Making Friends!

I bought Craft magazine ages ago - volume 6, with the attention of making monsters. Well, I've finally begun.... here are some pics of my progress.

Apple Picking!

Last weekend, the Lupo grandkids went to Nonna & Nonno's house and Nonno's apple tree had some yummy ripe apples; here are some photos!

Baking!

Today, I baked & did laundry. Yes, I spent all day doing this. It was a lot of cookies & a lot of laundry!
I'm not going to write about my laundry, though, I promise. I won't even mention the "l" word again. I decided that my little girl goes through a LOT of those crunchy little finger food cookies that I buy. She loves them. I decided I would make some for her. I found a recipe for "vanilla wafers". They're basically a sugar cookie, but with less sugar and a moister dough so that they are nice and crunchy when you bake them off.

Here are some photos:

Fiction updates

Megan

I was shouting. At a priest. At my priest. I was pissed. Fifteen years old and there was a whole lot about the world that I was learning and fast. Things that fifteen year olds aren’t supposed to think about, never mind deal with. I needed to shout, wondered why my grams wasn’t shouting. I knew, from that moment on, there was no salvation for my soul – that I would go to Hell. But I didn’t care; I wasn’t worried about my soul, I was worried about my father’s. “What do you mean he isn’t going to have a Catholic burial? He was at church every Sunday; he was here last Sunday! You’ll do it, even if I have to write to the Pope myself!” The priest sat there, hands folded while I screamed at him, and looked straight at Grams, who then took my hot sweaty palm with her icy fingers. I sat down and realized that I had been standing, yelling and pointing at the priest. I was going to Hell for sure. I didn’t want to stop yelling, Grams should have joined me, should have stood and left. How could she sit there and a man do this to her son? Excommunicate him when he was so faithful? Clearly he was sick, there was something wrong with him; he never leave me, never leave his little girl. They sat in silence.
The priest threw his hands up. “I can ask the deacon to perform the ceremony. He’s liberal.” He got up and left through the door behind his desk. And that was it. Grams looked at me, nodding her head slightly. I wasn’t sure if she was appreciative or admonishing. I was exhausted; longed to go home, sleep, wake up ten years from now or ten years ago. It would be better.
Two hours later, I woke up in my bedroom; my father let me decorate it any way I liked ten years ago. It was bubble gum pink and “icing blue,” known to the rest of the world as teal. Looking at the room, at the stuffed animals that I hadn’t played with in years but wasn’t ready to part with, I forgot about the events of the days before. He really was gone; that had become the worst part of sleeping, my whole life I was afraid of my dreams and now I was afraid of my reality. I shut my eyes again, didn’t want to face Grams’ well-meaning friends and her stoic face, which was a mystery to me. She seemed to have no reaction to her son’s death. I was only 15, but knew it must be awful for your son to die before you, that’s what it said O magazine; burying your child is the worst thing ever.
I looked in the mirror across from my bed, horrified by the face staring back. I grabbed my Teddy, retreated under my fluffy covers, tried to force the memory from my brain, and failed.


I awoke, head on my desk, neck cramped; the corner of the notebook was imprinted on my forehead and drool smeared my class notes, startled by the noise, waited, listening. I heard it again, stumbled from bed. It was definitely in the house. A minute later, no more bangs, but shouting, pounding footsteps. I was afraid, knew what it was but refused to believe it. Where would he have gotten a gun anyway?
Slowly, clinging to the wall, I hobbled towards the stairs. The sound hadn’t come from upstairs; it was too muffled. My face was frozen; tried to move her mouth, to call out, just to prove it still worked. It didn’t. I managed to breathe, though, and did, without fully catching my breath, gasps of air that made me feel even more breathless. I gripped the railing, stepping carefully on each stair. Voices grew louder. The cleaning woman, the cook we mumbling, shouting, something about an ambulance, police. I couldn’t understand them, even though were only a few feet away. I was still at the base of the stairs when Grams rushed in, escorting the paramedics to the dining room. An eternity later, the stretcher, which had been rolled in empty, was rolled back out, occupied. They hadn’t even tried to bring him back. He was gone.

