First day of school

Sweet Daughter started kindergarten today. No tears, but plenty of high-fives instead. (Including ones exchanged between Shorter Half and myself.) She said she had an "awesome" day, and can't wait to go back. I have no idea how long that will last, but I'll enjoy it while it does. I hope it's for another 17 years ...

Bald Eagle

Some very dear friends took us out on their catamaran for Sweet Daughter's birthday. While we were rolling along, we saw this:

(Sorry for the lack of quality, but I was sailing at the time, and was just happy I remembered to flip the switch on the camera to the little film icon ...)

Yeah. It's not every day you just happen to have your camera in hand when a bald eagle flies by for a little fast food.

Dear Sweet Daughter,

Happy fifth birthday to the sweetest girl I know! Every night I thank God for you, and ask “Please help me to not screw this up”. Thank you for teaching me that you learn best by example, and that means I have to model the person I’d like you to become. I have learned to stand up for myself, and for what I believe in. I’ve learned to ask myself what it really is that I do believe in. I have learned to push past my comfort level in many areas. Besides all the joy you bring into my life, I’m becoming a better person because of you. Thank you, Sweet Girl.

Love, Momma

Thanks

It was about two years ago when I started lurking around the gun blogs, starting with The Lawdog Files. It was the Pink Gorilla Suit that got me hooked. I stuck around because of the interesting writing, and I learned a few things about self defense along the way. I started reading the other bloggers listed on his side bar. I enjoyed their writing, too, and learned more things from them. I found my opinions challenged, and questions I didn’t even know I had answered.

At the time, I didn’t carry a gun, and really had no plans to start. Why, I thought, would I need a gun? Wasn’t that being a little … paranoid? Then one day, somewhere, there was a discussion about how, if you were going to carry, you should ask yourself what exactly it was that you were willing to defend by possibly killing someone. Was it your car? Your home? Yourself? Your kids?

Aha! The bell in my head went off. Of course I was willing to kill to defend my child!! My car they could have (unless Sweet Daughter was in it, and then all bets were off.). Then I got to thinking … why was I willing to defend my daughter, but not myself, unless I though of it as the Bad Guy hurting my daughter’s mother? I had no good, logical answer, because there wasn’t one. I suddenly realized I was worth defending, too.

So, I took a class, got my concealed handgun permit, and bought a pistol. I need to get better about wearing it more often, and practicing more. I get overwhelmed thinking about how I’ll never be as good, or as knowledgeable as most of you, but I realize that doesn’t matter so much as the fact that I now have the determination and the tool to keep my daughter (and myself!) safe. Thanks to all of you who helped me along this path, and helped make me a better parent.

Hint?

Remember my Appleseed post? I believe I first mentioned kyjam and that I was thinking I should do an Appleseed shoot some day to Shorter Half on Monday. Today at dinner, he had his 10/22, a new ghost ring sight, 4x scope, and milsurp sling sitting on the table. Do you think he’s trying to tell me something?

There's one in late October that might be feasible. It’s about 2 ½ hours away. The only problem with that is that there’s no lodging close by. Right now it’s looking like the likeliest area to find reasonable accommodations is 20 miles away.

Smart aleck

Over this past weekend Sweet Daughter and I were discussing something, I don’t remember what, but she did inform me (very respectfully, and in all seriousness) that she was smarter than I was. If you use “smart” as you would “intelligent”, I could see that she might have a point. I simply said that it might be true, but I did know more things than she did. (At least for now.)

Fast forward to Monday afternoon after swim class. I was trying to sign SD up for the next set of swim lessons, and being bored with the interminable wait she was hopping up and down. Under the 48” counter overhang.

Me: “SD, don’t jump near the counter. You’ll hit your head.”

SD: ::: jump hop bounce jump hop bounce jump hop bounce :::

Me: “SD, if you hit your head on the counter, I’m just going to point and laugh.”

SD: ::: jump hop bounce jump hop bounce jump WHUMP! ::: She did not utter so much as a whimper, but she did grab the top of her head.

Me, pointing: “HAHAHAHAH! Is your head okay? You’re not bleeding on the floor, are you? Hahahahah. Ha. Does that need a smoochie?” [hugs]

Peppers?

