A Revolution in Resolutions

I love New's Resolutions. And I rarely keep them.

I usually set broad goals like "lose weight" and specific ones like "write for 2 hours per week." But the goals usually span most of my life areas: health, family, work, and church.

This year, I decided to hone my focus to one area of my life that I don't attend to enough: quilting/sewing/crafting (QSC).  QSC not only brings me joy but also helps me to get more joy out of life in general. This past year, especially the last 4 months, I did almost no QSC. After some reflection, I determined there are three reasons.

1. My church calling took A LOT of my time. 

2. My hobby room is disorganized and overfull (it doubles as my clothes closet).

3. I spend too much time doing other less fulfilling time-sinks (time-sinks are things that take time and seem to collapse in on themselves, taking even more time; social media is a good example of this; I log on to check Facebook, and then I'll check my blogs, and then I'll hop on over to Pinterest, and then visit interesting blogs, and then...and then...you get the idea.)

Those time-sinks kept me from making these for the women in my life for Christmas. 

The scissors are nice ones that I bought at Costco, and I figured out the pouch design all on my own (though I still can't decide if I should add a loop on the back to hang the pouch. It has a soft fleece lining and a ribbon closure (that I think I'll change to button-and-loop). Anyway, it didn't happen. Sadness. (That potholder that I use as a mug rug was a gift from Alamosa Quilter Lynn: LOVE HER!)

My lack of time spent on QSC was disappointing not just because I didn't get those Christmas presents made but because I missed out on an ongoing activity that renews and recharges me. QSC helps me fulfill my creative urges, create beauty in my life, and calms and centers me. 

The interesting aspect of those 3 reasons is that I have plenty of time to available to QSC, but I need to reallocate that time so that I can QSC.

In retrospect, when I think of 2013, I don't get an overall happy, satisfied vibe in any area, neither work nor personal, and I think my lack of time spent on QSC is a contributing factor. I'm going to change that.

2014 is going to be a QSC year.  I resolve to spend more time on quilting/sewing/crafting. 

If there is one think I know about behavior change, it's that just resolving to do something isn't enough (though it helps tremendously to actually write goals down). So, I took those 3 reasons and began making changes to keep those things from consuming my time.

1. I delegated my church duties to my committee. I am one of those people who thinks mot many people can do it better than me (except in the area of QSC; I am neither extremely skilled nor particularly gifted in this area, but I do enjoy it). Even so, I didn't have a committee to speak of to delegate to anyway, so I clamored for that, got a committee and just spent a few days orienting the committee leader and gave her a slew of to-do items.

2. I am working on getting my hobby room cleaned-out, de-cluttered, and organized. One things I did was buy an IKEA shelf to put my QSC projects in so that they are readily accessible yet "put away." Talk about a time-sink: I had leftover paint from a church activity and so I decided to paint it. This is what it looks like in the catalog. 

Boring white.

I knew painting laminate would be a challenge. So I researched it and landed upon a plan. A later blog post will detail that. But here is the finished project.

In short, it chips easily and unless you are a meticulous painter (I am not) every error will show. I don't much care. I'm on my way to organization. This product is now on sale for IKEA Family members (a promotional thing like grocery stores do) so there may be more of these in my future but I doubt I will take the time to paint another one.

3. This one is harder. The habit I have gotten into is to plop down in front of the t.v. with my computer at the end of the day, do a little work, and then reward myself with social media time. I'm going to try spending an hour of that time sewing, maybe while Rhett is getting BonnieBlue ready for bed, that way the sewing machine won't bother anyone. It's likely that I will be enjoying myself so much that I will spend more than an hour. This change alone would result in probably 300 hours more of sewing time than I spent last year. I could certainly get all of my project goals completed in 300 hours!

Here are my project goals:

1. Finish my Summer Sky quilt. My inspiration is my niece's quilt:

She took up quilting just this past year and has been incredibly productive and has created some beautiful quilts. This one in particular caught my eye. I tend towards quilts that don't require me to buy a pattern, and I was able to figure out one for this one pretty easily. I named it Summer Sky because that is exactly what I think of when I see this quilt. I've already spend more time on it in 2014 than I did in all of 2013.

I have enough fabric for a full size and a twin, or one queen. I'd love this quilt for our bed; I bought a faux-down duvet at IKEA that is, yes, boring white, and it would make great batting for this. Has anyone thought about using duvet-like blankets as "batting"? It's cheaper than batting. My only concern is the loft. I quilt my own and I'm not sure it would be easy to get through the machine. 

2. A denim quilt. I've been saving my jeans for a couple of years now. It's time. Something like this from instructables:

  

I don't necessarily want a show piece (not that any of my quilts are). Instead, I want something that can be used outside or at the drive-in that I won't care if it gets ripped or dirty. And this one is easy. Any other ideas?

3. A ribbon holder. I've got wood blocks and a bunch of ribbon. It can't be that hard. The ones you can buy at Joann's have horrible reviews. Seriously, it just can't be that hard.

4. I've been wanting to make my younger sister a quilt of baby clothes I've saved since her 2 girls were about 10. I have her baby clothes because she saved a lot of them and then gave them to me about 7 years ago when we adopted BonnieBlue. I save a bunch of the ones she gave me because I remembered her kids so clearly in them. And then I found adorable pig-themed flannel for the backing. My sister likes pigs. Now that her kids are 14 and 16, it might be time to make this. My goal this year is to get all the clothes cut into squares and strips and stabilizer ironed on them. Piecing and quilting it are next year's projects.

