Finslippy is the boss of me

When Alice says "s'mores," I ask, "How many?"

(I've said it before and I'll say it again. If you're not a Costa Rican, you probably won't find Costa Rican marshmallows very satisfying. Never having made s'mores in the microwave before, I'm prepared to blame the texture issues, at least in part, on the method. And I can get past the pastel colors. But the fruit flavors...not so much. Of course, they are much cheaper than the imported ones. Anyway, caveat emptor and all that.)










So anyway, I had all this trouble thinking of anything to say on the blog this week, and come to find out it wasn't me at all. I was just ahead of the curve in celebrating "Close Up Your Blog and Sit Around Eating S'mores Week." (Worldwide observance scheduled to begin in 2008.)

A Musing Post

So I'm off to lecture a group of college students this afternoon. Of course, by "lecture" I mean "talk to," but still.

It sounds so grown up.

Age is funny. The whole time you're growing up, it's always an issue. You know who's older than you, and who's younger. You can't wait to get to a certain age, and then when you do you set your sights on another one anyway. Your first experience of fractions is understanding what it means to be four and a half.

And then, all of a sudden, you're old enough to drive. To vote. To drink. You get out of college, look around, and realize it doesn't matter anymore.

My (offline) friends are all my mom's age. I think they may be a little more conscious of the difference than I am, but it doesn't bother any of us.

Sometimes when we're filling out a form or something, Alex will actually turn and double check with me to make sure he's got his own age right.

And now I'm getting ready to go discuss culture and quilts with a group of people who I still kind of identify with and consider my peers but who, in point of fact, are closer to Julia's age than to mine.

She's having trouble believing it, coming from me.

Would someone please explain to Julia that just because her teacher said, "The universe is infinite. It goes on forever. The Earth is not infinite.", and then I, not knowing that, put on the Muppet show where Beauregard the janitor becomes convinced by a fortune teller that the world is coming to an end; doesn't, in fact, mean (necessarily) that the world is coming to an end?

As soon as you have a chance would be great.

Thank you.

I bet most quilters have had that thought at some point or another

So there's this group of quilters from Iowa coming to Costa Rica this month for the second half of a cultural exchange that began when a similar group from here visited Iowa in 2005. I didn't go on the trip, but the Parrot Quilt was my contribution to the Shapes and Colors of Costa Rica show, around which the trip revolved.

One result of the Costa Rican ladies' visit to the US was the birth, one year ago, of the quilt guild of Costa Rica. I served as co-treasurer for the group's first year and, somehow, seem to have emerged from last week's board meeting as the president of the group for 2007.

Getting back to the upcoming delegation from Iowa, the guild had a set of tote bags made up and asked members to decorate them for the guests. I had intended to participate, but missed the meeting where the bags were distributed. Then at the board meeting it was announced that we were still several bags short, so the board members who had not yet participated took home some of the remaining ones.

I had made a leaf block out of some of my hand dyed fabric some time last year for a project that held my interest for about a day, and figured I could decorate my bag with that, which I did. I cut a square of batting to go between the block and the bag, turned the raw edges of the block to the back of the batting square, then quilted the block right onto the bag. I wasn't sure how well it would all fit onto the sewing machine bed without taking the bag apart, but fortunately the tightest spots at the bottom corners were still pretty accessible.

Unfortunately, before sewing even the first stitch, I picked up my rotary cutter (think of a pizza cutter, but very, very [Really. Very very very.] sharp) to cut out the square of batting.

Well, picking up the cutter was not, in itself, unfortunate. The unfortunate part is that, whether from extended disuse or from third-party meddling, the screw that holds the (normally) free-rotating blade onto the handle was turned down tight.

Add to that my brilliant maneuver of making the first cut with my left hand so as not to have to turn things around in order to make the second cut with my right hand, and...well, I suppose you can guess the rest.

Some of my thoughts, in approximate chronological order:

• Oh, man. You don't want that.
• Do NOT bleed on the fabric.*
• Yeah, that's going to leave a scar.
• Okay, so it's still bleeding, but it's way less than when Mom cut her hand on the corned beef can when we were little.
• I bet Lisa remembers that.
• How many times did I see that tube of antibiotic cream on the kitchen counter? Would it have killed me to bring it upstairs at some point?
  

*This being the thought referenced in the title.

