on my honor

This picture cracks me up. Last night, I coordinated a costumed event for 325 girl scouts and adults. This is me and Emily. I bought her uniform for $10 on ebay (with the beanie, thank you) and borrowed mine from the local Girl Scout Historical Society. They're both from the mid 1960's.

However much I wish I could, I cannot say the same for my shoes. The shoes belong to me. They are from when I was pregnant with Emily. I know this because htey are too big. My feet grew when I was pregnant, but have come back to normal size since then. Pregnancy, unfortunately, does not explain or excuse the choice of style. Or lack thereof.

Here's a closeup. I do love MAC for funny eye shadows in colors like bright green and canary yellow.

I am super crafter!

I've been doing so much writing about my scout activities that I've given it its own category. Lame or not lame? I can't decide. Betsy, please keep your opinion to yourself.

See...it's like this...let me try to say this well for any stray googlers who happen by...Girl Scouts and Brownies do this thing called SWAPS. It's new since I was a scout. It stands for (goofy, I know) Special Whatchamacallits Affectionately Pinned Somewhere. They make little teeny crafts and trade them. Some are very simple, like foam hearts glued together, and others are more elaborate. There are millions of SWAP ideas all over the internet.

Obviously, for a girl like me, who gets all competitive about pot luck dinners, simple won't do. I mean, it will do for my girls, but not for me. For this weekend's Leader-Daughter Dinner (a HUGE success, thanks for asking), Emily and I used felt, yard, wooden beads, and the hot glue gun to make little girls in sleeping bags. They were very cute!

Anyway, we have a 2-night town-wide Camporee coming up, and I wanted to make some SWAPs of my own, to share with my co-leader, the parents who are coming with my troop, some of the women who serve with me on the town board, etc. I went to Michael's and bought some little buckets like you'd use for paint by numbers, some flower wire, some straws, and some pipe cleaners.

Using my trusty x-acto blade, I cut all the extra plastic off the buckets, and put little holes in the sides. I ran the flower wire through the holes and twisted it to secure. Then I wrote "CAMPOREE 2005" on them with a thin Sharpie. I cut the straws into lengths just over an inch, and cut similar pieces of pipe cleaner. I bent pipe cleaner and inserted it into the end of a piece of straw and secured it with some glue. Then I took the little "toilet brushes" and used hot glue to attach them to the "latrine buckets." You should have seen me at the kitchen table with stuff all around me! It was hilarious, especially since Emily was also at the kitchen table, working on her butterfly habitat for school (they're somehow growing butterflies in tissue boxes), her father's birthday present (44, today), and her teacher's gift for Teacher Appreciation Day (tomorrow). It was a terrific mess, but we were so happy (except for Jonah, who was gearing up to puke on the kitchen floor only hours later).

Super cute, if I say so myself.

they like me! they really like me!

Get a look at the nicest thing that happened to me today.