Knock Knock Jokes- So Hot Right Now

Tonight on the way home from choir and dinner at church, we were telling knock knock jokes.  It went from courtesy laughs to we-need-to-pull-off-the-highway hysteria with Rush making up the single funniest (only funniest) knock knock joke I have every heard:

Knock Knock
Who’s there?
Bridge.
Bridge who?
Light switch.  Aren’t you glad those two things rhyme?

This was shortly followed, like all good times, with crying.  The crying was related to whining, bickering, and hitting from the backseat, resulting in Trent throwing a fancy Halloween cupcake out the window onto the exit ramp.  It was Rush’s cupcake, and clearly an adequate punishment, because he screamed what can best be described as bloody murder. 

We pulled into the driveway with people still upset and opened the door of the van to find Holly fast asleep.  She can either sleep through anything or has decided to use sleep as a way to remove herself from certain situations.  Either way, useful skill.

Learning Curve

Correction:  It’s a girl!  Professor Longbottom went to the vet yesterday and while my veterinary degree from the University of Google gave me the power to proclaim that she was male, she is female.  Fun fact- calico cats must have white, black, and orange, and they are pretty much always female.  While looking at pictures of calico tabby cats and patched tabby cats, based on the vet’s advice that I look at cat pictures online, I came across this ammmaazzzing cat.

Similar to sexing cats, something that is a lot more difficult than it looks is making very tiny cute things out of felt.  Although I’ve worked with felt a million times before, I need more practice.  Right now I can vaguely do owls.  That’s it.

Something that is actually manageably easy, taking kids to the grocery store!

Things That Last

There’s an expectation that quilts, ragdolls, and wooden toys will be passed from generation to generation, omnes generationes.  It’s encouraging to find things less likely to survive still going strong.

As it turns out, the Superman cape for Rush’s Halloween costume was actually made by Trent’s mom for Trent, back in the day.

The decoupaged box that holds all the buttons in our household was made by Kate approximately fourteen years ago.  I wouldn’t want to store buttons anywhere else.

Toast With A New Vintage

The other day I read one of those things (Right?  A thing?  It wasn’t a poem, just something online.)about having children and how they grow so quickly.  One day you’re rocking them to sleep and then the next moment they’re too big for that and where has the time gone?  Of course I cried, because it was sweet and also emotionally manipulative.

It is so precious to rock children to sleep and hold them and snuggle with them.  BUT- if I was still rocking all three of them to sleep, I wouldn’t get to be filled with joy watching Rush hop out of the car and look around for his friends, smiling and waving, as he walks into his elementary school.  I wouldn’t get to hear Tate talking in his beautiful voice, where L’s and pronounced as Y’s or W’s.  I wouldn’t be seeing Holly crawling all over the place in her black cat Halloween costume, desperate for a piece of candy, which no one would give her, the nerve!  (Until I finally did give her a lollipop for a few minutes- the benefits of being a third child.)

I think everyone is a little nervous that when times are good, it’s the peak of life.  Can we all just agree to get a grip and be optimistic about the future?

C.S. Lewis, Mere Christianity-

“This is, I think, one little part of what Christ meant by saying that a thing will not really live unless it first dies.  It is simply no good trying to keep any thrill:  that is the very worst thing you can do.  Let the thrill go –let it die away- go on through that period of death into the quieter interest and happiness that follow- and you will find you are living in a world of new thrills all the time.”

No, You’re the Waldorf Salad

I keep hearing married people talking about their spouse as their best friend.  “Happy Birthday to my husband, my soul mate, my best friend.”  Trent and I have been discussing this lately, because are we best friends?  It kind of makes us laugh, because we’re pretty sure we’re not.  We love each other and enjoy each other’s company enough that out of everyone in the entire world we decided to stick together for the rest of our lives, but best friends?  I’m not sure that we’ve ever actually been friends.  We met, went on a date, started dating, never broke up, got married.  I don’t think being best friends is a requirement of marriage, and if it is, it’s a modern one.  The words “best friend” was not part of our vows.  

