A knooked hippie hat

 front

 side

back

We went on vacation last week to New Orleans and to Orange Beach, Alabama. It was such good fun that it was even worth the total wreck it has now made of my house. I'm not sure how it is that returning from travel can destroy a house so quickly, but it can. Something about the laundry and the picnic supplies and the tired. I'll catch up sometime. (When I'm dead? I hope not.) I'll post photos after I have a minute to sit down and comb through all, um, 825 shots that I took on the trip. (I'm afraid that's no typo.)

In addition to all the sightseeing, swimming, and keeping my kids from drowning that I did on vacation I also finished my next knooking project. I used this pattern but in a funky rainbow print. It's going to be my cure for second-day hair this winter. The final project is more hippie than my mental image of it was, but it's kind of fun. I'd hate to get stodgy anyway.  :) The Knit Picks Chroma yarn is deliciously soft and comes in other colorways--I'm tempted to come up with a project just to use more of this yarn. The pattern translated easily from knitting to knooking, so now I'm really gaining confidence. I ordered a set of knooking hooks from eBay, but they have to ship from China so who knows when they'll get here. I purchased the crappy set that Wal-Mart sells, but the hooks are so rough that they must be sanded before they can be used, and the shape of the hook makes me unhappy--it is difficult to use. I'm hoping a good retailer picks up on the need for good knooking hooks soon and makes more metal ones. The locker hook I posted about earlier is the easy to use but only comes in one size.

The house projects continue

We took a trip to Columbus, Ohio. Our puppy traveled well but we did feel like a traveling circus (a circus in a gas-guzzling rental car, since mine is still in the shop) barreling across Kentucky and Ohio with our collection of children and dog, ready to descend on the usually calm and tidy home of my sister-in-law. She's good-natured, though, and seems fond of us anyway! I took this photo of some baby birds in the tree outside her home. The monks who wrote the beautiful puppy book I blogged about earlier suggested that dog ownership would make me see the world in new ways and they are right. As I get to know Belle better, I also notice that I have a more keen awareness of all the animal drama playing out around me. From other dogs on the street to the screechings of the poor mama bird as I photographed her children, I'm grateful for the new dimension puppy companionship has added to my life.

 

We visted the Santa Maria replica on a hot afternoon. Worth has developed a fascination with boats lately that unfortunately did not seem to extend to this one. I think it was too large for him to realize he was in a vessel rather than on the shore. We at least managed to keep him from going overboard, and the rest of us enjoyed the tour. 

When we got home from Ohio my mother and I embarked on our biggest interior painting project yet--the kitchen cabinets. Is my salt shaker rolling his eyes at us? Perhaps, since there is a great chaos in the kitchen. But I think (hope!) that it's going to look great when we're done. 

Painting cabinets is not for the faint of heart. I did it once before, when we lived in Oak Park, Illinois, and it was a big project then without kids or pups. Still, it's now nearing completion and I'm excited to share before and after pictures soon!

A bird in the hand

Before the puppy madness began I was spending some time working on our outside spaces. This is our side porch, and since we park in the back it the entrance we use primarily. I'd post a before picture but it would be too embarrassing to show you the messy jumble of miscellaneous junk I'd allowed to accumulate there as we were moving in. Sometimes it was easier to dump stuff on the porch than to find a better home for it. Anyway, I cleared off the junk and set up the grill. There isn't room for chairs on this little porch but it needed something else on it so I potted some herbs in pots I painted, then let Dorothy and her friend next door paint our old, recently-replaced front porch mailbox a bright yellow color and set it out to use as an exchange spot for messages to each other. The girls loved this project. Then something was still missing--I thought the window looked like it needed curtains, but curtains on an exterior window seemed a bit odd so I thought of pennants instead. I made the little string of flags out of scraps from Aunt Stephanie's room and I think they look very fresh and cheerful there. They tie in the colors of the pots, the little girls' mailbox, and the mustardy-gold I painted on the exterior door. Why not?

