New iPod & Accessory Case!
What a productive week! Thursday I made my iPod case – somehow just planned it out and measured Wednesday, fussy cut the pieces Thursday (so the bandana patterns are symmetrical), and sewed them together by the evening. My hope was to make a cute case that could fit my super fabulous Kate Spade ipod case, AND hold the ear phones and AV cable, for when I take my ipod out for a video slide show. I was pleased to do that on Friday at Eden’s house before we left for her graduation ceremony – I played a nice photo slide show of all of my digital pictures of Eden – only about 50 for now, but it was really cool to be able to just plug that into their television. Anyway, I used some more of my Alexander Henry fabric – Sisters of the Wild Frontier, with the matching bandana prints. It’s so adorable. Next up – a small make up case, and possibly a divider panel inside my swing bag with a stronger liner and some pockets for my stuff!
Late Friday night after dinner cleanup, and putzing around on other stuff, I finally made the dough for two Frangipani Plum Tarts – my cousin Duane requested them for a dinner party he was having, and I made them as birthday gifts for him. I cooked them both Friday morning and they looked and smelled delicious. I delivered them to him in Shrewsbury. Then we went up to spend the day with my Grandma in Kearny – where she gave me a nice new box of old pictures and documents, and another box and a nice tin with my Great Great Grandfather’s buttons!!!
That afternoon we went to my little sister Eden’s house – her mom Linda just moved them in with her boyfriend Ronnie to his place in Nutley. There we visited and enjoyed Eden as she got ready for her Glen Ridge High School Graduation. She looked so nice – beautiful really. All the young women wore white dresses, the young men wore white tuxedo jackets. What a nice presentation it was! Though we were on time, there were no seats or programs for us, but I got on the case and rounded up 5 seats from the gym and brought them out to the perfect spot for us to see Eden and we cheered really loud for her.
Saturday it poured rain most of the day, and I was glad I could just sleep in instead of running out to the garden this week. Not much else to share. Today I went to the scrapbooking event at AC Moore, but didn’t win any prizes or really try to work on lots of free samples or anything. Just got a few cool things. I should be earning a nice chunk of Paypal money this week, and look forward to doing a tiny bit of shopping and paying off some bills!
Hot but busy
I thought I was going to hit the ground running today, and I guess I sort of did, but I think I’m going to have to start going to bed earlier and waking up earlier if I think I’m going to be getting things done in this heat. Yesterday, despite the heat, I:
Mowed the Lawn
Trimmed the edges
Swept the back deck
Powerwashed the front of the house and porch, including the furniture ( NICE ! )
Today I:
finished fixing some of my front porch plants that needed more dirt
deadheaded the old blooms
watered all
stripped the old caulk and re-caulked the yucky parts of the bathtub (been on my list for far too long.)
same for the kitchen sink
But I have to go grocery shopping – and it’s already over 90. At least I planned the menu for the rest of the week and made my list. I promised my cousin Duane I’d make him two plum tarts for Friday. He said he’d pay me, but I noticed Saturday is his birthday, so I can’t even make a few $’s. He’s so sweet, though, I don’t mind. The house is still spiffy inside, and things have been going well with B____, our houseguest. I hope after our grocery run (which I pray is quick and easy) the kids will be up for some outdoor fun. No running or exercise yesterday, but I think my work counted for that. Off I go!
Sisters of the Wild Frontier!
I love this fabric, and have now completed my beautiful Amy Butler Swing Bag. I have had this fabric for quite a long time – since Christmas 2004, I think. I got several of the coordinating bandana prints with it, but I didn’t know what project to use it in that would showcase the beauty of the lovely “Sisters.”
Finally I found the Swing bag pattern, and despite one minor screwup on my part (stupidly and inadvertently slashing it in a prime location with my rotary cutter) I have completed my bag and have enough material to make one more – which I am intending as a gift for my “baby” sister – who will be 18 this August,(!) and who also expressed deep love for the print. I beaded the girls’ outfits and the tee pees, and anything else that looked like it needed it. I’m very happy with the way it turned out, and even happier to have finally completed a project again after so long.
