You can call me (domestic) Diva

Oh, my, where to start? How about a little randomness? I'm a member of a local AP mom email group, which has been a pretty good source of information on things like natural-minded pediatricians, etc. Every once in a while a mom will share that she's getting rid of cloth diapers or that she wants a partner for a co-op, that type of thing. Well, the latest cloth diaper advertisement caught my eye, because the mom was selling her gently used FuzziBunz for at least half off retail price--that's a GREAT deal, and I really love them. (We just have a few large sized and Bunkin and Bear can both wear them; at this age, they're just a lot easier than prefolds [especially since I lost my Snappis], and with Bunkin's rash of rashes [ha!] lately, the microfleece liner keeps him dry and is soft without chemicals sitting on his skin. All that being said, I love them!) She was selling 7 small size, and I told her I was interested. She invited me to her home to look through all her leftover diapers. She lives about 30 minutes from us, and let's just say I got terribly, terribly lost on the way to her house. And the GPS in my phone was not working that particular day (grrrrrr) and she hadn't given me a home phone number, just her address. Just when I figured all my time was lost and I'd have to drive until I could ask for directions, I saw The Woolie Ewe. I even recognized it because it's where I bought my latest yarn for my friend's recent baby arrival (they are the closest yarn shop to where we live). I had to stop in... you know, for directions! Well, let me just say I walked away with a crazy deal, but still spent way more money than I ought to have. I bought this gorgeous angora yarn made by Classic Elite called Lush, and it is indeed one of the most luxurious and luscious fibers I have ever touched, and the Ravelry raves have been extremely positive on how wonderful it is to knit (though, apparently, it sheds like crazy). Very exciting. I even have a sweater in mind.

Oh, and just for the record, I did end up finding her house and buying some cloth diapers, though not the Fuzzibunz I'd set out for. She was asking a bit more than I'd hoped, and after spending money at the yarn store, I felt I got a much better deal with some of her infant fitted diapers and contour diapers that I'd been wanting to try. Bear and Bunkin had so much fun playing with her 5 and 1 year old sons, so it was a trip well worth it all around!

And of course, as you can see from my yarn picture, I'm still in love with my new fabric for Bear's quilt. In fact, the night I originally posted about it, I cut out all my 3" and 6" squares. I can't believe I made the math part so difficult! Just cutting it was so much easier! Tonight I cut out the 9" squares, and thanks to Hunny, we got a picture of a layout that makes me very happy. It is so bright and so colorful, and it was so cute watching Hunny poring over the layout to make sure there wasn't too much "color clumping" going on! I'm so excited about this quilt (and I'm sorry I keep saying that!).

And of course, Phineas had to "own" my newly cut out fabric pieces, and was not happy about me trying to shoo him off!
Love those legs, Hunny!

After my long evening of cutting and arranging, I was ready for a break, and thanks to our trip to Central Market today, I had the perfect snack waiting for me:

Don't worry; I didn't actually drink the Lambic OR eat the Lindor Balls... they were very tempting, though!! (G, that cheese is divine; It's a New York triple cream cheese; I'll find the name for you--it was heaven and the very reason I'll not be a vegan!)

Last, but not least, I have two superfluous Cute Baby photos... I mean, this post doesn't have nearly enough photos just yet, does it? :) Here is Bunkin wearing the sweater I made; ignore that it's a girl sweater and obviously too small. I wish he were looking at the camera so you could see how pretty his blue eyes are, but clearly Desitin is waaaay more interesting! (Don't you just want to cuddle those rolls!)

One more, because he's just so stinking cute
Well, I've had a blast being crafty and showing off, but I have an EARLY doctor's appointment tomorrow and it's after midnight... Off to bed!!!

