french!

celebrities...they make me laugh
I used to be obsessed with celebrities. That started to change about 6-7 years ago. Now I still skim through a blog about celebrities (the superficial), but it takes about 3 minutes of my time each day and I usually get a headache from all of my eye rolling. Anyhoo, that's my disclaimer given the fact I'm about to blog about three celebrities and the (supposed) goings-on of their lives.

Background:

• Halle Berry and Gabriel Aubry (French-Canadian male model) dated for a while. They had a girl together back in 2008, split in 2010, and have been having custody disputes ever since. 
• Halle Berry is now dating French actor Olivier Martinez. 
• The latest custody dispute was about Berry wanting to take their daughter to live in France. Aubry objected and won. 
• Martinez and Aubry ran into each other on Berry's driveway. What happened and whose fault it is, I don't know. But they got into a fight. 

So the first time I hear about it, I laugh because two celebrities got into a fight. I'm picturing some minor shoving and some silly slapping. Then I just start cracking up due to this quote from a story:  

And finally, there’s this … specifics about the argument between Gabriel and Olivier are sketchy because they were trash talking each other in French.

Fighting in French! It makes me laugh (even though it's perfectly logical given their nationalities). It's just funny to me for some reason. 

Anyway, a day or two passes. Then I see the photos of Aubry. He looks like Rihanna after Chris Brown got to her (I think reference to other celebrities in this post is appropriate, no?) I shouldn't have, but I literally laughed out loud. The celebrities fighting in French actually hit each other! Well, Martinez hit Aubry - we know that. I wonder what Martinez looks like. 

photo from the Superficial

And thus ends the superficial portion of this blog post (see what I did there? with that play on words? yes, I do find myself funny, tyvm). 

crafty

I made coat signs for Avery's pre-k class. Now the 3/4's teacher, whom Avery had last year, asked me to make some coat signs for her, too. Yipee! For a non-scrapbooker, I am getting a surprising amount of use from a die-cutting machine. 

tables

office / crafting den
We have been buying tables galore here at CdT. More specifically  I have been buying them. And I've only bought two, so I'm not sure galore applies. But I bought them within days of each other for the same room, so that seems a bit galorish to me. Plus, I facilitated in Mom buying a new kitchen table.

First, I bought a table that I thought I could use as my sewing table. I measured my space and the table before I bought it, but what I didn't think of was the weight the extending table arms would bear on a constant basis. Both sides of the table can be lowered, making it a compact cabinet should I ever choose to go that route. The sides can definitely bear the weight of the machines for a period of time (weeks, months), but were they to be the permanent home for my sewing machine and serger, there would start to be sagging/problems. So it's now where I keep my paper cutter. I use the large paper cutter (thank you Dag & Rosie!) surprisingly often. Up until now I haven't had a flat surface on which to store it permanently, so it's been stored against the wall in various locations. I also use the surface when I'm doing a project to lay out my bits to be assembled. It's working very nicely.

And since, when I'm actually sewing, I like having the machine out and easily available, I needed some sort of table for them. So I looked on Craig's List and found this craft table. It's made of melamine, so it's very sturdy and well made. D was horrified as he thinks it's really ugly, but I'm all about functionality. So far it's working very nicely, though I haven't actually sewn* at it yet. I have used it to do some paper crafting and it works very nicely. The stools below also work quite well. The space on the left is Avery's desk in my office so she has a place to do her stuff when I'm in here.

The slots below the table will eventually house some wooden crates I bought. I measured the space and came up with the following dimensions as an ideal container: 11" x 10.5" x 2.75". I thought there's no way in hell I'm going to be able to find anything close to that size. I entered the size into Google and hoped for the best. I found the EXACT measurements I was looking for. Exact. I was just hoping to find some cardboard boxes I could cut down and re-cover, but wooden crates are even better. And the right size. Be still my beating heart.

I also got around to storing my fabric in a way that will allow me to see what I have more easily. I blogged about this method back when I bought the scanner that allowed me to go paperless. It's embarrassing the amount of fabric I have given the small number of projects I've actually done. Also, don't look closely at the fabric since most of it is quite hideous. Some was picked by Avery, some was bought because it was on sale, and some I have no idea how I ended up with it.

* It's been a long time since I've done any sewing. I find I really enjoy it when I do it, but I have trouble starting new projects.

thanksgiving
Mom joined the three of us for Thanksgiving this year. It was a really good Thanksgiving. D volunteered to cook, so he did the bulk of the cooking work. I did the stuffing-substitute and the clean-up. Mom cooked the pie and cheesecake, helped with clean-up, and took Avery out for a nice, long walk whilst D and I napped after eating. Pretty much a darn near perfect Thanksgiving in my book.

For the stuffing-substitute, I decided to go with risotto. That sounds really weird until you eat risotto with turkey and discover that it has the same comforting effect that stuffing does. So we had baked risotto (sooooo much easier than making it the usual way) with our turkey. I do miss real stuffing, but what can I do?

Mom made a gluten-free apple pie. I greatly appreciate it since the GF dough is a pain in the butt for Mom to work with. It's apparently just harder to manipulate. However, both D and I prefer the GF crust to a regular crust, so it works out nicely for us. Thanks, Mom!

ranking
I asked Avery to rank her current four activities in order of preference. I explained that I would try to schedule as many activities as I could, but that sometimes the class times conflict with each other or other activities, so I needed her ranking. Her results:

1. ballet (no surprise there)
2. kung fu (I was surprised this was #2)
3. soccer (I was shocked this was #3 - I expected it to be last)
4. gymnastics (I expected this to be #2)

I'm glad she's enjoying kung fu so much. 

invites

invitations & other crafty stuff
Yesterday I finished the cutting for both layers of Avery's BD invitations. After about ten iterations of design changes, tweaking here and there, and opinion soliciting, I finally arrived at something that felt right. I'm quite pleased with them, overall. I need to assemble most of them today.

final invitation with identifying details smudged out

Did you know that glitter card stock isn't exactly square? I didn't either. I bought 12"x12" glitter card stock thinking I'd just use my hand paper cutter to cut it into four equal 6"x6" pieces. When I then put the first layer of the invitation on top of it, it was ever so slightly askew. I had to alter my course, reduce the size of the backer slightly, then use the Silhouette vs the hand cutter to get a perfectly square cut on each one. Yes, I know it's for a 5yo's BD invitation and who cares, but it was askew! Askew I tell you!

