Old Time Religion

Jessie caught Monty and was doing the coma-bunny routine last night. I always think it looks like one of those religious awakenings where the man in the robes tries to exorcise something or calls upon the big kahuna to solve a problem (see the movie Benjamin Button to figure out what the heck I'm talking on about).

Way to Shank the Environment in the Back, Guys.

An earthen retaining wall broke this last week and spilled enough toxic coal ash to cover more than 3,000 acres in a foot of sludge. The 40-acre pond was used by the Tennessee Valley Authority to hold a slurry of ash generated by the coal-burning Kingston Steam Plant in Harriman, about 50 miles west of Knoxville. This is now considered the largest environmental disaster of its kind in the U.S.

Seriously, guys, come on. This is disgusting.

Oh, and P.S. A test of river water near the spill showed elevated levels of lead and thallium, which can cause birth defects and nervous and reproductive system disorders. Nice.

Merry Christmas Eve

The Schommers came over for dinner last night. We had a turkey-lurkey, an apple pie, some potatoes and bread and things. Very tasty.

Jessie wandered around, taking myspace-esque pictures. Heeerrreeee's Jessie!

And the dead turkey man. Sigh...

Merry Christmas!

Love, Willow doll.

Jessie and I Decorated Those Sugar Cookies

You Crazy Nuts!

After last night's mouse fiasco (and it was a fiasco) Mom and Dad made their way into town to pick up some mouse-death. Amongst the tasty options they found this beauty.Essentially, it's a garden hose attached to the back of your car. Nice.

Egads! A Moose! A Mice! A MOUSE!

Last night Jessie and I were watching TV. I was knitting and looking at something by Monty's cage when I see a little black thing run and sit by the couch. I thought "Now, that's weird... how can Monty's ear be moving there if he's in the cage..." and then it dawned on me "Jessie! There is a mouse. There is a mouse by your water glass. Oh no! HO Oh no!" Jessie made an appropriately loud screech and jumped up onto the back of the couch. The mouse disappeared and I went to get Dad. "Well.... we don't have any mouse traps so I guess we'll just have to wait until the snow melts to get some." That was lame so Jessie and I tore things up trying to find it and trap it in a little pencil holder. That didn't work. We went back to watching something, I fell asleep and then eventually wandered back to my room to do some real sleep, none of this curled up on a couch clutching the remote next to my face business. The second I get into my jammies and crawl into bed Jessie screams "Hannah! HE'S BACK! That mouse is right here! Oh god oh god EEEeeeee....!" I jump out and throw my door open. Jessie is huddled on the couch staring at the bookshelf where mister mouse is hiding. We look and look and look and find nothing. I know he's there somewhere. At this point it's 11:30 and I'm getting a little fuzzy and sleepy. I decide to call it a night a second time, walk over to my room look in and there he is, sitting next to my bed staring at me. "OH shit! he's in here!" He looks enormous and black and scary-fast. I lunge at him with my Tupperware container (Jessie and I raided all of the cupboards in the house for Tupperware to trap things) and miss. He scurries under the bed to a pile of pillows on the floor and hunkers down. With a bit of adrenaline helping I chase him into a corner. "Jessie! Get in here NOW. I. Have. Him. Trapped. Behind. The. Yarn." She gets in with a Tupperware in each hand and one in her armpit. We spent a good half-hour chasing him back and forth behind my desk. He kept disappearing and we had to figure out what nook he was hiding in THIS time. At one point he wedged himself under my bucket of yarn (that thing must have had 1/8 inch of clearance) and then flew at me when I pulled the drawer out. Finally, at midnight, I managed to trap him under my plastic box and we dumped him into a larger Tupperware with some hay in it and a lid. Mom and Dad were no help so we decided to go show them our prize... at midnight. That was popular. Jessie flicked on the lights in their bathroom and Mom groaned "Whaa... you brought the mouse here? No Hannah, it's not cute. You can't keep it. No more pets Hannah." And then she put her glasses on and after some serious squinting at a corner in the box, "Oohhh, he a pretty cute shape! Oh look at his little tail... and those beady eyes. He is pretty cute, wait, is that bedding you have in there? No Hannah, no more pets!" It was decided that we would decide what to do with it in the morning, until then he could stay in the Tupperware. After a bit of rustling around I figured out that mister mouse was really more appropriately name Miss Lola the mouse because of her lack of man-bits.

