Pinewood Derby

29 Sunday Jan 2012

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The joys of having a Cub Scout include feeling lost and overwhelmed by the terminology and the goals scouts have to pass off. This is ridiculous since Heath and I were den leaders together in 2003, a couple weeks after Gavin was born. With a job requiring too many business trips and my new job as a full time mom we ended up cancelling meetings more than we ever held them. Eventually we asked to be released from the position. I was called to be a den leader again in early 2007 but we ended up moving to California. I never got scouting.

Sinking or swimming with scouting has resulted in me drowning. Thank heavens Heath was in Boy Scouts so he gets it. Without him my two boys would be doomed! Poor Gavin has skated along with a blissfully ignorant smile on his face. I assume eventually I’ll understand and be able to help him more than carpooling with a friend.

The one thing I will never understand is Pinewood Derbies. I tried to come up with a perfectly piquant hyperbole showing just how much I dislike Pinewood Derbies and I think I got it.

I would rather shop at Wal-Mart for eight hours straight than go to a Pinewood Derby race.

Those of you who know me and my stand on Wal-Mart know that’s saying something. Big time. So Heath was a cool dad and helped Gavin with his car. Gavin looked online for ideas and settled on a shark. Then Gavin conveniently got sick and Heath ended up taking over the whole project. At least it’s a good excuse! Hard to say how he would have rationalized it otherwise.

Heath asked if I wanted to go knowing full well I would rather do any number of self torture activities than go. I simply told him no. He agreed to take Gavin and possibly Parker if he was interested. By Friday night I was beyond my satiety level for social situations. Park Day, shopping, picking up Parker from school who begged me to take him to the Dollar Store so he could spend his dollar, then picking up Gavin from Chess Club, and dropping who knows how low in the middle of all this errand running and shoving anything I could find in my mouth – fruit snacks, glucose tabs, wrappers wadded around ABC gum; it all left me emotionally wiped out.

Gwen and I were in our pajamas before 6:30 pm ready for a girls night in. The boys left and we watched Say Yes to the Dress and Phineas and Ferb. Unfortunately I let Gwen wear her Minnie Mouse ears with the tiara and veil. She wanted to look like the brides. I have heard her ask ever since. Oops.

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Gavin’s car did really well. He won two races and if he had a little more weight he could have won even more. His friend lost every single race. That would be a big bummer.

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Heath faded away into a ghostly shell of his former self. See I told you Pinewood Derbies were bad news! Now I can add service widow to my sport widowhood. Sorry Heath, I didn’t mean to kill you by making you spend an evening with chaos and hyper kids!

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Actually he was wearing a green shirt that blended too much into the green screen. The photographer noticed and quickly fixed the problem. We got both copies so I could laugh!

Gavin had fun so I guess that’s more important than any way I feel about this part of scouting. You can see it in his face. He was way excited.

The Devil Made Me Do It!

26 Thursday Jan 2012

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In this case the devil is my husband. I blame him for my overdeveloped sense of crafting! So I thought I would look for an image of the male brain vs. the female brain and the silly things we supposedly obsess over. Then I was going to Photoshop it to fit what I wanted to say. Yeah, that didn’t happen. These are funny the way they are.

(images found here)

They’re not super accurate, obviously. My Need For Commitment Hemisphere is probably now my Need For Crafting Hemisphere. The Chocolate Centre is a little large. I only want chocolate once a month. Sometimes not even then. Salty snacks work too. The listening part is way too large on the female brain. I don’t listen to anyone. My mind wanders too much. What? Did you say something?

Anyway, my point with all of this is I have single-handedly kept JoAnn Fabric and Craft Store in business. Recession? It’s not affecting them. I’m in there every other day. I took a break after I finished sewing Gwen’s second skirt that looks very similar to the first. It’s been a week or so since I’ve been in the craft store. I’m starting to have withdrawals.