What kind of peppers are these, and will they hurt if I eat them? And, what shall I do with them all?

Sew, what's with Appleseed?

I lurk on several 18th century-based Yahoo groups. A couple of weeks ago a woman stopped by one of them and said that she volunteered with the Appleseed Project, mentioned that they teach marksmanship and the history of April 19. 1775, and that she was putting together a farmer's wife outfit for telling her history lesson. Hey! I knew about Appleseed! Sort of. A little. I contacted kyjam off-list and offered to help her out. We e-mailed back and forth about what she needed to do, and when we realized there was no way she was going to get everything done in time for her shoot on September 11th, I decided to box up a bunch of clothing I wasn’t using at the moment and send it to her. Because it’s all about me, you see. I don’t want the 2A/gunnie crowd looking like idiots to us living history types, and I don’t want the living history types coming across as snobby to us 2A/gunnie types. See? It’s all about ME not wanting to look bad. Really. So tonight I took an apron I made (takes off shoes count), um, 15? 16? years ago when I didn't know any better, and fixed the too-wide waistband and too-wide pleats. I took off the 1 ¼” linen band and ties, and repleated it using ½” pleats, bound it in linen tape, and added 3/8” apron strings. Now I just need to put ties on a straw hat and get it all out the door.

Too wide wasitband and ties on the left, new wasitband across the top of the pleats, and new apron strings on the right.

Between kyjam and Rattail Bastard, I think I’m being talked into this whole Appleseed thing.

Quilt update

So that “Quilts of Valor” thing? Yeah. I didn’t go subtle for the first one. It’s red, white and blue. It's cliché.  The more artistic one I had planned? I came up with a different design, and I’m reworking it in my head. It’s going to drive me mad. But, as usual, I digress.


I love the concept of a patchwork quilt – you use scraps of fabric that aren’t useful for anything else by cutting them into pieces and stitching them together into something useful, and usually quite beautiful. The process I learned was to make templates for the shapes you need and trace around them onto the back of your fabric, leaving enough room to then add a quarter inch seam allowance. After marking each piece twice (sewing line and cutting line), you cut each piece out, then carefully line up your stitching lines, and start sewing. I never managed to get the hang of machine piecing – I can’t get the corners to match up the way I want them to.

So, getting back to construction of the quilt top. Making a quilt out of scraps is a great idea. I can even wrap my head around why you would want to go out and buy perfectly good fabric so you can cut it up create a specific pattern of color and line. What I can not do, is cut up a square of fabric simply so I can then cut it into 4 triangles and sew them back together into a square. So I’m not doing it. So there. For someone that tries to reproduce original sewing techniques when possible, this alternately causes me to feel like a rebel and a loser. I find I’m getting over it pretty quickly.

See those blue triangles? There are 160 in this quilt. See the white square? If this were being contructed in a traditional manner, they'd be made out of four triangles sewn together. See the red square? There are only 20 of those. I haven't counted the white triangles. I don't think I want to know.

You can see the yellow lines for cutting and sewing. And the penny is there for scale. I like using a small needle. It makes it easier to make small stitches.

I estimate I'm 5% done so far.

Just don't start calling me Gecko45

Due to the fact that Sweet Daughter was coming down with a cold on Friday night, neither she nor I slept well that night. We were trying to take a nap yesterday - she finally fell asleep, but it took me over an hour to unwind. Just as I was drifing off, my slumber was shattered by the sound of ripping Velcro. The REPEATED sound of ripping Velcro, I might add. I stumbled down the stairs to find Shorter Half assembling some sort of rig for my Springfield XD. I gave him the evil eye and asked what in the world was he doing???

 He'd picked my pistol up from the gunsmith (got the LaserLyte installed), had added the flashlight, and was putting together a rig so I had a holster that would fit it with the light attached. The light is for use in the home, and it's easy on, easy off so I can pop it off to use with my regular carry rig.

I think I'll forgive him.

Redshirt!

Larry Correia is offering to redshirt people in his next Monster Hunter book for good cause. I am SO doing this.

He gives the option of sending along any specific items of description that he might be able to use. (age, size, build, interesting factoids like: you’ve got a lazy eye, penchant for Mohawks, look suspiciously like Ernest Borgnine, etc.)

