Cue the doorbell of doom

Well, Jack still will not walk at all. He laid in bed this morning and just cried until someone came to pick him up and he has not put the foot on the floor since he fell yesterday.

Our ped has referred us to an ortho, who we will see at 2 today.

Obviously I am FREAKING OUT OVER HERE.

My kid is not a cry baby kind of kid. He just gets himself up, dusts himself off and goes on with his business.

I have no clue what in the hell could possibly be going on with him to cause him to act like this.

:-(

This sucks.

On the tenth day of Halloween

On the tenth day of Halloween, the Great Pumpkin gave to me:

One problem after another.

One Halloween costume that is still not finished.

One house that is so messy Jack picked up his play phone to "call the cleaner."

One batch of Halloween whoopie pies that never got made.

One day of yet more and more and more rain. (We have had record rain in October. 20 something days of rain and we are over 12 inches total now I think.)

And one small fry that fell down and hurt his foot, requiring a trip to the urgent care. They *think* his foot is not broken, but he cries when he tries to walk on it and the film still needs to be reviewed be a pediatric specialist.

I am all full up on the problems now, thank you very much.

Oy.

On the ninth day of Halloween

On the ninth day of Halloween, the Great Pumpkin gave to me:
A life sized witch (she is going to be great in the foyer at the new house);
vintage owl ornaments for the glass ornament tree...
a little closer peek;
some lab glassware for my spooky laboratory;
and a very tiny, very fragile bird skull for the cabinet of horrors. (I bet some of you *are* horrified by it, aren't you?)

2 days to go and the costume is now in the works. I need Jack to come home from preschool so I can fit it on him again. And I need to figure out if I can use an iron on interfacing with craft felt that is made from recycled materials. Who knew craft felt was getting so green (and complicated)?

On the seventh day of Halloween

On the seventh day of Halloween, the Great pumpkin gave to me:
The sweetest surprise in the mail! I love these and they are already hanging on the Halloween tree;
One completed pumpkinhead girl embroidery, orange thread on black and white dotted fabric, which I decided I didn't like very much so...
I did it again, in black thread on orange and white dotted fabric;
One completed batboy embroidery, in black thread on orange and white dotted fabric...
photographed twice as I try and work out the kinks in the new camera. It seems to REALLY pick up every little reflection in the glass unlike my old camera. But blocking the reflection made the photo look dull.

Oh boy, new camera drama. LOL

4 days and counting and I have the fabric for the costume cut out. I still cannot get to the sewing machine in the mess in that room though. Too bad the POD doesn't arrive until Nov 2.

*Embroidery patterns are free on Andrea Zuill's blog .

On the sixth day of Halloween

On the sixth day of Halloween, the Great Pumpkin gave to me:

Photos taken on a new camera! And I didn't cry once for my old camera! It's a miracle. LOL
A new BIG blow mold witch for the dirty front porch;
Some Happy Halloween light covers for a strand of mini lights (must remember to get some lights while Target still has them);
A new BIG ghost blow mold for the dirty front porch (I bought all the blow molds in Goodwill one day, they must have thought I was nuts);
My insane husband's idea of a mock up for Jack's Halloween costume, lol;
Those new windows I mentioned yesterday in the master bedroom (oh what a difference those windows will make!);
Drywall! in the master bath (my house no longer looks like an insulation showroom, it looks like a house again!);
My grandparent's tree is showing it's pretty fall colors (I am starting to get very, very excited about moving);
And a vintage scarecrow blow mold.

Plus 11 good ornaments at the flea market this morning (another small miracle).

5 days to Halloween and I still don't have the costume ready.

On the fifth day of Halloween

On the fifth day of Halloween, the Great Pumpkin gave to me:
One small personal crisis which I seem to be dealing with rather calmly (that kept me away from here yesterday);
One broken camera;
Which has been replaced with one new camera (better hope I can get past my technology resistance);
Three new windows in the new house (I had to delete the photos because of the broken camera.);
One passed building inspection at the new house (WOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOHOOOOOOOOOO) which means we can start putting the house back together and be moving in thirty !!! days;
Several yard sales, which still have yielded no ornaments, lol;
And one trip to the pumpkin patch (FINALLY!).
Whew. Are we tired yet?

And no, I still haven't made the costume.

6 days and counting...

On the third day of Halloween

On the third day of Halloween, the Great Pumpkin gave to me:

Some fun new reproduction Halloween things -
An awesome wall hanging, originally from Home Goods, bought at the thrift (hard to tell here but it's glittery);
A creepy wooden skeleton statue thing;
two buckets from that evil Pottery Barn (where I am never shopping again, ahem);
and a cute sign from Dollar Tree.

Plus one kid who cracks me up. We got a haircut yesterday and on the way home he says, "Mom, why did that lady make my hair feel like a cow?" "What Jack?!?" "That lady, she put some stuff in my hair and now it feels like a cow. I don't like it." LOLOLOL

9 days to Halloween and I have not even bought the fabric for his costume. Oy!

On the second day of Halloween

On the second day of Halloween, the Great Pumpkin gave to me:

Ridiculousness, that's what. LOL

Let's start again...