Avery's teacher knows how I like to use my handy-dandy Silhouette, so she assigned me another project. I am to make name tags to go above their coat hooks. They have name tags there, but the pre-made ones that she bought are too long, so she has to stagger them a bit, like bricks. That configuration causes confusion about which hook belongs to which child. So I'm going to make them narrower and change the design a bit. I've decided to do them in the style of London tube stop signs. I'll start on those after I finish the invitations.

family activities
D has been gone a lot lately. He's working a lot, was gone on the NYC trip for quite a while, and we're just generally busy. For family date day on Saturday, we let Avery pick where we'd eat, and she chose Pastini - no surprise there. Then we went to see Wreck-it Ralph. D slept through the first half and I slept through the second half. The movie was actually quite good, so our sleepiness was other factors. D's not sleeping well lately and I binged on candy during the first half, so there was the inevitable sugar crash afterward.

In an effort to squeeze in more family time wherever we can, Avery and I will be meeting D for lunch today. That's good because it'll force me out of the house today. Avery and I have nothing else on our schedule. Tomorrow Avery has three back-to-back activities in the afternoon. Wednesdays are just busy.

activities
I signed Avery up for two back-to-back dance classes starting in January. Dance still continues to be the thing she's most interested in and most enjoys. I'm quite sure she can handle two classes in a row as far as physical stamina and desire to do them. I'm a bit worried about her crankiness level following those two things. I guess you don't know until you try it.

She also loves kung fu. Randomly through out throughout the week, she'll ask, "When's kung fu?" or "What about kung fu?" I still don't think she's put together that the punches they practice in class are meant to land on people. Same thing with kicks. But those things are like 5% of the class. Most of it is focused on learning how to fall and roll, physical agility, things like that.

Several new kids have joined her kung fu class, among them two other girls. Avery and another girl kind of gravitate toward each other, but I can tell Avery now feels totally at ease with all the boys in class. Coincidentally, Nolan's BFF, Gabriel, just joined the class, too. Avery knows him well since he goes to her school. Gabriel's mom told me that whenever Avery is around Gabriel, she's always looking out for him. When he came to join the circle at the beginning of class, Avery loudly introduced him to Sifu Wally. That was sweet, but unnecessary since Sifu Wally teaches Gabriel's two older brothers so he knows him well.

Avery always seems to have a really good time at gymnastics, but it doesn't seem to be something she misses doing if we skip a class. I'm trying to get her (and Henry) enrolled in semi-private swim lessons in January. I guess if that doesn't happen, then we'll do gymnastics again.

Soccer is something she enjoys, but I think only because it's running around in a gym. I don't think skills or the game of soccer appeals all that much to her at this age.

tantrums
We had a major one the other night, but it was mostly my fault. Avery had a ton of activities that day and I knew she was looking for some way to release everything.

Other than that, it continues to go well. I find the tantrums much easier to deal with now that I feel like I have a direction on how to deal with them. Not that things were ever bad between Avery and me, but I feel closer to her. Like the friction is off because I'm not walking on egg shells, and I'm not upset at her for acting illogically.

Dress

Megan does crafty things
I accomplished a few crafty things recently. I'm moderately pleased with both. First, I recovered a hat box from Ikea with some decorative paper from Collage.

Boring hat box from IKEA before crafting

Brilliant box from IKEA after crafting

And last night for craft night (which totally rocked with just Christie and me, tyvm to those who bailed!), I started a dress for Avery. It's made from one of D's old work shirts. I had to draw the pattern myself, which I totally suck at for those wondering. This afternoon when I picked up the project to finish it, I sewing both arm holes shut. But I pushed through and finished. I made a few modifications. First, the belt for the tutorial has three separate bands of 1/4" elastic. I substituted a single band of 2" elastic and called it good. Also, I didn't put elastic in the arm holes since Avery didn't object and I think elastic around arms is uncomfortable. I'm kind of curious how much better a second one might be, but I'm not sure I'm curious enough to push forward with it. Time will tell.

I told Avery to strike a p ost and this is what she did. Not bad, eh?

Kids with iPhones
I was downloading photos from my phone to the computer a moment ago. This one came down with it. I didn't do it, so Avery must have done it while she was playing with my phone.

Speaking of kids and iPhones, we had given Avery my old iPhone (though with no phone service) when I got the 4s.  Then D got water on his at Nolan's BD party.  Since then, it thinks he always has headphones plugged in. So D is now using my old iPhone to get him through to October when the iPhone 5 is released. So our poor, poor 4.5 yo has no iPhone. Sad, sad story, I know.

Helping

Wedding Helper
I had to wait to do the envelopes and RSVP cards for the wedding invitations I'm making. The bride and groom had to move and this delayed the process because we didn't have their new address until right before we left for Mexico.

As type this, I'm remembering that we never verified the paper she bought for the RSVP cards is thick enough to be a post card for the USPS. Damn it.  I guess I'll just be optimistic and keep making the RSVPs, but also send a test post card to myself. Why didn't I think to send a test one to myself a while ago? Duh.

The envelope addressing is a bit of a pain in the butt. There's no way to do a mail merge into the Silhouette software. I never hoped there might be. What I did hope there would be, however, was the ability to cut and paste text from a spreadsheet into the software. Nope. This means I have to retype every single name and address. Wouldn't you know that the bride is Italian and has a ton of relatives with oddly spelled names who live in Italy? It's a tedious process. Of course, I still would have agreed to help out had I known all of this, so I'm not sure why I'm complaining.

Strep
D has strep, too. Mom isn't feeling too well, either. So it looks like the only one who didn't get strep (knock on wood for continued good luck on this) is Avery. Once the antibiotics kick in, it's not bad at all.

Saturday Plans
We're all heading out soon to see the documentary First Position. It's unrated, but given the subject matter, I can't imagine it'll be inappropriate for Avery. If it is, we'll just scuttle her on out of there.

