We're home from the trip

We've spent the past week driving from Oregon to Salt Lake City, to Colorado, to Albuquerque, then up along the Extraterrestrial Highway in Nevada to get back home. I'm too exhausted to remember most of what we did, but I know there was a mine tour, hiking past petroglyphs, and a thrilling ten minute trip to Hobby Lobby.

The van's unloaded, the laundry is running, and I've got about a million things I want to start working on as soon as I get a few minutes to myself.

First, here's my Show and Tell Friday post while it's actually still Friday...




Trixie Belden's Mystery in Arizona introduced me to the idea of sugar skulls when I was younger than Alex is now. I don't think the book described them in great detail or really explained the Dia de los Muertos, but I remember wanting one of those skulls.




I grew up and forgot about them, and then I found Pandora's Button Box and saw her embroidered skull dollys and fell in love with the idea all over again. I found some great candy skull fabric on one of our trips up to Fabric Depot, which made my mom wonder whether I'd lost my mind.

And while we were wandering through the shops in Albuquerque earlier this week, I saw a trio of little skulls sparkling in a display case. I expected Bill to roll his eyes when I asked the lady if they were real sugar and how much they were. Just out of curiousity, because I don't have any real need for a sugar skull, and our howling pack of children make displaying fragile things a risky idea.

I wasn't really meaning to buy one, not until Bill told me to get one if I wanted it. So now I have a sparkly sugar skull on the high shelf in my sewing room, where no one but me will see it. That makes me happy.

And I'm freshly inspired to figure out where I put that fabric so I can make myself a tote bag.