Three days later, at the foot of the freshly dug hole, covered with a cloth, I stared at the casket, on that special stretcher that is only used funerals, I wanted to wait until they lowered him into the ground. All the people, Grams’ friends. It never seemed odd to me then, but my Dad didn’t seem to have any friends. I was his friend. I couldn’t let go, had no interest in going home and eating food, seeing drinks and appetizers passed around, mourning but celebrating, too. Grams took my arm and led me away. She still hadn’t cried in front of anyone, and said nothing to me. I couldn’t hear anything, anyway.
At the house, I didn’t eat. I didn’t talk to people. People spoke, put there hands on my arm, shook their heads. I nodded, sometimes smiled. The sounds around me were muffled and unintelligible. People spoke to me, I nodded, Grams led me around. Everything around me was a TV left on after you fall asleep: fuzzy picture and white noise.
The weeks after the funeral, I stayed in bed. Bed was nice, it was comforting, familiar. It was pink sheets and white headboard and happy, it was years of nothing bad happening. It was safe from the sadness in the house. So much of the outside world was unfamiliar now. Grams went to work redecorating right after the funeral, and the entire house was foreign. Well, not the entire house, but outside my room, all the pictures of us were now pictures of Grams and me. She took the photos of my dad growing up, which had been all in order – from birth to adulthood – off of the wall going down the stairs. She replaced them with replicas of Renaissance paintings. The large photo of him and I from my fifth Christmas (the one where I got every Cabbage Patch Kid Robert Xavier made) was no longer above the mantle in the living room. After seeing that, I didn’t leave my room. I hated Grams for doing that and couldn’t yell at her, I couldn’t even talk to her.
I didn’t see her most of the day, but I heard her scurrying around the house, making sure things are just right. She had visitors and gave the help their orders. She even watched a little television, something I had never seen her do. She had dinners sent up to me and for the first time in my life, I saw what she liked to eat. Or maybe it was what she thought I’d like. She always had had the cook make dinners that Dad loved, but now, it was her food. And it was awful. Cheese plates that smelled worse than my socks after a long field hockey practice, salads with little bits of strange vegetables in them (I think they were vegetables, they were vegetable colored) and vile looking fish. I didn’t even want to look at them. The cook would smile at me as I shook my head when she tried to set a little table for me at my desk and later, when Grams was in bed, the cook would return with a bowl of cereal or macaroni and cheese.
Grams would sneak into my room every Sunday and put a church outfit on my bed while I was in the shower. We didn’t talk all week, wouldn’t talk on Sunday, but I knew how important it was to her that I keep going to church, so I went. I put on the outfits that were too girly for a teenager, the pink jumpers, the babydoll dresses and tights, and pretended that I was still her little granddaughter and I cared about church. I don’t remember thinking anything, feeling anything, it was all just quiet and emptiness and pretend. I sat through the sermons, the singing, the praying. I made the motions of the cross; I took the Eucharist in my hand and sipped the sour wine. When I got home, I read books, listened to music, but I don’t remember what books, what music. It was a month silence and fog.
One Monday morning, Grams knocked on my door. “The bus will be here in twenty minutes,” she said. It had been enough time, then. Any longer and I would appear strange. I’d hate to appear strange. She would hate for me to appear strange. The school had made many exceptions, under the circumstances. They knew that I would need time, my classmates would need time, to forget I was now an orphan. I found a black tee shirt and a pair of almost clean jeans, got dressed and left my room.

