Category: Misc

So that's the skirt I made this weekend. Well not just me … I had help. Thank goodness. My friend (and babysitting charge of the past and current babysitter), Steph helped with her expertise and sewing machine. And the whole thing was Holly's idea. It turned out so well and sort of got me back into the creative mode and I'm really glad she got us going.

Basically, the gist is that you cut up jeans into skirt silhouette and then fill in the missing spots with pieces from the legs. For added interest, I decided to use another fabric on the side panels. I had no idea if it would work out or not, but I really like the effect. Then Steph used contrasting green thread on the hem in a cute embroidery pattern to provide a stop point for the fraying and a little decoration.

The only thing I am not crazy about is that I used a skirt that's a size or two too big … I got the jeans at Goodwill and selection was limited. I ended up going more for style and color rather than perfect size. I thought it wouldn't matter quite so much with a skirt, but it's pretty loose … though I can pull it down lower on my hips which isn't bad.

• Tutorial (that I only sort of followed)
• Close-up Detail

Any guesses as to what this used to be?

It was going to be a treat for Loki. We bought him a nice bone at the market and Matt was going to heat it up a bit for him … so he put it on the grill while we were cooking dinner inside. And we forgot about it. And went for a walk. And when we got back … things were rather warm. 600 degrees. The BONE was on fire. Yikes.

Maybe we can get him a treat next week … for now he's back to raw-hide chews. I think even my rather indiscrimate dog would turn his nose up at charred bone.

Hi all! Hope your weekend was a great one. We were super busy and had a lot of fun, but now I'm super tired. Bullet recap or I'll never get thru it:

• Finally got a more varied share from the hippies including zucchini.. yum!
• Had a hugely successful and fun game night. Made Kristi's pizza dip recipe which was great as well as 7-layer dip, no pudge brownies and a veggie tray, plus everyone brought tons of food (and wine!!).
• Matt and Tabby had a daddy-daughter date night and went to playgrounds cafe and had a lot of fun.
• Spent most of Saturday at Holly's house … we went running and then transformed old pairs of jeans into skirts (I'll have to post a photo later … they turned out so cute!).
• We celebrated Kelly's b'day on Sat night with some good picnic food. I provided the Chocolate Lava cake and we bought her a Fat Unicorn T'shirt.
• Sunday we went hiking at Walker Ranch with M&H and the babies which was a bit too ambitious, apparently because we only made it about 2/3 of the distance we were aiming for … but it was gorgeous and I really want to get back there.
• Did grocery shopping and other misc. errands (got the wrong running shoes!) and a bit of laundry.
• Had a nap with Tabby that was lovely.
• Made BBQ Chicken burritos for dinner.
• Watched Definitely, Maybe (meh) and stayed up a bit too late.
• Dragged my sorry butt out of bed early early and went trail runing for 45 minutes (wtf??!).
• Do I really have to work today!??!

While doing dishes last night, I moved my hand jerkily and my wedding band flew off (it kinda needs to be sized). Anyhoo, I thought it landed in the corner where our cabinets form an L shape. But searching on my hands and knees (which was quite painful thanks to Bootcamp) yielded no results. I called in the knight in shining armor (Matt) and enlisted his help in the search. We looked ALL OVER. Moved the fridge, ec. etc. I was really pretty convinced it hadn't gone far. I hadn't heard rolling or anything. But it wasn't there!

Then Matt noticed that if you put your hand up under the lip of the cabinet (where the cabinet meets the baseboard) there was a hole…. ruh-roh. We could not think of another single spot where my ring could be and so Matt ended up ripping off part of the baseboard and sure enough … back about a foot in there, almost underneath the neighboring cabinet (and almost REALLY REALLY lost) was my wedding band. It is back in my posession now and I'm very happy. Poor Matt will be spending a couple of hours this weekend fixing the baseboard. And my rings are going to the jeweler's.