Heath has also determined that Gwen has cute little friends so it would be a crime to not have another birthday party for her. Nothing near the scale of extravagance we went to last year! Just a cute little, simple tea party. But with sick kids staying home every day I can’t get out! I need to go shopping to see if I can piece things together cheaper and easier than online with shipping costs. I am so not a shopper either. It’s Heath’s fault that I have found shopping. I blame him. Thanks  . . . hm I don’t have pet names for him. Thanks Stud! How’s that? Love you Dude! No, that’s what I tell the boys. Love you Heath-Bar!

Piquant Questions

25 Wednesday Jan 2012

Posted by in Piquant

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Just for kicks, I’m throwing out a few piquant questions.

  • How important is it to memorize math facts?
  • How important is handwriting, specifically letter formation?
  • Why would anyone need days of the week underwear? Are you supposed to flash it when someone asks what day it is? Or excuse yourself while checking it out yourself? What happens if you wear it out of order? It’s Monday all day unless you wear your Friday underwear instead?
  • Does anyone know where I can find relatively cheap princess or tea party gloves? Halo Heaven has the best deal I can find. ($2.25 a pair) Unfortunately they are sold out!

I would love any responses to these questions. They’re great debate topics.

Leaking Fluids

24 Tuesday Jan 2012

Posted by in Family, Funny

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This morning I went in to check on Parker who had a fever last night. His cheeks were bright pink and he looked so small in his bed all snuggled up in his sheets. Weird dark spots on the carpet right in front of the bed caught my eye. Gavin said it was spit that he cleaned up because he (Gavin) was spitting. It didn’t look like spit. Gavin talked in circles and the only thing he said that made any sense to me was that he had a bloody nose.

Parker wanted to go downstairs and watch TV. As soon as he laid down on the couch he had a green desperate look in his face. I shoved the bowl under his chin and he threw up bile. He never ate dinner last night so there was no food at all on his tummy.

Meanwhile Gavin was in the downstairs bathroom. Not sure why he went all the way downstairs to use the bathroom. I saw bloody drips all over the kitchen floor. When Gavin came out he said there was blood all over the bathroom and he went back in to clean it up. Gwen came downstairs and announced she had peed in her bed.

The funny part of that story is that last night Heath had come out of the master bathroom to go to bed right as Gwen opened her door. It surprised him and he asked her what was wrong. That surprised her enough she literally fell onto her backside on the floor crying hysterically. Heath went to pick her up and comfort her but I grabbed her from him because I didn’t want him to hurt his toe. Gwen’s little heart was racing and she was shaking but she said she was up because she needed to use the bathroom. She did her business and went back to bed.

Heath had decided to go in to work this morning and he declined my offer to drive him. Maybe that was a good thing since all three kids were leaking from one hole in their body or another all before 7:30 am!

I wish I was making this up!

23 Monday Jan 2012

Posted by in Family, I'm a Mormon, Video

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My only real goal for the day was to do a blog post sometime before 8:00 pm. Looks like I’m cutting it pretty close. Instead I’ve been lazy all day.

This is the best version of this song!

It’s been a weekend around here and Heath and I make quite the pair. I gave him gout on Saturday. I wish I was making that up but evidence points to me as the culprit. Then I got the worst headache on Sunday. One of those dizzy, almost nauseating, headaches. The dents in the couch are becoming more and more pronounced. The TV is exhausted from trying to entertain all of us.

Gavin spiked a fever on Saturday and laid around all day in his pajamas. He slept really well that night and without a hint of a fever I made him go to church on Sunday! The Wicked Witch of the West returns. He was upset at first but he got over it pretty quickly. I maintained my new persona. Just ask Gwen’s Sunbeam class. I substituted on Sunday and I think I’m done with the whole giving in to the sob stories and subbing thing. I’m sorry those kids have had three different teachers in three weeks, but I think they would prefer I never take on the role of their teacher again. I think I shouldn’t fill in for anyone for awhile. I’m officially burned out.

