One potato, two potato

After I mentioned that I've been using my potato print leaf stamps a lot and should make more, I decided to do some for the September mega kit at NDISB, which has a fall/harvest theme. So I've been carving potatoes and making a mess. Kate was very interested but I was mean and wouldn't let her help. I'll have to make up something that she can play with with. Maybe out on the porch, with one of my old T-shirts on. That would work.

I really like the way this one turned out. It has a neat washy look to it. I'm making it a free sample--click the picture to get the png. (Do a "save as" to download it.)



The mega kit will be up at NDISB around the middle of September (free with purchase--there'll be a code in the newsletter). The stamps will also be available separately later.

Only three potatoes were harmed in the making of this project, but I went through an unreasonable amount of paper.

(Update:  Since NDISB has closed, these stamps are available here.)  

Aunt Betsey (the Amazing Cricket-Woman!)

We took Betsey to the airport this morning to go back to Ohio. She was here for just over two weeks. We had a good visit, went to some fun places, and ate. A lot. We pretty much covered all our restaurants--we did I Love Bento (nominally Japanese, though we mostly go there for the Korean side dishes), the Indian lunch buffet, Vietnamese, Mexican, and we went down to Lakewood for Korean food twice. We ate well. Ahhhh. (And Kate had all the rice she wanted, in several different varieties. Good thing she likes rice.)

Betsey's talents are many and varied. Among them is the uncanny ability to whistle like a cricket. I got her to do it for me this morning while we were getting ready to go--click here to listen. Years ago, when the family was congregated at BYU for somebody's graduation, I remember being at Betsey's apartment when a couple of her friends stopped by. I asked them if they had ever heard Betsey's cricket impression. Betsey was willing to demonstrate but had a little trouble because she was feeling self-conscious and she can't do it when she's laughing. So I said, "Okay, nobody look at Betsey!" Everyone averted their eyes, and moments later we heard the chirp chirp... chirp chirp... One of the guys said, "Wow, how'd you do that?" and Betsey grinned and said, "I rubbed my legs together."

I'm not sure if Kate had any idea who Betsey was or why she was in our house, but I think she enjoyed having her around. One day they were looking at Kate's little counting book, which has eight beetles on one page, and Betsey was telling her what kind of beetles they were. Then when Doug came up she said, "Show Daddy what you learned! Where's the scarab? Where's the weevil? Where's the buprestid?" She's full of interesting information about animals, especially insects.

This cute little dress is one that Betsey wore when she was little. It's getting too small for Kate, so I sent it back with her, but I wanted to get some pictures of them together first. (The Newfoundland flag has nothing to do with anything--Kate just wanted to play with it.)



Thanks for coming to stay with us, Betsey! We had a fun time!

Rain Dance

We had a brief rain shower on Saturday. We were out painting letters on the porch when it started. Kate decided to go experience the rain. She doesn't like swimming pools, doesn't like getting in sprinklers or being splashed, but rain apparently is okay. I put the long lens on my camera so I could take pictures while staying dry on the porch. Doug got out my umbrella (my special lucky Korean umbrella), and she thought that was pretty good too. In fact, after she came in, we had a hard time convincing her to give the umbrella up.

I'm going to start designing a coffee-table-type book of pictures, so I thought I'd work on photo processing and book layouts at the same time.

Lace-Up Ribbon

I made this laced ribbon template a few months ago for a mega kit, and just released it separately.

(Update: Since NDISB has closed, this template is now available here.)

I hadn't actually made a layout with it yet because I was trying to think of just the right pictures to use. I don't know if these are "just right," but I'm pleased with the way it turned out. Tucking things behind the ribbon takes a bit of tweaking, but it looks very cool.



(Full credits here.) I've been getting a lot of use out of those potato-print leaf stamps. I should make some more.

"Look! Ants!"

There's a Family Circus cartoon in which the family is visiting some famous attraction (like Disneyland, or it may have been the Grand Canyon), and the kids are all crouched down looking at the ground. The caption says, "Look, ants!" It's become kind of a family catch phrase. Doug and I end up saying it to each other a lot.

I was just looking through some photos from the past few months and came across this one, and wanted to share it. That's our Kate, and she is, in fact, looking at ants.