5. I found this at crazylittleprojects.com and thought it would make great baby shower gifts!

 Costco baby wipes are the best, but they come Costco-sized and won't fit in regular-sized wipe bags. This one is designed specifically for Costco-sized wipes! We have about 25 women having babies in our ward (church congregations). I thought it would be nice to make these as a gift from the Relief Society presidency (of which I am a member). More personal than just the wipes and more affordable than giving them an entire case of baby wipes (about $19 for 10 packs).

Well, there you have it, my resolutions! If I keep these I am hopeful that I will be happier, more productive, a better mom and wife, and more dedicated to work because I am being fulfilled in this area.  Here's to 2014 and more QSC!

Hi, My Name is Scarlett, and I Am Addicted to Fabric

Maureen at Maureen Cracknell Homemade is having another fabric give-away.

First, I think she should change the name of her post today to Friday Fabric Give-Away. I think it sounds/ better than Fabric Giveaway Friday. Alliteration is pleasing!

Second, Blogger is being a butthead again. I can't click into the 'compose' box to type, which means the only way to start a new post is to enter a link or a insert a picture. And once I'm in the compose box, I can only maneuver using the arrow keys; my mouse won't work. Pain in the patootie! Hence, the only time lately I am motivated enough to post something when there's a fabric give-away involved because...fabric!

I am loving me some fabric.

I am making a summery-beachy white quilt with blue-ish, aqua-ish, teal-ish, and light green-ish colors and have been having so much fun buying fabric from The Intrepid Thread. Not only is it my favorite online fabric store, it is my only online fabric store. Such a wonderful selection, and until she opened a brick-and-mortar, SUPERB personalized customer service. Now it is only great customer service. But that's about 10 times better customer service than I get from any other store (online or brick-and-mortar), so I am NOT complaining.

Anyway, Maureen's give-away is sponsored by the Thread, hence this blog post. It gets me another entry. And I'm an addict, so I do what I gotta' do for my fix.

Fabric Give Away

Maureen over at Handmade
is having a fabric give-away.

Often, these bloggers will allow an extra entry if you blog about their give-away as this will increase their traffic.

Unfortunately, I have all of 3 followers so it doesn't do Maureen any good for me to blog about it, but I still am.

The fabrics are from Julie at The Intrepid Thread and I don't normally enter these give aways from blogs I don't already follow but I fell in love with this fabric colorway:

I love it because my niece, Rita, who just started quilting about a year or so, just finished this quilt:

I really want to make one like this. I just love the colors and the Simply Style aqua and lime colorway would be perfect for it!

Aghast, I Say!

Last week during the last day of summer term, I was giving a lecture on Performance Feedback Systems (also known as Public Posting). 

I gave a few examples about how public posting is used in society, such as when workplaces post those "44 Days Without An Accident" signs;

organizations use huge, fake, wooden thermometers to track and display funds raised for something; and police departments place electronic speed monitoring and display devices in target enforcement zones to slow down drivers.

As a fun segue to how public posting should be used in the classroom, I was going to point out that Hogwarts had a public posting system. Whenever a Hogwarts teacher gave or took points from a House based on the appropriate or inappropriate behavior of a student in that house, that same number of marbles appeared in or disappeared from large jars in a common space in the school.

I cannot for the life of me recall if this was in just the books, just the movies, or both. So, before I began using this fabulous example, I asked who in the class had read the Harry Potter books.

Only one student raised her hand.

I'm still aghast. 

Careful What You Wish For!

Way past time for a new post!

I think blogging has lost its allure for me. Maybe. Or maybe it's just a lack of topics. My life is boring.

Last week had an interesting occurrence, though.

I picked BB up from half-day summer camp to take her to her reading tutoring session, and when she got in the car, she looked at me all sad-and-puppy-dog-eyed and told me she didn't want to go to tutoring. Usually she likes it, so I was surprised to hear that. I acknowledged her comment, but I think she wanted to push the point and said something to effect of "I wish I didn't have to go to tutoring."

But on we went. Got on the expressway to travel across town, and took a (long curving mile-long) ramp to exit one freeway to get on another.

Just ahead I saw billowing smoke. A semi-truck was on fire, and traffic had slowed to a crawl to get around him. We were just 8 cars away when a squad car pull in front of traffic to halt the attempt of cars to pull around the truck. All in all, a smart move. One should not try to pass a semi-truck on fire. But the downside? We were stuck.

And it looked like this.

And then it looked like this:

And then the smoke got thicker:

At this point I began to worry that the truck might explode. I had no idea what was burning, and I began to worry if we were breathing toxic fumes.

Seven years ago it would have been an annoying adventure. With a 6.5YO in the car, it was more like a "should-I-abandon-my-car-on-the-freeway-ramp-to-get-as-far-away-as-possible-in-order-to-protect-my child?" adventure.

We were stuck there on the ramp for about 30 minutes when it became apparent that the police had also been thinking along the lines of "get as far away as possible" because they did something I had never seen before on a highway: They had closed off the ramp at the entrance point and began turning us all around to go the wrong way back to the entrance to get on the other freeway.

At some point during our "adventure," I turned to BB and told her it looked like were weren't going to make it to tutoring. I asked her if she knew why. Of course, she knew it was the burning truck, but I reminded her that she had wished not to go to tutoring. Her eyes got big as she realized what I was saying.

I (mockingly) sternly told her that she had to be careful what she wished for. And then I smiled at her. She thought a minute and smiled back.

Yesterday, when I picked her up from her half-day summer camp to go to tutoring, she got into the car, looked at me, and said, "I wish I didn't have to tutoring" and giggled.

