People become really quite remarkable when they start thinking that they can do things. When they believe in themselves they have the first secret of success. ~ Norman Vincent Peale

Monday, December 3, 2007

Tree meets house ...

I didn't get any sewing done this weekend because we are all still sick. Lovely, eh? So, the most interesting thing that happened this weekend:





We were in the living room on the couch. Me and Emily were eating a PB&J and Tony was on the phone with a friend. All of a sudden, we heard a loud rumble, a crash, then saw branches fly down in front of our living room window. This can’t be good. So, we ran outside to see the tree sticking up over the roof from the back yard. Niiiiiice. So, what happened is when the tree hit the roof, a bunch of branches broke off and flew into the front yard. I knew it was pretty windy out, but had no idea it was windy enough to knock down a tree. Sheesh. Naturally, I am trying not to have too much anxiety over it.

To get my mind off of it, I decided to make dinner. So, I made some tortellini soup and croissants. Well, the oven just wouldn’t pre-heat. I looked in there and the element was broken in half. I have no idea how an element inside the oven breaks like that, but it did. At that point, I put in The Nightmare Before Christmas and decided to call it quits on the evening. The soup was good.

Tuesday, November 20, 2007

Home Improvement ...

So, the past few days have been pretty uneventful. Tony has had some time off of work, which has been nice, and we’re headed to visit my Mother In Law for Thanksgiving. Now, to some people, this is a very stressful event, but for me it’s a good thing. I get along great with my Mother In Law, and always have. I consider myself pretty lucky, especially when I hear stories from other people.


I’ll admit to getting a little nervous when Tony started making home repairs the other day, though. Let me tell you a little story about that:

Now, he is a pretty handy guy. He can fix pretty much anything, can build pretty much anything, and always impresses me. Just don’t let him do anything like this when he is tired. Please. About 6 years ago, give or take some months, Tony started doing the “winter insulation” sort of deal. He was up late doing this, after a hard day at work, which is always a warning flag. I innocently got up in the morning to get ready for work, and as I was walking out the door, the door wouldn’t open! It was stuck. I tried and tried it for about 10 minutes. Knowing that I was now late for work, I woke him up early and told him that the front door was stuck. As it turns out, he had tried to seal it…. You know, to keep the cold air out. He didn’t take into account that it needed to dry before he shut the door again. He was so tired that he basically glued the front door shut. Another 10 or so minutes later, he was finally able to get it open, and I rushed in to work. You can imagine the look on my bosses face when I gave that excuse for being late. He was pretty much speechless.

So, Tony started the home repairs again this weekend. First was the water heater. We get calcium buildup, so we have to drain and clean the thing about once a year. It was time, so the task started. First he asked if anybody needed to shower before he turned off the hot water. Well, I figured I would shower that evening, so I said it was fine. This was a mistake, but we’ll get to that.

We did run into a problem where the hose popped off of the water heater when Emily tripped over it. This caused it to drain all over my laminate flooring that my nice Mother In Law gave us. It’s a little sentimental to me, because me and Tony worked together installing it (and because it was a gift from my mother in law). …. So now I was desperately trying to get gallons and gallons of water off of it. Now, that wasn’t his fault at all, and he did handle everything very well. I applaud him for that. As luck would have it, the water heater took several hours longer than we had expected. I had been up the previous night sick… ALL night long, so I was too tired to wait for the hot water so I could shower. I finally just went to bed at 9pm.

Oh, but Tony wasn’t done… he was on a roll. He had more home repairs to do. His next step was to re-enamel the tubs. Both. So, I woke up in the morning, wanting to take a shower BAD, only to find out that the tubs were still drying and I couldn’t. I think that I tend to stink without a shower, so this was torture. I have also had a 3 day migraine, so I really needed that shower. It always helps some, or I like to think so. I finally got to take a shower at 6pm! I went for 36 hours without a shower. Ick.

As far as sewing goes, I have managed to work a little bit through my fabulous migraine. I had 4 Night Owls that were just sitting there waiting for me to finish, so I finally did that. It probably took about 10 hours just to finish up four that were already half done. That’s okay, though. I’m just happy to have gotten anything done. I’ve been sitting here staring at this Farbenmix Anna pattern and dreaming up all of the nifty things I could make for Emily with it. I swear, this kid will be the best-dressed kid in kindergarten… or I hope so, at least (she starts this next Fall). I won’t be able to get to it until at least Monday, though, which is painful. I am itching to sew. This migraine has been such torture.

