Immortality, inc

Immortality, inc. by Robert Sheckley

Thomas Blaine dies in 1958 to wake up in a different body in the year 2110. This book focuses on the consequences of having a corporation with the ability to guarantee survival after death and the effect knowledge of an afterlife has on society.

This book definitely has some of the feel of a 50's sci fi classic.
Things I loved:

• the exploration of the afterlife in a completely different way
• Questioning the relationship between body and mind
• Exploring the legality of murder in the new society

Things I didn't love:

• The main character's tendency to philosophize about the topics. It was very heavy handed.
• 
  

I have some mixed feelings about this book.

Pinterest challenge

I'm a little late in coming in on this, but Jannsen, Merrick, and Landen have been doing a Pinterest challenge that inspired me.  So, better late than never, right?

Here is my attempt at a banana pop.  Actually it turned out pretty well.  I only had strawberry greek yogurt, but I like strawberry banana, so that was fine.  Then, I rolled it in chocolate-peanut butter granola that Kevin had made this weekend mixed with a little extra coconut (yes, my husband is awesome).
Also, I like to use coffee stirrers as kebab sticks for the girls because they are cheap, come in bulk, and are not pointy.  So, I just used what I had for the banana pop (but they're a little flimsy for this).

My version of the banana pop.

The next one is like double-doing-a-pinspiration.

I did a t-shirt refashion into a jersey pencil skirt, inspired by the millions of tshirt refashions and realizing that you could have a pencil skirt made out of jersey.  Really?! I love knit skirts, but it never occurred to me that you could have a knit pencil skirt.  I thought they had to be well-fitted, with a zipper and a kick pleat to be a pencil skirt.  Thus, I have only made one, ever, and it was in sewing class.  (Confession: I hate zippers.  I hate wearing pants and skirts with zippers, and I especially hate sewing anything with zippers. It is irrational, but there it is.)

So, I was first inspired for the jersey pencil skirt by this pin, but I put off doing it.  For a really long time.  Then, I realized that a) I had lost 30 pounds and nothing I own fits, b) we don't have a new clothes budget, even with my pants literally falling off of me, and c) everything I own is black, anyway.

Then, again, Merrick taught me that you can sew on knits without a lot of expertise or even a serger. (I was looking for a link to post, but I can't find one specific one.  Really, though, read the whole blog.  Merrick is awesome, and I've never even met her.  Isn't the internet weird that way?)

 Anyway, long story short, I also ended up making a fashion pinboard and decided I had to refashion my way into it.  I can sew, I just don't.  I'm easily distracted and am notorious for having half-finished projects. So committing to refashioning a wardrobe is a pretty big deal, but then, so is being naked, and that's my only other option right now.

I don't have any jersey fabric (and fabric is another thing I don't have any money for right now), so I took refashioning into my own hands.  I decided I wanted a stripey skirt, a la this pin, so I made it out of a striped shirt that did not fit me.  It was not long enough to make a whole skirt, so I took a solid shirt in a matching color and pieced together a stripey-blocked skirt.  Voila:

Stripey-block skirt in progress

 And, here is the double-doing a pin: Not only did I refashion tshirts into a skirt, in a non-neutral color, I styled it, too.  Look at me, wearing a coordinating outfit.  It was inspired by another pin, and although my blouse isn't peplum, I think it works.

I am not wearing any black.  Those shoes are grey suede, my friend.  This is the dawn of a new day.

So, I teach 7th and 8th grade and have been making an effort to put myself together more.  Now, my 8th grade girl students will ask, "is this a Pinterest outfit?"  Because they can totally tell when I stole my style idea from a pin.  (It's pretty obvious, because I am wearing something other than slacks and a blouse.  Pinterest is slowly teaching me how to do layers.  And belts.  We'll get there.)

And, to top off my refashiony-bloggy thing going on here, I took pictures while I was making my skirt so I can make a tutorial.  So watch for it, because I made a waistband out of sleeves, and it fits like a dream.

Valentine Scripture Bookmark

Here's a Valentine Freebie!

Print on cardstock, cut out, and laminate to make bookmarks for Valentine's day.

View in my TpT store

You can use this image, just link back to it!

Happy Halloween!

Our Halloween week was a lot of fun.  The girls were Ariel and Sleeping Beauty, and they enjoyed a few nights of unabashed princessing.

Thursday night was the Sentinel School Carnival, where Grandma S works.  The girls spent the night there after the carnival, while Farmboy and I drove in to Phoenix to go to the Mesa Temple and then pick up our sister in law, who was coming to town for a visit.