I need suggestions – so far I’ve come up with the fact that I’m a middle-aged office manager, my first two guns were a flintlock and matchlock, SayUncle thinks I’m 7’ tall, and that Sweet Daughter wanted a “handgun like Mommy’s” for her fourth birthday.

Got anything to add?

Local Politics

When I was in the Midwest this summer with family who don’t necessarily share my political views, the conversation inevitably turned to politics. I just kept my mouth shut as nobody was going to change anyone else’s mind, and there was no way things would have ended well.

At one point a family member said “I hate politics -- let’s change the subject. So, Nancy, how’s Shorter Half doing?”

I said, “Well, ever since he got elected to the School Board he’s been pretty busy. I don’t know if being married to a politician is supposed to better or worse than being married to a lawyer.”

At that point we decided it was time to adjourn and go to dinner.

Chincoteague and Assateague

Sweet Daughter and I had the chance to meet up with some family members last week in Chincoteague. My sisters had rented a house, and we went up for some R&R for a couple of days. The house was right on the edges (several edges, actually) of wetland, and the views were gorgeous. The mosquitoes were the size of small hummingbirds, and you couldn’t open your car door without the little buggers swarming in to greet you. We even brought a bunch home with us – apparently we were the transport for some sort of insect foreign exchange program.

View from the bathroom

View from the deck.

In the morning, we’d get up bright and early and drive over to Assateague to spend the day at the beach. It’s a lovely place, very clean, with lots of “facilities”, changing rooms, and showers. We saw ponies. We saw dolphins. I relaxed. SD got her life jacket strapped on because she has no fear of the water. She’d start out with her favorite sport of jumping over the incoming tide. The lead to many, many instances of one wave sucking the sand out from under her feet as she landed just as an incoming wave would rush in and knock her end over end. This didn’t seem to bother her much, but when she tired of it, she picked up shells, made sandcastles, and has a wonderful time.

Wild ponies on Assateague

Sweet Daughter shows off her glitter Care Bear (temporary) tattoo.

The second night we picked up an ice cream cake from DQ. SD asked “I wonder what it tastes like?” My sister answered “It tastes like Pooh!” And it went downhill from there.

We spent two hours one evening riding the trolley in circles around Chincoteague, much to SD’s delight. We got ice cream, saw the Misty statue, and bought t-shirts. The town has managed to retain its identity, and hasn’t sold out to the tourism trade, which is nice to see.

Misty statue

After 3 ½ days of blissful relaxation, the 200 mile (and 5 hour!!) drive home blew it all to hell. So much for relaxed, but I’d do it again in a heartbeat.

SD and my sister.

Multifocal contacts update

After three weeks, I've decided that you can have them when you pry them out of my cold dead eyes. Seriously -- I can thread size 8 needles without reading glasses. I can see the computer screen. I can read the labels off of soup cans. I can read the newspaper. They're not perfect, mind you, but they are leaps and bounds better than regular contacts plus reading glasses. Night driving is a little different -- instead of the halos I used to see around lights (headlights, street lights, etc.) I now get a brightly diffused glow. Things like reflective road signs are a little brighter, and those sodium streetlights now look cheerful instead of gloomy and sullen.

I don't know how much they cost per box (I'll find out tomorrow), but I'd sell a kidney (mine, even!) if I have to.

All things bright and beautiful

Shorter Half is one of those types who does better on massive amounts of caffeine – or other stimulant. They calm him down, slow his speech to an understandable degree, and usually limit the number of conversations he will try to carry on with you simultaneously to a reasonable number, like 2. I’m sure most of you know the type.

Well, today Sweet Daughter and I returned home after her swim class to find him opening the mail. He’d ordered a strobe-type flashlight for my pistol and was busy taking the thing out of the blister pack, putting the batteries in, and muttering some sort of stream-of-consciousness monologue about the lack of quality instructions, or lack of quality equipment, as it wasn’t working properly, when viola! A bright flashy light appeared in my peripheral vision, reflected in the hall mirror from where he was pointing it down the stairs.

He then said something like “Hey! When it gets dark out, why don’t we turn off the lights, and I’ll go to the top of the stairs and you go to the end of the hall by the front door, and I’ll turn this on, and you can tell me how annoying it is!” I declined, possibly even telling him he was out of his mind. It was bloody maddening just seeing it out of the corner of my eye in full daylight.

