ZEKs LITE

Fast fingers

I'm doing a scary thing.  I'm looking for... a job.

Oh, that's a hard word for me.  Doing the job is easy.  Looking for it is the hard part.  It starts out exciting as you write your resume and realize you maybe have a skill or two, but then gets demoralizing as you go to interviews and learn that 205 people are in line with you for a job that pays $12/hr.  Ugh. 

Then there are those questions that I have to really bite my lip hard not to answer with perfect honesty: 

"What is your greatest accomplishment?" Still sane, happily married, kid is not knifing people.

"Where do you see yourself in five years?"  I don't even look into next week.  Jeez, if I'd seen where I am now five years ago, I'd have run screaming.

"What is your greatest weakness in performing your job?"  Occasionally I shoot out an overly honest email. My humor is so dry people take me seriously and get offended.  And I spill drinks on my keyboard. I also photocopy my unmentionables when no one is looking, as well as entire library books.

"What would you do if you saw an employee pilfering office supplies?"  I'd take him to lunch and see if he could get me my own big laminator.  And a good postage scale too.  And I need foam core and dry erase boards and colorful sharpie markers...just get me the catalog now.

Surely you can do better at goofy honest answers to these useless questions.

BUT I am currently allowing myself to be uplifted by the typing test I took today for the county school system.  Can you believe I type 79 words per minute?  Neither can I, but that's what the computer said, and that's what is now in my file, so therefore it is true.

where we are with the sock contest

oh... just a little foggy. 

I've got a couple finished patterns for the sock contest, but this one has been an exercise in reconditioning yarn.  It will get done, and it will be gorgeous.  Eventually.

Observations of the day

Wuvly wings

Z plays with our box of extra photos.

Butterfly baby Z...
with a curliecue proboscis for tasting the tulips?

Her name is Jessica... today

There's a swingin' chick we know... her face is detachable.  She has a hand-sewn purse and spangly clothes.  Z and her friend A decorated this drawing model with scraps from H.

What the cat did and why it's for the best

Someone around here expresses his or her anger in funny ways.  We'd gone a whole year without incident.  And then, we found the pile of fabric pieces dug up out of the bin and spilling around the floor (so unlike Z...?).  When Z went to gather them up, they had a distinctively horrid odor.  Cat pee.

So the washing began.  And with the washing came the discovery of the many colors.  And some of them voluminous; enough fabric to dress oneself in!  Others needed to be sorted and stacked.  A new set of shelves crept into the kitchen.  A glorious array of colors and potential!

They taste better when they're tiny

Z recently did some baking.  She gets math points for using her noggin.

She made a half-batch of blueberry muffins from scratch, which means she had to divide the ingredients each in half.  What is half a tablespoon?  It's a couple other little spoons...

Notions

Every sewer needs her notions. 

Velcro, elastic, rickrack, pompoms...

Can't get any easier...

Who are these relaxed Oregon people, who enjoy the water fountain, knitting and crafty stuff as much as seeing the monuments that they already saw before they got to our house? 

R & M spent a couple days with us on a diversion from the family wedding festivus going on at the other end of the blue line.  R is learning sock architecture, with a persistence and focus that is amusingly familiar.  M came with her inspiring art portfolio, and there was much art-doing.

This was just the play date we needed, since school is nearing and the summer is wearing thin (and boring).

We also toured Frederick, baked pizzas, and slept in late.  M & Z ran off on a picnic and got their dose of TV.  Can't get any easier than that.

Accessories of the micro world

Hello again!  Z is doing this post today.  Oh, how I love my dollhouse accessories!  Just recently a little light bulb lit up on top of my head, so I dug around, taped, folded, cut, colored, and voila! Here is my slightly rugged, but interesting creation.

See?  It's a birthday dollhouse kit.  Down here are some closeups.  I've made a duplicate of the birthday banner, and I wrote "Happy Birthday" with my left hand, so it would look like a kid did it.  I also made two presents (these were the funnest!)  They can open, so you can put stuff in there.  I thought it would be important to add that touch to them.  I also decided- just for fun- to add a little crown.  It's kind of hard to tell, but these are in a small plastic box, left over from a school craft bazaar that mum sold some creations at.