I also have six diapers that are almost done and staring me in the face for the past 2 months. I would love to go ahead and finish them. I still have a few custom diapers to finish as well, and can’t wait to get those done. Not only are they fun, but I always love what my customers pick. At the same time, I’m far too slow on customs, and think I shouldn’t take them on anymore. It’s hard, because I love the process of doing them, but I feel guilty the entire time I have them. I can’t go to the beach with the kids without feeling like I should be working on my customs, and I suck as a business person if I do anything else. It’s probably not the best outlook, of course. Ha.

On an entirely different note, Emily has been such a chatterbox lately. One minute she has plans to own a farm, the next she is going to have 12 basset hounds. She has big plans. Today she is going to have a mama cat with three baby kittens, seven basset hounds, and “eight hundred twenty” Pomeranians. I told her that her house would stink, but she doesn’t seem to believe me. So, we were reading one of her books, and it has a toucan in it. Guess what her next pet will be? Riiiiiiiiight. I hear her in the livingroom right now telling Tony that she’s going to have a pet monkey and a pet guerrilla. She says that she’ll keep them in Brother’s room, and he just won’t have a room. How is that for a plan?


Oh, I did get to hear from my big sister today. I haven't mentioned her yet... she's famous. If you watch "House Hunters" look for the "Mod Duo" and you'll see my super cool sister. She's a pre-med student, in the honors college, so I don't get to hear from her terribly often. Of course, this is fine, because although I love to hear from her all the time, I am super excited about her school. It's funny because our lives are SO different. She doesn't have any children, and is happy with this. I have two and want one more. We talk, and she is taking a break from studying, while I am calming a crying drama queen who just bumped herself, looking at the clock to see that my son has 2 minutes to be home, wondering how a marshmallow got smushed on the floor when I didn't even think we had any of those in the house? Her idea of a clean house is completely different than mine. To me, if there aren't any mushed marshmallows on the floor, and you can pretty much walk through without stepping on anything or anything falling on you, it's clean. To her, if there is a speck of dust floating in the air, it's filthy. I always imagine her breaking out in hives when she comes to visit, but she takes it all in stride. When you have kids, there is always something more important to do than get the house in perfect order, or at least, that's how I see it. It was great to talk to her, but unfortunately, Emily started a HUGE fit and I had to just get off of the phone. My sister doesn't have anybody to throw a huge fit and get her off of the phone. I always wonder what that sort of freedom is like. She can even go shopping alone. I'm happy with my life how it is, though. Peanut butter fingers and all.



Thursday, November 15, 2007

Boutique Photography...

So, now that I have posted about us, I thought I should start blogging.

Things to do today: Start a blog, Clean house, finish up 2 custom diapers that I’ve been working on FOREVER, pack up all pending orders and go to the post office with them. Hope that a friend (ahem) calls to talk today, while I do all of this stuff. Oh, and hopefully go to the grocery store.

So, I stock my goods on Necessitae (http://www.necessitae.com). Being that I am a procrastinator, I did wait until the last possible moment to work on this stuff. The stuff goes live at 8pm my time, and at 6pm, I decided that I wanted the two outfits that I made to look like those boutique listings on ebay. You know the ones I’m talking about? Where the kids are modeling them and they look so precious. So, I get Emily to try on the outfits and tell her that she is my model. Now, those who know Emily know how funny this is. What was I thinking? First, I get this outfit on her and tell her that we can’t get it dirty because it is for sale and she is just trying it on. The first thing she tries to do is climb a tree. When Emily tries to do something, she does it. So, that dress is a keeper. It’s been up in a tree. Emily was happy to have a new royal blue velour hoodie dress.

I managed to get another outfit on her and had her stand beside the tree in it, but not climb, please. She grabbed a stick and proceeded to show me how you could use the stick as a weapon to kill a dragon. So, here is my super boutique photo number one:

Love that face, huh? And yes, I used it. Then, she ran to the trampoline and wanted me to photograph her jumping on the trampoline. Super boutique photo number two:

Another funny face. Okay, it's not happening. I finally managed a few "okay" photos. I can't get her to have her normal, adorable smile, but that's okay. She doesn't dream of a modeling career.


The pants and tunic are made with the Farbenmix Weeke pattern. The hoodie is made with the Farbenmix Hannel pattern, and I made the skirt pattern myself.

For fun, here is another dress that she modeled and kept:


This was the Farbenmix Olivia dress. It's such a cute pattern!

That's all for now. I need to head out to the back yard to fetch a child out of a tree.