Crafty Love

I've been wanting to try my hand at quilting for so long, and there are so many fabulous quilting blogs out there for inspiration that I've felt simultaneously inspired and intrepid to even begin. However, nothing quite pulls you in like the draw of the Stash, or in my case, the fabric store with its eye-candy: bolt after bolt of simple and designer fabrics, each with their own personality begging to be discovered. We do not have craft stores where I live. It's been amazing for me to discover this, and I keep thinking I'll wake up within walking-distance to a yarn store or some such miracle, but alas, I do not think this will be any time soon. However, one of the great little communities about 20 minutes away does have fabric and crafting stores, so today we went to Joann, and I was very overwhelmed with choices! Hunny took the boys to look at pets while Mommy browsed many different fabrics. I sort of had a tone-on-tone look in my mind, but when I saw a certain fabric section, I knew immediately I wanted some bright, happy colors. This is the quilt I want to make, and these are the beautiful fabrics we picked up today. (I'd love to disclose how much I spent on material, because I truly have no idea if it's a fortune or a deal, but it IS less than I'd spend on a quilt for a twin-sized bed. Oh, this is for Bear, by the way, as part of his birthday and graduation to big-boy bed coming soon! I can't wait to begin making this, but first, ironing fabric, and lots and lots of cutting--pray I don't have any snafus because I'm not sure I can handle that!

I wish I could portray the backing fabric better, but I was too impatient to wait for tomorrow in the daylight. It's sort of a cross between a mint and a pale lime (it's not blueish like mint green is in my mind, but it's not vivid like lime would be, either). I just love the rainbow colors, and I think it will be so bright and happy when it's all assembled. I'm SOOOO excited, I can hardly wait!!! I also intended to machine piece this together; however, I have no idea how to work my machine. That's a problem isn't it? I might be so ready to get this started that I decide to hand-piece it, which may not be the best in terms of neatness, though. Hmm.... Off to iron now!

Commercial break

Just kidding-it's not a commercial, but that's what I kept thinking when I thought of starting this post off with "I'm going to interrupt my series with an Easter post..." I am going to finish the Managing Chaos posts, though, but I'd mentioned this particular "tutorial" to a friend via email, and she wanted pictures and the like, so I figured I'd post here so others could do it if they wanted to as well.

When I lived with Meg, one of the things I loved was learning various traditions she'd taught her boys, and I think besides the Jesse Tree ornaments, this one is my favorite. It is a tactile and visual version of the Easter story, and it works kind of like doing an Advent calendar in that you open an egg a day for the 12 days before Easter. Since today is the first of April, I'm late in getting this out there, but my kids are still a bit too young for this project so I'm saving up for next year.

Without further ado....

Oh, and sorry for the shabby picture. It's from my cell phone and on a spread out t-shirt with lots of shadows. Oops. The back row is eggs 1-7; front row eggs 8-12. The little brown papers inside the eggs have the corresponding verse for reading aloud together (and conveniently on the back it lists the objects and egg number in case things get mixed up). This set is one that Meg made for me before I left, and the asterisk denotes things that Meg actually made herself as opposed to using an actual object or prop.

1. Luke 19:29-40 (colt and palm frond*)

2. Luke 22: 14-20 (loaf of bread and cup)

3. Matthew 26:14-16 (30 pieces of silver)

4. Luke 22:39-51 (sword)

5. John 19:1-16 (purple robe/cloth*, crown of thorns*, and I also have the vinegar swabbed stick* that was offered to Jesus)

6. Mark 14:66-72 (rooster)

7. Luke 23:33-44 (cross*, 3 nails)

8. Matthew 27:35-37 and 27:45-48 (black cloud*, dice)

9. Matthew 27:57-66 (stone)

10. John 20:1-10 (burial cloths*)

11. Luke 24:1-9 (nothing for the empty tomb)

12. Acts 1:1-11 (cotton cloud* and silver cloth* for shekinah glory)

I hope someone else is inspired by this fun and inspiring little project, and if you do one, please let me know! Also, if you have questions about what materials were used in these eggs or how Meg made them, leave a comment and I'll get back to you, but despite my fuzzy picture I do think by reading the verses and seeing the correct object, you could easily come up with your own ideas!