• Tabby had her follow-up session of poking and prodding with the radiology dept. last week. Her condition has improved, but not gone away all together. So she's still on antibiotics and we have to repeat this whole deal in a year's time. Which really sucks.
• I'm into my second week of bootcamp and I must tell you … it's kicking my ass. Which is exactly what I wanted. I can't describe specifically what I do (as I mentioned before), but I think it's safe to tell you that we do something called Crossfit twice a week which just shreds me. The other days aren't exactly recovery days either.
• As a result of the above item, I always want a nap. And if I don't get a nap, I want to go to sleep at 8 PM. Too bad there are things to be done.
• I'm having 10 people from my mom's group over on Fri night for game night. I've promised snacks and I have no idea what those are going to be. Feel free to send me suggestions if you have any!
• I'm so freaking sick of green leafy things I might just go all postal if I see another head of Asian Bitters. Where the hell are my zucchini??? Stupid hippies.
• On the bright side, I now know like 10 different ways to cook greens. They're mostly variations on two themes, but I'm getting my vitamins (and I say this all British – vit-a-mins), damnit!
• My garden is also now extremely overgrown and has already yielded us two (2!!) teeny tomatoes. They were pretty tasty too. I have high hopes for the squash as well.
• Must research garden pruning/cutting back on the web when I get a chance.
• I found a new piece of software for keeping my maniacal schedule (I was using Excel before), called Achieve Planner. They've got a free trial if you're interested.
• Bought this T'shirt of Shirt.Woot. It pretty much sums up how I feel about this whole political process. Vote Moose!
• I almost lost my wedding band … like for good. That would've sucked. Matt retrieved it though. More on that later … tomorrow?
• Our pumpkin crossed neutral borders and tried to strangle our tomatoes, complete with cute little curly strangling tendrils (like the pumpkin-into-coach scene in Disney's Cinderella). Kinda glad we only planted one.
• Tomorrow is only Thursday. Bollocks.

Tabby would like to extend heartfelt good wishes to her Aunt Gaga on today, Gaga's 26th Birthday. She thinks Gaga is all kinds of fun, and enjoys playing with Gaga's bunnies, having her hair styled by Gaga, getting dressed up in a new outfit by Gaga, and taking shelter in Gaga's arms when Mama and Dada are being unreasonable (as they are want to be). Tabby says “Hiiiiiiii!” and blows Gaga a kiss.

Happy birthday, Kells! Love you lots!

Did I get your attention? Ha. I just came across a wonderful article at babble called The Breastfeeding Conspiracy. To sum it up for you (it's pretty long), it discusses the guilt and perceived benefits/reprocussions of bottle/formula-feeding instead of breastfeeding. The basic conclusion comes down to: 1) we pretty much all agree that breastfeeding is the ideal, nature-created way to feed your baby, but 2) the consequences and reprocussions of formula feeding aren't nearly so bad as they've been made out to be and 3) the perceived benefits of breastfeeding aren't as monumental as they've been made out to be and 4) whatever you choose, people should not be nasty to you for your choice.

Tabby and I never got the hang of breastfeeding. She didn't latch right. My milk didn't come in very fast or in much quantity. We worked damn hard at it for a month or so using a variety of contraptions and techniques. All we could ever really do was nurse with something called a nipple shield … that I was supposed to wean her off of after a few weeks. The weaning never happened. Everytime we tried it was a disaster. And I really gave up when I went back to work about 2.5 months after she was born. Once I was back at work, we nursed in the evenings and I pumped during the days. Breastfeeding made me ravenously hungry all the time and I gained weight while I breastfed (I am pretty certain it was breastfeeding that caused this this, because once I stopped, I lost weight and didn't feel like I had to consume everything in my path). I never produced enough milk either. She was supplemented from the beginning when she lost 20% of her body weight and that never stopped.

Around 5 months, Tabby would start screaming hysterically every time we tried to nurse. After a couple of days, I just stopped nursing her. I was determined the precious hours I saw her in the evening would not be ruined with this struggle. I was able to pump for a month or so longer and that was that. I feel that overall I made the right decision. Especially by that point, I was pretty OK with it, but in the early days I felt pretty guilty for not being able to do what I thought should come so naturally. And I had help! Lots of help! Lactation consultants in the hospital (really pushy ones as I recall). A visiting nurse. My darling husband who helped me set up for marathon pumping sessions (before and after I nursed Tabby) and fed her using this bizarre IV/tube contraption taped to his finger so she wouldn't get “nipple confusion.” But by the time it as all done, I was mostly OK with it. Still, guilt reared its ugly head for a long while with people making little comments to me here and there. A nurse at my doctor's office telling me that she might be healthier (she had a cold!) if I'd nursed 9 months instead of 6.

