happy fargin thanksgiving.

What a rotten day.

I am sick. Like I have a cold.

All I wanted was to sleep in this morning.

But it was not to be.

it wasn’t too long after the hub got up with my son and changed his diaper that the shit started hitting the fan.

A little background. So the first part of this week my son was sick. Then I started coming down with it tuesday night. by yesterday I was feeling pretty much like poo. Since my son was still a bit sick, and we had a long weekend ahead, I made a doctor apt for him. Before that I tried desparately to get the house set right. See we just got back from vacation on Saturday and while I had the luggage unpacked and the stuff put away, the after math packing for the trip was still everywhere. By this I mean, piles of receipts and stuff from emptying bags, random baskets of clean and folded laundry from picking out clothes to take on the trip. The night before we flew out my son decided to take every single pillow and blanket out of his room and throw it into the living room for some sort of massive jump pile. So I had some straighing up to do.

But with a massive headcold coming on, every single little thing took all the effort I had. Not to mention that I was still worried about Olly and how he was doing and how to get him to eat something, but what was I coming down with and should we go to my mom’s for thanksgiving. So I started in the kitchen.

I gathered up anything that didn’t belong in the kitchen (i.e. hotwheels, trains, notebooks, all sorts of stuff) and put it in the room it belonged. I picked up everything off fo the floor so that I could vacuum and swiffer it after I loaded the dishwasher and did extra dishes.

I got the dishwasher loaded. I filled the sink with hot soapy water for the stuff that didn’t fit. I took out the trash and the recycling. Then we did a diaper change. Well during the diaper change he farted and said he wanted some mm’s and so wanted to sit on the potty to poo. Ok, off we go. Well then he got on the potty and saw the funnew bath toy that he had the night before and wanted to forgo the MM’s, and I quote, “I don’t need ‘em” and get in the tub.

ok, well getting him to bathe sometimes is a fight so I went with it. so then we take a bath.

Then we fight to get out of the bath. Then we get dressed. Now we are hungry. And I am spent.

So I make lunch. and the next thing you know it’s time to get showered and ready to go to the doctor’s.

we go. We find out he is neg for strep. I call my family to let them know that he is fine, not contagious, but I am coming down with something and how would they feel about us coming up for the holiday. My mom was all weird and said it was strictly between my sister and I. so I phoned her and she was totally weird. So I was like fuck you guys I know when I am not wanted. I mean, I know I am sick but it woudl have been nice to hear, you know, we will miss you and we wiss you felt better. It won’t be the same without you but you should rest up. Next time you are home we will do a scaled down version or something.

but no, it was just weird silence.

So I was up set about that, feeling worse, and it was raining.

we went to mcd and then home.

Now it’s like 4 and I have to recount the whole thing to my hub and start trying to figure out what we are actually doing for the holiday.

And I am feeling worse and worse.

Mean while, the dishwasher has been run, but the sink is still full of water and about 6 sippy cups. and since i wasn’t DONE, I didn’t wipe off the counter.

So ok, we decide to wing it for ourselves the next day as far as food goes, we would get chinese take out for last night and that I hsould still try to get Oliver donw for a nap. So I tried, but while I was totally exhausted and feeling like shit he was starting to come out of his funk and finally felt better. So he was a pistol.

the hub got home we ate and I crashed on the couch. He said he would get the table later. As in put the left overs away.

so now we are up to speed. now it is Thanksgiving morning, I am sick as a dog and the hub just got up with my son. They play for a few minutes and then I hear him say let’s work on the kitchen.

oh boy. so now I am so anxious and waiting for the screaming to begin that I can’t even sleep. Sure enough.

First he goes ballistic over trash bags.

We are out of trash bags under the kitchen sink.

BUT I have a humungous roll of them in the laundry room on the washer. They are leftover from when we used the diaper pail. Rather than buy more for the kitchen, since these work just fine, I just use those. I don’t put them under the sink b/c the roll is so huge. So he storms in the bedroom where I am as far as he knows totally asleep.

He starts going off on me about being out of kitchen trash bags.Of course we are out of them. (like, this is typical of me or something) How the fuck can we be out of trash bags? He storms. I start to explain that there is a huge roll of them on the washer but he storms off and slams the door behind him.

So I fly out of bed and start yelling at him that if he had let me finish I was explaining to him where there were more. And he just went nuts.

