Rapunzel No Longer

And so, my friends, after more than two years of dedication,
the journey ends here.

But let's start at the beginning, shall we?

In September 2007, I decided to cut off all my hair. I'm not putting up a picture because I don't like them. However, if you want to dig in my archives, it exists.

June 2008, I became a redhead. Best. Hairstyle EVER.

I'm probably gonna go back to it one of these days. I got the best compliment on this cut - that I looked like a silent film star. yayness!




I don't remember exactly what date I decided to start growing it back out (I'm guessing Novemberish '08), but in March '09, I was definitely on my way. And tickled to I look like a hobbit. ha!


Progress went slowly at first.
July 2009 had the hobbit look long gone, but my hair was still really short.

Exactly a year later, in July '10, it was long enough to wear braided pigtails to the rodeo. lol













Aaand about six months later at Christmas,
it was super long and straight.

(sidenote: check out Alyssa's rockin' ginger curls! JEALOUS. She makes me want to go round 3 with the red so bad. But then I would look like a poser. lol)

So, January brought the decision to be finished. Mission complete. My hair is longer than the length specified when I started growing it out.

As you can see, I am super pleased.
A lot. Even though this post felt really self centered and cluttered. My hair's kinda been part of the journey on my blog, and I thought you should know that part of the journey is over. Lucky for you, that doesn't mean I'll quit talking about my hair. HA!

P.S. Thanks Erin (pictured in the last photo) for the top photo, and thanks to Katie (in the rodeo pic) for the ending photo of me and Erin. <3 love you girls. lol

Happy Saturday!

Hello!

Welcome to Saturday. The sun is shining, the coffee is fresh and delicious, and it's going to be a good day.

I have some pictures I want to share, so just bear with me while I be random and show you pictures that have nothing to do with each other. :D

I didn't mention that I had planned to make a matching hat for those nifty gloves, did I?

But I did. See?

A couple days ago I was sitting here at the computer, looking out the window, and the sky just went black with birds. It was crazy. A HUGE flock of birds was just... I can't think of a good verb ... I dunno. Swarming is a lame word. It was more like undulating. But that sounds weird. At any rate, this huge flock of birds was just flying about, and it was so awesome. I ran outside as fast as I could to take a picture. I was disappointed because I only got like 1/4 of them in the shot, but it still turned out pretty cool.

Yesterday was good. I crocheted some stuff, and took 4 packages to the post office. Then I came home and got ready to go paint our sunday school classroom with some friends. I decided to take the camera and found this picture on the memory card.

Oddly morbid, yes? I was rather surprised. They took pictures of themselves rolicking happily in a leaf pile, and all of a sudden there's this. My little people apparently have some sort of appreciation for darker art. Who'da thunk a playful romp in a leaf pile would result in this creepy little photo? Awesome. lol

So, then I went to church and spent a little over 5 hours helping some super great people with some painting. Cubbie Bear and his friends have been banished from the walls. We've got some classier colors going on now. (shout out to Allison on her super trimwork!)

So. It's a great day for a walk. And since I'm caught up on Etsy orders, I can crochet whatever I want today! I plan to have a lovely day, and I wish you the same!

Bye!

Of Owls and Spectres

Hello.
My bird just flew past and distracted me. Vincent's gotten pretty good at flying through the house. Sometimes he lands on the edge of the fishbowl, which I find comical.

Yeah, that's not how the beginning of this post was supposed to go. Then again, I didn't have a beginning planned or anything, so it's okay.

Thursday night was movie night at the Looney's house. Yeah! After the first movie, we sat around in the kitchen for a few minutes, just taking a break before we put on the second one. Or so I thought. All of a sudden, we're all singing "Happy Birthday." I like singing the birthday song, so I'm just singing along, wondering whose birthday it is now (there have been lots of August birthdays), when Alicia starts walking toward me with a glowing little birthday cake. I was like "Oh RIGHT! It's MY birthday! sort of..."

They gave me a little surprise party!!
It was sooo awesome. Katie stuck a tiara on my head, and I blew out my candles and just sat there and grinned like a little kid while presents started appearing out of nowhere. Among which gifts were these lovely owl bookends from Sheesh

.

