Health Care Debate: The Necklace Edition

This is the first and least relevant of my questions about the health-care bill that passed the House this weekend ...

Why was Nancy Pelosi wearing a lariat of Twizzlers?

Was it her emergency snack for the all-night session?
Photo by Yuri Gripas/ Reuters

After the Flea Market: Me and Mini Me

I made a whopping $8 for my $84 investment at the flea market. (Not counting the $100 to get the sewing machine repaired mid-project, since that would have happened sooner or later anyway...) But it was a good time anyway.

The best part: Finally meeting the guy I keep hearing looks just like DuckyBoy. I think they're adorable. (DB didn't see any resemblance.) You be the judge:

Haiku (Late) Friday!

Omigosh, I completely forgot it's Friday until @rmitty FF'd me on Twitter... I read her tweet and went, uh, Friday, isn't there something I do on Fridays?? ... Yikes!

I haven't even posted since last week. Ironically, what I've been doing is helping other people create websites and, yes, blogs! There's God showing that divine sense of humor!

And then there was Halloween to recover from. It was loads of fun. We went with some friends to Metropolitan Ave, DB had a blast dancing at one stop and shoved his way to the front of the candy line with the rest of 'em. My favorite part of trick-or-treating was that DB kept holding up his candy-holding pumpkin and making it say, "I'm not full enough! Is that the best you can do?"

My favorite part of the whole day was spending the rest of the evening at our friends' house and getting to play Wii tennis and bowling and letting the kids play. That, and NOT dressing up. It was nice weather so I just wore my Old Navy Halloween shirt and orange jack o' lantern hat and was happy about it. For once I didn't need to dress up to have a good time.

Plus my feet hurt so much Friday night that there was no way I could be Laura Ingalls a 2nd day in a row!

On Sunday we let DB eat as much Halloween candy as he wanted -- my friend was pretty shocked, 'cause she has A Plan for doling it out to her kids and then tossing it. Yep, as long as he ate healthy-ish food periodically throughout the day, he could pretty much go to town. I liked that he kept asking me if it was OK to have more, though.

Hey, Jan, how about a haiku? Well, let's get one going:

Sewing like crazy
to make a craft sale deadline ...
we'll know tomorrow

if I make money
with my holiday/fall wreaths
and some outgrown clothes...

DB's school is hosting a craft/flea market as a fundraiser, the idea being that the school sells you a table and then you can sell whatever you want. So I bought one to support the school and got the bright idea to make these fabric wreaths my MIL makes for her church fair every eyar.

I actually was hoping she'd have some leftovers lying around, but when I asked he she was like, "Here's the pattern!" which actually is really cool, except she didn't warn me that the first 5 of these buggers you make are the Hardest.Ever!! I have made every mistake possible when only doing straight-line sewing.

And my sewing machine broke.

And DB broke one of the styrofoam wreaths as we were walking out of the store with it. Niiice.

More cosmic sense of humor! I figure, for next year I'll be all warmed up. Meanwhile I have 4 to sell tomorrow plus some of DB's outgrown winter coats and assorted clothes.

I had big plans to make some cool holiday handbags too, but it's just a pain to even find the right stores that carry the right fabrics near me. So, next time. I'm proud that I've completed all the ones I could. It's a lot for me right now to follow through on something like this.

But meanwhile, I apologize for not getting this posted earlier!

Would you like to haiku today? To participate in Haiku Friday, just follow these steps:

1. Write your own haiku on your blog. You can do one or many, all following a theme or just random. It or they can be part or all of your post, but your post must include a haiku. What's a haiku, you ask? Hint: 5-7-5. More info: Click here. Or here.

2. Sign the Mister Linky below with your name and the link to your haiku post (the specific post URL, not your main blog URL). DON'T sign unless you have a haiku this week. If you need help with this, please let me know.

3. Please leave a comment after linking, thanks! (Eventually the Mr Linky links go away, I think, so they only way we'll find you in the future is via your comment.)

4. Pick up a Haiku Friday button to display on the post or in your sidebar by clicking the button at the top of this post.

REMEMBER: Do not post your link unless you have a haiku this week! Even though I have barely kept with the tradition of Haiku FRIDAY, I do promise to carry on the tradition of deleting any links without haiku...

Have a great weekend!

Haiku Friday: Boo!

Ms Frizzle will take
this year off from Halloween;
it's a new girl's turn ...

She lived with her Pa
and Ma and fam'ly out West
back in the wild days ...

One bad thing about
Laura Ingalls Wilder is
her name's not a good haiku ...

that, and I had to
make husband color my hair
to get out the grays!

Happy Haiku Friday and Happy Halloween to all!


Would you like to haiku today? To participate in Haiku Friday, just follow these steps:

1. Write your own haiku on your blog. You can do one or many, all following a theme or just random. It or they can be part or all of your post, but your post must include a haiku. What's a haiku, you ask? Hint: 5-7-5. More info: Click here. Or here.

2. Sign the Mister Linky below with your name and the link to your haiku post (the specific post URL, not your main blog URL). DON'T sign unless you have a haiku this week. If you need help with this, please let me know.