It's moments like these that I love being a mom.

BEST Oatmeal Raisin Cookie. Ever.

Occasionally, I peruse the pantry for open items that will deteriorate if not used used up. Those items may determine what I will make for dinner or what treats I will make and take to an upcoming event.

This week, I noticed an open bag of raisins that would certainly go to waste because no one in this house eats raisins much. I can't even remember why I bought them. But there were a lot of them because I bought them at Costco.

And then there is this:

That's 20 lbs. of quick oats my friend. Twenty pounds.

Though the shelf life of this (and most unopened Thrive products) is 25 years, the shelf life after opening it is 1 year. I can't remember when I opened it, but I'm guessing it's been about 6-9 months. And I'm pretty sure I only used a cup or two.

Time to make something with oatmeal.

I wanted to make a treat for a baptism on Saturday. No brainer. Oatmeal Raisin Cookies!

I went to my trusty, tried, and true resource, the Better Homes and Garden Cookbook. I don't know why, because for the past 3-4 years, I pretty much use the Internet for any recipe. Except chocolate chip cookies (saving that for another post).

What resulted was a batch of the worst tasting, worst looking, nastiest bleh cookies I have ever had the misfortune of passing down my gullet.

Okay, I guess they don't look that bad, but they taste, well, not nasty but definitely bleh.

Made the whole darn batch even though I could tell right off they weren't right. I should have known from the recipe. It called for baking powder. The ratio of butter to flour was way off. And no salt. No salt! The horror.

I wanted to try again because now I had a hankering for oatmeal raisin cookies. Yesterday, on my daily visit to Pinterest, I found what looked to be a great recipe. I went to the site of smitten kitten.

Her take on oatmeal raisin cookies is right. on. the. mark. Bullseye. Go there. Out of respect, I'm not even going to print the recipe here or use her pictures. GO THERE!

She is a cookie goddess.

She started with the Quaker Oats box recipe and made it better.

But what is absolutely amazing is I made it EVEN BETTER. Me!
How? I added coconut. Also, I used butter flavor Crisco. And pecans instead of walnuts, though I only used half of what the recipe called for.

I'm telling you, these cookies are TO. DIE. FOR. Exclamation point.

 

As promised by smitten kitten, they are crispy on the outside, chewy-gooey on the inside.

They are so good, I ate a half dozen. That's so bad because I started Weight Watchers 2 weeks ago and have lost 4.4 pounds and was doing great this week until tonight.

6 cookies was too many.

4 would have satisfied just fine.

In Plain Sight

I love almost everything about my husband. Even those pesky quirks.

Like this one: I don't know how many times a week I hear, "Honey, do you know where the ____ is?!" I'm pretty sure that's a married guy thing. I certainly remember my father hollering this out to my mother regularly. And I've heard friends' husbands say it.

In my husband's case, the most frequent scenario in which I hear the aforementioned phrase is when the 'fridge is open. And usually, all it would take for him to find the desired item is to move something out of the way. Or look on the lower shelf. Can I hear an "amen," sisters?

Also (and somewhat related), is the fact that he will rarely eat fruits and vegetables unless reminded to and when placed in close proximity to his mouth, but other than a regular banana at breakfast time, he is not much known for exerting any kind of energy to ingest them.

Took me awhile, but I now use these "quirks" to my advantage.

I've shared in earlier posts my addiction to Diet Coke. Though I don't believe my husband shares this addiction, he does have an addictive personality, which manifests in, well, let's say a "more is more" (as opposed to "less is more") attitude. In short, my husband has no concept of portion control. A few cookies? No, the entire box. A couple of slices of pizza? No, the entire pizza. One glass of the diet coke from the 2 liter bottle? No, the entire 2 liters.

The result is that I must hide the diet coke. I like to think I hide it to protect him from himself. But really, it annoys the bejeebers out of me to reach for my mood-enhancing d.c. at about 10:45 a.m. to find none! Talk about mood-enhancing. Grrrr.

I used to hide it in my hobby room, but he has discovered it, and I had to find a new hiding place.

I found one!

In plain sight.

Does this make me sneaky?

In a bad way?

More Birthdays!

I met my friend, Lynn, about 10 years ago. We were in the same church congregation. She and I share a birthday, and I think that was actually the reason we first talked to each other. I immediately liked her, and we discovered we shared other things in common, like our hometowns were about 20 miles apart. Even though she was about 16 years younger, we became fast friends.

She was diagnosed about 14 months ago with the exact same kind of breast cancer I had, yet hers metasticized to her brain and spine. She was only 32 when diagnosed.

I thought I was young when diagnosed; my first diagnosis was when I was 37. I lived to celebrate birthdays 38, 39, 40, etc., until 47, when I was diagnosed with my second "onset." Still, I lived to see my 48th birthday, and I will likely see 49 and many more. *fingers crossed*  *knock on wood* etc. etc.

Lynn won't get to celebrate her 33rd birthday (at least not on earth). She died this past Sunday. Easter Sunday. The irony.

I've heard people describe a deceased person as having been "full of life" and "vivacious." Man oh man, that was definitely Lynn. I always thought of her as a rebel, but not in a bad way (generally and religiously speaking, rebellion is bad). In my mind, I called her the Reverent Rebel. I may have told her that at some point this past year. I hope so.

I've been feeling survivor's guilt all week.

I once heard a speaker at church say that guilt is useless unless it gets us to act. So as I try to figure out what I can/should do, I've found something you can do. 'Cause that's how I roll.

