...I'd call it The Grateful Head.

.*.*.

  This is a beautiful, and amazing, synchronized Christmas light display. You truly have to see it to believe it.

According to the Urban Legends Reference Page:

This display was the work of Carson Williams of Mason, Ohio, who spent about three hours sequencing the 88 Light-O-Rama channels that control the 16,000 Christmas lights in his 2004 holiday lighting spectacular. The musical accompaniment is broadcast over a low-power radio station so that it is only audible to visitors tuned in to the correct frquency and doesn't disturb the neighbors.

That's very thoughtful, but unless he's out on his own 40 acres, my guess is that he's disturbing the neighbors anyway...

.*.*.

  I saw "Walk the Line" this weekend, and I just feel the need to tell everyone that I want credit for liking Johnny Cash since I was a kid, ie WAY BEFORE the movie came out. I've never been a fan of country music, but I think it's reasonably arguable that he wasn't a typical country musician.

I was explaining my feelings about this to a friend and she equated it with all of the recent converts to the Lord of the Rings trilogy that came since the movies were out. She and her husband have been longtime fans of the books, and while she's glad everyone's enjoying the stories, it's weird now that it seems EVERYONE has a dog named Frodo when they used to be the only ones.

Do have the experience of being an old-time fan of something that regained popularity? How did you feel about it? Any "Bohemian Rhapsody" lovers that got inundated with company after Wayne's World? Anybody out there listen to The Who before it became the theme song to every CSI franchise? You know who you are, now let ME know!

.*.*.

  Because we are fairly relaxed homeschoolers, many times people ask us how we know the kids are learning, because we don't follow a rigid curriculum. So, I thought I'd give an example of our family learns, even when we don't have everything planned out ahead of time.

A couple of weeks ago, while planning one of our many marathon trips to the library, I asked the girls to each pick out someone from history they wanted to learn more about. Sage (7) chose the Pharaoh Rameses, Anya (10) chose Albert Einstein, and Maya just refused to choose. She said she didn't want to choose ANYONE. I said that it could be anyone from anywhere in time, who did anything at all, surely there was someone she would find interesting to read about? She replied calmly, "All through time, even from the beginning, there's no one! They're all boring! The only person I want to hear anything about is ELVIS!"

You have to understand that Maya is my child most gifted with drama, but even so her request was a bit shocking. Not in the delivery, but in the fact that I wasn't sure where she'd heard about Elvis, we don't own any of his music or watch his movies or anything. I realize you can hardly breathe in our culture without some reference to him, but what I didn't realize was that she'd been paying attention.

Well, they have books on Elvis. And CDs, and movies. So, off we went, and even I, after doing this "relaxed homeschool" thing for a few years now, was shocked at how much we've gained from studying this iconic figure.

First, you have to understand that this has all been culled from a series of involved discussions we've had while we've been poring through the media we picked up at the library. Some came from questions I asked them, some came from questions they asked me. So, I didn't write this all down ahead of time and "cover" it, I kept track of it as was followed the rabbit trails through the material. The facts came from the literature, the insights are ours.

Social Studies:
1950s-1970s America-We talked about what America was like then, so that they could properly understand events in their context. We talked about how rapidly the social and political landscape changed during this time.

Racial Relations-We discussed how some early animosity developed towards Elvis because he "sounded black" and had audiences from all backgrounds at his concerts. This took a lot of explaining because, while I don't believe we've achieved a perfect society in any way, any prejudices do seem to be far less overt now.

Mob Mentality/Stalker Mentality-We talked about how people behaved towards him, and how over time he was less and less free to go out in public. It took a while to explain to my kids how people who liked someone could hurt him, so I used the example from earlier that week of their friend Joseph coming over to play. I reminded them that when Joseph came in, they all ran up and hugged him, because they were glad to see him. So many people were glad to Elvis that they could physically hurt him and each other. Plus, he had people waiting outside of his house, etc.

Obsession-I don't know how else to describe the idea that people think he's still alive.

