I am having a hard time believing it’s the end of 2008 already. What happened to this year? I swear it was September just a minute ago. I…feel like making a couple of lists. Sick and twisted, I know.

Bye Bye 2008:
• Noodle Girl became a little girl and definitely not a baby anymore. Potty trained! And other big-girl things.
• I quit working in retail, narrowly averting another mental health episode. Again.
• I became certified in phlebotomy and CPR. And I still didn’t get a job.
• I was rejected by the MT program at UAMS again. Sigh.
• I took up some new crafts; spinning, dyeing, fabric painting, the non-bead kind of weaving. Fun!
• I adopted a new online persona, MadScientistK, and finally joined some social networking groups.

Hello 2009:
• Back to the U of AR for a few more classes. Then reapply to UAMS. I will make it into this program.
• I want to do more research on weaving and natural dyeing, especially using bacteria. This one is easy.
• Now a hard one - clean and organize my work space so I can actually finish some big projects!
• Knit a sock a month for six pairs of handknitted socks this year!
• Bring in some money somehow. A job would be nice. Although that might require some cooperation from the economy.

That’s it for now. I really intend to post about Christmas and some of the hilarious pictures at some point, and do a craft post with all the stuff I’ve made lately, but it won’t be today!

Everybody knows about LOlcats, and probably LOLdogs as well, but I has LOLbunnies. I even have a favorite LOLbunny video - Bunny Concert.

I found a playlist of Christmas songs I actually like, but it looks like the service won’t be there for much longer so go listen now. I’m sort of in the mood for Christmas music anyway, unnatural, I know. It’s the not being in retail and hearing the music for two months that does it. I don’t miss retail at all.

I was horsing around on Etsy and noticed that my Etsy favorite sellers list is four pages long! My current favorite is rayela, who specializes in ethnic textiles and has some fabulous molitas and saris.

I’m playing with this star/snowflake element and I really like it. I’d like it even better if I had about an hour a day cat and munchkin free to bead. And I’ve started a cotton scarf on my frame loom to get the hang of weaving and it’s pretty fun. I can’t wait to start my tapestry! I also got some fat quarters and embroidery floss today to make a tote bag for Noodle Girl, but I’m giving myself until fall 2010 to finish it because that’s when she starts (eeeek!) kindergarten.

Really, I’m enjoying the opportunity to bum around. Work is just as scarce here as it is in other places, and I start classes again on January 12 so it’ll be back to that grind soon enough. For now I get to hang out with my parents and the kids, work on crafty stuff, and ignore the housework from a relaxed point of view instead of a harried one. What, you didn’t think I was suddenly a good homemaker, did you? Because I’m not ever going to be one. Clean counters and washed laundry just aren’t as satisfying as, say, designing a tapestry or spinning up some custom alpaca-bunny fur blend.

The basics. Food, shelter, love. My family and friends and our relatively good health.

A nice warm spell, so Noodle Girl can play outside. General lack of ice and snow.

My stash of craft supplies and time to use them.

I had a miscarriage. Dammit! It’s so frustrating! I’ve done my crying, and now I’m mad. The timing was so perfect, and I like being pregnant so I was really looking forward to the whole nine months. And of course I was excited about the baby. Now it’s wait for my cycle to go back to normal, cross fingers, and try again. If we try right away the due date will be during the fall semester; to hit another school break entails waiting until April and trying like mad that one month. So frustrating. I’m not sure the Mr. understands just how frustrating this is for me, but avoidance is his thing. Grrrrrr. Not that I’m communicating my frustration well; it’s just not something I’m good at. Poor Noodle Girl knows that something is wrong, but doesn’t really understand what it is.

Being the person I am, I’ve been coping by making things. Heck, I’ve actually finished stuff, which is not my usual habit. I wove a water bottle cozy, unraveled most of two sweaters for the yarn, blended up some bunny fur and alpaca to spin, made some new spindles, made some weaving shuttles from wood, designed a beaded Christmas ornament cover, you get the idea. Gotta create one way or the other, I guess. Oh yeah, and I’m working on the novel with Mike, the link to that is under ‘pages’ over there. Not that I’m contributing as much as he is so far.

More pics in my Flickr stream!

Here’s Noodle Girl in the costume she requested - she wanted sparkly purple spider. I designed it and her Granny made most of it. I just made the legs and hemmed it. I’ll think twice about using that kind of fabric unlined again! However, the slipover design and the leg connections worked out great.