Why diabetes sucks and projects to distract me

Ok, I rescind all that about being fine with the whole diet thing. I was trying to be fine, but I'm not. Can I just rant for a moment and shout out to no one in particular that I HATE DIABETES. HATE IT. I was still encouraged by ranting talking to G (who also has this stupid disease), but after a whole weekend of eating correctly and my numbers still being out of whack, I feel like giving up, or to be more precise, drowning my sorrows in the largest slice of cake I can find. (That would be "happy birday to Edah cake," if it were Bear speaking--he's obsessed with blowing out candles and singing happy birthday to his cousin Ethan since his birthday a couple of weeks ago). While that kind of indulgence is highly impractical, it's also completely wrong, but I'm so aggravated that doing things the "right" way still isn't yielding the results I need. In fact, it's even more annoying given that I have to count calories, carbs, proteins, and all the while try to feed two little boys and menu plan for a family. Oh, and did I mention the whole pricking your finger thing? At first it doesn't hurt, but now every one of my fingers is calloused so I have to use the larger needle size and it does hurt! If you want, you can imagine me stamping my foot in a moment of childish petulance.

Ok, ranting done. Just needed to explain why I've been in a Lurch (again, a la Dr. Seuss; can you tell what I've been reading to Bear?) and terrible food-related mood. Chocolate chip cookies anyone?

However, I have been keeping my over-pricked hands busy today doing a project I've wanted to do for a long time. And that would be unraveling a sweater to recycle the yarn. Yes, I'm that amazing. :) I first read about it here, then read about it here, then was reminded how much I wanted to attempt this after reading she's doing it, too. A couple of weekends ago B and I went to the local Goodwill and there were a ton of sweater choices. I bought 3 for $12 and while I'd hoped to go with 100% cotton or wool, I did get two all-cotton sweaters and one mohair/nylon blend. I took a picture of all three sweaters, but then accidentally deleted it from my phone. I do, however have my first sweater, a lovely butter yellow cotton sleeveless turtleneck:

Following the above tutorials, I got out my scissors and starting ripping away. I ended up having to just cut out the neck because of all the "bad" seams, but I still yielded quite a bit of yarn for the $4 I paid for the sweater! Here's an in-progress shot:

And the final outcome! The only problem is I don't know exactly how much I have, and I can only guess at its gauge (I'm thinking dk or sport weight if you're curious).
This was way easier than I thought it would be, and I've already started my second sweater, which I thought was a beautiful variegated maroon and baby pink yarn; however it's actually two strands: a maroon wool and a baby pink thread. It was a little tricky beginning the unraveling of the sleeves, but once I figured out I was dealing with two strands, it made a lot more sense and went much faster. So far, I've done both sleeves and have two sizable balls to work with.
Now the fun part will be deciding what to make with my cleverly repurposed yarn, eh? The yellow will probably become a baby garment, and I'm thinking the pink would actually make a really nice scarf and hat, maybe some mittens?

Nesting

I've had several projects of things to do around the house lined up in my brain (is that a dangling modifier?), and I finally did one of them this evening! I read just recently a report that a woman was never more productive than when she was pregnant, and I get that; I've been a busy bee, and I'm gonna expose the skeletons in my closet... just kidding, but this closet is still pretty scary!

See?


Things thrown every which way....

Just a mess... books not returned when I got them out, pitiful yarn stash tossed aside...

And, yikes... same shelf as above, but with the bottom space: more books, missing glue gun, random candles from a party a year ago; that is some pretty bad organization!

Now?

This shelf is still mildly wonky, but that gives it character, right?

Yum, nice lined up books and photo albums, separated by category (knitting, gardening, quilting, pregnancy/birth, and old journals, if you must know!). Sigh. I just love organizing things, really... :)

Eh, still blah, but a tad bit better than it was before! At least there aren't any dangerous cords lying about!

It feels good to have this closet organized, and now I won't have to call Hunny when he's out of town asking if he's seen my latest knitting book or where I put some crafting supply. Yay!