After that we have no official plans. Maybe there will be something related to the Rose Festival that draws us in. I'm not one for crowds, so the idea of dealing with them to see the parade is not appealing.

Cross(not so)fit

The health and "fitness" section
I tried a Crossfit class on Tuesday. I liked it. However, I did way too many squats and have been hobbling around for two full days now. Going down the stairs is the worst. Before you say that I should take things slowly, I thought I was taking things slowly. When everyone else was using actual weight bars and weights to do their squat and thrust thingys, I stuck to the PVC pipe. When everyone else did real pull ups, I used a rubberband thingy to spring me up to the bar. But alas, I'm in not good shape and now I'm paying the price for it. I missed today's class, but I'm still going to sign up for the classes. Oddly, they're at the same gym where Avery does her Kung Fu ... and with the same instructor. That's all this gym does: Kung Fu and Crossfit. And it's only open for those class times. Odd.

All this soreness meant that I couldn't walk yesterday or today. I'm hoping I can at least stroll tomorrow because while I did fairly well eating yesterday, I did very bad today. Whether I walk is directly related to how I eat.

The upcoming events section
Next week, I bought us tickets to see Compagnie Käfig, advertised as "Europe's Most Acclaimed Hip-Hop Company." I was drawn to it because it features 11 dancers from Brazil and that just looked interesting. Plus Avery likes to watch all types of dance so I bought the four of us tickets. It's an evening performance, so I'm hoping I can get Avery to take a nap that day. I'm thinking I'll drive around in the car about 4:30 and that should do it. She hardly ever takes naps anymore, but a car ride around 4:30 should seal the deal.

Mom and I are also going to see This American Life at the movie theater. It's being filmed live and then broadcast in movie theaters throughout the country. Mom and I both love TAL, so it seemed like a good activity for us.

This weekend, Avery will get to join Josie in watching her sister, also named Avery, dancing. She'll also get to go to Josie's BD party on Saturday. It's a Wagner weekend!

Due to D's busy schedule, we have no date night scheduled this weekend. Of all weekends! The opening weekend for Marvel's The Avengers. Damn it!

On Friday of next week, Mom leaves for Colorado for two weeks. This means I'll be on Barkley duty. Which basically just entails: one, taking him for a walk (easy peasy since I'm doing that anyway) and two, stepping over him as he naps all day (which I do anyway). However, it does mean I'll have to empty the dishwasher. I have emptied the dishwasher maybe twice since Mom moved in. She likes to empty the dishwasher!

The crafty stuff section
I'll post the picture of Elise's BD card even though RHG posted on FB. The text was all done using a gel ink pen and my Cameo. I'm particularly pleased with that because I had to rig up pens - using duct tape and cutting pen tubes and all kinds of crazy shit - to get it to the point where I was pleased with it.  The only part I'm unhappy with the is placement of the "messy" warning. Why I didn't shift it up higher I don't know. Then the paintbrush wouldn't be at such an odd angle. Oh well. Live and learn.

I'm now working on a couple of graduation cards for Mom. One of the cards is for a former student of Mom's* who is graduating from the Air Force Academy. Actually, that's the reason Mom is going to Colorado. This student was able to choose three teachers to invite to the ceremony and she chose her 4th grade teacher! Seriously, how big of an honor is that for my mom? I am so proud. The frosting on the cake is that President Obama will be giving the commencement speech. Anyway, in making this card, I wanted to make it a bit Air Force Academy specific, so I searched online and found a picture with a good angle of the Cadet Chapel. Then I converted that image to a .bmp and imported it into my Cameo software. Then I used the trace functionality, made a few edits and used a black pen to draw the picture below. I am damn impressed with it.

Close up of the drawing

Picture of the (unfinished) front of card

* I was editing this post and thought maybe the apostrophe was wrong, but then it seemed like it wasn't. If I typed "Mom's former student" it would have a possessive apostrophe, right? But as "student of Mom's" it seems somewhat wrong, but without the apostrophe it would be like saying the student of multiple moms. I'm leaving it the way it is. Stacey & Christie & Vy and all you other grammar experts can enlighten me.

Hour

Health and Fitness

Today was day 6 of walking an hour each day. It's going well. Today I did a route that was exactly 4 miles in 57 minutes. The app on my phone (Walkmeter) tells me my (average) speed is between 4.5 and 5.0. I love having the an app to track exactly how far, how long I walk, and tell me precisely how many calories I've burned. That it takes into account elevation changes is also cool because I want credit for the hills! 

I've set my goal in my calorie tracking app (Lose It!) as losing 2lb per week, which is the most aggressive weight loss goal the app will allow. The app tells me I have to eat just 899 calories per day to achieve this goal. I have adjusted it to add 200 calories more because 1. I can't hit 899 per day and 2. I do think that with all my errand running, school drop-offs, fidgeting, etc, I probably do burn at least 200 calories more. At least I really hope so. Anyway, this puts me at just 1,099 calories per day. That is HARD to hit. So if I want to come even close to hitting my calories, I have to burn at least 300 calories walking. I've been hitting about 390-400 the last few walks, so that gives me about 1,400 calories (give or take) per day that I can consume and still be on track. I was over quite a bit yesterday since we had a potluck dinner to attend (and I still very much struggle with eating reasonably when at a social event or at a fine dining dinner), but I've been doing well the other days. 

I've also given myself a goal of losing 20 lbs by the end of July. I'm giving myself some leeway from hitting exactly 2lb per week since we'll be on vacation in Mexico for 10 days. While I'm going to do my absolute best to walk everyday when we're down there, my track record of maintaining any sort of healthy regimen when I'm on vacation sucks.  Anyway, if I hit that goal (and it has to be the entire 20 lb), I'm rewarding myself with a gift. I'm not going to blog what it is because I'm a bit embarrassed to admit such a reward seems to be motivating me. If you want to ask in person, go ahead. I don't mind sharing in that situation, I just don't want to put it on the blog. 

Movies

We saw movies galore this weekend! On our date night on Friday, Mom joined D and me to see Marley, a documentary about Bob Marley. I knew close to nothing about Bob Marley prior to seeing the movie. He was quite an impressive man. I've decided that if they make a movie about his life, James Franco should play Bob Marley. Sounds odd, right, but see the documentary. It's like Bob Marley is what a love child between Barack Obama and James Franco would look like. 