Miss Lola spent the night with me in my room. You've got to admit that after all of that fuss, she's pretty sweet.And here she is this morning, before being released into the woods down the road.

Poor mousy-mouse. I don't think she's going to do very well. But in the end anything is better than poison.

The trees looked so pretty on the way back to the house. Poor mousy-mouse.

It Snowed Again.

We decided to try and escape today. Dad and I went out at about 10 and started shoveling. And shoveling... and shoveling. I finished a bit from the garage to the front door only to turn around and see two fresh inches of snow covering up everything I'd just done. I cleared out part of the driveway before Dad got the tractor out. The tractor, unfortunately, had water in the bucket before the snow and now it had a block of concrete from somewhere, some rocks AND ice all piled up.After hacking at it for a while everything came out and some of the snow could be pushed around.

Enough to let us get some chains on the subaru and make it out to Sandy for more food. The crazy part is that when we went to get into the subaru we had to push almost two feet of snow off of everything and then up to two inches of ice off of all the important bits, like doors. Dad and I went to the store and after a crazy bit we got back in one piece.

(I found this wine at the store and I thought it was pretty funny. Funny enough to take a picture and then spend some time posting it. So there.)Sandy was a mess, there was about 8 inches of packed snow on the plowed roads and for a while we had to snow plow our way out of our road. Jessie spent some time sleeping, and playing tetris, and watching tv. Mom shoveled snow off of the back deck TWICE today (there was about a foot of snow on it the first time and about four or five the second time). Now, after spending a good chunk of the day shoveling things here and there I'm making some of this pretty bread and Jessie's making some sugar cookies. I've been baking and baking and baking some more!

The Evidence

Why are we still trapped in this house? This is why.

I think there were some cars under that snow. Anyway, last night we were eating dinner and trying to invent some things we could make with what food we have (we're down to two eggs and 1/4 gallon milk so I've been making this AMAZING vegan cookies and everyone's stayed happy... so far) when mom started trying to figure out when we last left the house. "Tuesday," I said, because that's the day I tried to go to Twelve Mile Market and it was closed. "Nooo... I think it was Wednesday, because that's the day I went to the store. I think. Maybe," Mom thought. We all thought about this for a while and then decided that it's been too long if you can't remember the last time you left.

It's been 6 days since I've left the house for sure. SIX DAYS. I've got plenty of yarn and fabric to mess about with but Jessie is going mad. After spending the last couple of days on the couch playing Tetris she surfaced upstairs lastnight at 8 and wanted to build a snow fort. Since she couldn't hang out with her friends in Gresham they wanted to try to do the exact same thing at the same time. That thing: build a snow fort. I'm always game for things like that so we got into our snow pants and dug a pit in the snow. Not so much a fort as it is an ice crater because when we tried to get to a good place to build it we had to punch our way through 6 inches of snow, down to a thick layer of ice and past it to another foot of snow with each step. It was a lot of effort, in the dark, in the snow, in 21 degrees. Plus the snow was all loose and powdery and no amount of hitting it could make it stick together. So, we have an ice crater in our yard.

It's Getting Deeper and Cuter

Now, the snow is taller than Monty. Can you guess what I did?

Yep, I tossed him right out into the middle and watched him schoon around.

Walkies

We all went for a walk this afternoon to see how the road looked. Turns out it's pretty icy/snowy. Just in our yard the snow is almost up to our knees in places.

Willow keeps darting through the deep snow (it's up to her chest) and then coming back all bleedy. She's fine, it just looks terrible. I think she's hitting some sticks at supersonic dog speed and getting a little banged up. It's not stopping her at all.

Map Quilts

I found this via: label-free this morning. Leah Evans makes these wonderful quilts based on maps and other aerial views. Absolutely amazing.

"Alluvial Fields"

"Development"

Did Someone Say.... Finger Puppet?

Well if you didn't then I certainly did!

A handful of finger puppets.

In the etsy shop with all the rest.

The Only Thing Cuter than Regular Monty

A snow-covered Monty!The snow turned into these BB gun pellets the second I decided to take himself out for a walk. Right now we've got about four inches of snow and it's still snowing pretty steadily. Monty's shortness was having trouble negotiating the deeper pockets.

Monty, on high alert.

I thought he looked awfully cute dipped in snow with his little rugged shoulders, as mummy likes to describe them.

Christmas Bunnies

A bunny for Star!

And a bunny for Angelina!