On Saturday I took Gwen to a birthday party. It was fun and she loved it. It was at Color Me Mine, a place where you can buy and paint ceramics in the store. I dropped a ceramic cupcake trying to help my friend, the hostess, take items to the table for the kids to choose from. Yeah, it broke. I wish I could say differently. I felt horrible. Luckily the store didn’t charge for it.

Extra gravity followed me and I spilled cereal crumbs all over the floor trying to cut out a stupid box tops for education label. I was tired, socially spent, and not looking forward to subbing a class full of 3 year olds who are so fresh from the toys and snacks of Nursery. I told Heath I wanted my comfort food. Because he loves me a little too much . . . some tough love may have been a better solution . . . he brought home Carl’s Jr.

He ate a huge Big Carl. Lots of red meat! Mmmm. A couple hours later his right big toe hurt. Really bad. Like he had broken it or sprained it hurt. Only he hadn’t. It was swollen and he could barely walk. 

He couldn’t sleep that night. I could. Apparently I slept through his tossing and turning and his getting up to eat so he could take Ibuprofen. At some point I opened my eyes and realized he was on his tablet. He said he was checking on Web MD. I told him to be careful with that site. Then I rolled over and went back to sleep.

Web MD is a great site. You type in your symptoms and a mile long list of possible diagnoses links show up. Your symptoms can result in anything from menstrual cramps to worst case scenario cancer that may kill you tomorrow. When Heath typed in his symptoms only five results came up. They all centered around gout.

This was more or less confirmed over the phone by an on call doctor Sunday morning. The doctor mercifully called in a prescription for super sonic Ibuprofen. Only our local Kaiser pharmacy is closed on Sunday so the doctor called it into our grocery store pharmacy we used to go to. Heath hobbled in there to be told they don’t take our insurance. He grabbed the woman by the pharmacy coat lapels and said, “I don’t care! I will pay whatever the drugs cost!” Ok, that’s not true. He very calmly asked how much it would cost to pay out of pocket. She did her magic on the computer putting in weird codes and discounts and charged Heath $10 for the pills.

I had the worst headache yesterday that somehow didn’t go away today. I considered giving into my bulimic tendencies but soon thought better of it. Instead I told Heath we better get him in to the lab for his blood work. The results are interesting. His uric acid is on the high side of normal but not out of range. Hm.

Heath says my headache is me being jealous of him. He could be right! It’s always all about me! He told me earlier today, when his foot was feeling much better, that he was afraid this was just a minor flare up. What will happen if it really hurts? He wondered if he will cry. Then he told me I would try to outdo him again by dying or something and he would curse himself for not having more insurance on me! I sure wish I was making that up. He makes me laugh! I’m glad I’m not making that up. Although I wish I had made up the whole dramatic weekend.

Anyway, how is everyone else feeling? My head is feeling better but the lazy song is still calling my name.

Playing Hooky

20 Friday Jan 2012

Posted by in Diabetes, Family

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Did you ever play hooky when you were a kid? When I was a kid my parents took us out of school for various reasons. My cousins moved to Las Vegas when I was in 5th grade and every year after that we would take one to two weeks off of school to visit them.

We would spend a week camping and water skiing at Lake Mead. On Sunday we would go to church with my cousins and spend the rest of the day at their house. Depending on how our vacation worked out sometimes we would go to church in Moapa Valley.

Over the years we learned that camping in the fall was far superior to camping in the spring. The water was oh so warm and awesome. Springtime in Lake Mead usually meant rain. All week. Not warm rain either. So we would take our soggy selves to the Valley of Fire and other nearby parks or tourist attractions for something to do. Water skiing in the rain isn’t nearly as fun as it sounds! Although I loved the year we took a tour of the Hoover Dam. That was very interesting. I don’t remember if it was that same week or another year but my grandpa drove the boat as close to the Hoover Dam as we could get. That was pretty cool to see it from that perspective. My brother skied forever around the dam. Ah memories.