Miranda

"Grandma is such a witch." My daughter, who has just left her Grandmother after a morning of church and bagels, is sitting at the kitchen table, pushing her Oreos around.
"That's not very nice - think of all the good witches out there who you just insulted." We both laugh. At five, she is too bright and quick-witted for her own good. She's still not eating her cookies; Oreos are her favorite. "What's the matter, sweetie?"
"Can I stay home with you next Sunday?" She asks, her head directed at the Oreos, the question directed at me. She knows the answer.
"No, I'm sorry." I wish she could. "Your grandmother is who she is and she loves you." Half of you, anyway, the half that looks like her precious son. She's still staring at her cookies. "Did something happen?" I ask her, kneeling down next to her chair so she can look me directly in the eyes. It's a habit of hers - one that alarms many grown ups. One that I love. I've seen her get on chairs to get at someone's eye level. Of course, she's not "allowed" to do that – her father's rules.
"Well, she tried to say something bad about you." She looks down and asks her Oreos, "Why would she do that?"
Hm. Yes. Why? Because she's a small minded bitch... "What exactly did she say to you?"
"I don't want to tell you." She stares straight into my eyes, into me, searching for something. Her eyes are hungry for whatever knowledge she is looking for. I want her to find it.
"Megs," I say, moving to my seat at the table, keeping our eyes connected, "it's not much of a secret that your grandmother and I don't get along. You shouldn't be carrying whatever burden she's placed on you. It was wrong of her to do that to you. You don't have to tell me about it, but you should tell someone. Maybe Ted." Her bear is her largest confidante. "Then you won't have to think about it anymore."
She thinks hard about it and says, "Grams says you're going to hell." She pouts.
"Did she tell you why she thinks that?" Wouldn't that be interesting?
"No. She just said that you were bad and you are going to hell. But I know it's not true. I think Grams is bad and she will go to hell." She looked down at her Oreos for the last half of the sentence. She didn't mean it; she was trying to make me feel better.
I pause, not really sure what to say to her. I decide on the truth, for the first time in seven years. "I don't think anyone goes to hell."
She looks up, eyebrows furrowed in utter confusion. "You don't? Father Terrence says that when you die you go to heaven or hell. He wouldn't lie."
"I know, but there are a lot of ideas about that - no one really knows what happens after we die. We just believe. Your Grams and Father Terrence really believe people go to hell. I don't."
"Oh," she says, staring into the table in front of her, trying to make sense of it.
"Since I don't believe in hell; neither me nor Grams will have to go there. Isn't that nice?"
"I guess," she says, pokes at her Oreos.
I like being honest with her. I make a decision that I know will change our lives, one way or another. "Can you keep a secret?" She nods, fervently - what little girl doesn't like a secret? "It's a big one." She nods again, says "yes" in a way that leaves the "S" to trail off into the silence, matching the whirr of the ceiling fan.
"I promise," she takes a bite of cookie, sips her milk, and wipes her face.
I get up, say, "come with me," and lead her out of the kitchen and into my bedroom. She's very quiet - I can feel her anticipation, as well as a little fear. I close the door behind us. Bob won't be back from Church for another hour, but I still need to be extra cautious.
"Mom," she now has her miss knowitall face on, "I have snooped - I mean, been, in your room lots of times, there's nothing here that's a secret."
I smile and push my nightstand away from the bed, lift a floor board and pull out a box. "Are you sure?" I ask, smiling as she gasps.
She beams right back at me and comes bounding across the room. There is a shout in the hallway. My mother in law opens the bedroom door, holding Megan's overnight bag - "Miranda," she is saying as she enters the room (without knocking), "Meg is going to n--" She stops, sees the box in my lap and says, dramatically and triumphantly just above a whisper, "I knew it."
My heart sinks. I wonder how I got here; hiding myself from the one person who matters anymore, the one person I gladly gave everything up for, my daughter. Megan is staring at Grams, I can feel the hatred. Grams has ruined our secret. She is about to ruin our lives. I know it. She grabs Megan by the arm, Megan starts to scream. I can't move. I can't talk. I want to. I want to scream and yell and take Megan and run away. I'm paralyzed. The box falls from my lap. There is no point in fighting. I know it is all over when I hear the sirens.

