Mandatory Update

Ahem...I’ve been advised to update my blog. 

So here I am, if only to prove that I am alive & kickin!

For starters (and really just to be polite & get it out of the way) I hope that you all enjoyed a lovely holiday season. 

I, for one, mustered up just enough enthusiasm to survive & fake it for the kiddo’s sake. As a parent, I couldn’t not decorate & play the part – no matter how Grinchy I feel on the inside I still believe in trying to create a little magic for the youngsters. 

But now that it's all over & the decorations have been packed & carted back upstairs to the attic, can a Mama just scream say HALLLLL-LELUJAH?

Welcome 2012 ~ I already love you just for bringing a fresh start!

This year is going pretty momentous for my gang. My little kid will finish elementary school  (*sniffle*), my middle kid will graduate high school (whoot!!), my older kid will turn 21 (holy shit!) and in between all that Mama will turn 40 (HOLLA!!) ~ and we are all ready!

Although I usually resolve not to make “New Year’s Resolutions” because I lack the stick-to-it-ivness generally required, this year I did. I decided to implement a motto for life: To Thine Own Self Be True. I'm also planning on permanently inking this into my skin just as soon as I find a font & a size I can live with for all eternity. And one you can still read when I'm Eleventy-five years old.

It may not be original but it’s a brand new concept to me. Kind of a shame it’s taken 40 years, huh? But as my friend Alan (of Hangover fame) would say, WHATEV's.  

And now on to my adventures in sewing...

I joined a quilting group…that's right. A quilting group. Or bee. Go ahead, laugh at me & my granny’ish activities, I’ll wait…happy to amuse you….finished yet? Ok good. I joined a quilting group that meets once a month for a “lock in” at night. Oh yeah, I said a Lock In At Night...plus potluck & wine...did yo' Grandmammy's quilt-bee party that hard? I think not!


A friend I met during my early days of coordinating the Stitch & Bitch group is a member of the group & has been inviting me to join ever since I brought home my Singer. I have to tell you I’m glad I finally went & wish I'd gone sooner, it’s really encouraging & super inspirational. (BTW: I’m working on my first quilt now – it’s not going so hot but I intend to finish it regardless. More on that in the near future, along with pics.)

I’ve also been “commissioned” (that sounds so funny!) to make some crock pot covers for cold, hard, cash. As much as I love me some whimsy, I’m not one to dress up my toaster or my toilet paper. However, when someone approaches me with a profitable project in which they want their toaster or toilet paper (or this case, crockpots) all dolled up, I’m so down.

But it hasn’t been easy.

You know how they say that if you can imagine it, you can find it on the internet? Well, leave it to me to imagine the one thing you can’t find. You cannot find a sewing pattern for an oval crockpot cover. 

Other appliances, yes. Crockpots? No sir.

I found an Etsy seller who makes a nice quilted cover, but she doesn’t sell the pattern.

I also found this Etsy seller who sells a pattern for a skirt, but it’s not a cover. (I still bought it. You never know when I will change my mind & start dressing my appliances.)

So what’s a sewista to do? 

Well, unfortunately, she is left to her own devices & elementary school skills. And since "she" is me and since those elementary skills include math (ack!), it was a little bit touch & go.

I turned the ceramic insert upside down & traced it, measured around the base unit & then cut fabric accordingly. A few hems,  487 straight pins and voila, this was made:

Please don’t judge the Brady’s Hawaiian Vacation batik cotton print, it serves its purpose for the prototype, m’kay? And in case you feel the need to play Captain Obvious and point out that it’s not very fancy, just know that I already know that. In fact, it may very well be the polar opposite of fancy. But after a text message confirmation, it’s exactly what she wants. And that is all that matters: customer satisfaction.

I haven’t really been up to much else. Life is fairly boring quiet right now. Just taking it all one day at a time & trying to pay the bills – you know how that is! Well, not you Bill Gates. Or you, Oprah.

Oh - one last little thing I wanted to share is this little quote from a friend….

“When people hurt you over & over again…

Think of them like a sand paper and you like a wood…

They may scratch & hurt you a bit…

But in the end…

You end up polished and they end up useless.”

