A Vagillion Points of Light

"We can find meaning and reward by serving some higher purpose than ourselves, a shining purpose, the illumination of a Thousand Points of Light...We all have something to give."   -  President George Herbert Walker Bush


I would like to take this a step further by suggesting a not a million, a billion, nor even a trillion - but a vagillion points of light.  It appears that this beauty salon in Lincolnshire agrees with my thinking and is prepared to make this happen for me and like-minded ladies.  How much more of a shining statement can one woman make? Score one for the Bush-meister!

Holey Pants? Not it this family!

My daughter and I have had it pretty easy on the relationship front.  She is normally pretty easy going and I am normally pretty able to go with the flow (with her only BTW - I am NOT a go with the flow person whatsoever).  One breakthrough area with me has been her wardrobe.  I don't need a girlie-girl - and I PRIDE myself in not needing to dress Maddie in all pink and frills and lace and dresses. Trust me at 4 she  can ROCK her blue jeans and mud brown Henry Vilas Zoo t-shirt!  Would it KILL HER though to not DEMAND to find the most:

1. Ill-fitting
2. Stained
3. Holey
4. Eye sore

parings of clothing every freaking morning and refuse to wear all of the:

1. Clean
2. Weather appropriate
3. Matching
4. Just plain damned cute

clothing that she owns.

I have allowed myself to let her have choices in what she wears even if the colors clash or its actually a pajama top (only once).  I do put my foot down on dirty and full of holes.  I don't care if she comes back from school looking that way, but I will be damned if she goes in looking like it.

Which is the discussion we had this morning.....while she was on the toilet......clutching her purple leggings because they were her teacher's favorite color.....with me ripping them out of her hands because they were filthy and full of huge holes. It took 30 minutes to get her to agree to something else and by agree I mean we were running so late I threatened to drop her off in her underwear if she didn't choose something else.  She eventually released her kung fu grip on the leggings and told me that this house wasn't fair and she didn't want to live here anymore (which she thought better of when I mentioned that snacks weren't readily available 'on the road').

She did finally manage to choose some clothes that fit, were clean and had no holes (although they didn't match but a small concession on my part).  After we both apologized to each other for the very crappy morning we induced upon each other Maddie asked me on the way to school why I made her change her clothes.  I had to remind her that pants (in all varieties) are important and that is just how we roll in this family!

Tonight we pre-chose an outfit for tomorrow that I approve of (because I hid all of the stuff that I don't).  Done and Done!  This motherhood thing is like being a magician sometimes - smoke and mirrors baby!

Summer Ball Gown Extraordinaire

Summer Ball time is just around the corner (like next week) - let the festivities begin!  This year may just be the year that we make it all the way to the champagne breakfast.  We have always left around 2 or 3am, because even with somebody watching Maddie overnight, we still have to tend to her the next day and it would be irresponsible and just plain ugly to do it on no sleep (and fairly tipsy).  This year, though our neighbours are not only watching her overnight, but taking their kids and Maddie to Sundown Adventureland the following day - all day - so.....the potential is there if we are up for the challenge.  I'll let you know next Saturday!

I wasn't going to buy a new dress this year because I have loads of ball gowns now and I thought I would not spend the money and instead re-wear one (gasp, horror, shock)!

Then I saw this one and I felt it would have been a crime against humanity to not buy it.....and wear it... and sleep in it....for at least a couple nights weeks.  I don't have anything to go with it shoe or jewelry wise and don't really have time to look, but I don't care.  I will go barefoot and jewel-less.   (Happy sigh).

Joy and Rapture

I am sure that you may have heard that the Rapture was meant to come yesterday.  BTW - it didn't. But I don't see it as a total loss. I mean sure, now I have to go to work on Monday and there are the 13 loads of laundry I was hoping to put off......


That aside, Isn't it great how crazy people like Harold Camping bring out the best in all of us.  Let us look at a glass half full.  Who else but a nut job could inspire so many people to get creative and have a giggle. Here are a few nuggets that I have found delightfully laugh worthy.  Don't stop Harold - I may need more laughs in the future.



A little practical joke you can plan on friends, neighbors and strangers the next time a Rapture opportunity presents itself.

Obviously this guy's family knew something he didn't.....

I think this one is my favorite.  What an awesome day this guy had.  First, drinking beer whilst doing a number 2, then getting to meet the big guy in the sky. My only question is, did he have a chance to wipe?

