Mischief Managed: Penny the destroyer

You may recall that Penny once STOLE (yes, stole) a ball from her bestie Gretzky by sneaking it into her kennel while we were at his house, thereby ensuring its transport back home. Us unsuspecting humans were shocked and thought it hilarious. Then we thought it was super cute that it became her favorite toy ever. We bought the same ball in pink for her, which she plays with, but it's just not the green ball.

For some weeks, the green ball disappeared - but when Laura found it under the computer stand, Penny was uber excited and promptly gathered it into her clutches for a soothing session of chewing. Hubs and I went out for the evening, leaving our charge in the care of my sister, and we returned to find this on the kitchen counter:


Sis has never seen this side of Penny and was also looking after two kids. Once again, humans underestimate hund. Thank God she spit out all (or most of) the pieces. But now the green ball has been filed away and Penny's comeupance is a trip to the vet today. Not really, she just needs an annual checkup.

Grrrrrrrr

Here is the bear going to Kim (hubby's ex-classmate) for her baby boy. The lovely blue yarn is the very same Caron Simply Soft that I used for my shrug, and the linens they've registered for are blue, navy, yellow, and white/cream. I don't know why it took me a gajillion bears before realizing that I could coordinate with the baby's room by snooping at registries. Me thinks this guy might need a little white vest to make sure he's extra cozy. It's August, and I'm already projecting my own fears of the winter cold!

Next up are the bears for 1) Laura, to replace the bear she lost in the fire, and 2) Erin, who just moved to GA and is expecting her first!

Ahem, ahem, ahem....

When I extracted the individual carrots from the mutant carrot-tangle, I only found two that resembled (in my mind) anything interesting.


I had no appropriate props for this one. If I'd have had a mini disco ball, it would be more apparent that this carrot is partying the night away, as you can see by the closed eyes and open-mouthed singing. My sister thinks it looks like an opera singer. And I suppose it could be viewed as a ghostly figure, too.


But THIS one. This one obviously only has one interpretation: shrimp. I didn't even need to give it a face or fins or scales or whatever the hell shrimp have. It just looks like a shrimp. And this is what comes of 20 minutes of diorama-making.

Is that gillyweed??

No, silly! Neville gives you an "T" (Troll) in herbology!*

This is my mutant carrot. I didn't know that when I planted carrot seeds inside early last spring that: 1) you needn't plant carrot seeds inside, and 2) you best plant your carrot seeds spaced the way you want them to actually grow because it is not possible to split them. So when we transplanted in May, the clump of carrot tendrils went into the ground as-is, and then I planted more seeds spaced appropriately. The result is a nice row of long, bushy carrot stems alluding to the delicious veggies brewing beneath the surface. The longest, bushiest part of the row was the clump of transplants, the fruits of which were twisting arms and legs around each other so prolifically that they apparently couldn't grow under ground anymore and, thus, started oozing towards the light - albeit stunted and, well, ugly.

So I pulled the mutant carrot up to see what it looked like. If I get ambitious (boy, if I had a nickel...) I might pull them apart and try to make diorama figures out of them, kind of like you see in Joost Elffers's book, Play With Your Food.


IN CRAFTING NEWS... I have none. More WIPs coming soon, though - a bear, brasilian jasper, and a Lake Superior homage!

* Harry Potter reference. Gillyweed, a squishy and tenticley substance, allows you to breathe under water for one hour. Taken orally.

I won the lottery!

The International Bloggers Community lottery! Thanks to Nina from Under the Rainbow, who tagged me for this award! It basically means people who like other people's blogs can check out still more blogs that must be at least a little interesting because somebody tagged them, too. It's like a chain letter, but we'll call it free advertising!




