January has been a whirlwind of busy – as always. The spring semester has begun, the girls are reading and crafting more than I can keep up with, Em’s still doing roller derby and running around with friends. We’ve had a few highlights:
All of the girls have been crafting up a storm! Rachel’s been beading and making jewelry, including this lovely bracelet and earring set for me. She also made a GORGEOUS beaded/wire tree in a wire triangle (hard to explain), but I haven’t taken a picture yet.
Becky’s been drawing. She received several manga pens for Christmas, and then she added a nice set of colored pencils. She’s filling up sketch books pretty quickly!
Katie had a very busy early month preparing for her audition interview at Barbara Ingram, our arts magnet high school. She’s considering attending, which might mean repeating ninth grade, but would enable her to receive focused attention and instruction in the visual arts as well as a social aspect that she craves. Her interview went really well, she felt, and now we’re waiting until the first of March to see if she’s accepted or not.
Emilee is still passionately skating with her roller derby team. She’s out more often than she’s home, but she’s not earning enough money to get her own place with a friend yet. This shot is from their holiday scrimmage bout, Season’s Beatings. She was awesome to watch… she’s really good on the rink. The back of her shirt says Plaguesley Monobow rather than Paisley Painbow, because she had mono in November and everyone was teasing her about having the plague and being so contagious. Funny!
As for my knitting, I finished a pair of fingerless mitts in a luscious yarn that is a blend of yak and bamboo. Oh. My. So. Soft.
I’ve now cast on for a slouchy hat for Katie… this green will be lovely with her skin, hair, and eyes!
In other news, the car Em drives is about dead. It starts when it wants to, mostly because the spark plugs are gunked up because oil dripped on them because the gaskets leak because… and you get the idea. It’s not worth the $1000 or so it would take to keep it running, so we’re shopping for something decently reliable for her. We think we’ve found something which would be perfect, and then we’ll still be searching for something that Rachel can use as she begins to drive on her own AND for Katie… she starts driving in about a year!!! Where does the time go…
We’re also hoping to swing a real family vacation of some sort in June, but that’s debatable after spending money on cars, perhaps. We might be doing the staycation thing, although traveling to anywhere with the ocean is really what I want.
