Many Hands Make Light Work

Thank goodness there are "many hands" at our house today! This weekend, the city of Rayne is hosting their annual Frog Festival. Our small family business will be out there on Saturday, selling our wares, thanks to my super boss. She was willing to share a booth with us. So after tackling the few tests we have to complete today, our family will be preparing the basket of goodies we will be bringing to the festival. If you are in the area, come check out all our Kittles Family Artworks goodies and the textile goodies from the Sew What! shop.

I used to sell my jewelry under the name Rond Alainn when we were living in Texas but when we moved back to Louisiana, I had to stop. We had to find out all the ins and outs of selling things in Louisiana and we had to make new connections. There was no time to do that immediately since we also had the task of settling into the routine of living in a new place. Our old friends had, of course, moved on and grown in their own paths and made new friends, which meant we had to make new friends, as well. You know how the saying goes: "Make new friends but keep the old. One is silver and the other, gold." There's truth in that saying. I'm happy to say we've kept most of our old friends and made some awesome new ones, adding to "the family we chose."

I can't type too much today but I wanted to share a bit of my excitement about being able to sell our things to the public at a live event. It's been so long since I've done so, that I'll have to dust off all my displays! I've also had to refresh my packaging and supplies, and check through all my tags and pricing... Crazy! Well, what is life but a wild roller coaster ride, eh? Have fun! I intend to do so.

Laugh a lot and remember to breathe!

Lazy Autumn Evening?

Do you see the question mark? Here's the story behind it.

Today was such a gorgeous day! I could almost forget the fact that today was a Monday. The sun was shining brightly in a cloudless blue sky while a soft, cool breeze tossed the leaves around in the trees and stirred up my hair. I went in to my part time job, not sure what to expect. (I work with some interesting and generally happy folks. I count myself pretty blessed to know them.) Work went on without a hitch and I'm keeping a close eye on myself so that tomorrow is the same. I came home to find most of my dishes washed and my baby goats ready to work on schoolwork. (Well, OK. School is school and if they have to write anything of length, they're generally not too happy about it but they did their work without complaining too much. Kudos to them!) It just so happens we're starting a unit study on Stars and Stargazing this week. We created Sky Journals and they had a blast filling out the first entry while John took some star trail photos. (Speaking of which, if you'd like to see John's photography and talk to him about it, you can find him at J.D. Kittles Wordpress and J.D. Kittles Photography on facebook.) While the girls wrote about what they observed and drew a photo of the observations, I heated up milk for their hot cocoa and prepped my supplies for working on my next project. I managed to get my to do list all checked off and I still don't feel any more tired than on any other day. This is the reason for the question mark. Today really felt like a lazy day but so many tasks were completed! I'm seriously feeling good about that. :) Just wanted to share it with y'all. I haven't been able to post for quite some time. I blog for our business at Kittles Family Artworks 2012 at Wordpress if you think you might be interested in reading those posts. We post at least one a day on that blog. I hope all the links work. Please let me know if they are not. I hope you've enjoyed this post and that you are enjoying the autumn weather (or current seasonal weather) wherever you are.

Laugh a lot! Remember to breathe...

Whee! Here we go!

Ah, it has been very good these last few weeks. We started school on the 9th and things have been going fairly well. I can hardly believe we've gotten three weeks done! At least, the girls have gotten 3 weeks in. Our son started yesterday and it was so nice to see him start with a smile on his face. I'm so glad we decided to use the college books his father kept. Those will definitely challenge him. I think that's exactly what he needed. He told me today that he likes his new books. I could hardly believe it! And my youngest is reading (READING) this year! I'm so glad that I didn't push her too fast. She's really enjoying it. So overall, the first few weeks of school get an A. :)

On the crafting front, I haven't been up to much of anything. I did manage to scrapbook the children's play and part of the photos from the first play we did back in the spring. I don't have an album yet but the pages are looking fun and creative.

We are coming to my favorite time of year. I love the autumn months. No matter where I am, things just seem lighter and full of hope. It could be that most of the fun holidays are coming up. It could be that the autumn colors are my favorite colors. I really don't know what exactly causes it to be so. It just is. Where we live, we don't see much 'fall color' in our trees. The air changes, though, and it becomes cooler, much like a breath of fresh air that blows away the heat and humidity. Having said that, I /hate/ Louisiana winters. They are wet, cold and generally nasty. There isn't much playing outside that goes on during the Louisiana winter.

Our Redwall Feast will be coming up soon and I just love preparing for it. I can't wait to plan and send out invitations! Should be lots of fun since we have new people to invite this year.

I have several costumes to make. Last year, theShi asked me to make her a San costume (the heroine from the movie Princess Mononoke). I've been gathering the materials to make it for some time but it's coming together...slowly. LOL TheRo asked me for a Merle costume (from the anime Escaflowne) and that one should be a bit easier. We'll see. This month, I'm going to try to get some of the few things I have to buy to complete it. Thankfully, I have almost everything I'll need. My one worry is 'fur'. That kind of material is usually pricey and I'll probably need about 2 yards, if not more. We shall indeed see...

On the garden front, our citrus trees are producing pretty well. In a few months, we should have pink grapefruits, lemons and oranges and probably in amounts that will be too bountiful for our needs. I think the people of the church will probably be blessed with some. I'm looking forward to fermenting the lemons and I hope to make some orange marmalade and some grapefruit jelly. Our efforts with last year's crop yielded some very pleasing results!

Well, I guess that's enough for now. I really am trying to get better about posting more often. I don't worry too much about doing 'extra' stuff on a regular basis. I'd much rather get into the habit of doing the necessary things on a regular basis...like dusting and mopping... Well, we do what we can. Talk to y'all soon! Laugh a Lot!

What In the World?

Where did my weekend go?? Oh, yeah. Now I remember. I sacrificed my weekend for one of my children. It was worth it. It was worth it. It was worth it. I'll just keep telling myself that. I'm sure I'll believe it enough to go through with it again next year at some point. I'm still wiped out from Friday night! I sure hope tonight is a good sleep night. We have school tomorrow and I need to be awake for that. I've been known to talk in my sleep from time to time but I'm pretty sure teaching in my sleep is a bit far-fetched, even for me.

The sky is a lovely shade of dark grey-blue tonight. I'm wondering if the stars will make an appearance. The cool air of last night was so awesome! It's good to be heading into autumn. I really do think autumn is my favorite time of year. School is getting started again. The holidays are coming around again...well, the fun ones, anyway. I don't know how fun they'll be this year since we don't live in town anymore. We'll just have to see, I suppose. I'll look forward to them until such a time as I don't have to look forward anymore.

My kids played outside for most of the afternoon and, I have to say, the quiet of the house was most enjoyable. I love that quiet part of the day when the kids are still asleep or they are outside. Then I can hear myself think. It's really important for me to hear those random rumbly thoughts that roll around in my head. Some of you know what I mean. Thoughts like "boy, I wish I had some chocolate chip cookies" or "gosh! I think I'll turn the AC back on" or "shucks! I clicked the wrong icon and my player died!" Yeah, those kind of important thoughts.

Well, I better get off of here. I am going to put the wee bairns to bed and then go crash in my own bed.
Laugh a Lot!