Whew!

I'm tiredly tired. Life has been a total whirlwind the last few weeks... I feel like I'm barreling towards one deadline, then another, but luckily all fun stuff. Stuff I enjoy doing. If I could only let go of that edge of anxiety then it would be perfect, but maybe it's the motivating force I need... not sure. Anyway, I've been doing positively SCADS of birthday parties... I filmed a zombie movie with four twelve year old boys for a super fun birthday party, and I did a fairy party, two marshmallow shooter parties, a spa party (we made bubble bath and custom scent spritzers), and a messy party. The messy party really warmed the cockles of my heart, whatever those are... the kids just had SO much fun. Of course this messiness would be close to my heart, it goes without saying. It was so easy... I just dumped out about ten big bags of cornmeal on a sheet of plastic and laid out all sorts of kitchen implements.... whisks and muffin tins and measuring cups... and I brought my water table and filled it to the brim with water and suds and bubbles, and then also laid out nice brimming bowls of finger paint in all the colors of the rainbow, and laid out lots of nice fresh paper around, weighted down with rocks. This was a party for a 3 year old and I loved it because, though some parties end up being more about pleasing the parents than pleasing the child, the birthday girl was definitely having the time of her bubbly, paint-y, pretend-cupcake-making life. Super sweet.

I'm also halfway through now my fabulous Tinkering class for home schoolers... which is a total dream come true, because it is my testing ground for all I learned during our weekend with Gever, and the mom who set it all up for me attended a few of the events that weekend and is a total Tinkering School fan now so everyone is totally on board with the technique. As, now that I am trying it, I think lots of people would be... it really is just SO fun and is an infinitely more relaxing and inspiring way to lead a class than trying to lead kids step by step through some pre-planned activity. Anyway, I'm going to be crowing about all that a lot more for sure, so, I won't go on and on about it now. I'll leave you hungry for more.

And though it seems a little horn-tooting, I simply can't help but crow also about getting mentioned on the blogs of some of my FAVORITE people in the world. Way off a few months ago, Filth Wizardry, which is this absolutely capital blog who pretty much knocks it out of the park with almost every single post... simply brilliant ideas, in the tinkering vein, but for the preschool set.... anyway, I was pretty thrilled to be mentioned by her on her blog. I mean, you just gotta go over and check out her ideas! A gimungo geo-board? A glow-in-the-dark wall in their house that you can write on with a light pen? Easy homemade light sabres? And on top of that all sorts of other great hands-on messy fun. And I simply have to write about the plastic-bag decal method she developed on my (poor, neglected) Mungo.... anyway, all this with this rockstar blogger, and what'd she go and do but write about me AGAIN! I just noticed it today, because I haven't been able to do my standard blog perusals what with being so busy and all, but I did notice that my blog had been visited about 50 million times more than normal (because yes, I've been too busy to respond to your emails and what-all and I'm sorry about that, but checking my blog stats, I'm never too busy for that...) She's the best, my heart is aflutter!

OK, I have to chill on the swooning, I do believe I'm over my swooning quota on this post, but what can be done, I have to swoon a bit more. A LOT more. Because Gever Tulley mentioned Austin Tinkering School on HIS blog TOO! I feel a bit like I've stepped through the looking glass, with that one. So many times I have looked at his site and all the cool stuff he's done... never dreaming that we would one day be pals. It boggles the mind.

So that's all for now, and let's just hope these ego strokes keep a-comin'.... you know how it is, you just keep needing a higher and higher dose to maintain that wonderful feeling....