We traveled over the weekend. We had campground reservations at Rough River State Park but they were cancelled by the park several days before our trip due to flooding. With a weekend already blocked off for travel but the weather unappealingly hot for camping we decided to move forward some travel plans we'd intended for later in the summer. Saturday we visited Kentucky Down Under where Dorothy got to pet an emu, a kangaroo, and encounter this beautiful bird. The park had the feeling of a place that is still up and coming but we enjoyed the several hours we spent there. If I had it to do over I'd have packed a picnic as the cafe food was not very good--let that be my tip if you go. After the park we drove on into Bowling Green where we dined at the surprisingly good 440 Main on the charming town square and stayed the night at a hotel. The next day we visited the National Corvette Museum which I think has my husband vowing to work harder and earn more money...for a Corvette. Oy. It was a fun weekend getaway just a car nap's drive from home. On the way home we shared our favorite memories: Rob liked the Corvettes (go figure), Dorothy enjoyed the hotel pool more than either paid attraction, and I most enjoyed our dinner at the nice restaurant. What can I say?

Our puppy may now have a name. I really think she's a Pippa, but Dorothy seemed wedded to her suggestion of Isabelle. I pulled some Mommy magic today and had her convinced that naming the dog Pippa was her idea. She'd totally embraced it, started calling her that, and even proudly introduced the dog as Pippa to the next-door friend, but then Rob came home surprised by her change of heart and totally foiled my plan. "Is that really what you want to name her? I thought you were naming her Isabelle?" not realizing I'd already carefully achieved buy-in and was not pressuring her to pick a name I preferred. Then I think Dorothy got the impression that her father actually preferred Isabelle and has firmly switched back to that. Sigh...
Bella, which would be my top choice for a nickname if the dog must be named Isabelle, is the most common dog name, according to this web site. No fewer than three people have told me that they know other dogs named Bella. This will drive my crazy. I don't like to do things like other people. No amount of channeling good memories of the trip I once took to Italy will stop me from writhing at the idea that people will think I chose to name my dog the single most popular dog name currently in existence.  Rob and I carefully chose names for our children that didn't even make the top 1000 baby names the years they were born. That was not an accident. I think we'll call her Belle for short as opposed to Bella, with the one letter's difference (and nod toward France instead of Italy) at least making the name slightly more "beautiful" (pun intended) to me. And if I show up at the dog park and can't get my dog's attention since all the other doggie owners are calling their pups by the same basic name, well, I guess I'll just have to remember that allowing my 5-year-old to choose the name and venting my frustrations on the blog instead of in her earshot was the right thing to do. Belle it is.

May camping

I have somewhere around five sewing or house projects right now that are almost done, so watch out for a torrent of upcoming blogging.  You've been warned! In the meantime my family and I took a quick getaway in Little Red this weekend. We drove out to Blue Licks Battlefield State Park, which is between Lexington and Cincinnati. We drove through some gorgeous horse farm country and charming Paris, Kentucky. (Says Dorothy, "Do they have an Eiffel Tower?"  Excellent question, but seems not.)

The campsite was damp but pretty. This campground had two features we really liked. First, the playground is centrally located and visible from almost every campsite, so frisky five-year-olds can run and play without waiting for the slow-poke grown-ups to catch up. Second, the heads to several trails are located right by or in the campground so families like ours don't have to schlep children by car or long and winding road just to start a family hike through the woods.

We realized just a bit too late that the park had a Pioneer Museum, which would have been so fun to visit since we only last week finished reading the Little House on the Prairie series. We did get to check out a trail, the battlefield and monument, and we'd just driven down to the boat dock to explore the creek when we ran into a handful of half-naked teenagers covered from head to toe in mud and decided maybe we should go back to the campsite instead. At first I thought they were actually completely naked teenagers covered in mud and memories of our adventures in Mercer County ran through my head, but at second glance there did seem to be bikinis and trunks somewhere under all the muck. I have no idea what they were up to, but Dorothy only commented that they sure could use a shower (yup!) and rear-facing Worth didn't see them at all. I heard the girls in the campground shower later talking about fall classes (anatomy! advanced chemistry!) and I'm sure they were actually, ahem, very nice girls. There may or may not have ever been muddy bikini-wearing in my past.  I'm not saying. I definitely didn't take advanced chemistry.

