Category: My World (Page 2 of 15)

About a year ago, I decided upon a whim to become a Pastafarian. Then I forgot all about it, but not before my amazingly smart kids decided to create representations of our newfound deity: The Flying Spaghetti Monster. The one on top is the one conceived and made by Mika (8 years old at the time) all on her own. She chose the materials, she figured out how to make it, etc. The latter is a derived worked that Camila and I put together. A comparison of the two will bring the deep theological question to mind: how many meatballs does the FSM have? One big one or two small ones? We promise not to make our differences over the issue break our family apart.

Everyone who knows me, knows that I’m a devout atheist – but, after much soul searching (yep, at least half a second worth), I have found religion. As of five minute ago, I’m a Pastafarian – a just-as-devout worshiper of the Flying Spaghetti Monster. I haven’t quite decided what branch of pastafarianism I’ll be joining. Is the Flying Spaghetti Monster just one being – the being – or is he indeed, just the sum of the spaghetti, the meatballs and the holy sauce? Is it even up to us humans to ponder the sacred mysteries?
In any case, I’ve decided to go as far as changing my religion profile on facebook and worshiping my new-found God by serving spaghetti and meatballs (maybe even with homemade sauce) once a month or so.

I just came back from the flea market, and I have to say that I scored! I got 4 activity kits for just $4.50 (and a package of 8 1/2 x 11 mailing envelopes for 50c more).
The kids’ favorite so far is a color tattoo booklet which comes with a couple of hundred beautiful temporary tattoos (lots of colorful hearts and flowers). Camila has already put on six and I don’t think she has any intention of stopping anytime soon. I have ended up with one on my arm as well.

Then I got an Alex Magic Color Sand kit (it must be an old one as I can’t find it online). As far as I can tell, it’s all complete and unused. It has four containers of “magic” sand, which apparently changes color when mixed with water, and ten molds to make color sand shapes that will harden overnight. Sounds like a fun project and the kids are eager to try it.

I also got a Wacky Window Art!: Book & Kit. It has been used, I guess we’ll have to see how much of the window paint is there (and not dry) – but the stencils and instruction book are there.

Finally, I got an Alex My Scrapbook kit. It was very lightly used. A little girl named Ava personalized the front cover, but it’s simple enough to remove her cover. It came with most of what the original set came with, minus the glue, glue pen and glitter glue. I’d been thinking of buying that kit for a while (though later I decided to go with the Totally Me! – It’s A Girls Life Scrapbook Kit from Toys R’ Us, which is clearly a much better deal than the Alex one), and you can imagine my pleasure at finding it for $2!
Not all that I found was for the girls. I got myself two cups of tea, sans their saucers, but I can’t complain for $1 each.

The obsession continues. It’s been almost a month and I’m still beading quite a bit – pretty much every day. I’ve made 11 necklaces so far, not counting the little one I made for Camila and the several necklaces that I made only to decide I didn’t like and ended up unmaking. Pretty much everyone with whom I exchange presents is getting a necklace (or a pendant) this year 🙂
Mika is not very enthusiastic any more about beading, but Camila is totally into it. She likes following the patterns on the necklaces I make (but she won’t put the 2mm seed beads) and loves making necklaces of her own, on which she tries, but cannot, follow a pattern. The only problem is that she wants to use my “good” beads in her necklaces – the plastic ones are not good enough for her 🙁 After we are done with a necklace, no matter how it looks, she enthusiastically proclaims that “it’s very cute, mama”, opening her eyes to show delight. She’s so sweet.
I have several necklaces planned out (though I’ve learned that I’m not good at predicting what will look good together) but I’m waiting for spacer beads (which I also ordered on e-bay from China). I’ve also been making earrings but I find that more difficult, looping the pins into a hook in particular.
I’m still astounded that I’m enjoying this so much – I’m the least crafty sort of person in the world. But it is completely mindless and makes me relax 🙂