Can you imagine this in buckskin? I can. I think this will be on my summer craft agenda. Along with gemshorns. Jeremy and I started making blasthorns last week. It will be a long time before mine looks like the freakin' Horn of Gondor but it works. So it doesn't alert the Fellowship (Parthenia blows the Horn of Greenfield to get help fending off the orcish OB nursing instructor!), but it makes a nice loud noise....Other projects of late: a class assignment in Human Growth Development--a collage of what "centers us". I'm knitting and sewing a Parthenia voodoo doll, with embroidered tattoos and face, a goldwork necklace with a Khamsa pendant, a crazy quilt dress, muslin chemise (maybe even in Italian Renaissance garb) and either a turban (for the Italian Ren garb) or a knitted tam to cover the felted (or yarn) dreads.....A Renaissance necklace with carnelian beads and a cool silver pendant with a removable sugilite marble. No sugilite isn't period, but it looked pretty cool.....Took out the 1975 Singer Zig Zag sewing machine, cleaned it up, replaced the belt and decided that yes, Parthenia, you can learn to use this thing. This summer....I might have photos of this sometime soon, but I can't promise anything....
The gemshorn project has been shelved til this summer. Drilling horn is very dusty and the dust smells nasty even through the mask. Like burning toenails. But it was soooo fun!

I went to my first SCA event in my Ren dress. I had a blast, but the food did not agree with me. Gav me a bad stomach ache and a migraine, worsened by the heavy turban. I got to satisfy my crafting compulsion over Spring reak, but was not as productive as I'd hoped. Had a little bout with gastroenteritis. Felt like crap for half my vacation. But I did get to sleep, rest, and hang out with Lucky Little Lamb a lot. That made us both happy.

State of the Union
Now I get it.

Hey, Big Brother John Ashcroft, when all is said and done, will we be allowed to shit without government scrutiny?
I keep telling myself that Satan and his minions time in office will be fast and fleeting. All of this is a bad dream. But every morning when I wake up, The Devil still occupies the White House. Not all of the stress in my life is from nursing school, work, family life. Sometimes listening to the news makes my stomach ache.
Ram and I have decided to buy some land and pay on it until financially ready to begin building our dome/earthship dream house. We want a house that is as self sufficient and energy efficient as possible. I'm pushing for the composting toilet. I have always loved composting toilets. I have Lucky Ram just about convinced. Why shit in clean water only to have to disinfect the water? Turn your poop into fertilizer and give back to the earth. And John Ashcroft comes to wield power over our gastro-intestinal systems, we can push him into the toilet (literally if it's nothing but a hole in the ground) and compost him.

Fund Code - 391: Community Partnerships for Children

ECS Literacy Programs -- Profile of Massachusetts - Community Partnerships for Children (CPC) ProgramFor those of you who don't know what CPC is.

Governor Romney's FY2004 Budget Recommendations
"Common Sense for the Commonwealth" my ass! Hey Gov. Romney! If you cut CPC from the state budget, will you provide child care for me while I finish school? I get $40 per week in CPC grant money for Lucky Lamb's day care. $40/week may be a drop in the bucket for you, maybe how much you pay in hairspray per week. But I don't use hairspray, and I don't have cable, I don't drive a fancy car. $40/week is $160-200/month. That's more than my car note. With CPC money, I still pay $440-$550/month in child care. That's more than my rent. Do you see where I'm coming from, Gov. Romney? CPC is the only state assistance our little family qualifies for. We're struggling as it is. I know that's hard to see all the way out east on Beacon Hill, in your fancy mansion. Come on out to Western Mass and see how your country mice cousins live. CPC funds our city preschools, and Lucky Little Lamb will be 4 in May, so we need those preschools, or else you're gonna have to move your HQ out here while you care for all those kids you plan to put out on the street.

Okay. Now Little Lamb likes yogurt, so be sure to have lots of it on hand. She still takes naps, generally without a lovey. She loves to paint, she likes animals, she's very curious, and she's not a biter or a hitter. I know you can do it, Gov'nah. Obviously you want a career in early childhood education, or else you wouldn't take out early childhood education money from the budget. Surely they have early childhood education in your home state of Utah. Oh yeah, you're technically a Massachusetts resident. I forgot. I think you forgot, too.

DON'T CUT CPC!!!! THAT'S NOT COMMON SENSE!

Here's a good little quizzlet for you. I wish I had time to make it up right. Instead, you'll have to do a little internet research. Go to Good Ole Google, type in Judith Holofernes and do an image search. Check out the various interpretations and ask yourself, What's my favorite Judith Beheading Holofernes image? Here's mine.

Now I am far from being a dreary, dark, person into violent and gruesome imagery and symbolism. But just like the next person (especially that next person whose wardrobe has gone through at least one phase of black on black), a little gore really can just reach out and grab me. It's the whole Italian Renaissance thing, really. It has nothing to do with a dislike of men or anything like that.

Tomorrow we celebreate the Ram's birthday. Since he's a leap year baby, he techinically doesn't get a birthday, but we'll let it slide. I made a red velvet cake with pink strawberry frosting, and decorated it with cute candy bugs, spaceships, stars, and planets. I did it in a Bundt cake pan, and I'm going to put fresh strawberries in the hole. I added twice as much butter as I was supposed to, so it should be an interesting cake. I got him a gift certificate for a one hour massage/reiki from Towner. It should go well with the money for lift tickets he's been getting. After he comes home from snowboarding he's all banged up. He took the day off and went up to Okemo today and came back with a nasty hemotoma under his big toenail.
I saw a birth yesterday!!! WoW. It was so beautiful! I got to give my first injecton to a newborn (Vitamin K) I was so nervous I went over every single minute detail with the nurse. He didn't even cry. Anyway so back to the birth. I saw the whole thing. She had no epidural or episiotomy, came in at about 8:15 and the baby was born around 8:46 or 8:53. I didn't realize how much blood there was. And I did not expect to be mesmerized by the placenta. That was so cool!!! It is definitely the kind of nursing I want to do.
Over Spring Break (I'm taking the whole week off to refresh) I think I'm going to get my tattoo finished--and I'm going to make my blast horn and gemshorn. And knit my Human Growth and Development "collage"--a knitted Parthenia. The theme of the collage has to be about what calms, centers us, or something like that. A whole week of crafting. I can't wait!