Not a post about Batman

There was an episode of the animated Batman series in which Batman was being held in a matrix-like dream state, and figured it out when he tried to read a newspaper and discovered that he couldn't. The reasoning is that dreaming is a right-brain activity and reading is left-brain. Or something like that. I didn't actually see the episode but my brother told me about it. We discussed the idea at some length, both being readers and vivid dreamers. It seems like there's a lot of right-brain involved in reading, too, if you create the images in your head as you read. I do read in my dreams sometimes, but I've noticed times when I try to really pay attention to the words and they start shifting around and don't make sense. The other night I had a dream where I was not just reading but typing. Googling, actually. Apparently I was looking up Oklahoma! lyrics for some reason, because the phrase I was googling was "With isenglass curtains you can roll right down, in case there's a change in the weather." But then the words started shifting around before I could hit return to find out if I spelled "isenglass" correctly. (Looking now, it seems I didn't.)

This topic was the subject of this thread on the Straight Dope forums, where people reported various experiences with reading in dreams. (The thread is pretty funny, but gets a language warning.) Makes me wonder if professional calligraphers dream about doing precise, correctly-spelled calligraphy.

*****

Mimi (in the comments on this post) asked me five questions for another blog meme, so here they are:

1) Are the rest of your siblings also named after family members?

I'll have to check with my mom, actually. I think most of them were. Barb is the only girl in the family with a middle name--Nell--which I know is a family name. I think Betsey was named for the biblical Elizabeth.

2) What novel do you find yourself rereading often, and why?

I've been on a prolonged Vorkosigan kick (Lois McMaster Bujold's series), some of which I've read 4-5 times. She's definitely got a way with words, but it's really all about the characters. She does the "flawed hero" thing so well. There's also a YA novel called Lifter, by Crawford Kilian, about a guy who figures out how to fly, that I read every couple of years or so. The ending is a bit of a let-down but it's just a good fun read. I love the "voice" it's written in.

3) Do you hope to take Kate to Korea at some point?

I would love to take Kate to Korea! Koreans love kids. I think it would be a great way to connect with people. When Doug and I were there we did often get complete strangers approaching us (I told Doug it was all his years of working as a reference librarian--he has an invisible sign over his head that says "Ask me anything!") but I imagine it would happen even more if we had our cute little girl with us. It would be a hoot to kick back with the Korean moms and watch the kids play.

And, my two stocks -

4) Who is your favorite Beatle, and why?

My initial reaction was "Uh... whichever one's not dead." I can honestly say that I don't have a favorite Beatle.

5) What is your favorite song by an artist/band you usually dislike?

I've been mulling this over and I can't think of anything. There are songs that I like where I don't know any other songs by that artist, and there are artists I know who sings songs I like and songs I don't like, but I can't think of anybody who sings just one song that I like.

And, a bonus 6th question - did you go see Great Big Sea at the Zoo recently? I thought of you every time I heard the advert.

We didn't! We thought about it. We did go see them in Seattle about a year and a half ago. That was fun. Very loud, but fun.

*****

I finally finished up everything for the "Hey Nonny Nonny" kit--I got to do all the packing up and the previews, too, which was a ton of work. Glad that's done. Whew! My sister Betsey is here now, visiting for two weeks. We went to the zoo yesterday and then went to I Love Bento for dinner. We love I Love Bento.

"I need more letters!"

Since I posted less than two months ago about Kate recognizing a few letters, she has learned the entire alphabet and the sounds that the letters make. She just loves letters. One of her favorite things to do is go out and paint letters on the porch (with water). I make the letters and then she comes along behind me and traces over them--or sometimes she traces the lines pretty well, and sometimes she kind of colors them in--and when she gets to the end she says, "I need more letters! I love letters!" (Doug once, when asked for more letters, gave her a thorn and eth. I told him not to confuse her.)

We got this Leapfrog video out of the library, that has a little song (to the tune of "The Farmer in the Dell") that goes, "The A says aah, the A says aah, every letter makes a sound, the A says aah!" and goes through every letter of the alphabet. Sometimes we sing it together while we're painting. (Kate still has her pronunciation quirks, so some of the sounds don't come out quite right, but she knows what they are.) She can also identify the letters just fine in isolation, not just in order or with the song.

Kate has also figured out that letters make words, and she's started trying to figure out what the words say, which she does purely by guessing from the context. It's awfully cute. Like the time she was looking at the cover of The Land Before Time and read, "T-I-M-E. That spells dinosaurs!" Of course she's got a long way to go before she's actually reading, but she's very interested in letters and words and books, which we think is great fun.

Kate talks in her sleep sometimes. Often something like, "I want to hold it!" which she says a lot when she's awake. The other night I saw her smile to herself in her sleep and murmur, "W-X-Y-Z!" Maybe she was dreaming about painting letters on the porch.

