The Ruff Ruffman Party

I'm of the mind that children should be allowed to do crazy things with their parents while they're young, in the hopes for mellow teenagers not addicted to Wii. Wish me luck. With that goal in mind, we really enjoy birthday parties at our house. This year my daughter got to have her first one and since she wanted Rapunzel, Paul and I spent over an hour weaving a 12 foot yellow yarn braid. At one point it was so frustrating he tried flipping them across each other like the little girls in the movie. Note: did not work at home. We hung the braid from our treehouse and the darling guests got to take turns telling Rapunzel to let her hair down, and then we attached candy to be hauled up. Good time was had by all.

Fast forward two years to my son's birthday last weekend. He's a smart kid. He figured out if you invite the entire neighborhood, girls and boys, you get more gifts. I figured it was ok because in a few years we'll be at the two-friends-at-Boondocks stage and then teenage years, and I can't think about it or else I won't get to sleep tonight.

He has a really terrific, and did I say LARGE, group of kids his age here. And having them over is fun and exciting and in this case, explosive. PBS' Fetch! With Ruff Ruffman is his favorite show, and he wanted a Ruff science birthday. So we spent an hour and a half trying to get Ruff to realize his lifelong dream of flying without an airplane. We fizzled liquids in cups with baking soda, alka seltzer, and coke and mentos. Then we tried launching Ruff into the air taped to peanuts. (I chose peanuts because the Jays love them and I don't have to clean them up.) Great ideas from Ruff's website at PBSkids.org. Finally, we all decorated our own rockets with really cool duck tape and launched them over the tree tops with a borrowed pvc and bike pump launcher from the Scout trailer. I think the kids just barely outscreamed Paul each time one was launched.

I have to say, it was tons of fun. Everyone brought the nicest gifts and we're so grateful to live in this place where everyone is welcome and everyone likes to have fun. And fortunately, I'm good for another two years.

BBC and me!

I've gone over to the dark side, and by dark side I mean that island we fought to be independent from. That's right, I'm a BBC junkie. In my defense I think that doesn't mean what it used to. Don't get me wrong, there are still plenty of US shows I do like (Blue Bloods and CSI top the list). However, I am finding myself getting sucked into more and more BBC programming. It probably began with Planet Earth, which led to History of Art and that one about England by century (which wasn't as boring as it sounds). But then the tv shows (don't worry, I'm not calling it a "telly" yet) pulled me in. Here is a list of the best BBC shows I would highly recommend, in no order whatsoever. After all, I am an American. Netflix even has some of them on instant play.

1. Lark Rise to Candleford
2. Foyle's War
3. Downton Abbey
4. Monarch of the Glen
5. Inspector Lewis
6. Sherlock
7. The Last Enemy

Love, Stargirl

I wish I had been brave enough to rename myself in high school. I don't know what it would have been, but I admire Stargirl for doing it.

I finished Love, Stargirl, by Jerry Spinelli yesterday. I have to say, I liked it better than the first one. It read like a really fun movie. Her family has moved to Pennsylvania and a new life ensues. Spinelli developed new characters deeper than the first book, and they were more interesting to me. Stargirl had grown a bit from her experience in Arizona at public school. And there was more about her parents, but just enough to make me want to read a book from their point of view. Maybe Raising Stargirl, or Stargirl's Net. 

Coming from someone who is not generally observant, I love how observant Stargirl is of her surroundings. How brave she is in helping others and showing compassion. Just last night my neighbor's, a young single mother, father fell from her roof (he's ok now) and the paramedics and fire came. All of us stood in front of the house wondering what was going on in the backyard, hoping it wasn't her young son who had been hurt, and daring each other to invade her privacy and go check it out. I took a deep breath, thought of Stargirl, and marched into the backyard. My neighbor was glad I was there, she needed someone to hold her up. And now we're closer. Thanks, Stargirl.

Random Reflections in Progress

Hello friends! A quick update on our Modern Quilt Group at Broadbents. Our first meeting was last Saturday and it's not too late to join us. We had a great time and some new members even brought what they're doing to show us! I loved it. I think this will be a great group. If you'd like to see more about what we did, check out our blog and this earlier post I did.

One quilt I'm working on for this class is from Moda Bake Shop's Random Reflections quilt. I'm loving their blog because great quilters online are being enlisted to make wonderful tutorials for quilts of their own creation. There are several I love, this is just the start. This is a line of Japanese fabric called Coccinelle that I bought in Sisters, Oregon a few years back. It will have two more rows before I'm finished. At first it looked almost Reproduction Civil War-ish to me, but I've added some solids and pretended it's modern. I'm really liking the way it's turning out. It reminds me of a city skyscraper scene.

