Let's rewind to Christmas. This year I did a couple of crafty things for people, even though I've always been snooty about the "homemade Christmas" thing (because I'm materialistic of course). Since I have a tendency to document my craftiness on my blog I will tell you about my Christmas crafties.
The first thing was some cookies. Okay, maybe they're not necessarily a craft, but I'm counting them anyway. This year we made cookies for Drew's family and my contribution was a gumdrop cookie (Drewbles made his BCEs*). I became acquainted with these cookies several years ago through my sister-in-law, Sarah, but had never made them myself before now. They were, if I may toot my own horn, rather a hit. So, for you curious folk who didn't get any and for you interested folk who did, here is the recipe, which is courtesy of Sarah's lovely mother.
Cream together 1 c. shortening, 1 c. brown sugar, 1 c. white sugar. Beat in 2 eggs. Sift together 2 c. flour, 1/2 t. salt, 1 t. baking soda, 1 t. baking powder and add in. Stir in 1 c. shredded coconut, 2 c. cut gumdrops and 2 c. oatmeal.
Cook at 350 for 11-15 minutes and then eat until you can eat no more.
I would add that mine didn't need quite all the flour. Also, make sure you buy FRUIT gumdrops and not spice gumdrops. I followed Sarah's lead and just bought fruit slices and had Mr. Graham cut them up for me into manageable smallish pieces.
My second Christmas craft was to make some more magnets, this time featuring the grandkids.
I was going to make a set for both my parents, but the craft store thwarted me and didn't have any in stock for all the many weeks before Christmas. In the end I used ones I had leftover from my England magnets but I only had enough for one set. Maybe one day they will sell the really clear stones again and I can make a nice new set.
My last Christmas craftible took the most time by far, but first, a story. Lo, these many years ago when I was wee tot of 5 or 6, my teacher at church gave us each a gold Christmas spider (along with the cheesy story I forgot soon after). Over the years my Christmas spider became quite infamous among the decorations, and the tree was never complete without it. In 2009 my mama sent it to me here and then, later, plaintively asked me to make her one for next year. I tucked that idea away for this year, and I made a spider for my parents and each of my siblings (and myself of course). Again the craft store thwarted me and I had to make white spiders instead of gold. But in the end, they turned out so cute anyway and I just wanted to hug and squeeze them all. Behold my little fleet (and a cameo from Boston Rob)!
And here is the original.
He's a little wonky these days, but now that I know how to make them, I'm thinking about pulling him apart and remaking him. But then he wouldn't be quite the same, would he? Oh, little Christmas spider, what larks we have had.
And that was Christmas. The crafty part anyway...maybe this whole "homemade Christmas" is okay after all.
*Best Cookies Ever.
It's story time again and the topic isn't really anymore pleasant than fire. So many of you faithful readers have no experience with the thing I'm going to discuss--demonstrated by your confused looks and use of the phrase "A what?" I feel compelled to enlighten you. Or I should say, I feel compelled to make you all share my dread. Plus, these stories are pretty good (though maybe not as good as the spider babies, you be the judge).
The subject of today's stories is camel hoppers. Technically they are camel crickets, but they were called camel hoppers in Alabama, where I was first exposed. And so their name has continued. Let's take a look:
(Words cannot express how horrifying it was to have a whole page of those pictures on Google. Augh.)
Here are a few facts you should know about hoppers. First off, I love grasshoppers. They are charming! Camel hoppers are like horrible, mutated grasshoppers that were experimented on by a shady government organization. Their weird hunched backs remind me of aliens (partly because of a dream). They jump crazy high and really spastically--you never know which way they're going! They get really big. They're ugly and foul. Also, they're tough to kill because they've got steroid-enhanced exoskeletons. Now, let us continue.
I've had several duels with hoppers. I'm not really good at killing bugs, I will admit. I often use shoes and I jump around a lot, but I'll do it. But hoppers are hard because of all those reasons I mentioned, mainly the jumping. Here are two of my battles:
The time: Several summers ago. The place: the hallway outside my room. It's mid-morning. I start walking down the hall. There's a hopper, just chilling there on the floor. I confess I hollered for my Mom but she was in the shower. What was I supposed to do? Well, I got my Mom's math book* that was handy. And I threw it at the hopper. I missed. I got it again. This process continued until I finally landed that book smack on top of that thing. But I knew its crazy exoskeleton had protected it and I had to do something else. So I stood on that book. For a while. My Mom wasn't really impressed with my tactics, but that may be because I let her clean it up.