 I am going to see if I can order this billboard for the side of my house.

I'm just saying.......

I have some wonderfully twisted friends in California that would probably be on board to make this one happen.  If you need extra hands for the big release, please give me a call and I will get on a plane and be there.  That is one party I do NOT want to miss.

I think this just says everything.  Blame it on Bill Gates.




INSTALLING RAPTURE.
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Installation failed. Please try again. 404 error: Rapture not found.
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Enough said.  LMAO.  I am going to go do my 13 loads of laundry with a smile on my heathen face.

The one where I thank my brother for helping Matt for get it so right.

Today is mother's day in the UK and it is third one out of five since Maddie has been born that I am spending it without my husband. Yesterday morning was bittersweet because Matt was leaving again and had only been home for 3 weeks.

After dropping him off at work to catch his plane, Maddie and I came home and I closed the front door feeling an overwhelming sense of emptiness. It felt so lonely that the dog had to fill the void with an alarming amount of gas.

When the doorbell rang 5 minutes later, I welcomed the possibility of company and the strong fresh burst of air that I knew would clear out the cloud of nastiness that still lingered from the dog.

What I didn't expect was my neighbour holding a massive bouquet of flowers with a sheepish smile saying "these were delivered while you were out".

The flowers were from Matt. The card simply read: Don't thank me. Thank your brother. Happy mother's day, you are really amazing.

It was a bit of an inside joke really. Last week my brother's wife posted pictures on facebook of some gorgeous flowers that my brother had given her. In response to a comment that someone had written, she replied that my brother gave her flowers all the time - special occassion not necessary. To which I responded "tell my brother to have chat with my husband...lol". Some facebook banter ensued and the rest (as they say) is now history. My younger brother has apparently schooled Matt in the art of some fine flower gifting.

What I really didn't expect was for another flower delivery today. I thought that it must be either a mistake or maybe flowers from my mom (she is awesome that way)!

The card read: Don't thank me, thank Uncky J. (my brother), love Maddie. Now Maddie is great with a computer but even she doesn't have the skill set to order and pay for flowers online (or does she)??? It would appear that my lovely husband got me another bouquet of flowers and sent them in Maddie's name. I don't think the delivery person was ever caught in such an awkward moment when I started weeping "I can't believe he did this!  Why would he do this?" She backed away quite quickly perhaps confusing my incredulous reaction with anger (it is not like I said it whilst shredding the flowers with a pair of scissors.....)

Those flowers made my weekend and I don't think that either my brother or Matt will ever know how much. Thank you Jeremy for being such a great man (and husband to Maria) and thank you Matt for being the most wonderful husband and getting it so, so right!

You do realise that the bar has now been set........

Counting Down the Days

You may (or may not) know that my husband is in the Royal Air Force.  He is an engineer.  When we got married I knew that there was the possibility of him spending some time away here and there.  I never expected to have him gone quite as much as he has since Maddie has been born.  The last year or so has been rough - he has been away for 4-5 months or more out of the year.

I know to some that this doesn't seem like much.  I know that some people in the forces spend 18 months or more away from their families at a time.  I don't think I could be married to somebody that has to have that kind of commitment to their job - power to the wives, girlfriends and families that do.

Matt left in early January for what was to be the last deployment for a while.  When he got back 2 1/2 weeks ago I could have wept.  I was tired, stressed, overworked and unbalanced.  I was really looking forward to having some time for us to be a family again.  To have somebody share the (wonderful) burden of caring for a 4 1/2 year old child and an 11 year old dog with bad gas and even worse breath.

We got the first call about 4 days after he came home - deployment......again.....

He was meant to leave mid-May.  I was heartbroken, but thought "okay at least we have a couple of months to spend together.  At least I have a while to re-charge my batteries before being a single parent yet again.  At least Maddie can relish in the possibilities of having 2 parents to dote on her."

The second call came not long after.  Things had changed.  Deployment moved up.  Leaving on the 2nd of April.  "Crappity, crap, crap." I do believe that my actual reaction included a wild variety of bonus words that I will not type here just in case somebody gets offended.  But to give you a glimpse of the conversation that went down between me and the man I will say that the "F" bomb was dropped at least a half a dozen time as well as some vocabulary that would probably see me going to hell for a good long while in at least 6 of the major world religions.  By the way - I swear like a sailor - just thought you should know.