3. Please leave a comment after linking, thanks! (Eventually the Mr Linky links go away, I think, so they only way we'll find you in the future is via your comment.)

4. Pick up a Haiku Friday button to display on the post or in your sidebar by clicking the button at the top of this post.

REMEMBER: Do not post your link unless you have a haiku this week! I will carry on the esteemed tradition of deleting any links without haiku!

My First Giveaway: 6 Tickets to Bronx Zoo!

I love Halloween, and I've always wanted to go to the Bronx Zoo's "Boo at the Zoo" event but we haven't made it yet.

This year, I've got tickets to give away, and I'm putting it on the calendar for us on Sunday--we may even take DB's friend who's coming for a playdate.

It sounds even more fun than what I thought I knew -- there's a hay ride, hay maze, batty theater, "Haunted Safari Adventure," magic, pumpkin carving demos, and of course crafts. Kids in wildlife costume get in free. DuckyBoy's Transformers outfit doesn't counts as wildlife (how about if he was a DinoBot, I wonder?), but I do know other kids whose interests run more to the animal kingdom. (Oh, and there's a photo contest for best wildlife costume that has a whole boatload of tickets as the prize.) The Aquarium has fun stuff for the weekend too.

Anyway, the giveaway! Courtesy of the Bronx Zoo, I have 6 tickets that can be split up any way we want. Two were for me and Db but since we've got a membership I'm adding them to the giveaway!

So we can do 3 and 3 or 4 and 2 all 6 together. (I already know somebody who'd love 3!)

Here's the catch, you've got to use them Saturday.

If you want an alternative to daytime trick-or-treating on Saturday, or something seasonal to do while you wait for an evening candy roundup, just leave a comment below and tell me what your kid(s) are going to be this year for Halloween, and how many tickets you'd like. Thursday night at 10 pm ET, I'll use a random-number generator to pick a winner, and then another if they're not all gone!

I've got the tickets at my place in Queens, and will make sure you get them by Saturday or Sunday.

Good luck and BOO!

Haiku Friday: Time Slips Away

Tink, I know you like
to do your 'ku quite early,
for 2 weeks I'm late!

Sorry about that!


Would you like to haiku today? To participate in Haiku Friday, just follow these steps:

1. Write your own haiku on your blog. You can do one or many, all following a theme or just random. It or they can be part or all of your post, but your post must include a haiku. What's a haiku, you ask? Hint: 5-7-5. More info: Click here. Or here.

2. Sign the Mister Linky below with your name and the link to your haiku post (the specific post URL, not your main blog URL). DON'T sign unless you have a haiku this week. If you need help with this, please let me know.

3. Please leave a comment after linking, thanks! (Eventually the Mr Linky links go away, I think, so they only way we'll find you in the future is via your comment.)

4. Pick up a Haiku Friday button to display on the post or in your sidebar by clicking the button at the top of this post.

REMEMBER: Do not post your link unless you have a haiku this week! I will carry on the esteemed tradition of deleting any links without haiku!

Haiku Friday: Better Late Than Never

Many wins this week
DB dealt with the downs, too ...
they were hard on me! :)

DuckyBoy did great this week! I made him wait to get a toy until he got 2 stickers at school -- they have a reward system where you get one warning, on the 2nd thing you lose your sticker for that half of the day, and the 3rd time they ahve to speak to you (same or different offense) you have to write a consequence report.

When you get 10 stickers you get a prize. And at Back-to-School night, I noticed DB had the fewest stickers by half, literally.

So this week when we found one of the Transfomers he wants, he's out of spending money so I bought it, then had the idea to make him earn it by having a 2-sticker day.

At first he thought that was impossible! But he has had them before, at least once or twice, so I assured him he could (plus I emailed his teachers a heads-up, not so they'd go easy on him but so they'd know).

The very next day, he almost did it -- but had different teachers (who also know him well but didn't know "the plan," but it's fine) in the afternoon and acted out a bit right at the end of the day ... and was devastated that he didn't win his toy!

Whined and pleaded the whole way home, and got angry, adn tried sugegsting all kinds of things he would do at home if he could earn it that way.

It was really hard, but held firm.

And the following day? He got it.

He also lost his beloved Sigg bottle last week and found it on his own this week -- under one of the big freezers in the cafeteria, he thought to look there. A nice win!

Would you like to haiku today? To participate in Haiku Friday, just follow these steps:

1. Write your own haiku on your blog. You can do one or many, all following a theme or just random. It or they can be part or all of your post, but your post must include a haiku. What's a haiku, you ask? Hint: 5-7-5. More info: Click here. Or here.

2. Sign the Mister Linky below with your name and the link to your haiku post (the specific post URL, not your main blog URL). DON'T sign unless you have a haiku this week. If you need help with this, please let me know.

3. Please leave a comment after linking, thanks! (Eventually the Mr Linky links go away, I think, so they only way we'll find you in the future is via your comment.)

4. Pick up a Haiku Friday button to display on the post or in your sidebar by clicking the button at the top of this post.

REMEMBER: Do not post your link unless you have a haiku this week! I will carry on the esteemed tradition of deleting any links without haiku!