Poor little thing didn’t feel good yesterday, so we only did the downtown Rogers Goblin Parade. She had forgotten about saying “trick or treat” and was so raring to go that she sometimes didn’t hold her bag still long enough to get the treat! It was pretty tiring but good exercise. And just enough candy. Cute noncandy treats too. One group even had little Berlitz for Kids Spanish booklets. The businesses and politicians were pretty ingenious about the candy packaging/delivery systems and giving out information, sort of like a job fair or trade convention. We skipped the shopping mall trick-or-treat. They had also had a Halloween party at preschool, confirming the rationality and sense of humor of the First United Methodist Church daycare program. She had a bag of mostly noncandy treats from that too, so she certainly didn’t miss out even if we did go home early.

With the current fad for injunctions against Halloween celebrations, I think it might be time to remind people where Halloween comes from. Of course it has its roots in pagan festivals, but like so many pagan things it was adopted and converted by the Roman Catholic church way before Martin Luther started Protestantism. The name we use for this holiday is even Christian, though few people seem to realize it these days - Halloween is short for All Hallows Eve, which is the vigil for All Saints Day and All Souls Day still celebrated by modern Catholics. However, darn few Protestants seem to know anything about it and will even tell you that “good Christians don’t celebrate Halloween”. They seem intent on denying the need for human societies to acknowlege the passage of life and the fear of death that Halloween provides.

Catholic Education Resource Center has a good article about Christian Halloween, though it gets sorta pompous toward the end. I may not agree with the Mother Church on a lot of things, but her history often tells us where our modern practices come from.

We’re celebrating Halloween in American traditional style, with a munchkin trick-or-treating. If the weather holds, we’ll participate in the downtown Rogers trick-or-treat parade, and afterwards go to the local shopping mall for more of the same. Poor kid only gets to eat a fraction of her candy, mean us. I’ll try to actually post photos of Noodle Girl in her costume - she requested a purple sparkly spider costume so her Granny and I made one. Super cute! I may even get in the spirit and put on a belly dance costume and be a spider tamer. More likely I’ll be Harried Mom for Halloween and the Mr. will be Sarcastic Gamer Dad.

Somehow, I forgot to mention that I’m pregnant again! Not very far along, about 6 weeks, due around the end of June. A few weeks ago, I started tapering off the Lexapro because I was so tired all the time, and the Wellbutrin because I was feeling nauseated about an hour after I took it. The situation is producing some deja-vu; here I am not working and pregnant just like with Noodle Girl. I’m looking for a job, though. Staying home is not for me! I’ll just have to work around my school schedule for now. But hey, I’m a nationally certified phlebotomist now so just maybe, even in this screwy economy, I can find a nice flexible job that pays better and stresses me out less than retail.

Noodle Girl is sort of excited to be a big sister, although she has moments where she tells us that she’s the baby. She usually says it’s a baby brother in Mommy’s tummy. And, thanks to my Mom, she pats my tummy and talks to it sometimes. We are sort of hoping for a boy, but of course we’ll take any sort!

Read this. Yes, it’s a scholarly article but read it anyway. I’ll wait.

Was the article describing you? If not, why not? I was so gratified to realize that, even though I’m so not a joiner, there’s a whole recognized movement of people that think and believe the way I do. That gives me more hope for the future of our society than I think I’ve ever had before. And lets me acknowledge that traditionalists creep me out big time. It also helps explain why the acquisitive modern culture doesn’t work for me, either.

Now if everybody just realized that this cultural movement existed, and saw its merits….

I need this toilet. I can’t understand why more designers don’t give this kind of attention to more ubiquitous and homely objects.

Yes, I’ve been a bad blogger. But it’s been an interesting three months. I quit my old job, Noodle Girl started preschool, I started school again, started a new job, had a visit with a friend from out of town, took up some new crafts, drowned in a pile of laundry, battled fleas and ants, and the mister started actually leaving the house for something other than work. Luckily he’s so good about helping Noodle Girl go to bed before he leaves that it’s not a pain for him to go out.

However, we are going to have to find a babysitter or something so I can go out too! Taking turns works, but to me it’s not as much fun to go out separately all the time, and at least twice a month I want to go do something on a Saturday morning when the mister is asleep (or supposed to be). A nearby babysitter; it’s really wasteful to drive out to my mom’s or sister’s when I’m coming back to Springdale for a guild meeting or belly-dance class. The dance I can do on Thursdays when I’m done with work, but the guild meetings (Handweavers and Handspinning Artists Group at Shiloh Museum) are each at 10 one Saturday morning a month.

Ok, so I took up weaving. Sort of a tapestry style with extra string heddles for more texture. Not that I’ve finished or even photographed any of this! I have several spinning and fiber photos to upload as it it. I made some more spindles and got some decorative wood pieces to make more spindles. I have over 1000 yards of finished yarns and probably 200 more yards of singles waiting to be plied. When I finally get the pics uploaded I have a monster post about it all. And a Noodle Girl post, too.