This week has been draining - emotionally, spiritually, physically, financially. I’m just tired, and looking foward to the next few days when Tom is home and I can ‘check out’ for a while. In the mean time:
1. If you are not already a fan of Mermade Baubles, then this is a great opportunity to check out Jen’s talent and enter for a chance to win a beautiful necklace.
2. A great article about money management and the stress it can have on a relationship. When i forwarded this to Tom, he said “Well, that’s it. You will just have to start wasting money on electronics if you want this marriage to work.” 
3. I am going through my photos, trying to sort out all my ‘crafty’ photos, and realizing that I only manage to take pictures of maybe a third of the things I make. Note to self: work on that.
4. We’re going to make this this afternoon.
5. This fruit fly trap actually works much better than cussing and spraying them with cleaner midair.
6. Finally, a way to get Tom and Ella to eat eggplant and squash: slice it thin, bread it and deep fry it. So basically, cancel out any nutritional value. Next up: beets.
Filed under: As you simplify your life the laws of the universe will, List, My mother
10 Random things I found while digging though an “Ivory’s GoodStuff” box which has been ducttaped closed since before the move, two Novembers ago:
1. One eared sock monkey. My Great Grandma was a doll and toy maker, and all the kids in the family got a sock monkey when they were little. Except me. I can’t complain, since I did get a lot of other toys from her, but I was somehow overlooked when it came to my very own sock monkey. After my Great Grandma died, my mom gave me her sock monkey, and I love that it only had one ear. Ella and Alice both got sock monkey’s from their Aunt Jena this Christmas, so we have a little sock monkey family now.
2. The very first embroidery I ever ‘finished’. The back is here. I was probably 6 or 7 when I started it, and I remember it taking forever. Patience was not my strong suit as a kid, but I wanted to be able to dig around in my mom’s sewing box, so I had to sit down and be still for a few minutes a day. My mom kept it, and I found it in her ‘office’ after she died.
3. Yarn dog from Bea, my 80 year old best friend when I was 5. It turns out that the things I worry about with my daughter really just stem from my fear that she will be like me, and I want it to be easier for her. I want her to be comfortable with her peers, because I never was as a kid. Bea lived in an RV on the same beach we lived on when my dad was working on HWY 101 in North Cali, and when I wasn’t with her or Benji (the disabled vet who lived across the way) or Barbra (the woman who ran the community store) I was hiding under the trailer, playing with slugs and talking to squirrels. Rinse and repeat for 20 years.
4. Speaking of middle aged people who were kind to a kid who had no friends: A bear, a knicknack, and a book from Mrs. Harrison, my speech therapist when I was in k-2nd grade. You wouldn’t know it today by how I can blather on, but when I was young I had major speech issues, and almost no one outside my family could understand me. Enter Mrs. Harrison, who was beyond kind to me. I was so inspired by her, that years later I studied speech pathology for three years of college before realizing that it wasn’t what I wanted and switching to English. I wrote her years ago, thanking her and including a playbill from a play I was in at the time, and she wrote back (and as I keep digging, I’ll probably find the letter).
5. 8 jewelry boxes of random, cheap jewelry, none of which I can bear to throw out (I stopped taking pictures after a while…)
6. A package of moon flower seeds from a plant in my mom’s yard.
7. This tiny boat, from “Undersea World” which is the toy of my earliest memories.
8. A replica of one of my pageant dresses for my ‘ cabbage patch’ doll, Maggie Mae. My mom made my dress, the little dress, and Maggie. She also took me to an estate sell on the way home from losing “Little Miss Oklahoma” and bought me an enormous green bridesmaid’s hat.
9. The postcard that informed me that I had been selected to receive the scholarship that ended up paying for my degree. Until I got this slip of paper, I was planning to stay in the small town I had graduated in, working as a waitress and taking care of my brother. Instead, I came to college, got a degree in something that doesn’t pay but that I love, and met Tom in a Lit. class.
10. An autograph book (like yearbook autographs, not lifestyles of the rich and famous autographs) of my mom’s, which I will probably do a whole other post about, because so many of the pages made me laugh.