On Saturday, we had just Elise and Nolan for the G's date night, so Mom, Elise, Nolan, D, Avery, and me headed to a movie, The Pirates! Band of Misfits. It was all right. I wouldn't rush out to see it, but it was enjoyable.

The potluck dinner last night was at RHG's house. She offered to have Avery spend the night since we'd be over there anyway. This meant we got a free night to see a movie, and that I got to have Monday morning off from taking the kids to school! D and I drove to a theater out in Hillsboro to catch a reasonably timed showing of Safe after we left the potluck dinner at the G's. It's not a good movie, of course, but it was exactly what we wanted: an action flick heavier on action than plot. Plus, it starred Jason Statham. If had a laminated freebie list, à la Friends episode #53, Jason would most definitely be on that list.

Crafty Stuff
I finished up Elise's BD invitations. I had to make a few adjustments from my original grand plans, but I was still pleased with the overall result. I didn't take pictures, but maybe when Elise gives Avery her invitation I'll take a picture of that.

I have about 30 more wedding invitations to do for Carlotta. I'll have to hold off on finishing her RSVP cards and addressing the envelopes until she and her fiance determine their new address.

I bought more fabric for sewing some things for Avery, Elise, and Nolan, but with the incorporation of my getting fit goal into my routine, sewing has been put on the back burner. Balance: I've yet to master it. I fear that by the time I do master it, I'll be too old to actually balance anything other than eating and sleeping.

TV
I'm so disappointed with this season's Mad Men. It's just plain boring. On the upside, summer is coming so that means there will soon be a new season of Suits!  And I think a new seasons of Project Runway is slated for this summer, too. 

Sketching

Fonts and Sketching
Yesterday and today I've been learning a lot about using the sketching ability* of my Cameo. I have a pen holder for it, but only one of my ball point pens actually fit in it. I also have glitter sketch pens specifically design for the Cameo, but those are shaky at best. When they work, they're great, but they are unpredictable.

I bought some gel ball point pens at Michael's recently, but they didn't quite fit in the pen holder. But, I discovered if I remove the pen tube from the pens and cut it down, I can use the casing of the glitter sketch pens! It sounds confusing, but it's actually easy. Yes, you're right, pictures would clarify things. No, I'm not going to post pictures.

I have also learned that, for sketching/writing purposes, I typically will want to use a single line font. From what I can tell, that is the same as an engraving font. Most of the fonts installed on my computer (e.g. Arial, Times New Roman, basically all the ones you'd recognize) are double-line fonts. That means when they are used in the Silhouette (and presumably all other applications), each letter is actually an outline. It just doesn't appear that way in, say, a word processor because its line color and fill color are the same. The top Hello below is a double line font. The lower Hello is a single line font. If I want to use the Cameo to write something (like on an invitation), it makes sense to use a single line font, otherwise it'll draw the letter as outlines.

I stumbled on all this because I'm working on Elise's BD invitations. I wanted to make the invitation text more interesting than just using a printer. Also, I will be doing Carlotta's wedding invitations soon and I want to know about all possible options. Plus I just like figuring out how to do this stuff.

I typed all the above yesterday before a trip to the art store. I figured there had to be better pens out there and there are! The end result of that purchase is that I'm very pleased with how I can use the Cameo to write text. Why would I want it to write text using a pen versus just sending paper through the printer? It looks much more like it's been professionally printed when done with the pen than with a printer.

* think of it how a plotter works and that is how the Cameo is able to draw and write

Mimi = mini progress ... maybe
The G's had their date night last night. D called and asked if he could play poker. Mom is here, so I said yes. As long as I have one other set of hands to help with cooking and clean up and baby holding, it's easy enough. When the G's left, they quickly handed Mimi over to Mom and made a beeline for the door, which is the most effective way to minimize Mimi's crying if the crying is going to be minimized at all. While I was cooking dinner, Mom was walking around trying to soothe Mimi. She was better than me in that Mimi would stop crying for 30s-1m intervals every once in a while. But this is all with complete attention on her and a lot of effort/bouncing/soothing/attention. After a few intervals of quiet, Mimi just ramped it back up to her usual loud screaming, so I decided to get dinner on the table for the 3 kids and Mom, then take Mimi upstairs to give her a bottle and put her down. That worked quite nicely. I mean, she still screamed the whole time, including while drinking her bottle (suck, suck, screeeeaaaam!, suck, suck, screaeeeaaaammmm!, repeat) and then when I put her down, but she was asleep the next time I went up to check on her.

Tomorrow I head over to the G's house to babysit the four kids while the Gs go to brunch.  RHG's dad will come over to put Mimi down for her nap, so that makes it all very easy. It's worth noting that when Mimi was in one of her 1 min stretches of quiet with Mom, if she caught site of me, she would immediately start screaming again. Mimi has no love for me. She's fine (ish) with me if RHG is around, but damn she doesn't like me. Ah well. Can't win 'em all.

Wedding Invitations
Carlotta is coming over in 30 minutes or so to work on her wedding invitations. Here is the design I came up with after much playing around yesterday.  The dark brown is paper of her choosing; the lighter color paper is very simliar to the paper she chose. I edited out her name and the details, but you get the idea. The red flower is embossed. I cut out the stencil for it in vinyl, then used red embossing powder to get the flower color. All the text and the non-red flowers are done using this gel pen. It actually looks much better in person.

Shock

Recap

Friday

• Walked Barkley. 
• Spent the day making skirts for Avery. 



Fabric choice by Avery

• Spent the evening listening to Mimi cry whilst babysitting the kids for date night. Don't feel too sorry for me. I have a high tolerance for crying (by babies) and just put my noise protection headphones on to drown out the noise. While Mimi isn't particularly fond of anyone outside of her family, I think it's fair to say she holds a special sort of hatred for D and me. Absolutely nothing either of do or so or give her will make her stop crying. The only time she isn't crying in our presence is if she's asleep. (For those of you wondering, yes, I would feel totally comfortable telling RHG and Jay that they have to find other plans for Mimi on date nights. No, they would not hold it against me & D. No, they are not taking advantage of us. I don't mind the screaming nearly as much as it seems others would mind a screaming baby. It's not pleasant, but as of now, I still want Mimi coming on date nights over here because eventually she's got to slot in, right? I'm not letting that one little baby mess up a good date night babysitting swap situation! Mom hasn't been here when the G kids are over, with Mimi, for a date night, so maybe Mom can work wonders with Mimi.)

