• 07:41 Sore throat, slightly achy sort of tired, stuffy feeling in the back of my neck. Bah!
• 10:19 Mo does calm stuff: build with Lincoln logs, look at squid pics on WWW, listen to music, play violin. I drink tea & more tea. Thanks, kid!

I am so blessed with this kid. This is so undeserved, and I am so grateful.

• 09:16 Waiting on client feedback to send final newsletter. I sure do like MailChimp ( www.mailchimp.com ).
• 10:06 Mojo + I Are dancing 'round the house to random-play songs from "Dog Train", Re-Bops, Gaelic Storm, and "Little White Duck". Whee!
• 14:19 Kids with auntie, so I got the newsletter finalized and scheduled to go. Will link to it when it's archived.

from ping to twitter to LJ with LoudTwitter
This newsletter is for ReVisions, a small company that does leadership coaching, strategic planning, and suchlike. The principal, Marryn Rutledge, is one of the nicest people I have ever met, and is a joy to work with.

• 10:06 Mojo has a buddy over today. This is so cool. They are going to completely exhaust themselves with fun. Yay!
• 14:17 Kris Andrews has retail outlets for her baskets. Cool. www.naturallyinspiredbaskets.com/shops.php
• 14:44 It's disconcerting when you find somehow you or your filtering email rules accidentally deleted *useful* emails. Yikes.

from ping to twitter to LJ with LoudTwitter
17ish: A series of small things done. Still need larger chunks of time (say, 4 hours+no other people) for the bigger tasks. When? (Ping.fm didn't get this one to twitter, or twitter failed, so LT didn't scoop it up for LJ. LinkedIn got it though. InterWeb Bugs!)

MonkeyBoy & I can make *anything* out of cardboard! Today we made a weeder and a seeder for his tractor... so far. Barn roof next?

From ellenmillion: The first ten people to comment in this post AND repost this meme in their own journal (please tell me where/when you post in case I miss it) get to request a sketch on the topic of their choosing from me!

If you are not a sketcher, I'm sure you have an art form you can use to "sketch" for others. This totally counts. :)

(me-specific bit: feel free to specify pencil or ink; it does NOT have to be something I usually produce! Also, I can't promise they'll be to you before the Holidays. )

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By the way, although my dear husband has taking to asserting (validly) that I am chaos creature, I am not a patch on our son. He is truly an agent of entropy. I look upon the floors ... couches ... tables ... laundry ... and despair.

Or nearly. (Actually, I procrastinate like crazy.)

To get my son moving someplace, I've been saying to him: "I'm going to win!" and we race there. He thinks he's won; I think I have. Heh.

"Mama, Orca's footyprints look liek wolves'."

and after a moment's thought,

"Mama, I see a clue! I need my handy-dandy notebook to write it down." So we go and find it, and draw two of Orca's tracks in the snow.

(see also: http://smallmeasures.blogspot.com/2008/10/first-snow.html for a photo of today's STUFF and http://littlebirder.wordpress.com/2008/10/22/first-snow/ for a different approach... )

"Mama, it's too long until Easter and we color eggs."

"Hm. Well, Easter is always in the spring, but we could color eggs today."

"Will the Easter Bunny come and hide them?"

"No, he's busy doing winter things and preparing for next Easter."

"Then I'll be the Easter Bunny and hide them!"

So we did, and he was.

I thought I'd heard MonkeyBoy running the vacuum, but it was just the washing machine.

I think that's a relief. But...

**chuckle**

Standing up, not wanting to sit down, wails, "Dadda, that's too hot!"

"No, it's not."

Thoughtfully: "Really?"

"Really."

MonkeyBoy sits down and smiles. 

"Spin spin spin to Undizzy!"

Early morning, as we are cuddling in bed. "Mama, is the world still turning?"
"Yes, and it always will."*
"Why?"
(Over to you, eclectic_boy)

On a drive, he asked a series of these:
"Mama, how do they make... "
» glass
» grass
» roofs
» cars
» trees
» steering wheels

and some other things...

--------------
* The astrophysicist I almost was grumbled at me for saying this. I figured the more accurate timespan was pretty equivalent to always for a three-year old, and told myself to hush and answer the next question. Which, on hearing the next question, of course I promptly regretted. Sort of.

MonkeyBoy has a fort in the space between a book case, a comfy chair, and a couch. It's roofed by a fleece blanket.

He was disinclined to allow that statuette of Gollum -- you know, the one from the Towers DVD set? -- stay in the fort with him.

"Can you put this somewhere? I took it off the shelf."
"Oh, how come?"
"I don't want it in my fort with me, Mama."

And as ours looks slightly more bitter and twisted than the photos I've been finding on line, I really don't blame him.

For bedtime stories/reading tonight, MonkeyBoy and I were looking at pictures in the Autumn 2007 issue of Faerie Magazine.

MB: I didn't know faeries wear shirts.
Me: Some do...
MB: But how do they get them on over their wings?