20 reasons why my birthday was so wonderful + 10 of my favorite things + 6 things I’d like to do this year = 36 things about me.

36. Daddy came home Friday from Dallas, to relieve me from a long hard week alone with sick kids.
35. I felt much better Saturday morning, after having fevers, chills and aches on Friday night.
34. Perfect weather all weekend–sunny, clear, warm.
33. Wore a new shirt that I made and love. It’s the famous Built by Wendy pattern #3835. I opted for the longer sleeves with the ties.

32. Went downtown on Saturday to explore.
31. Used my wonderful new camera that I got a week ago from my hubby and took lots of pictures (more on that later).
30. Ate lots of kettle corn and roasted corn on the cob at Dillinger Days festivities.
29. Ate out for lunch with the kids!!!(a rarity) at a pretty outdoor restaurant.
28. I-guy had the whole staff at the restaurant singing witch doctor.
27. Bought some excellent hand ointment for my mommy/nurse working hands.
26. Made chocolate cake with the guys and ate a whole lot of it for dinner.
25. Woke up on Sunday morning to Rock lobster and handmade gifts by super E.
24. Went on a beautiful hike.
23. Saw an enormous Saguaro cactus.
22. Ate chocolate cake for lunch (yum!)
21. Our friend Tim baby sat for us.
20. Went on a date with my hubby, the first in a loooooonnnngggg time (another rarity).
19. We went to see Juno. I highly recommend. Excellent soundtrack too!
18. Went out to dinner and had a delicious vegan dinner.
17. Had uninterrupted conversation with my husband for over an hour!

Favorites:
16. tea: Ambrosia White Plum
15. food: vegan pesto
14. song 1: I feel it all
13. song 2: True Affection
12. color1: Turquoise
11. color2: Orange
10. feel: Soft baby feet
9. sound: The kids laughing
8. scents: Baked bread and cinnamon
7. chocolate: Dagoba Xocolatl

Things I must do this year
6. Finish fixing up our money pit of a house!
5. Grow our garden– start in April
4. Start a compost by spring.
3. Take the Lactation Certification Exam in July.
2. Exercise daily.
1. Meditate daily.

Well, oddly enough, I am totally sick again. Apparently my body decided to give me a break for my birthday weekend but we were back on schedule with the fevers, chills, coughing, and aches by Monday morning. I am determined to feel much better by tomorrow!

Are you getting sick of seeing the headless me yet? I am. It’s really strange taking pictures of yourself and then trying to post them. There is more to come, so I hope you don’t mind. There are just some things that don’t photo well on their own, and these pj pants are one of them.

They are from Amy Butler’s In-Stitches book. They’re called wide-leg lounge pants and they really are w-i-d-e! It feels and looks like I am wearing a long swishy skirt. Nevertheless, they are super comfy and fun to lounge around in. They are also super easy to make considering that I didn’t really read the instructions.They were making my head swim, so I just followed the diagrams. I’m so very visual. It’s a really bad habit to skip the instructions. I’ve missed vital info from doing that. Good kismet for me this time around I guess.

 The pattern is from Amy Butler’s In-Stitches.  I’ve had the book and the flannel for about a year now, just sitting there–waiting. I didn’t have enough flannel so I shortened it and used a different flannel from my stash for the tie and a band around the sleeve.  It keeps me nice and warm in the morning while I drink my tea and check my e-mails.

Next up, pajama pants.  Maybe from In-Stitches? I don’t have enough warm pairs to get me through to wash day.

Confession: I’ve made a lot of the stuff I’ve been sharing during my blog break a week ago.  I just sat down one day and knocked off a few things.  So,  I haven’t been as busy as it may seem.

The vision in my head was so much better. I had this red and white stripe shirt: too big, awkward neckline, the lace-up tie was just weird and I thought I could save it.

So, I got rid of the lace-up tie, lowered the neckline a tad and took in the sides. It fits a lot better now. Then I had the loony idea to add a bird/cloud applique. I had this, this and this in my head. Not even close, huh? Maybe I’m letting my hubby’s opinion get in the way. He had one of those ‘deer in the headlights’ look on his face when I showed him.

I love how the applique turned out. Maybe it would be better placed on a pillow, bag or blanket? I don’t know, what do you think? Be honest, I have no one else to ask.  Pajama shirt?

I can’t help but think of this post written by Linda at Craft apple. As we get older, things that we thought were ludicrous 10 years ago doesn’t seem so crazy any more. We get ourselves into this crafting world, and suddenly we want to applique, quilt and paint everything!

(Sorry, I had to make this picture private, because some idiot is using my photo’s and posts -without permission-on their website. The only way to get my little guys off that website was to make the photo private) I fixed the problem.  No worries. 