Back at camp we had dinner and a campfire. It was damp but not raining and Rob had a rough time getting the fire started. We'd almost given up on the campfire cooking to use our little red camper microwave instead (we're talking about warming pre-cooked chicken sausages and foil packets of potatoes I'd pre-roasted here, not putting a whole pig on a spit or anything) when the fire finally took off quite zippily. We'd just begun to nosh on our smoky hot food when it did actually start raining hard and we fled for the comfort of our tiny camper. We've never been so glad to have graduated from tent-camping as this trip. It rained the rest of the time but we were cozy inside with our art supplies, Rob's newspaper, my camper journal (above), matching pirate pajamas for the small set (below) and the pleasant sound of rain on our roof.

We headed home first thing this morning since hiking in the rain with children isn't really our thing. The trip was short but sweet!

April camping

We made our first 2011 trip in the little camper! The trip was the perfect mix of length of travel (not long), length of stay (not long), and low-key activities.  We visited General Butler State Park, which is only about an hour from home. Last fall when we started camper camping I noticed that all the big outfits had family name signs they put out in front of their campsites, kind of like campground calling cards or announcements.  I liked the friendly idea but didn't think one of the large, imposing wooden signs would go very well with our streamlined setup so I designed and ordered this little lightweight yard sign. It says "It's all right to be little bitty."  Now we've really got it all!  (wink)

We toured the historic home on the premises, we hiked, played dominoes, and checked out no fewer than three playgrounds. We ate a dinner of pasta that I'd prepared at home.  Dorothy made friends with the girl at the camper next door and created beautiful art at our picnic table.

Worth developed what I'm afraid may be an abiding love of mud puddles.  If you think this brownie-streaked face and pea-smeared hair looks bad, well, you should see his mud-stained bottom. 

At home I've been working on setting up a square-foot garden in our new yard.  I recently used colored yarn to mark off the squares.  I brought the rest of the yarn I used for the squares (it's all acrylic) to our campsite and taught Dorothy how to make God's Eye weavings. I love that she's now old enough to do some projects that are fun for Mom too. We sat cozily in our camper before bed and wound our yarn around sticks we'd found at our site. The simple weavings looked pretty on our camper wall last night (photographed), and now they look great hanging on the trellis of our garden bed.

I think one-night camping excursions are just right for where our family is at right now.  We all had a good, relaxing time, got to spend quality time without the distractions of home, were able to fully take notice of the changes spring was bringing to the outdoors, but were able to tote home dirty dishes for our dishwasher and skip the icky camp showers.  Perfect!

More t-shirt embellishment

You'll only like this one if you, like me, are a fan of Mo Willems.  (It's for personal use, so I'm not trying to do anything evil here with copyright.) I cut out, ironed-on and stitched down a pigeon figure inspired by the book, then printed the word "drive" three times on printable fabric and ironed those on around him.  Dorothy likes this one too.

I had a hard time photographing this shirt.  It is another long sleeve tee like the ones in the last post.  I used different colored thread and the decorative stitches on my sewing machine to create a border around the neckline and waist.  The effect turned out pretty well and I think it makes this shirt look sort of mail order catalog-y, in a good way.  This was a really rewarding project because it was so quick and simple and made such a difference in the shirt.  I wouldn't try this with a dull needle--decorative stitches on knit need a sharp, fresh needle designed for knits.