I don’t know if I can even remember all of it. It was just a slew of swear words and how I am pig and I leave in filth and my kitchen looks like a savage animal lives there and on and on and on. it literally felt like someone punched me in the chest. I just felt winded. I was stunned. The kitchen, while not perfect, was not any where near dirty.

I don’t even remember what I said to him. I just went back to bed.

I curled up and bawled and bawled.

I hated him with every fiber of my body. Or so I thought. But there was more to come and I found I hated him more.

I tried to go back to sleep but he was slamming things around and being an ass to Olly, as in totally not paying attention to him at all. so I was worried. As I lay there I thought how unfair he was being. He pulls this on me all the time.

ALL THE TIME.

he will tell me the kitchen is fine. That i am sick or Olly is sick and that getting better is my priority. To not worry about it. Just leave it. No big deal. And then blam out of left field he starts acting like I have maggots crawlingon the counter and garbage overflowing.

I would say if not every time, at least every other time, b/c I hardly get to sleep in, when I do sleep in, this happens. it is like he sabatages me. he waits for it. One time, he was even pissed that I got up at 11:30 b/c he was purposfully letting me sleep to see if i would sleep until noon and then he could hold that over my head. not making it up, he confessed it to me.

So finally I got up. I sat with my son for a few minutes and then I took a shower.

And then it got very very ugly.

I showered and dressed and when i walked back out into the living room he was standing in the kitchen. Arms crossed just glaring. I asked if I was supposed to come in there or what.

He told me no. That I was fired. that I was no longer allowed to handle the kitchen b/c I can’t. And proceeded to rip into me again about how filthy it is.

And I lost it. I started screaming, and I mean screaming back at him, he wasn’t answering my question about what was filthy so I slammed my hand so hard on the counter I don’t know honestly how I didn’t break it in two. My hand was red for an hour. I told him I wanted to know EXACTLY what was so filthy about my kitchen.

turns out there was a small pile of dirt in the far corner where I had a pumpkin. I had a pumpkin sitting there. when we got back from vacation it was starting to rot. I threw it out. yes, it left behind a dry very small pile of dirt.

since we got back from vacation I haven’t cooked a meal. It has been subway or take out. Or maybe spaghetti, but that is all pour and heat, no food prep. i’ve been working on gettting the kitchen in order for three days, but there is always a mess. I load the dishwasher and run it, while it is being run or over night orwhatever, you know what, WE LIVE IN THE HOUSE WE GENERATE DISHES. It is a constant clean up. That kitchen is never clean for more than an hour unless it is overnight. So I hadn’t moved everything off of the counter and done a full wipe down.

then he goes off on the counter on the other side of the kitchen.

On this particular piece i have the coffee pot. now, before we left for vactiaon we had some apples from our trip to the pumpkin farm that were starting to turn. so I thought it would be cool to get out our juicer from the garage and show Oliver how to make juice. We made juice, he could ahve cared less. So I ran all the parts through the dishwasher and parked the machine on the counter that we NEVER DO FOOD PREP on. I thought maybe with this clena eating thing I want to try I would start making my own juice. So i left it out.

Then my son has been hooked on this damn cartoon with ducks and all they drink are milkshakes. I rmembered that we have a hamilton beach drink mixer. you know the ones with the big stainless steel cup and the rod that goes down in it and mixes one drink at a time? so i got that out and we made “milkshakes” (bananas, yogurt and milk) in an effort to get him to eat. It worked for a couple days and that was it. But I thought I’d give it a go when we got back. so that was on the counter CLEAN as well.

He went NUTS. Over “all this shit” on the counter.

Then he starts screaming about how he doesn’t know where anything is or where anything goes. Oh wait he was also pissed b/c there two rolls of paper towel on the counter.

he starts going off on how horrible I am at the kitchen and how he “gives me a paycheck everyweek” and I still can’t do anything.

Mind you this whole time , my son is sitting in the living room. I am bawling my face off. Hating him with every ounce that I can find, wondering how I got here and where can I go. I told him how much I hated him.

for the first time ever I said it out loud. He says it to me. When we fight. He calls me a fucking moron, a c-bomb, a dumb c-bomb, useless bitch, all sorts of stuff, but about the worst I’ve said to him outloud is ass. I’ve curled up in a ball at night and wondered how to get out of this. What I would do. how much I hate him. Wondered if I’ve always hated him or if this is just recent. If this is my fault. If I really hate him or I just can’t see straight at the moment, if this is some kind of panic button I am hitting. But I’ve never said it out loud.