Matt will have been back for less that 25 days when he leaves again.  He is on standby to leave fairly soon.  I want to scream and cry but everybody I know is in the same boat or worse and pity parties don't last very long when you are a RAF wife.  My friends and acquaintances that don't have partners in the Forces aren't always understanding, implying "you knew what you were marrying into....."  I want to slap them, but I don't (okay sometimes in my head I do and seriously I have got a great imagination so it is AWESOME when it plays out).  I usually bite my tongue.  I smile.  I make a joke.  I let everyone know that it will be okay.  In the meantime I just keep counting down the days.

No 'poo' Day 5 - The one where I find a solution....

Okay, Day 5 of no shampoo and I wake up and expect to run my fingers through....well I didn't expect to 'run' my fingers through anything.  When I went to bed last night, my hair had congealed into a mass that had practically stuck to my pillow.

I was mildly surprised to find that although my hair felt a little off - it wasn't greasy at all.  It felt heavy and lifeless, but not greasy.  Perhaps true progress was being made and these women were really on to something. 

I decided to brave my day out with my friend Alla whilst sticking to my experiment and opted for a long shower with a baking soda rinse (unlike the paste I had used previously, this was about a teaspoon with 2 cups of very warm water).  I ran that through my hair and scrubbed my scalp until I thought it might bleed.  Then I followed it up with the Apple Cider Vinegar, which everyone has sworn by.  The ACV smelled pretty foul in the shower, but when I got out my hair felt AMAZING.  It had a squeaky clean, but not stripped feel to it.  The roots didn't feel laden with oil and it looked really shiny (okay it was wet, but it was really, really glossy).

I started to blow dry and actually saw a bit of volume (and this was with no product in it).  I kept blowdrying and realized that I was not really getting anywhere.  My hair was taking 10 times longer than normal to dry and still reaked of vinegar. 

I thought long and hard about some of the other research I had done on the subject and thought I would give my hair one last option.  The great news is that it worked a treat - my hair looked soft, shiny and smelled lovely. 

The wonder product in the end was - SHAMPOO!!!  Yeah, I caved, and I caved bad!!!  I didn't feel guilty either.  I felt that I had successfuly completed the experiment to my satisfaction.  2 of the biggest motivators for women to do this was time and money, I wasn't saving either of those.  I know that many women want to ditch all the chemicals in their shampoo, but I looked at mine - 80% organic with non of the bad stuff all these websites tell you to avoid.  I do feel that with the right hair style/type, and lots of time and self esteem this would probably work.  Since I never seem to have all of these at the same time, I think that I would never make it through long enough to reap the fruitful rewards of ditching the suds.

I have been loving on my hair all day - swishing, flaunting and running my fingers through non-greasy strands for hours.  I may have a bald patch by tomorrow from all the hair fondling, but it will be well worth it.  Tonight I am going to wash my nasty pillowcases and drift off to the sweet scent of my perfectly styled, silky coif!

Nighty Night!

No 'poo' Day 4 - Robert Palmer eat your heart out....

Day 4 of no shampoo - yes, Day 4.  I have to say that I felt really sluggish today and I am officially blaming it on my lack of hair volume.  Now that I got that off my chest here is how today played out. 

After yesterday's debacle I didn't have very high hopes for today from the get-go.  Maddie and I had NO plans today, so I decided to skip the wash and just do a rinse instead.  Also, because the ends of my hair felt so dry, I put a tiny bit of conditioner in.

Although my hair felt a bit better (still greasy but not so dirty) it looked derranged.  I decided that the only thing to do would be raid Maddie's hair band basket and grab some accessories.  I opted for two ponytails with a zig zag part down the middle.  I kept the 'tails' up high and slightly forward.  I looked like an insane mouseketeer - DO OVER!  I tried a headband but looked scary.  I finally settled for slicked back in a double banded ponytail.  Not terrible, but I kind of looked like somebody who had just given up on life or spent a week in the hospital.  I decided to overcompensate with makeup and went with  very smoky eyes and dark red lips.  Now, not only could nobody think I didn't care about my appearence, but might actually mistake me for one of the girls in the Addicted to Love video! 