Saturday

• Lazed around all day and did nothing. Took a nap most of the day. 
• D took Avery to the gym with him, then took her to lunch, then they went to the fabric store to pick out fabric for a new skirt. Somehow Avery also managed to turn that one skirt into one skirt and a pillow case, so they came back with two fabrics. One with Disney princesses on it. Apparently, Avery knows exactly where in the fabric store the Disney princess prints are located as she beelined right towards them. I think she must have remembered me saying I wouldn't make a skirt out of the Disney princess fabric ("because it just won't work!" being my excuse), and I believe this is why she came up with the need for a pillow.
• In the late afternoon, the whole family went to see the Cirque de Soleil show Ovo. Avery was enthralled the whole time. She also loved to tell me which costumes she liked best. That girl is all about fashion/fabric it seems. 
• After Ovo, we high tailed it to the G's house, dropped off A, then went to see a late movie. 

Sunday

• Avery and I spent the morning making her pillow case. Avery is OK with me sewing versus being on the computer. She'll just happily play whatever while I sew. If I am on the computer, she's on me like white on rice. Why? Why? Why?!
• Following the pillow case completion, we watched Dolphin Tale as a family. At this point, I should have wanted to Get Some Fresh Air! Or take my child for Outdoor Adventures! But all I wanted to do was nap, so Avery got more TV until Christie & Amber arrived for craft night. 
• I spent craft night working on matching skirts for Avery and Elise. I'm almost done with them, but was too tired to finish up on Sunday night. 

Monday

• Took Avery to school, came home & slept for 2.5 hours, picked Avery & E & N up from school, watched the kids for a few hours, took A & E to their first kung fu (!) class, picked up dinner, went to bed at 9:30 and slept until 7:30 this morning. Holy shit that is a lot of sleep. More on that later. 
• Kung Fu! I've been wanting to take Avery to a martial arts class for a while, but just hadn't gotten around to it. The first class of kung fu was free to see if the girls liked it. Avery LOVED it. Elise loved it for a while, then the instructor brought out this foam thingy to "bop" the kids in the head if they failed to protect their heads. And when I say "bop" imagine the slowest possible motion and hitting someone with a feather to imagine what it would feel like to get bopped. Elise was VERY against that and backed all the way out of the circle. The instructor was very nice and said he wouldn't do the bopping with her, that she could just do the punches (he was alternating offering the punching pad or the head bopper, which forced the kids to choose which move to use - head blocking or punching), but that did not convince Elise. Anyway, at the end of the class, Avery said yes, she'd like to do more; Elise said no; then Avery said no, not without any other girls. Being a parent for 4+ years, I knew to DROP IT!  Megan with 2 years parenting experience would have FORCED IT and tried to convince her there and then. Time and space, people. Time and space. That's what Avery needs ... not unlike me! We're very alike in this way. Anyway, after she enthusiastically showed her moves to Daddy that night, I pushed the issue and said Elise wouldn't be in the class with her, she would likely be the only girl, but she had fun right? Besides, I reasoned, it's like in Roscoe Riley Rules #5, when he's the only boy in his tap dancing class, but he sticks with it because tap dancing is so fun. 
• Mom returned home from her visit with Wayne & Rosemary (her brother and his wife).

Sleep and Shock

So I've been sleeping a lot more in the past couple of weeks. Then, yesterday, I started to have a side effect from my anti-depressant that I have historically only had when adjusting to dose changes (smaller or larger). I call it the electric shock feeling. It's particularly prevalent when I move quickly. Turning my head makes me sort of dizzy, but it's more just a buzz kind of feeling. A mild electrical shock feeling is the best way I can describe it. It's not painful, but it's disturbing and makes me tired. 

Since I haven't changed my dosage in a long time (almost a year, I think), it's odd that I'm experiencing this. I'm not sure what to do about it. I'm hoping it's a temporary thing, but if it doesn't go away in a few days, I guess I'll go back to the PMHNP who prescribes my anti-depressant and see what she thinks. I am loathe to do that because it seems the answer will likely be an adjustment of some sort (lower dose, high dose, different med, additional med, etc). Adjustments almost always mean side effects for me. However, of all the side effects, this is among my least favorite. Anything akin to dizziness is awful. I'd rather have an upset stomach all the time than feel dizzy/shocky.

Timbers

Timbers!

The four of us went to the Timbers game last night. It was the first time in a long time that I've enjoyed a sporting event.

Avery & Nain before the game

Megan & Avery self portrait

Everyone in a picture taken by the dude behind us

Dresser
When my mom moved, she asked if I wanted a dresser that belonged to my (paternal) great grandfather. At first I said no. After I thought about it more, I decided why not? So now that dresser is being put to good use in our bedroom. We had our television on a TV stand of normal TV-stand height. However, since we watch that TV from our bed, it was too low. It was a "problem" that we weren't going to spend any money to fix, but one that I'm pleased has been fixed by our inherited furniture!  Our TiVo is located on the floor behind the dresser. We had to buy an IR repeater to get it working that way.

If you look in the right corner of the picture, you'll see our old TV stand. It's been placed in that corner as the future home of a doll house that Avery will be getting from Pop Pop Joy. Her father built it for her and she's passing it along to Avery. I want to keep it out of the playroom and Avery's room because that will ensure it doesn't get demolished.

This picture makes me realize how tan our room is. We need some color in there!

TiVo
Speaking of TiVo (at least I did a few sentences ago) ... Mom has the Comcast/Xfinity DVR in her quarters. Until now I've always wondered if my loyalty to TiVo was somewhat misplaced or excessive or pointless or whatever. Well, after using her DVR for a bit, I no longer wonder. TiVo is so much better (to me) than a plain DVR. So much easier to use with a much better interface. When you love TV as much as I do, that's important in a luxury product!