Science:
Infant Mortality-Elvis was a surviving twin, so we talked a lot about what the special risks in pregnancy are for multiples, including nutrition, cord and placenta issues, and birth accidents. Also we talked about how pregnancies are not equally risky throughout the world now, and even here in America how our twins (Maya and Sage) had a much better chance than Elvis and his brother in the 1930's.

Changes in Recording Technology Over Time-While listening to some of his early music, it is possible to hear differences in sound quality and depth of the recordings. Even just over the course of his life, huge changes were made in the number of tracks that could be processed into on recording, as well as the quality of sound systems for both capturing the music and replaying it. Too bad my friend Mark of Wilberforce isn't here, after putting his own album together he could have probably explained this to them in much better detail!

Fine Arts:
Bridging the Gap between Blues and Rock and Roll-We'd just attended a co-op class covering the history of Blues music, so we could move right on to how Elvis helped change the sound to what we now call Rock and Roll, and how many artists since then consider him to be an inspiration.

Use of imitation and parody-We looked at pictures of the 140 bazillion Elvis impersonators, and discussed why there were so many and who else has a following like that (ie Marilyn Monroe, etc.) We also touched on the progression from sincere imitation to parody, as the impersonators follow the entire continuum. A little Mojo Nixon never hurts, either. (I'm saving Bubba Ho-Tep until they're older, though, have to draw a line somewhere...)

Language Arts:
Grammar-We went through some of his songs and discussed what would have been a more grammatically correct way to express his sentiments, ie "You are nothing but a hound dog," etc. We talked about the need for proper grammar, but also when it is OK to break the rules. Obviously it worked for Elvis!

Character Studies:
Duty-Elvis is one of the last (if not THE last, I can't find data on this) huge stars to get called in the draft and go.

Generosity-Because Elvis couldn't go to the movies or do other regular things without risking complete chaos, he would wait until establishments closed and hire them out. He'd rent out a movie theater or amusement park in the middle of the night, and invite all of his friends and everyone he came across to go with him. We talked about how being generous is a good thing, we should all share what we can. We also talked about how generosity can bring out the worst in other people, though. Wouldn't it be great if this world were more simple?

Behavior of Friends-We discussed how, by the end, Elvis was a complete wreck because of the prescription medications he was taking. More than one source indicated that everyone around him at the time was afraid to rock the boat with him and confront this problem. We talked about how sometimes friends have to take a stand when someone is in danger, even if it will hurt someone's feelings.


There is more every day, and it is all interspersed with the theory of relativity and Einstein's take on war, as well as Rameses' place in Egyptian history. It's a good thing we maintain a timeline!

Labels: homeschooling

.*.*.

  I'm running out the door, but I will be back later to post about the latest topic here in the Horde Homeschool. Uhthankyouverymuch for checking back to see what it is!

.*.*.

  We brought this to the Thanksgiving feast as a sort of novelty, thinking it might be fun.

Never again. It's still trying to claw it's way back up my throat, and I may just let it go.

Not unless it would ensure the end to all war, or a cure for cancer or something equally momentous, would I ingest this substance. I might consider it for some sort of trans-existential Beatles reunion, but I doubt it, and if you know me you know that that's REALLY BAD.

.*.*.

  Or, Happy Thursday, if you're not in America.

Regular blogging should resume tomorrow, if I'm not too bloated.

To keep you busy in the meantime, here's an fun and interesting link for one of the dishes I have prepared for our family's feast...

Labels: holiday

.*.*.

  Sorry I didn't post yesterday, I was having a marathon migraine. I finally took all of the medicines I have in my house that can be taken together (including triptans, narcotics and Nyquil) and went to bed. I didn't bother with the tinfoil and Saran Wrap this time.

Today I'm doing a lot of my baking for tomorrow, because I'm doing the Turkey Day 5K Walk in the morning. If you have time stop by and say hi! I'll be near the rear of the pack.

So far I've made a huge batch of "Coconut Brownie Bites," which are essentially these little made-from-scratch brownies with a Mounds candy bar on top (the recipe called for Almond Joy, but I already feel like too much of a nut for that...) Sounds great, doesn't it? Yeah, I thought so, too.