I recently ordered this book on crochet motifs, mostly because I was a little short of the free shipping threshold when I was ordering something more urgent (how much money does Amazon.com make that way?  so brilliant!) and I really like it.  The little shapes can be the building blocks for any larger project one can imagine, but they are also fun little quick projects on their own.  I was feeling frustrated with our cheap, stupid (yes, I have a 4-year-old and I know "stupid" is a bad word) tea kettle because the stupid product designers made the handle out of some material that heats up so much when water is boiled in the kettle that unsuspecting, innocent tea drinkers get their hands burned every time they fail to remember that this stupid kettle isn't like every other kettle they've ever owned, and that they can't touch the stupid handle to pour the water out when the stupid thing whistles.  Tired of reaching for a potholder just to pour water (or failing to), I decided to crochet something decorative and insulating to stay on the stupid thing to avoid this problem in the future. I made one of the hexagons in the book and tied it right onto the handle at the points. The red and white wool matches my kitchen, so now the stupid kettle looks prettier too.  If anyone thinks that a person who repeatedly burns their hands making tea is a little bit stupid herself...well, no one asked you.

The kids and I are off on an adventure tomorrow.  The car is packed, the MP3 player loaded, and a basket is well-stocked with snacks.  We're headed to Chicago to visit my college roommate.  I used to travel quite often with just Dorothy before Worth was born but our preschool schedule and being outnumbered by my kids has kept me home more this past year.  I'm hoping that all goes well so we can make travel a regular part of our homeschooling experience next year. On this trip we're hoping to take in a St. Patrick's Day festival at the Irish Heritage Center and the children's museum.  I have used my mother's trick of wrapping small gifts in old newspaper to hand out to the kids at regular intervals to keep them happy in the car.  Some art supplies, a tiny backhoe that makes noise, books...I think they will be well received.

A very exciting trip

For the first time since preschool began in the fall, I really can't wait for it to end.  Dorothy has had a great experience but the commute is getting to me.  I'm tired of trying to schedule all of our family's living around the picking up and the dropping off.  I'm increasingly plagued by the annoying feeling that I can never get anything done, which must mean my priorities are off somewhere.  At this point I'm thinking that the problem is the prioritization of sending my kid to a great school on the other side of town, and I know how to fix that.  I'm glad we've chosen to homeschool next year so our lives and our learning can be more seamless.  In the meantime we're making do with weekends, like this Saturday when Noah's Ark and my sewing project collided, creating a brand new playscape and a cozy scene.  It was neat the way the toy took on a whole new creative dimension after I'd scooted the sofa over and spread out my work--the animals took on completely new existences. I'm finally working on the yellow quilt for Dorothy's room that occasioned the purchase of many yellow-toned sheets almost a year ago, when we were still playing the real estate game and day-dreaming of living in our current house (wallpaper and all).

My household now includes (cue ominous music) a walking toddler.  He took steps the day before his birthday, apparently feeling the pressure of that milestone--or perhaps all the overheard whispered conversation about what an early walker his sister was.  In any case, he's a full-fledged across-the-room walker now, and wow is that dangerous. I'm so tired of replacing all the contents of my drawers that I went to the hardware store and bought an entire can of bungee cords and have been attempting to babyproof with them.  They actually work pretty well on places like these.  I have to make sure I don't get them on there too tight because I don't want to put stress on the cabinetry, but they do seem to be deterring the marauding child for a whileand I didn't have to screw in any complicated locking mechanisms.  (P.S.  Stay tuned for a future before and after in which those kitchen cabinets become white!)