Until. Today.

I was just so mad that he totally set me up. That he had to pick on me about this assinine stuff today, thanksgiving, when I am fucking sick as a dog, which reminds me what the hell I am doing up at 2:30 in the morning I’ll never nknow, and when my son is right there. I couldn’t even stand it. And when i looked at him and said I hate you so much right now. He looked right back at me and smiled and said right back at ya.

I ran to my room like I was 8 and just sobbed into my pillow. I wanted to take Olly and just head to my mom’s. Cold be damned. I just wanted out. And then Oliver came in and started stroking my leg, and handing me my glass of water next to my bed, and asking me if I was ok.

So then I was humiliated even more. Ashamed of the way I behaved in front of my son. Ashamed of my marriage.

After that it is all a blur. He came in, my husband, and started picking at me more for something else I dont’ even remember. Just more swearing and telling me how useless I was in the kitchen. How I had been fired and wasn’t allowed in there anymore.  then he told me he was willing to work with me to get it into shape.

I collected myself for a minute and went out there with him. And then he was ridiculous again. I have an OXO container for spaghetti. I keep it on the counter next to the stove. He told me that was filthy to keep it there.

I keep the softscrub on the edge of the sink, by the dishsoap. He told me that was disgusting.

I have a two tiered pull out shelving unit under the kitchen sink for thinkgs like the clorox spray and some scrubbies and my gloves, all the little PITA shit. He went to pull out one drawer and it got hung up on the glove and he started in on that about how , yeah, that’s some system you got going there.

In some fairness to him he did sit down and go through the cupboards and finally agree to get rid of HIS bulky food items that he was hanging on to but not eating….claiming he didn’t know they were there , even though he wanted to save them from the last purge. He did agree to get rid of some big bulky cutting boards that are wood and that we don’t use anymore.

but he does this and I hate it. Everything is fine fine fine. Doesn’t matter how things look. he tells me it is ok, that he understands. And then he explodes and treats me like this. And then he will clean everything and say, look, doesn’t that clean counter make you feel great? and I think to myself, yeah, and three weeks agao I had itlike that and you didn’t say shit, if I mention it you ask if I want a badge.

I can’t win.

So it was a pretty shitty day.

We were ok to each other after we worked in the kitchen but we haven’t touched or hugged or any kind of physical contact all day. He is on the computer “behind closed doors”" now….while I sit out here typing away and hacking my brains out.

Thanks for listening. I hope you all had a much better day than this.

A first.

For the first time in my life I am not heading home for Thanksgiving.

This has become a huge deal for me. Something that I’ve started telling like, everyone. Weird I know.

And why I am not going “home”?.

Well we got back from vacation on Saturday and on Monday Olly was sporting a kick ass fever. I mean we are talking spike at 104.9…..But I kept my head and just bathed him, hydrated him, and gave him Tylenol and Motrin, and sleep. And since it would go down with each dose I wasn’t worried…too much. He was clearly out of sorts and in discomfort. Then last night I noticed some spots on his throat. Despite having no fever I made an apointment with the doc today. We could only see the phys. asst.

She looked at his throat and agreed we shoudl do a throat culture. turns out he was neg for strep. Which is good b/c I was worried that was what was going on.

He has had no temp for over 24 hours with no meds so that is good too. I do think his throat is sore despite his denial. he is sucking down ice and 7up and popsicles like no tomorrow.

And then there is me. I started coming down with something last night and could tell this morning that I am very clearly sick.

So in the interest of everyone I thought I’d back out.

Ugh. My post was supposed to be much more detailed and happy but I just can’t get it going tonight

I feel like such a shitty blogger lately but I can’t stay focused very long to actually spit out a post.

one thing I would be curious to know from anyone who is reading this, have you heard of or follow clean eating? I am seriously reserching this stuff right now and I think this is my answer.  So any feed back is welcome.

thanks

 

Babble

I’m a bit of a mess right now.

