Christmas Napkins are Here!

The first batch of Christmas napkins is here! They use a full 2 yards of fabric, so I know you'll love the size and feel of these cuties. They open up and are reversible. Retro looking. There will be more to come, including the pattern.

Leftovers, Ready for the Taking!

Hey, if you've got a picture ready for your Christmas card this year, but you can't quite find the right "unique" template, I've got a deal for you.

This is the card I made last year. I always end up writing my kids' names and ages on the card since we send it to both friends and clients (who may not actually know their names). Anyhow, I decided to just type their info next to each person and then I could be completely lazy at card stuffing time. Voila! This is what I came up with.

Here's the deal...if you'd like to use this card, leave a comment and I'll pick someone to create this card for. The winner can email me a photo, tell me the info for the kids (and anyone in the photo), I'll create it and send a PDF file back to their email. After that, it just takes a quick stop at Kinkos or another local copy shop and a very unique Christmas card is complete! This method only ended up costing me 40 cents per card! Obviously I had to buy envelopes, but the cost still came out SO much cheaper than by the online card printing prices.

So leave a comment if you're interested. I'll pick a winner on Friday, October 30. Make sure your comment has a link to your email or blog so that I can contact you. Spread the word!

Woulda Coulda Shoulda

Went to see The Informant tonight. If I woulda known it would be so lame, I coulda stayed home and finished my book, which I actually enjoy. Shoulda watched a rerun of GLEE.
Darn.

Rambling Thoughts on 9/11

Vacuuming the stairs today...I was thinking about 9/11. Here on the west coast, we don't always feel the reality of what might be going on in the rest of the country. Like the economy. If I didn't watch the news or read about the crazed down slide, I'd have thought it was all fake. But then a year later or so, we got evidence of a crummy economy as well. So now that our part of the country sucks, I think (hope) that Wall Street is perking up a bit back east. No? Cross fingers.

So on the morning of 9/11, all I knew for real was that my family couldn't get on a plane to Hawaii. That made us crazy. And the next day? Still no flight out. Watching the whole ordeal on TV still didn't seem to make it real. Yes, I understood it was awful, terrible, etc....I'm just saying that had I had my tv turned off that week (and computer and not read the paper), I would never have known what was happening.

I had a dream later that week that I hadn't had since I was a little girl. One where I was walking around my small town and then all of a sudden there were army tanks and army guys - from some "bad" country, taking us over and picking us up and taking us away. So weird.

I guess in elementary school we had only read about things like the holocaust and how people had to leave their homes unexpectedly and forcibly, leaving all their beloved personal items behind. That's perhaps the extent of our experience and knowledge of anything difficult as kids. Lucky us.

Which leads me to...a few years ago when I was teaching 5th grade, we were doing a project on immigration. You can read about it all you want, but until you experience it, you just don't really get what it means to be forced out of the only home you've ever known and get the heck out of town. We had many immigrants come in to talk to the students, but one in particular hit a nerve with us all. He described his parents waking his brothers and him up in the middle of the night. His father had practiced swimming (among crocodiles!) across the Mekong River to Thailand in order to escape the leaders in his town who were about to force him to "do bad things." Finally, he came back to put his family on a raft and swim them across to Thailand (for his second time) to safety. THEN, they got on boats headed toward the U.S. for a new life. I guess it all sounded hard and perhaps scary, but when he mentioned to the group of 60 5th graders that they had to EAT EACH OTHER on the boat ride over, they all started truly imagining the struggles he went through to get here.

WHY would they eat each other? Wasn't there enough food? The students had many questions about this. He very respectfully answered that when someone got very sick and it was obvious that he would not survive the trip, he "of course" offered his body up to be eaten in order to save the others. Yes, while they were still alive. My students were in awe. Shock and awe.