Months removed from the whole situation, I have a much better perspective on the situation. I will try to breastfeed when I have another baby, but I will not make myself crazy over it. Those days of infancy are just too precious to spend in constant conflict and struggle. And anyone who judges me can have a piece of my (grumpy and sleep-deprived) mind.

I feel like such a broken record lately. All I can do is tell you about how insanely busy. I'm so busy I don't even have time to be interesting. So … wanna hear about my garden? It's growing! It's growing like mad! The tomatoes are almost taller than their bamboo stakes. They are blooming like crazy too. And we actually have one that looks ripe! It's tiny and something gnawed on a it a bit, but it's progress, right? The squash has really rallied from its low-point following the hail and I have no idea what to do with the the ton and a half of basil and dill.

Meanwhile, our fridge is STILL oveflowing with greens from our CSA shares. We're getting better at figuring out what to do with them, though. Stir fry is big in our house right now as are salads. And I hear radish sandwiches and sautees are good, though we chunked them in the stirfry last week. The dinner I cooked last night was awesome and used a whole bunch of some unidentifiable green. And it was way tasty.

The kid is growing like a weed too. Not physically so much at the moment (except her teeth), but she is growing developmentally by leaps and bounds. Tons of new words are popping up and she's been wielding her spoon like a pro. She's huge into books right now as well and we've put her to bed with a book a couple of nights to appease her, which has been a big hit.

But apparently, sharing is not in her vocabulary. She spent time with another little girl at her sitter's today and the “mine” word reared its ugly head OVER and OVER (accompanied by screaming). Ahh well … it's a form of growth, I suppose … hehe. Something to work on.

Tabby is still cranky, tired and feverish. She doesn't want to eat much of anything. She doesn't want to be left alone. She doesn't want held. Tylenol + early bed is best right now. Poor kiddo. Hope she feels better tomorrow.

Started bootcamp. Am sore. Very sore. Work is crazy. I was in meetings 90% of today. More of the same tomorrow. Big family things to be dealt with that are all-consuming. Mommy needed a nap today too.

Made fabulous dinner. Now I have to pack up and get ready for another early day tomorrow. Sooo looking forward to a long weekend. Will write a proper post later … maybe even with a photo.

Is it weird that I'm excited for tomorrow? I'm hardly ever excited for Monday. It's been something of a long weekend. Tabby and I had fun at the pool on Friday except that it was 95 degrees out and Tabby had little to no interest in the pool. It had this giant bucket that filled up and then dumped and Tabby was terrified of it and spent most of the time in the sandbox. Where it was hot. And not refreshing. By the time Tabby was ready for bed, so was I.

Saturday was actually a really great day. Matt and I had gym date in the morning. We hung out and did treadmill and weights and then I hit step class. After the gym, we showered and such and met our friends at an Indian restaurant downtown and the babies (all three!) ate their fill of Indian food. Then we went to Mikey's job site (a public housing project) for a quick tour and headed home. Tabby and I got a wonderful 2 hour nap together and then my sister picked her up and she spent the evening at my parents' house. Matt and I had date night. We went to watch Get Smart which we LOVED LOVED LOVED (we loved the original series too). We laughed like crazy. Then we went to the small Italian restaurant down the street from our house. That was sort of disappointing … my pasta was a it over-cooked and the vodka sauce tasted … not like vodka sauce. And our waitress was kind of … off. Oh well. We didn't do dessert there and had wine and s'mores in our backyard at home. We ended the night with a long walk around our neighborhood.

Today just never really … gelled. We met my mom and sister and Tabby at Snooze for breakfast which was fun. Tabby was cranky and tired all day but wouldn't really nap. So we let her nap in the car while we ran a few errands. We realized later she was running a slight fever … she's cutting a molar … and she did finally go to sleep around 7 PM. And it's just about my turn. Continue reading “TGIM??”