Also this weekend we took advantage of a Monday preschool holiday to take a one night getaway with our extended family.  In honor of Dorothy's upcoming birthday we journeyed to her idea of Paradise--the Great Wolf Lodge outside Cincinnati. We went there once before, as a sort of consolation prize to her after a summer spent watching a newly-pregnant Mommy lie on the sofa in nauseous misery, and she's talked about the experience ever since (the Lodge experience, not Mommy's pregnancy--ha). I'm on their e-mail list so I know when they have good rates, and I really do think it is a worthwhile trip for the money.  It's not too far from home, not as overwhelming as a large park would be, and holds just the right amount of child-sized pleasures to keep a kid Dorothy's age happy for a short trip. From the discovery of the complimentary child shower gel to the wolf mascot's bedtime story, the experience kept a smile on Dorothy's face for 24 hours straight.  (And did I mention that all her doting grandparents went?  Lucky girl!)

I wasn't sure what baby brother's take on the excursion would be, but after a short hesitation as he explored the splashing water he seemed to enjoy himself as well.  We had to keep his stumbling little zombie steps from carrying his chubby baby legs out into deep water!

Unrelated, if anyone else likes embellishing t-shirts for themselves or kids, Old Navy is having a spring stock-up sale right now that involves good prices ($4 and $5) on solid-colored tees.  These shirts are much better for crafting than the ones sold at craft stores because they have a more flattering shape and are softer.  They won't last forever, but do you really need them to?  They are comfortable and cheap!  Now I've got a whole bag full of future t-shirt projects waiting.

Weekend pictures

Another fun, busy weekend!  I finished this hat before we left for an overnight camping trip, to take to a 5-year-old birthday party when we returned.  The new owner seems to like it.  Dorothy approved of the "gem" beads in the center of the flowers.

We took the camper to Lake Monroe in Bloomington.  I went to college at IU, so it was fun to be back in that area.  We drove to campus in the late afternoon just to see how things had changed and vowed to go back next summer to visit some of my favorite old haunts.  Our campsite was, once again, not very woodsy.  Next fall we will know that we have to make reservations early (or commit to 2-night stays) if we want to camp in a natural setting during October.  The place we went was more of an RV park for Indianapolis fishermen or weekenders who are interested in an RV intentional neighborhood scene, not so much a woodsy campground one.  We had no idea going in, but it was also the weekend of this site's annual Halloween festivities, including a campsite decorating contest and trick-or-treating.  We hadn't planned on this, so during our excursion to campus we stopped by a grocery store to purchase candy and a makeshift costume for Dorothy--a $2.99 tiara and wand set.  It ended up being a fun surprise.  The other families were very nice, and the whole evening ended up being very enjoyable even though it wasn't what we pictured.  Since groups were walking around from site to site, many people also made a point to go over and peek in our cute camper, which was once again very unique among much larger and newer (and neutral-colored) campers.  My favorite comment was from one person who asked if it was really retro, or had we purchased it new to look like that.  :)

Now for my pictures.  Above, Dorothy is broom-sweeping our camper as we get things set up.  She fancies she is like Laura Ingalls doing her chores.

Even though our site itself was not woodsy, the campground was right next to the woods surrounding Lake Monroe.  We took a gorgeous hike through the pretty foliage and down to the lake.  (Can you spot the baby?)

Dorothy pretended to be a lake mermaid.  I got this photo of her pretending to jump back to her watery home, but unfortunately did not capture the hysterically cute affected mermaidesque hair-tossing of a moment before.

We cooked chicken sausages on the fire, and enjoyed our favorite fall acorn squash soup, which I'd prepared at home and warmed in the camper microwave.

The almost-full moon was a perfect backdrop to the campsite trick-or-treating. 

We went camping!

After several weeks of work we finally took our 1978 Fleetwing on the road.  We didn't go far--just over 30 miles down the road to the closest state park we could get reservations at on a few days notice.  It turned out not to even be in the woods, but on a golf course behind a state attraction less than a mile from the little downtown area.  Not exactly the hiking venue we'd had in mind, but this was, after all, just meant as a trial for our camping set up.  We had a little trouble backing in to our spot, being towing neophytes, but our camp neighbors helped guide us in and we quickly set up. Dorothy "decorated" the hitch with acorns upon arrival.

Then she decorated our table bench with fall leaves.

I got things together in the little camper kitchen.