Even though you probably do not know her (I'm having a hard time thinking of her in the past tense), you likely know someone who has, had, or will have cancer. Here's something that you can do that may improve their chances of celebrating more birthdays.

Consider enrolling in the American Cancer Society's research study about cancer prevention. Just consider it.

If you've never been diagnosed with cancer (except skin), you are eligible. They are trying to enroll 300,000 subjects but are about 120,000 short. It is a nationwide study, so it doesn't matter where you are.

If you are in Columbus OH, here is the link:  ColumbusCPS3.org

If you are anywhere else, here is the link for more information: http://www.cancer.org/research/researchprogramsfunding/epidemiology-cancerpreventionstudies/cancerpreventionstudy-3/index

Please just think about doing it.

But not for me.

Think about the one person you love most in this world and consider doing it for that person.

Just in case.

For more birthdays.

Birthdays come with cake. Win win!

Denial and Dyslexia

I've noticed that it's been well over two months since I posted. Not a good track record and not good for people who tune in to see what's up in my life.

Here's an update:

I've been in denial about my child's lack of progress/success in kindergarten. Please don't jump down my throat about development and "every kid is different." I know that. But I also know that Heavenly Father blesses mothers with special "power" regarding their own children. And I've been ignoring what that power has been telling me.

BB's teachers tried to tell me in our first P-T conference in November. I showed a common sign: denial. And kept that denial up until mid-January, our second P-T conference. When her teachers told me that they wanted BB to have a "growth year" (read: hold her back for another year in Kindergarten).

Wake up call!

I've been trying to teach BB her letters and letter sounds since she was three. Yes, we read to her almost every day. We sing. We rhyme. We play word games, matching, I spy, etc. Everything you are supposed to do to build up phonemic awarenss. My child knows 4-6 letters and 3-4 letter sounds depending on the day. She knows some one day, can't remember those same ones the next day. Class signs of dyslexia.

I had her informally tested by a friend who runs the reading clinic at my university employer's main. The CTOPP (Comprehensive Test of Phonological Processing) is one of the many tests used in combination to diagnose dyslexia. BB scored really, really low. The result of this one test is far from a definite diagnosis, but it's another sign, that when put together, points in the direction of dyslexia.

At about this time (January 1), I (and all my higher ed colleagues) found about about a law that the State of Ohio just passed that mandates that beginning in 2014, every teacher who earns a teaching license in the state of Ohio must have a reading class about teaching students with dyslexia. I immediately let my coordinator know I want to teach that class. And then I immediately began taking the training required to teach kids with dyslexia to read.

Dual purpose fueled by the power that makes mama bears tear apart any one who gets in between her and her cubs. This might be a good time to indicate that reading instruction is not my area of specialty.

The hallmark of effectively teaching children with dyslexia to read involves systematic, explicitic instruction in combination with a multisensory structural language instruction approach. I've got the first half of that and am learning the other half.

So, things got interesting when, two weeks ago, my coordinator called a meeting with me and the reading instructor for our regional campus and told us that she wanted to start a reading clinic at our campus in order to address the need that the 3rd grade reading guarantee has produced. She wants us to offer a reading endorsement because our campus doesn't offer one and if teachers in our area want one, they have to go to a "competitor" or main campus. Generally, teachers in our area won't drive as far as main campus, so our competitors are getting the business.

I understood that I was in that meeting because I want to teach the aforementioned dyslexia class, which is a part of the reading endorsement.

And then she dropped the bombshell. She wants me to run the clinic and teach the clinic class. (Oh, I should probably mention that the reading guy isn't tenure track, so technically, I outrank him even though he has about 100 more years of experience).

Um. Excuse me?

Yes, I want to teach this class and run this clinic. But it's a lot of work, and much of it will be uncompensated. And I have a child that needs to be taught how to read, requiring lots of tutoring from a trained tutor (no, not the ones that will be tutoring in the clinic...they won't have the skills yet).

I am remind of a quotation from a leader in our church. I'm paraphrasing here, but it's something like, "No amount of success outside of the home can compensate for failure inside the home." So, yes, I want to save the world (our country?) by getting teachers trained to teach children with dyslexia how to read.

But I need to take care of my child first.

The hard decisions in life are never about a choice between a good option and a bad one. They seem to always be about a choice between a good choice and a better one.

Ugh. Being grown up is hard.

So, that's what I've been up to.

One of the Many Reasons a Credit Union is Better than a Bank

On December 18, I came home to this on the porch:

This was was that red lettering said:

This was what was inside that brown box:

This is what the card said:

And THIS was inside!

How cool is it that not only our credit union so appreciates our business that they send us a REALLY useful gift for the holidays but that they also know us well enough to know we hadn't wrapped a single gift a week before Christmas!

Customer for life.

Spider Story Update

The post dated September 11, 2012  (it seemed like years ago, for as long as it's been since I posted) and A Couple of Half-baked Thoughts and a Spider Story was about the end result of some sort of insect bite I received in early August. I am now scarred for life. I am not kidding. Not pretty.

I ended up seeing the doctor about a week later simply because some lymph nodes on my head and neck on the same side as the spider bite were swollen. After having had another lymphectomy, I didn't want to take any chances. The doctor immediately diagnosed the bites as spider bites and prescribed antibiotics, steroids, and topical cortizone.

I have since done HOURS AND HOURS of Internet research on spider bites and have learned that spider bites are extremely difficult to diagnose unless you catch the spider in the act and most doctor-diagnosed spider bite are usually something else.