The rules of the award:
1. Link the person who tagged you.
2. Copy the image above, the rules and the questionnaire in this post.
3. Post this in one or all of your blogs.
4. Answer the four questions following these Rules.
5. Recruit at least seven (7) friends on your Blog Roll by sharing this with them.
6. Come back to BLoGGiSTa iNFo CoRNeR (PLEASE DO NOT CHANGE THIS LINK) at http://bloggistame.blogspot.com and leave the URL of your Post in order for you/your Blog to be added to the Master List.
7. Have Fun!
Questions & Your Answers:
1. The person who tagged you: Nina; knitter, sewer, and mom in Finland
2. His/her site's title and url: Under the Rainbow; http://rainbowandhermagicdyes.blogspot.com/
3. Date when you were tagged: July 20th, 2009
4. Persons you tagged:

1. Nina from Under the Rainbow; she seems to whip up projects faster than I think is humanly possible.

2. Danger Kitty Designs; always has funny links before anyone else I know.

3. Havfaith from Delusions of Domesticity; knitting AND cool travel pics.

4. Mon Bouton Productions; Hailing from France, I can only understand a little of what this crafter has to say, but it's fun and makes me nostalgic for French class.

5. Sara from Handy Hooker; simply interesting to read!

6. Canary Knits; Um, giveaways and profiles of cool new designers. Awesome.

7. sknitter; kind of a go-to for when you want to know what's on knitting blogs everyday.

I read several other blogs, but these are the craft-related ones that I love and that post on a regular basis. Woo hoo!

Wise Words: on women in the workplace

Whew! Way more words with "w" than a wary writer would wittingly write...

Right. Unrelated to crafting, but fascinating and *possibly* more important is this post from a few days ago by the very admirable ad broad, who calls herself "the oldest working writer in advertising."

I wonder what it means to juxtapose such comments about women's work on a blog that largely discusses things so traditionally connected to female folk culture. I can only say that I craft because I'm creative and I garden because I'm hungry. And, let's face it, I do both because I've had 28 years of training to be a nurturer and only two to be a journalist.

Tuesday, July 14, 2009

Jack Welch on women's work

Former GE CEO Jack Welch is in the hospital today, reportedly for a minor infection. But I wonder if his sudden internment has anything to do with the backlash coming at him after his speech to an HR conference recently.

Bad news for young women working their way up the ladder.

"There's no such thing as a work-life balance," Welch announced. "We'd love to have more women moving up faster, but they've got to make the tough choices and know the consequences of each one."

He explained that taking time off for family can offer a nice life, but the chances of rising to the top on that path are...nil.

He tried to cushion the blow.

"That doesn't mean you can't have a nice career," he smiled.

A similarly provocative statement was made a few years ago by former WPP creative chief Neil French who contended that women can't head ad agencies because their roles as caregivers and childbearers prevent them from putting in the long hours.

It's not that I necessarily disagree. A work-life balance IS an impossible feat, an inconvenient fact that came as a rude surprise to lots of boomer women who'd been led to believe otherwise. The "have it all" promise, unfortunately, is a crock. Sometimes, lots of times, you have to choose between your kids and your job, the playdate or the client, the school play or the important pitch.

But the balance is impossible for anyone to achieve, whether or not you've got a vagina.

In Welch and French's generation, men had the choice of outsourcing the job of tending kids and home to a wife conditioned not to make him feel guilty for it. In fact, to feel grateful that she herself "didn't have to work."



But sons raised by those dads have a different outlook. Many want to be around for their kids as they'd wished their dads had been around for them. (Some may want to be around a little too much--see alpha dads.) Childraising, with all its joys and vicissitudes, is no longer a topic verboten in conference rooms as it seemed to be when I got into the business. The other day, I rode an elevator with two guys who spent 34 floors debating the merits of cloth versus disposable. Men are taking parental leaves. Going on school trips. Coming in late after drop-off. These men don't consider work-life balance a problem their wives must grapple with alone if they want to go out and pursue a career. Unfortunately, most of these men don't run companies yet.

The real disservice Welch and French did was to use their stature to reinforce longheld convictions many men in senior management still harbor privately. And by doing so, helping ensure that women remain less likely to make it to the top.

