My mom flew back home a couple of days ago. It was wonderful to have her here for so long during the first part of Troy’s long deployment. After a farewell lunch at In-N-Out, we took her to the airport and hugged and kissed her good-bye. Luckily her flights home were uneventful. We miss you already, Mom!

As I mentioned before, when Joe & Kassie were here, Brenda and I took them to paint pottery. Kassie requested a dottery lesson, which was kind of funny, because Brenda and I had been scheming up a How-to-Paint-Dottery post, complete with step-by-step photos. That’ll be coming soon, I hope.

Joe used masking tape and created a pretty cool—and very manly—mug.

Kassie did a great job on her dottery mug, I think! As she said, it sorta looks like fireworks. I love the colors.

Brenda painted this little bowl to use as a water dish when she’s painting. Adorable.

I, on the other hand, had the weirdest day of painting ever. For some reason, everything was just slightly off with me that day. I had the idea to paint this little bowl like an orange, and it wasn’t working like I’d envisioned. I was struggling with the paint (my pottery studio recently switched brands of paint, and I’m still getting used to the new stuff which just acts different than the old stuff) and getting all frustrated. I jokingly called it “the doomed orange.”

Brenda had already finished her pieces, so she offered to finish the last coat of orange and paint the details in for me. I gladly handed it over to her. (It turned out better than I expected it to, mostly because of Brenda’s help, I’m sure.) I decided to paint some dottery. At least there, I know what I’m doing. Right?

Hmm, not so much. I chose pinks and oranges, but these new paints are slightly different colors than the old ones. And these new paints are funky before they’re fired…two of the pinks I used looked decidedly purple as I was painting, which was weird. Then I made a mistake on one of the circles and decided to just go with it, switching up the design and then ending with random dots in the remaining white spaces. Now I know there’s a reason I stick with the same design over and over again, because I do not like the way it turned out at all. Like I said, it was a weird day. Oh well, next time will be better.

At least my crocheting’s going well! I made this green, turquoise, and blue blanket for Erin‘s brand-new nephew Christian. Isn’t he cute!?

Christian’s parents are Erin’s big brother Shawn and his wife Carissa. Here’s a funny story about Shawn: I transferred to North at the beginning of 10th grade and didn’t really know anyone. Erin and I had the same homeroom and the same lunch period, so we ended up eating together with two or three freshman girls…and this guy with long black hair and a scraggly mustache. I had no idea why this guy was eating lunch with a bunch of 9th- and 10th-grade girls, but everyone seemed to know him, and he was nice enough if a bit gross, so I just went with it. About two months into the school year, he was messing with Erin one day and she said, “Man, you’re gonna be in so much trouble when I tell Mom!”

Suddenly it all clicked and I blurted out, “Oh! Shawn is your BROTHER!” I got identical weird looks from Erin and Shawn before they started laughing. Shawn said I must’ve thought he was some kind of perv, eating lunch with a bunch of girls four years younger than him. I still laugh when I think about that.

And now that I’m done with Erin’s nephew’s blanket, I’ll be starting another. My brother and his fiancee are expecting their first baby in mid-November…my very first niece!