Birdies

We have a nest of little birdies in our front porch! They have come every spring that we have lived here and built a nest under the eave in the entryway to lay eggs. They are very sweet and we tolerate them, despite the inevitable birdie messes. Ick. It makes the tile entryway even MORE slick. It doesn't bother us too much since we go in and out the garage, but it makes our guests a mite uncomfortable I would imagine. Anyway, the newest crop of bitty birdies have just hatched and are so cute!! Look, they even respond when you talk to them!

Are you my mommy?

Nine Months

I cannot believe my little princess is already nine months old!

The vital stats-

Height - 26 3/4 inches (25%)

Weight - 20 lbs. 8 ozs. (90%)

FOC - 40 cm (95%)

Just like her brother - short, round and big-headed. Oh, and really cute!

Mother's Day

Mother's Day was lovely this year. My sweet little ones (with Daddy's help) brought me chocolate and presents. They even both signed the card! I think Mitch helped with that, too. I am pretty impressed with Logan's contribution, though. If you look hard, you can actually see "Logan" in there!

Myra's little handprint is sweet.And my wise children knew what I wanted best - a year's subscription to Burda World of Fashion magazine!! Yay!! I can't wait until it starts coming!Logan's favorite part were the chocolate cupcakes, which he kept climbing onto the counters to get. Messy, but cute.

Puzzlemaking.

Some time ago I stated I would try a puzzle pattern I found here.

It's pretty simple: just print, cut, paint, and enjoy. Well, it's not quite. I have never used a scroll saw before, and I'm not used to how it cuts and turns. Nor am I used to saw blades so thin that it's hard to see them. Nothing like practice to fix that, however.

Here you see pattern pasted on the wood, with some of the parts already cut off. I used 3/4 inch plywood because that's what I had laying around. Also, the piece should be able to stand on its own after it's cut out. I did this section with a wide, pinned saw blade that wasn't great at corners. It's hard to tell from this view but my cuts aren't really very precise. Not bad for first time, however.


Of course, cutting out the eyes and nostrils is a bit touchy. The technique is to drill a hole in the waste portions of the pattern, slide the blade through, and then cut. It doesn't take too long to catch the trick of that.

You can see here in the nostrils the initial drill holes, which are 1/32 inch wide. I used a non-pinned blade that fits tightly but nicely. In the eye you can see I've already cut out a bit to give the blade some room to work. The 90 degree cuts for the teeth were a little tricky, and probably should have been made with a spiral blade (see picture), but the thin blade appears to have worked out well.


Here is the exploded version of the puzzle, then the entire puzzle assembled and standing up:


















The next step is to pull off the paper, sand, and paint. I may even get creative and try to carve some bits out of the wood, just as highlights. But that remains to be seen. I have found it devilishly hard to find time to work on this. So many distractions. At some point I'm going to learn to say "no" when people ask me to do things.

Traditionally, Dallas sucks

Tradition holds that most folks from Houston hate Dallas, and the feeling is mutual.

Myself, I was struck by a strong sense of deja vu driving near Downtown Dallas. Nothing makes sense in either of the two downtown areas.

One difference was the degree of schizophrenia. By this I mean: in Houston, it's easy to find a nice neighborhood right next to a ghetto one, with little transition. In Dallas, it's taken to a new degree: I was able to find the rich:poor dichotomy on a block by block, or even house by house scale. It's not quite so crazy in Houston.

We went looking for diapers on the upper east side of Dallas. Wow. I'd forgotten just what it was like to be the only white dude driving through the black ghetto. I spotted 3 drug dealers, 2 prostitutes, and a host of homeless folks, often sitting at the doorstep of $500,000 homes.

I'm happy to continue the Houston-hates-Dallas stereotype. One less program on my application list.

For all that, the farmer's market was pretty cool and Logan had a blast.

And now with the heat coming, I'm beginning to envy Varina and her escape to parts north.

The Big D

Yesterday we drove to Dallas to see my sister off at the airport. I've never been to Dallas before, and Mitch has only ever been to the Temple there, so it was a sort of adventure. We also wanted a chance to hang out with Rina before she left for Seattle. Who knows when we'll get to go see her up there? Although I hope it's soon!

We started out at the Farmer's Market, where there was room to run, so Logan had a blast. The produce there was amazing, and there were lots of interesting people to see and hear. Then the girls (Mom, Rina, Myra and I) peeled off to go see Neiman Marcus #1. Daddy's GPS said that it was less than a mile away, so we walked. What the GPS was apparently unaware of was that while downtown Dallas is in the process of regentrification, the homeless and panhandlers have not gotten the memo. Scary walk!!! Anyway, Neiman's was lovely and we introduced Myra to our friends Manolo, Christian and Stuart.

After that we stopped in at Whole Foods, and then headed home. I will say one thing for our small town. Traffic in Dallas SUCKED! And the streets made no sense at all. What is with the six-way intersections?  Who designed those highways, and what the heck is about this exit?!?

The kids had a nice quiet ride home.

Curlies!

I was starting to think she wasn't going to get them!  Logan had his curls much younger, but there it is.  Myra's first wee curl.