Help a sister out.

That's my sister, Jayne, at Dreams Work. She goes there each day during the week so that she can get out of the house and experience enrichment activities.

Dreams Work offers day services for severely disabled adults who have graduated from local schools at the age of 21. When Jayne was preparing to graduate, my mom knew that she would need services, so that she would continue to learn and grow like she did in school. As my mom usually does, she spearheaded the effort to start Dreams Work, so that Jayne and others like her would have a place to go each day. It was quite the effort - fundraising, grant writing, looking for a building that could be the facility, more fundraising, searching for activities for the clients to participate in each day.

The goal of Dreams Work is to improve the quality of life for adults with special needs, assist caregivers with the challenges of providing care for disabled adults, and to provide hope for people with disabilities. As you can see by the photo of Jayne, she really enjoys her time spent there each day, and getting to see her friends every day.

This Wednesday, Dreams Work, Inc., will celebrate its seventh anniversary. Kansas Medicaid provides monies for clients to attend Dreams Work, but that money barely covers the cost of staffing Dreams Work. In order to continue to provide enrichment, private donations are becoming even more important.

Would you help me honor my sister and my mom by celebrating Dreams Work's seventh birthday by donating? It's easy to do - just go to the Dreams Work website. On the top right, there is a donate link. All you have to do is click there and enter your information. The donation is tax-deductible, and everyone who donates after reading this post will be entered into a drawing for a handknit scarf and hat - perfect for this time of year. (I will custom-make the set for you - in your chosen colors, and it can be made for a man or woman.)

The Chittum Files averages about 40 readers each day, so if each reader donates just $7 (for the seventh anniversary), that's $280.

If everyone donates $17, that's $680.

If everyone donates $27, that's $1,080!

If I could talk you into $70, that would be $2,800!

I know that it's tough this time of year, and especially in this economy, to find the extra money to donate, but if you could you would really be making a difference in the lives of people like my sister, and you just might help make it possible for Dreams Work to stay open for another seven years.

Thank you for taking the time to read this. It really means a lot to my family and I. Please consider adding Dreams Work to your list of charitable donations each year. We're small, so we don't have the marketing machine (or money!) that most of your well-known charities have, so it's all a grass-roots effort. Every little bit helps.

Still here

We got back from Arkansas about 8 p.m. yesterday. Adam and Joshua were out at a Grateful Dead tribute show (yuck - the only thing worse than listening to the Dead play one song for 50 minutes is listening to a fake band do it!), so I settled in and watched a few TV shows from the DVR.

Along the way, I worked some more on the knitted Christmas extravaganza. Three gifts are done, much more to go. Thank God for Wool-Ease thick and quick yarn. It might not be the most expensive or boutique yarn, but it knits up quickly, feels good and will keep the recipients warm on the coldest of days.

I decided to stay out of the Black Friday craziness this year. Since we've got no kids to shop for, there's no reason for us to get out for great deals on toys. Adam did go out early this morning for some thing we need. Home Depot and Kohl's got our money this morning. Mom went to a few places. She called to see if I wanted to go, but I wasn't up for it. I would have gone along for the ride, but I was worried about how long we'd be out, and I wanted to keep working on my term paper.

I rolled out of bed at about 8 and went to work. I'm up to nine pages now, and I'm confident that I'll get it done by deadline. Some people might say "Why don't you just sit down and finish it, so it's not hanging over your head?" Trust me, I would if I could. After a few hours of work on it, though, the words start to swim on the screen, and I'm afraid I'm repeating myself. I think it's better to break it up into small chunks.

That's pretty much where I've been the last week - if you've been looking for blog updates and haven't seen them. Much too busy to do much more that tweet about what I'm doing.

Amy and her family are in town, so we're going out to lunch and to do some knitting this afternoon. It'll be good to see her - it's been a long time. I think I'll take the rest of today off from the paper. We want to get out our Christmas decorations and put that stuff up. I feel like if we don't do it this weekend, we won't do it at all!