That's not a very good picture of them.
I'll just have to take pictures of all my presents and make a whole post about them. ;-)

In other news (I love that lead-in, but I try not to overuse it, really I do), one of the resident kitties had a litter of kittens. A white/calico kitty, a grey kitty, and a white and grey kitty. I saw the white and grey one and declared that I was keeping him.

His name shall be Specter.
Or Spectre.
I haven't decided yet. What do you think?

See how cuuuute he is!!?

So, if you want a kitten, let me know. His very cute sisters will eventually need to be relocated.
Now, if you'll excuse me, I'm going to make hot dogs for supper.

Driver's Ivy Scally Flat?

Hello! This is a crochet story.
If that doesn't interest you, you may leave now.
(but it does have cool pictures. ;-) I promise.)



So, apparently there are a lot of names for this particular style of hat. I've heard driver's cap, golf cap, ivy cap, scally cap, flat cap... If there are any technical differences between the hat structures, I stand unawares.

At any rate, I've always wanted to make one. I browsed for a pattern a couple times, but didn't really find anything, so I moved on. Then I watched this music video the other day. (Need To Breathe - Washed by the Water) I just kept going "duuude! Their hats are awesome!" through the whole video. Then I decided that I Really Must Make One.

So you know what I did? I did what any sane person would do.
I whipped out Laura's trusty laptop (oh, wait. I already had it cuz I was watching the music video. nevermind.), and started looking for crochet patterns. All of the ones that claimed to be what I wanted were floppy, beret-like things with brims poking off one edge. Of course, that's fine and good if it's what you're going for, but that's not what I was going for. For hours upon end, I searched for a pattern. For hours upon end, I was met with nothing.

Being the brilliant person that I am, I exclaimed, "if I could just find a template of the shapes I'd need - like from a sewing pattern or something - then I could figure out how to crochet them and put them together!" So, I began a search for a template. Or any sort of sewing pattern for a flat cap. Yeah, um... all I got was the medieval muffin sort of flat cap. And one person on Etsy had a pattern. Good for her. But I really didn't want to pay that much for a sewing pattern when what I wanted was a crochet pattern anyways. (It just occurred to me that I'm really dragging this story out.)

When I went shopping and found ZERO cap patterns at the store, I gave up. Looking for patterns, that is. I went home determined to create one without a pattern. Hey, that's how I make almost everything else, right?

Sooo, I pulled out a nice little conductor-y type hat of my own to help me estimate the size my cap would need to be. Then I drew a nice little shape for how the top of my cap should look. Then I found a nice little skein of wine colored wool and got to work. The sides and the brim were a lot harder to figure out than the top. The brim was just a big ol' pain, actually.

Two Star Trek episodes, one Janette Oke movie, and at least 6+ hours of non-television aided work later, I have my SUPER AMAZING CAP!!



I say, folks, I am so insanely proud of this thing.
And that stupid brim gave me fits.
It's a little big on me, and the pattern definitely needs tweaking (that is, if I can reinterpret the chicken-scratch I furiously scribbled as I worked), but I'm very happy with it. It looks just like it was supposed to!!

P.S. Isn't my brother Nick a fantastic model?

P.P.S. I know you were all just dying to find out what the new thing in my Etsy shop was. (that was said with just a smidgen of sarcasm, in case you mis-read it silently to yourself.)








Beautiful red fingerless gloves. Now you know.

First Day of School!

Today was the first day of school! I was so excited. Really, I was! And I'm still excited.
And all the other teachers think I'm nuts. But I love teaching, and I love little kids, so... Of course, some of the love and excitement wears off by the end of the school year, when you're sick of saying "don't climb the slide!" and chasing barefooted kids, germy (and prohibited) crocs in hand.

Anyways, where was I? Right. First day of school, in a cute clean room, with cute little boys.

There's my door, with all our names on it. Nifty, isn't it?






Here's my room as seen from the door! This photo turned out really blurry. Hm. Oh well.

I really enjoyed preparation week... playing with sticky tack, construction paper, and foam pieces... Painting my tree on a bulletin board was really fun. I laminated it so that I can put different art projects up for the different seasons. Jessica liked it so much, she had me paint one for her room.
I got her to cover my extra board with yellow paper in return. I still haven't decided what to put on that one... Any ideas?


I also brought in my bean bag chair, a fluffy dog, and lots of pillows from my room that I never use. Makes a super cute and comfy little reading/music corner. No success reading today, though. We're gonna have to work on our circle-time skills... But they're only 2. We have time.





I asked Mrs. Dawn to hunt down all the trucks for me. As you can see, we have no shortage of wheeled vehicles. And for good reason, too - all of them were employed today.

I used sticky foam letters to put the boys' names on their cubbies. I really like the way it turned out. ... Only, Nathan isn't coming. lol

I had his name on a couple of things already, and then Mrs. Nancy told me Tuesday that plans changed. It's ok. I can handle six boys, but five is just fine, too. :D

Well, I was going to go ahead and post pics of the little guys, too, but I've got to get off the computer now. Ah well. It was a good day, and I'm ready for bed.

I leave you with a picture of one of the cutest moments of the day.

-Miss Caitlin

Hallo again!

It's been over a week since I posted!

I've been busy.
Crocheting, going places, doing things... I had to drive somewhere almost every day last week. I think I listed all of the things I had to do in my last post. They all got accomplished, and they all worked out well.
Even the orthodontist visit. Although that isn't to say it wasn't miserable and painful and all that sort of thing. And then there's the fact that I still have to have these braces for two more years. Blegh. But I'm grateful, so there.

Hey, look! It's me when I first got my braces.
(I just felt like I needed some pictures in this post.)

Our movie night was a blast. It was so fun to see Beth and Katie again. Katie's gone off to college now... But she said we should have another movie night without her, in her honor. I agree.

I like talking about my friends in my posts so that I can tag them on facebook.

It's always fun when you see yourself in someone else's blog... if they're saying nice things about you. Or at least it is for me. lol I have other friends that would probably get mentioned more if they had facebooks so that I could tag them. Like Katey.

With that random little spiel over with, I would like to say that I'm glad to be back at work. This week is preparation time. Woo hoo! I've thrown away all sorts of clutter, and got my cabinets organized and neat. I decorated my door, and got started on a bulletin board. Other than that, I have nothing accomplished. I've got some idea books lying in my room that I've been meaning to look through... Got to get a lesson plan together, you know. I'm pretty good at flying by the seat of my pants (what an odd expression - that's the first time I've used that one, too, I think), but I doubt Mrs. Nancy would appreciate that. :D

I'm looking foward to actually starting with the kids there. I've only got two days a week, and a quarter of what I earn is paying for gas money to get there and back. Lest you think I'm exaggerating, ... well, I'm not. I put gas in the van today, so I know how much it takes, and if it's not a whole fourth of what I earn, it's more. Aaaanyways, I'm obviously not working for the money. I'm working because I love to! And guess what? ....
...
guess again.

My whole class is little boys!! Is that awesome or what?! I'm so excited. I'll have 6 two year old boys. It will be scary, but fun. Mrs. Nancy has labeled my class "Caitlin and the Boys." lol

And because I don't have any pictures of them yet, here's a favorite from the beginning of last year. It's my Rhett-Monkey!! I love that kid so much. He's grown a lot since that pic. I can't wait to see how much he's grown over the summer. Maybe his mom will need me to babysit... lol

Oh, yeah, I think where I was originally going with saying that I'm only working two days a week, was to say that it leaves me free to do other stuff during the week. Like maybe pick up a few babysitting jobs. ;-) And keep my nice little shop running.

It's been running well so far. As a matter of fact,
it's actually been picking up some speed lately. I'm currently working out another trade with Miss Helen from ShereDesign. This time it's for these great little bird earrings.
Her work is so cute!

Okay, I'm done now. I'll be back again someday.
"Hallo" and "love ya!" to all my friends. Enjoy your week. :)
-Miss Caitlin
P.S. I'm reading Mere Christianity by C.S. Lewis in my spare time. It's amazing good. Check it out.

My Room

This is my room!
(or part of it, anyways.)
Guess who decided to paint it green?
:D

I suppose this picture is a little misleading, though. My room isn't quite this shockingly bright. It's a much tamer apple green. Thank you, editing software. Also misleading is the lack of clutter. Just beneath where the photo leaves off are the peaks of yarn stash mountain, and clothes that haven't been put away. (my honesty really needs to just shut up sometimes.) Just to the left is the edge of my bulletin board, smothered with drawings from my little brothers and sisters, and pictures of my friends.