The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks

Tracey put me on to this amazing book and I'm so glad I read it. (Note: I do not enjoy every book I read, nor do I finish all of them. I used to force myself to, but not anymore. So I don't mention the ones I didn't care for, lest you think I'm not picky and will read anything and love everything.)

The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks, by Rebecca Skloot, is the true story of the black woman in the 50's who unknowingly "gave" some of her cancerous cervical cells to science, which became the famous HeLa cells, and changed the face of medicine. Her cells have been used in the polio vaccine, shot into space, blown up in nuclear bombs, led to IVF, and many, many other breakthroughs. But for many years, her family had no idea what was being done. And the world didn't know the story of HeLa, and Henrietta Lacks' life. Skloot has taken a decade to research and interview anyone and everyone involved, and has written a touching story of great importance. Her story covers four areas: what we know of Henrietta's life and death (a beautiful story in and of itself), her cells' contribution to science, her family's struggle with finding out decades later, and the author's own journey to gather all of this information. I think this is a very important book for anyone to read, especially women.

In the first half, when the author tells us about Henrietta's life of love and service, and her awful spiral into death by cancer in the early 50's, I found myself very attached and emotional. Cancer is a terrible thing. And since our own lives have been impacted by IVF lately, I am so grateful for the work done by science and these cells to help us all.

Song of the Sparrow

Ever since Anne of Green Gables, I have loved The Lady of Shalott. I guess there was some drama Anne-style in me as well, because that scene was memorable for me. I remember when I was in England on a college trip and I saw John William Waterhouse's version in the Tate Gallery, I was captivated. So when I found out a young adult fiction writer had written a novel about the lady of Shalott before her famous boat ride, I jumped on it. Song of the Sparrow, by Lisa Ann Sandell, is a beautiful book written in prose. My eyes flew over her thoughtful lines and I really enjoyed reading this treasure. It's a book about struggle and family and friendship and new love. The kind of new love that was always there in front of you. This is one of my new favorite young adult fiction works and Sandell deserves all accolades coming her way.

The Greater Journey, by David McCullough

In this latest book by David McCullough, you can see how he must have been drawn to this topic by some of the research for his other books. This one reviews famous Americans who lived, studied, and passed through Paris during the 19th century. A well written book about one of my favorite cities, I learned so much about the history of a beautiful and complex city. I learned interesting stories about fellow countrymen I had only heard of vaguely, and some I had not heard about at all, pity me. Where was my education? Sometimes I wonder if I slept through all of the important parts. In true McCullough style, the book is very readable, knowledgeable, and even inspiring. I highly recommend it. Chalk full of American heroes that we could use today!

Lego meets Quilting

I'm not sure who put this pic on the web, but I'd love to credit the mom behind the brilliance!

Jeans Quilts

My mother's bucket list included one jeans quilt for each of her children. There are four of us. After we got done doing all four last week during a visit to Portland, I told her I'm glad she didn't have five children. She had saved 3-4 totes full of jeans from the 60's through the 90's. I have to say the older ones were cooler. Gap jeans from my era . . . super boring. Not even creative stitching colors. We ended up tying all of them, both because I wanted my children to have the experience of crawling under the quilt and helping, and because I was worried about how my long arm would take the thickness.

Three of the four designs were completely my mother, I just did what she wanted. It was fun to quilt with her, I don't think I've ever done that. She was a very good seamstress in her earlier days, my sisters even claim to have had to wear homemade undies.

Stargirl, by Jerry Spinelli

I've recently reread Stargirl, by Jerry Spinelli. What a treat. This YA novel is about a high school in Arizona that is too much the same, everywhere. Enter Stargirl, the homeschool girl who has just come up for air. She plays the ukelele, she shows up at strangers' funerals, she hauls a tablecloth and fresh flowers to decorate her desk in each class. She's different. And sweet. And innocent. The story is told from a young boy's perspective, which I loved, who has a crush on Stargirl. What's a high school to do with someone who doesn't fit in?

It takes me back to my own high school days. I grew up in Portland, the land where people who don't fit in move to. There was a group for everyone, and even the loners felt like a group. I look back on the experience and cringe. I've learned so much since then. I hope they all have, too.

My favorite part in Stargirl is when she takes Leo, the narrator, to her home. In her room she has a small wagon on a shelf with ten rocks in and around it. She explains that when she feels sad, she takes a rock out. When she's happy, she puts one in. At that point, it was an eight-rock life. I love this idea. It reminds me of the Caribbean worry dolls. You put your worries on a little piece of paper in this little pouch that also contained little voodoo looking dolls, and they would worry for you, so you didn't have to.