Many years ago, I could touch type close to a hundred words a minute and actually keep whole sentences organized in my mind while I did it. But I couldn't knit or quilt back then, and I had far fewer children, so this has been a good thing, shifting from my old skills to my new ones. Quilting is much more fun than writing romance novels, and easier to do with a pack of little kids underfoot.

But it does get frustrating when I want to write something and have to work much harder at it than I used to. I wonder if I'd be able to type faster if we moved the computer from the bedroom floor onto an actual table?

But I can make paper pirate swords, inspired by my new favorite blog, Filth Wizardry. And they are the coolest idea anyone ever came up with.

My little boys will make anything into a sword, complete with ching ching noises and dramatic swordplay. It's all absolutely adorable until someone gets hit a little too hard.

The Dollar Tree had foam swords a while back, but ours didn't hold up well. Ours appear to have been gnawed by hungry sharks.

Newspaper swords don't cost anything but a couple of inches from Mommy's secret stash of masking tape, and if they only hold up for ten minutes, they're a total success. But they've held up longer than that. They're amazingly durable.

I wish I'd known about all of these great possibilities when I had extra kids at the house all the time!