Megan

Sirens make me shiver. My apartment is high enough above the street so I don’t hear them too loudly, but I still hear them when the place is quiet; when I have just gotten home or when I am about to go to bed, before I fall asleep, after I turn the TV off. Growing up, we rarely heard sirens and I only remember the sirens on the day my dad killed himself. I guess that’s why I get chills. Right now, the sirens are going away when the phone rings. I’ve just gotten home and I haven’t even taken my jacket off so it’s natural that I don’t pick it up and let it ring through to voicemail. I go through my usual routine of changing from work clothes to lounge around the house clothes, watering the plants, and am about to cook dinner before I remember to check the voicemail, seeing the red bulb on the phone in the kitchen blinking. Most people call my cell phone, except telemarketers. They don’t usually leave voicemail, though. Prompted by a recording of a British woman, I enter my code. It’s a hospital in Washington, NJ, my hometown. Grams, they say (everyone in the town calls her Grams), has checked in. They don’t expect her to be there long. They don’t expect her to be anywhere long. The phone drops out of my hand. I have no idea what to do. Grams and I talked on the phone every few weeks. She visited me at Christmas; she went to mass at St. Patrick’s, I picked up donuts. We don’t have other family. There will be no one at the hospital when I get there, no one will beat me there. No one will make me feel guilty for not answering the phone immediately. Just me, maybe Grams, if she can speak. I don’t know what’s wrong with her. Did the voice on the phone say? Did I miss it? Did the phone drop from my hand before I could hear? Was I paying attention?
It’s 5:30 and it will take forever to get to New Jersey, but I leave. While stuck in traffic, I think that I probably could have made dinner and watched the 6:00 news before leaving and would have arrived at the same time. My brain shuts off the rest of the way there, and I drive to the hospital automatically, even though I haven’t been to my hometown in six years and I haven’t been to the hospital in eleven years.





This is where I have left off... I'm still brainstorming this last section and it may change a lot in subsequent revisions.
Let me know what you think!!!

HAT!

I made my friend, Jen, a hat for Christmas. Well, actually, I made her about 3 hats... but none of them actually worked out. UNTIL now (yes, I know , Christmas was a long time ago, but after so many failed attempts, I needed a break!) What's that? You want to see what it looks like? OK!

Fiction, but from a different POV

So, I decided to change up the POV on my fiction. Here's the first 3 pages. Please comment to let me know what you think about the switch. To see the original, scroll down and look for older posts. Thanks in advance!

----------------


I was shouting. At a priest. At my priest. I was pissed. Fifteen years old and there was a whole lot about the world that I was learning and fast. Things that fifteen year olds aren’t supposed to think about, never mind deal with. I needed to shout, wondered why my grams wasn’t shouting. I knew, from that moment on, there was no salvation for my soul – that I would go to Hell. But I didn’t care; I wasn’t worried about my soul, I was worried about my father’s. “What do you mean he isn’t going to have a Catholic burial? He was at church every Sunday; he was here last Sunday! You’ll do it, even if I have to write to the Pope myself!” The priest sat there, hands folded while I screamed at him, and looked straight at Grams, who then took my hand. I sat down and realized that I had been standing, yelling and pointing at the priest. I was going to Hell for sure. I didn’t want to stop yelling, Grams should have joined me, should have stood and left. How could she sit there and a man do this to her son? Excommunicate him when he was so faithful? Clearly he was sick, there was something wrong with him; he never leave me, never leave his little girl. They sat in silence.
The priest threw his hands up. “I can ask the deacon to perform the ceremony. He’s liberal.” He got up and left through the door behind his desk. And that was it. Grams looked at me, nodding her head slightly. I wasn’t sure if she was appreciative or admonishing. I was exhausted; longed to go home, sleep, wake up ten years from now or ten years ago. It would be better.
Two hours later, I woke up in my bedroom; my father let me decorate it any way I liked ten years ago. It was bubble gum pink and “icing blue,” known to the rest of the world as teal. Looking at the room, at the stuffed animals that I hadn’t played with in years but wasn’t ready to part with, I forgot about the events of the days before. He really was gone; that had become the worst part of sleeping, my whole life I was afraid of my dreams and now I was afraid of my reality. I shut my eyes again, didn’t want to face Grams’ well-meaning friends and her stoic face, which was a mystery to me. She seemed to have no reaction to her son’s death. I was only 15, but knew it must be awful for your son to die before you, that’s what it said O magazine; burying your child is the worst thing ever.
I looked in the mirror across from my bed, horrified by the face staring back. I grabbed my Teddy, retreated under my fluffy covers, tried to force the memory from my brain, and failed.