My son has had a raging temp for a day now. it all started yesterday morning. It was a crazy morning. We had to get up early and follow my husband to the car repair place and then drive him to work since he was leaving his car for, yep, repairs.  Since his office is right around the corner from Whole Foods, I planned to go there, but it was clear by the time we got the auto shop that he was sick. He was burning up, whimpering, lethargic.

So I scrapped the WF and we just went home. His temp was something like 104. I gave him some motrin and he passed out on the couch for about 30 minutes. The rest of the day was spent managing him and trying to pick up the house. As long as he is on motrin or Tylenol he is ok…..Last night though it spiked at 104.9…..no shit. But about 30 minutes later, maybe 45, after he had Tylenol in him for as long, it dropped.  So it is clear he is just fighting off something.

Of course, this throws a wrench in Thanksgiving. To travel or not.  All other holidays, even the biggies like Christmas, I have missed with my family. For some reason though, in 35 years I’ve never ever missed a Thanksgiving. It helps that Canada has their thanksgiving in Oct so there was never a clash that way, but still, in college, married, single, whatever, I’ve always made it home for Thanksgiving.

And it is usually miserable and still I’ve never not gone. I toy with the idea of not going but I just can’t bring myself to not go.

The last three years it’s become even trickier. We take our vacation the week before…so we fly back in on Saturday and then on thanksgiving morning we drive to my mom’s. Then on that Sunday our dear friend from Germany arrives. He is some big shot business man and just happens to always have a conference in Chicago that last week in nov/first week in Dec. And since we’ve had Olly he stays in a hotel downtown so I dont’ have to worry about accomodations for him, but I still need to have the house picked up for a visit.

So I am kind of stressed right now.

I managed to pick up a little biti yesterday around the house bit it still looks terrible. God Bless all these moms, working or not, that can stay ontop of their housework. I can’t. I suck at it. I would rather go numb from the waist down b/c I’ve been sitting here on the laptop than wash a window or a dish. I’m terrible. I know.

I am excited about something else though. At my last therapy session we talked about my need to educate myself on all things pertaining to weight loss. i mean, obviously we all know about calories in and calories out. But what I want and need to better understand is the food itself. I really want to know more about food combining and nutrition. Both for myself and for Oliver. and then I need a plan. A plan to implement that knowledge. When you think about it, I wanted to learn to sew. I sat down, I researched  the hell out of it. Machines, notions, tools, any how to I could get my hands on. I still do. Every single day. I wanted to learn about something and I did. So why should diet and nutrition be any different. Of course I haven’t mentioned this to my hub. Which sort of makes it more fun. it’s like Top Secret.

So in looking for books about this sort of thing I found some cool ones and one of them came in today. i had a hold on it at the library. so I really want to go get it. 

Anyway, posting on my blog isn’t helping the house get picked up is it. oh well.

Talk to you later!

i’m back.

Back from Florida last night. Still trying to catch up today.
I just woke up from a totally unplanned nap on the couch. are those the best or what! I mean, it was so unplanned I still had my “goin’ out clothes on”. Translation, I was wearing my bra and my jeans, I hadnt’ even changed into fat clothes! woot woot.
Vacation was good. I would give it a 5 out of 5 though. For many reasons. All of which I will totally blog about as soon as I can. For now I need to wake up, brush my teeth and head over to the store for some much needed groceries…..

At last….

So much background for this post but in a nutshell….12 years later I got my anniversary band! Seriously, I think I only got married for that band. I’ve been looking at them since we were looking at solitares for the engagement. I’m serious. For the longest time I had my eye on the mother of them all. it was $3K. I know I know. But I don’t wear jewelry and I don’t ask for jewelry. And that was the last piece i wanted. I’ve got my wedding band and engagement ring, my pendant and I only wanted the annivesary band. Well for the 10 year, which is typically when you get it, we just didn’t get it.

So fast forward to tonight. We had BOGO coupons for Texas de brazil for our anniversary. I have to get my pendant cleaned every 6 months so since both places are at the mall I decided to do the necklace tonight. Only tonight I wanted the hub to go with me so they wouldn’t pressure me into anything and b/c he needed a new wedding band. yep, we are that fat. So anyway our sales lady is there and she cleans my necklace and starts showing hub the rings for him. While I am standing there I am like, omg I can’t remember which one is THE one. I was totally embarassed.

so she shows me and then we start looking at all these anniversary bands and comparing the different settings etc. and well they had one, very nearly the one I originally picked out but at a stupid low price and she took even more off of it for us, like an extra $150 or something. so next thing I know I’m filling out the paper work for it. I’m dying over here I can’t wait to get it. I am so excited. I’ve not been wearing my diamond b/c I am so terrified of scratching Olly, oh and it doesn’t exactly fit anymore but still, when it did, I hardly wore it b/c I didn’t want to hurt him. And this sounds so girly and silly and materialistic, but I’ve missed my diamond! I want my sparkle on my hand. That is the only piece of jewelry I’ve truly pined for over the years.