The time: two summers ago. The place: the hallway between the laundry room and the garage door. I was going to go to Girls' Camp in a few weeks and I had a case of water bottles sitting near the garage door for that occasion. Around this time I did some laundry and I saw a real beast of a hopper skulking around the freezer, but I just hurried out and forgot about him. The morning I was supposed to leave, he came back, as big as ever and I had to do something about him. So I picked up that case of bottled water and dropped it on him (I had to get a lot closer...cases of water bottles don't throw as well as books). I'll admit it was kind of satisfying. Unfortunately I had to take the case with me, so not long after my victory I had to pick it up and scrape the corpse off the bottom. And yes, I left it for my Dad to clean up. It's how I roll.
Are you starting to feel like you have bugs crawling all over you yet? Well, this next story is my best AKA my worst. Is it the root of all my fears? Pretty much. This is the story of my stalker hopper.
The time: mid-1990's, bedtime. The place: my room downstairs in Missouri. I was lying in bed, all cozy. The door was open and the hall light was on. I looked over. There was a hopper in the middle of my floor. I knew it would crawl all over me in my sleep so of course I got out of bed and crept upstairs to my sister's room to sleep on her floor. Problem solved!
Except when I woke up in the early hours of the morning I saw that hopper. Sitting on my pillow. Looking at me. I got in my sister's bed and my groupie was gone by the time real morning came.
Later that day I was sitting on the floor in my sister's room. I looked over and saw that hopper. On my shoulder. Looking at me. What followed was a lot of screaming and jumping and shuddering and more screaming. We killed that thing, for the most part, with a binder and dumped its still-twitching body out the window.
And that, my friends, is a faithful narrative of all my dealings with camel hoppers. Or some of them anyway.
*I know it's cruel to use a book like this. But it's a math book so it's okay.
I've been meaning to blog all week, but haven't gotten around to it yet (obviously). My sister and her kidlets came to visit and I have been spending my free time playing hide and seek and answering the question "But why are you going to work again?" every morning.
But I still want to blog and as it is almost exactly a year since the following incident happened, I thought I should repost it, just to spread my horror to more people. So, enjoy, and to quote one of my favorite professors, I must ask you not to scream.
"OK. Check this out:Fifteen minutes ago I'm walking downstairs to check my email. The light is off and I see a dark blob on the carpet. 90% of the time in a Middle Kingdom* summer, these blobs are kid-dropped raisins. This time it was HUGE FREAKING SPIDER. FAT AS A BASEBALL. I scream for my sister, who arrived from the shower. We stare in horror. She fetches my boot. I hold the boot and we cringe for ten minutes. Finally, I hit the spider and it gets so. much. worse.
HUNDREDS OF THINGS SWARM OUT OF THE SPIDER CORPSE. SPIDER BABIES. AKIN TO THE LOST IN THE SPACE SPIDER CREATURES EXCEPT NO GARY OLDMAN SPIDER HYBRID TO KEEP ME FROM SCREAMING. Oh yes, friends, it was fat with babies. And so I sprayed them all with hastily-fetched bleach spray. And lo, they are dead and the hall smells like bleach.
Now we have to wait for it to dry so we can vacuum up mother and baby hoards. Seriously, I thought I had landed in a sci-fi channel original movie and the spider was really dead but was being eaten from the inside by nefarious parasite spider killers. I don't know which was worse."
Sometimes at night I can still hear the screaming.
*This originates from a funny boy I call Coop. Story will follow at a future date.
I was going to make a set for both my parents, but the craft store thwarted me and didn't have any in stock for all the many weeks before Christmas. In the end I used ones I had leftover from my England magnets but I only had enough for one set. Maybe one day they will sell the really clear stones again and I can make a nice new set.
And here is the original. 
He's a little wonky these days, but now that I know how to make them, I'm thinking about pulling him apart and remaking him. But then he wouldn't be quite the same, would he? Oh, little Christmas spider, what larks we have had.