Oh, one other thing I got done tonight was my Christmas Thank-you cards... yes, Christmas!! Oops... a little late, and I'm usually so prompt! It was nice writing letters and being reminded of the thoughtfulness of others, so hopefully I'm not in too much trouble for being a couple of months behind!

Holy crafts, Batman....

Ahh, Bear has learned to love painting! A while back I babysat my nephew and Hunny wasn't going to be home, so in a moment of inspired domesticity, I decided to organize a craft (doesn't that sound ... organized?) for the over-2 crowd. I won't say it was a hit (there was some punishment and pumpkin-painting withholding going on at various points), but here were Bear's results.

And for yours truly, I got a much-anticipated box in the mail last week; I ordered some yarn from my friend Biz. The arrangement was I gave her the gauge and the pattern I hoped to knit, and she got to hand-pick not only the yarn but the color!!! I could not wait to see what she pegged me for, and I got heaven, y'all.... knitty heaven. See for yourself, though this picture does no justice to the milk/cotton blend that feels so amazing, and the color is gorgeous, and will look magnificent on me!
As I mentioned before, I saw my friend Brownie last weekend, and alas, I had made her daughter a little 2nd birthday present, which unfortunately got left behind (not in a Tim LaHaye kind of way, though). So, Brownie, here is LuLu's gift that is forthcoming:

Pretty aint it? :) In case you are awed by my photographic skills and have no idea what these are are not quite sure what these pretty blocks are, they are building blocks beautified for a young one, and for the older ones, a matching game as there are two blocks each of the different origami paper. I cannot claim this idea, but I need to look to see which blog I stole this from.

And last, but not least, in the early Montessori classroom, there is a work called smelling bottles (this is not the technical term, but I'm tired), which can be presented in many ways (matching scents, learning to identify scents, in general a sensorial lesson). Bear loves sitting on the counters (Thanks Daddy and Tio), and he discovered my spice cabinet. I have had the intention of making my own smelling canisters, but he kind of beat me to the punch. He LOVES sitting on the counter top, opening my spice cupboard and proceeding to open and close the jars and labeling smells as yummy or ewww (both highly technical terms). Vanilla is by far his favorite, and cayenne is his least favorite--he got a whiff of it in his eyes today (how NOT to do smelling). I love play that is learning and intuitive (I don't mean the pepper-in-the-eyes thing, just that by using his senses, he's learning: opening jars, putting lids back on, sweet, savory, he knows that Mommy uses spices in cooking, etc.) and so something that I will be implementing on the blog soon are some Montessori-inspired posts as I learn to encourage this environment in our home and prepare for home-pre-schooling.

Sunday ramblings

I've got several things floating around in my head, and I'm trying to remember to blog about them, but I'm still sad that the Twilight series is over. Project-wise, I'm knitting two baby sweaters, one for Helen and one for Joelle. It looks like they will both make fantastic Christmas presents. Shortly after we moved here, I taught sis B how to knit, and that has been so fun. We were so competitive for a while that we held on to our preferred interests, but now that we're older and more mature (!) we actually like teaching each other new things and sharing in those activities. I am purchasing some yarn from a friend that will be a surprise for me--I don't know what it looks like or color, but I have a sweater in mind... I canNOT wait to start working on it!
I'm also working on quite a few handmade gifts that I'm so excited about, and can't wait to share when we get our new digital camera.
Food-wise, Hunny and I went to Whole Foods this weekend and surprised ourselves by actually buying 90% of our items from the perimeter of the store, thus keeping at bay the prepackaged and processed foods. I'm really excited about a much healthier approach to eating, and I'm so impressed that Hunny really has gone off the deep end into veganism. Weirded out, but impressed!
Bear is sick and trying the collective patience of the house the last few days, and Bunkin is trying to stand on his own, so that's also been keeping us on our toes.
And last but not least, I am currently arguing with Hunny that despite an intense craving for salty foods I am not pregnant. I suppse I need to confirm or deny this at some point. I'll keep you posted!