(and yes they have their own little stories, but you've got to be Angelina or Star to read them!)

Smashing Opening Sequences

Smashing Magazine has compiled a list of 30 great movie opening sequences. Each has a video of said sequence so you can see them if you haven't already.

One of my favorites movies is Delicatessen, and here is it's opening sequence:

Oh NO!

You hear things about this Consumer Product Safety Improvement Act (CPSIA) and you think, "Well, how can that be a bad thing?" It is. It's so bad! Craftzine has posted a nice summary of the dilemma:

"We've been following the CPSIA development, and it's apparent the groundswell of protest is in full swing.

Petitions are being signed by the thousands, letters are being sent to Congress, and small business owners are mobilizing to take action against what they believe are unreasonable demands being placed on them by a law that will take effect on February 10. The new legislation will mandate that every part of a child's toy and clothing be tested for lead before it can be sold to the public.

The law was passed in response to high levels of lead being found in toys manufactured in Chinese factories, but does not take into account the thousands of small businesses who make toys and clothes in much smaller numbers, and many of them by hand in their own homes or workshops. If the law goes into effect as it's currently written, they will have to pay up to thousands of dollars to test just one set of handmade goods."

So far thousands of people have added their names to an ipetition (have YOU ever heard of this phenomena? I hadn't. Turns out you have to donate at least $2 to add your name... poo to that!) and plenty of crafty sources are keeping tabs on the developments. Yet another thing that sounds good in principle, but in practice it turns out to be utter poo.

Snow Does Funny Things

It's snowing here... again. It all melted yesterday so I thought I was safe when I told Star and Ben I could come meet them downtown for some shoppin' today. WRONG. I woke up this morning and it was snowing and had been snowing for a while. "Awww... I'm still good!" I thought. DOUBLE wrong. I got in the shower and by the time I got out it had gone to full scale blizzard. Still thinking I could manage, I got all bundled up and headed out the front door. It wasn't until I listened to my tires spinning uselessly in the snow that I realized I was trapped. I tried to back out three different ways, Dad tried to back it out, and all we were left with was my car blocking the Subaru, the only useful car in snow. I called Star and Ben to tell them I couldn't come and then waited while Dad tried to rearrange my car so that it wasn't such a problem. While I waited, this happened:

Ohhhh Jessie, in your shorts, in the snow. Of course I'm going to throw snowballs at your naked legs. Duh! Sucka...

Even the tree is wearing more clothes than Jessie. Sheesh.

All snowed in!

After it stopped snowing I decided to clear off the driveway to see if that helped with the cars. Who would use a shovel to clear a driveway when you can make a perfectly AWESOME snowman? Mr. Snowman can watch you all of the time, he has eyes on both sides of his head. Creepy thing.
If you were of a mind, you could probably find more pictures of snow and housy things here, at Dad's blog.

Determination...

Looks like a rabbit with an old, dry, frozen leaf clenched in it's jaws for five straight minutes.

He picked that leaf up outside and then hung onto it for a good five minutes while I showed Mom his cuteness. I hope it was tastier than it looked.

Ohhh Toes, I Will Save You!

I've been idly looking for a pair of slippers that'll work for this whole "winter season" thing that seems to keep showing up every year. The nerve! I wanted something that's sort of like a super thick sock with a grippy bottom and so far only these've come close. I hate slippers with hard bottoms (they feel too much like real shoes and I have a thing about not wearing shoes in the house) so all those toasty Haflingers my relatives are so crazy over are out of the running (hah! Get it... running... shoes. Oh whatever.)
Anyway, that was until Presents Knits posted THESE today! The minute I opened it it was like my computer screen developed an aura and the heavens parted to let a single shaft of light through to illuminate everything and there was a chorus of singing sighs.... in short, it was glorious. THESE are glorious. I can't believe I hadn't thought of this too! Now I just need to find some stick grippers for the bottoms and I'm ready to knit these up and stick them on my feets.

This is what Hannah heaven looks like.

Buns in the Snow

I had a sneaking suspicion that Monty would love snow. I don't think we really had any last year so I didn't get to test my theory out. This year is a different story. I took Monty out this morning and away he went!

When he hops around his ears fly up, he's just coming down from an especially good hop in this picture. I wish he could yell "Huzzah!" when he does that, instead all he does is a little "montmontmontmont" motoring sound.

Monty rumpling through the snow.