Almost as soon as I began using the topical cortizone, the skin at the site of the bites became necrotic. It wasn't until weeks later, too late to do anything about it actually, that I remembered that one of my professor colleagues is a spider researcher.

I showed him the bites and he said in no uncertain terms, "Not a spider bite."

I asked him if it would do any good to bring him a spider specimen. That man got positively giddy. That is why he is known as "Spiderman" by this students, I guess.

We've seen numerous spiders, unfortunately in BonnieBlue's room, and it seemed logical that if I was bitten by a spider it was one of the many we've been seeing. I killed two before I remembered I was supposed to get an undamaged specimen.

The fated day came, and according to Spiderman's directions, we caught one in a small jar, filled it with isopropyl alcohol, and put him in the freezer until I could take him in.

Spiderman identified the little hairy intruder thusly: definitely a male sheet-web spider (Family Agelenidae), probably of the species Agelenopsis pennsylvanica.  This is a spider common to Ohio (and Pennsylvania, I would assume), and he indicated that there was little or no chance that it gave me the awful scar I now sport. Spiderman also offered that what happened to me looked just like what happens as a result of staph infection.

So, tens of more hours on the Internet, and I was convinced. I either contracted the staph at the doctor's office, or from the topical cortizone, or carried it home with me from the hospital when I had a mastectomy. Another friend told me that staph is commonly found in horse barns; that is consistent with an insect bite from the garden as we fertilize with horse manure.

So, mystery solved, at least in my head. I am styling my hair so that the forehead scar is hidden and the nose bridge scars are fading. I may be beautiful again someday.

Barbie Musketeer for Halloween 2012

Seemed like a good idea to combine these two posts, given the topics.

First Halloween.

How cute is this?!

I was inspired by these.

Google really is the end-all-be-all for creating Halloween costumes. I found this picture when I Googled "Barbie Musketeer tutorial," which took me to Brown Paper Packages, a blog by a woman who made these great Barbie Musketeer costumes for her kids a couple of  years ago and posted a tutorial.

I gave myself permission to NOT be supermom and instead improvise as needed. I cannot actually sew very well, so the first things to go were the skirt and shirt. Target's clearance rack provided a $2.40 skirt that I added a $2.00 ruffle to (for a petticoat; didn't turn out so well and BonnieBlue was visibly and verbally disappointed in it). She already had the shirt. This woman (a.k.a. SuperCostumeMakerMom) made the hats, corsets, and boots. I improvised on all three: 1) The corset I made had no rouching on the back but I'm planning to add that; I didn't have elastic thread and didn't have time to go out and get some; 2) I bought a pink cowboy hat at Target for $8 and a fake feather at Michael's for $3; and 3) The boots were duct-tape over boots she never wears.

The whole point of this post (except, of course, to show off my child) is to share the idea she came up with for making boots. She made them like this:

1. Have child put on an old pair of ballet-type Mary Janes (they'll never be able to be worn again, fyi)
2. Pull on a pair of old knee socks over them.
3. Duct-tape from shoe to top of sock.
4. Cut off down the center using a pair of surgical scissors.

Somewhere in there she also added the boot cuff, but again, I improvised because I didn't have time. I was sewing right up until it was time to leave for the church Halloween party.

But man-oh-man, I thought this was brilliant! What a great way to make any kind of costume shoe!

Unfortunately, BonnieBlue was would have nothing to do with me duct-taping her lower let. So here's what I did:

I took a pair of boots her older cousin gave her that she won't wear and stuffed a pair of my winter socks in the shoe part, one in the toe and one in the heel. Then I placed a water bottle in the shaft of the boot.

Then I started duct-taping, starting at the toe and working my way up.

Using both sturdy all-purpose scissors and fabric scissors, I cut them down the middle. I added duct tape to the open ends that I had just cut, and then added another piece on each side so that the tape extended out beyond the boot, giving me enough room to add some eyelets. 



Added some gold trim bought by the yard at JoAnns for a couple of bucks.

Again, she wasn't too thrilled with the boots, but several of the little girls at the Halloween party were ga-ga over them and asked where she got them. Unfortunately for me, no glowing-child-response of "My mom made them!"  Oh well.

All in all, about a 20 dollar costume, that she didn't hate too badly.

As Halloween approached she did say over and over again that she wanted to be Jewel (the female bird in Rio). I agonized over not making the costume that she really wanted, but I couldn't  figure out a way to do it that would be...well, doable.

I'm not all that bummed that she wasn't as excited as I had hoped she would. I'm pretty sure she got the message that I wanted her to: We don't buy pre-packaged, crappy costumes. We buy a few accessories and make our own crappy costumes!

Goals Lunch & The Lean

Time for a post, and I've got just the topic to keep me at it for many weeks.

I work in higher ed, a job requiring a lot of self-discipline in order to get research and writing done so that I can get published so that I can get satisfactory annual reviews in order to keep my job.

I have absolutely no self-discipline. If it weren't for the strategies based on the principles of behavior that I apply in my life, this would be me.

Picture from affordablehousinginstitute.org. Where they stole it from I have no idea.

Only those cans would be Diet Coke cans and those chips would be in the bag. Because who bothers with portion control when eating chips? Not me. And apparently not this cat, as that is way more than one portion there, Puss.

As evidence of my lack of self-discipline, I am blogging on a Monday afternoon instead of working on the aforementioned research and writing. One could argue that I'm doing it on my lunch hour. But professors do not get lunch hours.

I'm not complaining though. I leave work three days a week at 2:30 to pick up my 5YO from school. Okay, I then work 2 days a week from 9 a.m. to 10 p.m. straight through to make up for those 3 days, but hey, my point here is that I have a very flexible schedule.