She awoke, startled by the noise. She heard it again, and stumbled from bed. It was definitely in the house. She waited a minute, listening. No more bangs, but shouting, pounding footsteps. She was afraid, knew what it was but refused to believe it. Where would he have gotten a gun anyway?
Slowly she slinked along the wall in the hallway, towards the stairs. The sound hadn’t come from upstairs; it was too muffled. Her face was frozen; she tried to move her mouth, to call out, just to prove that she could. She couldn’t. She managed to breathe, though, and did, without fully catching her breath. She gripped the railing stepping carefully on each stair. Voices grew louder. The cleaning woman, the cook we mumbling, shouting, something about an ambulance, police. She couldn’t understand them, even if they were only a few feet away. She was still at the base of the stairs when Grams rushed in, escorting the paramedics to the dining room. And eternity later, the stretcher, which had been rolled in empty, was rolled back out, occupied. They hadn’t even tried to bring him back. He was gone.

Three days later, at the foot of the freshly dug hole, covered with a cloth, I stared at the casket, on that special stretcher that is only used funerals, I wanted to wait until they lowered him into the ground. Grams finally grabbed my arm and pulled me away, she still hadn’t cried in front of anyone, and said nothing to me. I couldn’t hear anything, anyway. The sounds around me were muffled and still unintelligible. People spoke to me, I nodded, Grams led me around. I understood nothing.

Foodie Meme

I saw this at Lyndsey-Jane's site, My Knitting and Me and had to join. Basic rules are bold what you’ve eaten and strikethrough those you wouldn’t eat on a bet.

1. Venison
2. Nettle tea
3. Huevos rancheros
4. Steak tartare
5. Crocodile
6. Black pudding
7. Cheese fondue
8. Carp

9. Borscht (beetroot makes me heave)

10. Baba ghanoush
11. Calamari - Love love love this!
12. Pho
13. PB&J sandwich
14. Aloo gobi
15. Hot dog from a street cart
16. Epoisses
17. Black truffle
18. Fruit wine made from something other than grapes
19. Steamed pork buns
20. Pistachio Ice Cream
21. Heirloom tomatoes
22. Fresh wild berries
23. Foie gras
24. Rice and beans
25. Brawn, or head cheese - that's a NO, but I don't know how to strike through
26. Raw Scotch Bonnet pepper - um, no, I don't think I'd ever intentionally eat that
27. Dulce de leche
28. Oysters - deathly allergic to shellfish
29. Baklava
30. Bagna cauda
31. Wasabi peas
32. Clam chowder in a sourdough bowl - how I found out I'm allergic to clams

