That last post is way past its expiration date and is beginning to smell. I am feeling the need to replace it with something fresh, but I like to use photos (or at least drawings) in my posts and I don’t have any.
Okay, in the interest of full disclosure, I do have some newish photos, but they are still on my camera and I don’t feel like uploading them right now. So there.
Just for fun, I will be posting some old photos that have absolutely nothing to do with what I am talking about. But, since I am not talking about anything of importance or even general interest, feel free to use them to make up your own story.

First topic up for discussion: School Uniforms
What’s that you say? Homeschools don’t have school uniforms? Au contraire mon frere… if you believe that, you haven’t been around our studio table lately. Or at all, really. Because thinking back, the whole I-only-wear-one-thing-but-in-different-colors started long, long ago. Remember this?
Anyway, a post-Christmas trip the the Hanna Anderson outlet, followed by a post-post-Christmas trip has yielded my girl a total of six dresses. Four are long sleeved, two are short. Five are striped and one has polka dots. Wearing anything else is out of the question – that would be a violation of the dress code.

Nicknames
Newt stands for Girl Wonder, which is not my daughter’s real name. My husband and I have chosen to keep her true identity a secret, lest some evil villain whisk her away to his volcanic lair and try to feed her to a tank of genetically altered goldfish. Which would be bad.
When I started this blog, I called her Abby, which is not her real name either. After awhile, I started to slip up and call her Abby in real life. That was weird so she became Girl Wonder. And then I shortened it to Newt because I am lazy.
Well, I am most consistent at being inconsistent, so let’s change it up again, shall we? Henceforth and forever, or until I get bored of it, Newt shall be known herein by a name of her own choosing: Newt.

Um, no.
Try this:

I, of course, will remain Heidi because goldfish, genetically altered or no, do not concern me.

The Weather
We have had no real snow to speak of this year. Perhaps, Oregon is repenting of last year’s uncharacteristic crankiness. I can’t say that I mind… I have just come through some of the most stressful months I can remember. We are all fine now, but the unblogable ugliness was just. so. hard. to deal with for awhile. I have come to refer to November and December as my “winter of discontent”. So now I say: bring on the spring! Yesterday I bought some primroses for a container on my front walk. They look so bright and cheery; I daresay it may be several weeks before I begin neglecting them and they die.

Survival Skills Yesterday the artist formerly known as Newt Newt sported a jauntily perched coon-skin hat all day long. “Can a coon-skin hat really be jauntily perched?” you ask. Why yes, of course.
There was much discussion about whether the tail should hang down the back or over the side. Apparently, Newt preferred the look of tail-in-back, but felt tail-on-the-side to be more comfortable. The tail happily wagged back and forth through morning scripture reading, a spelling test, composer and artist study, science, and history and shopping for new jeans. For me.
Newt and her coon-skin cap practiced survival skills at Ross Dress for Less (like Marshalls, Dillions, or TJ Maxx for the uninitiated). Her crafty resourcefulness kept us both alive and laughing through the perils of dingy dressing rooms, smelly public restrooms, and a pile of 15 pairs of rejected jeans. In the end, we made it back to civilization (and a Jamba Juice) with our kill: two great pairs of jeans, a cute skirt, and some sassy new shoes. All for me. For less.
I hope they don’t violate the dress-code…