A fantastic red silk scarf, swingy black mid length trench coat, jeans  and killer earrings later,  I decided to brave the real world with Maddie.  We went bowling.  I think this was a bit of a strategic move on my part because I was running on the assumption that many people at the bowling alley wouldn't be in full makeup with a bold wardrobe choice.  I was pretty much on the mark - although I was secretly coveting every woman's hair there.  The good news is I didn't get stared at with looks of distain or pity.  I gave today a 4.5 out of 10.

Tomorrow I may cave - I am meeting up with a friend of mind so our daughters can play at Rand Farm Park.  This friend is Ukranian and VERY stylish - I have never seen her look anything less than amazing.  She may not want to hang out with me anymore if I can't get my hair to pass muster and I really enjoy her company.

In a last ditch effort to follow this through and not look like a sleazebag tomorrow,  I did a bit more research today on how to manage manky hair. It seems that Apple Cider Vinegar is supposedly the way to go. Everyone has been swearing by it even the women with baby fine chin length bobs like mine.  I shall give it a go, but friends, I really do feel that this may be a lost battle.

No 'poo' Day 3 - Introducing the Hair Apparent

Okay, so on Sunday I began what was to be a week of hair experimentation - namely me ditching commercial shampoo.  I had read up on advice, tips, and testimonials of all of the wonderful things that this would apparently do for my hair in the long run.  The trick was making it through the short-term process of jumping off the shampoo rollercoaster.

Day 1 went reasonably well.  I rated my hair a 6.5 out of 10 - not bad at all.  I used a paste of baking soda and water to wash my hair and a vinegar rinse.  It was manageable, stylable and didn't smell badly like I thought it would.

I decided to really go cold turkey yesterday with nothing but a rinse in the shower.  That was - not so fine.  My hair felt quite greasy at the roots and the ends felt quite dry.  I was still able to style it, but it didn't look great.  I would rate it a 5/10.  I was confortable enough in the village (went to the shop and post office) and taking the dog out for a walk.  It helped that the weather was horrid and drizzly and I took comfort in the fact that everyone's hair looked a bit worse for the wear.

I woke up this morning with the day planned out.  I was supposed to go into town to meet with woman who is putting together a womens' wellbeing convention where I am speaking.  I was basically going to bring Maddie down to the centre where she was going to show me the layout and we would figure out where I would be set up.  The bonus was I knew this women (she's one of my members).  I guessed it would take about 15 minutes. After that Maddie had a playdate to go to with our neighbor's daughter.

Because I was going into town I decided to re-try the baking soda and vinegar trick again.  My hair was beginning to take on a life of its own and not in a good way.  I had such decent results on Day 1 that I figured it would be good enough to get me through my morning.

I 'washed' and rinsed then started to blowdry.  Lets say that my hair didn't respond as well as the first go round.  My hair felt like a thick lump of oil and yet was also so dry that anything that came near it set it off like a Van de Graaff generator.  It was bad enough that I had to dig out one of those pinchy-type hair clippy things and do a half-up/half-down 'do'.  The result was less than flattering, but would work - its not like I was going anywhere that I needed to impress people with my tresses.  Aside from that I didn't have time to do anything else.

What actually happened that morning when I got the the Convention Centre was mortifying.  Imagine showing up at a place where you expect to be shown a couple of rooms (by somebody you know), discuss a couple of needs and then leave - and instead walking into your worst nightmare.

For instance a full-blown, sit down formal meeting with 20 of the most fabulous women in the area (all professionals who will be presenting at the event). These women are all dressed to the 9's, made up and bejewelled with perfectly coiffed hair done up in fashionable hair accessories that match their outfits and nails.  Imagine the horror as you slink in 5 minutes late (with your 4 year old none the less) and find 20 pairs of eyes looking at you with a mixture of pity and disdain.  Imagine the mortification as your daughter decides to occupy herself by playing with your 80's themed hair clip and breaking it, leaving the hair that was clipped into it standing up at a jaunty angle.  You've seen 'Something about Mary', yes? 

I fought off the need to speak up in the middle of this meeting to explain my hair plight (maybe they would find it amusing), by slowling twirling a finger around  the patch of runaway hair that had escaped from behind my ear.  (Note to self - don't try to distract people from an embarrasing situation by drawing attention to the problem).  I tried to meet each and every woman's gaze with a bright smile and devil may care attitude.  At one point during the 2 hour meeting I ran to the toilets with Maddie and glimpsed at my hair...........