OFF TOPIC! See, no self-discipline!

Back to my original topic...

Others in my profession seem to need some sort of structure as well to get things done, so a few colleagues and I have started a goals lunch group. We meet for lunch once a week and set goals for the week. Whoever doesn't meet their goals has to buy lunch for everyone else. Your goals are totally up to you, and it's the honor system for reporting.

Last year I was pretty listless about the whole procedure, so this year I added a "public posting" component and everyone agreed to join me, so now we write our goals on a big post-it and report whether we completed them.


It's a nice weekly get-together with colleagues and friends. The punishing nature of buying lunch usually does a pretty good job of keeping me on track with my goals, and the public posting provides a forum for me to "reward myself with a check," which is usually enough of a reinforcer (in combination with the punishment)  to keep me honest and "motivated" (not a word we behaviorists like but it works for me here).

I'll have to ask them, but I think this will be our 7th year of doing Goals Lunch. I got tenure, so I guess it's working for me overall. Though one year, I had to buy lunch about 14 times.

This year we've added to new members to the Core Group, including Melly, who I'm sure I've mentioned before. Smartest person I know and kind as they come. But with an edge. I like that in a person.

In the interest of keeping with my Gone With the Wind theme, the other two Core Group members shall be known as Suellen and India. This year we have 2 new additions, K1 and K2 (I can only take the GWTW theme so far before it becomes taxing).

Soooooooooooooooo....

Melly and I decided we are going to "do" this book:

In a nutshell, it's a book about "leaning" into veganism.

Let me just unequivocally state right now that I have no intention of giving up meat and dairy completely and forever, but I need to eat healthier and given that I have no self-discipline, I need some structure to do so. This book is more than about veganism; it seems to be (I am only on chapter 4) about living a healthier life.

Anyhoo, Freston lays out a day-by-day plan of making one change a day: 1st day, drink 64 ounces of water; 2nd day, eat a hearty, healthy (no animal products) breakfast; 3rd day, eat an apple, etc. Each day is cumulative (i.e., you do that day's change AND all prior changes).

The idea is to "crowd out" all the bad stuff with good stuff.

Melly and I have made adjustments and our plan is that we are going to do it week-by-week instead of day-by-day. When we get to a daily-weekly goal that we think we are not going to adopt as a permanent part of our lifestyle, we are going to make the adjustment for that week and then agree to do it for a certain number of days per week after. For example, there comes a time in the 30 days-weeks that we are to be totally animal-product-free. So we'll live that week without animal products and then commit to one or two or three days a week of animal-product-free living from then on.

Because we're both behaviorist, we're going to take data on our progress, graph the data, and do some more public posting. I may post here just to keep a record somewhere other than on my computer. (My computer crashed this week and of course, I had not backed up for a few months, so I'm just sick about what I may have lost.) And to shamelessly get some "atta' girl" shout-outs from my 6 blog followers/readers.

Thanks to my blog followers/readers! You're swell!

I'm in week 2 of The Lean, so I'm drinking 64 oz of water per day and eating a hearty, healthy, no-animal-products breakfast every day. In addition, I'm working on reducing my Diet Coke intake by reducing it by 2 oz per week. I started at 20 oz/day (which was a reduction of about half) and this week I'm down to 16 oz/day. I'm also shooting for 26 min of some sort of exercise per day (I started with a goal of about 20 min/day and began adding minutes each week).

So far, I have not had to buy lunch! Yay!

A Couple of Half-Baked Thoughts & A Spider Story

A month is probably too long to go without posting.

If I make pizza every Monday night, she'll grow up loving Family Home Evening.

Am I right?

Those peppers and tomatoes on the pizza are from our garden.

Here's a shot of today's garden harvest.

Fortunately, whatever is eating at the rest of the tomatoes does not seem to like Romas. But we've been able to harvest very few of our Early Girls, Belgian Giants, and the-other-kind-I-can't-think-of-right-now due to the worms and holes. 

Asian lady beetles--or the aphids they are feeding on--ruined about half our green bean crop as well.

We had a great crop of broccoli. In fact, we're about to put in a second planting. Our eggplants and green peppers did well, too. Rhett planted pickling cucumbers but we didn't get enough to make pickling them worth the effort. He also planted the eatin' kind, but we only got 2 or 3 out of that plant.

I wanted to can the green beans and tomatoes, but now that the new school year started, there is no time for that. If we hadn't switched to semesters this year, I'd still be on summer break and could do it. We must keep that in  mind for when we get the plants in next year.

Reader beware of the next few pictures and if you're spider phobic, just leave now.

BonnieBlue took this picture of me tonight when I was cleaning some strawberries for her (definitely her favorite fruit). This will be my "good side" from now on.

Why?

Almost exactly one month ago I was bitten by a spider, while I was sleeping. It happened on a Friday night. I didn't even think it was a spider. I had been picking  tomatoes that evening, so I assumed the bites were mosquito bites. Unusual ones, certainly. By Sunday, one on my nose was swelling to the point of pain and the lymph nodes in two places (forehead and in front of ears) were noticeably swollen. I went to the doctor the next day (Monday) because of those swollen nodes. I took this picture Monday night.

The swollen nodes were of concern because once you have lymph nodes taken out (as I did during both my breast surgeries), you don't mess around when you notice swelling. The doc took one look and said "Those are spider bites." She put me on antibiotics, steroids, and a topical cortisone.

