Tripping Over The Falls

Sorry--there's no Illustration Friday this week because we are going on a ......wait for it.....wait.....road trip. Yes, four kids, two adults and roughly 6,000 stuffed animals packed in a minivan for two states. Wahooo! Did I remember to pack my Prozac? Got to go find that.

Okay, so Spudly, being a wonderful mature girl of eight years old, is getting to stay at her grandparents by herself. Just her and 2000 stuffed animals. Grandma and Grandpa will spoil her rotten. I've heard whispers of horse farm, ice cream, park, lunch out. I suspect the stuffed animal population will have increased by the time we pick her up.

The rest of us are headed to Clifty Falls State Park on the beautiful and probably fairly extensively polluted Ohio River. T-Rex is excited because her favourite book in the universe is Johnny Appleseed. And the book goes: "Who is that walking beside the Ohio?" Yes, T-Rex is off on a Johnny Appleseed scouting expedition. If she finds him, I hope she doesn't tell me seeing as he has been dead for a hundred years or so. Spudly ask if he was in a car accident. I think we'll do a unit study on Old Johnny when we get back.

Now, here is the problem....no, not how to stay sane on the ride down and back. No, not what to do when one of my kids falls over the falls. No, not how to cram all those stuffed animals back into the van.

The problem is for me, the crafter: which of my many projects do I take with me? Mother Bear Project? Redwork quilt top which I started two years ago? Granny squares for A Granny A Day? yarn to make amigurumis for The Toy Society? cotton yarn to make more dish cloths for Knit-Together? Should I make another afghan for Project Night Night? What about clothes for Lilly-Jane?

Van time is work time for me. You should have seen the year I tried to scrapbook in the van. I've since given up scrap-booking, perhaps because of that very episode. The girls are strapped in, restrained--and it's not even against the law. I've got the length of time we're on the road to work. The only constraint is space. Those stuffed animals take up a lot of room--not much space for fiber fill and bolts of cloth.

So today is packing day--clothes, diapers, cochlear implant kit, meds, books, stuffed animals and crafting supplies...but which crafting supplies.......