This picture shows scale.  Our camper was by far the smallest one there, no contest, and the only one that wasn't white or offwhite.  (If you click on the photo it will enlarge and you can see it better.)  It was a real conversation starter.  "Oh, you all are the ones in the little red camper!"  That's us, all right.

We walked around the campground in lieu of hiking.  Dorothy collected nature finds in the treasure box we brought along for that purpose.

There was an old school playground with a steep metal slide (wheee!) and these creepy clown swings.

Dorothy and I broke out the camper craft supplies and made some acorn people after our dinner.

Everyone got tucked in; Dorothy up, the rest of us down.  I was surprised that Dorothy actually slept the night through up there in the bunk.  We had a great time.  We've tent camped with Dorothy on several occasions, but she doesn't remember any of them.  She was curious about the fire ("how will we unlit it when we're done?"), was confused that all the wood had disappeared this morning ("did the fire melt it?"), roasted her own chicken sausage and marshmallow, and insisted that we take showers in the campground facilities this morning.  Traveling with a four-year-old is such a great reminder to savor every experience!  We had a great time.  We brought some things we didn't need, and failed to bring a few things that would have been nice to have.  Now that we're a little wiser we're excited to try it again soon.

I made a camper fridgie

More spookies in the house! A few years ago I got this brainstorm on how to display some of the crocheted doilies that have ended up in my linen collection from various dearly departed relatives. I dyed them black, starched them stiff, and hung them in my windows with suction cups and little plastic spiders. This way I get to enjoy the beauty of the fancywork done by the women who came before me, but I don't actually have to use white doilies on my dresser. Dorothy has enjoyed arranging (and rearranging) the spiders.

Think back twenty or thirty years and imagine your grandmother's refrigerator.  It has a little crocheted yarn shape of some sort attached to it with a magnet, doesn't it?  Fridgies are a bit of an art that time has forgotten (and maybe that's for the best), but I revived it for this little project as one of the details to finish of my camper's interior.  My camper doesn't have an actual fridge, but I've attached this one to the galvanized metal backsplash I glued up over the propane range.  Very appropriately campy, I think.

All four sides of the camper are now painted and it's mostly ready to go.  I hooked up the water as a test, and it works.  The propane range does not work but I'm hoping it's just because the tank is empty.  I've been stashing bedding and kitchen essentials in it (a camper quilt is forthcoming but not done), and today I completed the very important task of putting together a camper art bag, with supplies for sketching or painting scenes, rubbing bark, collecting leaves, and gluing googly eyes and fake hair to acorns.  I foresee many hours of mother/daughter fun at picnic tables, stringing nature finds on fishing wire and creating little woodland whimsies with the help of glitter pom-poms!  I also found an old notebook, filled it with lined paper, and tucked a pen inside.  I hope to keep a camper journal with as much or little as we care to log, as a record of our travels.

A one-day adventure

So we loaded up the muffins and other picnic items and headed for Western Kentucky. We stopped along the way for a picnic in the park. That's my son munching his cracker in the photo above, not my husband, in case you were confused. (Genetics! Oh the mystery. That I can give birth to children who look just like my spouse. But in this case the outfit helps.)

And we saw the camper, but decided to think it over a possible purchase while we hit the touristy sites in Grand River. Patti's 1880s Settlement was totally charming, although we were a bit confused about where the 1880s bit came in. It was a delightful hodgepodge of home decor stores, feminine boutiques, sweet shops and touristy amusements.

Dorothy loved the playground, but loved the pink tractor outside its namesake boutique even more.

Then we took a deep breath and...went back and bought the little camper! This is the only "before" picture I'm going to share until I have some progress for comparison. It's a project! But I think it will be a fun one.

And finally we tucked our little explorers in for the road trip back home. They both slept, with visions of future adventures dancing in their heads, I hope.