The frozen bits didn't stop him from digging around in his usual spots either.

Apparently the snow turns him into survival bunny. Usually he won't eat anything outside but today he was eating every dried up bit of leaf he could find, some of them he carried to a corner of the house and stashed, probably for later. Silly guy.

And, video evidence of his eatery abilities.

Huzzah!

And then Willow decided to stand at the door waiting for Mom and Jessie to let her back in. Soooo pitiful.

Oh, And...

I've been sick. Throw-ie-uppie don't feel good sick. I don't know why, and I'm feeling better now but I'm still a little wonky. I crashed on the couch yesterday morning after getting about 2 hours of sleep (not consecutive either!) and Willow decided to get in on some of that sweet sleep action.

Snuggly snuggle.

Ohhhh That Was a Mistake

Ok, so I've been looking forward to Winter Wonderland, which is etsy.com's yearly winter sale, for months. It just so happens that it was today and today was also the day that it decided to snow and snow and SNOW! We planned on going to the sale today and then I was supposed to make my way up to Olympia to visit Star and Ben for a couple of days. The weather wasn't looking good and I don't have chains or snow tires AND it didn't look like it was going to warm up any time within the next couple of days so there was a potential for things to keep getting worse and worse. We decided to look up the weather between here and Olympia and that just looked super ugly. It was unanimous: there would be no Olympia trip. However, if we could make it to the max station in Gresham we could maybe make it to the Etsy sale. Mom, Dad and I decided to give it a try. We left at 10:30 and made it with a minimum of slipping and sliding to the max station at the little outlet mall nearby. We hopped on the max and went to the Convention Center just outside of Portland by 11:30. Last year the show was at the Norse Hall, it was tiny but amazing. This year, because of last year's crowds, they moved to the much larger Convention Center.

OldSchoolStationers' booth at the sale. Mom got a few cards, and I really loved this print.

Now, this is a lamp made from slides. The cool thing about this one is that it reminded me of Star. Why, you ask? Because it's an LOL Cats themed lamp! I knew you'd love it Star! I just wish I could have gotten it for you...

These were some sweet sock monkeys, but I didn't catch the seller's name.

I wound up buying the Sloth and Bunny print from berkleyillustration (I'm going to frame them and hang 'em up!). I loved all the ones he had, but I had to pick just two and these were my favorite. I would have loved to get the lady-bunny version and some others but I know where I can get them later!
The real adventure began when we decided to head home. We hopped on the max but then decided to get off again at Grand Central Bakery a few stops away. It was soooo cold outside! We hustled over and got there three minutes before they closed early and then hustled back the max tracks. Unfortunately, we probably should have stayed on that first max. We were waiting at the stop for a little while before we realized that the red line that was sitting in the station wasn't going to go anywhere. The switches at Gateway had frozen so everything was backed up. We got on the red line just to keep warm and sat there for at least 40 minutes. The conductor or whatever got on the intercom and announced that they were going to pull out, but that there was a blue line (which is what we really wanted) coming right behind it. We got off only to realize that the next train was, in fact, another red line. We hovered outside for about 15 minutes until we gave in, got on that train which was also sitting in the station for a long time like the last one, and rode that to Gateway. THAT process took well over an hour. It was freezing and crowded and boring. We had to sit at each stop for about 15 minutes because everything was backed up to infinity. We finally got to Gateway, sat there forever, then the red line we rode in on changed to blue and we thought "YES! We can just stay here! You suckas who thought you were going to the airport gotta get OFF! Hah!" Fifteen more minutes later the conductor got back on the PA and announced that he was changing BACK to a red line and everyone who wanted to be riding on a blue max had to get off and wait for the train that was "right behind" him. LIES! We huddled in the cold, windy arctic tundra that is Gresham for 15 minutes. 15 MINUTES! At that point I hadn't felt my feet for about two hours and things were going from bad to worse. My chilblains (ok, I included a link but there are pictures. I do have these, but not THIS bad, still...) were practically moving in to stay. Sigh... We'd left Grand Central Bakery at 2:30 and we finally got home at about 5:30... that's practically 3 hours of cold hell.
Now, we're home, in one piece. There's no WAY I'd be able to brave the weather to get to Olympia at this point. I think knowing what I do now, I wouldn't have even gone to the sale! But really, I love supporting local artists, and etsy, and seeing crafty things. But I'm not ready to sacrifice my toes to do it!