Feeling Happy!

With the nonsense from the last post firmly in the past, I have been so happy lately! Thank you for all of your very kind comments. They made me feel much better!

I've been busy! I took some pictures of Mimsey for Father's day... Of course I had to make the costumes...

This is my little Garden Fairy. I totally dig the lavender and brown tutu, they look so great on Mimsey... The garden is another matter all together. Uh, please don't notice my functional, but not so pretty mess I've got growing out back... At least the basil is doing well.

And the little cherry dress pattern I got out of Heather Ross's Weekend Sewing book. What a delightful book!!! I had never worked with elastic thread before, but now I'm hooked. This is the 2nd little dress I've made for Mims, and I've got one in the works for 4th of July. She loves them because they're roomy and light and easy to play in. I dig them because everyone who knows how sewy crafty I am still is impressed when I tell them I made her dress... And it's soooo easy. Yay me!

Anyway, if you've got a spare hour (!) and a little one that would like a new summer dress, I totally recommend Weekend Sewing.

p.s. There's a little matching bloomers pattern in there as well. So cute!!

Mid-life Crisis at 30

Okay, so I'm slightly older than that, but only by four years. But I am having a mid-life crisis. I had a terrible confrontation with someone that I trusted this week, and she said some things that I consider unforgivible, including "I used to think you were so amazing for being strong while you were fighting cancer, but now I think that it's because there's something wrong with you and you need therapy."

Hmmm. That was the LEAST offensive thing she said.

It came as a complete shock, and when she wasn't making fun of me, or making me feel small because she's a doctor and I'm a stay-at-home-mom, she was insulting me by repeatedly telling me I needed therapy. When I asked her not to talk to me like that, she told me I was "deflecting" because I didn't want the focus on me. Ugh.

Vent over. So, that conversation pretty much rocked me to my core. Mostly because what she said wasn't true, and I know in my head it isn't true, but in my secret heart I sometimes worry that it's true. You know the place, right? The one that listens to other people's opinions, and judges you to be lacking because you don't look like a supermodel? The one that says mean things that guilt you into doing something you don't want to do? Am I alone here? Anyway, I feel like I was preyed upon, and the old me shattered from the pressure. I am lucky I got home safely, since I was crying and emotionally a wreck.

But, it has gotten me to thinking about what I am willing to accept and what I have accepted for too long because I thought that was all I deserved. What my life has become, since I stopped believing I could change it. My dear, sweet Jake patiently listened to me as I was explaining that I wasn't going to try to "compete" anymore with the snobby playgroup moms, whether for amazing parenting, or being thin and perfect. I declared that I was not going to be "generic" and "Just Like Everyone Else"! When I was done, he looked at me and smiled, saying. "You, my love, are a rare jewel. Why would you ever want to be a plain old diamond like everyone else?"

Did I mention how much I love that man?

My friend Claire died last week of cancer. She was strong and brave and fought very hard, until she was so weak and tired that she couldn't hold on anymore. What it takes to fight something so scary and big and unpredictable is an inner strength and mental fortitude that obviously my friend knows nothing about. It is not weakness to be strong. We don't need therapy to get in touch with our inner feelings about the unfairness of it all. We need to get in touch with our inner Buffy the Vampire Slayer, and Ripley from Alien, and Sarah Connor from the Terminator movies. My Dad's favorite movie quote of all time is from Predator, and it's when Jesse Ventura says,"I ain't got time to bleed." Well, I ain't got time to cry, 'cause I've got to go kick some ass.

And my friend to the curb.

Crazy Weekend...

So, as you know, Jake works Tues-Sat. This gives us a delightful Monday of weekend every week, so while the rest of the world is hard at work we are still playing. This weekend was extra wonderful, since last week was sooooo long (extra work day and extra OSHA training hours, ugh!). Yippee! I got so much accomplished...

First: This is the patio behind our back door. It has been used for storage for as long as we have lived here. This weekend it was transformed into a play area for me and Mims...

BEFORE

It doesn't look much different now, but I spent hours pulling weeds from between the bricks. We found 3 potato bugs living out there, and a bag of raw compost from last year which almost made Jake throw up when he opened the bucket! Ahahahaha!!! (I shouldn't get so much glee from that!)

AFTER

(Mims and my Grandma are enjoying the warm afternoon!)

Notice the tutus hanging for easy access, the fancy leopard print chair (another project this weekend!) and yup, my birthday banner. It will become a more inviting space as I get the couches from the storage unit, put in a place for us to draw and paint and glitter to our hearts content, and plant some flowers. But Mims decorated with sidewalk chalk so the bricks are very fancy now.

Mims really liked sitting in her comfy chair on the patio today! She picked roses and I made them into a crown for her. Aww! Isn't she beautiful? Where did my tiny baby go???!

Okay, so the other thing I got done this weekend was so cool I can hardly stand it. I made matching Mimsey and Mommy ladybug backpacks from a pattern by Sew Spoiled. They are ridiculously cute, and not one person who saw them asked if I had made them. (This is HUGE for me, as everyone knows how crafty-do-it-myselfy I am. Hell, even when I buy stuff, I get asked if I made it. Jake says I should take it as a compliment, but it's vaguely insulting in my mind... ) Anyway, the first pic is my bag, and the second Jake took when we went to lunch yesterday. I am thrilled with how they turned out.

Hey! If you're into that sort of thing I am totally rockin' my Bumpits in this picture! LOL!! Even Mommys need to feel pretty sometimes... ;D

Fancy Mimsey?

We are obsessed with Fancy Nancy around here. Yes, truely we, as I love her as much (or maybe more?) than Mimsey does! We have been fancying everything around here, Mimsey's special pink sippy cup/sport bottle thingie, dressing her up so that she is fancy when we read, making fancy new backpacks... We are very, very posh (a fancy word for fancy). So, I was reading Mims "Fancy Nancy: Explorer Extrordinare" and in the book Nancy and Bree have an outdoor bedsheet playhouse that is so adorable that I squeeked when I saw it.