If a male [boss]...is convinced that [a female worker] s extremely limited in her ability and value...would you expect him to offer the same support and guidance and consideration he gives the men? Might that woman keep herself down on the farm when her leader conveys in countless ways she's not as good as the boys? Might she respond with less than her best effort when the leader expects little of her? Might she want to leave, not to have babies but because the conditions for her to succeed don't exist and the message she can't succeed is too discouraging?

--Nancy Vonk, CCO, Ogilvy, Toronto responding to French

in a blog post that ostensibly got him fired

Twenty years ago, Business Week coined "The Mommy Track" to describe the "nice career" Welch says is the only one available to women with kids. If things are to change finally, more men have to speak up about their own need for work-life balance.

Ironically, the recession may help. Apparently, it's hitting men harder than women, creating a greater number of stay-at-home dads. Men who are coming to value the work done by women "who don't work." So that once they return to the 9 to 5, they'll be apt to shoulder more of it, understanding the necessity of doing so if their wives are to compete meaningfully for that promotion.

As the Garden Grows...

Bam! Three days in a row of posting! Although this is just a garden update.

Here you can see how the garden started in modest terms back in May, when we transplanted all our seedlings into it:


And here you can see that, while some seedlings perished, many more thrived and were joined by the superfluous plants we bought from the neighbor girl's school (those are the biggest ones):


Now the corn is definitely more than knee-high, the peas have run their course, we've harvested our first row of lettuce, the carrots and onions are beginning to peek above the soil, and the beans and zucchini are flowering:


AND...we have tomatoes and peppers galore! I've been able to step outside for fresh herbs. This gardening thing is pretty awesome.

Owl dreamcatcher

I've been meaning to make more dreamcatchers for a while, because at the last craft fair I did they were sold out! Like the others, this one is made from fiber arts supplies; the hoop being yarn-wrapped and the web being embroidery floss. This one is three inches in diameter and about 10 inches long from the top of the hoop to the tip of the feather.




This is definitely my favorite so far in the color category, especially because the little ceramic owl bead matches so lovely. Look at how cute his little glazed wings are!

WIPs: knitted bag and pen palm

This awesome bag is called Miragamo and it's a Ravelry pattern by Georgie Kajer. I'm uber excited about it, except that I'll have to KNIT 11 STITCHES TOGETHER. Are you kidding me?? No? Several times? Sheesh.


This is the yarn I'll be using. The pattern calls for 100% hemp, which apparently you can't find in stores. I suppose I could have ordered it online, but I found this green wool while I was on vacation for half-price. Honestly, what I'm more worried about than knitting 11 sts together is sewing up a lining. Sewing + me = strange or unintended results.


And then there's this guy; another pen drawing. Knock on wood...between this and knitting, I'm sure to be blind or riddled with arthritis by the time I'm 40.

Mischief Managed: Penny loves the sprinkler

The night we got Penny, the breeders sat down with us and we chatted at length about her breed and dog care in general. She was the last of the litter to go, and it was obvious that Jen and Len loved their dogs and puppies. One of the many crucial bits of information they shared was that jacks are often not the kind of dogs who can have a bowl of food sitting around; anything and everything in a food bowl will be scarfed with reckless abandon. Sure enough, Penny never really chewed her food for the first four or so years of her life.


Her eating habits have become more relaxed, but she can still certainly get over-excited. I guess we'd never had her in the yard with the oscillating sprinkler until last week...boy was she missing out. She loves being sprayed in the face with the hose, and the sprinkler is even better because instead of relying on our indulgence, she can walk right up to the source and get it for herself. I was so busy supervising the kids that fifteen minutes of play time passed before Jen and Len's voices came to mind ("they'll just eat until they burst!"). I looked over at poor Penny and, sure enough, her belly was visibly swollen. After I shooed her away from the sprinkler, she realized how uncomfortable she was and started whining. I felt so, so bad! The trick was to wait for her to expel the excess water without letting her get back to the sprinkler (because, you know, excitement trumps intelligence). Said expulsion was all she needed; her efforts to conquer the sprinkler re-doubled, and we had to ruin the poor thing's fun by putting her inside for her own good.