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my husband & his axe

...is for "husband." OK, I don't know why I always refer to him as "my husband" on this site. I guess to avoid the whole name issue. I am awfully paranoid, I know. He has enough of a performing presence and reputation that I worry about sharing too much about his identity or his work here. But here he is, my musician life partner, of whom I'm really proud, despite his sometimes (in my view) awkward & conspicuous absence from my writing here. I really think I need to work on my focusing! That photo is really out-of-focus. Oops.

...is for hideous. I say this a lot. Really, a lot. When most people would say something "sucks," I say it's hideous. Sometimes I "cluck" (like a "tsk") first, too. It's just another of my eccentricities, of which there are several. ;)

...is for home. Home comforts, homebody (I may be the biggest homebody in the world), homebirth, homeschooling. My life is very home-centered, which is comfortable to me, but I also think it expresses a certain value set that my husband and I have chosen to embrace. I have a feeling that if you're reading this, you might have something to do with the craft-bloggy community, and you might also embrace a similar value set, so I'm pretty sure you "get" it.

three pumpkins

...is for Halloween. It's my favorite holiday. Oh, I love Christmastime; don't get me wrong. But try as I might (and sometimes I do try), I just can't replace Halloween from its place of favor. I am really not into all that horror stuff. (I used to be until Elisabeth was born, though, and then I had a traumatic experience watching a PBS documentary about pharoahs when she was about a week old and I was home alone with her during the evening for the first time. The chanting of a men's choir in the background of the documentary while they were showing artifacts from a tomb was so terrifying to me that I have never been able to stand anything scary since then. Isn't that something?!) But I really love decorating for Halloween, I love the ritual of carving pumpkins, dressing up, the festive harvest elements of the holiday. And I do love a bit of mild spookiness (along the lines of this book, for example). I am finding, as the air gets a bit crisp in the evenings, and the sunlight begins to have that hazy autumn quality, that I am just about dying to get started on Halloween preparation.

...is for home again, home again, jiggety jog. We are back from our visit with our out-of-town friends. What a fun and refreshing visit. We don't get to see these friends nearly enough (out of town and all that). We had a fantastic, crafty (some sewing, some knitting), chatty, apple-pie-baking, curry-eating, kids running everywhere, time. And it's good to be home, too. And thank goodness my children slept for a good bit of the long drive (there and back).

...is for Heather. Thank you for your sweet photos of my scrap swap stack. My camera is with Canon right now, so I was unable to photograph them before I sent them. Heather is completely correct in saying that Elisabeth was quite instrumental in the selection, careful folding, and consequent wrapping-in-yellow-tissue-paper-with-too-many-stickers of the stack.