And then we did this. That night, the kids were instructed to open an envelope at home at 7:30 that night. The envelope contained a letter which described something like, "your family needs to leave your home tonight and you may not ever return again. You are allowed to take ONE small bag or suitcase with you. You have 30 minutes to gather your things. Bring this bag with you to school to show what you would include." And yes, they understood it was an assignment, not for real.

The next day...it was a pretty intense day. Kids were super quiet and clung to their bags. There were many surprises. For one, about two thirds of the kids packed Bibles. Being that we were in a public school, we never really talked about religion and so I was just surprised a bit by how many felt it important to bring their Bible. The other surprise, most of the bags were NOT fully packed. I think only two kids brought a hand held battery type of game because the others had thought about the lack of battery life. They didn't pack many toys, if any. Most everyone's bags included the same basic needs: a spare warm outfit, a Bible or book, a baggie of pencils and paper, a family picture, and a stuffed animal of some sort. For some, a small bag of food. And that's it. Each student had to stand and talk about why they chose what they chose to bring. And can you guess what happened next?

They cried. And cried. And cried some more. It was a bawl fest. Boys, girls, everyone. And then lots of hugging. It was amazing.

I guess that it goes to show that you can't really read about adverse times for other people. You can't even understand it when you watch it on TV. But when you get a taste of it, even on a small scale, for real...well, it can be powerful. And hopefully meaningful.

So on the anniversary of 9/11, let us all appreciate the freedom we have and that we are not being shooed out of our homes, headed for unknown territory.

Christmas Already?

Well, obviously people are already on the ball when it comes to making Christmas items. I've received MANY emails about the pattern for these super cute Christmas tree napkins. They're reversible, and unbelievably easy to make. You can make 6 napkins from 2 coordinating yards of fabric. Also, with simple cutting and fun machine stitching, you can knock a set of these out in less than an hour.

I DID make a PDF pattern for these which I posted briefly last year. Just so you know, I'm going out of town for a couple of weeks starting tomorrow and when I come back, I'll post links for how you can get the pattern and get started sewing. They make a great hostess gift, so I plan on making several sets as well. Big thanks to my mom for figuring out how to make these in the first place.

Aloha!

Who's Your Audience?

Once during a teacher/principal conference, my principal took a sip of his coffee and plopped his mug down in front of me. It said, "I'm Smarter Than You." And it was true. He was wicked smaht. We chatted for a bit and he had mentioned that he was writing a book (he really wasn't that bragadocious, I'm summarizing here), and I stupidly blurted out, "Uh, well, actually I'M writing a book too right now." I then explained how it was about a collection of quilts that my mom and I had made and there were pictures and maybe some directions. His only question? "Who's the audience?"

That's when it hit me. The audience was only me. Basically I was writing a scrapbook, not a story to be made into a book. Oh. Umm. There's a difference?

So now there's a blog world out there. And I'm a member. But who's my audience? Hard to say. I started out with a nod to the crafty world by posting photos of finished crafts or contests I've entered. I even got a shout out from a super big sewing blog who liked a tutorial I made. That was a bit of fun. And then...I took a break from crafting and figured I had nothing to blog about because people who came to read my blog would be people who enjoyed crafting. What would they think when I started writing about my ideas for middle grade books for boys? I think they'd think about not coming back.

Well, you'll notice on my profile that I say I do a lot of things. I mother. I wife. I cook. I clean. I write, blah blah blah. Really, it just looks like a lot. There are many days when I just sit around ignoring my motherly duties while I read Nathan Bransford's blog! But it's hitting me...I'm all over the place. So who's MY audience? I guess I'm hoping it's someone who dabbles in many things as well. Someone who has a crafty side, an introspective side, a non-house cleaning side, a side that loves Project Runway...you get the picture. I'm hoping that if you stumble upon this blog to read a post that follows some sort of theme, you'll understand if it takes me awhile to get back to that particular theme. My mind is not focused enough.

