If You Give A Boy, Volume 3

If you give a boy (this time, my great-nephew) a power washer, he may create art in your driveway.

If he creates art, it may start as a happy face.

If it starts as a happy face, it may morph.



If it morphs, it may become a jester. With glasses.


If it becomes a jester with glasses, it may later get washed away, just for the fun of it.

Sad for me, it is all gone. But there is another half of the driveway that is still dirty.

McQueen, please come back and make some more ephemeral art.

Speaking of Fruit Salad

This is the glorious fruit salad masterpiece that one or two flies we were buzzing about on Sunday afternoon:

I had nothing to do with this awesome creation.

She says I gave her the idea, but my beloved niece ran with it and made it her own.

The family was quite impressed.

Martha* away, my dear.

*definition: v. to create incredible projects that impress the rest of us

Flyswatting, or Carnage in the Kitchen

We had a barbecue Sunday afternoon and left the door open. I noticed a few flies buzzing around the fruit salad, but nothing like what I found Monday morning, when we were inundated with flies. These are the first 18 victims.


Ernest swatted 7 more, bringing the morning's total up to 25. After lunch, I swatted at least another 25. They kept on coming and we kept on swatting. We might have been up to 75 total by dinner time. Ernest reports that squashing them with a science textbook did not work.

So, where was my legion of spiders when I needed them? Those lazy spiders only caught 2.

Hippie Hooray

While my standard fall-back costume is Poppins or a gypsy/pirate wench, Ernest's favorite (since he's had long hair) is the hippie. It's acceptable for school, and easy to march in when the band plays in the school parade.

But this year he wanted to try something different in the evening. So he dressed as a Monty Python flasher, with a BOO sign underneath his trench coat. However, he came home halfway through the evening saying, "People just don't get it," and went back to the tie-dye.



I say, "Don't mess with a good thing."

Poppins

A number of years ago, I fell in love with a Mary Poppins umbrella from the Disney Store.

I just love Mary Poppins. I've seen the movie, read all the books, and even been to the Broadway show. One cold Halloween evening five years ago, we were going to a street fair and I wanted a warm costume. The beloved umbrella, black boots, white blouse, blue sweater and skirt, pink scarf, gloves, and a tape measure...remember when Mary measures the children?

Well begun is half done! The hat took a little doing -- but I had a small black straw hat of my mother's, and I added paper daisies and apple stickers in lieu of cherries (thank goodness for scrapbooking supplies).

Over the years, I've upgraded a few accessories. I found a replica of the movie hat and scarf on eBay.


And just a couple months ago, some inexpensive old fashioned boots at Costume Express. But I think my Poppins has loosened up over the years! She looks much more relaxed now.


She's California-ized! Because it was hot here!

Remember, her special word does include Cali.

SuperCALIfragilisticexpialidocious!

Green

For the Women's Colony Green Picture Challenge...

Click on the mosaic to make it bigger! It's better that way!

Clockwise from top left:

millstones in the garden at Mission San Diego de Alcala
the cemetary at Normandy (photo by Ernest)
gorilla amongst greenery at the Santa Barbara Zoo (sadly most of the greenery got cropped out)
the Handy Husband's Jolly Green Giant aka shuffleboard table
graffiti cacti at San Diego Old Town
a mossy cave at Blarney Castle, Ireland
volunteer green tomatoes
Ernest behind a green leaf on a 6th grade field trip
and in the center, the Niki St. Phalle sculpture garden in Escondido.

I just started doing these color things. My personal rule, just for myself only, is to try to find pictures from my archives. If red or yellow comes up next, I am set!

Halloweened OUT!

I was a lazy babe last night, and convinced my household to bolt the door and turn out the lights. No Halloween for 3/4 of us, although we did watch my favorite zombie movies: Shaun of the Dead, Fido, and Night of the Living Dead

The best zombie-smashing scene ever?



But truly, I was already Halloweened-out by the events at school on Friday. I somehow managed to hit each classroom for their respective parties. I was the queen of pin the face on the pumpkin, and had my usual internal rant about appropriate goodies (3 trays of the same grocery store cookies in the same class).

The most innovative treat? The watermelon jack-o-lantern with fruit skewer hair. That mom went all out. She was also there all morning, helping dress kids and serve the snacks. There were a lot of wonderful parents helping out!

The most awkward treat? The heavy glass dish of "mud pie" (chocolate pudding, gummy worms, oreo crumbs, and skull candy), sent with NO serving utensil and not enough skulls to go around. As I slopped it onto the plates with a tiny plastic spoon, I fielded the whines of "I wanted a skull." That mud pie would have been great in individual baking cups.

I was the original Super Nanny, and I'll talk about my Poppins obsession in another post.