The Birthday Weekend Report

I had a *great* birthday weekend. I'm not the big bash type. I just wanted a quiet weekend at home with the family.

*Saturday morning while I was still in bed, my boys serenaded me with the birthday song and showered me with presents. I got a lot of stuff (they are the best present-getters), the most exciting of which was a juicer. We were all eager to try it out, so we took a trip to the grocery store and loaded up on fruit. Then we did it mongolian barbecue style, where each person fills their bowl with their own proportions of this and that, and the chef (me) got to shove it through. FUN TIMES! So that was our lunch on Saturday--as well as our dinner on Sunday night...b/c by then we'd had a chance to buy some yogurt and protein powder and we made the yummiest most fillingest smoothies ever.

*We also took a family field trip to the poshiest sports club to see if it's a place we'd like to join. I've truly never seen anything like it before. It's so fancy that I could hang out in the women's locker room for a couple hours and leave feeling like I'd had a vacation. Not sure yet about the joining part. We might; we might not. I might get kicked out for not being posh enough.

*We went for a family walk to the off-leash dog park.

*Dragged the kids to a home improvement store to get ideas on a future deck.

*I made a leather bag.


*I started on a top secret project for Michael Miller Fabrics using fabric from Laura Gunn's beautiful Poppy Collection .


Pardon the background mess. My room is feeling more like a workshop (hammers, nails, rivets, etc.) and less like a sewing studio these days.

Looking ahead: My sister is coming to visit me this week. She thinks she's coming to hang out, but I'm going think of a way to put her to work. You would too, if she were your sister!!

The Gift of Time

Silly me...saying I'd have an etsy shop ready to go by my birthday. First of all, what a ridiculous proclamation to make right before what somehow turned out to be the most busy week ever. Secondly, what kind of thing is that to do to myself on my birthday? Giving myself the gift of stress. No thanks. Any mother can tell you that once you have kids, your time is not your own. Mine certainly isn't. So the shop will come when the shop comes. I'll do it on my own time and I'll enjoy doing it--and I'm not going to stress myself out doing it quickly just because of some arbitrary deadline that I pulled out of my hiney.

A couple of thoughts before the weekend:

*I used to think people who were in love with their PTs and chiropractors were a little bit weird, but that was before I had a PT. Now, that I have one, I totally get it. My PT sent me home with a few exercises, and I think it's too soon to say that I've been cured, b/c I might have another flare up down the road, but for now the shoulder pain is gone, and I feel like a fully functioning human again. Awesome!



*I bought a new daily women's multivitamin. Look at the size of this thing! Frugal that I am, I'm going to finish the entire bottle, but I am definitely on the lookout for something smaller. Any recommendations? And this is maybe tmi, but holy neon phosphorescence, batman!

*See that fabric up top? I'm digging into it this weekend, and I *cannot* wait to do some sewing again.

Enjoy your weekend!

Overbooked

This week has been busy beyond belief. The days are packed full, and somehow I've managed to book every evening but one. Argh. I'm hoping to get a little breathing space on Friday so I can do a bit of sewing. In the meantime, I'm thinking about the awesome day our family spent on Anderson Island last weekend.







And here's a gentle reminder for me to stop overbooking my time. Silence and rest are important too.

Tilt Shift

I happened upon this website which amazingly, with the click of a button, can make the objects in your photograph look like little toys.

This is a picture my husband took of Seattle when he was on a cruise last March:


This is what it looks like using the tiltshiftmaker:


Cool, huh? My son wants a tiltshiftmaker that can turn pictures of toys into the real thing. If someone would just invent that, we'd have to get a 500 car garage to hold it all. :)

Elsewhere...

Hello, my friends! I'm guest blogging boy stuff over at Made by Rae today. See you over there!

And hello visitors from Rae's blog--welcome! :) Grab a cup of coffee and visit with me for a bit, won't you?

Bot Camp Miniquilt

Catching up on my bot camp tutorials...here's another one that was recently posted on Making It Fun.



These are quick projects that are fun to make. The tutorial has all the information on fabric and dimensions if you want to make these miniquilts exactly like what you see here. Or if you want to come up with your own design, that would be even more fun.



If you've never made a quilt before, the miniquilt is an excellent place to start. The tutorial includes instructions on fusible applique as well as making a quilt sandwich and binding.



The tutorial is HERE. Enjoy! :)

About that...

Did I say I was going to open an etsy shop in January? Yeah, about that...I keep waiting for a huge chunk of time to miraculously open up to me so that I can work on it, but for some reason things keep coming up.