A couple things:
Anyone want to trade some graphic work for something crafty? I have my basic image down, but I just need someone with some skillz to spiff it up. Let me know if you are interested and we can work something out.
Good news, the odds of being killed by melting night clothes is only 1 in 538,523. Bad news, one in 200 of us will die from a fall.
Road schooling! I’ve been looking for this idea, because I knew it had to be out there.Yes, I still want to live in an RV. You didn’t forget did you?
Tired of reading the same 3 books over and over to your toddler? Have an actor from the Screen Actors Guild read them something else instead!
It’s been linked like crazy lately, but really - If you haven’t read Moxie’s “The Right Way“. please, for your own sake, and the sake of the parents around you who you don’t see eye to eye with, go.
A perspective on becoming a LM or a CNM. Becoming a CNM would take longer, and be more expensive, but the Navelgazing Midwife makes a few points which made my start googling nursing schools in my area. (Warning, header photo NSFW, but not porny).
OMG GET IN MY MOUTH. (Warning, food porn ahead. Excessive viewing may make you scowl at your whole wheat cherios in soy milk with utter contempt.
Oh hey, can I slip in here that 3 months postpartum, I could not fit into any pants I own and have had to wear maternity pants for the last week? HATE.
I’m making this this afternoon, after we get back from the park.
I have three lengthy posts I want to make, but the funny thing about cutting your toddler’s TV time to a third of what it used to be, is that your computer time also gets cut to a third. Hmm. So for today, a quick list:
This book makes me cry every single time I read it. I’m the first to admit that the mother/daughter continuum is a emotional place for me, but this book manages to bore to the center of that emotion by the third page. It’s beautifully illustrated, and I think it would be a lovely gift for any new moms out there.
And while we are talking about books, this one was a grab-it-off-the-library-shelf book, and it wasn’t until we got home that we realized it’s all about how animals (including humans!) nurse their babies. Very cute.
I have three projects to finish before I’ve given myself permission to start this little knitted dress(pdf).
Sarah Jane’s post about perspective is worth bookmarking and rereading on the rough days. The blessings abound when I let myself see them as such.
And because I promised Firemom over in this post she made about her post-baby body: a photo of my belly, after two babies and at least 458 cupcakes. I can’t bring myself to post the picture here, since I don’t want to see it every time I scroll down, but there it is if you want to click. I grew up in a house where anything over a size 2 jeans was ‘fat’, and smoking (and the risk of cancer) was a fair tradeoff for keeping the weight off. I think I’ve come a long way from that mindset, but it still sneaks up with me when I am in the shower and my hands do not recognize my own body.
These little girls are worth it though.
And in case anyone is still here, and not over on Flickr snickering at my flub, want to play Scrabble with me?
I finally wrote up that introduction I’ve been promising, in the form of a Cast of Characters. Have questions? Ask away.
Another music player, but one of the coolest I’ve seen in a while. Choose your mood, and discover new music. We’ve been rocking out to Bing Crosby’s Great Day all morning. Bing has to be one of the best names ever (and hey, he grew up in Spokane!)
Tom is working 15 hours today (after a week of being home) so I am alone with two stinky girls all day. Hence the thrown together post. Hope your day is less frenzied, but with as many slobbery kisses.
Filed under: Cricket, Ella, Everyday, List, Thigns i want to remember, crafty
I swear I have a couple substantial, topic driven posts in the works in my drafts folder, but they can wait until later in the week. Today you get another list.
- New table! Ya!
Our old table was okay (and a major improvement over the sad, sad paint-peeling, one wing broken off and jimmy-rigged up, table we used for years) but this table is one that I actually like, which is always a bonus. There are enough chairs to fit all of us at the table at one time, and it fits better in the space, so win. Also: it’s an ugly green antique color that I love, so shut up. Also free, because as we know, I am a cheapo.
- I made curtains for the ‘nursery’ today, so that I could take down the quilt that has been hanging in the window for weeks. The room is still a mishmosh of furniture and purposes, but it’s perfect for mid-day naps and the like.
We plan to have Cricket in our room for the forseeable future, so this room is more of a guest room/place to put all the baby stuff. I couldn’t help but start a small theme though, since I didn’t get to decorate a nursery with Ella. Birdies birdies everywhere.