The shadow knows

I've spent a good part of the day today making shadows. It ended up taking a bit longer than I was expecting, but it's amazing the difference a good shadow makes. Here's one of the pieces I've been working on, without the shadow:



And here it is with the shadow:



These are for the monthly collaborative mega kit at ndisb. I'm in charge this month. I wanted to call it "Stratford-Upon-Avon," but we ended up with kind of a broader scope so we have changed the name to "Hey Nonny Nonny." It's period, but vague. Says so much without actually meaning anything.

Edit: the ribbons are now available separately.

Eight Random Things

I've been busy--I was reading Harry Potter, and then working on various projects. I'm in charge of the mega kit at ndisb this month, and I'm also putting some stuff together for a charity kit for orphanages in China. Lots going on.

Since Eva said she wanted to tag me, I thought I'd do this "eight random things about me" meme.

1. I was named after my mother's mother's mother. Helena was the first of her two middle names. She was from Sweden. I don't have a middle name, myself, but have not often felt the lack.

2. For many years I labored under the misapprehension that "buttercup" was another name for daffodil. It wasn't until I was in college that I found out what a buttercup was. I'm still not sure how this happened, but I have since discovered that other people also have the same problem (a search for "buttercup" on pbase brings up quite a lot of daffodil pictures), so perhaps I heard someone say it somewhere and it stuck. But it kind of makes sense, right? I mean, they're yellow, and they have that cup-shaped thing....

3. I have a scar by my left eye from when I fell off the neighbor's trampoline and hit my head on the frame, and had to have stitches. I had a babysitter at the time and I was not supposed to be in the neighbor's yard. My parents came home and found an ambulance in the driveway. I think I was about six.

4. I still have my baby blanket and slept with it for years. Blankie is getting so ratty that I had to put him away after Kate was born, for fear of further damage. *sniff*

5. I have the same thing for breakfast practically every day--oatmeal with raisins and banana. It has to be old fashioned oatmeal, and it has to be done a certain way. I used to put honey and cinnamon in it too, but somewhere along the way I stopped doing that.

6. I made up a Korean name for myself, Im Ha Gyoung (임하경), based on the meaning of my own name. My maiden name means "elm by the stream" and Helena means "light," so I used Im (also spelled Lim), a Korean surname that means forest, and then Ha, meaning stream, and Gyoung, meaning light. Not that I've ever gotten to use it for anything.

7. I enjoy puzzle games, like Nisqually (one I'm proud of having solved) and also stuff like Blix and Hexic. (Hexic is much more complex than it looks.) Though I hardly ever do stuff like this anymore, since discovering Photoshop.

8. I would love to get a copy of Sandra Boynton's Hester in the Wild. It is very out of print. I can recite large stretches from memory, but it's not quite the same.

Now I'm supposed to come up with eight people to tag. Ummm... if you haven't done this one, and you'd like to, have at it!

Woof?

Kate found this odd scrap in Doug's leather working stuff, and decided it was a dog. It does have a kind of blocky, terrier-ish look to it. She has adopted it as her new friend. We call it "leatherdog."

Random Acts of Kindness

During the week that Doug was gone, Kate and I went to Trader Joe's one day. It was promising to be beastly hot, so I wanted to get it done early, but Kate was fractious and I, feeling harried and apparently more scatterbrained than usual, left the house without my debit card. I did not realize this until later, of course. We got to Trader Joe's and did our shopping--ran into Jessica from church and her kids, and said hi--then we got up to the checkout line and as the cashier was ringing up my stuff it suddenly hit me. That awful realization: Oh no! My card is in my other pants! Aaaaargh!

I reluctantly pictured dragging Kate all the way home and back again (nap time was fast approaching) and then I remembered Jessica. After a quick consultation with the cashier I ran and found Jessica (fortunately they were not very busy and there wasn't anyone waiting behind me at that point) and asked her if she would be able to cover me and I'd pay her back later that day. Jessica was agreeable, so we went back up to the register together, only to discover that the cashier on the next lane had paid for me. Seventeen dollars, minus some change. I was astounded. My cashier said, "Isn't Dagmar awesome? I think I owe her about two grand by now." As I stood there gaping and stammering, Dagmar waved it aside and said, "No no, it's good. Seriously. I'm a mom." I asked about her schedule for the day, so I could bring her the money, and she said, "You can pay me back, or just do something nice for somebody else." She told me she was going to Oregon for the weekend but would be back after that.

I drove home feeling rather stunned. I've had experiences, at times, of having someone there to help me right when I needed something, and I've felt blessed and grateful. Little things, usually. Never a complete stranger to the tune of seventeen dollars. I decided to make Dagmar a card to give her along with the money. She struck me as something of an artistic, free-spirit type (she had long dreadlocks adorned with big ceramic beads) so I thought she might appreciate something like that.