The memory I meant to tell was how I felt when I was not in school. The first few years I lived with diabetes I went to Clinic. That’s what my family called it anyway. There I met with my doctor, nurse, dietician, and social worker. There may have been other team members but those were the ones I remember. I would also get my blood drawn. One year I put up enough of a fuss about it that I convinced the phlebotomist to take the blood from my fingers instead of from my arm! It took a lot longer that way but it hurt a lot less!

Clinic would take a couple hours so I would go to school in the afternoon or get checked out early depending on my appointment time. I remember one time in 6th grade, I only know because I remember the purple and white striped sweatshirt I was wearing! My memories involve what I was wearing and I can figure out timing based on my clothes. I know, I’m weird. Anyway, Clinic was over right before lunch. I think my parents took me home to eat instead of sending me back to school to check in for the day in time for lunch. I remember stopping off at the grocery store and feeling sick to my stomach because I wasn’t in school.

I was always feeling queasy any time things were not exactly as they should be. See how long my relationship with anxiety has been? We go all the way back. If I was out of school for an appointment I felt weird until I was at the appointment. If I didn’t get to school right after I felt like a criminal! How dare I be out of school playing hooky with my parents! Vacations were different. I would get the homework ahead of time and finish it before we left town. The vacation was a welcome break at that point.

The memories keep flickering into my mind and rather than try to sort out the details here I will move on. As an adult I don’t see any issues with taking my kids out for vacations or to spend time with family visiting. Sick days are another story. My kids better be dying before I decide to keep them home. I get really uptight if they decide to be sick on days when I have plans. When I do keep them home I never know what to do with them!

What were sick days like in your house? I remember staying home from school a lot. Strep throat, flu, living in the hospital for a week being educated on diabetes, etc. I don’t remember ever staying home for a cold or fever. When I was home I was sick and in bed and wishing I was dead.

Another memory! In high school I was out with my friends and a Seminary teacher. It’s hard to say if we were all sluffing or what. Maybe it was after school. I had to have been a sophomore because first of all, Bro. Webb was driving us around and second, I remember talking to my friend in our sophomore Chemistry class a week later when he told me he felt horrible that I was sick for a week after that afternoon. He apologized profusely for encouraging me to eat all that chocolate with him.

We had gone to a craft store and James bought a package of light blue mint flavored melting chocolates. That we proceeded to eat all of. It wasn’t just the two of us. Eric had to have been there too. So three of us downing a bag of melting chocolates in a flavor I have never liked! I went home and felt like crap obviously. Only it lasted for a week because it was the flu. Good times! That may have been the flu where I read Steven King’s Firestarter. Great story. Foul language.

Well, Gavin is home today. He wanted to stay home yesterday but since he didn’t have a fever I simply told him he had a cold and he should suck it up and go to school. I felt bad since he had a barking cough already but what was I supposed to do with him? Coughing is not a real reason to stay home. The rest of the world has to function with a cold. Kids are no different. We drugged him up with the last dose of children’s ibuprofen last night before bed. I will always be grateful for Parenting Magazine for their story on remedies for common children illnesses. Anti inflammatory meds to help a child with croup breathe better has been a lifesaver for us.

He couldn’t sleep and when he finally fell asleep he couldn’t stay asleep. He was up at 9:30, 2:30, and 4:00. By 4:00 we wanted to give him more ibuprofen but we didn’t have any and Tylenol isn’t anti inflammatory. So Heath gave him a dose from Parker’s inhaler and a cough suppressant. And we decided then that he was staying home from school. That ruined Gavin’s day. He enjoys school and Fridays are his favorite days because he has Chess Club in the library right after school.

I made him hide out in my bedroom watching cartoons while Gwen had a play date. He’s been bored trying to find something to do all day. He bounces and runs like usual and once again I have to wonder if I was stupid for keeping him home. It just seemed like after all the drugs we put in his system overnight, and his restless night, school wasn’t the best idea. He could take the weekend to recover.

