When the cats away… we play! How long has Toby been gone now? A week? Are we missing him? Oh yes. But we’re also having a lot of fun. It’s nice to be able to make noise in the house any old hour of the day and not have to worry about interfering with a major deadline going down in Toby’s back-room office.

I’ve even been able to take a shower while Baby Bug was awake! Imagine that!! She actually ran around the house and played, alternating with watching Noggin of course. But instead of tears at the shower door or some unexpected disaster like vaseline smeared all over herself or toilet-papering the living room, I’ve found her happy as a clam sitting on the couch watching her beloved Oswald.

My mom has been here these last few days and that has been great. Nothing like some quality Gramma time. I even broke out the paints which I haven’t done since August! I think it’s the weather. Nice weather makes me want to sit on the patio and paint.

I finished one old one that I’m on the fence about. I think I like it. But of course I get hung up on how imperfect it is. Limbs bending ways they shouldn’t. Shadows where they wouldn’t naturally fall… but I can’t think too hard about paintings or they start not being fun anymore and turn into work. I have enough work in my life I don’t need to make a fun hobby into “work” too.

I’ll have to re-shoot it tomorrow in less orange light. The sun was setting and while I usually love photos during this time, I think it doesn’t really show the color very well. Too orange! But anyway… if you guys like it (and be honest) maybe I’ll list it on etsy. Or maybe I’ll list it even if you don’t.

I’m thinking it might work as part of a bunch of other paintings. Smaller. I tried to fit it in this wall but there were no square frames to photoshop it onto so use your imagination and imagine it smaller! Five inches by five inches to be exact!

I also painted the under layers for four other paintings so I’m on a roll. Toby can stay away for another month and I’ll have a few masterpieces. Just kidding! We are missing him quite a bit.

Just the other day Baby Bug said out of the blue, “I want to write Daddy a note”. “A note? I asked, ready to break out the pen and card stock because Toby is certainly missing her and a note might be just the thing. But she never answered me. She was off and chasing the cat or something. It was a sweet thought. We still have another week to go so maybe we’ll get that note out of her one of these days.

We’ve been up to our old tricks around here. Aren’t you glad to get back to the regularly scheduled programming? No? Drama is more interesting? Well, for us plain old ordinary crafting is muuuuuuch nicer.

Baby Bug and I painted an elaborate “under water” painting back when the window guys were inhabiting our living room. It was fun but I got tired of a giant piece of paper sitting around getting dusty so I “repurposed” it.

I cut out the fish and let Baby Bug have at it with the glitter—a new addition to our giant basket of craft supplies. Glitter is fun! Almost as fun as shaking salt on Mommy’s laptop. (Yeah, she did that the other day. Now my typing is a little bit… gritty.)

You’d think glitter would be a big mess but it wasn’t really. Sure it got everywhere but it’s pretty easy to scrape up and put back into a container. The colors are all mixed up but we just do like the coffee shops do and call it the “daily special”. The rest will get sucked up by the vacuum cleaner when I get it out one of these days. In mean time we have “sparkly feet”. It’s all the rage.

They turned out kind of cute I think. The kicker was the googlie eyes though. I think every crafting mom should add googlie eyes to their supply list. My fish drawings were “meh” before but now they are FUN and staring at you with their BIG BIG BIG eyes. They’re saying, “I seeeeeeeeee you!”

Or they could be saying something else like, “I’m very busy going this way and that…” which now that I think of it would be a good note to write to a friend you haven’t spoken to in a while. Note writing is such a lost art. I need to do it more.

Then I packaged them up and took pictures and was all ready to list a pack of five in my etsy shop but Bethany Actually pounced on them! She’s always up in my business like that. Just kidding! We do keep pretty good tabs on each other’s craftiness though. She’s always making things for me and I think this is her way of easing my conscience for always being the “taker”. Finally, something I can make for her!

We’re going to do a trade. She’s going to make me a crocheted chocolate bunny purse (that I get to design). I think I’m getting a way better deal though.