It took me a few days before I got the card done, what with one thing and another (Kate wanted to help, which was not helpful). I put the money inside and wrote her a little note, and wrapped it up pretty. I called to see if Dagmar was working, and we went down to give it to her. She loved the card (said I really didn't have to pay her back), got a hug, and then as I was trying to tell her how much I appreciated it I got all teary-eyed and she said, "Aww! Give me another hug!" When we left she said, "You made me happy! Thank you!"

The funny thing is that when I handed Dagmar the card she had no idea what it was for, and when I reminded her about what she'd done she said, "Oh! That was you?" I honestly think that if I hadn't paid her back she wouldn't have thought of it again. How many people would do something like that for someone they'd never met? I'll think of Dagmar next time I'm able to help out someone who needs a hand. In the economics of kindness, it's a gain to be able to pay it back and pay it forward.

Point and Click

Kate has learned to use the computer mouse! Our baby is growing up so fast. *sniff*



We had a week without Doug, while he was away at scout camp (not this last week but the week before). That was an interesting experience. It was also about the hottest week ever. Boy, we're glad that's over. (On both counts--Kate and I were kind of getting on each other's nerves.) When Doug left Monday morning, Kate was just barely starting to figure out how to use the mouse, and by the time he got home on Saturday she was clicking away like a pro. There's a lot of fun stuff on noggin.com and on starfall that she enjoys playing with.

There are several "Scribblevision" games on Noggin where you color in pictures and then it animates your coloring within a larger scene. That's some pretty cool programing. It's also fun because you don't have to stay in the lines, but can make the picture look like something else. (One page has a bird flying by, flapping its wings--Doug turned it into a flying boy who flaps his arms.) There's also the Upside Down Show's Schmancy Schmashup Game where you create your own drawing and it inserts it into a video. We've had some fun with that one.

Seasons of Discovery

I have a couple of circle journals that have been in my possession for waaaay too long. I got this one done today. The theme is seasons. Instead of doing a page about my favorite season, I decided to take a different approach.



I used some of Anita Stergiou's papers from her Floriade Collection, and decorated it with my Potato Prints and other stuff.

Killer Bunnies and Cooking Rats

Friday we we over to the Tracys' house to play Killer Bunnies. They discovered this game recently and had been telling us what crazy fun it was, so they invited us over to play. It certainly is a complicated, wacky game. I didn't really get a good sense of it, just playing it the one time (and we had to cut our game short because it was past Kate's bedtime), but I was intrigued enough to want to give it another go.



We found the font on the cards kind of annoying, which was one drawback, and we also spotted an "effect" that should have been "affect." Oops. It's one of those games that has multiple expansion packs, and some of the cards refer to other cards that haven't been created yet. Now that's planning ahead.

Saturday we went to see Ratatouille. We don't get to the theater very often--the last movie we went to see was Serenity, almost two years ago. But we are fans of Pixar in general and of Brad Bird in particular, and we'd been looking forward to Ratatouille since we first saw the teasers. We decide to take Kate along, figuring that two-and-a-half might be old enough for her first "big movie," and that a cute little rat might capture her attention. Well, the movie experience turned out much like the wading pool experience--she didn't want to be there. I eventually got her to go to sleep (which messed up her nap schedule for the rest of the day), but at least Doug and I had a good time.

This movie may not be particularly engaging for young kids, but we enjoyed it and will probably buy it when it comes out on DVD. In fact, while I was watching I found myself wishing we had it on DVD already so I could listen to the commentary. The story was solid and the execution masterful, as expected. We particularly enjoyed the stylized animation in the end credits. As my own art tends to lean heavily on the representational (essentially just copying what I see, most of the time), I am impressed by the pure artistry in this sort of thing. It's like a really good dish that you want to savor and study to figure out if you can reproduce it yourself.

Lois McMaster Bujold, and a pigeon (coo!)

We went up to the University of Washington last night to see Lois McMaster Bujold, one of our favorite authors. This was the second "reading and book signing" that we've attended there which turned out not to be a reading, but she spoke and answered questions for a while before signing books. Kate was very interested in the toys at the bookstore and not at all interested in listening to these strange grown-ups, so unfortunately Doug didn't get to hear any of it. I suppose next time we do something like this we really should get a babysitter.



