I was struggling with what to be for Halloween this year, and it was suggested to me that I dress as Coraline. How perfect is that?! So I started putting together a costume. For reference, here's what she looks like:



So my list includes:

yellow slicker
wellies
red skirt
red and grey striped tights
dragonfly hair pin
red messenger bag
blue hairspray

I've had quite a lot of good luck so far:


I ordered the messenger bag (yay, Etsy!) and yellow slicker (yay, cheap!) online, and I already had the wellies (not the right color, but I'm not going to buy an extra pair of wellies just for this when I just got a new pair - unless someone has seen some yellow wellies for an unbeatable price?). The dragonfly isn't actually a hair clip, but I can make it into one.

Now I need to find some tights and pick up some blue hairspray. I have a reddish brown corduroy skirt in my closet that will work unless I find something better. It's all coming together!

Bonus follow-up to yesterday's pirate dress post: Logan making a pirate face:

Originally published at LibrariAnne.

I returned from ALA to find that the veg gardens are growing by leaps and bounds! So are the weeds, of course, and this morning I spent some time listening to podcasts of Wait, Wait, Don't Tell Me and clearing out of a bunch of those.

I was thrilled to find cucumbers and squash:

There are also some green tomatoes, which I didn't manage to take any photos of. I ripped out the remaining pea vines and gave up on the beans (I planted some seeds left over from last year, and they never got any taller than about eight inches).

I've also got garlic and lettuce and potatoes that are ready to go or will be soon. Hooray for growing your own food!

Finally, look how cute Logan is:

Awww.

More photos on Flickr.

Originally published at LibrariAnne.

I managed to get some more gardening in today before the rainstorm came in (seems like we have one a day lately) and I put in a bunch more veg seeds, including celery, two kinds of lettuce, three kinds of carrots, broccoli, and cabbage.

While I was doing that, K was mowing the back yard, which had gotten very tufty. It's mostly weed grass which seems to grow extremely rapidly.

The dogs love the freshly cut grass, despite the multitude of bumps and lumps in the yard (we theorize that the previous owners buried bodies back there). Logan especially took advantage:

She's so coy, as if it's possible to resist her pleas for a bellyrub anyway.

I also planted some sunflowers, corn, and potatoes (K helped!) in the fence-side veg bed.

All of this before the rainstorm! I'm feeling pretty good about having gotten this stuff done today, though I'll be even happier when things start sprouting.

Originally published at LibrariAnne.

The sun is shining today and it is beautiful! I spent most of the day at work focus group-ing, but the sun is still a-shinin'! I got the car washed and the ice that has been covering our street is melting. The amaryllis is still going like crazygonuts, too.

There are new blooms coming in in the middle of this cluster:

The dogs are enjoying the sun and being able to take their time outside. Inside, they're taking full advantage of the sunny spots.

So sleepy!

More pics at my Flickr, as usual.

Originally published at LibrariAnne.

It snowed a crapload today, bleh! I am so tired of winter already. At least with two of us, Karl and I only had to snowblow the driveway once each. Still!

The dogs were not amused, especially when the snow got up to the same height as Brodie's belly (some time after the photo above was taken). He had to stomp out a little area to do his beezness at the back of the yard. He was, as you can imagine, pretty tired after that.

Logan was jealous so I took her photo, too.

Of course she refused to actually look at me.

Originally published at LibrariAnne.