Although I no longer allow “the crazies” to directly affect my daily life, there is one crotchety old hag that still hangs on - her every breath dedicated to lying & hurting for personal gain. Sometimes when I feel bitter about having to have put up with her ugliness for so long I stop & thank my lucky stars that at least I don’t live in the misery that is her life. Especially now as there is about to be some legal ramifications for her shady ways….haha! 

KARMA is AWESOME!

And so are these:

Look at me all participating & stuff!

To help me with my mojo-malfunction I decided to link up with Mama Kat’s (pretty much worldfamous) Writer's Workshop. 

This week's suggestions were fun to think about but my ultimate decision was really a no-brainer.

I mean, why would I tell you all about how I am in love sweet love with both Jim Parsons and Jon Yumm Hamm but how I would eventually have to break their hearts by running away to marry Zach Galifiankis, or how 31 years after the fact I can still smell the vomit on my Miss Piggy pillow-sham just by thinking about liver & onions, when I finally have the opportunity to throw a pity party over the 2 things I always wanted for Christmas as a kid but never got?

Technically, the writing prompt is 10 things I Wanted for Christmas as a Kid but Didn’t Get and Still Want. (inspired by Hello Giggles) ~ but I don’t think I ever wanted 10 things at one time.

My brother & I grew up in the 80’s as children of baby-boomer consumers. There wasn’t much that we wanted that they didn’t already want to get for us. I’m not kidding you when I say that I had no freaking clue what an Atari was when we woke up to find Santa had brought us one. My parents were always way ahead of us on all the cool stuff. 

Unfortunately, the appeal of electronic-y stuff was lost on me. Save for "the 2 things", I was happy with my Rubiks cube and the giant Barbie head that I could put make up on.

In my day, Babs looked alot like a $2 version of Dolly Parton. 

Long before there were Razor Scooters there were Honda Kick’n’Go’s. They looked very similar to the scooters these days except they had this lever thing on the back & you used your foot to pump it & propel yourself as fast as you wanted to go. Yet another feature lost on me. You see, I have always been a creature of comfort - not necessarily speed or um, agility. My dad built custom motorcycles back then & they sold them in his shop and so naturally he thought we had to have them. Although I eventually got it together with the whole hand/foot coordination required to not crash, I'm pretty sure Dad still got the bigger Kick out of watching us Go. 

So what was it that I always wanted but never got? (Is it just me or can you guys hear my husbands voice saying "GET TO THE POINT ALREADY!" too?) 


Fine. What I always wanted was a

Lite Brite and a Cabbage Patch Kid.

But I never got either one.

My mom thought Cabbage Patch dolls were “ugly”. This is a woman who dressed me in rabbit fur coats at the age of 8 (pre-PETA & the red paint). Ugly in her world was (and still is) a crime.

The Lite Brite was “messy”. All those little black dots of construction paper & light bits made her shudder. Let's not talk about the fact that her favorite child my brother had a crap-ton of Lego’s that were often scattered everywhere or how he would purposely land-mine them along my bedroom doorway at night so that I would unavoidably step on them barefoot, in the dark, on my way to the bathroom at 2am. 

So yeah. No authentic adoption certificates or brightly lit displays of art for me. Because, you know, Ugly & Messy! 

Atari Pong induced coma's and Kick and Go scars on the chin, elbow, knee's & knuckles? Pure childhood FUN! 


Hours of quiet, creative time or honing my motherly instincts? 
Ugly & messy.

Years later they would use these same words to describe my boyfriends.  


My brother is now an architect in Anchorage, Alaska. Naturally my mother credits this to his Lego days. By that reasoning, I could have been Angelina Jolie if only she had let me adopt a stinkin' Cabbage Patch Kid!

Keep Calm & Carry A Camera

I took this last month when the leaves had begun to change.

The industrial park where I work is actually a very pretty, very woodsy & very critter filled area that also encompasses an historical landmark from the Civil War era.

A few weeks ago there was a movie crew camping out for awhile while they filmed scenes for a new motion picture about Pocahontas, she’s from this part of Virginia.

Big deal.

You know what they should have been filming?

A remake of Alfred Hitchcock’s THE BIRDS. That’s what.