What’s your sick day philosophy and what were sick days like for you as a kid? Did you ever play hooky?

Almost Ballet

19 Thursday Jan 2012

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On this day when the sky grew darker as the day wore on, Gwen finally went to her first dance class. It wasn’t an official dance class. Just some cute little music and movement dance class put on for free by a local ballet dance studio.

Gwen has been dying to go to this class. I have been eagerly anticipating it as well. I wanted to see how well she would do with it since the girl has been dancing since before she could even crawl.

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If you ask Gwen she’ll tell you she loved it. Although she pooped out 20 minutes into the 45 minute class. I’m not sure what happened. She was having fun and paying attention. Then she was suddenly acting shy, self conscious, and running over to me to say she was hungry for a snack. I knew she couldn’t possibly be hungry. We had lunch with Heath at a local Mexican restaurant and made it to the library just in time for the class. My kids use food as an excuse for a lot of things. It was interesting to see her play the hungry card completely out of the blue like that. I told her she could eat when it was over and to go dance some more.

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For the rest of the class Gwen was a faulty Energizer Bunny. She would really get into it for a minute then run back over to me and I’d send her back out there. Maybe she realized her pants were on backwards, which I noticed at the end of the class! Now I’m really curious to see what will happen next week. I totally thought she would be so into the class that we would be looking for ballet classes nearby for a decent price. After today I’m wondering if she is still too young.

The class was advertised for 3-5 year olds. Some of the kids may have been old 2 year olds. There were little kids all the way up to kids who looked older than 5. Maybe kindergarteners who had already turned 6. The boys were uncoordinated and easily distracted, regardless of age. The older girls had much more control of their bodies and had much longer attention spans. The younger girls were a mixed bag. It was obvious some of them had been involved in dance classes or formal classes of some kind. The others were spastic balls of unfocused energy!

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This is my favorite picture! Look at how Gwen’s legs are crossed instead of stretched out into the splits like everyone else!

The teacher was great. She was sweet and nice but extremely authoritative. I loved how she nicely corrected the kids while still appreciating and respecting that they’re little kids. I liked her. She gave each family a pamphlet about the dance studio she teaches at. I had already looked at their website. It looks like a great place but I’m concerned the cost will shock me. It was not listed in the pamphlet or online. Each family also received a coupon for a free dance lesson. That may be worth looking into. And then I can see if I can find someone who teaches out of their home, if someone like that even exists here in Prestigioustown.

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Gwen and I met our new friends at the class. A new family has moved into our ward (church congregation) and we played with them at Park Day last Friday. That’s when we found out that Hope was signed up for the same two weeks that Gwen was. Gwen was thrilled to see Hope.

I took more video than I took pictures because the pictures weren’t coming out well with the lighting in the room. I’m just not sure the video is exciting enough to even put together. You’d be bored and stop it early to say to yourself that you guess you had to be there. So I’ll spare everyone.

It was a fun day though. As we left the library with less than 10 minutes to get across town to pick up the boys from school, the rain finally decided to make an appearance after two plus extremely dry months. We managed to make it to the school before the boys had come down the path so they have no idea we were late. I could not be happier to have my windshield wipers swishing all the way home. Finally the rain has come!

Prayer

18 Wednesday Jan 2012

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Heavenly Father . . . thankful for this beautiful food . . . thankful that Gavin could go to Scouts . . . thankful that my boys could go to school . . . thankful that Mom could make my fluffy, fluffy skirt . . . thankful that Dad could go to work . . .

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This girl! I had no idea life with a girl could be this fun.

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The other day out of the blue she told me her sandwich was the best sandwich ever because it was cut in triangles! Then she told me I was the best mom ever.

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She believes Emma made her own fluffy skirt. When she asked if I helped Emma I said yes. Later Emma told Gwen’s dad that she (Emma) made the skirt. Emma is a plastic doll.