- I also finished a little apron dress for Ella, though it really tested my patience with my machine.
The tension is so very off, and nothing I can do seems to help. There are two appliqués (since the dress is reversible) and you can really see the tension problems on them. If it were not such a cheap POS I would consider getting it fixed, but it’s really not worth it. Pam sells beautiful machines in her shop, but even with a family discount they are more than I have made in the last.. oh… year of full-time motherhood, and I just can’t justify spending so much money on a hobby. In the mean time, I will just sneak down and use the machines they keep in the classrooms.
- Baby update: Still hanging out. Random contractions throughout the day and night, but the GREAT news is that my midwife is back in the country, so if we were to go into labor tomorrow, (supposedly the start of of our 37th week, thus, the safe zone for homebirth) we would have our lovely, wonderful, calming midwife here to help us (rather than her backup, who I am sure is nice, but is not Cathy.) I have an appointment with her tomorrow, where we will walk through the house and talk about final preparations (EEEEEEEEEE!) but really I am just excited to see her and hear about Senegal.
Also, a little “I want to remember this” story - During Ella’s birth, one of the most comforting things for me was having water poured from a cup slowly over my belly during contractions (obviously, while I was in the tub). Ella and I take baths together almost every night, and completely unprompted, she has started pouring water over my belly, cup after cup, until I sit up and start playing something else with her. She is a natural little doula. I will write more about having her at the birth another day, but wanted to remember this little habit.
- Today was knit-club, which was spectacular, mainly because it was the first one (in over a year of going) that I didn’t bring Ella to. You would think I actually would have gotten some knitting done, but as it turns out, I like talking more than knitting and can not do both at once. I *heart* knit club, though I usually am worn out by the time I come home. Social interaction - who knew it was so tiring?
Indulge me while I brag for a minute:
I finished the tiny hat from yesterday’s post, and Ella loves it. Technically I still need to weave in the ends, but Ella has not taken it off since I tried it on her this morning, so the weaving can wait. I tweaked a pattern I found online, and like how it came out, though I really need to learn to make icords. I’m thinking Cricket needs a matching hat.
I’m about a third of the way through coloring these mix&match people, and finished the felt plaything for them to stick to. This will make more sense once I can do a real writeup.
These fabrics are slowly becoming quilt blocks, which will be another baby quilt. Once I get this top finished, I am determined to take them all to the shop and quilt them in a day. I need to stop hoarding half finished quilts.
And - my kid freaking drew a picture of me! It’s easier to explain with notes on Flickr, but that big circle in the middle, with tiny legs, a squiggle in my belly, a crooked neck and a lumpy head? It’s me! You can see our usual family portrait down in the corner, which we draw (no joking) at least 25 times a day, and in an effort to hold Ella off for two minutes while I did something important (like check my email. Again.) I asked if she could draw mommy. And then? She did! Insane.
I got a haircut. I know, it’s nothing amazing, but it is five inches shorter, and on days when I put some effort into it, it actually looks like I put some effort into my appearance, which isn’t something I can say every day. Thank god for friends who cut hair.
Pregnancy update later, if this kid will stop making my eyes water. Hot damn.
Something that drives Tom crazy, but that I just can not change about myself, is that I always always have 742 coals in the fire. If I do not have that many things to distract myself with, I tend to brood, or consider learning another language. Which, I suppose, would be more productive than most of the projects I have going, but not nearly as much fun. Here is a partial list of things I am currently working on:
Diaper making.
Finish the pink quilt,
And the purple quilt.
And the green/red quilt. Crap.
It keeps going behind the cut. I… have no words to justify this. (more…)
Because beds are overrated.
A post to come later on all the craftyness that we have been up to, but how about a couple links in the mean time?
One of my favorite daily doodle sites (This is my wallpaper right now)
I’m going to a wine tasting here tonight! (A suprise, since Tom just won a raffle from his job. I.. uh.. need to take a shower. And not be pregnant so I can guzzle wine. Hmmm)
This is horribly creepy (and mind numbing) but Ella loves it. We just watched it 5 times. Save me.
Our family, as envisioned by Ella, and this site.
