Another year down

Yesterday was our anniversary. Neither of our children remembered. Oh well--it really isn't a big deal, but I never forgot my parents', so it irks me just a bit that Dej forgot. We dropped Luciana & Hunter off at my parents', so we could go see "Taking Woodstock." I thought it was very good and enjoyed it. M wasn't thrilled with it. There were lots of naked breasts in the movie, which usually makes a movie good for him. Apparently the fact that there were also naked men (full frontal) cancels out the joy of the breasts, so it was a wash for him. One of these days I will figure out all of his strange man rules. I'm so very jealous of those who actually got to experience Woodstock. I was inspired by the movie. I may have missed Woodstock, but I can still find an opportunity to mud slide naked. Good god, that looked fun!

L & H were having a sleepover again last night, so we came straight back to pick the kids up from the parents and had a quiet, boring evening at home with the wild children.

L and I started making a pencil roll for all of her art supplies. She will be working with various types of drawing media, lots of different pencils, different types of charcoal, and ink. We finished it up this afternoon. Both kids spent some time working with the sewing machine, trying to get the hang of sewing a straight line. The pencil roll turned out okay. It's not perfect, which irritates me, but she's very happy with it, and it holds her drawing supplies nicely. L is a kamikaze sewer. She struggled with all the straight line sewing, because she refused to go slowly. She has one sewing speed--slam the pedal down all the way and go as fast as possible (like I drive, I guess). Every time I would tell her to ease the pedal down and go slowly so she could control the fabric and keep the line straight. Every time she floored it and ended up with a crazy, curvy line that had to be ripped out. We finally got it done, though.

I don't know what I was thinking when I bought 2 yards of (vegan) felt for this project. 1 yard would have been more than enough, and now I have tons of brown felt left. Hallie claimed the leftover felt as her very own. I was going to lay it out flat and photograph the completed pencil roll on it, but Hallie looked so snuggly and happy in there, I just worked around her. She and Lila have since been burrowing under the felt and pouncing each other and the other cats. At least the extra felt won't go to waste--it's a very cheap cat toy.

She couldn't quite wait to start working with her pens and india ink, so she busted them out tonight. She's never worked with it before, and I was busy trying to clean up the disaster area we created with our sewing project, so she saw her opportunity. Why wait several weeks until she actually learns how to use them, when she can use a bottle of expensive permanent ink with a complicated pen right this very minute! She had a pressing art project that absolutely required the use of those items immediately! Then she got the acrylic paint out. Once she got everything cleaned up, she brought in the creation that would not wait. I'm pleasantly surprised by the lack of permanent damage to the room.

We had a Petland protest today, and it felt totally like fall out there. Lots of honks and good responses, as usual. Chloe came out and joined us, and since there were no other dogs there today, she didn't feel the need to shout for attention. She was a pretty good girl, but her uncanny knack for tying people up with her leash and tripping them is a little challenging.