Crafty
I've been in a crafty-ish mood lately. On Friday, I made a prototype for Elise's BD invitations. I also sewed five towel bibs for my friend, Vic. Having my sewing machine in the desk in the living room is working out great. It makes it so much easier to clean up when I'm done (close doors, done!) Yesterday I made a baby card. Earlier in the week, Mom and I made Easter cards for Avery and Dylan. Today I'm thinking I'll make skirt for Avery. We'll see.

Taciturn

RWOTP: Taciturn

taciturn Adjective: (of a person) Reserved or uncommunicative in speech; saying little.

Yes, I should know what this word means, but it just doesn't stick. So here goes my attempt to make it stick. My little trick worked with sardonic, so let's keep the self-education going. 

Oregon - put a bird on it!

I'm making change of address cards for Mom to give out at the going away party Collin & Denise are throwing for Mom this weekend. Since she's moving to Portland, I had to put a bird on it ... even if not a lot of people get the joke. I spent the morning designing the card (note to all graphic designers out there: your jobs are safe from me. Creating is so not my strong suit. Once I have an idea, I can execute just fine, but damn those ideas are hard to come by for me.)

In any case, now I'm just creating them. It's a three step process: print, draw (using the Silhouette), and cut. 

Here's a picture, with the contact information blurred since this is the Internet and all. It's sort of a play on the Portland Oregon (formerly Made in Oregon) sign in downtown Portland - the one with the reindeer on it. I don't expect non-Portlanders will know it's a play on that sign. And I'm not quite sure Portlanders will get it, but I went forth with it anyway. Originally I was going to do a card cut out in the shape of Oregon with the contact information inside, but this was easier. 

You may notice a difference between the two cards (other than cardstock color). The line under my mom's name is drawn using the Silhouette, but I had to switch pens due to technical issues. When I switched pens, I had to switch line style. 

Colorado Trip #1 - Beaver Creek

Our trip to Colorado this past weekend went well. We stopped at Vic & Mike's house on Thursday night for an impromptu dinner. For a variety of reasons, we didn't think to do this until we were on the plane, so it was truly awesome that it all came together. I texted Vic when we landed. She said come on over and they had enough food going for all of us. The best part was that Vic didn't tell Mike we were coming, so when we knocked on the door, Mike was truly shocked to see us standing on his doorstep. We laughed so hard at that dinner that my cheeks hurt when we left. That's a great way to start the weekend. 

The purpose of the trip was for the GMs & their spouses to get to know each other better. I can be a bit taciturn when I am in a group of people I don't know very well. During the first dinner on Friday night, it took me a while to warm up. Fortunately, everyone was very friendly and casual, so it went well. The dinner on Saturday night was great. We ate at a restaurant called Zach's Cabin on the Bachelor Gulch mountainside. It is accessible only by skiing in or, wait for it, taking a sleigh!  Don't get too excited, though, because it's not a sleigh pulled by horses. It's pulled by a snow cat. But it was still pretty cool, especially the ride down at night. The ski was beautiful, the stars were shining, the snow was glistening, and it was all rather surreal. 

Friday I spent napping, reading and spa-ing while D was a meeting all day. It was lovely. Saturday D and I spent lazing about reading and napping and eating. It was lovely. Sunday was a pure travel day with no issues. Well, I did leave my sunglasses in the rental car, but I called the rental company. The sunglasses were located and are being Fed Ex'd to my house as I type this. 

We got to the G's to get Avery at exactly 3 pm on Sunday. I burst through the door expecting Avery to come running into my arms saying "Mooommmmyyyy!" That did not happen. She was sitting at their kitchen tables decorating cookies and it was clear to me that she was going to finish decorating those cookies, damn it! It was such a relief that she did so well being gone from us for those few days. Avery's clearly been away for us that long before, but since this was a weekend in the middle of a weird month and so many routine disruptions, I was worried. I shouldn't have been. RHG said Avery was very well behaved. Christie and Henry came to pick up Avery for a playdate and dinner on Saturday. Based on the pictures, it looks like everyone had a great time. Thanks so much to both the Gs and G&Gs for taking such good care of A this weekend!

Living Room Cabinetry

It's in! It's not done, but the meat of it is there.  The wood for the doors absorbed the paint differently than did the trim, so they're going to take the doors off and give them another coat of paint. Also, the hardware needs to go on, and the tile around the fireplace is being done today and tomorrow. We are able to watch TV, though, so that's what's important! The surround sound is much better than just using our TV volume. 

Overall, I love it. The TV is still a bit higher than is ideal, but the speakers (that black rectangular thing between the TV and the fireplace) really needed to be below the TV to provide the best sound. I had to force myself not to stock up the storage last night. I can't do that until all the finishing touches are put on. Must be patient!

Controlled

Stumble with a controlled fall
I've stumbled on my New Healthy Lifestyle. I haven't taken a walk in four or five days. And I haven't been choosing the best eating options, either. Not terrible options, but not great, either. I could be out walking now, but damn it, I don't want to. I've decided to take a controlled fall from this stumble instead of just letting myself say "fuck it" and letting everything go to hell in a handbasket.

I'm continuing to log my food which keeps things in check WAY better than if I didn't. And I'm not going to go back to bed now, which is what I want to do. I think this stumble is attributable to the coming disruption in my routine. It's a good an awesome disruption: a Mexico trip with girlfriends for the first five days, then with Avery and Damian (and Christie & Henry) for another seven days. But it's still a disruption and I need to recognize my tendency to, well, to say "fuck it!" when a routine disruption is on the way. 2012 is apparently about finding a way to work with my failings rather than to change them. Working with them in this sense is a controlled fall. There you go.  How's that for excuses? Damn I'm good.

Away presents
I'm preparing Avery's presents for while I'm apart from her in Mexico. Rather than buying her more stuff she doesn't need, I'm making her stuff she doesn't need, using my Silhouette of course! It's nice because when else would I make a paper tulip? Or a fancy Easter egg? Or a toy box house? Or a paper purse? Never. But this is the perfect reason to do so.