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Gwen will never have a biological sister but she will always have Emma. Emma will fill the void while Gwen lives so far away from her cousins that she affectionately calls her sisters.

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Gwen honestly believed that her new Dora the Explorer shampoo would make her hair look just like Dora’s hair. “I will go to church tomorrow and show my friends my hair. They will say, ‘What! What happened to you hair?’” Then I convinced her that the shampoo wouldn’t change her hairstyle to a short, little girl bob, but it would make her speak Spanish. I pretended not to understand anything Gwen said because I don’t speak Spanish!

I had to do something with the extra lace flowers I put on Gwen’s skirt. Since there were four left I glued three onto a headband and one onto a hair clip. She wore all four yesterday.

I add my own prayer to Gwen’s. I am so thankful for the blessing of this little girl. May she and her brothers (her boys!) stay frozen in time and never grow up. But if they have to, may they stay this sweet, cute, and innocent.

Fleecing Deception

17 Tuesday Jan 2012

Posted by in Funny, Piquant

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Why can’t people just say things how they are? Why all the dancing around? For example, who are we protecting by changing the name of meat?

  • Beef instead of cows
  • Pork instead of pigs
  • Head cheese instead of . . . I don’t think I can say it

Maybe that’s why. Then we have birds and fish. The names don’t change.

  • Tuna = tuna
  • Shrimp = yummy I mean shrimp
  • Chicken = chicken
  • Turkey = turkey
  • Pigeon = squab

Wait a minute! Squab? Nobody likes thinking they’re eating pigeons. Come to think of it, nobody really likes squab either! But don’t turkeys and pigeons eat pretty much the same thing? So why is it so disturbing to eat pigeons? We eat hot dogs without hesitation. They may not be made out of dogs but they aren’t always made out of the most quality part of chickens and cows. The mechanically separated part. In other words, road kill. Of course we eat Jell-O and glue. Some people eat glue anyway. And what are those things made out of? Horses hooves.

How about organic food? Have you ever noticed that the food grown completely unchemically altered costs more than the food supposedly dripping with poison? My favorite is the idea that sugar is unnatural. What the what? Don’t people grow sugar, harvest it, then sell it? What could be more natural than that? Heaven forbid we use sugar when we could use weird white crystals that come from leaves! Granted this new form of sugar has no calories, guilt, or flavor. No, I don’t know that! I haven’t tried it.

It reminds me of bottled water. I love how there is a nutrition label on water! All the way down the list the value is zero. Seems like a waste of paper to me. I think the good people of Magna, Utah should bottle their tap water. On the nutrition label they could list all the sludge and minerals in the water that makes it heavy water.

Toothpaste commercials are great too. I love the one where they grab some yahoo walking through the mall and get her to sit down on a dentist chair so they can wand over her mouth and show it on a big screen for God and everyone to see! She has all this green gunk all over her teeth. Then they wand over some other lady who supposedly used a different toothpaste; the toothpaste they’re selling. Her mouth is magically non gunky. Hm. Is she a spy? She’s one of “them.” And how do I, as the consumer, not know the ambushed lady just didn’t brush her teeth at all that day? Perhaps that’s why her mouth is so gross?

Wait, back to the sugar thing. “Corn syrup is unnatural.” It comes from corn right? I would imagine if they can squeeze juice from a tree and pour it over pancakes they can squeeze juice from corn and use it to make candy.

What gives? It’s not just food either. This cleverly disguised deception is everywhere. Taxes for example. Does it bother anyone else that Uncle Sam also goes by the mysterious name of FICA and he takes a huge cut of your hard earned money? I know, I know. It’s how our economy works. Don’t you find it a little strange that the government takes what they take and during tax season you play a game of chance?