So much to do, so little time.

Twitterlicious

I've gone to the dark side. I'm now officially tweeting, along with the Wichita contingent, on Twitter.

I didn't blog from St. Louis since the Internet wasn't readily available, but I was tweeting pretty consistently. Twitter has been called "micro-blogging." That's what it's like for me. I have to figure out how to say what I want to say in less than 140 characters.

You'll notice that there is a feed from my Twitter site on the right side of my blog. So, if you feel like you've gone too long between fixes of Chittum blogs, chances are you can read the news down there. If I don't have the time or inclination to write a full-blown blog, I just might post a tweet.

Betsy says lots of Etsyians are using Twitter as a marketing tool, but I don't want to be a Twitter spammer. Would that be a Spitter?

I'm working on Christmas presents, getting caught up on grading, and keeping my head above water for the next week, until Thanksgiving break. Almost. There.

•••

Here's a funny from my J1 class today.

We are studying editorial cartoons, and the meaning and symbolism behind them. One of the students chose a cartoon about Obama's inaugural ball. In the cartoon, Obama staffers are saying they have everything they need for the soiree, but they need to know what to feed the "multitudes." The other guy answers back, "He said all he'd need is five loaves and two fish."

So, the kids starting discussing the Biblical allusion in the cartoon, and the fact that some people believe that Barack is the second coming. Some kids got it right away, some didn't. So, one girl explained it for everyone, and it was so cute - she said:

"You know, there's that one scene in the Bible where Barack Obama says he can..."

It was just a slip, but we all got a good laugh out of it. If there was a quote wall for J1 like there is for newspaper, that one'd be in the hall of fame.

TAG - I'm it.

I've been tagged in a game of random-blog-tagging that's making the rounds of the Wichita blogging nation. This is my 457th post, and it's the first time I've ever been tagged in a game like this.

I was tagged by Lori, a cool chick that I miss working with!

Here are the rules:

• Link to the person who tagged you.
• Post the rules on your blog.
• Write 6 random things about yourself.
• Tag 6-ish people at the end of your post.
• Let each person know he/she has been tagged.
• Let the tagger know when your entry is up.

Six random things about me:

1. As a child, I was incredibly lucky. I won the most random contests. Unfortunately, this has not translated into mega millions lottery winnings in my adult life. Sometime around second grade, I won a contest on KFKF radio to be an honorary ball girl at the Harlem Globetrotters basketball game at Kemper Arena. I have an autographed basketball from the team, circa the Curly Neal and Sweet Lou days. I got to sit on the bench with the team. I don't remember much about it. I also won a trip to Disney World when I was in fifth grade - all expenses paid, for the whole family. And, any time there was a door prize drawing, I won it. Not so much anymore. We have door prize drawings at our faculty meetings every month and I haven't won one in a year and a half.

2. Even though we've totally remodeled my grandparents' house, so much so that it looks like a completely different house, I still sometimes go where things were in "their house." For example, this morning, I needed to throw something in the trash, and I went to do it under the sink. Our trash can is in the corner, but it was always under the sink when Grandma and Grandpa lived here. Also, I always go to the old silverware drawer, and open it, before I remember that we keep our silverware in another drawer. Old habits die hard.

3. In high school, I was named 1995 Kansas High School Journalist of the Year, and I got second place at the national level. I could have gone to San Francisco to accept my award at the national convention, but I didn't. I was stage managing the spring play, and it was the same week. Couldn't miss it and all the rehearsals. Denise was also a Kansas JOY, and I belive she, too, took 2nd at nationals.

4. I'm a Mac, and I have been since 1991. Trudging home (on the school bus) with a Mac Classic and the database list of the entire student body of Shawnee Mission North High School, sitting at my parents' kitchen table, working on mugs pages and index pages, I forged an indelible bond with the Macintosh. Today, Adam and I own: one MacBook, one old iMac, one U2 iPod, one old white iPod Shuffle, a new clip version iPod Shuffle, an iPod Nano and an iPhone. We have officially been assimilated. I've been through two hard-drive crashes (one on the laptop, one on the desktop) and I'm still loyal.