Anyway. It's been dealt with and, in fact, never actually hurt at all. It did make the hand sewing/machine sewing decision a pretty easy one to make though.

25 More Things

Tagged last week...

1. What is your occupation?
   Quilt retreat host is the ideal answer, but it's off to a frustratingly slow start. (We do get over 20 hits a day on our website now, though.)
   


2. What color are your socks right now?
   Egg-yolk yellow.


3. What are you listening to right now?
   Banana Pancakes by Jack Johnson, via Pandora.
   


4. What was the last thing you ate?
   Provisional breakfast of two brownies and a large mug of coffee. (We're out of milk, you see, so I couldn't have my usual granola.)


5. Can you drive a stick shift?
   Always have.
   


6. Do you like the person who sent this meme to you?
   Well, sure. That would be Mama Bear. I'd say we're still in the early stages of blog acquaintance.


7. How old are you today?
   37.6666666666666666666667 (actually, that was yesterday.)


8. What's your favorite drink?
   Something coffee, creamy, chocolaty and with way more whipped cream than strictly necessary.
   


9. Have you ever dyed your hair?
   Nope.


10. What is your favorite sport to watch?
    Watching sports is not really part of my life, although I do enjoy seeing individuals perform impressive feats of skill and agility - dance, gymnastics or skating come to mind, as well as some extreme sports, like this one.


11. What was the last movie you watched?
    Running With Scissors. Alex thought it was a comedy when he rented it, but it was either misshelved or he misinterpreted the box.


12. What's your favorite day of the year?
    Well, that really depends on the year, doesn't it?


13. What's your least-favorite day of the year?
    No specific one, although I do tend to have a least-favorite day of the month...
    


14. Hugs or kisses?
    Hugs, all the way.


15. What did you do last night?
    Got home with tired, hungry children, fed them while catching up on blogs rather than having supper myself, turned off the computer too late, made myself an ice cream sundae and, for the first time in months, put in a Friends DVD and watched until I fell asleep.


16. What's your favorite smell?
    Good cooking (my own cooking is passable and sometimes smells good, but I'm thinking of the rich, savory smells outside a restaurant or passing by someone's barbecue.)
    


17. What inspires you?
    Great art in the form of quilts and photographs.


18. What are you afraid of?
    It would be misleading to say I'm afraid of nothing, but I don't have fears of specific things or potential future events.
    


19. Plain, cheese, or spicy hamburgers?
    Never heard of spicy hamburgers, but I'm going to declare them my new favorite. As long as they also include cheese.
    


20. Your favorite car?
    Reliable.


21. Number of keys on your key ring?
    Front door, black car, gate and little pretend-key to unlock interior doors if they get locked. Still carrying red car key on a separate ring with in-laws' gate key. Expect to combine soon.


22. Your favorite day of the week?
    They're pretty interchangeable at this point.


23. Your favorite holiday?
    Christmas.


24. Ever driven a motorcycle or heavy machinery?
    Nope.


25. Pets?
    Scruffy, Emily and Ellie (black mongrel dogs), Fifí (fancy looking street cat), Loren (red-lored Amazon parrot).

The Commute

I had been thinking, a while back, about taking some photos on the way down to the girls' school each morning. But they were on vacation at the time, so I figured I'd wait until it was a daily trip again.

In the meantime, Poppies in Provence had the same idea and not only posted her view on the walk (she walks) into town, but invited others to take part.

Then Juliloquy posted a two-part series on her walk to work (what is it with all these walkers??), making me wish once again that I had gone ahead and done it when it occurred to me.

But if I had, I wouldn't have a quick 'n easy post for you tonight, and I'm glad I do because I've been busy all day, won't be here tomorrow night, and may not get anything posted on Saturday either.

You see, five of us are getting together for a pot-luck, sleepover quilt-in at my friend's house, and Alex will be out of town by the time I get back, so I may be a tad busy on Saturday evening.

So I guess it all worked out in the end, with the not posting pictures until now. (Plus, by waiting until Lisa was here, I got much better photos than I would have if I had tried to snap them while driving.)

Here's how my mornings go:

Wake between 6:15 and 6:30. Send Robin into bed with Alex and go downstairs with Julia. Make coffee & breakfast, call girls and consume breakfast. Send girls upstairs to get ready for school. Dress for the gym. Make lunches & snacks.