Pathetic Cookie Lady here…

so yea, no sooner had I hit publish and in walked the Hub announcing he was still up for a LOST if I was…..and then I felt like big baby. Oh well. I’ve got lots of work to do on myself I know.

So speaking of lots of work….I am supposed to be working on my list for FL and finishing up any sewing projects that I “need” for the trip. And here I sit, reading blogs, writing a post, and facebooking. By the way, is that even a word? Facebooking?

So I’ve got a house that i am ashamed of right now! Ugh. I am just so distracted lately…get this. so come on ladies, we all now that some days you are barely in the house b/4 the bra is unhooked and pulled out of your shirt sleeve, right? Well the hefty chick that I am, now I can only wear the front clasps and you just can’t do that little move anymore so to take off the bra requires full shirt removal. ugh. So yesterday I reached up the shirt and un did all the clasps…but then got distracted by something shiny and an hour later realized I was still running around with my shirt on and my bra on but the bra was not done up…..oh dear.

so I’ll try to have an update on the packing and sewing later…

I am getting frustrated…

It was a great weekend in terms of family time with the three of us but I am feeling very discombobulated.

In no particular order…

When I made the Buddy costume for Halloween, I learned ALOT. Not all of what I learned was about acutal sewing, but more about patterns and transferring markings and technique. I think I may have mentioned that having the hub help me with this one was great b/c he saw the need for some tools that I didn’t have and gave me the green light for them. So even though we didn’t get to use the costume I am greatful for the sewing experience. And I was excited to sew from a pattern.

I’ve tried sewing from a pattern before and it didn’t work out. Well I know now why. I didn’t follow it properly. I didn’t understand all of the markings like I thought I did and my methods for cutting and marking and pinning were shoddy at best. So with my new found confidence I pulled out a WIP. I was using an actual McCall’s pattern for some PJ’s for Olly. But I was very frustrated b/c nothing was working out. Cutting it was a bitch and when I sewed it up I had 100% botched the notches. So this time I took a close look at things, saw what I did wrong and tried to make it work none the less. I think I did a great job with the pants. pants are that hard anyway. But Olly didn’t want to wear them. he wants to wear the plain old bandanna pants that I made him this summer.

so I thought well, ok, that is fine. I have several bandannas that I bought last time we were at Walmart and I need some for him for Florida anyway. So when he went to bed I pulled them out and ironed them. Except none of them matched. Like, when I bought them, they came two to a pack and there were two different distinct designs and now I have only two that match, but seem to be incredibly off in size. So the bandana pants were a no go.

So then i took his fav pair of pants that I made him and made a pattern from them. They are basically bandana pants that I made using a bandanna as my size guide but I made them out of flannel. It is the most incredibly soft flannel and it has bugs all over it. so we call them his bug pants.

I sat down to do some research on line into elastic to make sure I got that right and next thing you know it’s like super late and i haven’t stitched a friggin thing.

Then I started fartin’ around with my ipod.

My music library is a complete and utter disaster. I’ve got like 500 songs in it, but some of them are from way back in the day b4 I used itunes and just called things track 1 track 2 etc. i can’t figure out playlists on it and I am going insane. I want it ready for FL.