(insert freaky music & bird squawking noises here)

Yesterday I was coming back from lunch when I saw these guys chillin on a lamp post:

Then I noticed the rest of them:

 Of all the times I’d wished I’d had my real camera with me to capture something really pretty and instead I capture TURKEY VULTURES.

DID YOU HEAR ME? I SAID VULTURES!!!!!!!!

I won’t lie. I stayed far enough away, in my car, with the window rolled down only enough to give the lens a clear shot.

This one tried to punk me:

I swear he started posing too. He was kind of hopping like maybe he was hurt or trying to line dance (you never know in Virginia) so I inched the window down just a tad more so I could get a closer & that bastard spread his wings & took flight at me! Ok, not at me, but over the car. Still, it scared me so much that I accidentally pushed the button to roll down the back windows instead of rolling up the front window. 

It’s a good thing I didn’t have to pee. Just sayin'.

Wiki says they are a protected species, even though they are known to carry anthrax (ANTHRAX!!) and hog cholera. I'm not sure what hog cholera is all about but it sounds detrimental to my bacon consumption. Not cool. 

You know what else I learned from Wikipedia about Turkey Vultures? That when they feel threatened they regurgitate on their attacker & feign death. Oh my god, ME TOO!!

Maybe I should star in the remake?

Pictures

Remember how I told you my husband has a tool bucket? Well, the truth is, he has TWO. And he prefers the buckets to the box in the back. I can only attribute this to his native american roots - he is (by way of his mother) half Pomo Indian (a small tribe of basket weavers in back home in NorCal). Maybe his inner Dances With Tools feels the bucket is more akin to a basket? I don't know. Sometimes there is just no explaining the male species.

This next picture has nothing to do with anything except that I loves it. How can you not love banana splits and pedicures? I attended this holiday luncheon gig at The Great Wolf Lodge last week and found this little spa adjoining the grown up ladies spa. So the seats are not exactly comfy (or roomy) enough for my derriere, but what they lack in backside support they more than make up for in adorableness.

~cliche title here~

Out with the new, in with the old!

Eh.

Everything old is new again?

Hmph.

Look, I tried. I thought what was killing my mojo was feeling haunted by nosy old busybodies so I started a fresh blog. Turns out – fresh starts are overrated and overwhelming. I couldn’t pull off the consistency of posting to establish myself. So here I am again.

Mary Engelbreit says “Wherever You Go, There You Are.”

She’s right.

Of course, she also says crazy stuff like “Life is just a chair of bowlies”.  Um...what does that even mean?

I’m pretty sure we can all agree that Forrest Gump is far more accurate in his statement that “Life Is Like A Box Of Chocolates”…..until you try! And that’s what I did. I tried. And now I’m baaa-aaack.

~~~

So who’s ready for Christmas? I’m not – at least not in the sense of getting the gift part accomplished.

I started getting into the spirit about Thanksgiving time and started making some stockings. Cute & easy peasy. Well, easy peasy except for the one with “the toe”. That one made me cuss & rip seams. Even so, holiday cheer was starting to seep into my psyche.

And then the stupid car threw a hissy fit. It’s all my fault.

You know how they say not to say certain things out loud because giving voice to them pretty much activates it? (Think: Wonder Twins) Well, there was this one day that gas had gone down to $3.09/gallon (dirt cheap in there here parts) so, being the very grown up person that I am (shut it), I decided to fill ol’ Miss Daisy all the way up. 


As I was pulling away from the gas station my dashboard was telling me I had 396 miles to go until empty. First I was all, “HOLLA! I can get back & forth to work all week without any gas pitt-stops, go me!” And then I was all, “watch this thing break on a full tank”. And then it did! That bitch broke.

Well, not like right there dead in its tracks or anything. I mean, made it the 25 miles to work, pulled into my usual spot, turned it off, and then it broke. I sat and watched a cloud of smoke (or steam, whatever) billow from under the hood. You’d a though Snoop Dogg was up under therrre!

I cried and called Craig and got mad at him, as per The Wife how-to manual. 

·         Me: *sob* The car is *sob* broke.

·         Him: I can’t hear you.

·         Me: *sob* The car is *sob* BROKE!

·         Him: I still didn’t hear you, you’re breaking up, are you...
                                        ~CLICK~

·         Me: *The clicking was me. I hung up on him. Oh come on! He couldn’t hear me, what was I supposed to do?*

He called me back but I didn’t answer. What if I had been stranded on the side of the road somewhere? Hello, I needed him to be worried!! So I waited until the 3rd ring of his 2nd phone call  - and then I answered. It's all about timing people. 

·         Me: *SOB!* HELLO! CAN YOU HEAR ME NOW?

·         Him: Yes, calm down, whats wrong?

·         Me: Are you SURE you can hear me? Because I don’t have all day for you to go get a hearing aid…

·         Him: I can hear you, what is wrong?

·         Me: The car is broke. There’s all this smoke wafting out from under the hoo-oood *sob*…

·         Him: Is it smoke or is it steam?

·         Me: How am I supposed to know? It’s like I’m sitting to close to the stage at a KISS concert and I’m scared shooting flames are up next! What if it EXPLODES?

·         Him: It’s not going to explode.

·         Me: It might. You don’t know. I filled it all. the. way. full of gas this morning.

·         Him: It won’t explode.

·         Me: You are gonna feel so bad if it does.

·         Him: Go inside, I will see you in a little while.

Later in the day he arrived with his tool bucket. That's right, tool (old 5 gallon paint) bucket.

He has a tool box.

He brought his tool bucket.

But I can’t pick on his in good conscience at this point because the man is like House, M.D. when it comes to diagnosing cars. Pure genius. He figured out what I needed to do to make it to work & home all week until he could do the major repair that weekend. I knew he could do it!

Now if only I could find a way to speak a million bucks into my bank account….