33. Salted lassi
34. Sauerkraut
35. Root beer float
36. Cognac with a fat cigar - sounds pretty nice
37. Clotted cream tea
38. Vodka jelly
39. Gumbo
40. Oxtail
41. Curried goat
42. Whole insects
43. Phaal
44. Goat’s milk
45. Malt whisky from a bottle worth $120 or more
46. Fugu
47. Chicken tikka masala
48. Eel
49. Krispy Kreme original glazed doughnut
50. Sea urchin
51. Prickly pear
52. Umeboshi
53. Abalone
54. Paneer
55. McDonald’s Big Mac Meal
56. Spaetzle
57. Dirty gin martini
58. Beer above 8% ABV
59. Poutine
60. Carob chips ew
61. S’mores
62. Sweetbreads
63. Kaolin
64. Currywurst - sounds yummy!
65. Durian
66. Frogs’ legs
67. Beignets, churros, elephant ears or funnel cake yum, yum, yum, yum, yum
68. Haggis
69. Fried plantain
70. Chitterlings, or andouillette
71. Gazpacho
72. Caviar and blini
73. Louche absinthe
74. Gjetost, or brunost
75. Roadkill - I don't think I'd eat this.
76. Baijiu
77. Hostess Fruit Pie
78. Snail
79. Lapsang souchong
80. Bellini
81. Tom yum
82. Eggs Benedict MY FAVORITE
83. Pocky (or something similar).
84. Tasting menu at a three-Michelin-star restaurant
85. Kobe beef - It's illegal to have Kobe beef in America
86. Hare
87. Goulash
88. Flowers
89. Horse
90. Criollo chocolate
91. Spam
92. Soft shell crab I SO wish I wasn't suddenly allergic!!
93. Rose harissa
94. Catfish
95. Mole poblano
96. Bagel and lox
97. Lobster Thermidor
98. Polenta
99. Jamaican Blue Mountain coffee
100. Snake


FUN FUN MEME

When youcan't write, work

Tom E. Kennedy, my mentor, quoted that title many times while we met at my residency at FDU. Of course, I've already forgotten who'd originally said it (Whitman?) Please feel free to leave the answer in a comment and I'll fix this...
But, wow, I always hated revising and I'm so happy to have someone as talented as Tom line edit my work, this time it's incredibly grueling. Good, and I'm sure my prose is benefiting to a GREAT degree. I just hope I get to the end of the revisions and get a little kick of inspiration!
So far, I've added about 3 pages... I hope they're good pages, but we'll see what happens when I move on and resubmit in a few weeks. Wish me luck and lots of interesting verbs!

Returns and beginnings

I'm back from my first residency at graduate school & there is a lot to do! Not only do I have to get ready for the Fall semester with the classes I'm teaching, but I also have to write a lot of fiction (including revisions) and do two annotations of novels (and read some others that I'm not annotating).
It's crazy!
I'm ready, though, and I'm really excited to get things going. Of course, I'll have to start cleaning and cooking again, too. I have to say, as meager as the accommodations were and as awful as the food was at some times, I really enjoyed not being responsible for the cooking and cleaning!

More writing coming soon! I'm also putting the finishing touches on a hat for my friend Jen; it has a few more inches to be finished and then I'll be knitting some little ears for it!!! Photos coming soon.