Edited to add:
No, I'm not pregnant! I am saddish and Hunny is excitedish. I still really want to lose weight and if/when we get pregnant again to have a much healthier and "easier" pregnancy, but i've got the itch for some crazy reason, such as wanting a girl.

Excuses

Ahhh, I've been, er, busy for a while. Which when translated correctly means I've had my nose stuck in the Twilight saga books. Yummy. I finished the last page of the last book tonight after I put the boys down, and it was kind of wistful. I hated that I was ending the ... urgency with which I've been reading these great books. When Hunny learned they were "teen lit" he asked if they weren't beneath my preferred reading level. Maybe, but then again, I love children's lit so much, and anyway, I was always that kid with a book in front of her face. And if not a book, then it was the cereal box, a tube of toothpaste, or whatever junk mail flyer was lying on the table. Point being, I've read worse. I'll bet when Hunny comes home tomorrow, he'll do the happy dance now that I'm done, because I need to wake back up to reality and the house that has been needing my attention!
However, I have to confess that it's not just Edward and Bella that have kept me away from the blogiverse; I got sucked into that phenomenon of insanity Christmas crafting. It started with Ravelry and a few great posts of links of homemade goodness, and it spiraled from there. I seriously have a problem now. As if I already didn't have a Martha complex, now I want to be the Cool Crafty Queen for real. There are some amazing ideas out there. I plan to do some. I hope in time for Christmas.
So there. That's what I've been up to.

Works in progress

Besides peach-preserving, I have a few other things on my plate. For one, I have the intention of attempting to potty-train Bear before his 2nd birthday, which is looming very near! Hunny has some exciting work possibilities that are cropping up, more on those when we learn something a little more definite.
In the meantime, I am continuing to pursue domestic crafts, such as Helen's baby sweater, even though I am going much slower than I'd like due to a HUGE mistake in the lace pattern that I've had to frog and re-do. I HATE frogging!!!
I also went to an estate sale this weekend just to browse around, and I found some quilt fronts that have been pieced but not batted or quilted, so I thought I'd finally apply what Meg taught me and see if I can quilt these, that I did not painstakingly piece only to ruin if I mess up (is that terrible?). One is very simple and pretty, with a green and pink checkerboard flower pattern. It's not very big, so perhaps it can be a baby blanket?

The second one is kind of dizzying as it's a hodge-podge of shapes, sizes, colors, and patterns! But I like it precisely for its unpredictability and haphazardness. I'm sure it's a scrap quilt front, which makes me wonder at all the other blankets that must have been made over the years. (Which makes me think of how sad estate sales are... I felt mildly awkward rifling through this person's house with little stickers on everything denoting its presumed worth, yet the children must want or need this stuff gone or else there wouldn't have been a sale, right? Does anyone else think like this?) Anyway, here is the Krazy Quilt

I will show pictures of Helen's sweater when I get past the blasted lace part!
As for gardening, I'm delighted to say that I have one tomato almost ready to be picked. It's been red since the weekend; I'm just waiting for it to soften just a tad as we will eat it as soon as it's off the vine! I think Hunny is fantasizing over that tomato sandwich! My cherry tomatoes have not fared so well as I was trying to fix the stake and knocked two little bitty tomatoes off, then today I was showing Bear how exciting plants are, and he reached out and grabbed one of the only other tomatoes off! Pele ate it, so we only have one small tomato left! And my 3rd tomato plant has millions of flowers (which it has for a while), so I have no idea if it will produce fruit or not! My bell pepper also has one pepper still in the dark green, smallish stage, and I'm waiting for my chili peppers-I want salsa!!
Oh, and I almost forgot-I submitted a cake recipe to a Paula Deen Recipe Roundup cooking contest! I have no idea what kinds of things they are looking for in a recipe, but I'm pretty excited about the one I submitted. Funny thing is, I've never technically made this cake! I combined 4 components from 4 different (but favorite) cakes that I love, and added a few embellishments of my own. I called it a Sour Cream Marmalade Cake with Almond Cream Cheese Frosting (that's a mouthful, huh?). I can't post the recipe here as I signed an agreement that it's never been published before and I want to keep it that way; however, if you think you might like the cake, I'd be happy to email it to you if you leave me a comment! I am making the cake this weekend for a welcome-home party for a friend who's been overseas for a while, so I'll take pictures of it then and let you know how the flavor actually turned out!!