Day tripper

So today's post is a bit, er, off my usual beaten path. Rob had a work-related commitment in Mercer County this morning, and since the rest of the day was supposed to be a holiday for him we all tagged along to have a little outing.

Much of Kentucky's population lives in the Louisville/Lexington/Frankfort corridor, and the rest of the state is where Kentucky jokes come from. I don't mean to ditch on my Commonwealth brethren, but just to draw attention to the fact that life looks a lot different in the more rural parts of the state than it does in the comparatively urban ones. Ahem.

So Rob and I, being the diligent planners that we are, visited the Mercer County website to figure out how best to spend our day trip. What does it mean when the Mercer County website says they are "within a two hour drive of 2.5 million people"? Is that like being almost urban? Or cosmopolitan by association? What if I said I live within a two-hour drive of lovers and haters and beautiful people and bigots and fools and poets? Does that actually say anything at all about me? So we tried Google instead and decided to spend our day in downtown Harrodsburg and at Old Fort Harrod State Park.

We set off smartly this morning, kids in tow. The house was left clean for a real-estate showing, the kids were dressed very sweetly in matching outfits (store-bought this time); we made an auspicious start with four people in good moods and ready for adventure. The drive went well, Rob dealt quickly and successfully with his business, and we decided to try to find local color in the little town square area. We found a diner and decided to give it a try.
So far, so good. Breakfast served all day, yeah! The mostly senior citizen crowd seemed to think our kids were cute, so they'd likely be forgiven if they made a bit of noise. We placed our order and made friendly faces at the people next to us who were cooing over the flirting baby. Dorothy's chocolate milk arrived and it was that really viscous, dark brown chocolate milk that I haven't seen in a long time and I'm sure my organic-chocolate-syrup-stirred-into-lowfat-milk kid had never experienced. She started sucking it down, fast. I saw my food coming and decided to switch the baby to my other knee, to free up my fork hand. That's when I realized we'd had a poosplosion. My apologies to readers who don't have kids, but it happens. I'd put him in a hand-me-down diaper we hadn't tried out yet--big mistake on a trip. There was baby poop all over my skirt and all over the bottom of the fully clothed baby. I make pitiful noises at Rob, who saw the problem, jumped up and handed me a roll of paper towels from the bar (glad it was the down-home kind of place that has paper towel rolls just sitting around). But this was really not a job for paper towels, and the only restroom there was a tiny facility you accessed by walking right through the establishment's busy kitchen. No thanks. I clutch the dirty baby over the skirt poo and headed for the car.

Unfortunately we'd parked right in front of the restaurant and it also had outdoor seating. I never turned around to see how many people were watching us, but we were only a few feet away so I'm sure we had at least some corner-of-the-eye audience, which is just what you want when you're trying to clean poo off yourself and your son on a public sidewalk. I grabbed the bag I'd packed for the day and located wipes, a bag and a clean diaper, but to my chagrin I realized Worth's change of clothes had been left with some other items in the bag I'd packed for church yesterday and accidentally abandoned under our pew. Never fear, I thought, because I keep an emergency change of clothes for both children in a bag in the back of the car.
I fetched the emergency stash and pulled out...a teeny tiny newborn jammie that I could not even have tugged over the feet of my enormous 4-month-old chubster (please notice his tummy rolls in the photo above, jammie laid out on the car seat to show scale). Too bad I hadn't updated that emergency stash lately! So I scrubbed him down with baby wipes--poo-soaked shortalls pulled down, poo all over lower half of baby; poo-soaked onesie pulled up, poo all over upper half of baby. But I had a Costco pack of wipes and I did get him all cleaned off, in the front seat of the car, with an audience of sidewalk diners, and put him in a fresh diaper. He looked radiantly happy and grinned and cooed at my the whole time I tried to clean my own skirt off with baby wipes, napkins and a bottle of water, all still on the sidewalk and with an audience. At this point I was both totally grossed out and starving. There wasn't much else I could do, so I walked back into the diner with my soaked but still visibly dirty skirt and my nearly-naked baby. This time our neighbors pointedly avoided looking at me, which might have been for the best. I choked down what turned out to be very disappointing french toast (fried Wonderbread, anyone?) and tried to laugh.

