Infected

I've been MIA for several reasons:

1) there was the whole DamestarBaby Featured Seller weekend, where I think I spent a good portion of three days knitting and clicking between our Etsy shop, our Flickr page, our blog and our new website.

2) I went camping for a night, thinking that the moist ocean air would clear up the mild sickness I felt coming on. Not so.

3) my mild cough evolved into an intensely painful sinus infection, which then took a nasty turn into a crazy ear infection. I finally drove myself to the emergency room last night, and the doctor all but jumped back when he looked into my ear with his little light probe and saw this.
I told him my ear felt like it was going to explode and he said it very well could. Then four nurses came in and asked to take a look, for education's sake. I said go for it, I'm only here to help.

Soooo, bursting eardrums! That's exciting!

But now I'm on Vicodin (aaaahhhh) and so now the loud ringing and loss of hearing feels kind of like an enhanced state of being, since the pain is gone.

If it pops, I'll be sure and let you know.

Keep Your Life

ME: OK, Maz, we're going on a boat today, and that means you have to wear your life jacket.

MAZZY: So I can keep my life?

ME: Right. Exactly.

Mother's Little Helper

here are just a few of the ways Mazlyn has helped something get done in the last month...

she helped her sister get dressed for a play at the Clubhouse, then helped her up the stairs...
she helped her Dad with the construction of the Maximum Security Herb Garden
she drew this ladder in one of her books to span the tragic gap between a kid and his cookies...
she established a club: "The Atreyu Girls," it has a theme song and an official costume and I am proud to be one of three lucky members.

Meet Arthur

The largest coolest greenest softest weirdest caterpillar I've ever seen.

He's as big and fatter than my middle finger.

He(?) was intercepted trying to make his way into Jon's maximum security herb garden. Mazzy finally worked up the nerve to pick him up and we watched him for a while (it's hard not to)before we put him in his new home in a shrub in our yard. He's now busy wrapping silk threads around a branch and we're all very excited around here to see what becomes of him.

Crazy.