Herd girls into car, tie Scruffy up, back out, untie Scruffy. Head out to the end of our street and turn onto the main road down the mountain for the 8-minute drive to school.

If it's a clear day (and it so often is), try to remember to notice, appreciate and comment on this:


At the foot of our downhill drive, we find the small town of San Rafael. As in most Costa Rican towns, the church is a prominent part of the landscape. Although you wouldn't notice it by driving or walking around it, this church is actually built on higher ground than the rest of the town, and can be seen from many points around the Central Valley.

If you spot the church from, say, San José, Alajuela or an airplane, you'll know you're looking toward my house as well.


After dropping the girls off at school, I head out the other side of San Rafael and down to the gym, just three or four minutes away. Lisa dubbed this particular spot "Piney Palmey."



Here's the top of my last downhill stretch:


And the view just around the corner from that. Now we can see the city of Heredia (that large white building is a school). I don't actually have to go into town, though, as the gym is just at the bottom of this hill.


(I see we were extra lucky, in this photo, to have captured one of the many Costa Rican drivers to whom traffic laws such as double yellow lines do not apply.)

And that's my morning commute. Anyone else care to play?

As promised

We visited my friend Rita on Saturday and took pictures of Nena.


And Cariñoso.


On Sunday, my children begged Lisa to give them math questions over breakfast. Fortunately, Alex had found a tree full of citrus fruits when he was out on a job last week, so she was able to explain division to Robin. How very Montessori.


We went to the restaurant across the street for Lisa's last night.


This marks the official conclusion of our Awesome Photos by Lisa festival.

We now return to your regularly scheduled Perfectly Acceptable Photos by Jen.

Research Results

Just to be sure, we went ahead and assembled this 1000-piece puzzle under our normal puzzle-doing conditions: Begin after dinner, enjoy it for a while, become tired, consider finishing it in the morning, stick it out and finish late at night.

Thus did we confirm that our normal time for a standard 1000 is, in fact, 7.5 Tucker hours (3h 45m working together).



And now we're done.

Come on over sometime. I'm in the book under pretty much anything you can think of.

I don't actually get a lot of people clicking into this blog from searches. The stats show lots of "unknown" referrals, which means someone typed in the address or used a bookmark rather than clicking on a link somewhere.

Then there are referrals from those blogs out there that have included me in their link lists. A few have begun to show up from Bloglines (where you can subscribe to your list of favorite blogs and then just go to one place to see which ones have updates ready for your reading pleasure. Thanks for the tip, Charlotte!) Some people get here by clicking the "Next Blog" link at the top of another Blogspot blog.

Once in a while, though, someone does a search for something and not only ends up seeing one of my entries among the search results, but also clicks on through to see the full text. Then, as a rule, leaves forthwith.

I don't even find out about all of them, because my free Sitemeter account shows me the 50 most recent referrals, but I don't think it's archived anywhere.

Anyway, all that buildup kind of makes my little search results list seem anti climactic, but here it is anyway:

• longest hair
• greece travel
• flaming microwave popcorn
• barnyard sex

The end.

So much to say

So little time (before I go to bed)

Lisa left this morning and I have a number of non-earthshaking bits I've been thinking about posting. However, I stayed up kind of late last night, got up really early this morning, and spent most of the day at a business meeting for the quilt guild.

I don't see posting a whole lot tonight.

But I did want to at least check in with my poor, abandoned bloglings before turning in. Later this week I'll post a couple of pictures from the past week - no travel, but some nice homey shots at least. I'll update you on our Puzzle Research Project and post pictures of my daily commute (inspired by Poppies in Provence and then reinforced by Juliloquy's two-post extravaganza.)

But for tonight, I have only this to say:

Paint the website blue, we're going to Greece!

Conversation has become a little one-sided in the Coasting Richly household over the past 24 hours.

• "Hey, did you know Greece uses Euros now? No more drachma."
• "Greece is supposed to be the safest place for a woman traveling alone - not that we will be."
• "Sounds like Greek coffee is even stronger than Cuban coffee. [We have Cuban neighbors, is how we know about that.] Fortunately, they also have cappuccino."
• "There sure are a lot of places you can learn the Greek alphabet online, for free."

Oh, you do not want to be around me right now.