Sunday was the Primary program, and Pea had two speaking parts.  In the first, she told about how her scripture hero is Queen Esther (who she picked herself), and the second was about how scriptures are 'inspiring messages' written by prophets.  It was hilarious watching her.  She is a natural ham.  Strawberry had a very minor part, as she is in the nursery (not yet being 3).  The nursery kids did get to join in on one song, "I am a child of god."

Finally, today was trick-or-treating.  we drove around the neighborhood, visiting mostly houses of people we knew.  We stayed out about 45 minutes, which was plenty for us.  It's a lot slower with little ones, but they sure had a blast.  They didn't get as much candy as I anticipated, probably because of how slow they walked between houses.  We probably only made it to 8 or so houses, but it's not like they needed more candy anyway.  Everyone told them how cute they were, and they loved it.  The neighbors were "awww" inspired whenever Strawberry would tell them, "I Sweeping Beauty".

What cute girls, and a fun week.

My Trip to Hawaii

I am going to tell you about how wonderful and amazing my trip was, and then you can be jealous.  Heck, I'm even a little jealous, and I was there!  It was just so wonderfully peaceful and beautiful, and we were just feet from the ocean.  I think the best part was that we were in the non-tourist area, so it wasn't really ever crowded or loud.

First of all, our accommodations:

Sunrise, as seen from our balcony

Our condo was in the best imaginable location.  We were on the southernmost point of the island, so both sunrise and sunset were over the ocean.  Our balcony faced east, so we got to see sunrise every morning.


We did some really fun things:

Kevin and I at the Mini Golf Botanical Gardens

I wanted to go to one of the many botanical gardens, but they are fairly expensive as a rule.  We found this garden on the North Shore, and it was a garden with a twist: it's a mini golf course.  As you go from hole 1 to 18, there are plants arranged around the holes that show the botanical history of the island.  Thus, we start at hole 1 with native plants, there before anyone came here, and go through the polynesian, plantation,  asian, and current plants.   I took one picture at every hole, leaving me with a photographic history of the island.  I'll post them in a separate post.

At Kilohana Plantation

Apparently, Kauai used to be a big plantation island.  It isn't so much any more, but there are hundreds of fallow fields all over the island.  Because the island is so mountainous, the plantation owners employed terrace farming, so there are rock walls and overgrown fields in lots of hidden, out of the way places.  A few of the plantations are still open to the public for touring, and we went to Kilohana Plantation to do just that.  It has some shops and a train that goes all around the grounds, but we didn't do the train.  There is also a luau in the evening, but we didn't do that either.  Can we say expensive?  We walked around the grounds on our own, and they had some fields of sugar, papaya, and tapa root.

 Of course, we did other things, like shopping, sight-seeing, and snorkeling, but I don't really have any pictures of that.  I was too busy!

Sunset from our condo

And to top it all off, here is a picture of the sunset from some benches downstairs at our condo.  I love this picture.  It just reminds me of the waves, the cool breeze, and the smell of the ocean.  Aahhh.

Crafty Mamas

We made little stuffed birds today for our Thursday crafternoon.  I made one for Pea, one for Strawberry, and we made several more for the other kiddies.  It was lots of fun and a joint effort.  I think they turned out really cute.  This one is Pea's; Strawberry's is purple, and she wouldn't give it up to have a picture taken.

Danelle was one of the moms over today, and she made this.  She was going to a wedding this weekend and made this as a gift.  The tutorial for how she did it can be found here. Enjoy!

Busy, busy, busy

It has been nothing but crazy over here lately.  I got a cold, which turned into a sinus infection, that I have been battling all week.  I'm definitely on the upside, but I still sound gross and am all snuffly, plus I seem to get worn out somewhat quickly. Then, Emily was sick for one night, miserable with a fever, which I thought was because she had gotten what I had.  Instead, it turned out she was getting four teeth in (all of her canines).  Poor baby.  She's fine now and has a mouthful!

In spite of this, it's been a really busy week.  I have started doing yoga this week, and have done three days thus far (I skipped three due to illness).  It's kind of kicking my butt, but I guess that's a good thing.  As of yesterday, I'm down 2 1/2 pounds.  Not bad, not bad.

Also, I've been cleaning and organizing trying to get my house back into some semblance of order.  Not an easy task, might I add.  Too many vacations and other events where I had stuff packed up and never really unpacked, lots of laundry in piles that I wasn't willing to wash, and a giant explosion of a toy room.  But it's mostly done now, and we can actually *live* in our house again.

And now, some pictures that never got posted during my summer hiatus:

Doorway Puppet Theater
Strawberry hasn't really figured out to keep her head down behind the curtain.

I made this SMU pillowcase for my brother,
who is attending the university  beginning this semester.