and then...

sage is becoming a person now which is helpful with his, ummm, crazy? personality. he loves to help greg split wood (thus the safety gear). he still is quite a volatile ball of craziness but with moments of self learning. he has recently taken up cutting paper with scissors and yesterday was cutting out 'bones' to make his skeleton costume for next halloween which he is convinced will be today, everyday. he's ready to go trick or treating and score all that wonderful candy so he can eat it up in about 4 hours again. thank goodness that only happens once a year! he also built himself a shotgun out of a stick, paper and tape. it even has the part on it that you move on the gun to load the shot, greg would laugh his butt off at that description but i cannot remember the proper name for it. the funny thing is, he wrapped the paper around the stick and it actually sounds like a real gun would sound.

i have a head cold that jaden caught from a friend's house last week. the worst part is i can't even sleep it off because the sinus congestion is keeping me up...having to blow my nose every 30 seconds makes it impossible. ugh.

this too shall pass.

i've been altering skirts i've purchased at the thrift store recently to fit me. a lot of them are too big in the waist, story of my life. i tend to pick skirts based on materials (cotton, silk, wool, linen) and colors (browns, olive greens, rust oranges, mustard yellows) so usually they are too big for me. i'm getting quite good at shortening elastic waist bands or adding elastic to the waist to decrease the size.

i've also got a good pile of wool sweaters to start on my gypsy coat. now to lay them all out and decide which to make as the main body and which to start chopping. this part is extremely hard for me to do. i'm so afraid of screwing them up that a lot of times, i don't take chances on chopping up clothes to make something more spectacular. i'm using etsy sellers' creations for inspiration.

i'm also in search of kids' fiction that talks about using herbs medicinally. have you run across any? it can be as obvious as the legend of the lady slipper or more subtle like the witch's brat. i want stories that use herbs accurately.