Obviously, Mimsey cannot live another day without one.

So I dragged my mom out to several thrift stores today looking for "just right" fancy sheets for the new playhouse. To my delight, Mimsey found a stuffed rocking armchair that she thought she should have so that Grandma could read her stories. It's a little grubby, but a nice leopard print sheet will cover up any apple juice stains from the past, and add some ribbon, and that's a pretty awesome reading chair.

Of course Mims is still obsessed with mermaids. She takes mermaid bubble baths every night, and serves the finest bubble tea in all the world (all the mermaids agree). And if you ask her, mermaids have hair that smells like coconuts. Really. Ask her. :D She is so awesome, that tiny girl of mine. Anyway, my point was that now the playhouse is not enough, because it will not be addressing her love of mermaids, but I do have an outdoor popup canopy that would be perfect to put a wading pool under and decorating to create a Mermaid Lagoon. Yes, I'm that Mommy. LOL!!!

So yippee for an awesome day, and with the next two days off, Jake gets to help me begin to put it together. I will take pictures so you can see the progress along the way. Uh, it's going to need a lot of progress....

High Holy Day?

Jacob and I joke that his religion is Geek. We go to the "Church of Geek" for Geek holidays, like opening days of big-ass geeky movies (Watchmen? Star Trek? He's gearing up for Transformers 2...) , or pretty much any Wednesday for new comics. He tells me that I must respect his religion and not mock it. Lately, to me, it's as good a religion as any.

Well, I honestly thought that I didn't have a church, until lo and behold, I do. The United Church of Crafting. And today was the holiest of holy days. Sew Mama Sew! is hosting the mother of all giveaways. I have spent the last 4 hours looking at new blogs, entering into giveaways, and enjoying my religion. My eyes are bleary, but I've seen the light! I have to go to bed now, but I will be up early to continue the fun. Pop over and see what I'm talking about, the giveaways are open for another 2 days. So much cool stuff out there, and really neat ideas. I am weeping with joy!!!

xoxoxo Jaime

Quilting

I have been working on the quilt-along that Elizabeth from Oh Fransson! put up. It is an exceptional tutorial, and I wish it had been there when I was trying to teach myself to quilt a year and a half ago. My oldest and dearest friend is married to the most delightful quilter who bravely tried to show me the ropes after I begged and pleaded after seeing her amazing quilts. She lent me some books, and helped me put my 1st (and only, the 2nd never did get it's binding on) quilt together. But what I really learned that weekend was that not everyone has the right personality to be a quilter. I am not one of the lucky.

First off, I am a knit/sew/create with purpose kind of gal. While I enjoy all of it, none of it, (and family members take note because I'm going to repeat myself) NONE of it is relaxing to me. I power through it because I really want to wear the scarf that I'm knitting, or I want to dress Mimsey in the cute outfit I'm sewing, or I can't afford to buy Christmas presents because we declared bankruptcy and I don't have credit cards anymore... Ouch, that last part was a little sadder than I meant for it to be. Anyway, the point is, I don't sew because it's a lovely way to spend an afternoon. I sew because I want a quilt and can't afford Pottery Barn prices...

Second, I don't enjoy housework. Again, I think there are two types of people, the ones who can't relax until the room is clean, and the kind that can only relax if there's a little clutter around. I am not saying that I don't enjoy a clean house, but I am more than happy to let the housekeeper (a perk that I very much enjoy because someone else pays for it) do it. Quilting is all about ironing. Precision, and ironing. Precision, ironing, and very careful sewing. And a lot of threads that have to be trimmed off, and wind up on my shirt, the floor, the dog, and a handful in Mimsey's hair. Every single strip has to be ironed. They don't spell it out for you in the quilting books, or perhaps it's just that they don't emphasize it, but I will. Sew a seam, get up and iron. Pick up the threads that fell on the floor. Try not to step on the dog or toddler. Sit back down and sew another seam. Keep the toddler from pulling the ironing board over. Get up and iron. Pick up more threads, which is weird, because there are more threads on the floor this time than I have even cut...

Partner all of this "fun" with the fact that I am not a precision cutter. I am a "close-enough" kinda gal. The projects that I do, for the most part, do not depend on the precise nature of my cutting. Quilting does. Cut one piece too small and you are screwed. Sew them together with a seam that's slightly larger or smaller than the pattern calls for and you're screwed. The other day as I was complaining to Jake, he said that I should be grateful that I'm living in the era of rotary cutters and clear rulers, since in the past all of the quilt pieces had to be cut out by scissors. He then went on to weave a story about elderly Amish women and the length of their hair being a sign of their scissor cutting skills, which is where he lost me and I changed the subject because he was getting too silly.

So, pretty much, the quilt that took everyone else a week to put together, I am still trying to make work. Someday I hope to post a picture of it, which will make you laugh because I have had to deviate from the pattern and blaze a new trail, which means that the quilt looks only vaguely like the cute one that Elizabeth designed. But it will be just as warm.

Dumb Computer

I feel bad that I haven't posted in a couple of weeks. My computer's backlight died again, and I just can't seem to find the time to come up here and use the "big" computer. But, on the upside, I have completed a bunch of projects...

I've rediscovered my love of painting, so I've been working on some tiny Shag/Coop/Classic Pinup inspired pieces to use as magnets or (the really awesome ones) as pendants. I've been covering them in resin, and they are turning out very cool.

I got a chance to sew last weekend, and that was cool too. Made Mims a bunch of stuff, and a got a couple of aprons done for Mom's Day...