Moments later I turned around to see him completely mesmerized, staring into the flashing light.

Truer words were never spoken.

Women and Shotguns

She came up with the size of the typical women shooter, and more importantly their unique differences from men. Women have longer necks, different chests, smaller hands and other distinctions that clearly indicated a need for a women’s shotgun.

So Marty created a shotgun with a shortened stock and length of pull so women could reach the trigger easier. The stock took on a Monte Carlo configuration to accommodate women’s longer necks. She also made the stock toe out, providing a better fit for the female shape. Marty then added a palm swell for smaller hands. In the end, you could argue that her Valmet 512 SC of fall 2004 was the first shotgun designed by a woman for women.

Except for the smaller hands, shortened stock, and length of pull thing (I'm 74" inches across, fingertip to fingertip), I think she's got some good ideas. *grin*. Go read the whole thing.

Like I don't have enough projects to do

So, in the comments of my Charities post, Linda in TX suggested that I check out Quilts of Valor. I used to quilt – that’s how I learned to sew by hand. Miles, and miles by hand… *grin*.


I sort of tucked it away in the back of my mind until I got home from work today and I found a minute to start paging through my quilting books. I wanted to do something patriotic that wasn’t cliché. Not that there’s anything wrong with cliché, I just wanted to come up with something original and a little low-key. I found a block that triggered an idea, and I think I’m good to go. Now, I just have to wait for the math side of my brain to kick in so I can calculate the size of the blocks and how much fabric I’m going to need.

I want to include a rather long quote that will run across the horizontal strips between the blocks. Other than embroidering it by hand, anybody got any ideas on the best way to do this? Fabric marker? (Not my first choice, I have crappy handwriting.) I’d like to do it in 18th century-style script but I don’t know what my options are. I’m pretty good with 18th century sewing technology, but I don’t even know what’s out there for the 21st century.

UPDATE: Ooooh! Thanks to Bob S. in comments, I poked around a bit and found I can allegedly use an inkjet printer. I'll check in to this ....

Another one

For the blog roll. Double Trouble, who has me seriously considering becoming a contender for the "who traveled the farthest for the next NE Blogershoot" prize. I wonder if he even remembers offering to let me fire his gun? I haven't forgotten. *grin*

Charities?

You’ve probably noticed that Sweet Daughter has been thinking about “Camouflage People” a lot this summer. On the way in to daycare this morning, I told her that CP’s have a pretty crummy job – some have to live far away from home and their friends and families, and some are in a place that’s even hotter than it is here (99 degrees today), and they live in tents, and it’s really dusty, and it's dangerous, and they do it all for not very much money. Tonight at dinner she asked me if she could send some of her allowance to them so they could feel better.

So, what are your favorite charities that benefit service members?

About to depart on her first airplane trip (that she remembers, anyway), SD is distracted from mugging for the camera just as the shutter clicks. She has spied a CP, and he must be addressed. "Thanks for keeping us safe!" she calls, while waving to get his attention.

Can't argue with that!

As I may have mentioned before, Sweet Daughter loves cats. Shorter Half is allergic to them (so a pet cat is out of the question), but SD includes cats in her life when she can. There are two cats at daycare. She talks about teaching “cat school (I have no idea. I just smile and make encouraging noises.) She often meows at me when she wants something. When asked her name, she responds with Firstname Middlenname Lastname-Cat. She thinks that Breda, who shoots, works in a library, and HAS CATS (trifecta!) is someone whom mere mortals can only dream about emulating.

So, back at the age of 3 1/2, she drew this picture of a cat. She very carefully pointed out everything she included when she showed it to me.

Yes, that is one scary-a$$ cat. She ought to sic THAT on the Big Bad Wolf. Click for big.

She carefully pointed out the ears, eyes, nose, whiskers, mouth, teeth, tummy and two legs.

When I asked here where the other two legs were (I mean with such exacting attention to detail, what was up with only two legs??), she sighed, barely suppressed an eye-roll and explained slowly, as though I were a backwards child needing extra time to comprehend a new and difficult concept, while flipping the paper over: