Dontcha hate it...

**schniffle**
I feel lousy today. I have a mean old cold.
But at least I don't have the stomach bug the rest of my family is down with.

Dontcha hate those days when there's so much to do, and you just can't bring yourself to do it?
You know you should. You wish you felt like it.
But you stand up, and then ... bluuuugh. You just want to sit back down.

But no! Scores of slippers are to be made! The Christmases of so many girls with cold feet rest in my little hook-wielding hands!

...But maybe it can wait til tomorrow?
**sneeze**

It's not Thanksgiving any more!

So, my thanksgiving post is late. But just because it's not thanksgiving any more doesn't mean we should stop being thankful. What if we all remembered to be thankful ALL the time?
Counting my blessings takes ages.

A - Awanas. Apple cider - which would be good right now. My throat hurts. Advent -which we're celebrating this year!
B - Boys (and I mean that in a totally innocuous way. Boys of all ages. They're fun!)
C - Church. Coffee. My name. Choir.
D - Daddy.
E - Evening time. Email
F - Friendship, Food, Fun
G - God's Grace
H - Holy Spirit. He has to remind me of so many things so often. Hugs.
I - Intercession. I love knowing that I can help my friends through prayer.
J - Joy.Real joy. Not circumstantial happiness. :)
K - Katey and Alicia. (they just go together like that)
L - Laughter, Love
M - Music. Mama. and my "other mothers," Marmee and Mom.
N - New friends!! I gained a couple of new friends this year. Yay! (Rae, Becca, and church peeps.)
O - Orthodontics. ... I WILL have pretty teef one day.
P - Popcorn. PEACE. Peace comes first, actually.
Q - Quiet.
R - Rain. Relatives. Random rambling. Reading.
S - Singing!! Sunshine, Stars, Siblings.
T - Tall shoes. Teaching.
U - Umbrellas. **I'm siiingin' in the rain, just siiingin' in the rain..."
V - Vincent, my crazy little green bird.
W- Walking. Waiting. Yes, I can be thankful for waiting.
X - X. I'm thankful for the letter X. ... mostly because I can't think of any X words. It's a nifty letter.
Y - Yogurt? I'm thankful for that. ... I can't think of many Y things either.
Z - Zippers. Where would we be without them? Zippers and Zeros.

Be thankful, people. :) I hope you had a great thanksgiving.
I'm looking forward to leftovers tomorrow.
<3

Life Lesson Monday

Going down the side of the mountain may seem like a foolproof shortcut.

It's not.

We had been hiking a fairly gentle mountain trail, enjoying the scenery, the company, and the general pleasantness of it all. After some time, the consensus was reached that, in everyone's best interest, it was time to head back.

As the unofficial leader of our expotition (those of you unacquainted with Pooh terminology, forgive me), I brought forth a brilliant, efficient plan for getting back to camp.

Start here, walk straight down, and camp will be somewhere at the bottom.

Simple and effective.

Why bother following the long, winding trail back the way we had come?

And so, with little objection from the weary party (ha!), our plan of action was decided.

My way put us getting there a lot faster, and with a lot less energy spent.

Or it was supposed to, anyways.

It ended up costing about the same amount of time, and a lot more energy.

Worry is more wearying than hiking up hills and around bends. :P

For one, there was some brush that was harder to deal with than I thought it would be.

Another thing - I seem to be directionally challenged. I thought I knew approximately what direction we should go in. Don't ask why I was so confident. I have no idea. But a couple minutes into the journey back, and we were all completely clueless.

"Uh, Caitlin, are you sure you know where we're going?"

"Um... nope."

"Oh. Maybe this wasn't such a good idea."

"Um... yeah. That's what I was thinking."

"Anybody see the trail?"

"Hey, I think that's the tree we saw earlier!"

"No, I think I've seen 3 trees like that."

It's just a little unnerving to be leading a group of your friends around the side of a mountain, none of you having any idea where you are.

Yeeeah.

Fortunately, it was a very smallish sort of mountain, and we finally did stumble onto part of the path we had been on earlier, thus following it back to the beginning.

And now I know.

There are times for straying off the beaten course.

Tramping the woods on an unfamiliar mountain is not one of those times.

15 Random Things

I read this on somebody's blog. At the end it says "your turn."
I took it literally. You should too.
lol

1. I just ate a large scoop of mayfield chocolate ice cream. Yum.
2. I still want to go to Starbucks. Caramel macchiato, please.
3. Spell check says "macchiato" is wrong. It suggests Machiavelli.
4. I read The Prince by Machiavelli and liked it.
5. I have ten orders to pack tonight, and ship tomorrow.
6. There is an amazing pair of silverware handle earrings making their way to my house.
7. I bought a ginormous salad at O'Charley's last night, and wish I hadn't. It was good, though.
8. Fried green tomatoes are delicous. Especially when you have the added satisfaction of cooking them yourself.
9. My Life Lesson Monday post was kind of lame, I think. I need better life lessons.
10. I don't include enough of God in my blog posts... If he's such a huge part of my life, you'd think He'd be more apparent in my blog. Bad me.
11. Yesterday the youth choir sang for the evening service. I heard we did awesome. Which was great news, because all I heard was me and Sadie singing alto. lol
12. Actually, our choir is "teens and twenties," but that's harder to say. It's a combination of the youth group and the College and Career class. And it's a lot of fun. yay!
13. Regular choir is fun too. I love being in choir.
14. My hair is blonde again. It's more like strawberry blonde, since we didn't take all the red out.
I'm gradually going back to my natural color.
15. Your turn.

Me in my blonder hair and Sparks uniform.

Life Lesson Monday

Check the roses for bugs before you go "drinking them in."

"I stopped by the barrens and picked these Mayflowers; I came through Violet-Vale; it's just a big bowlful of violets now -- the dear, sky-tinted things. Smell them, Marilla -- drink them in."

Marilla sniffed obligingly, but she was more interested in Anne than in drinking violets."

-Anne of the Island (L.M. Montgomery)

Once upon a time there was a vase of roses. We had cut them fresh from our rosebush, placed them in water, and set them on the dining room table, where they could be enjoyed. And enjoy them I did, until the incidence inspiring this life lesson.

Oh, they smelled so pretty! I paused to really focus on them, to truly appreciate their delicate scent.
Leaning forward, nose almost touching the frail, red petals, I inhaled deeply. Very deeply.
Then I ran shrieking to get a tissue.

Stupid tiny bugs.
In case you were wondering, it is a little unnerving to have a nose full of minuscule insects.
And I'm very sorry I don't have a picture of the incident.

Instead, here's a nice photo I took of a floral arrangement.

A New Post

I would love to have some pumpkin pie. Or maybe a pumpkin spice latte. Let's go to starbucks.

...Well, since that doesn't seem to be working out, I'll just sit here at the computer and tell you what's been going on lately!

Mrs. Dawn is now installed as my permanent helper, instead of floating between all three classes.
The reason for this? My class has grown from 5 little monkeys to 6. The 6th is certainly a cutie.
So, this is CJ. A little apprehensive at first. Who wouldn't be? He's the smallest and youngest, and, well, to be honest, some of the other guys come across pretty strong. But he's doing really well. His favorite part of the day is snacktime (I'm with him on that one). He really opens up, given enough teddy grahams.


Owen, Jesse, and Jake were just hanging out on the playground the other day... not doing much of anything. (which was AMAZING) Mrs. Dawn said we should teach them to sit there like that and do "see no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil." Perhaps I should attempt it sometime. It'd make one amazing picture.
"rawr! I'm'onna eat your camra!"Mrs. Nancy told me today that I might have another addition to my class soon. We don't know for sure, though. Guess what? Another boy. I'd say I'm getting my fair share of practice. :D

Speaking of practice, I had an opportunity to practice losing at mini golf on Saturday. A couple of us went to Stone Mountain with some of Abby's friends from church for her birthday. It was a fun little trip. We rode the skylift, played mini golf, watched a 4 -D movie thing, a parade, and the Christmas laser show. It was nice and holiday-y. Great adjective, that.
Ha! Pictures of me with my siblings! Yay!


And the kids all had a blast on the best playground EVER while I ran around snapping pictures of them. Seriously. That is the best playground. Hang the rest of the park, give me a picnic at the playground! I couldn't play on that one, because I would have gotten lots of weird looks, but nothing kept me from climbing up the little plastic rock wall, and sliding down the other side at preschool today. Not even my dress, or my new boots. Which I did wear, thankyouverymuch. How could I resist "do it wif me, Miss Caitin!" ?! Exactly.

And I really thought there was something else I was going to say, but now I don't remember what it was. I've worked on this post on and off for the past couple hours. That method doesn't work well for me. Totally derails my train of thought.

So, have a happy day, and I'll be in touch again soon. ;-)
Caitlin

Feautured again!

I've got a giveaway going on over at Jaime's blog. I'm #9 in the lineup for her Christmas Wishlist Extravaganza. Today is the last day! (I was a little late jumping on the blogging bandwagon for this one. Oops.)
Check it out!

Life Lesson Monday

If you get dizzy easily, you probably shouldn't yell for the guys to spin the merry go round faster.

It's true. You might end up feeling sick for an hour or two.

Swinging on a playground swing makes me dizzy. I should have known.
But I hadn't so much as seen a merry go round for years, so instead of thinking, I climbed on. Holding tight, I waited for that feeling I remembered as a child. The exhilaration of spinning faster than you think possible, the pull of the centrifugal force,
the crazy, giddy swirl of colors and sounds.
But we weren't going fast enough. The girls just weren't cutting it.
Summons the strapping young men! I recall issuing a command to spin us faster.
And they did.
And then I remembered the feelings that come shortly after the exhilarating part.
The terrifying dread of being flung to the ground, of closing your eyes tightly,
shutting out the spinning images, and praying you won't be sick.

I believe I yelled something to the effect of, "please, stop this thing NOW or I'm going to be sick!"
It seemed to take ages for things to stop swirling, and I felt very sick and out of sorts for quite some time afterwards. I think my brain was addled. Haha...

So, now you know. And reliving the moment has made me feel yucky.
May you learn from my mistake.