Also it is no secret that I am addicted to certain foods. And it isn’t just the food. It is the whole thing around them. For example I can’t sit and have my oreos at 10 when my son goes to bed. I have to have them when we watch an episode of LOST on netflix. So if that gets scrapped, the watching of LOST, then I am also in jepordy of  not having my oreos. Trust me I know this is sick. so all night long I am like are we watching a Lost? his reply, I’m working on it. I’m planning on it. But now it is 12:30 and we haven’t watched it yet, he just shaved his head and is in the shower rinsing off (which means a 20 min shower b/c you KNOW  he is “prepping” since he is showering before bed, lord help me) and with each tick of the clock I am getting more and more angry. Angry that I won’t be getting my snack and angry that I am so angry about that. Does taht make sense? I know I know I am nuts. I am in therapy and I am working on it. But now see, now we will have a guaranteed fight. B.c I am also still so of the WW mindset that I purposefully don’t eat much real food so that I can have my oreos. It makes no sense at all, I realize this, it is just some residual save your points thing from Weight Watchers. but now I am also hungry. Hungry and Angry. Not good.  He will think nothing of this. to him, so what that we didn’t watch a lost, i am a loser with an addiction to cookies. He doesn’t understand the mental meltdown I am having over this.  I dont’ understand it either, I mean, why am I this way?

ugh.

 

update

I am itching to sew again but I’ve got to get us ready for Florida.

We just got back Monday from a quick trip to Canada. A close family friend passed away and my husband was going to go home alone for it, but as his mom pointed out these things sometimes have a way of turning into little family reunions so we went home as a family.

We decided around 3pm on Friday to go and by 8 pm we were in the car. Not too shabby for me. The hub helped me out a lot though. We finally figured out that while I am great at putting the list together and eventually getting us out the door with everything we need I am not good at the time management side of it. It takes me FOREVER to get my ass in gear.

So the last trip home we decided that we needed to put my hub’s career skills to work on me. He is a project manager so…..I told him to manage me! He very quickly set up a time table for me that afternoon and I cannot tell you how much it helped me.

I had to have this done by this time and this by this and so on until it was 6:30 and I was to have everything at the top of the stairs to be loaded in the car. It was terrific.  so I am hoping that he will work with me for FL this year.

It will be a bit different this year as we are going to Orlando, and no we aren’t going to DW, instead of Marco Island. We waited too long to book with Hilton and Marco had NO rooms. AND we are not only going with my MIL but one of my SIL is coming along wiht her 8 mos daughter. This shoudl be VERY interesting.

We will have a 3 bedroom suite so we won’t be on top of each other which is good but I am still not too thrilled about it. It has a lot to do with how it all came to be that she was going with it but also b/c I don’t really know her. SO on the bright side I suppose this will be a great time to get to know her.

I need to do some sewing before we go.

Boring update, but that is where I’m at!

Stay tuned and I’ll try to update on the sewing projects: some PJ’s for my son and some baby gifts for my newest nephew who is going on 4 weeks old.

Sewing update

Olly’s sleep is so out of whack right now it isn’t even funny. He went to bed last night around 10:30 but then was up at 5:30 and back to sleep until 9:15….oh and there was no nap yesterday. Ugh. SO as I was cuddling with him this morning at 5:30 I heard a familiar sound and it slammed me back about three years.

I had about 5 different posts composed in my head before I fell asleep. I really wish I had a flash drive I could stick in my ear and just upload all my stuff for later.

before I start hammering out what I think the stories were from this morning, I’d like to write them out in word and get it right. So stay tuned for those.

The costume is coming along nicely.

It is amazing how much I have learned from this silly little costume project. I mentioned before all the notions I picked up the other day, the tracing paper, the pins, etc. But last night, as i was collecting all my crap off the kitchen table, I realized another HUGE item that I am missing. A frickin sewing basket. I have one from when I was like 12, and honestly, I had it up on the shelf was weird crap in it. Not even my sewing stuff.  The thing is that when I am sewing I am ALWAYS looking for my crap. Things like my seam ruler, my pins, my chalk, my snips, all this stuff. If I had and used the sewing basket properly then this wouldn’t be a problem. So that is my next sewing purchase.

Also b/c of this project I am totally looking forward to sewing from a pattern. .

So I am still, over a year later, trying to figure out how to properly put pics in here….so for now, the back shot will have to do. It isn’t finished. I have to make the mittens, and do all the hems. I am going to make covers for his shoes too…..But for now, I present, Buddy The Dinosaur, made from this tutorial. I have several issues with this pattern and with the images they used to show the final project. If you want to make this, and have some questions, drop me an email and I will help you out as best I can.

 

Is anyone still out there?

I’ve done everything they say you aren’t supposed to do if you want to keep your readers.

I haven’t posted often and I haven’t posted interesting.