We decided the next course of action should be a stop at a store that sold clean clothes, so we consulted the car's navigation system for nearby shopping options. Of course there was a Wal-Mart handily right down the road, and I swear I never was so eager to go shopping there. Target would have been green with envy to see my eagerness to rush into that blue bastion of rural capitalism. I abandoned my naked baby in the parking lot with his father and rushed first (sorry, I have priorities) to the adult clothing section, envisioning the purchase of a clean skirt or maybe, in a pinch, a pair of capris. I found the women's section quite easily ("women's" being a euphemism for "clothing for bigger gals"), then the tiny skimpy junior shorts, but didn't see the clothing for people my size. I circled back around. I wandered over to the pots and pans. Was I missing it? It turned out the Wal-Mart only carried a few pitiful little rounders of clothing for average-sized people, and none of them contained skirts or capris.

Now I get that Kentucky holds strong at the seventh-fattest state, but seriously? One cannot even purchase average-sized clothing downstate? I do not hold anything against heavier people, nor do I fit into the scrawny salad-munching soccer mom mold myself, but WTF?? I went in with very low standards--I needed something to wear that was better than a shit-smeared skirt, and I found nothing. Wow.

On to the children's department. I did a little better there. A Carter's romper for $4 that said something innocuous about surfing. At least I was able to find clothing in his size that wasn't emblazoned with a sports team or a cartoon character. I made my purchase, dressed the baby, told myself no one would notice the now-dry discoloration on my skirt anyway, and we drove to the fort.

It was a really hot day to visit an outdoor exhibit, but we figured the place would be bustling anyway on a holiday. Dorothy professed hope she'd be able to pet a lamb as we'd seen on the website, the baby was ready for a nap under any circumstance, and Rob and I were still gamely ready to learn more about our state. Unfortunately, the reality was a bit different. The oppressive heat seemed to have kept most visitors away, the (full-grown) sheep sulked deep out of reach in the shade, and the costumed staffers seemed about to melt. But the trip still felt salvageable until we rounded the corner of the fort to the "primitive" or Native American exhibit. There sat a state park employee, in the dirt, in a manner that I have to say threw me off even more than poop down my skirt in a diner.

Are you familiar with Jay and Silent Bob? Well, the man in the dirt reminded me of Jay as much as anybody, definitely with a stoned sort of look but also with multiple facial piercings, and (I'm sorry, dear reader, I warned you this was off the beaten path) was wearing a loincloth. And a shirt. But on his lower parts, which were seated in dirt, as part of (I think?) an exhibit, he was wearing only a leather loincloth. Jay, from Jay and Silent Bob. With facial piercings. In a loincloth. In the heat. It's not that I'm a prude, my friend, just that I'm confused about the historical accuracy/necessity/advisability/legality of any Kevin Smith character wearing a loincloth anywhere near me or my children. And yet there he was, talking about curing animal hides (seriously? I couldn't make this up!) to another visitor standing on our side of the fence. Rob and I exchanged one of those married-people glances that mean 1000 things in one tiny look, and we, well, got the hell out of there.

I was trying to decide if I was going to recover from all that poop and Jay-in-the-loincloth all on the same day, trying hard to focus on a soap-making exhibit that normally would have really interested me, when the phone rang. Our realtor called, and today's showing went swimmingly! We probably sold the house. The potential buyer will sleep on it first, but intends to write an offer tomorrow. We're so glad, and so anxious all in one. We need to find a house/pack/mortgage and all of those things. We finally just gave up on our day in Mercer County and drove home to a liquor cabinet that I must remember to pack last at this address and unpack first at the new one, because honestly, on days like this, isn't that cheaper than therapy?