I still have several half yards of the bandana prints: red, sage, copper brown, coffee brown & slate blue, and am not quite sure what do to with them beyond making my self a case for my iPod case. Why, one might ask, do you need a case for the case? Well, Trip bought me my fabulous Kate Spade case which is Shiny Gold and beautiful, but it doesn’t hold the ear buds, or the video cable, and I’m afraid it will get beat up getting tossed in my tote bag and I don’t like those accessories floating around loose. So I saved my scraps and will have a matching, super cute iPod case case – Soon, very soon! It took so long to get to this project, because housework always looms. But I NEEDED to have this bag to carry around this summer! Now the summer days are here – school is out and I’m gearing up for more sewing.
I don’t know what else I have been up to. There was a mad scramble at the end of the year to make teacher gifts – hand made cards for Alex’s 3 teachers and one diorama for Elliot’s teacher. Also cookies for Elliot’s class – rainbow frosted sugar cookies cut with the Alphabet cookies cutters. Very nice but took forever!
We’ve had a major shake up at home. Trip’s good friend B___ has been struggling with marriage troubles for a while, and after attempting to live back with his parents, has come to stay with us. We had talked about the possibility of this happening, and I fully supported and offered up our guest room. He told me officially yesterday afternoon, and went out to get him, also witnessing the bad scene with his parents as he left. Poor guy. I can’t say how it will go – but for now it seems like it will be fine. He brought an elliptical machine, which I used this morning and burned up 250 calories. I still have been jogging 3 miles several times a week. Not getting on the scale – but looking more toned and feeling better.
Today is Father’s Day and we are driving down to Bricktown to eat at Chevy’s – a Mexican chain restaurant – with Trip’s parents and my darling sister and brother in law. I won’t even go into why this will be a special form of torture, not to mention summer weekend traffic at the shore. God forbid we should patronize a local Mexican restaurant – there are only about 50 in a 10 mile radius of my home! I am steeling myself for some upcoming announcement of their expected baby’s gender – and all I have to say is it better be a boy. I am also preparing my self for some fake smiling and asking how fat ass is feeling – just because it’s expected. What I really want to say is, “You are so fucking fat, no one would even know you are pregnant, you annoying bitch!” Just let it all out! Let’s just say it now – I’m buying them a baby gift if it’s a girl, because I’ll throw out my Bernina before I make her any baby girl stuff! (and that will NEVER happen!) Venonmous! Evil! Glad I got that off my chest!
Progress
A quick little update before I get myself to bed. I’m not going to bed early enough to take advantage of the early morning in order to get my exercising in first thing. And I’ve learned that if it doesn’t happen 1st thing it might not happen at all. Saturday morning I thought I was being so good. Soccer wasn’t till 10:00 and for a change I actually was aware of that, instead of arriving an hour early just to sit around because I didn’t check my calendar. So I was doing my warm up, sit ups, outer & inner thighs, hoping to take a quick jog then a nice shower before the game. But then the phone rang. Coach Mike to say the schedule has been changed and we now need to get everyone there at 9:00. So the mad dash was on. Blew $8.00 at Dunkin Donuts for bagels and coffee on the run. But we actually made it on time. Only to find that the other coach screwed up and two teams were on our field. So now we have an hour to sit around. I decide to make the best of it and do some paperwork while I sat in the car. But the boys wanted to go to the playground and then my mom called – they were there early, too. So we sat around and I got to hear about my poor Uncle Paul who is really suffering with his alcoholism. Then Alex had his last game and I was a little annoyed to see the very tall and athletic boy (who I have a hard time believing is 5), playing for the other team. This kid always runs faster, scores goal after goal, and generally appears to be out of his league. But whatever. He survived. Then Elliot had his game, and came soooo close to scoring a goal, but either way, it was great to watch him in action. And Trip actually came to a game, albeit their last one.