Millions of peaches, peaches for me

Ok, besides being a very silly Presidents of the United States song, this was my Sunday. I found the website for a local orchard and they said their peaches were ripe for the pickin'! So, I made plans to pick peaches, and come home and can them. I was a little disappointed in the helpfulness of the high-schooled staff, as they did not know to tell me that the peaches were in fact NOT ripe and ready for picking. I walked all over the very vast orchard looking for ripe fruit, but alas, they were all small, hard as rocks, and in most cases green. Thankfully, it was not as hot as it has been!


So, I ended up buying some of the pre-selected fruit (they only had about two bushels out--that should have warned me!).

There were other yummy assortments of fruits as well.


Anyway, I finished my Rosemary-Peach Preserves yesterday, and I am so thrilled they seem to have set up properly (I was timid with my first solo attempt at home canning!). If not, we'll have peach syrup for pancakes! And yes, this is a sweet condiment, and a tad heavy on the rosemary flavor (yes, this is rosemary from my herb garden)! I've only tasted it from the spoon, not actually on bread, where I'm hoping it mellows a little bit. I'm very excited to go fruit picking again (with Bear?) when I can get lots to finish my other goals: Peach Butter, (regular) Peach Jam/Preserves, possibly even some Blackberry Jam (let me say, those blackberries are among the best I've ever had!! SO ripe and succulent!). I'm enjoying the fruits of my labor (haha! had to throw that one in!), even if my housework is lagging a little! Now I just need to finish baking bread as we are STILL out!

A full plate

My emotional and otherwise plate has been very full these last few weeks, and I've run out of steam in so many ways. I'm reading a book that is challenging me on a deep-heart level; I've been decluttering my house (nice procrastination on decluttering my heart) little by little, and while immensely rewarding, it's also hard work when Bunkin has been positively attatched to me non-stop the last couple of days; all in all, I've just been busy being busy, and I'm ready to be still and know.
Oooh, speaking of knowing, tho... Hunny and I had a huge answer to prayer tonight: we recovered the rent money we lost!! Thank you!
Back to being still... I have a few projects that I've been mentally working on but not physically. There is still Baby Helen's sweater, which is only an inch or so along, but I'm glad to say that Helen made her appearance in the world on May 23 in perfect condition (Yay, Brownie!). Next in my project queue is my "Banner Pole of Remembrance." I've already started this project years ago, but I want to re-vamp it. It's basically like the Israelites erecting the stones to remember what God had done for them (verse/reference to come later). I am so bad at remembering how God has provided for me, so this is to help out. More details and pictures to come.
On the home front, Hunny and I are officially vegetarian again and already I feel better. I'm more determined than ever to lose weight, so that is occupying my mind a lot. My little Bear will be 2 in two months so I'm gearing up for that as well as beginning to think about potty training, as scared of it as I am. Oh, and my garden is thriving: too well, I think! I gave away a bunch of herbs to my neighbor in an attempt to be friendly, but I still have quite a handful. Still waiting for the tomatoes to say hi--I'm ready to eat some fresh salsa!
I'm also elated to say that I've been Freecycling like crazy, and have been clearing clutter left and right, most notably from the basement, the junky corner, and all the tops of surfaces of my living room. Slowly but surely I'm simplifying my family's home, and it feels good to be free of clutter!
So pretty much I'm just cleaning a lot, thinking a lot, trying to process and continue to remember He is good. But I'm tired!! That's not a complaint, just a fact. I'm looking forward to taking a break and getting some work done.