Random Thoughts

I'm gonna have to get one of these so I can listen to these podcasts. I mean, I guess I could listen to them sitting at the computer, but I'm usually doing something... That would be perfect for when I'm ... doing something.

I went to update my facebook status, and there were so many things I wanted to put! Instead I just wrote "Caitlin has lots of ideas for status messages."
This is what they are:

• Caitlin is happy.
• Caitlin had a fun night with her friends.
• Caitlin wishes she could actually PLAY her guitar, instead of just messing around on it.
• Caitlin is going to Stone Mountain with a bunch of young girls tomorrow.
• Caitlin had a great day.
• Caitlin wants to crochet something new.
• Caitlin drank too much coffee.
• Caitlin still isn't satisfied with her profile pic.
• Caitlin is looking forward to Sunday.

Of course, I could come up with more.

And I've been getting NO comments at all on Caitlinesque lately.

For some reason, this is double spacing my lines all of a sudden.

Um... Well, this was totally random. And I hope you have a good weekend.

:D

Love, Me

New Things!

I finally got caught up on custom orders, so I've been able to do a little creating lately! Hooray!
I went to Michael's and bought 3 new colors for scarflings. Red, green, and blue.
I made two red ones and a green one already. Haven't gotten to the blue yet.
So pretty!
Yesterday I whipped up this lovely black beanie from that big ole bunch of yarn I bought and haven't used yet. I guess I've been scared to use it because it's wool. I like washable things, and I have no idea how to take care of wool. It says hand wash and lay flat to dry. But what if something terrible happens? What if you drop your gorgeous wool hat in a mud puddle? What then?!

Anyways, Today I finished this gorgeous green scarfling. It turned out shorter than the red one, even though it's the same number of stitches. I guess it wanted to be original.

I enjoy taking the photos. I'm not an expert, but I generally like how they turn out. Of course, I usually take at least 50 shots of one thing just to get 5 to post on Etsy.
Oh, and did you know that it's hard to tie a headband around a foam head wearing a wig? Really. It's harder than it ought to be. It has no ears, so placement is a little hard, and then the stupid wig wants to slip around, and the hair won't look right... It took forever to get the thing adjusted.

I also took pics of some blue slippers to make a listing for custom ones. And ALL of my slipper pics turned out bad. This was the best one. I had to adjust the color a lot, and then the background turned out super-funky-neon-green. That's not how it's supposed to be! Guess I'll try again. Whatever!
You know what?
This post seems really boring to me.
Maybe you will like it.

And if you don't, let me know, and I'll post one of those survey-question thingies that I filled out this evening. Although that's probably not any more interesting.

Oh! I just made a sale while I was typing this! Cool.
Have a happy day. :)
Caiti

Lessons from the Life of Caitlin

Monday is now Life Lessons day. (insert applause)
Every Monday, I will be sharing with you something I have learned from experience. And, please, this is Caitlinesque, don't expect anything too deep. Maybe I should start doing one serious post a week, too, or something.

But anyways, I'm not really liking my title for this weekly installment. I want it to be catchy... What do you think?

So! Life Lesson for Week #1:

~Strawberry shampoo does not taste as good as it smells~
It's true. As a matter of fact, it tastes pretty darn nasty. It just doesn't make sense for something to smell so amazing, and not be palatable.

As a small child, I loved strawberry shampoo. Oh, it smells so yummy. I knew I shouldn't taste it, because it wouldn't be good. I'd accidentally tasted soap before, and it was nasty. Then, someday when I was relatively older, quite old enough to resist the temptation (but not recently... I don't remember when), I just had to see what it did taste like. I knew it wouldn't be good. And it was nasty. Of course.

But now I know. And now you know.
No matter how good it smells, don't taste the strawberry shampoo.
And since I couldn't find a picture of Little Me taking a bubble bath, here's a picture of me looking scary in a floaty suit.

-Me

I bought lots of yarn today.
Now to find the time to use it!
That, and that other big box full of yarn still under my bed... lol

I'm making a red scarfling. It'll be cute. I'm gonna make a green one, too. For Christmas or whatever. And I need to make some sparkly metallic ones.

Somebody just won some of my slippers from a giveaway on this blog!
There's gonna be another giveaway including one of my products coming up soon on this blog.
And I googled my shop, and found my slippers somewhere. Sweet. I've done that a couple times. Those crazy lil slippers are a hit!

In other good news, I'm finally going to church tomorrow! ha! I've missed Sunday mornings at church 3 weeks in a row. Ready to be back. :D Yay!

I'm enjoying hanging out at my Mema's house this weekend. I'm not getting a lot done, and you know what? That's just fine.

I'm out of shipping envelopes.
Oh dear.

Um...
I have this feeling I was supposed to write something interesting.
Oh well!

Wait! I thought of something.
The reason I missed church last Sunday. To see these girls. God has given me the most amazing friends. I'm blessed that they're in my life, and so thankful I get to be a part of theirs. I LOVE YOU GIRLS!!

Bekka, Sarah, Becca, Quinn, Yours Truly

This has been a random, sporadic, totally irrelevant post from Caitlin.
Have a good night.
love,
me!