Back home, no big excitement. But I was a bundle of nerves because I was booked to do 2 Mystery Shops. I always get this sick feeling before I do one. I honestly can’t say that all the prep and time and stress is worth it. I was actually quite pissed because after I got back, Trip had to go out to the Home Depot and buy some PVC pipe and a butane torch so he could make a new hiding place for the World’s Most Spoiled Golden Gecko. Here I am nauseous over the effort to earn $11, and he’s blowing $13.00 on yet another accessory for that thing. I did get them over with and even after I got home, while I was filling out the annoying online submission forms, I still felt sick to my stomach, and realized I made one stupid mistake. (Forgot to pretend I needed to buy ink for my printer at the office supply store.) I hope they don’t screw me just for that.
At night we watched the Aristocrats and had a decent laugh, although for the 1st 3rd of the movie I just didn’t get what all the fuss was about.
Today we had M— and the girls over to join us for my pancake breakfast. I even made home fries and she brought real bacon and organic strawberries to supplement my fake sausage. The only thing missing was some champagne so we could have had mimosas, which is up there with my favorite things to have in a fancy brunch. Trip was a little peeved that I made these arrangements, even though he had suggested they could come over Saturday night (shocking!) and also had suggested that maybe his cousin John might stop by for pancakes. Honestly I HATE his little peevish sighs or grumbles about stupid shit all the time. But he wanted to go take the kids to see Cars today – and I had kind of forgotten that. But I figured out we could do it. If we bought our tickets online to avoid being sold out, if M—- left at 11:30 and we did, too, and we got to the 12:00 show, immediately after the movie I had to drop him at home and take the boys to a birthday party at 2:30. They had fun, although Nathan wouldn’t join in with the other kids for some reason. Then mostly quiet at home where I completely cleared a HUGE pile of papers at my desk. Then I made dinner, washed/dried/folded and put away 2 loads of laundry, cleaned up from dinner. Now time for me – I finally got some more work done on my fabulous purse!
I don’t know if I ever carried on about this here – but I got the most gorgeous fabric (designed by Alexander Henry) called Sisters of the Wild Frontier. It’s got Indian Maidens and Cowgirls on a medium aqua blue background and came with several coordinating bandana prints. I’ve held onto it for over a year not sure what to do with it – then I got my lovely Amy Butler Swing Bag pattern – perfect for featuring the girls – and even got some nice beads to accent the designs. I truly believe they will be the cutest bags ever made – and I have enough to make 2 – one for me and one for my little sister Eden, who loved this fabric as much as I did when I showed her. The only bummer is that by some amazing stroke of stupidity, I managed to slash part of the fabric right on one of the purse panels. (I had to take great care in laying it out in order to feature as many girls as possible without chopping off too many of them.) I fixed it with iron on interfacing and stuck a matching piece of fabric behind it so you can’t really see it, but I was so pissed I did that – especially because I have been planning the use of this fabric for so long. All the pieces are cut out – I believe I can start beading tomorrow. I’m giving Eden hers for her birthday this year. I may have to put them aside though, because Elliot is begging me to make cookies for his Last Day of School Party. Not plain old easy chocolate chip, but shaped and iced sugar cookies. A good several hours of work. Ah, women’s work is never done. But at least I’m moving along nicely!
School’s Out! & Run-in with The Law
It’s not quite there, but it feels like it. I always loved those last few days. Alex had his 1st promotion out of Pre-K yesterday and despite carrying on about not wanting to sing on stage, he did wonderfully. I worked hard putting the house back together – there was a lot of stuff displaced and laying around since our new furniture arrived. It’s so nice to see our living room looking gorgeous. One thing I have to let fly about. I had to make a quick run to the store yesterday after school – and Nathan fell asleep in the car on the way there. I had all the boys with me, and decided to just let them sit in the car while I ran in. As I pulled in the parking lot, there was an idiot blocking the lot because someone bumped bumpers – I couldn’t even see any damage to either car, but they didn’t want to let anyone drive past. Fine – I parked and was aware that an officer was on the way to investigate. I did my grocery shopping (about 3 minutes) and came out to see the kids were fine – then in to get some beer – about 2 minutes – only to come out to see an Officer of the Law standing at my car and obviously conversing with Alex through the window. Oh Crap – here we go.