Here is my little Jedi and Superman. I’ve been quite busy sewing these costumes up over the last couple of days. My mom did help a bit by making the main blue superman pieces. I did everything else, including the freezer paper stenciled Super S. Can’t even begin to tell you how tedious that was. I have a few burns from the iron to prove it. And the Jedi costume is all handmade by me as well. What is great about these outfits, is that you can remove the accessories and they are comfy cozy pajamas. I could just gobble these two little guys up! Speaking of gobbling things up…..

Before we headed out begging for candy, we had ourselves some eyeballs over blood sauce and green tape worms with monster fingers. Perfect meal to start off with, don’t you think?

And who needs candy when you have these?!?! Click on the picture for the ingredient list.

Hope everyone had a great Halloween Day!

A big T for my guy’s birthday present…

Freezer Stencil of course.

Little baby onesies for my expecting friends (a mathematical scholar and his beautiful wife)…

~more freezer stencils, a black kitty and polka-dot Pi,

and appliqued fabric bits.

That’s all for today. Have a happy Monday!

I found the most awesome wrap skirt tutorial at Home Grown.  Since I have so much of that flowered brown fabric, I thought I’d try it out.  It was so incredibly easy, taking me less than 2 hours to whip up.

Alterations of my own: 1) For the hem width, I multiplied it by 50% instead of 40% which gave me a little bit more flare,  2) I rounded the front corner and 3) I lined it with a brown cotton fabric.    I pinned back the corner, for the photo, so that the lining and rounded corner could be seen easier.

Adding the lining makes the whole skirt easier to make than actually hemming all around.  Plus it is reversible that way.

I’ll be adding this tutorial to my list.  It’s definitely a keeper.

All of my fabric from yesterday is washed and ready to go. I already dug in and started pairing up coordinating fabrics and making a pile for skirts. Thanks to THIS amazing tutorial, I was able to make this skirt with grace and ease. I can’t believe how easy it was. I pretty much followed the entire tutorial except that I made this skirt I little more flared. Gluing the zipper down!!! Ingenious! I also tied together a pretty hankie, as seen in Blueprint magazine, to make a cooridinating little bag. (cross-posted at Wardrobe Refashion)

I love weekends, when I’m not working. Today was very clear, sunny 70 degree day. Perfect for going out and about. But before going out, I needed to do a quick makeover on a shirt I wanted to wear. It was a very blah and brown polo-style shirt with (ahem) stains. What to do, what to do…. a quick freezer-paper stencil of course.

We decided to check out Tucson’s Lost Barrio shopping district. It’s an old wharehouse district that is now a very colorful and vibrant shopping area. I fell in love!! My favorite place was Bohemia: an artisans emporium. It’s exactly the kind of place that I’d love to sell my stuff in. I was able to talk to one of the owners after Super E announced the his mother was in fact a crafter. (I think Super E should be my new PR agent) We did chit-chat breifly about selling my stuff at her gorgeous shop! What a thrill that would be. There were so many things that I would have loved to buy, but alas, my funds are low. I did walk out with a couple of yummy Belly Buttons Handmade Soaps. The word “belly button” just happens to be Super E’s favorite word right now. With belgian chocolate and sweet mint, how could you go wrong?

I hope everyone is having a fabulous weekend!

This here is a skirt my grandma gave me (garage sale find - 50 cents). It’s a very long, black, flowery print skirt which was not very flattering on me. So, refashioned it was:

I cut across measured lengths, gathered the tops of each tier so that it could be sewn together to make a much more flattering skirt. It fits me just below my knees and it took me less than an hour to make.

5 things

Rules are:
1. someone tags you,
2. you post five things about yourself that you haven’t already mentioned on your blog,
3. you tag people you’d like to know more about.

About a month ago, flossy-p tagged me with the 5 things meme. I haven’t been pretending that I didn’t see my name on the tag list, I’ve just been having a hard time coming up with 5 things. So let me see…….

1. I was the first college graduate in my family, followed closely by my younger sister. It took me a long time to figure out what I wanted to do, in and out of school for many years. When I finally graduated I was 27.

2. I don’t want to be a nurse for the rest of my life. Don’t get me wrong, I love helping people. It’s just exhausting and wearing on my soul and the politics of hospitals and health care is life sapping. I get very frustrated with American health care being mostly focused on “fixing” problems instead of taking more educational and preventative measures.

3. I have a rare bone disease called Maffucci’s syndrome. I feel totally normal and you wouldn’t know that I have a problem by looking at me, so I like to pretend that it doesn’t exist and I don’t go to my doctor as much as I should.

4. I only watch about 3 hours of TV a week. I’d much rather sit in front of my computer or do something creative.

5. I am terrified of heights. On occasion, I have gone on a few “daring” themepark rides, but my eyes were most definitely closed.  And, you won’t find me parachuting or bungee jumping off a bridge in this lifetime.

Well, that wasn’t so bad. Now I’m going to tag:  Rebecca, Michelle, Anastasia, Sarah and Leticia  (if you have already done this, then just ignore it )