Jaw Dropper

It's a busy morning, but I wanted to upload some pictures and am taking the time to write a quick post.  We are getting ready for Ski Week, because in SoCal one Spring Break is just not enough.  BG will be out of school all week and I've got the girls' days filled with busy.  It starts this morning with french toast.

I do want to share a jaw dropper before I cast on my next project because....

Are you ready for it?  Why don't you sit down.

Wait you are at the computer and probably already sitting.

Then put the palm of your hand up and hold your jaw.  No really.  I told Senora to hold her jaw and she didn't.  I think the force of her jaw dropping strained a muscle.

Here it is, I have no WIPs.  In all the years that I have been knitting and putting projects aside for later, I have finally finished up all my WIPs.  There is not an end to be sewn, a corner to be blocked, and second pair to be made.  When I cast on my next project, it will be the only thing that needs to be worked on.

A huge part of reaching this accomplishment is deciding what to do with a pair of mitts and sending them off in the mail last week.  I'll share those on the next post, hence the pictures I wanted to upload. 


My next knitting goal will be to knit down my stash.  I have no idea how many yards I have, but I'll take a photo some day and show it to ya.

And just so that there is a photo on this post, I leave you with a shot that DH took.  We had gone out for dinner as a family by the beach and finished up in time to catch the sunset.

Happy Valentine's Day

Sometimes, more and more recently, I think about quitting this blog.  Then I think that is silly since I don't have any knitting friends in San Diego and so this is the only way I can share my knits.  Mind you the moms at school always notice when I have something new, but then go on and on about how un-talented they are.  I miss the days when Senora or the knit group would say, "I love that!" and then cast on their own project because we are all the same amount of talented.

I guess I'm feeling a little blah because it's been raining all day, I haven't cleaned the house, Target only had Hello Kitty rainboots that BG did not like, and I'm finally sitting down to write a post.  Which brings me back to if I should keep doing this?  I would probably enjoy it more if I blogged more often.

Back to the title of this post:

We had a very wonderful Valentine's Day at our house.  BG made her Valentine's for her class this year.  Our supplies were simple and I got the idea from the Brooklyn Bride.  We used card stock, watercolors, paper doilies, and adhesive spray.

BG painted the card stock lots of different colors.  Her class is mostly boys so she was creative with the colors.  It always surprises me how different our artistic views are.  As simple as this project was, there was a lot of colorwork going on.  She also had certain people in mind as she painted and so each card is custom for that particular classmate.

Once everything was dried, I worked on adding the paper doilies.  We only used the heart-shaped ones.  I cut them to fit approximately over the card and then glued them with the spray adhesive.  Spray adhesive gets everywhere and its very difficult to glue to pieces of paper together when one of them is full of holes.  BG was getting a little frustrated the doilies not sticking so she went out to play while I glued.

BG finished up with trimming the edges.  BG stamped the backs with "Be My Valentine" and wrote her Tos and Froms.

I loved that, instead of buying iCarly or Dip-a-Stick Valentines, we went old school and made them this year.  It would be a fun tradition to start.  Each card was handed out in class with two heart-shaped chocolates.

Click to enlarge :)

I have a hard time picking which one is my favorite.  I love how you can't see the black one on the black table, the teal one is so saturated with color, or the rainbow one.

BG gave me a solid pink card with water drops on it where it had somehow gotten wet.  Even LG got in the fun and painted a card to give to her sister.  We tried the white crayon thing, but found that didn't work as well as the Brooklyn Bride's.

What a Cookie Can Do

Cookies Sales do so much for each girl.  At troop level we are teaching them how to set goals and work to achieve them, about money management, and how to interact with strangers in a parent supervised situation.  After cookies sales are done, the girls work together to decide how to spend the money they have earned.  We follow the Share, Save and Spend strategy.  The girls will vote on a charity to give 10% back to our community.  The girls will save some to help pay for scouting next year, and then they will vote on a fun field trip to take together with the remainder of the funds.  The more they earn the bigger the field trip. 

After paying the bakers, 100% of each cookie stays in their local council.  The council provides help resources for the leaders, local council locations and the camping properties.  The average cost per girl in San Diego is $256 a year, but girls only pay $12 membership.  So even if someone says that they troops don't get that much money from a box, you can see there is so much more that a girl does get from being a Girl Scout.

All Girl Scout Councils have a donation cookie program.  I love this because it teaches the girls about helping others.  Here in San Diego we have Operation Thin Mint.  It was started in 2002 and the girls have donated 1.6 million boxes to the soldiers overseas. With every box that a girl sells she writes a thank you note to the soldier that receives it.

We've already had people asking us if they can still give to the soldiers.  I've also heard of girls at booth sales that have soldiers approach them and thank the girls.  Then they talk about how excited they were to receive a box of cookies while in Afghanistan, Iraq, Africa, Japan, Korea, and the Persian Gulf, Western Pacific and Indian Ocean.  The soldiers tell us about how they received a box of cookies while overseas and how it brought back memories of home.

It is great for the girls to see that they do make a big difference.   

Even if you can't buy from BG, I encourage you to find a local girl scout troop and give them your support.  You can find a local troop selling cookies here.

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BG and I have been having fun setting her goal and tracking how far she is to reaching it.  BG's goal is to sell 300 boxes of cookies and 24 boxes of Operation Thin Mint.  Her goals are driven by the  incentives.  They get pretty cool as the cookie count goes up and they are all cumulative.

She originally wanted to set her goal at 350 boxes.  I lowered it to 300 because I thought 50 boxes a week was more manageable and I want her to feel self-satisfaction if she goes above and beyond her goal and reaches 350.  So far she has sold 59 boxes, 3 are OTM.