Something started smoking in the oven, and set of the smoke detector, which caused the kids to panic. At least they didn't run outside, that would have been a real disaster considering how many of them aren't fully dressed yet. (Like I said, it's a nutty day here.) The brownies themselves have turned out about as disappointing as a pan of brownies can. They're all flat and hard and tiny. The candy bars, to their credit, seem to have emerged unscathed. I don't get it. I can cook entire Thanksgiving feasts with no trouble, but this stupid pan of brownies is ruined. I refuse to accept responsibility.

I spoke to them firmly for a while, but they don't even seem ashamed of themselves! I'm going to take them anyway, maybe they'll straighten themselves up overnight.

.*.*.

  homeschooling families with the supernaturally perfect children, let me tell you a little about our field trip today.

We drove out to Chatfield State Park to take some pictures and enjoy our Indian summer day.

We parked and walked out on the dam. There, with the gorgeous vista, and the amazing mixture of God's and man's work, what did we do? We said "dam" as many times as we could.

"Look at that dam view!"

"This is a nice dam walk!"

"Mom, I need to use those dam bathrooms."

"Hey, stay on the dam path, or you'll fall down the dam spillway!"

I'm sure you get the point.

Yep, I'd have to say that's the most enjoyable field trip we've had, by a dam site!

.*.*.

  Thank you all so much for putting up with, and helping with, my appliance questions. I promise I am working on another "real" blog post for later today!

.*.*.

  Now, side by side or freezer on top?

Also, ice and water in the door, is it worth the extra money? What do you say?

This is so great, I may never have to make up my own mind again!

.*.*.

  If you had two appliances that were going a little wonky, say for the sake of argument your stove and your refrigerator, and you could only replace one at a time, because, for instance you're not "made of money," which would you replace first?

Editing to add: I should specify that neither is going to flat out die any time soon. So, it's not a survival-type situation, if that makes a difference in your answer.

.*.*.

 

Thirteen Things about Jen 1. Hello, my name is Jennifer, and I have a problem. 2. I believe I may be genetically incapable of keeping things orderly. My house is always cluttered and full of piles. Is there a test for this disorder? Can I get pills or some other medical treatment to counteract its effects? 3. I started trying to declutter my living room using this method. It looks good on paper, but now I have pristine bookshelves and it looks like a "stuff bomb" went off in the rest of my room. 4. Now I'm so overwhelmed by the "stuffalanche" that I just don't want to deal with it at all. I still possess enough of my college psychology training to realize this is not going to get me anywhere. 5. Nor will blogging about it. But, it's Thursday, and I have a DUTY to complete my Thirteen, yes, that's what it is. Denial is working very nicely for me right now. I won't even think about my Superfund living room anymore right now. 6. It is snowing like mad outside. I love it when it's snowing, it always feels so cozy, like Little House on the Prairie or something. 7. I can say that because I live in Denver, and we will be back to shirtsleeves weather and dry streets within days. I grew up in northern Indiana where this wasn't really true. Of course, we could use our sleds a lot more there. Here we say things like, "Wake up, yes I know it's midnight, but it's snowing. Quick, get the sleds out of the garage, we need to hit the snow hill before the sun comes up and melts it all!" 8. Sage, one of my 7 year olds, just came to tell me she got a hard boiled egg out of the refrigerator, but now she doesn't remember where she put it. But, she says, it's OK because she's looking for it. Why do I hear that ominous music from Jaws in my head? 9. Speaking of, Jaws didn't really scare me. I don't know why, it was well done and everything. You know what movie has always scared me (besides the obvious ones)? The Changeling. Have you seen that? The scene with George C. Scott alone with the tape player is just about the creepiest thing going. 10. Tiernan, my four year old, just came up and cracked his hard boiled egg right on my computer desk. 11. It wasn't a hard boiled egg. 12. Oh well, I didn't need those files... 13. OK, now I've got chicken biohazard right on the desk where I'm sitting and a missing egg somewhere in my house. I can no longer be in denial, I'm on a mission. I'm going to have to clean at least until I complete this family's twisted version of an Easter Egg Hunt. Pray for us all! Links to other Thursday Thirteens! 1. Leanne 2. MommaK 3. Colleen at Loose Leaf 4. Dawn 5. Terrilynn 6. Tommi 7. Jennifer 8. UziCue 9. Sleeping Mommy 10. Party Pascha 11. **Kristy** 12. Sallwood 13. Shelli 14. Sally 15. Better Safe Than Sorry 16. Lisa 17. Lori 18. Aimee 19. Simply Sassy 20. Colleen at Musings From the Edge 21. Crazy Momma 22. The Toothfairy 23. Interstellar Lass 24. squashedtoad 25. Running2Ks 26. Renee 27. Jak 28. MommyD 29. Mrs. Fun 30. Carolyne 31. Texas_Ivy10 32. Mary 33. Sheri & SuZan 34. Jenny 35. Audra 36. Bone 37. Veronika 38. Just Cara 39. "D" 40. Dana 41. Emily 42. The Rock Bitch 43. Blondie 44. Keb 45. Katy 46. Megan (leave your link in comments, I’ll add you here!)