I really wish I would have taken a mid-way point picture, because shortly after the doc visit, the tissue became necrotic (dying!), and I had big black wounds on my face up until 3-4 days ago. The forehead bites became especially ugly.

I've been wearing band-aids because it was so disgusting to look at. I had to wear 2 on the first day of classes!

Two funny things: 1) Our academic unit formed a new department with other units and at the first faculty meeting, it was announced that a photographer had been hired to take our head shots for the new department website. Um, no, not me, thanks. 2) Our PR person called me to say they wanted to do a feature on me for one of the annual publicity brochures they send out to the local community and other campuses and could I do a professional photo shoot the next week? Um, no. I explained to her the situation and she totally understood. She'll call me next year.

The scabs finally fell off a few days ago. Mind you, I never, not once, scratched at these puppies. The scabbing occurred due to the necrosis.

Anyway, here's a shot I took tonight. I actually have divots in my forehead and nose bridge from the bites!

 So how did it happen?

The best that I can figure is that when I was picking tomatoes, I had to stick my head into the plants (we don't prune) and a spider got tangled in my hair. That night, I slept on the couch (this fact is important in a minute), which I often do when I have insomnia. I think the spider was so pissed when it finally got out of my hair that it crawled down my face and bit me a few times, and in my sleep I brushed at it, sweeping it up, and then, pissed again, it bit me there, on my forehead.

Tuesday after the doctor visit, my husband suggested we get rid of the couch, which he has been begging me to do for months, if not years. It's a hand-me down from friends, a great leather couch, and I think it is the most comfy couch EVER, especially to sleep on, but my defenses were down, and truth be told, I have been having visions of painting the living room and getting a new couch. So I caved in.

Together we moved it across the room to take it outside, and a freakishly large spider scurried out from underneath.

And it was not your ordinary-sized house spider (if there is such a thing). It was black/brown and at least an inch or so across. Ugh. Ick. Shudder. It had to be the culprit. Especially because it looked just like the spider that crawled out of the basket of tomatoes that I had picked that Friday night. Only bigger. I killed that basket dweller. I could not get to the couch dweller in time before it disappeared. I couldn't get that couch out of the house fast enough. I had visions of Charlotte's children (re: end of Charlotte's web and the thousands of spiders coming out of that nest/web/cocoon/thingy). Ick. Shudder. Bleh.

So let me bring this story full circle. This morning, BB was being difficult, so I sent her to her room for a time-out. Now, I JUST cleaned that room from top to bottom...LITERALLY...because we're going to have it skim-coated and painted. In addition, time-out is really effective for her because she HATES to be alone. So, when she came tearing out of her room hysterically crying that there was a spider in her room, I didn't believe her.

Shame on me.

It came out into the hallway. The culprit! I shot my foot out but geez! That thing was fast and it scurried into the dining room onto the rug, and I lost it! Ugh. Ick. Shudder.

And we were late for school.

I had to let it be.

Tonight, I came in from harvesting the garden to answer the phone, and there it was, scurrying from the rug to the baseboard on the far side of the room. I had my hiking-stomping boots on now!

Squish.

Normally, I let spiders in the house be because I know they're beneficial (note: the basket-dweller mentioned above was not a house-dweller; I knew it came from outside). Not this one. This one disfigured me.

How badly?

The absolute sweetest man I know is the doc in charge of the ER at our university, and his oldest son is in med school (his family and ours attend the same church). He told Rhett yesterday that I should go see his son in a few weeks, when he's doing his cosmetic surgery rotation.

Ouch.

A Couple of Days of Productivity

I

Love

Making

Bags.


I don't know how long this will last, but I'm going with it.

Here are the teacher bags, all done.

I followed the tutorial at Rachel Griffith's P.S. I Quilt blog. I blogged about it a couple of posts ago: It's a simple tute, though I got bored stiff sewing 1.5 inch strips together for the body so on one I did four different size strips for each side, and on the other I pieced 3 same-size blocks for the sides.

I stuffed them with some Purell foam, Sticky Notes, a pen, a highlighter, tissues, gum, and candy.

I got really good at making these. I even memorized the tutorial. So, even though I've been looking for the perfect bag for my iPad with Otterbox case (seriously, I've spent about 12 hours total searching the web for an easy-enough-for-me pattern/tutorial that has what I want (not picky there, but definitely no rounded corners, pleats, ruffles, etc.), I decided to give this bag a try, making it bigger.

A month or so ago, I bought this fabric at IKEA (at the time, I had NO idea IKEA sold fabric!). It's heavyweight, almost (but not quite) canvas.

I LOVE THIS FABRIC. So much so, I'm afraid to cut it.

So I decided to practice with scrap fabrics, so that I could get all the measurements and adjustments right and written down.

I'm not good at the math involved in increasing fabric cut sizes in patterns and tutes, so I decided to eyeball it.

I had made my sister, a lover of all things pigs, a table topper one Christmas and didn't like how the first one turned out, so I made her another. But I saved the first one.

I put my iPad on it and it seemed like if I cut it in half and put another equal-sized fabric in between, it would be close to the perfect size. AND it would show off the pigs.

The bag is really busy because of all the scraps, but here is as far as I got today.

The bag is sitting on the liner. You can't quite tell, but I decided to sew the handles onto the body of the bag instead of just at the top because of the weight the bag has to hold. An iPad is light, but the case I have adds about a half- to 3/4 pound more so it's almost 3 pounds. I also want to carry a notebook, my wallet, and my phone, so it had to be roomy.

