Fermenting

I am a happy person, I am a happy person...it'll come back, right?!?

These last couple of months have really been blah...I've been blah...my creativity is no where to be found. Its been rough. Sure we're on this new diet and cut out pretty much everything...and yes, I won't lie, there were some major dt's going on for the whole family. But something else has been brewing, fermenting in my soul and I just can't put a finger on it.

The company Jim worked for just shut down one truck, which meant laying off 6 people. Thankfully, he wasn't one of them...but next time his name will be closer to the bottom of the list. I hate uncertainty. I despise not being in control. He spent 2 years working to get his medic license only to have the health field start this downsizing crap?!? Medicine was supposed to be the constant...there's always going to be sick people no matter what the economy. Don't even get me started on how much $$$ the government owes the ambulance company from last year...ugh! (Enough that they had to shut down a truck!)

I know this isn't where we are supposed to be, but for some reason this wonderful land of opportunity keeps itself hidden. I'm tired of worrying. I'm tired of debt. I'm sick of nothing ever working out right!!!! (Talk about a temper tantrum...sorry!). The Psalmist asks,"why do you sleep...Why do you hide your face and forget our misery and oppression? We are brought down to the dust, our bodies cling to the ground. Rise up and help us; redeem us because of your unfailing love." Mark 4:35-41 tells of Jesus, asleep in the boat as a squall threatens to destroy them..."Teacher don't you care if we drown?"...Jesus got up, rebuked the waves and asked "Why are you so afraid? Do you still have no faith?"

My study Bible says when you feel like panicking, confess your need to God and trust him to care for you. I don't know why this trust is so hard. Time and time again, God proves himself faithful and true...and in His timing he will move in our situation. I seriously can't wait to be looking back on this season and see how this all played out!

In lighter news, our garden is growing and I took a class on making things with fresh milk...we get to start dairy back in next week! (Homemade yogurt is the first step). So hopefully there will be some happy posts in the near future! Thanks for letting me purge all of this negative junk!

I'm a Material Girl

Here's my favorite of Amber's presents.....her husband, Rand, is in a band so I had to make a little girlie rocker outfit!

For the tutu I used:

a spool of tulle(I think it was 15ft or something, but I got 2 of them out of one spool). It's found in the ribbon section at Hobby Lobby.

1/2" elastic

I measured the onseie to see how wide the waist was and then cut and sewed the elastic accordingly (if I were to do it again, I'd probably shorten the width just a tad because it seemed to stretch as I added the tulle).

Then, I wrapped the tulle around a piece of cardboard that was 6.5" long. After I got the whole roll on it, I cut one end...leaving me with 13" stips.

I folded each strip in half (raw edges matching so that I didn't have to trim too much when I was finished) and made a simple slip knot.

Keep going around the entire elastic band and viola~~tutu!

For the onseie:

fabric

print out of a guitar

wonder under

Following instructions for the wonder under, iron on a square that's just bigger than the guitar picture. Pin the print out on the fabric and cut it out. Iron guitar onto onesie (along with a little rectangle snippet for added detail).

Sew around the guitar for a little extra staying power.

For the hair bow:

extra guitar fabric

button

extra tulle

black thread

little metal hair clip

hot glue gun

I cut a 18" long by 3"-ish strip of fabric, folded it in half and did a long basting stitch along the raw edges.

Pull the thread to bunch the fabric up into a "flower"

Repeat with a smaller section of tulle

Hot glue pieces together and add a button to hide the middle bunchiness :)

And then go a bit crazy with the other leftover scraps you have!

Enjoy making your own little material girl into a baby rocker!

I'm linking to Hope Studio's Tutorial Tuesday

Fringe

No, this post is not on 80's jean jackets or the FOX tv show (which is quite entertaining in an x-files meets CSI kind of way).

The other day I was talking to my friend Chris (the one who hooked us up with the whole gap program). She commented on how first it starts with home schooling and then you become more and more fringe. I remember the looks and comments when we decided to home school. Which by the way, was not to shelter our kids, but because I knew that they weren't getting what I felt they needed in our small town public school. Let's all stop for a minute and envision what your typical home school family looks like---did they wear little house on the prairie smocks, had no tv, and taught their kids with text books from the 1800's? Let's just say that we don't fit in the old home schooler peg ;) (God has blessed me so much by putting Normal home schooling moms in my path!) No one in our town home schooled, as far as we knew...and honestly, I've felt kind of secluded here..we'd become "THAT family". Just the beginnings of fringe living.

A few years ago we stopped eating red dyes and cut out almost all of the processed foods...yep...fringe...

