Song of the Day:

By Your Side

Patterns!

I bought two patterns today:

http://voguepatterns.mccall.com/v2903-products-4894.php?page_id=850

http://voguepatterns.mccall.com/v1266-products-3946.php?page_id=265

There was another dress pattern that I really wanted, but sadly Joanns didn't have it in stock.


There's several other dress patterns I want to purchase in a few weeks (when they'll be on sale for super cheap), and hopefully I'll make them for this summer!

Monster Egg

My faire director and his wife have two completely adorable kids; Timothy (age 4) and Victoria (age 6 weeks).
At the Duck bake Timothy was being a wild child. He wrestled me to the ground, threw pillows at me, completely covered me in pillows, and then stole my socks. It was hilarious, and I had lots of fun with Timothy, but the funniest thing happened not when I was talking to Timothy, but when I was talking to his parents.
I was telling them about a giant egg I found from my chickens, and I described it as follows- "it was huge, it was like a monster egg!". Timothy turned to me and in a very concerned voice asked "What did you do with the monster?". Everyone started laughing at poor Timothy, who was still wondering about the monster. His mom then explained to him that it was just an expression.
It was so cute!

Quote of the Day:

"The World is a book, and those who do not travel read only a page." ~St. Augustine

We're Going to Wisconsin

My Mom and I will be going up to Wisconsin this weekend. Unfortunately Jeremy and Luke are too sick.
We're going up tonight to stay at our friend's house, and then tomorrow (Saturday) I have a Duck bake*, and our friend will be having a book swap at her house. We're hoping to get rid of more books than we bring home; we have too many books (not that there's such a thing as too many, but we have more books than we have space for)! We still have a lot less than we had moving from Texas to Wisconsin. I think we had over 50 milk crates of books then! That may have included National Geographic magazines, though. But we have a quite a bit less now. We got rid of a lot when we moved from WI to IL. We donated them to our library.

*The term "Duck bake" may seem odd to some of you, so I will explain.
Bristol has several casts and guildes. I'm in the Guilde of St. Lawrence; members of St. Lawrence are called "ducks" or "ducklings" because we work at the Dirty Duck Inn.
St. Lawrence provides reasonably priced food for the cast of Bristol. We serve soup, bread, hard-boiled eggs, pickles, nuts, fruit, muffins, and pies (but not like apple pie, we have meat pies and peanut butter pies and all sorts of other pies, I'll get pictures later). We make the pies before the Bristol season starts. All the ducks get together and make the pies, rehearse, learn Duck dances, discuss characters and upcoming events, etc. And that is what a Duck bake is!

I Got a Hair Cut!

I got my hair cut, but I bet you can't even tell!
We know a wonderful lady, Miss Joyce, who is incredible with hair! She worked at a salon in Texas, but now she cuts hair from her home. She has awesome prices and she does great cuts! And she actually takes the time to explain why a cut will or won't work for your hair type and make suggestions of what could be better. Most people would just cut however you said to, but I'm thankful that she tells you exactly how it will look on your hair! That's so helpful!
I'd love to learn how to cut hair. That would be a very useful and money-saving skill to have.

Anyway, I just had four inches cut off the back, but instead of having it cut straight across I asked Miss Joyce to kind of round it. I think my hair is too thick to be cut straight across; it ends up looking really thick and blunt at the end.
Then I had the hair around my face trimmed. The shortest length is below my cheek bone and can still tuck behind my ear.
I'm quite happy with the whole cut. It's very subtle, but my hair looks healthier and feels very nice now.

Quote of the Day:

"For every minute you are angry, you lose sixty seconds of happiness." ~Author Unknown

So be happy!

Juggling

I hadn't juggled in a while, but last night I saw my box of juggling stuff and decided to go ahead and juggle some. I did some three ball tricks for a while, but then I decided to try four balls. I had tried to learn four ball juggling last year, but I wasn't very successful. This time I managed to get several throws! I was very excited. Now I'm hoping to be able to get at least 40 catches by the time Bristol starts. Then I can help my "brother" (as in my faire brother, John/Thomas, not Jeremy or Luke) learn 4 balls, and he can help me learn stilts!
John made a set of stilts for me, but they're currently sitting in the basement and I haven't practiced them. Somehow taking them out on a icy driveway seems like a bad idea... I think I'll wait until the weather is warmer before practicing them!

From Today's Reading:

I'm currently reading the book "Jesus Freaks" and I came across the prayer of a Russian captain who had just become a Christian.
It went like this:

"O God, what a fine chap you are! If I were You and You were me, I would never have forgiven You Your sins. But You are really a very nice chap! I love You with all my heart!

I think that's just awesome.

Easy Pinapple Smoothie

This is something really easy and yummy that my Mom and I invented!

You'll need:
Pineapple juice
Jello singles instant vanilla pudding (or split a multiple serving box into fourths)

Put the instant pudding mix into a coffee cup and fill the cup with pineapple juice (the pudding box says about 1/2 cup for pudding, but do more since you're going for a smoothie consistency). Stir it up and enjoy!

Quote of the Day:

"You can get all A's and still flunk life." ~Walker Percy

Eggs Galore and Cooking Escapades

So my chickens are laying lots of eggs. With 12 hens I've been getting about 8-10 eggs a day.
I was shocked to find 12 today! Really, that's just crazy!
So, we have a lot of eggs. I decided to try making some meringue to use some up.
Unfortunately I don't think I cared for the recipe I used. It was just egg whites and powdered sugar, and the result was too sweet. I'll have to try some other recipes.

I also made dinner tonight. I made pancakes (from scratch!) with fresh eggs. Yummy!
The kitchen is still kind of a mess from everything, but the dishwasher is going and after that I can clean the counters. That might actually get put off until tomorrow though, I'm watching the figure skating on the Olympics tonight. The figure skating is my favorite part!

I think I'll also bake some bread tomorrow. And maybe cookies...We'll see!

Quote of the Day:

"An educational system isn't worth a great deal if it teaches young people how to make a living but doesn't teach them how to make a life." ~Author Unknown

Cacoethes Scribendi?

So, I decided I should start this blog so that I can keep my family updated on what's going on. Facebook isn't a good way to keep everyone up-to-date. I don't post enough to give anyone any idea of what's going on, so come here to get updates!

I'm sure you're all wondering what the name of my blog means, so I'll go ahead and tell you.
Cacoethes Scribendi is Latin for "an insatiable urge to write. "
I am not very good at thinking up names for things like this, so I decided to read through some Latin quotes and find a good one. I rather liked this one (probably because I like writing), and so it won! I realize that if you want to visit my blog you may have trouble remembering "www.cacoethesscribendi.blogspot.com" when you go to type it in you address bar (even I'll have trouble remembering it! Luckily I just have to go to blogspot and sign in using my email address), so I came up with another humorous address- www.thisblogiseasytoremember.blogspot.com
I hope it's a little bit easier for you to remember!