The dimensions so far are 12 inches tall, 16 inches wide, and 3 inches deep. When I make it again, I'm going to knock an inch or so off the sides and decrease the depth to 2 inches. The straps will all be one fabric, too, but I didn't have enough of one fabric to make long enough straps for this practice bag.
Also, I'm dying to try Soft and Stable because the fusible fleece I used for this isn't as sturdy as I'd like it. It doesn't need to be, though, because I'm not looking for protection for the iPad as the Otterbox takes care of that. But still, I'm just not into floppy purses.

You can see on the left of the bag that I have a phone pocket pinned on. I've already changed my mind; I'll put it on the inside of the bag, because then I can just sew it on with the machine without worry about how it will look.

I am also going to put another pocket inside for my glasses, too, which I'm finding I need more and more. *Sigh* I'm not very fond of the aging process. I don't mind losing a breast, but I do mind losing my up-close vision. I'll split sew the pocket so that I can put a pen in the other. How organized am I?

Here are some things I've learned from this practice bag:

1. Make sure the direction of the fabric is correct for the sides (my pigs are upside down on one side, which can't be helped for the practice bag because I had to cut a table topper in half, and I couldn't very well turn the fabric upside down because then the border fabric would be near the bottom instead of the top).

2. Sew the handles on before I piece the two sides onto the bottom and leave a quarter inch hanging over (on the inside, which will be hidden by the lining).

3. Use fusible fleece on the handles. They're a little too floppy for my liking right now.

I'm excited about my practice bag! I think it's going to look quite scrappy when I'm done, imperfections and all.

Now I have to decide which fabric to use on which parts of the bag. Should I do three alternating wide strips on the sides and the striped fabric as the bottom, lining, and handles? I'm not sure about using any white on the bottom because of dirt. I could put feet on the bag to prevent any problems, but that would mean going to JoAnn's before I work on the new bag.

One more look at the choices:

Or, should I use the black fabric as the bottom and make it a little "taller" than the sides (showing it off more), the black-and-white swirly and chevron fabric as the sides, and the white and green fabric as the lining and straps. I could then use the striped fabric for pockets inside. I'm kinda' liking that option.

Or, same as above but having white and green fabric as the side (showing it off more), and the swirly-and-chevron as lining and straps. I'm just not sure how those swirls and chevrons will play on the straps. But I think that fabric won't show dirt from use (oil from my hands, etc.) as much as the white and green.

Help!?

A Homemade Week

This is what I've been doing all week.

Lynd's fruit farm is on my way/way back from work; they have a peach sale every year: $10 a peck when you buy at least 5 pecks. Last week I bought 9 pecks. It took me forever to get around to canning them. In fact, they were so ripe, I had to freeze about 3 pecks so they wouldn't rot before I could can them. I gave some to friends and we ate a bunch, accounting for 1 peck, so I ended up canning 5 pecks. In case you were curious, 1 peck equals about 5 canned quarts and 1 pint. I did a bunch of pints to give away as Christmast presents.

I gotta' tell you (if you don't already know it), Ohio peaches are awesome! We had a bit of a drought this year, which resulted in sweeter-than-usual fruit. Yum, yum, yum. I used the lightest syrup I could because they're so sweet.

We have friends who moved to Florida about 2 years ago, and I really want to visit them this winter or next spring break; if we do, I want to take them about a half dozen jars. Because living on the water is nice, but canned Ohio peaches...ain't nothin' like 'em! Nice gift, eh?

Next bumper crop...

This is the first batch of tomatoes from our garden. I anticipate that we will have about 20 more like this before the end of the summer.

I want to make and can salsa.

Unfortunately, I don't know if we have enough green peppers on the vines left, and the onions came up months ago, so it won't be quite the homegrown effort I anticipated. Still, I'm hunting for good salsa recipes. I think pints of salsa will also make great Christmas gifts.

I've been wanting to make some "butter 'em up" gifts for BonnieBlue's teachers, so I spent a lot of today making these.

I found the free tutorial at P.S. I Quilt. She calls it a friendship bag. Aren't they darling?

I made one for BonnieBlue two weeks ago, when she asked me to make her a purse (my heart leapt at that moment!). I let her pick out most of the fabrics. Did she or did she not pick the absolute cutest stuff!? Truth be told, I already had the fabric for the handles and the green fabrics, but she picked the others. And they were in the clearance bin! Woot!

I realized just now looking at the picture that I didn't stitch around the top of the bag. I also didn't quilt it. That just adds too much time, so instead, I used WunderUnder to stiffen up the fabric. And thanks to my crafting mentor, Mama Pea, I made a few adjustments, including making the straps like she does. One of my favorite of her tips is to use a contrasting thread and lengthen the stitches for a more professional look.

I have one more bag to make (BB has two teachers and an aide...private school; don't judge me). After I was almost finished with the first bag, I was reading her student handbook and noticed that there was a sentence about not giving teachers gifts. My stomach dropped a bit, but when I read on, the sentence ended with "unless homemade." Whew!

I'm also going to make one for a little girl at church who is 10 (BB is 5) but who is awfully kind to BB; she even invited BB to her bday party this week at a fun-n-games place! It was kind of last-minute, so I didn't yet have a chance to get her a gift, so I'm going to make a bag for her and fill it with nail polish, polish remover, and cotton pads. Cute, no?

And at Christmas, I want to make some for my nieces and sisters. But I'm not sure what to fill them with. Any ideas?

I hope this post isn't a hot mess of incomprehsible drivel. For some reason, my excision site is more swollen than usual and hurts a bit, so I took something for that AND melatonin to help me sleep, two things in combination that usually lead to...well, incomprehensible drivel.