5. I'm a little preoccupied with state football playoffs right now. BV is steaming toward the championship game, as is Derby. One of my former students plays football for Derby right now (he's a senior), and one of my current newspaper students plays on our team. I might have to ask my mom to sew me a long-sleeve T-shirt that is a mix of the two schools' colors if they meet in the championship. Each team only has to win one more game to set up a face off.

6. Pauly Shore kissed me in an elevator once, and I have the picture to prove it. One day at school, one of my students asked me "Is that your husband?" when she saw the photo.

I tag:
Amy
Cary
Kim
Betsy
Mitzi
Candice

You're it. Let's see what you guys can come up with...

(Moving) Pictures to Prove It - Championship Video

Here's El Guapo in all of our glory.

Be sure to look for me "diving" for first...

We are the champions, my friends

Despite freezing temperatures and a brutal wind chill, El Guapo was en fuego Thursday night for the semi-final and finals for the MOKC WAKA kickball championships.

Our semi and the final went into extra innings! There's weird rules for extra innings in kickball. It's not like baseball where you just keep playing like normal until a team ends an inning scoring.

I got the call from GM - I had to come out of the bullpen and pitch during both games, in the extra inning. I'm pretty sure when they told me that, I probably looked like the proverbial deer in headlights. I prefer anonymity in my kickballing - I don't want the responsibility of pitching. Especially on the night we're playing for the league championship!

What if I walked four kickers in a row? What if somebody kicked it back to me and I didn't catch it? What if I couldn't make the throw to first? What if I died of insecurity right there on the mound? Okay, well, it's really more of a "spot" than a mound.

I took a few practice pitches. I took a few deep breaths. I heard encouraging words from the sidelines. I focused. I became one with the ball.

First kicker up? A dude. I STRUCK HIM OUT - LOOKING! Sucker.

That was the confidence builder I needed. I was still scared shitless, but it was a lot more fun after I knew I could get the job done. I'm pretty sure after that first strikeout, I celebrated like I had just won the World Series. Seriously. I was jumping up and down, hooting and hollering; Rita, playing third at this point, ran over and hugged me.

Yeah, I probably looked silly, but here's the thing - everybody else was cheering too. Pretty sure they were cheering out of relief, not excitement as I was, but I'll take it anyway!

I'm not gonna lie - it was pretty freaking cool.

Dave and Andrea celebrate!

Duuuuuude - We Rule! Check out the game ball, the sombreros, and the Championship Belt there in the middle. The league folks were there shooting video of the blessed event, so as soon as I hear of the link, I'll put it up here, so you can relive my, I mean, our glory...

I'm so glad that Azie and I happened to be talking one day and kickball came up. I have had so much fun this fall playing with this team. Playing co-ed rec softball in Wichita really helped me make some of the best friends in my life to this day, and I hope that my kickball relationship with El Guapo is long and strong.

Of course, I'll be out of town this Thursday for the end-of-season party, but I think we should totally have our own team end-of-season party in a few weeks.

Viva El Guapo!

Voila!

We had the extended family over for birthday cake and dinner Sunday night for Dad's belated birthday. It was the motivation I needed to finally get the Kraft Korner (or Crap Room, as Adam is fond of calling it) finally cleaned up and somewhat organized.

Basically, all that junk you're looking at has been there since we moved in right before school started. It's the remnants of what was in our spare bedroom/office at the apartment, and it was all thrown in boxes during the move.

Read: I didn't want to deal with it then, and I really still don't want to deal with it now, but it must be done.

Saturday morning, it looked like the above photos.

Sunday night, before dinner, it looked like this:

Ahhhh. Finally, some organized living. (Yes, I know our chairs and table don't match. Get over it.) Maybe we'll just call it shabby chic.

There's the built-ins, finally cleaned up.