Chance a game by Uncle Sam
The object of the game is to get the most money. You can 1) file taxes yourself and hope for the best or 2) have someone else do it for you for a nominal fee but they claim they can find all the money you are too stupid to find yourself. Regardless of how you file taxes you run the risk of being audited. Maybe the government will pay you back if they withheld too much of your money or maybe you will have to pay them more! (maniacal laughter)

People make a living at helping other people figure out their taxes. And good for them but why are taxes so complicated? Is this not odd to anyone else?

Hidden fees. Fine print. Secondhand anything. Actually any merchandise. Some of it is so expensive I wonder if it’s laced with gold. The word interesting to sugar coat the negative truth. We could go on and on but we won’t.

What can you think of that we accept without thinking it through?

Of it’s ready?

13 Friday Jan 2012

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Of is one of those words that has multiple meanings in our house. Gwen uses this word a lot. It takes the place of nearly every article and most of the to be verbs. I heard “Of it’s ready?” many times over the last couple of days.

The stars finally aligned and I decided to stop looking at all the sewing project materials and just make the dang skirt already. My friend, a former home ec teacher, came over to give me a private sewing lesson. She taught me sewing vocabulary and helped me cut out the pattern. She also went through the pattern instructions and left helpful hints and notes along the way while scribbling out parts that were a different skirt so I wouldn’t get confused. The pattern I bought makes three different skirts.

She thought the instructions were kind of strangely written but she didn’t have time to muddle through it with me. Her son was getting out of preschool so she said to call if I was stuck and she could help or come back over. That night I wanted to clarify what I was doing in the second step so I Skyped with Dawn, my mother in law, who is an avid seamstress. She was lost with the instructions too and told me she would go to JoAnn’s the next day and read the pattern there. She called back to say that the instructions were the stupidest she had ever read! She would do it much differently.

Yesterday I decided I had talked through the rest of the steps enough that I had a general idea of what was supposed to happen. I kind of had the feeling that I had talked to two very accomplished seamstresses and my novice skills may actually help keep me unbiased toward the pattern directions. So I went for it. If I screwed up I screwed up. I was the using the cheaper of the two fabric choices I bought anyway.

The more I added to the skirt the more it felt like a skirt as I sewed. I was so excited. It was looking like a skirt and not like a parka with spaghetti straps and a pant leg only aliens can wear. I got through the entire project on my own. I was thrilled. The last step was the casing for the waistband. I saw that my mom had replied to the text about Parker’s lost tooth. I replied and asked my sewing question. We texted back and forth for a minute before I just called her. I was never going to get it through texts. My mom used to be known for her sewing abilities. She is an amazing seamstress who rarely sews anymore. She more or less retired from the hobby to live her life in other ways.

We worked through the casing instructions over the phone and I finished that bad boy! Of course it was after the kids had gone to bed. I considered laying the skirt over Gwen’s sleeping body and getting a picture. Heath rolled his eyes to high heaven. He did laugh too and tell me I was funny. That took a little of the sting out of the you’re funny but what I really mean is you’re a tad bit crazy look! Instead I washed the skirt to get the chalk marks off. Must buy a marking pencil. The skirt was clean and ready to go this morning. Gwen was so happy.

No, I did not wake her up. Heath thought I might. Luckily she got up a little before 7:30 and actually ate breakfast before the boys came down. Here’s my masterpiece:

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I would like to thank my mother for trying to teach me domestic skills back in the day. I know I was a pain in the butt about it. Eventually I decided those things she tried to teach me are cool. I remembered a lot. My memories were more of my mom sewing than anything I learned in my home economics class I took in junior high because it was mandatory. But still, something stuck in this big airy head of mine!

I would also like to thank my good friends Abigail and Vicki for their advice and encouragement. Especially Abigail for teaching me. And last but not least I would like to thank Dawn for her enthusiasm, encouragement, and being such a champ to try to help me long distance via Skype! You’re so great!

Ok enough of that sappiness.

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It’s a little long. I made a size 6 for a nearly 4 year old girl. She loves it and I made her change her shirt to something that matched a little better. I’m so proud of me! I made a skirt. Me! Who knew I was so domestic?

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