Now that I'm delving more and more into what we put into our bodies, I feel it again....not only are we the unvaccinated home schoolers who don't eat junk food, but now we're the ones who don't feed our kids sugar, carbs or anything else fun! A month ago Jim and I watched Food Inc...and that just got the ball rolling! Yesterday I finished reading Fast Food Nation....I'll post on that later, but WOW! In high school I read The Jungle and am shocked to find that here in 2010 things really haven't changed...well, they changed but now we've regressed back. It saddens me to think our society has become so focused on the almighty dollar that these big companies treat their workers and farmers as an expendable byproduct.

I really want to buy our meat locally, and even then...I want to know it came from local farmers, not some big feedlot slaughter house/factory...Again...fringe, fringe and more fringe!

We have become so accustomed to fast, convenient and effortless that we've never thought to question if its good for you, let alone, safe! We don't stop and think of the consequences all of these artificial flavors (even "natural" isn't much better), dyes and preservatives have with our bodies. We've become fast food junkies and our kids are now suffering. Don't even get me started on the ecological effect we have with everything being disposable---we are seriously drowning in a sea of plastic! Oops..there I go again...more FRINGE!

So, what are things that cause you to be out on the fringe? Do you stir the pot or sit back and take it?

Just curious to see if I'm not the only one who has tried to make some changes :)

Hooded Baby Towel

So, I can finally link up to all of these cool parties with all of the stuff I made for Amber's shower! (isn't she adorable! it was a tea party so we all had to wear a hat from her step-mother in law's collection...she even had one for the baby!)

First up to bat is a hooded towel. I had an idea of what I wanted to make, but all of the patterns I found online were gigantor....more for toddler than a little wee babe! So I winged it..tons of pics to follow so hopefully I won't lose you (sometimes my brain when crafting is a little mad hatter-ish!)

You'll need:

a regular sized bath towel

ribbon

matching fabric to applique

wonder under

an iron, sewing machine and coordinating thread


1. measure about 10.5" down from a short end of your towel (the edge with the boarder thingy...technical huh!?!). mark it and lob it off!

2. cut the small section in half (see above pic

3. fold the finished edge (top of the pic) back to the ribbing...I wanted to sew right along the edge where the rib started (see bottom pic). To form the "hood" just fold in half and sew (on the left side of the bottom pic). Give yourself a good sized seam allowance so that you can fold it open and sew each side of the seam down...terry cloth frays like crazy!!! Originally I was going to do hidden seams, but it made them way too bulky and I kept breaking the needle..if you have a super machine, go for it!

You'll end up with a pointy little hat....not quite the look I was shooting for so I opened up the hat, squared it of by just sewing a straight seam and cut off the point. In a perfect world I would have used the hidden seam for this, but I was running out of needles :) You can see in this picture how I opened the back seam and stitched each side down the center.

Now you have a finished hood :) Set it aside and grab the rest of the towel.

I forgot to mention before to trim the other side of the towel in order to get rid of the ribbing/boarder thing (I just cut right along the edge so that I'd have a straight guide)

4. Now that you have 2 unfinished edges, you'll need to sew them shut. I folded about a 1/4" seam, sewed and then folded it back under and sewed again (no raw edges) see pic below if that helps. Repeat on the other raw edge


5. I saw this on one of the patterns (which I totally forgot who did it) and thought it gave it a cute little extra touch! Fold your towel in half, right sides together (this will be the top of your towel...see the manufacturer's edge?...make sure that the right sides are together because seam ripping on terry STINKS big time!) Mark about 1.5" in and about 2" down. Sew a straight stitch along your mark.

This makes a super easy pleat.

6. Grab your hood. Using the seam from the pleat and the seam down the back of the hood to keep everything centered, pin the hood to the towel (right side of hood is on top of the right side of the towel) I'm not sure on the technical term for this, but I just sewed it so the seams were flat, not to sides together (the towel's edge was on the inside and the hood edge was on the top).
7. You're almost done!!! Pin your ribbon across the top and bottom edges (make sure to heat seal the ribbon!!!!) I folded the ribbon under on each edge to hide the sealed part. Then just sew around the edge of the ribbons (add a bow if you'd like, but it was super bulky under the machine.)

I had some leftover scraps from other shower projects, so I decided to add lady bugs to the bottom corners. Iron on wonder under to the fabric, cut out your shapes. Remove paper backing and iron onto the towel. Just for good measure, sew around the pieced fabric.

I totally forgot to take a pic of the entire towel finished (maybe once baby M. makes her appearance!)

Good luck, message me if you have any questions! It seems like a lot of steps, but this is really an easy project :)

Weekend Update

I feel like I should have Seth and Amy with me right now....Really..but we'll get to that later!