My big project was getting my junk organized, Adam's was coordinating the hanging of the mirrors. As you can see, he was spent. But, those mirrors look pretty damn good. We weren't even thinking about them when we picked paint colors, but I think they look really good with our paint and furniture.

And, every time I look at them, I'll think of Dave and the Lovings, since they were wedding presents from them!

Hmmm - what do you do?

On a Friday afternoon, when all you want to do is pop by the ATM to pick up some weekend cash, and you pull up and see this:
You must understand - that little red car IS waiting in the ATM line, along with the other cars, and the big red truck is at the ATM.


Here's the view from the other side of the line. We decided to go through the drive-up teller line, since the ATM line was so long, and snaking like crazy.


Pretty soon, cars in the ATM line were pulling up from the right, so that our lanes out of the drive-up tellers were blocked. I don't know what engineer designed this parking lot/traffic pattern, but whoever he is, he must have gotten by with Ds in college. IT DOESN'T WORK.

So, if you can't get your car in line to get some cash, I guess you've got to be creative and problem solve.


Yes, that guy was really walking (with a baby stroller) through the drive up ATM lane. At least he didn't take up as much space in the traffic flow as the cars waiting in line...

Knits you can enjoy even when the weather is warm

Yeah, what's up with that, anyway? It was 74 degrees when I left school tonight at 4:45, as the sun was going down!

I digress...

As you think about your holiday shopping this year, I encourage you to surf around on Etsy for gifts. It's a great way to support artists, starving or otherwise, and you'll find one-of-a-kind surprises for friends and family.

There's apparel, accessories, paper goods, jewelry, and within those categories, you'll find everything under the sun. If you read Betsy's blog, you already know that we're excited about some Etsy news. They've finally decided to promote Etsy this holiday season, in various print media ads. We've been asking for and grumbling about this for awhile now. Etsy is well-known in its own community, but we need to raise the profile if we hope for members to make more sales. I'll be interested to see if the print ads make a dent in some of the items for sale.

Now, back to the title of this post: Knits you can enjoy even when the weather is warm

Also known as: Look at all of these cool felted bags, purses and accessories. The cool thing about the felting process is that it can be done in many ways - you can knit something, then felt it, crochet something, then felt it, buy an old wool sweater, then felt it...you get the idea.

The first stop along the tour of felted accessories is this Poppy the Party Purse, by seller Shanineal.



I love the flower detailing on the pink purse.

I found the next item the other day, while I was looking these up, and I had to favorite it, since it reminds me of an unfinished knitting project I've been working on for about six months here and there. I'm using a bunch of wool remnants that are making random stripes, and I think it will be sort of like this, by seller Carolinasquirrell.

I really like the colors of the stripes on that one.

Here is an example of a crocheted and felted bag, by seller mystringtheory.

It's called the Nature Stripes bag. The colors would be great for a fall accessory.

As always, with my Etsy favorites post, I have to give a shout out to myself. (Then, is it really a shout out? Or just shameless self-promotion?)

One of the recent additions to my shop is this Felted Clutch. I've had some success selling bags like these before, so maybe someone will see this one and decide they can't live without it...My lovely assistant, Mom, has to add her hands to the zipper sewing portion. I'm good with the knitting and the felting, but I still haven't gotten the sewing part down yet.

Like Betsy, I am really going to try to do most of my shopping on Etsy this year. It's my little way of paying it forward.

This just in...Obama in a landslide!

Normally, I'm well on my way to sweet dreams by this time of night. Couldn't do it tonight, though. Had to stay up to see what happened.

I'll probably be awfully tired at school tomorrow, but I think the energy and excitement surrounding the news will make up for it. The newspaper staff got permission to send one page tomorrow (our deadline was tonight at 5), so they get to have one page of election coverage. We've got to meet at school at 7:10 to get the page done, and have it sent by 10 a.m. Hopefully as I type this, the two columnists are typing their own words, and we'll dump them on the page first thing in the a.m.

He did it. We did it. And this isn't one that's going to be contested in courts for the next two months. Obama won, and he won big.