"presents" for each day I'm in Mexico without Avery

Cards for each of the kids (b/c A will be staying with E & N) for each of the days D and I are in Colorado. I still need to write jokes on E & N's cards and jokes & notes on Avery's. 

I'll have to make all of Avery's away presents & cards for Colorado Trip #2 (aka "help Mom move") after I get back from Colorado Trip #2 (aka "Spouses retreat with D's company").

Wedding

Table placements, invitations, party favors ... oh my!

A teacher in Nolan's class asked Rachele about my Cameo in relation to her wedding. Rachele rightly told her I do indeed have a machine and I love to use it. I emailed said teacher  yesterday, she emailed back some details, then I put together some samples of what it can do based on what she's looking to do.  I'm so excited to put my machine to good use! Hopefully Carlotta doesn't think I'm crazy because I just sent her three long emails with options of things we can do, etc. I made sure to tell her I don't care if I have any creative input since most of my enjoyment comes from the execution of a vision.

I suppose this post would be more interesting if I'd taken pictures of my samples.  Just imagine something spectacularly clever and creative, divide that vision by 100 and you'll get at a mental picture of what I did. 

Two TP choices

Now that we have two rolls of TP hanging in our main floor bathroom, I find myself wondering which one I should use. It's like I think the other one will feel badly if I don't choose it. Or I like I want to keep the rolls even. I should have known my OCD wouldn't be able to handle having a choice of TP rolls. 

Stuff

Handy stuff
The handyman is here now doing a variety of small tasks. One of those is installing an additional toilet paper roll holder in the main floor bathroom. The builders installed the other holder in a ridiculous spot. This has been a mere annoyance until lately. Avery has recently decided that she cannot get the TP before getting on the potty, nor can she risk a drip to get the TP by hopping off the toilet. This means I'm helping my 4yo - who has been fully day and nighttime potty trained since her 2nd birthday - go potty on a regular basis. Not acceptable. So I just bought another holder and put it closer for her to reach.

I also had him hang a bulletin board with hooks in Avery's room. I decided I'm not ready to let her have push pins in her room, so I went to Home Depot and bought some magnetic steel, had it cut to the shape of the board, then had the handyman install the metal in the board. I could have done it, but he was here anyway, so it made sense to have him do it. I plan to put fabric over the metal to girly it up a bit for my little girly girl, but haven't gotten to that yet.

Crafty stuff
To honor our new TP roll holder, I'm making some vinyl labels to go above the two holders. One says For the tall ... the other says ... for the small.  I made the word tall in a different font with tall letters and small in another font with small letters. I could never have been a graphic designer. It took all my brain power to do this basic tasks of creativity and I'm pretty sure a creative type could knock it out of the park with just blinking her eyes. We'll see how it looks when I put it up. I love vinyl because if it looks awful, I rip it off and it's like it was never there.

Note: After I took the picture, I moved the word "small" closer to the "..for the" text since it looked spaced incorrectly. I then realized that this can have multiple meanings. I meant tall people vs. small people, but one could think I meant the size of the, um, output? Ah well, it gives you something to think about while you do your business at our house.

Notes

Thank you notes

I've got all of Avery's thank you notes done. I'm not overly thrilled with the design of them, but I never am with these things. Creativity is not my strength, but I did enjoy making them, so that is what counts. And I liked that I was able to reuse all of our Christmas cards. In fact, there are a few that I had to make using, gasp!, all new materials because I ran out of cards. 

I'm now creating upcycled* envelopes for those thank you notes that will be given out to her friends at school (i.e. not snail mailed). I'm using the program from Pinkalicious. A calendar would have been more ideal with prettier pictures, but I don't have any, so Pinaklicious program it is.

Avery now needs to sign her name on each one. For those of you who casually commented, "Just have her sign her name!" there is no just about this process. Getting her to write her name on these cards, something she's more than able to do all on her own, is like pulling teeth. She knows I want her to do it and this is a lot of the problem. 

Of course, these are just Avery's thank you notes. I still have to do my own. Then I have to get ahead of the curve and do about 20 so I have them ready to go for the next batch of thank you notes. 

* I kind of despise that term. It sounds so self-righteous to me. 

Date nights

Friday night was our date night - we went to see Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy - and last night was the G's date night. Elise and Nolan spent the night, while Mimi tagged along with the Gs for their supper club night. It was an easy one. I like easy ones.

Health & Sleep

I've decided Sundays can be my break from my adherence to my calorie intake restrictions I've placed on myself. This is not to say I'm not logging my food because I have to do that everyday, or I have to pay Vic and Damian $1 each (each!). Nor is it to say I'm going to let myself go crazy. But, I did get fettucine alfredo (gluten-free) and the strawberry lemonade for lunch today. 

I'm also logging my sleep on a new app I found. I am sleeping a lot lately. It's hard to tell what it is, but my guess (hope) is that it's just because of the sinus infection I'm currently fighting. One day it seems like I'm making progress and things* are looking clear. The next day things are looking fluorescent again. 

* things = mucas

How Megan Gets Her Groove Back

I still feel like I'm trying to get back into my groove after our return from vacation. I do wish it didn't take me so long to settle back into things, but I think it's just the way I am. Regardless of what I do, it simply takes me a while to find my groove. I'm getting there. 

Cameo

Blog 365 fail - wait!
This was sitting in my inbox all typed up. And then I got busy and forgot to post yesterday. But wait! I'll still be blogging 365 days this year (assuming I don't miss another day) since it's a leap year. I'm still in on a technicality!

Fun with the Cameo
I have been wanting to play with my new toy since we got back from Colorado, but I was disciplined enough to take care of major things until I opened it up. For one thing, I always make a huge mess when I do anything crafty, so the house needs to be in a fairly neat state to start with. For another, I get really cranky when Avery interrupts, so I need to have time when Avery is not around. That time is today! As I type this, it's on its maiden cut. I'm making thank you notes.

So far, I like the Cameo much better than the SD. While the SD is awesome, they learned a few things that make the Cameo that much easier to use.

1. It's quieter. Not quiet, mind you. But quieter. 
2. Adjusting the blade (for different thicknesses) is easier and doesn't require switching out caps, therefore, there's nothing to potentially lose. 
3. The LCD screen is bigger and makes it easier. 