He gave me a lecture about leaving the kids unattended. “It only takes 30 seconds for someone to smash in your window and steal your kids!” I’m lucky I didn’t get a ticket, and quite honestly I was terrified – but only thinking of the expense of this ticket and possible administrative bullshit that might go along with. I didn’t tell him that I KNEW police were on the way to the “scene of the accident” just a few yards from my car. I also pretended I had no idea that the law applied even to the ridiculous 2 minute run into the store that I did. I’m sure he would rather I had carried a sleeping 3 year old through both stores – that would have made it into a 30 minute trip. It pissed me off so bad. He took my license, wrote down my name and address, but did not issue me a ticket. Needless to say, I was fuming when I got in the car – but I couldn’t haul off and yell at the kids too bad, because technically I’m not supposed to leave them in the car. HOWEVER I have always told my kids not to draw attention to themselves if they are in the car. They know better. Alex was the guilty party. When I told Trip, he said it was a tough call, because we have always told the kids that police officers are safe people to talk to. He actually called the guy over to the car from where he was investigating the accident – otherwise the windows are tinted and no one would ever notice them there. It took me a while to recover from my stress – and he took a nap after his “talking to”. It’s one of those things that annoys me no end. Of course, I realize that once he saw my kids, he could never just walk away from them – I’m just glad I was there so fast – clearly he hadn’t had time to even get in much of a conversation with them before I returned to the car. If modern life is going to prevent me from being able to run in the store and leave my kids in a locked car for 5 minutes then I think every store should offer shop by phone and drive through pick-up service.
Now I’m going to work on my little desk pile. I feel like I’ve been making good progress lately, but still haven’t worked on my super cute new purse – which is the sewing project I’ve been anticipating for so long. I just never feel like it’s a good time when so many other items still need attention. In other news, I’ve stepped up my Mystery Shopping efforts and have at least one new job to do this weekend with hopefully more to come. We’ll pay off our credit cards yet!
Maxed Out! *&%$#$
What a day! I was busy in good ways – the usual laundry, dusting, cleaning, mowing the lawn. But I was anxious to make an important call to Amex because we were so very close to going over our spending limit. Of course, I knew that we shouldn’t be that close, and that we shouldn’t try to raise the limit, but if you go over, then the APR shoots up into the stratosphere. So my first sick feeling came as the Rep on the phone told me that we couldn’t raise our limit – we are already as high as we can go. Lovely. The next horrible feeling came seconds later when she told me we had already gone over our spending limit. Panic! I wound up making a payment immediately (which is going to overdraw our checking account – truly robbing Peter to pay Paul) and then ran out to Target to return some things I bought last week. (My cute cheap shoes!) The only good thing about this is that it now forces the issue. We have to pay that card down and Trip knows how high it is. Also, I can’t use it to bail myself out monthly or buy stupid crap – which is how we got into this awful situation in the first place. Granted – my new Mission Audio Bureau is going to look lovely in the living room – and I honestly (though I know I must sound so stupid) believe we can pay it down now that Trip’s raise is coming this month and we will be done paying off the new water heater, and we are now being forced to “pay the piper” so to speak. Last night I planned our menu for the week to avoid over shopping, or last minute expensive eating or running to the store. I get paid on Wednesday and will be running to put the money in the bank, and now it’s time to hunker down.
In spite of all this financial worry, I’m feeling pretty good about life and specifically life with Trip. First, I have to say I think he’s making a big effort to be more amorous. Second, in spite of the fact that our new purchase may be fundamentally stupid for people in huge debt, I think it will be a huge improvement in my daily scene. And I think it will spur me on to continue improving the house (without spending more money, though). We moved around some furniture (as I started doing last month.) We worked together. (Honestly I was pissed because throughout the furniture switching I had to continually discuss the merits f the move. I’m like, “Just do it – if you don’t like it we’ll move it back! Why the endless hemming and hawing!” The kitchen looks nicer, the living room, the guest room. All getting better. We had a huge talk last night also about lots of things. I felt better just being able to have a nice talk without getting overly emotional. Trip actually said “I’d like to have another child” !!! “but…” No – it wasn’t quite like that – I feel much more hopeful that I have in a long time. But I have a lot of work to do if we are going to ever make this happen. I think he is just scared – of moving and the responsibliity of a new little one. And he thinks I don’t know what I want. I don’t think that’s ever been a problem, honestly. I clearly know what I want and I do everything in my power to make it happen. It’s a little easier to be understanding of his fear than having to be understanding of him just being an immovable turd who wants to thwart my every move. I just pray I may see a few more of my dreams come true in this lifetime.