Holy crap how was I ever talked in to doing this?  My hair was beyond sad looking and quite frankly, brought my whole look down a notch (or 5). To make penance I now have to show up at this event looking abso-frickin-lutely fabulous which will probably set me back some serious cash at my hairdressers and some more serious cash finding an outfit to compliment my expensive hair.

Because the meeting went so long I took Maddie out to lunch where I ran into several old co-workers - another hit to my self esteem - and by the time we returned home I wanted to jump in the shower and shampoo my hair until my scalp bled.  But I prevailed.  After all - we just had to go to a playdate across the street and I could slink back into my home with my head of yuck.  The playdate was great - although my neighbor had just had her hair 'done' and was so obviously enjoying her new hair affair - flaunting her flaxen mane in my general direction every time she turned to speak......


All in all I would rate today a 3/10.  This is not hair I would really want to be seen in public with - but not quite bad enough to want to shave it off.  Also I think I have come to the conclusion that I am much to shallow for this to have any real money saving effect (unless of course this takes a giant turn around at some point) as I will have to fork over a load of dough to salvage my self esteem when I go to this convention.  Here is a picutre - shocking isn't it.

Here is a picture of my hair looking lovely just to balance out the universe and to look at my awesome summer ball gown again........

So far I have not saved any time, nor any money with this crazy scheme and am beginning to lose the plot. The prospects for tomorrow are frightening and I am not really sure I can do this for another 5 days.  Wish me luck!

No 'poo' for a week?!?

This post is not possibly as gross as the title implies - or maybe it is, but just not in the way you thought when you read it.  I was reading an interesting article a couple of weeks ago about a movement of women who were ditching their shampoo and soap in favor of more skin and scalp friendly alternatives.  Many of these women are not dread-locked, granola eating hippy-types, but those more classically prone to NOT wearing patchouli oil and wearing their armpit hair au-naturel. 

BTW - I have nothing against women who wear patchouli oil, refrain from shaving, or eat granola - hell - I alomst became one of those women during a brief period of insanity when I almost moved to kauai to sleep on a beach in a tent.....but I digress.....

These women decided that between the many nasty chemicals in shampoo, the cost and the time spent shampooing they were going to give it a rest.  The interesting thing was that many of them decided it worked for them.  After a week or so of greasy uneasiness, their hair settled in to a more natural rhythm of being.  According to many studies, the chemicals in modern day shampoo force your scalp to produce more sebum (oil) therefor perpetuating the need to shampoo more frequently.  By stopping this cycle you can get away with washing your hair far less often and (here's the kicker) it will actually look and feel better.

I brought this topic up at the gym and was met by a very divided group of women.  Many said that yes the science sounds probable and some said - please, that is disgusting, nobody could ever convince me that not shampooing would work.  The debate grew for a few days with women bringing in 'tidbits' of info that they had gatherered whilst doing some 'research' on the subject.  Vehement arguments broke out on whether to 'poo' or not and at the end of last week I would say that it was pretty split down the middle.

Here is where I came in (again).  I decided that I would take one for the team and test drive this theory to prove for once and for all if it works.  If I'm being honest I was kind of bullied into it but - semantics.

Let me preface this experiment by explaining a few things:

1.  I have a love/hate relationship with my hair.  See my last hair blog for more proof.
2. I have shampooed every day if not more for the better part of 25 years.
3.  I have baby fine hair that has not an ounce of volume without some serious products (which require washing out).
4.  The hair fairies work mysteriously at night to my hair into an intricate weave of knots, necessitating a good shampoo and bucketful of conditioner to fix it.
5.   If left to its own devices, my hair would solidify into a single, pathetic, limp noodle.
6. One of my favorite things in life is finding my next great shampoo/conditioner combo - perfect shine, swishability, volume, style prospects and scent.

To go without shampoo was not a challenge I undertook lightly - so several members had to sweeten the deal by backing me financially (jokingly threatening to quit).  I decided that this week would be the perfect week undertake such an experiment because Maddie was on half-term and I wouldn't be working and therefore could hide out in my house with the curtains closed.

I read up on some tips and tricks for getting through the first few days.  These included washing your hair with a paste made from baking soda and then rinsing it with vinegar, squeezing lemons through your hair while showering, wearing a hat, and spritzing witch hazel in your roots when you got up in the morning. 