The boys spent the night with my parents on Friday. We had planned on going to a farewell party in Madison later Saturday afternoon, but since we had no kiddos we splurged and headed to the farmers market :)

This was the last indoor market of the season and I can't wait for it to go back outside around the capitol square! It's definitely smaller in the Madison Senior Center, but there were a fare amount of vendors and a wonderful breakfast. I ended up only getting a dairy/gluten free apple bar (which was AWESOME!)...I tried to talk Jim into buying granola from the same girl, but he wasn't sure on getting a huge bag of it. The funniest thing was when she walked out from her booth, Jim about fell over!Pretty interesting huh? Her's were purple and they for sure made an impression on this country bumpkin husband! As Kathy says, "it was a bit too crunchy granola for him!" It was crazy :)

When you've got a couple of hours to kill, what better place to hang but The Terrace! This is probably my favorite spot in Madison....along with the hole in the wall along the square that sells the 3 cup chicken...and bramburry's coffee shop with the crepes...well...I guess I just LOVE Madison!

So we sat outside by the lake, drank a couple of WI's finest and ate a sub. If you ever go, one sub is enough....they don't advertise how big they are! I ended up giving Jim half because all of that bread was just way too much when we haven't had it in a month and a half!

After the tables started to fill with "study" groups, we decided to head out and find a ski shop. Mobile Google is a wonderful thing! We found a Redline Shop a few miles away..super service and great tubes and skis...if only we were made out of money!

Next up was dinner at The Old Fashioned:

(notice the black pager on Jim's hip....yeah, that's the "geek box"....what was he going to do, go all Mr. Deeds on a fire scene?!?)

Anyway, when in WI do as the wisconsonites (and everyone else at the table)~

ugh! Just looking at this makes my stomach hurt all over again! This is their house burger...bacon cheese burger with a sunny side up egg on top (just because cheese curds, cheese AND bacon couldn't possibly be enough!). Again, I ate half and poor Jim suffered the consequences..had to stop twice for an hour and a half car ride! (urp) This morning Jim was checking the online bank statement, only to find that our bill was $11 more than what we signed for....gratuity was included so this waiter gave himself almost a $20 tip for a $45 bill....Reeeeeealllly....Jim called the restaurant and was told the owner would be calling him back....well that was at 9:30 this morning and we still haven't heard back....really, Old Fashioned, I hope you didn't do this to the rest of our group...goes to show you never to trust a guy that talks like a noonie!

The main spectacular reason we ventured north~

(me, Kathy, and Amber)

Kathy is ditching us for an incredible man down in St. Louis! Mark is one lucky guy :) Over the past year I've seen Kathy just blossom into happiness~ I wish her all of the best in the Arch City (hoping you'll find great beer down there too Cheese!)

It's hard to believe that we're all grown up when just yesterday we were sitting up in Kathy's room, listening to her dad's old cheech and chong records.....Class .....class?!.... CLASSSSSS! I could go on all day, but without Kathy, there's no one to get all of my old SNL quotes :) Thanks for opening my eyes to the finer things in life Cheese----good food----good beer----and laughing so hard your ribs hurt for days!

Safe travels my friend! (and expect a few visits so that we can all go to the city museum!)

Who Knew?!?

I've had a killer headache for quite awhile (hence the no posting!). I'd go to bed with a headache, wake up with a headache...no medicine worked! It was the kind that hurt to blink or hold my head up...and don't get me started on how the boys effected it! Let's just say I've been down for the count this week.

I saw this treatment yesterday and I figured why not give it a shot!

Its called the Hoku Point for accupressure. If you're pregnant--sorry, Don't Do It! What you do is make kind of a fist the your right hand. On the left hand in the webbing between your thumb and first finger, is a bundle of muscle. With your right hand, grasp that bundle (thumb on top, side of the middle knuckle pushing up from the bottom...kind of like you were doing the "thumbs up" sign and laid your left hand on top of your fingers, then just bring your thumb down on your left hand). Confused? Go ahead and try it, I'll wait...



If you have a headache, it should be tender there...or so it says...mine was so so...the headache definitely overshadowed the pain in my hand! Just apply pressure, rub it a bit and relax. Then open your eyes and think "what the heck---this actually worked!"

I promise that I'll post some real posts with pictures soon!

The Living God

Today around the world, people are celebrating many different things. Somehow through the years bunnies and Cadbury Eggs have overshadowed the empty tomb.

Jesus died so that I could have life, and that my friend is pretty awesome!

God sent his only son to die on a cross, break the chains of death and rise on the 3rd day.. so that whoever believed in Jesus could have life everlasting.

May you realize today the boundless love our Heavenly Father has for you!

You Know You Live In A House Full Of Boys When...

This morning Riley walked up to Corey, nailed him in the tenders and yelled APRIL FOOLS!

For some reason, I don't think he gets the point of April Fools Day!

Hope Yours Is Nuts (hehehehe!)