Bribes

I used to hate the thought of bribes and kids. I guess bribe is a harsh word, though…

I don’t like it when parents pay kids money to be ‘nice’ to relatives (I’ve seen this…) or kids come to expect $$ for pulling their weight around a house (cleaning their rooms, making beds, brushing teeth – all things that they need to do whether they get allowance or not) But this morning I discovered an incentive program that conquered one of my daily headaches.

Han and Max are great kids – but they can be S L O W getting ready to go out the door to the bus. I walk them to the bus stop and schmooze with Tomm, my fellow parent-in-crime whose daily insights I will miss when his son goes to Middle School next year!

Anyway, we’re late out to the bus quite a bit. And when we get there the kids are cold. This morning I had the brainstorm to make a small thermos of hot chocolate & milk (soy) that the kids could share AT THE BUS STOP.

They’ve never been coated, back-packed, shoe-tied and out the door faster! (And I get to finish what they didn’t drink on my way home.)

On a knitting front – I was gratified that IK took 3 of my designs (1 for Fall 2005, 2 for future issues) and I’m pretty excited to submit some more stuff for another crochet issue. I love that magazine – and not just because they take my stuff! And love doesn’t mean that I think it’s perfect, nothing in this life is, but it always makes me think, and makes me dream!

Speaking of dreaming, I’ve got another historically inspired garment to share (BTW, thank you SO MUCH Cher for your great title suggestions – I will ponder them in my heart and may use one, they’re quite good!)

I could write an entire book of designs inspired by Ancient Egypt! (and, yes, Cathy, I loved Women’s Work: The First 20,000 Years: Women, Cloth, and Society in Early Times by Elizabeth Wayland Barberis an EXCEPTIONAL BOOK – and I see she has another out about Myths! I love her Mummies of Urumchi and I just ordered The Bog People: Iron-Age Man Preserved)

I plan to have several Egytian inspired garments, but here is the first one I’ve designed so far. Check out the hips on that statuette! Now THAT was a woman, and different from the stick thin figures one finds in so many of the beautiful wall paintings. Maybe Egyptian women were ‘real’ after all!?