy (but fun) Halloween/fall break: half-day on Halloween, Halloween party at our house, magical trick-or-treat complete with a hot chocolate tent and a Halloween moon (Halloween photos are next on the list), three conferences, Four Musketeers sleepover for the oldest one, last week of Discover Earth tours at the library, library date with friends, half-day of Camp Dillow-Karahalis, gymnastics meet in Fort Collins + day spent with the Schusters, dinner in Fort Collins, piano recital, and opening weekend screening of Wreck-It Ralph. Not a single piece of laundry was laundered and not a single item of grocery store food was purchased, but we sure had a lot of fun.

7. The Dillow Family gives Wreck-It Ralph five stars.

8. Two photos from the meet and one from the piano recital:

9. Maddie and I need to make a Vietnamese dessert for her book club on Monday, in case you're wondering why I've been Pinterest-ing Vietnamese desserts. Have you read Inside Out and Back Again by Thanhha Lai? Maddie and I both gave it one of our top books of 2011 award, and are rereading it for Monday.

10. How do you get a dog to adjust to a time change? I would very much like to know, because 6:10 am is very early in my current schedule configuration.

Be back soon. : )

Ten on Wednesday

1. May is less than a week away! We're going with the standard approach to the month, a.k.a. hold on for dear life and trust that we always end up in June somehow.

2. Gracie was invited to a birthday party last Saturday that Bridget tagged along to. Lucky thing, too, because she got to take home one of the coolest birthday party favors ever:

Balloon Ariel! Gracie didn't go home empty-handed, either:

It's hard to convey how cool this magician/balloon guy was, but he was. He made about 20 different balloon things and each was more amazing than the next. 

3. In the previous almost 17 years of Air Force life, I have never been stopped for a full car search at the gate. In the last week, I have been stopped twice. [Note: apologies to Matt for the smell of German Shepherd drool in the Subaru this morning. He was already asleep by the time I got back from gymnastics pickup/full car search, and I forgot to tell him this morning.] Last week it was after the three hour spectacle of four dentist appointments/getting everyone back to their respective schools; last night it was after a three hour gym for Gracie and Maddie. Gracie was not enthused. I think I need to buy a lottery ticket this week.

4. Speaking of Gracie, doesn't she look like a big girl all of a sudden?

5. And speaking of other big girls, this one aced her kindergarten screening yesterday and cannot WAIT to get the show on the road:

6. As it turned out, I didn't get to run in the Bring the Spring Bunny Dash 5K this weekend because of some schedule issues, but we still helped out. Maddie worked hard taking registrations and assigning bibs, Gracie managed the receipt and arrangement of donated bunnies (they received 272 just that morning!) and Bridget mostly just ran around with her bunny ears on. 

7. I would like to point out that today, Wednesday April 25, the Cleveland Indians are in first place in the Central Division. I am northeastern Ohio enough to not extrapolate on this.

8. I delivered pictures last night from the newborn photo shoot I did two weeks ago. The standard baby photos turned out really well but some of my favorites are the less traditional ones like these:

There's something about the memory of all the baby care that really speaks to me from the other side of this phase; it's so all-consuming, defining, and new. 

Baby G is awfully chill and cute...

...and look at that beautiful new mama.

9.
 
Our actual copy of Any Day a Beautiful Change arrived on Monday; while I've had an early proof copy for months on the computer, Matt decided to wait until the real thing was ready to read it. He promptly stayed up until 2 am on Monday night to finish it. It's that good. 

10. 

Design Challenges starts tomorrow! It's not too late to register. I had so much fun creating the content for this class... there is just something about a challenge brings out the best in everyone. Join me!

Ten on Tuesday

1. I went for my first nighttime run of 2012 tonight because it was a glorious, windless 52º outside (and no, Jody, I didn't wear a parka). I only ran two miles, which is less than half of what I know I'm capable of, but the difference between now and last year at this time: I mostly had fun anyway. And I know I'll get better again after I am out more. Treadmills just don't really cut it for me, though I've been making an effort.

2. The best part of tonight:

Tonight is the best viewing night for Jupiter and Venus... not only was it a crystal clear sky with a kazillion visible stars, I was watching planets as I ran. Maddie and I took a Starwalk screenshot on the way out of her book club tonight (it was a busy night):

We love Starwalk, though I'm sure people think we're crazy for waving a phone at the sky. Better that than an iPad, I guess.

3. How do you get Maddie to break into a run? Find and hold up the elusive second book in Rick Riordan's Lost Heroes series from across the library. Nerd. She is also on her seat for the second book in Brandon Mull's Beyonders series, which was released today. If I had been more on the ball, I would have had it preordered and delivered today. Alas. She got the first book in hardcover from Carol Mead (Governor Mead's wife) for being a Wyoming fourth grader (it totally pays to live in Wyoming) so I'll probably spring for the $10 to get her the second one, too :)

4. Speaking of books, Gracie is plowing her way through the Roald Dahl catalog at the moment (hooray!!!). She just finished The Giraffe and the Pelly and Me and has moved on to The Witches.

5. Speaking of Gracie, she is the next victim of the mysterious fever illness that has been moving through our house. First Bridget (last weekend, followed by three days of utter fatigue) then Maddie (this past weekend/Monday, followed by a terrible cough) and now Gracie. When Bridget has a fever of 101º she reacts as if she has a fever of 101º. When Maddie has a fever of 101º she reacts as if she has a fever of 109º. When Gracie has a fever of 101º she reacts as if she has a fever of 157º.

6. I ruined both Matt's and Bridget's day today by causing the van to have a deader-than-dead battery this morning. It is too mortifiying and absurd to tell the story; I will simply state that it involved birdwatching and leave it at that. Bridget missed storytime and Matt had to come home from work, try to jump the battery, shake his head at me regarding the magnitude of damage I did to the battery, go back to work, and then come home again to buy a new battery and replace it. I helpfully pointed out that two hours working outside in the pleasant weather wasn't the worst way to spend the afternoon. And then I ran inside and kept my mouth shut.

7. In my defense: original battery. Five+ years old. Survived the February of -41º wind chill without a garage. OK, OK, there really is no defense.

8. I am starting a new list of things Bridget says. The first thing on the list, in reference to one of my workout DVDs that has a section of boxing with Jillian Michaels: "I could beat these guys with my boxing skills." I'm not even kidding. That child is hilarious.

9. In addition to boxing skills, the Dillow girls now have Laser Tag skills. They were the only girls invited to a birthday party for an 8 year old friend on base recently... they walked in and saw twelve boys gearing up for Laser Tag and totally freaked out. Gracie refused to play the first round (Dark spaces! Loud voices! Weird lights! TWELVE BOYS!) but I finally convinced Maddie and Bridget to try it... by the second round, Gracie's curiosity got the best of her and she decided to give it a try, too. I think she ended up having the most fun of anyone. And how about that Bridget... not sure I trust a girl with a laser gun and this face:

Also, I'm not sure where Gracie learned to hold a laser gun in such a menacing fashion.

10. And now that Grandma has fainted, I'm going to bed.

: )