Yesterday I was honored to be on the Scoutie Girl blog. I did an interview on art and process and inspiration and things like that with the brilliant and lovely Amy of doobleh-vay and one of my all-time favorite Etsy shops, Little Alouette. So please check it out if you have a moment.
And if you would allow me to lead you in another direction, I'd love for you to check out my new friend Susie's shop - MishMish Market. Susie does lovely watercolor prints, some with personalization available. She's also participating in The Miracles of Hanukkah Sale this week and that's how I ended up buying this print for V's room just a few minutes ago.
So, unless you're Alexis, who has heard just a wee bit, or Kim, who has heard the whole story, you might not know that I've been stuck at home for a few weeks now. I blame the recession and my own procrastination.

See a few weeks ago, I had an errand to run so V and I were in the car. We were on our way home and I decided to drive around a little bit and see the sights because I still don't know my new hometown very well.
So I was keeping up with traffic and all was well when we all came to a police roadblock. The officer let the car ahead of me through, but had me pull over. So he could give me a ticket. For speeding. I fail to see how I could've been speeding when the car ahead of me was not but I decided to keep my mouth shut - which was probably a good idea since the officer kindly informed me that my Tennessee license plate is expired.
Oops.

Two citations and a couple of days later, we got to add a third. On his way to work, R was not even out of the subdivision when he was ticketed for a rolling stop in the neighborhood.
Oops again.

So that's about $350. Normally I don't like to complain because I feel like this blog is my happy place. I've seen in the news that counties are not making enough money in taxes. So it seems logical to me that they would think they need to go out and get that money from somewhere. But should anyone from my local police department happen upon this post (not likely, but you never know), I would like them to know that we will have to find that money somewhere in our budget. And that means that we will not be spending it in our local shops. So you're not really generating tax revenue; not from me anyway. I won't just charge it and forget it. I am staying home and not spending money.

Now, how do I do that? Stay home and not spend money? Easy - I'm a procrastinator. I still haven't gotten my new tag yet. And, because I fear another ticket, my car is in my garage. I haven't driven it since. I'll get it soon, but first I had to get my birth certificate. I know I have one here somewhere, but I couldn't find the box it's in from the move. But I got it and I was all ready to go get my license/tag when I found out that I also need my marriage certificate to prove my name change. So now I have to order that.
And it's on my to-do list, so I'm sure I'll get that done by January, February at the latest. (I'm only half kidding.)
So I'm stuck at home. That doesn't bother me too much - there's no place like home to me. But V asked me the other day why we never go to the park anymore. She will again, just not yet. Instead, we'll work our way through Preschool Art this winter and hang out in the backyard whenever there's a small patch of sunshine. I figure that if nothing else, it cuts down on the chance that we'll be exposed to H1N1 - a silver lining if I ever saw one.