Get the Thursday Thirteen code here!


The purpose of the meme is to get to know everyone who participates a little bit better every Thursday. Visiting fellow Thirteeners is encouraged! If you participate, leave the link to your Thirteen in others comments. It’s easy, and fun! Be sure to update your Thirteen with links that are left for you, as well! I will link to everyone who participates and leaves a link to their 13 things. Trackbacks, pings, comment links accepted!

View More Thursday Thirteen Participants



.*.*.

  If you've read my blog for long, you'll know that I love ANYTHING that is crafty and has an educational component to it. Imagine my joy when I came across this knitted digestive system at Strange but Trewe!



And it's even better than the needlepoint GI tract because, A) I like to knit more than I like to do needlepoint, and B) it comes with a pattern so you can make your own! With patience and skill, this beauty can be mine! I love it!

It's interesting to note that the pattern starts from the anus and works backwards through the system, I would have assumed the opposite because of the direction food travels. Shows what I know! I'm fairly new to knitting, so I can't always tell how something is made, like I generally can with crochet.

I bet it got really boring through the small intestines...


.*.*.

  people talked on the phone while checking out at the grocery store. Although, I guess if you're robbing a bank you're probably not too concerned with cell phone etiquette.

A young woman robbed four banks in Washington's suburbs without ever interrupting conversations her cell phone, a sheriff's spokesman said on Friday. In the most recent heist, the woman, with sunglasses casually pushed up on her dark hair and a mobile phone at her ear, walked up to a bank teller in Ashburn, Virginia, on November 4 and opened her purse to show a handgun and a note demanding cash, said Loudoun County sheriff's spokesman Kraig Troxell.

I wonder if she was worse at robbing the bank because of her cell phone usage than she would have been otherwise? Although they seem to have put the "talking on the cell phone while driving is just as bad as drunk driving" theory to rest, I wonder if it holds true for bank robbery? Maybe they should do tests and see if she performed just as poorly as a "drunk robber" would? That would probably be a good thing if there weren't firearms involved...

.*.*.

  I wish this article by the Moores didn't use such inflammatory language. It really has some interesting research and information in support of delayed academics and homeschooling, but I worry that a lot of people won't even get past the title.

When Education Becomes Abuse:
A Different Look at the Mental Health of Children

.*.*.

  if there were a clean spot for it to land.

Davin took the kids to launch their model rocket at the park with some other homeschoolers, so I have the place to myself. I am going to do a little cleaning (although I should do a LOT), and take a leisurely shower before they get back.

Enjoy your Saturday!

.*.*.

  Today I took Anya, Maya and Sage on a tour of the Celestial Seasonings Tea Factory in Boulder. We went with 9 other families from our homeschool group, so it was a cozy tour with a lot of kids we know.