~~~

Summertime

I hope everyone is enjoying a fabulous summertime! 

We haven't done much more than use our Busch Gardens for summer entertainment this year. Seems like we've become the "stay-cation" types since moving to Virginia. I don't mind so much, but I do miss hopping in the car and heading north into the mountains around Lake Tahoe or west to the city streets of San Francisco or south to see family. I always loved that a 2 hour car trip in any direction could land you in a completely other landscape but still be in California. 

Not to pick on Virginia at all, it has some really beautiful aspects. And tons of history. DC has become a favorite car trip. But we sure are a long way from any mountains & for some reason we've all got the camping bug. 

Friends & coworkers have praised a local nature reserve for its camping fun. But honestly? I am not packing up the car just to drive 20 minutes to sleep outside. I drive farther than that to get to work everyday! It wouldn't feel like we "went" somewhere, you know?

So we're on the hunt for a real camping excursion. Somewhere under 2 hours. Charlottesville maybe? 

Anyone else have vacation or staycation plans?

Peace & Cupcakes Pillowcase Dress

Meet my Monday night project: a little trial and error (mostly error) dress I named "Peace & Cupcakes"....

Firstly(?) & most importantly you should know I bought this really stinkin' cute pattern called "Sew Easy" Pillowcase Dress from Foot Loose & Fancy Free on ETSY. You gotta love it! I really hope to someday do it justice. As those of you with keen sewista eyesight may notice my armpit armholes needs some work as do my bias tape making skills. 

Cross your heart promise not to judge this awesome pattern by my first attempt! 

{IMPORTANT: Pics of the way I added my border hem are not part of her pattern for I would not take liberties with the designers rights by so blatantly posting photos of her hard work! And I'm serious as a heart attack about that. Its simply the way I was taught to put a border on a pillowcase to "trap" the raw edges inside the casing & so I began with what I knew how to do in an attempt to personalize & doll up my version.}

LOVE the pattern so much I put it in page protectors & cute pink flex-folder :)

Mid-roll (after stitching on cupcake border)

then closing it all up inside....

....and pulling it out the ends....

And Voila! Wait. Stop the music. I totally sewed it UPSIDE DOWN. Crap...
Ok, so those errors I mentioned? Well there's one major one that turned a size 5 dress turned into a 4T. I cut that  border off & started over the right way! Then I got down to the business of following the pattern & here is my outcome:

{{{ TRUE LOVE!!! }}}

Like I said, the armholes need some work and I know won't win any Project Runways for Rugrats anytime soon but I'm still having a ball!