Here's Kate with a big Mo Willems pigeon. We currently have Don't Let the Pigeon Drive the Bus and The Pigeon Finds a Hotdog out from the library, and Kate has been enjoying reading them over and over. (She's been practicing saying "Oh for Pete's sake!" and "Hey, I'm a curious bird!") So I was tickled when I saw this big pigeon at the bookstore. Apparently it was some kind of promotional prop, but they did say that there should be smaller versions for sale later this year.

The pigeon has his own website! Kate and I were much amused by the hotdog game.

Lois McMaster Bujold writes science fiction and fantasy and is best known for her Miles Vorkosigan series, which you could describe as space opera, but very good space opera. The "science" is mostly social and biological, with a few space battles thrown in for good measure. They're very character-driven, thoughtful, touching, at times very funny. And just so well-written. I can't give these books a blanket recommendation, because of some of the content, but I love them and keep coming back to them over and over. Memory is probably my favorite. A Civil Campaign, a close second, is absolutely charming and has been favorably compared to Jane Austen, with its regency romance flavor. We took along our copy of A Civil Campaign and got it signed. (I didn't want to drag the whole stack of books along, so we just picked out that one.)



It's been a few years since the last Miles book--Lois has been working on other things. We have enjoyed her fantasy works as well, but we are eagerly awaiting the next Miles installment next year. Yippee!

Hair today

I donated my hair! I've been thinking about doing this for a while--the last time I got my hair trimmed was right after Kate was born, and it had gotten all ragged and uneven, plus it was taking forever to dry after I took a shower (which can make things difficult when you're, say, trying to get to church on time). So I finally bit the bullet and went and did it. They took off about twelve inches. I wanted it long enough that I could still put it back in a ponytail, for swimming and stuff. I haven't figured out yet exactly what I'm going to do with it, but I imagine it'll be nice for summer. Here are the after pictures:



I told Doug that last one was my Alan Doyle impersonation, but his hair is cooler than mine.

The big 2.5

Kate is officially two and a half today! A quarter of a decade. Wow. I took this picture this morning. She looks so serious and grown up. We can see little differences every day, in the way she's developing more control over her coloring, and stringing more words together in new ways all the time.

Kate has been very interested in letters lately. She points out letters on things and we tell her what they are. We've also been playing with the Starfall site a lot. She knows A, B, O, and S, and probably a few others as well. Her newest thing is that whenever I hold her up to the sink to wash her hands, she points to the knobs and says "C for cold, H for hot!" Except she keeps getting it wrong and says "H for cold."

A couple of pictures of Kate and letters:




At Kids Zone at the zoo (or, as Kate calls it, "the looz,") there's a big rubber-paved area that has words like "SWING!" "JUMP!" "SLIDE!" Kate points to the letters one at a time, and we say them out loud. "W-I-G-G-L-E," and then when we get to the end we say, "exclamation point--dot!" I think she likes that part.

Duck on my head

We've been watching some of the music videos on noggin.com with Kate. There's one called "Pig on Her Head" that has a catchy tune and quite adaptable, if somewhat unlikely, lyrics. We've been playing around with it a bit, like the time Doug was carrying a box of books on his head and started singing "My dad has a box on his head."

So today, we were sitting in church and Kate was playing with the little bean-bag animals that Rebecca brings in her bag. There's a monkey, a koala, a rat, and a duck. It helps to keep Kate occupied, to have toys that she only sees on Sundays. She stood up on the pew next to me and started bouncing the duck on my head and singing "My mom has a duck on her head." Ha! This child is just too clever sometimes. I think that's the first time I've heard her put her own words in a song.

Here, kitty kitty kitty!

The latest project!

Waiting Pool

We've been saying, for a long time, that we should take Kate swimming. She loves playing in the bath and will stay in there for an hour if we let her. She's also fascinated by fountains. We found out that the wading pool at Fircrest pool is free (and open to non-Fircrest residents after 4:00), so we figured this would be a good time to try it out.

I haven't had a swimsuit for years. I found one online that I want to get, but they're out of stock in my size. So, at the moment I am still swim-less. So Doug took Kate into the water. Or not so much into as near unto. It turned out she was not as eager as we'd hoped. She does tend to be a bit on the cautious side. They spent a lot of time sitting on the edge of the pool, watching the other kids. I suppose we should have tried last year. I was impressed by some of the teeny-tiny kids that were just toddling right into the water, and having a great time. Maybe next time Kate will be ready to actually go in the water.

As I was writing this I checked the swimsuit site again, and they had what I wanted, so I ordered it! Woo hoo! I'm getting this top (pink and black) and these bottoms. I have thigh issues and... err... shaving issues, so this should be just right.