It was a nice trip, and we got to relax afterwards in their tea tasting room. That was a lot of fun, while we tried many different teas and made a shopping list for their gift shop. The favorite? Santa's Candy Apple, which is pretty much as good as you'd imagine!

Anya made a joke that cracked up a whole line of strangers in the restroom. We were in the bathroom right off of the tea tasting room, and it only had two stalls. I asked her to hurry, because a line was forming. She replied, "You'd think that since everyone's coming here to drink tea, they'd have more bathrooms!" Yep, that's my gal!

Labels: homeschooling, kids

.*.*.

 

Thirteen Things about Jen 1. I am loving these new styles we get to choose from! Thanks, Leanne! 2. Today is my friend Anne's birthday. Happy Birthday, Anne! 3.. We're not supposed to be home today. We're scheduled to be at a field trip to NREL, but Tiernan woke up in a puddle of, shall we say, stomach contents... I figure that, even though the field trip sounds really neat, it's not neat enough to risk erupting while we're there, or to have the other moms mad at me when their kids are turning inside out next week. 4. He was also sleeping in a puddle of Hotwheels and Matchbox cars, I found over 20 of them when I stripped his bed to wash the linens. That's pretty normal for him, though, and I don't think it contributed to his upheaval. It may help break him into the high stakes world of performing swamis, though, should he choose that as a career path. It'd save us some college money, at least. 5. My kids are big on tossing their cookies, as it were. They must have a leaky valve or something. Anything can put their systems on reverse, even something good like telling them it's almost Christmas. We do a lot of carpet cleaning around here. 6. One of our little friends had a surgery when she was a baby, because of some other health issues, that made it so that she couldn't vomit. It's called a Nissen Fundoplication and it prevents anything from going from the stomach backwards up into the esophagus. Well, not everything. Now that this little girl is getting older, she's very proud of that fact that she can belch, and she will proudly produce pretty amazing ones on cue. 7. Because of several factors, this little girl fits right into our family. But, the juicy belching also means that if we ever get our armpit fart band off the ground she is welcome to come on tour with us. 8. On to more genteel topics, I finished the sweater I was making to donate to Guideposts Knit for Kids. It really didn't take as long as I expected. Those of you who knit will be able to tell I didn't use stockinette stitch, but I think it still turned out well. 9. I started a new sweater using seed stitch. I'm making a larger size, so it won't go as quickly as the other did. I'm OK with that, I just like to knit to help keep me sane. (Too late! Ha ha!) Fine, to salvage what's left of my sanity. 10. Oops, I think you all just witnessed me talking to myself. Because somehow having four kids talking to me all day just isn't enough, I've got to nag myself, too. 11. I know I've spoken here before about my kids' love for Godzilla. I don't really understand it, even though I've seen about 400 million Godzilla movies now (and there are even MORE, you wouldn't believe how many Godzilla movies there are.) They just eat it up, even though there's really no internal logic to them. For instance, Godzilla can be good or bad, depending on the movie. Or good AND bad, depending on how many Godzillas are in the movie, and whether any of them are robots. (Not like Gamera, who's always "a friend to children everywhere.") That's not even taking into account how many other monsters there are in the Godzilla universe. But the kids know and love them all, and can tell you the backstory on all of them. 12. I bring this up because Anya received a copy of Godzilla: Destroy All Monsters for Game Cube last month for her birthday. She's been playing this nearly non-stop (with short breaks for sleeping, meals, other GC games and some educational activities) ever since. Godzilla's piercing shriek has become the soundtrack to our lives. It's becoming reassuring to me, like the smell of cookies baking, or the feel of a favorite shirt...yep, there's Godzilla screaming away, all is well in the world. 13. Speaking of all being well with the world, I should go check on the kids. It's quiet...too quiet. Take care, Thirteeners! Links to other Thursday Thirteens! 1. Leanne 2. Mar 3. Momma K 4. Better Safe than Sorry 5. Sleeping Mommy 6. Janey 7. Carnealian 8. Jenny 9. Nearest Distant Shore 10. http://www.looseleafnotes.com/ 11. Marisa 12. Tommi 13. Texas_Ivy10 14. Lisa 15. Lily Bleu 16. Interstellar Lass 17. Mrs. Fun 18. squashedtoad 19. Cori 20. mommy d 21. http://www.danno.org/blogs/index.php 22. Mia Spiral 23. Jeej 24. Running2Ks 25. Marybeth 26. Audra 27. Keb 28. Allison 29. Coyote Mike 30. Karin 31. M.E. 32. Chatty 33. http://www.thedailyhaleigh.com/ 34. Buffi 35. Megan 36. Veronika 37. Calliope 38. Heather 39. Blondie 40. Jak 41. Catherine 42. Renee 43. Barbara (leave your link in comments, I’ll add you here!)

