Stationery

Adventures in embossing

When I mentioned at dinner with girlfriends that I love embossing, yet have little use for it since I don't scrapbook, Stacey mentioned that her daughter would love personalized stationery.  Well, it took me three months, but I finally got around to actually doing it.  I thought about just making a bunch with the same design, but different colors, but instead went with a smattering of random.  I also made envelopes to match each one.  As per my usual, pictures are taken with my cell phone and in crappy light.   Considering I'm a one trick pony*, I'm fairly happy with the results.  Though, I can tell you that perhaps this isn't the hobby for me since I can point out flaws on every.single.one that drive me batty. I finally just had to say, "They're for a 4yo who will likely just scribble on it and toss it aside.  Get over it.  A few extra bits of embossing powder is not the end of the world."

* My one trick is embossing. I don't do any other embellishments (hey! I know a scrapbooking term!), though I guess use of punches might be considered an embellishment. Regardless, I am a one trick pony at the moment. I might look to add a few more tricks, but as I'm simple at heart, there won't be too many of them.

Inside it says, "From the desk of Maddie ____" (where ___ = her last name)

The first time I made this card, I thought I'd be clever and put the lion on the inside then punch a hole in the front so you could see him through it.  Yeah, that doesn't work if you actually want to have space to write on the card.

Too formal for a kid and the border on the side is a bit messed up, but hey, butterflies are cute.

Drives me crazy that the red balloon is so imperfect.  However, I love the envelope.

Simple card, envelope too big and is not lined on the inside.  Not my favorite one.

I don't like the color of her name, but I do like that's it's small and simple.

Way too formal, but I still like it.

I edited the picture to remove her last name, but this is an example of the personalization on the inside of most of the cards. 

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Unexpected night alone

Tonight was our date night.  We went to see Cedar Rapids (very funny).  While out, RHG texted and pointed out that we have brunch at their house in the morning anyway, so why don't we just leave Avery there overnight.  I quickly replied, "OK!" but then noted we needed Avery's approval because I do have the daughter who WILL remember that I specifically said we'd come get her in the few hours.  Apparently, Avery was just dandy with the idea of an impromtu sleepover, so D and I have the luxury of a night at home sans kid.  Of course, I'm blogging and he's researching motorcycle classes...

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Pounce

...which leads to my next topic.  I have always forbid D to get a motorcycle.  Tonight as we're walking along in the Pearl District, I said off hand that I guess it would be fine as long as he always wore a helmet (duh) and didn't drive crazy.  That was the extent of our conversation.  D is signed up to take a class to get his license already.  I have never seen him move so quickly in planning something in my life.  One moment of weakness on my part and poof! he's signed up for a class and scoping out bikes.  Lesson learned.

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Energy and diet and all that jazz

After that awful few days last week, my mood is back to good and my energy is, well, I guess it's good (relative to me).  The best way I can think to describe it is that I'm more awake during my awake hours, but my need/desire for a lot of sleep has not yet diminished.  For example, after brunch today, we got home and I took a, wait for it, 3 hour nap.  Yes, three.  And I slept 7 hours last night, so it's not as if I was sleep deprived.  However, this is the key difference the diet seems to be making: after I woke up, I was almost immediately refreshed and had energy to get Turtle walked, do some laundry and dishes, and take care of other things before we headed out for date night.  Were this pre-diet, I would have still taken the 3 hour nap, but I would have been worthless after the nap, too.  So there you go.  Now that I'm tracking almost everything, I do find it difficult to accept that I sleep on average, 9.7 hours per day.  That's a lot.  I knew I slept a lot, but seeing the actual number makes me sad.

After my call with Andrea last week, I am now thinking that this is going to be a longer process than I thought/hoped.  My theory right now is that I'm not sensitive to any category of foods, but that I have had such poor kidney and liver functions for so long that I'm going to have to keep eating this way until things get back into whack.  And when I say this way, I don't mean staying on the diet, but rather sticking to Andrea's general guidelines as much as possible at home, then allowing myself indulgences when I go out.  I don't know if I'm strong enough to resist once I taste the Good Stuff again (butter, white flour, sugar, etc).  While I have very little craving for any of it, I know once I taste it again, that could go out the window.  We'll see how strict I have to be with myself to keep myself from sliding back to how I was.

I asked Andrea if she ate out at fine dining restaurants (I care about fine dining - I don't care if I never can eat at McDonald's or Red Robin or places like that again), or if she ate "normal person food" ever.  She said absolutely.  She just eats a vast majority of her food at home, then doesn't sweat it when she goes out or eats non-macrobiotic food.  She basically promotes a macrobiotic diet, though she never actually used this term during our discussions.  Also, reading about the macrobiotic diet, I don't see much about red meat.  Andrea isn't against red meat or a little dairy.  She seems more to promote the listening to your body philosophy of that way of eating. And that is where I connect with what she believes.  Obviously, what I've been doing isn't working and I need to change it.  That's as far as my personal eating belief has progressed.