Because Trent is neither a woman nor a gay man, I don’t really see how he could be my best friend.  Because I consider brisket to be brisket, regardless of whether it comes from a smoker in the hill country or pre-cooked from HEB with a free case of Dr. B, I’m pretty positive Trent doesn’t consider me his best friend.  My richer/poorer/sickness/health/good times/bad husband, as everyone knows, loves barbecue.  And because we’re married and enjoy spending time together, and also because I don’t really want to be excommunicated from the state of Texas, I will occasionally eat barbecue with him. 

The best recent news for Trent is that the best barbecue place in Houston and one of the top restaurants in the area is located in our very own suburb.  Because eight months after opening the weekend lines are still really long, he actually took the day off from work to eat there.  Rush was in school, so missed out on the dining experience, but his absence gave Trent the excuse to order an unholy amount of meat in order to “have enough” to bring some home for Rush.

It was good…it was barbecue…want to talk about musical theater?

Mimbulus Mimbletonia in the House

Our cats, Jetty and Panther, are both shelter cats from the SPCA and Humane Society respectively.  The cat status of our household was unsustainable, because if you are at all receptive to cats, they find you.   Cats appear on your back porch or wander into your driveway.  They’re born between the variegated ginger and the fence in the backyard.  They get rescued from busy streets on rainy days.  Aaaannnd they get rescued from the wheel well of a random car on a Tuesday night. 

Trent found him and brought him home, and once a cat is in your house, he’s staying.  Welcome Professor Longbottom, the newest addition to the gang.

Professor Longbottom basically spends his days sleeping/hiding under a bed.  He occasionally walks out to explore and check out the family, then someone either screams in excitement because he’s out or screams because they didn’t notice him and they were going to scream anyway.  His next move is to run back under the bed- Oh hell no, I did not leave the parking lot of the natatorium for this!

And actually, it’s quiet now, so maybe I should find him…

Paint It Black

I’ve wanted to make a black cat stuffed animal for a long time, but never really got around to it.  There’s a pattern on The Purl Bee right next to the hat pattern I used for Holly’s Halloween costume, but when I made it, it just didn’t end up black.

It’s going to be a Christmas present for Holly, so, you know, keep it a secret.

Permanent Sticking Charm

At the end of the summer, we met up with my dearest, darling BFF Kate and her family in Galveston.  We popped into a nautical antique shop on the Strand and each found a flag with our –last name initial?  Is there a better way to describe that?  We got a W; they got an R.

Trent has been working on the frame and hung it on the wall this afternoon. Trent and I have, to put it mildly, different risk tolerances, so the fact that Trent was sweating about being on a ladder on the stairs is notable.  While I was “holding the ladder” for the final step of hanging the flag, Trent had a Shackleton moment where I could tell it was too heavy to be lifting above his head on a ladder, but there was really no other option but to get it onto the French cleat.  It was a success and now it will be hanging there forever. 

A Girl in the World

Holly, who is generally happy and content, played in the cozy coupe for the first time recently.

She loved it until it was time to get out and give Tate a turn. 

I could practically hear No Doubt providing a soundtrack to her outrage.

She’ll keep up with her brothers, for sure.

How It All Went Down

Sometimes behind a finished project-

there’s this-

Trent found me sitting in a pile of pieced together shapes, trying to arrange them into a square or rectangular shape and we had this conversation:

T- Why can’t you just cut out squares and sew them together?
K- Because I’m the only person in the world who can make this quilt!  I can take these fabric scraps and turn them into something and if I make it up, it’s something only I can do!  God made me and I’m the only one who can make this quilt!

As it turned out, no one could make that quilt.  It was a disaster and all the pieces will end up back in scrap bags.  But oddly enough, the hours –hours- spent piecing and cutting and ironing were not wasted.  If that’s what it took to wind down some nights, great.  There are worse ways to wind down. 

So I started over and cut out squares.  And miraculously, they ended up fitting into a pattern of sorts. 

It’s a baby quilt for a baby due in November.  Every bit of it was made from scraps, including the batting which was left over from a previous quilt.  As my pregnant friend is also interested in discussing the Zero Waste Home every time we’re together, I hope she digs it.