Creative Non Fiction, Untitled

I don’t know why I checked my voicemail during work; I was diligent, my phone stayed off and in my bag. But that day I was desperate to check it. I excused myself from from copyediting copyright pages (my only job as an intern) and ran down the hall to the bathroom. Still silenced, I pressed the number 1 on my phone and held it down until it dialed my voicemailbox.
“You have one new message. Press 1 to hear your new messages.”
I drew a breath and it echoed in the large office bathroom. A foot shuffled in one of the stalls.
“Hello, Katherine, this is X with Random House. It was really nice to meet you and we’d love to welcome you aboard. Please call me back to discuss the particulars.”
I pressed 9 to save the message, as my voicemailbox narrator suggested. I checked the time: 4:35. Twenty five minutes. I would twenty five wonderful, intimidating minutes, but it was mine. Editorial Assistant at Random House. The hallway beamed from my glowing smile as I passed Brie’s desk on the way back to my corner. Sure, she got to intern with Arthur, and edit pages of Harry Potter (a book she had never heard of), while I was stuck copyediting copyright pages, but I was offered a job at Random House. I would be a hip writer. I would work in Manhattan. I would work late some nights, sure, but I would to bars and restaurants with agents, editors and authors. I had arrived.
At 4:58 I was on the elevator. I didn’t even look at the book bin, filled with new printing of children’s book, free to any one who happened to pass it. As soon my feet hit the street, I turned a hard left, avoiding the sunglass sellers, and walked into Kate’s Paperie. It was the perfect place to make this phone call, quiet and filled with inspiring papers. I dialed the number I had written in my notebook more than a week ago.
“This is X.”
“Hi, it’s Katherine Lupo; you called.”
“Yes, so happy you called….”
I listened eagerly for the details of my glamorous job but instead I heard a lot of words that didn’t make sense and some that stuck out like a knife, hot from being in the dishwasher; twenty six thousand, 12 hours a day, weekends. The lights seemed to get brighter in the paper shop, which suddenly smelled of that glue that kept old books from falling apart.
“Wow, thanks,” I said from a voice I could not recognize, “I’ll let you know in a couple of days.” I had been prepared to say “yes, of course, see you Monday!” but something like reason and disappointment snuck up on me. I couldn’t say yes to that. I had to think about that. Math. I had to do math. Numbers came into my head – bus pass - $200/month. Rent - $400/month. Numbers numbers numbers. The ½ hour bus ride to New Jersey was a torture device of numbers dripping into my head cruelly, slowly, killing the self I had just met a few hours before.
I would have to choose. I didn’t have to do the math. I knew. Publishing or writing. The door to the apartment was open; my roommate was still alive, but hadn’t moved from the floor of his bedroom.
Everything was wrong. I couldn’t… I wanted to be a writer. I was a writer and the apartment, halfway between the city and home made the decision for me. There was no decision. I’m moving home, I told him, still lying on the floor.

Finally, an FO!!!!

Here's a photo of Julie's leg warmers, which should be arriving any day now, that I finished last week! It's been a bit slow. I hope you like it!

In other news, I've completely botched up the sock that I've been working on for the past, um, 5 months? Yeah, that's right, one sock. It's only been intermittent, so....

I'm working on Jen's hat right now, promised to her at xmas time and I'm about to embarq on a hat for someone special that I've found through Wish Upon a Hero

That's all for now!!

Busy times!

Summer is officially here & times have gotten, as always, busier.
Lily & I went to California in June to visit Julie, who graduated with her MFA in choreography (GO JULIE!!!). While there, Lily was awed by the dancers:































Of course, while we were so close to Anaheim, we HAD to go
to Disneyland!


Lily had a great time....

This month, Lily learned how to CRAWL, wave, clap, and hold her own bottle. Truly, this is way too much to learn in just one month! She's getting to be such a big girl now.

In other busy news, my friend, Joanna, who lives outside Manchester, England, came to visit us!
While she was here, we had a blast and we miss her now (especially Stella.) We went to the Bronx Zoo with her and visited their newest exhibit, Madagascar - Joanna has been to the real Madagascar and she showed us just where she'd been:

Some other photos from the Zoo:

We saw some CRAZY things at the zoo.

Oh and for my brother in law and all other fans of the Disney movie, Madagascar, we saw this:


I didn't see it, but poo had been flung.
Go Gorillas! You tell those people who's boss!

Back!

Sorry for the hiatus!
Lots has been going on!
I'm still knitting the leg warmers for my friend, but she did like the one I presented to her for her graduation.
In other news, I'm back writing and have several projects on the brain. I'm also back teaching in a few weeks, so there may be a slow down in my posting as I will be juggling that, starting my MFA and, most importantly, raising my little Lily!
She growing by leaps and bounds! She's now crawling AND sitting up. It's incredible!!

I'm Back!

I'm back & will be posting about California with photos soon!!!

Away

I'll be away & not blogging for about a week!