This is a nightie I made myself last summer. It has nothing to do with this post.

I've given myself a deadline--Feb. 27 (my birthday). Maybe that will help me stay focused. It's good to have a deadline.

Weekend of Lurve

It's been a non-stop party this weekend: valentine's day celebrations at school, a birthday party for my now 6 year old yesterday and no doubt, some yummies for Chinese New Year tonight. After all the sweets lately, there will be more of me to love, I'm afraid.

Hope you're having a fantastic weekend! Love the ones you're with!

Related to a Blogger

My kids have been begging for a camera ever since last week when mine came in the mail and they were told they have to keep their paws off. So my husband was online buying me a tripod, and he saw this el cheapo camera that somehow ended up in the cart too. It all came in the mail last night. The kids each got 20 minutes turns to mess around with it, and when the images got loaded up on the computer, look what I found!



Is his mommy a blogger, or what???!!!! Bwa ha ha!!!

Oh, and if you're wondering why I suddenly turned on comments after a year and a half of going without, I had an epiphany yesterday when I was talking to my oldest son. I was telling him about my memories of taking a speech class in college and how nervous I would get before speaking in public.

Him: Mom, you should have just pretended that there was no one in the audience.

Me: Yeah, but you have to make eye contact with people when you're giving a speech. You can't just look at the ceiling.

Him: Why not?

Me: Because eye contact is important if you want your audience to trust you. Eye contact is important if you want to make a connection with them. Besides, in a speech class you could end up with an F if you look at the ceiling.

Him: OK

Me (in my head): Oh my gosh. I've been blogging as if I don't have an audience. I've been blogging at the ceiling. I don't want an F.

Lame

I spent some time this morning looking over my last few posts, and realized that it's been a really long time since I've posted any sewing/crafty things. Well, there is a good reason for this: I've been suffering from a rotator cuff injury. When I've finished a day of just being a mommy and doing all of my mommy/keeping house duties, when the kids are in bed and it's finally MY time, my arm feels like it's hanging like a dead weight. Seriously ouchie. I've been dealing with this off and on since I had my first baby eight years ago (repetitive lifting movements, I presume). Wow, right? It was easy to ignore, because I'd have a flare up maybe twice a year at first. I'd do my little exercises and in a couple of weeks I'd be back to normal. Now, though, the flare ups seem to be occuring every month or two and lasting longer. And because I'm compensating for the hurt muscles, I now have pain going down my back and down my arm. Sigh. I don't want to live like this. So, I'm going to start physical therapy and am hoping for the best. This is my birthday month, you know. I'm starting a new decade and am not ready to enter the old lady mode of thinking. I don't want to be the person who alway complains about her physical ailments. I'm going to fight to keep my youth. Do you hear me? I'm going to fight! Go Fight Win! That's me.

Oops, sorry, got off track. Where was I? Oh, yes, the title of this post is "lame." OK, stay focused, Joanna. Lame. So, yeah, I have a lame arm so I haven't been sewing much. But I have a crafty blog, so that's a problem, right? Oh, but I have a nice camera, so I can shift the focus of my blog a little and document my life a little more. But I can't do that because, due to some recent upgrading my hubby did on our computer (bless his heart--he is awesome), I now find myself without photoshop, and I can't stinkin' find the CD. Lame again.

I just made coffee and realized I'm out of half and half. Sigh. Lame again.

I'm not running on all my pistons lately, apparently....

p.s. As of this post, I'm now turning comments back on.

Metal March

More metal that's been taking over. Did I mention I now have a snap press? I love it.

Metal March

As I was cleaning up in my studio today, it struck me how my space is being inundated with metal. I probably have enough to do another parade next week.

Sofa Fixed

I frankensteined the sofa last night and am feeling much better about it.


In the flurry of our daily activity, I don't think it's going to be noticed much. Thank goodness for textured fabric. whew!

A Thought on Puppies

Just when you think they're done chewing on things and you can finally relax...don't.

The Package

I spent the whole day waiting for the UPS guy to come. They gave me a window from 8am to 7pm. I spent the entire day cleaning, playing, folding, and mostly listening for the doorbell. When he finally came with my package, I had to hide it b/c everyone wanted to touch and play with it and that, my friends, was a no-can-do. And now that the kiddos are in bed and I finally have a chance to play with it myself, lo and behold, the batteries need charging. Ah well, it doesn't matter, because I am all kinds of giddiness right now.