Restoration Hardware Warehouse sale score!
I’m enjoying some Chianti my boss Frank made, sitting here with a project I have put off a long time sitting behind me. I have all the boys art work which I can’t part with before I scan or otherwise digitally save. It was piled in my desk and taking up valuable real estate, so I’m hoping I can at least get rid of some of it soon. But more fun than that is a project on my sewing room table to make my super cute new Swing Bag. Instead of doing those things I did major cleaning in the house today, getting ready for a furniture upgrade and switching around. Which brings me to my title subject.
On Friday I (perhaps stupidly) planned to go to the Warehouse Sale for Restoration Hardware. I say stupidly because we are very nearly mixed out on my credit card, and we weren’t exactly planning to make any big purchases right now. In fact we should be doing anything we can to pay our card down, but I’ll say in my defense of stupid behavior that A) Trip’s $5000 raise is supposed to go into effect with his next pay check, and B) We have had our eye on one particular piece of furniture for several years now, and if by chance they happened to have one at a major reduced rate I’d feel bad if we missed out on a fabulous bargain. So I was ready Friday – went ot my parent’s meeting at school, packed up the car, dropped off the recycling, picked up Alex at 11:00 and jumped right on the parkway to get there at noon on when they opened. I’m SO glad I did. I got a decent spot and joined the line to get in – we were there before it opened. All I wanted was the gorgeous Mission Media armoire (list price $2695) – a cabinet made to hide the television, and store the stereo equipment behind a glass door, as well as extra drawer space for storage and even a super functional and nice Remote Control Storage area. It’s been in my folder of “Things to By someday when we can afford it. Right now we keep those things (tv and stereo) in an ugly pressboard and vinyl laminate open cabinet that has seen too many years and too many moves. So I got in there and stood up on my tiptoes to see the lay of the land and I spotted the “land of armoirs”. I grabbed Nathan & Alex and beelined straight for the cabinets – as I briskly walked, I could see everywhere around me where people had found items and were basically sitting on them to keep other people from claiming them. I found my dream cabinet – the only one in the warehouse – slightly damaged – it was missing two glass panels on the stereo cabinet door and had a small ding repaired. The list price was $1606! Over $1000 off! I called Trip and told him the deal – we worried about shipping – I said I’d find out and get back. I claimed it as mine – and stood on line to ask about shipping- $170 shipping – that’s also $100 off regular price. So I called back and we decided to do it. Waited on another line to pay – no big whoop and then again to pay for shipping. By that time the line to pay was over an hour long – and I knew that I had just made it. I felt so lucky first that I found the piece and secondly that I had come when I had and moved quickly, because Alex & Nathan would have made that shop hellish if we had to be on that long line. It’s coming Wednesday. I am so excited for the improvement it will bring to the living room. And it has me on a new kick to spiff up the house. I took the kids huge play tent out of the guest room – it’s nice to have my cute room back. And I’m booting some of their toy crap out of the living room now. My other plan is to switch my kitchen around to make it more open and roomy looking. I’m getting a little resistance from Trip (what else is new?). But I emptied my ugly microwave cart in the hopes of getting rid of it to make my re-arrangements. We’ll see how it goes.
Today I went over the the Ocean Grove Flea Market. As it has many other years, it dumped rain last night and threatened to do so all day. Fortunately there were several hours when we could peruse the crap at the fair. The only thing I bought was a huge bag of kettle corn, although I almost bought myself a really cute little bracelet, but I couldn’t do it. I think we can’t spend any money anymore now. That’s all for now. I will try to at least scan or photograph 20 of the boys’ pictures and then maybe cut out my bag pattern.
Gossamer Threads 