Speaking of pictures of my friends - see that superman picture under the purse painting?
That's my friends and I posing with the giant Superman in Metropolis. :D

This shot shows the color of the walls pretty well, but the lighting is still odd. The area around the chime by the window is pretty true to life. ... isn't my guitar pretty? It's not really dark red, though...

My own two corners of my little shared room make me very happy. If I could have any type of room I like, it would be awfully similar to what I have now, though more put-together. I would have more pictures, and they would be in a random, but orderly sort of fashion. If that makes sense. Right now my pictures are just hanging from nail-holes that were already in the wall, thanks to my brothers. :P

One idea I've been toying with for a while is making a graphic collage of my friends. I may never get around to it, but it would certainly look neat.
Like take a picture of each of my friends, and make it really different,
like these sorts of photos.
Only not as self-centered.
And I suppose in order for it to look right, I'd have to pick one style.
High contrast color, high contrast black and white, or outline/threshold style. I can't decide which is my favorite. But I'll probably never do it anyways.

But wouldn't it look cool!

In case you were wondering, this is sort of a random post sparked by Abby Clark, over on her blog. I had other things I was going to blog about today, but my response to her post sort of took over. :)
So, I'll be back tomorrow with other cool stuff!
Bye!

Random Ramblings of a Miscellanist Mind

Yes, that's the name of my blog.
And now it's the name of this post. Because I wanted to name this post, and couldn't think of anything.

Well, well, looks like I've done it again. It has been a whole 12 days since I blogged last! And so much has happened! I suppose instead of telling you all about it, I'll have to settle for giving you a little peek.

To begin with, Etsy has been huge on my brain lately. I'm up to 32 sales. And I can't stop spending hours looking at vintage dresses, and drooling over handmade soaps.
I just bought a bar of exfoliating cappuccino soap. With real ground espresso beans.
Imagine that! When I start craving a nice cuppa too late at night, I can just go take a shower, and smell like a cuppa. LOL I can't wait for it to get here.

I'm also eagerly awaiting the arrival of my plain jane white foam head. I have some hats that are ready to be listed - they just need a head to sit on for their photo shoots.

Not to mention, I'm pretty excited about the 3 packages sitting beside the door, waiting for me to send them across the US tomorrow morning. ;-)

Check out some of my new stuff:



So, anyways. Now you know about that.

But the MOST exciting thing EVER happened while I've been away from my blog.
Some of my super-bestest friends and I went to Wisconsin.
It's sort of a long story, but we basically all went up to see a girl named Rachel we got to know through online chatting and letters. She was having a huge going away party 2 days before she left to go to China. She didn't know we were coming, and she was SO surprised!
It was great.
Great big hugs to Rae and Becca. I miss you guys.


So, 5 girls and 2 moms in a minivan all weekend... going straight up to the other side of the US. Definitely very interesting. And memorable. I'm going to have to buy a new photo album, and devote the whole thing to pictures of the trip, we took so many. If you'd like to see some, check out my facebook albums.
On the Way
Tour of the Countryside
Metropolis

Sadly, I haven't uploaded the pictures from the party, or the ones from hanging out at the Rodriguez's house yet. I'll get to it. :) I think those 3 albums should keep you busy for now.
Until I load the others, here are a few favorites (I stole them from other people...):


It was a really amazing trip. Of course, we spent almost 3 days in the van, and only 1 day actually in Wisconsin, but it was totally worth it all around. :D

I'm glad school's out now. I got some pretty great gifts from my little ones. I'm going to miss them. My Julia isn't going to be back next year. She's going to "big school." ... Now I won't get to be Aunt Caitlin anymore! *sniff* I'll be okay.

:)
Hope you're all enjoying your Memorial Day!
Have a great week!
Love, Caitlin

Finally!

Really, I have been meaning to post for ages, and just haven't gotten the chance.
I'm finally here.
With pictures.

I really don't know where I left off in my life happenings last time I blogged, but - OH! I just remembered. I meant to blog about visiting Calvary a few weeks ago and I never did. That was 'mazin' fun. Really. Lots of love to all of my Calvary people. I'm sad I didn't have more photos, or better ones. Beth-Dear, I should like to see the ones you got. :D

Me, Ham, and Andrew

Tabitha, Laura, and Becx

Next interesting happening: I colored my hair strawberry blonde. Mama did a great job. Only the people who know me SUPER well said "oh, you dyed your hair!" The other ones all say, "something's different with your hair... I can't tell what, though..?!"