Get the Thursday Thirteen code here!


The purpose of the meme is to get to know everyone who participates a little bit better every Thursday. Visiting fellow Thirteeners is encouraged! If you participate, leave the link to your Thirteen in others comments. It’s easy, and fun! Be sure to update your Thirteen with links that are left for you, as well! I will link to everyone who participates and leaves a link to their 13 things. Trackbacks, pings, comment links accepted!

View More Thursday Thirteen Participants



.*.*.

  why we have school shootings? There was another one yesterday.

What is your theory on why this is happening?

.*.*.

  Don't you?

So, I just wanted to say a quick thank you to everyone who's commented on my blog in the last two weeks. It really makes my day to know you're out there reading my blog and telling me what you think!

Thanks to:
Interstellar Lass, Jamie Dawn, Veronika, Better Safe Than Sorry, Davin, cube, Renee, Coyote Mike, Colleen @ Musings, trinity13, Jean-Luc Picard, Audra, Leanne, Sleeping Mommy, Texas_Ivy10, MommaK, Jessica, UziCue, sallwood, april, mommy d, terrilynn, star, jak, Janey, Julie, Jenny, Jana, Helen, Sheri, Rosesandtea, Phoenix, Shannon, M. C. Pearson, Sheri & SuZan, Carly-Ann, Chris, Barry, Laura, Orikinla Osinachi, Katy, Dee Jay, buffi, susan m and Colleen at Loose Leaf!!!

I really do appreciate the fact that you took the time to stop and comment here. Thanks a million!

.*.*.

  Japanese Princess Sayako needs housewife lessons in preparation for her marriage to a commoner.

They're expecting her to need her husband's help at the grocery store, and she may be assigned an adviser to help her with all of the other day to day practicalities. I'll have to remember this the next time the difficulty of the life of a housewife is doubted.

.*.*.

  "Girl-cott"

.*.*.

  The Pumpkin Computer!

Includes instructions on how to make your own, but gives no indication of how long it will keep. If I had one, I would tell everyone it was a "Jack-intosh."

.*.*.

 

