My husband said this was okay

Sorry to have taken a week to post something, but life got slightly interesting and distracted me for a few days. Most of what happened last week I can't tell you about, unfortunately, but I can tell you about my car, which is giving me fits. First the horn started blowing whenever I made a right turn, then it started blowing on its own, even when the car was off. Repair shop couldn't fix it, so I pulled the fuse for the horn, and figured I'd just live without it. Problem is, the airbag light is also on, so I really should take it to a dealer, but I don't have enough of that stuff I'm not supposed to talk about not having because it's offensive to people who have even less of it than I do. NOW the car stalls out sometimes when I make a right turn. Not every time, and I have managed to get it to start up again pretty quickly, but now I have to worry about getting stuck somewhere in 100-degree heat when I have the girls in the car. There is a good chance that I will have to just not drive the car until we can find a way to pay for what may be some major repairs, and if that happens it means two kids stuck at home with mom all day, every day. And THAT means less quilting, less writing, less time to work on making the money I need to pay for the car repairs.

Then there was Harper's day camp, which I should have known was too much of a bargain for the price, but it is run by the county, and Devon's daycare provider's kids have all worked for these camps all through high school and had great things to say about it. But from the time I registered, I have been unhappy with how little information I have received about what to do, what to expect, even where to go. Harper's camp was held at a local high school, and I had to walk all over the campus before finding the right entrance. I was given a couple pieces of paper with some vague info, but other wise there was no discussion of policies, procedures, or even a schedule of what my kid would be doing with her day. The second day we arrived to find that only one of the camp counselors was there, plus two other parents dropping off their kids. I knew my watch was a bit fast and that we were maybe 5 minutes early, but the counselor seemed fine with it and so did the other parents, so I kissed her goodbye. About 10 minutes later I get a call from the camp director, who is yelling at me because that counselor? With whom I left my child? WASN'T A COUNSELOR FOR THIS CAMP.  He was there to pick up a child to take to a special needs camp at another location. I do completely understand that I should not have been there so early, but her attitude was not that, hey, we make mistakes, and this turned out okay, but I'll do you a favor and make things more clear so that next time you know who it's okay to leave your kids with. Her attitude was more, ARE YOU STUPID? But, I held my tongue and assured her it would not happen again.

The next few days were uneventful, but it was clear to me that all her talk of IT'S FOR YOUR CHILD'S SAFETY was truly just talk. The place was chaotic, and though I had been told that IDs would be checked frequently at pickup time, they never were. One day, Harper was released to me by another child.

Then on Friday, I put $5 in a pocket in Harper's lunchbox because they would have a Sno-Cone truck there that day. I knew five bucks was probably way too much, but when I pay four dollars for a loaf of bread, I figure anything is possible. So as we are leaving that day, Harper tells me that her sno-cone only cost a dollar, but that one of the counselors still had the rest of her money. So I said let's go back and see about it and when I asked her to point out the counselor, it turned out to be the camp director. So I approached her and said, Hi! Harper tells me you still have her change from the sno-cones today! And she glares at me and starts in on how there was all this confusion and she didn't think I was going to be there yet and if I will just give her a minute she will find Harper's dollar. I said, Actually, Harper had five dollars this morning. And that woman rolled her eyes, and said, in pretty much the most contemptuous tone I've ever heard, "Oh she most certainly did not."

At that point, I knew I was about to let loose with some truly choice words for her, but we were around a lot of small children, and I didn't trust myself to keep the cursing light. So I figured I would deal with camp director later and Harper and I would get on the road to pick up her sister. As we were leaving, she hollered after me, "You're supposed to put it in a plastic bag anyway, you know."

This was what put the whole thing over the edge, because she said it in a way that implied I was just ignoring the rules and she was now having to deal with my inability to follow clearly stated guidelines. EXCEPT THERE WERE NONE. Nowhere does anything say, If your child brings money to camp, have it in a baggie. Because nowhere does anything say anything about what we are supposed to do.

The money thing was inconsequential, but the attitude of the director, the chaos of the camp, the lack of schedules and policies, made me ultimately decide to pull her from the camp altogether. So now she is home with me, asking how many Skittles she can have every five minutes. If I don't end up having to pull Devon from daycare for lack of transportation, then she and I will, I hope, work on making a quilt together. I may even get out the little Kenmore beginner sewing machine that I bought when I started sewing 2 years ago and let her start sewing herself. I haven't brought this up with her yet, though, and I'm assuming she's still interested, but for all I know she'd rather just dig for worms.

Last week I also worked on a humor piece that I ultimately submitted to Smithsonian magazine for their humor page. I wrote about Harper's desperate desire for a pet tarantula. I finished and submitted it and also finished my next column for Quilter's Home. AND, in between all that - usually when the kids had commandeered the computer - I went back to working on Labyrinth 2: Electric Boogaloo. This was where we left it some months ago:

From The Bitchy Stitcher

And here's what I've added to it:

I'm still not crazy about the pattern, but I have the fabric cut, so I may as well keep going.

So at least I've been somewhat productive up until now, because that may all come to a screeching halt for several weeks.

Thanks for listening to me rant. If I had the freedom to tell you everything, it would have been even longer and crazier. I am now going to eat some Skittles and watch High School Musical 3 with my short friend here:

I call her Snaggletooth Tutuhead.