Author: Launi

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Election Day…

As an eight year old, Election Day enthralled me so much I couldn’t go to bed. The front room couch eventually called my name, but that didn’t stop me from waking up every hour or so to see how the polls were doing, long after the house was silent. The numbers captivated my attention. Knowing me, I probably wrote all the stats down somewhere. I was (am?) weird like that. I saw the final moments before we knew who our new president was going to be. The unofficial declaration of the winner of the race. The overwhelming feeling of so much happening in such a short amount of time.

I remember what happened months after that election, when I saw an inauguration for the first time. I knew that I was watching an historic event. I realized what it meant to be an American. To stand united. To be a part in something bigger than myself. To support our leaders, whoever we–as a country–choose them to be. True it would be another decade before I could participate with my own check mark, but that didn’t matter. I knew the decisions of others had a large impact on me then.

Years later I cannot help but feel that same pull to the polls. I still remember my duty as an American citizen. I voted. As a history student I know too much of the consequences of indifference to avoid casting a ballot.

If you have not voted, please do. We need every opinion. They held my voting station in a library of a nearby elementary school. “How appropriate,” I thought as I saw the pictures of the presidents hanging in a row. While it was not the school I went to as a child, it reminded me of what I know. It reminded me of how I will behave regardless of the outcome. After all we pledge that we are one nation, under God, which means that we can also stand indivisible as the United States of America.

The only way to do that though is to stand, and–in today’s case–vote.

~April~

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Nest Building

Lyndi, at last, is beginning to look like she’s expecting. Her body is so long and willowy that her baby girl has been able to hide away from all of us…until now. She kicks and squirms so much more these days, like she wants to be sure we know she’s there, waiting to be ours. She’s like her mama that way. They haven’t settled on a name yet and so the sweet thing has been dubbed Baby Chomp after the Nintendo character. Lyndi says, “You know that phase where you’re just starving, so you eat…and then 5 minutes later, you’re starving again.” Baby Chomp…get it?

Of course, she felt like she was eating everything in sight–like Pac man–tortillas, Tillamook, Goldfish crackers, Teddy Grahams and anything with cream cheese on it. All of which was very new and scary to this daughter. But I think her body was making up for all the year’s she spend flitting and dancing around forgetting to eat altogether. She’s happily somewhere in the middle now.

So, as the temperature keeps dropping and we huddle in a bit more closely to home, I’ll start pulling out some of the finer yarns and slightly smaller hooks and begin the stacks of toasty things, to keep the new one coming snuggly warm. The booties and socks and caps and leggings. Then to rekindle interest in the dozens of half-worked projects waiting to be finished.

There are 4 or 5 shawls and wraps in the works, countless slippers for 20 or so feet, new hats for the twins, soft, jingly toys–with no noisy microchips attached–thank Heavens, and my own version of “doggy dollies” –that I will show you in the next little while. A few piles of crocheting are for now, most have the Christmas deadline–and the rest are for January…for that tiny face we don’t know yet.


All to keep my baby birds warm till spring.

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Do Not Disturb

No raking please…

Just let the leaves stay right where they are. I’m not finished with them. I need them to drift and swirl and float and land and rest undisturbed for a while yet.

I’ve waited so long–all winter, all spring, all summer in fact, to stand in the wind and let the browns and yellows and woody greens and reds…oh, the reds, fall into my out stretched fingers.

Please let them stay until I’ve had my fill. Until there is no need for jumping in them or hiding under them or sloshing through them. Until the very sight and smell of them no longer makes me breathe more deeply–with my eyes shut–to lock them safely inside my heart. Until the feel of them falling in my hair no longer makes me shiver like Christmas.

My advice to you is…please

…wait.

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The Bald Kid’s Severed Hand…

Don’t be afraid. I’m not going to tell you a gruesome campfire story or anything.  It’s like this…

Every year, my sister has a Halloween party on the Monday before trick or treats. Every year, before we leave the party she pulls out a huge basket with fun prizes and lets us choose from the basket. So you sort of want to pack up before all the good stuff is gone. I think that must be how she gets us all to go home. Ha.

ANYWAY… For my prize, I chose an adorable shelf-sitting witch with a green face and purple and pink hair. Lyndi chose some really cute, transparent skeleton stickers. Nate chose a jointed snake–not incredibly into snakes, but it was ok. So here comes Rhen. Yeah, he chooses a rubber, severed hand that you soak in water and it grows. I guess somebody didn’t think it was disgusting enough–and it needed to be BIGGER.

So this nasty piece of work is sitting on my kitchen counter…all day…all night…Feel free to gag.

I must admit that there are some parts of Halloween that I could do without…mostly severed body parts.

Blaugh!