Dear Universe,

Okay! I surrender! I get it! For whatever reason this year I am meant to be the quilt queen. I am not meant to find anything else, no matter how hard I try*. This year there will be no ornaments, no wallpaper, no tissue paper decorations, no pottery, no tablecloths, no vintage fabric, no nifty vintage rugs, no anything! Nothing but quilts. Okay! I have no idea what you have planned for me with all these quilts, nor do I have any clue on earth why you keep throwing them all at me for $5, but I'll take it. I will relish this time. I know it won't last. I will lovingly gather them up and just wait to see what the plan is.

I trust that you know better than I do.

Sincerely yours,
Sarah, the quilt queen

Shall we look at the lovelies?
I found this one this morning. I was making the thrift rounds because Halloween is coming! and I have found very little Halloween stuff this year. I've been wanting an orange quilt. Well, more of a cheddar color really, and this is a soft butternut squash color, but isn't she a beauty?
Look at how gorgeous her quilting is.
On Sunday morning I set out for the flea in the FREEZING cold (it was 32 degrees and I had to scrape frost off the car) determined to find some ornaments to cover what breakage there will surely be this year. I could not for the life of me find an ornament to buy. Nope. Not a one. I found quilts instead.

This one is really strange. Bowties in the middle and dresden plates on the edges? And it is HEAVY.
When I was looking them over I discovered this...she has quilted a quilt over a quilt. Do you see the original in there? You might have to enlarge it to get a better idea.

Since the outside is really in rough shape I am pondering taking the second quilt off to see what is under there. Sparing what pieces I can for some other project, of course.
I love the edge on this one, a true scrappy quilt. You might notice part of her yellow border is white. Must have run out of fabric...
Hey! How did that cutie get in there?
Oy, that big tear is a killer.
But look at some of those sweet fabrics!
This one is in lovely condition and the backing fabric is that sweet pink print you see on the left edge. I love a printed fabric on the back! You don't see that very often in old quilts.
This is the kind of quilt that kills me a little bit. Someone has cut out TWO of the blocks and ruined the whole darn thing. What kills me is that the remaining squares are in perfectly fine condition, so she ruined a quilt that was NOT A CUTTER.

*I swore I would buy nothing but ornaments that morning. Ha.
**Quilts have not been at all laundered and are shown in as found condition.
***Close up photos will be on Flickr, assuming Flickr is working today.

I WILL be back with Halloween if it kills me. :-)

On the first day of Halloween

On the first day of Halloween, the Great Pumpkin gave to me:
A wonderful new fireplace at the new house...
the old one was apparently home to many a bird, eww. That was in my attic!
A quickly crafted Halloween banner, made with dollar store coasters, glitter stickers and some crepe paper...
with cute goblins on each end.
I really wanted to use my chipboard glitter letters but they are lost forever in my gigantically messy sewing room right now. And the fabric store didn't carry those. The glitter stickers are not so easy to see though. :-( It says Happy Halloween.

And one 5 year old well visit that made me laugh. "Jack, can you count to 10?" "Jack, do you know your ABC's?" Mwhahahahaha. I just picked up a book and had him start reading it instead. (Stats: 43.5 inches and 44 lbs.)

I am off to try and take more photos for the Halloween countdown. It is supposed to start raining again and rain for days and days. Boooo to that.

Hapde Burfday Baby

My Dearest Jack,
Today you are five. I can't really imagine how we are already to number five. I still remember feeling utterly panicked when you were a tiny baby who just would not stop crying and I had no clue what to do about it. I remember feeling like the "babysitter" and I kept wondering when your mother was going to come get you.
Obviously those days are long gone.

I still get all flustered when you are crying and I don't know what to do to help you, but for the most part we have it sorted out by now, don't we?
I know this has been a hard year for you too.

You've struggled with life and death, a new school and moving into a new house.

And yet you still manage to be incredibly *you*.
You can currently be found doing things like:

reading everything you can get your hands on
working on some complicated math! (division for one)
exhibiting a real understanding of dollars and cents ("I have ten dollars, and this costs $4 and this $7.50, so that's $11.50. I still need $1.50 mom".)
telling me things like "Mom you are home all alone on Monday so you should have plenty of time to get my hamper back in my room"
telling Oma she is a "sparkly doodoo head"
amazing everyone around you, from the checker in the walgreens to people in waiting rooms when they realize how smart you are
building legos constantly
watching plenty of Max & Ruby
dreaming of a trip to the moon
high fiving your new friends at preschool
asking to go EVERYWHERE - from bowling to golfing to Florida
and on and on.
Next year you will be on to kindergarten, so I am acutely aware that our days together are spinning away from us.

And yet, some things have changed very little. Dandy is still always on the living room floor. Your vent is still always on when you sleep. And you are still asking me for oatmeal after George.
However, you might be the only person I know who cannot wait to gain more weight! (And it makes me laugh when you run off to check the scale again, convinced that 5 year olds should weigh 45 pounds.)
I love you baby. More and more each year. It's an amazing gift to watch you grow.

This year my dream for you is that you are able to remember no matter how smart you might be that it's important to choose a path that truly makes you happy. No amount of dollars and cents is worth trading away all your days for. Those moments never come back.

All my love,
Your mama
(who did manage to get the hamper back in your room)