It’s weird though, b/c I haven’t really been into the whole blog thing period lately. Like, my Google Reader has 300+ items to read! That is a record for me. Seriously.

So what have I been doing? I don’t really even know.

It’s been raining around here nearly every day. So it isn’t like I’ve been off playing outside.

We had the wedding and then a week later my brother and his wife drove out here to spend the night before flying out (we live near a major airport) for their HM. so I guess that particular week I was busy cleaning up and getting ready for them. Which as far as the cleaning up thing goes, I’ve been getting better at it. Seriously. Much better.

So they were here and then they were gone. I dont’ know what i did last week…I keep trying to reorg this space here, my desk/sewing area…but I never get far or I get it cleared off and then wham half a day later it looks like hell again.

Right now i am working on this.  I have a few editorial comments on their tutorial as well. For starters I think it is very poorly written. And I’ve read lots of tutes my friends. In fact I am completly self taught in the sewing arena via Google, MonkeySee, and YouTube. So I think I know a good one when I see one.  Perhaps poorly written isn’t the best way to describe it. The thing is they assume ALOT. Like that the average mom with a dino obsessed kid who wants to sew this, knows what a lapped zipper is and how to sew it. I think they order things in the tute weird. They aren’t consistent with their description of things. They sprinkle in important sewing phrases like, RIGHT SIDES TOGETHER, just here and there. They never tell you to sew the legs up. Like the only reason I was successful with this was b/c I do have quite a bit of winging sewing experience. And I’ve made bandana pants. Otherwise, you would be like, whaaaaaa? Now, I also had some brain fart moments myself, due to no fault of theirs. This has inspired a future post, Just When You Thought You Could Sew, or Sew You Think You Can Sew? stay tuned….

God bless them for putting out the tutorial. I hug them for that. I was cooking up something very close to their no sew option in my head b/4 I found their actual pattern. But I think they could have written a better tute. I mean, they are in the biz.

anyway so i am elbow deep in royal blue and bright orange fleece and thread snips right now.

Major props to my husband who turned the 45 page print out into the pattern. Yes, we printed it out and then you had to cut and tape and piece it together to get the actual pattern. But he didn’t stop there, he also cut all the fabric out for me.  He is brilliant at that sort of stuff. Seriously. every single piece was exact. I need to get him cutting for Xmas!

The extra upside to him doing that of course is that he, like most guys, realizes that great tools yield great results. So where I have been hemming and hewing about getting a new rotary cutter he was like, yeah, go get one. He looks at sewing as one big tool fest. So today I went out and bought some new stuff and I am seriously wondering why I waited!

I normally use a 45 mm rotary cutter, by fiskars. But today I picked up a 28mm Olfa. he had mentioned when cutting stuff out that  a smaller cutter would have made things much easier.  While Fiskars is not crap by anymeans, it is not Olfa.

Also I realized that part of my problem when working with patterns is that I somehow decided that it was ok to disregard their marks. That is you know, things like notches and darts etc. Now it wasnt’ that I totally ignored them, it was just that I could NOT figure out how to transfer them. I had chalk. I had markers. I had pins and tracing paper. But nothing worked. so I thought it was easier to wing it. Well I have quite a few projects stuffed on the shelf to show you that it is not easier to wing it. So after lots of internet research, another shout out to YouTube and Expert Village, I determined that my “tracing paper” was actually transfer sheets for embroidery, which although they work in a pinch, are not in fact the same as pattern stuff.  Also that I needed longer straight pins for bulky things like fleece, and that I had crap tailor’s chalk.

One trip to Hancock Fabrics and $4o later and I am in business and excited to sew with a pattern again.

However, we have FL coming up in about two weeks.

We are staying in Orlando this year and NOT marco island. Long, irritating story as to why.

We will be staying in one of our time share resorts in a three bedroom suite. My mother in law and my sister in law and her 6 month ? 7 month? old daughter will be staying as well. My mother in law has gone with us the past two years and I love it. I am a little annoyed about the sil, details some other time, but I am sure that it will all work out.

The major difference for this year is that we are not on the beach. At. All. I am very upset about this but on the other hand it means no sand in my room. And there will be a washer dryer in our unit as opposed to down the hall so I will totally have to pack light in the clothing dept since I can do laundry every night if I want.

Well, for now that is all the crap off the top of my head.

Stay tuned for pics of the costume.