I love it.

I interrupt this irregularly scheduled blogging with a breaking news story.
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Cheeseburger's Shortcoming Gets Him Kicked to the Curb

It was an unusual end to a Sunday night for the Butler family. They had been to church, and were on their way home. Tired and hungry, Mr. Butler decided, for the sake of his sanity and satiation, to stop at Checkers and buy cheeseburgers and hot dogs for everyone. Taking advantage of the "69 cent Sunday" deal, they ordered ten cheeseburgers, ten hot dogs, and ten apple pies. Unusual as this was, the story grew stranger.

While waiting for the immense order, something unusual was spotted on the ground beneath the service window. A double with cheese, made unusual due to it's location. Upon hearing that such an oddity had been sighted, all members of the family pressed the member nearest the door facing the burger to open it, for all to see the unfortunate sandwich.

The authorities have nothing to say on the subject, and nobody knows exactly what happened. It is presumed that, in transit to a vehicle, it was simply dropped. Dropped, and left on the pavement to grow old and cold. Perhaps this abandoned burger was rejected, and thrown out the window of an unhappy customer? This picture was taken some time after the actual defenestrating of the burger. It leaves many questions unanswered, one of which being "what happened to the wrapper?"

Stranded on the curb, this burger's future isn't looking so hot.

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Week before last was pretty uneventful, I think. Last week was great. The beginning of the week is a blur. Wednesday, we went to the park with the Looneys and other friends of theirs. Laura and I had especially been wanting to meet these friends of Katey and Alicia, so I was super happy to finally have the chance. Laura had to be at school, though. :( She missed out on some amazing tag. Wish I had pics of the game. lol!

Nicholas, on top of the monkey bars.

Famous Matt's hand, Famous Garrett, the most adorable Ryan in the world, Nicholas, and Morgan

Thursday, I had my follow up exam at Dr. Peck's, from whence we determined not even Acuvue Oasys lenses will work for me. This week I'm on another trial pair. It's my last hope, apparently. If these don't work, I'm stuck with glasses for life.

Laura and I were dropped off at Katey and Alicia's that night. We got all dolled up in lightning speed, and were out the door to the HMV concert. The band was great, the jazz band was good (not quite as good as usual), the choir was awesome. It was fun, and afterwards we went to McDonalds. Most of the HMV people did.

There's more to the story, but I'm going to save it until I get a hold on the photos I need for it. ;-)

Once back home at the Looney's house, we crashed.

Friday was a little gloomy, but still fun. In the evening, we had party food for dinner. It was strange, and delicious. Then we watched August Rush. I think we teenage girls were the only ones that enjoyed it. I love it. So there.

Everyone went to bed while Laura, Alicia, and I stood outside for about 15 minutes just watching the amazing lightning. It was indescribable. Id never seen anything like it. Brilliant, silent flashes of light, illuminating the stormy clouds from behind. I know I overuse the word "awesome," but this really was one of those awe-inspiring experiences.

Then we killed the awe by going inside. Laura, Katey, Sheesh and I watched Red Eye - a pretty good suspense movie. Then we went to bed.

Saturday morning was good. We went home at noon, then went to babysit for the church drama at 5. Got home at 11. Ate too much cotton candy. Went to bed far too late, after staying up even after I told Beth-Dear I was going.

It was so good to go to Sunday School this morning! I'm going to scan my notes. I meant to tonight, but I forgot. We always start late. We technically begin at 9:45, but our lesson never starts until 10:15. We take our time getting settled in, and doing prayer requests. From 9:45 to 10:15, I was the only girl in a room full of guys. I felt a little small and alone. And amused. And I was very, very happy when Anna Leigh came in. lol! We learned about water bottles. (I'll show you later.) Never know what Phillip's gonna talk about.

This afternoon has been nice, too. Laura, Abby, and I went to Mema's house for a little while, and just relaxed. I finished up my secret project this evening. I was going to show you all tonight, but this post is so long already, it, too, shall have to wait until another time. Here's a picture, though.

you don't know what it is, do you?
(family members, shush.)

Wow. That was a lot of text.
Maybe I shouldn't wait forever, and then bog you all down with a huge post. But it's better than not posting at all, and leaving you all hanging clueless, right?
Right. ^.^
I wish you all a happy week, and a very green St Patrick's day.

Love, Caitlin