Perhaps that means I'm really only writing for myself again. I guess my audience is me. If your mind is also all over the place, please sign up to follow me. Then you can be part of my audience as well.

What Kind of Blog Commenter are YOU?

One of my absolute favorite daily blogs to follow is by a literary agent named Nathan Bransford. I had no clue who the guy was when I stumbled upon his blog, but it didn't take long to figure out that I couldn't get enough of it. He writes it to supply information to writers about how to query agents, submit manuscripts, and other writerly stuff. He has tons of good info. Go. And don't forget to read the archives! The best part, he's also a great writer, so it's all enjoyable.

ANYHOW...he had a contest on his blog to become a "guest blogger." Follow? He's going on vacation next week and he is letting regular folk fill in his daily blog while he's gone. I sat down and cranked out an entry about a writer's audience, and was not impressed with myself, so I didn't enter it. But later that night, I tried again and came up with this. Not great, but hey, I got something in. Here's my (non winning) entry:

"What Kind of Blog Commenter are You?"

So you're addicted to your Google reader and you're following a good dozen KEY blogs each day. AND you're leaving comments. What kind of commenter are you?

SUPPORTIVE: you generally leave happy, quick comments which say something like, "What a neat idea!" or "Way to go! I totally agree!" You actually mean these things and look for nothing in return.

INTERACTOR/REPEAT OFFENDER: You like to use the comment section to interact with other commenters. "Kathy, you can find that book you mentioned at ..." You are often known to check the comment boards more often than the actual blog itself. You leave multiple comments per blog entry. You sometimes get on other commenters' nerves by showing up too much, but you are fairly certain your comments are needed here, even if they're off topic.

SNARKY: AKA Snarkapotomus. You like to read comments and then let everyone know that you are laughing at the dumb ones, by leaving a snarky response: "Um, since you obviously can't spell, I'll assume you're under 10 and I'll keep this comment rated G." Also, you like to include slightly naughty words to let others know that you are definitely NOT the perky supportive commenter. Words like, "Biatch!" "SNORT!" and "Fo Shiz" are heavily used by you. You don't really even believe your comments, you just want to rattle the boards a bit.

CLUELESS: You are the one who quickly glances over each post without really reading deeply. Your comments often ask for clarity about an issue that is already in print. Other commenters correct you. Supportive ones redirect you gently. Snarkapotomus puts you in your place.

SUCK UP: You think that by leaving uber supportive comments, that the blogger might actually offer some sort of service to you. You write things like, "This is the greatest blog contest ever! Only a super human agent would offer this." And then you actually check your email waiting for a personal response from the blogger, asking you to be their best friend or sign a contract or win the giveaway, etc.

ANONYMOUS: You are afraid that others will find out where you live if you leave a disagreeable comment, so you opt to leave your name out of it. OR...you have a blog which is for one facet of your life, but you read guilty pleasure blogs and you don't want people to know how you spend your time that should be used for your crappy data entry job. Something like that.

MULTI USER: You've got all sorts of linkless names that you use. If you like your comment, you use the happy name. If you think your comment might be controversial, you opt for less cute and happy names like "Muriel" or "Frederick," hoping that nobody else will have that name and be wrongfully hated by other commenters.

THINKER: You read the blog entry seriously and come back to it several times before you leave a deep, reflective comment. You include links for further research or comparable blogs for more insight.

*COMIC RELIEF (not included in original entry, but two minutes later I thought of it): You try to make a joke or a play on words from the blog entry whenever you can. Comments usually end in exclamation points or with a happy face. Deep down you're trying to let the blogger know that you two would be compatible as friends if the blogger ever sought you out for a coffee date.

I suppose these are all acceptable in the world of blogging. Personally, I like to be a combo of supportive, thinker, and snark. I DO think I add to the blog with my comments at times. If anything, I want to let the blogger know that I like their blog enough to comment and that I hope they write something again soon.

What kind of blog commenter are you? What am I missing? Please leave me a comment!