Thank you notes

I'm trying to repurpose paper and cards that I would have recycled to make the bulk of the cards. This takes more time than doing it from scratch since I have to make minor adjustments with each card. I told myself before starting, "You don't have time to do this! If you do the reuse thing now, you'll never finish and these thank you notes will go out in August." But, I decided if I don't have time to do it now, when will I? Never. I do have time, I just have to make it. 

Optimistic

Day 3 of logging calories eaten into Lose It is going well. I'm enjoying tracking my food and that's the best possible early sign for sticking with it. Of course, day 3 is nothing to celebrate as I could fall off the wagon at any moment, but I feel good that I'll stick with it. Plus, I don't want to owe both Vic and Damian tons of money because I fail to log. 

Cards

Crafting - Attendance Cards
Christie and Henry came by today so the adults could do some crafting the kids could drive us bonkers while we do so. Christie knitted some items for her FB homemade 2011 exchange. I worked on my first assignment for Avery's preschool.  These are a single card. The red side is for when the child is at home; the white side is for when she/he is at school. I glued the cards together, then glued on the cutouts for the house and school house, then laminated the card, then cut out the names in vinyl, then applied the names to the card.  I figure when the year is done, the vinyl names can be easily removed and then the teacher can reuse the cards in the coming years by just writing the students' names on the laminated card.

Thanksgiving
We're heading to the house of a friend and co-worker of Damian's.  Actually, it's a friend of that guy, but we've met and hung out with this group before, so it's not that distant of a connection. We're supposed to bring a side and a dessert and wine. D is in charge of the side. He's making two: toad in the hole (using chicken sausage) and shredded Brussels sprouts with pine nuts & turkey bacon. I'm making the dessert, which will be lighter-than-air chocolate cake (which is gluten free).

Avery's BD Cake
So last year Avery asked for "flowers and ornaments" on her cake. It was an odd looking cake, but it was delicious. This year, I decided we'd just get a cake from Safeway and call it good. I let Avery pick out her cake. She chose a cupcake cake. It's a wedding cupcake cake. I shouldn't be surprised since she is obsessed with weddings and getting married right now. We don't talk about marriage much, nor does she watch TV shows that talk about it. The best theory I have is that we don't have a lot of pictures displayed on the walls and in frames within our house. There are several of them from our wedding.  Anyway, this is why there will be a wedding cake this year at Avery's BD party. One of these years, we'll get a normal cake ... maybe.

Assignment

First Assignment
A while back, I offered to make any charts or signs or bulletin-board type things any of the teachers at Avery's school may need. I'm currently working on first assignment: a check-in/check-out chart for Avery's classroom.

The Efficient and Practical side of me (which is rather large) always struggles when I start one of these little projects. I'll spend x amount of time doing something I know no one really cares all that much about. For example, do the kids or the teachers care that I am cutting out little school houses, with doors and windows and a school bell, and assembling them on the cards? No. I could easily buy cute stickers and it likely wouldn't change a thing. However, the point is that, for whatever reason, I like assembling these little cutouts and gluing them. I like the look. It relaxes me somehow. So that is why my machine is cutting away little school houses and little houses and little trees and little school bells. Efficient Megan has finally prevailed in forcing Flighty Crafty Megan that I've got to at least do all my cutting at once, then do all the assembling later. Flighty Crafty Megan just likes to go every which way and assemble and do it all at once, which makes any project take forever.

Refugee Family
We're sponsoring a refugee family for Christmas again.  This time it's an extended family of 12 from the Ukraine. That was a bit much for just Damian and me, so Amber and Stacey are co-sponsoring the same family. I am hopeful that Avery will get the concept a bit more this year.

T-Shirt

Fabric Ink & Stenciling Test
I've been wanting to try out using my Silhouette to make a stencil to be for applying ink to fabric. That is what inspired this little gem:

It's not the most creative design in the world, but it did allow me to learn how to do it. Avery was very excited to wear her t-shirt. We put it on and went out and about yesterday. It was rather cold, so we decided to stop and get her a long-sleeved shirt from Target to wear underneath. After we bought a long-sleeved shirt with glittery Christmas trees on it, Avery lost all interest and enthusiasm for this homemade wonder.

Fire

Kindle Fire
I pre-ordered the Kindle Fire a month or so ago. The selling point for me was its support of Flash. That iPads do not support Flash is a main driver in my decision not to get an iPad. If I'm not going to be able to view a large percentage of websites on a tablet, it really doesn't meet my needs (who am I kidding? My wants.) The other significant factor was size. The iPad is just a bit too big for my preferences. So I bought the Kindle Fire.

So far, I like it well enough. It does what I want it to do - play movies and tv, surf the web, and allow me to read books on it. I'm extremely annoyed with the "homepage." About ⅔ of the screen is taken up with the recently viewed items. There is no way to hide or opt not to see this. As a result, I feel like I have all this clutter that I need to take care of. That is my biggest complaint.

My next biggest complaint is the same one I have for iPads. How is it that none of these tablets (that I know of) have a button on the keyboard that will just insert your email address when you press it?  These things are used to log into sites galore and having to type my email address over and over and over again is ridiculous. It would be so easy to have a button to do this. Why do they not have it?!

Reading on it is much like reading on the iPad. You use your finger to swipe to the next page, can adjust the background color (I read with a cream colored background and the brightness turn all the way down). Most of the time I will still opt to read on my regular Kindle, but this is handy for night reading.

I used it yesterday to stream reruns of Cheers episodes while I assembled Avery's BD invitations.  It was good background noise for that activity. And it preferable to having the TV on (no commercials, not as loud, etc). I also watched a few episodes of Arrested Development since D was out of the evening. That show is hilarious.

Invitations
I finished up all the invitations yesterday. I'm fairly pleased with how they came out, especially considering I had no real plan going into making them, nor did I buy any of the supplies specifically for the invitation. I merely used what I had available.  I'm also pleased that I got to use my Silhouette extensively.

I blacked out the details in the scanned invitation shown below. I used maybe six or seven different patterns for the invitation background. I also did some with purple leotards and pink tutus.