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.