Thirteen Things about JEN 1. Halloween went well. None of the kids at the door scared the crap out of me like that girl last year. She was dressed as Kayako from Ju-on/The Grudge, and nearly made me pee. 2. Conversational Spanish is getting easier as I learn new words and gain confidence. At the last class, while one of the students what sharing that a mean cousin had lied to her during a childhood trip to Bolivia and told her she was eating horsemeat, I was able to make a joke (with the teacher out of the room of course.) I said, "No me gusta comer caballo, pero me gusta comer caballeros!" 3. In case you don't speak my brand of goofy Spanish, that was, "I don't like to eat horse, but I do like to eat cowboys!" Hee hee! Apparently I'm not safe to take nice places in any language... 4. I don't feel really bad about not remembering my college Spanish. Davin took 3 semesters of Russian and can only remember a few phrases. He can say, "I love you," and he can tell the kids to brush their "zoobies" which is teeth. Our kids aren't headed for bilingualism unless we hire some help... 5. This week we went to a field trip to celebrate the Day of the Dead. The kids decorated sugar skulls and learned about the traditions from Mexico. (I didn't try out any Spanish on the nice folks at the Museo de las Americas, as I was trying to be a good example of homeschoolers everywhere.) 6. To visit this museum, we had to park on the corner where I had my last big car accident. That's a little freaky, even though it was back in 1989. The other person involved in the accident ran a stop sign and I T-boned his car as he flew through the intersection. At first he was fine, then he collapsed. The EMT said that sometimes car accidents trigger heart attacks, especially in older folks, because of the sudden quick compression of heart by the shoulder harness. 7. I don't know if he survived the accident or not. There was a contact number I could have called to find out, but I was too afraid. I was 18 at the time, I think if I were in the same circumstance now, I would call; I've done a lot of growing up in the meantime. I still think about him sometimes. 8. Grrrr! I lost my whole post when IE locked up and shut down! Now I'm typing most of it again, some was saved by Blogger. 9. I am eating a Mr. Goodbar right now. My son, Tiernan, is allergic to peanuts, so we had to scour all of the Halloween buckets for candy he couldn't eat. Davin, my husband, can't digest them at all, so he leaves them alone. So, the girls and I have a whole bag of candy that only we can eat! 10. There's still plenty of candy in the communal bucket, too, so everyone's happy. 11. We ran out Tuesday on one of our errands to buy the DVD copy of Star Wars Episode III. We had, of course, already seen it in the theater and it was OK. One reviewer called it a "steaming pile of Sith," and in many ways I had to agree. But, that didn't stop us from running out the very first day it was available and shoveling even more money into George Lucas' bulging pockets. 12. It's times these that I wonder if there was ever any hope for humanity... 13. Well, for some freaky reason I don't have anywhere to be today, so I'm just going to take it easy. Really, I should be cleaning. If you feel motivational, drop me a comment that will make me feel like cleaning, would you? Thanks. Links to other Thursday Thirteens! 1. Leanne 2. MommaK @ Petroville 3. Shake it Like a Polaroid Picture 4. Audra @ Random Ramblings 5. e @ restrospect 6. Colleen 7. Interstellar Lass 8. Sallwood @ Has to be a Pony Somewhere 9. Nearest Distant Shore 10. Jak @ It's Not Called SLO For Nothing 11. The Crusty Crone 12. Tommi @ Just another boring blonde 13. Simply Sassy 14. I'm Just Sayin' 15. Sleeping Mommy 16. Jessica @ Daydreams and Musings 17. Toothfairy 18. UziCue 19. Salt & Vinegar 20. Mommy D @ Multiple Mania 21. The Daily Haleigh 22. Sarcasmom 23. Lisa @ Just A Girl 24. Poopie 25. Jenny's Journal 26. Colleen @ Musings from the Edge 27. Coyote Mike 28. Fond of Snape 29. Keb 30. Buffi 31. Erin 32. Renee 33. Veronika (leave your link in comments, I’ll add you here!)

Get the Thursday Thirteen code here!


The purpose of the meme is to get to know everyone who participates a little bit better every Thursday. Visiting fellow Thirteeners is encouraged! If you participate, leave the link to your Thirteen in others comments. It’s easy, and fun! Be sure to update your Thirteen with links that are left for you, as well! I will link to everyone who participates and leaves a link to their 13 things. Trackbacks, pings, comment links accepted!


.*.*.

  Sheri's comment on my last post got me to wondering, surely there are other tampon-based crafts out there... (See what happens when I have too much time to think? I really should be cleaning.)

Indeed there are. And, you can make them all yourself, if you choose!

Tampon Angel, are you somewhere up above, and am I still your own true love?

Rocket Tampon Their suggestion: " Make enough rocket ornaments to decorate a Christmas Tree!"

The Not-So-Grim Reaper No directions here, but I couldn't resist.

For those trying to avoid toxic art shock syndrome, I also present these Maxi Pad Slippers!

Well, my Christmas list is complete...

.*.*.

  Just eewww.

.*.*.

  ...and strangely compelling. Check out this amorous skeleton. He's beautiful and tragic all at the same time.

Dislocation was kind of disturbing. I have this "knees" thing. The rest were a lot of fun.

Thanks to Laura from my homeschool group for pointing this out!

.*.*.