Today was DAY  1 and I decided to go the baking soda and vinegar route because the whole lemon thing sounding like it might sting in the shower and I haven't held witch hazel in my possession since the early 80s.

I made a paste and schlepped it on my scalp.  I was not only disappointed to not get a sudsy lather, but disgusted at the fact that my head felt covered in gritty sand......sand that would not wash out.....sand that would not go away. After rinsing for what felt like 30 minutes (note to self this might not be the most environmentally friendly experiement) I followed up with the vinegar rinse.  Again - NOT what I wanted to smell at 8am.  I thought to myself that these women were either nuts or had way to much time (and water) on their hands. 

I was mildly suprised though, at how soft my hair felt when I got out and combed through it - wait - could this possibly work???

I got out the blowdryer because that really is the final test for me - and I have to say that aside from feeling very slightly 'fly away' my hair actually looked decent enough to be seen in public.  I took Maddie and her friend out to Crazee Bongos and nobody stared or held their nose as I walked by, withering from the stink of vinegar.  I gave today a 6.5/10 rating on the scale of great hair.  None of the WOW factor, but decent and admissable in public - done and done!


Tomorrow should be interesting because I am going to not shampoo at all and just rinse.  Hmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm........

Pictures to come!

Might as well be my inaugural blog........oh....and I made some cool stuff!

I don't even want to look at the date of the last blog I wrote - I think it was last June.  I could bore you with all of my lame excuses (for the 3 of you that read this) as to why I haven't written in so long.  So far I've come up with:

1.  I've been really crazy busy at work.
2. I've had writer's block.
3. My dog ate my computer (she's been such a pig lately that this one isn't that far out there).
4. My future self came back and told me that something that I would write in the last 6 months would cause parts of the world to implode and therefore NOT writing would really be saving the world.
5. I lost the ability to type the letter "A" and nobody would get nthing tht I cme up with.
6. It's not you, it's me.....

Instead of dragging these very obviously real possibilities out on the webbernet I've decided to show you what Maddie and I did today instead.  (No pig dogs were harmed in the writing of this blog).

We made Crayons.  Okay so we did not actually make crayons, but we did melt down her supply of nubs to make some pretty funky NEW crayons.  The project chewed up a good couple of hours of what would have otherwise been an afternoon of whining, siging and f*&ing Peppa Pig.

Maddie has a box of old crayons that is HUGE.  I hate old crayons so I buy her a new box about once a month.  Add that to all of the free crayons that she scores and.....needless to say we have loads. 

The crayon box is the bane of my existence.  Her favorite thing to do is dump it on the living room floor so she can see all of her options.  The nubs get ground into the carpet, their teeny tiny bits of paper peppering the landscape in a fashion that could only be described as crayon mass murder sight.

I have often thought of just throwing them away, but it seems a bit wasteful.  I've thought of donating them to her playgroup, but who has time or mental capacity to remember to actually load the box into the car and bring it to playgroup?  Sadly, not I.

So today, in a fit of rage and boredom I decided that the crayons needed a new lease on life (one not encased in paper).

We started by soaking the crayons in water to get the paper off.  I filled our kitchen sink in warm water and we 'husked' the crayons one by one. 

When they were de-papered we separated them by color and shade into different bowls (yes I am borderline OC a fact that Maddie will just have to get used to in me and in the genes that I have undoubtably handed down to her). 

Then we found a small baking tray that my mom sent us last valentines day with little heart shapes.  We broke up the crayons and filled the tray.

The tray went into the oven at about 325 F.  We checked every 5 minutes until the crayons had melted. 

Took them out and popped the tray in the fridge. 


When they were cold they popped out of the mold.  And VOILA - new crayons.

We got a bit crazy after the first 2 batches of hearts and decided to move on to bigger and badder crayon combos (I seriously had so many crayons to use up).

I took a larger muffin tin and loaded the crayons into paper muffin cups.  For these we mixed our colors with wild abandon and made some crayons that looked like Reeces Peanutbutter cups would if you had ever taken a hit of acid (I never have so I am really going on testimony for this one). 

Maddie had a great time sorting out shades and blending different colors.  I got to throw away every last scrap of crayon paper that was left in the house and the dog was left bewildered yet intrigued by the scent coming out of the oven.  All in all - a good day!

Kittyn