As I watch the footage of celebrations in Times Square and Grant Park, where he'll be speaking (hopefully) soon, I'm only thinking one thing - please, let this energy and level of political engagement continue. The kids at school (who aren't even old enough to vote yet, in most cases) were abuzz with election politics the last few weeks.

This has been an inspiring campaign, one that I hope will turn into an inspiring presidency. President-elect (!) Obama and his crew have proven that they know how to organize and mobilize the electorate. Will that grass-roots involvement continue? Can we make some things happen?

I truly believe that Barack Obama has the promise of being a president for all Americans, not just the ones who fall in lock-step with his beliefs. Open exchange of ideas and partnership can help us move in the right direction.

Change has been a long time coming, and it's finally here.

Everybody's doing it - you should too!

I've already done it, but if you haven't...

Get out and vote today!

Bring something to read - you'll probably be waiting in long lines, but don't let that deter you.

I've been wondering what the polls would look like on election day, since we voted in advance, I thought I wouldn't get to see it. But, our school is a polling place, so I'll be able to get an idea of how crowded it is by checking that out.

Happy First Tuesday after the First Monday of November!

Double the dress up, double the fun

Last Thursday, at Adam's school, all of the teachers got to dress up crazy for Breast Cancer Awareness Month. As I'm sure most of you know, the chance to dress all crazy doesn't usually pass Adam by. He went all out.

Some of you probably recognize that scarf, from my knitting works in progress post of last week.

Then, the next day it was Halloween. He's been working on a "sweet 'stache" for the last few weeks, so he could dress up as Magnum P.I.

Thank God for ebay so we could find a cheap Hawaiian shirt, and a Detroit Tigers hat.

When I got up Saturday morning, I fired up the DVR to watch "My Name is Earl" and guess what? Earl dressed as Magnum P.I., too!

Yes, I totally paused the DVR, grabbed the phone and shot a photo of the show just so I could put it on here. Hold your snarky comments!

P.S. I'm campaigning for the mustache to make a hasty departure. It's okay for a Halloween costume, but it's not 1976.

DON'T take the kids, DO check out the knits!

Last night we saw "Zack and Miri Make A Porno," the new Kevin Smith movie. At the theater, they had blacked out all of the posters and signs, so that they just said "Zack and Miri."

Right next door to our theater they were showing "High School Musical 3: Senior Year." As we exited our theater, the screaming tweens came pouring out of that one, too. Thank God they didn't get the films switched and accidentally show the wrong ones - moms would have been quite peeved about that...

We were in the mood for a silly, laugh out loud movie, and that's what we got. Just be warned if you go, though - the title of this blog could easily have been "Don't take the kids, do check out the-something-that-rhymes-with-knits" because they were all over the place.

I'm such a knitting dork, because here we are watching a movie about making a movie where people take OFF their clothes, and I'm watching all the of hats, scarves, sweaters and shawls worn by Miri and the scarves worn by Zack.

The movie takes place in Pittsburgh, in the winter time, so they're always bundled up when they go out. That's something I remember vividly from the only time I've been to Minneapolis. It was January, and we went to a bar, and everyone there had giant parkas and hats and scarves and mittens and gloves that were draped over the backs of chairs. Here, when it's cold and people go out, they leave coats in the car, and run, not walk, into establishments.

I guess in colder climes, you've grown up with the need for coats, so it's not a big deal to wear it into a bar.

The photos I found aren't the greatest to showcase all of the knitwear, but it's the best I can do. I've written about this before. It's one of the hazards of being a knitter - you go to a movie to watch the movie, get the plot, explore the characters, and all that jazz, but you end up looking at the wardrobe, trying to decipher a pattern for what you're looking at.



As we walked out of the theater, Adam said "That movie should have been called "Kevin Smith and Judd Apatow Make A Porno." It was hilarious - if you're in the mood to laugh, go see it. If you're on a first date, or with one of your parents, DON'T go see it. Potentially awkward in those situations!