New ideas and Twists

I decided to take some of my holiday funds and make me a quilted bag.  Then a lovely young boy asked me to make him a scarf so in the middle of it all, I stopped to knit.  So here's a preview of both. 

After being sewn and ironed

I LOVE LOVE LOVE fusible batting! 

And the beloved scarf: 

I'm going to try to start posting more.  I'll probably be doing alot of ranting about cleaning, unruly kids, and craft crunches.  Possibly with a touch of baking involved.  :)

Time for a Change

   So it's been nearly a year since my last post.  Alot has happened and alot is still going on.  I'm transforming this blog into a self-care/venting/crafting blog.  I'm pretty sure no one reads this so it seems perfectly ok for me to say pretty much anything I want and/or need to.  So here goes.

   About a year ago, a super big bad thing happened and my marriage went south and my husband almost lost his career.  Since then, I have been through anger management, marriage counseling, personal counseling and home personal therapy.  Because of the incident last year, there was a possibility that my husband would not be allowed to re-enlist.  I found this out about 4 months ago.  So because of my GAD, OCD, and extreme need to plan everything down to a T in advance, this possibility sent me over the edge.  My jaw stayed clenched for months.  A pain in my TMJ muscle began to develop due to the stress.  Then I got the phone call.  The call saying that all was well and he was allowed to re-enlist.  YAY! You would have thought I would  have a sudden tension release, but no.  My body was so used to being tense, that it seemed impossible to reverse.  It's been over a month now.  I'm still perma-tensed.

     Now to backtrack a little bit.  I've had a sleep problem for years.  Ever since the GAD actual began showing signs.  There's been very few phases in my adult life that I've actually been able to just lay down and go to sleep.  In my younger years, I needed virtually no sleep, so I would stay up until 2 or 3 am, finally fall asleep and wake up at 6 to do what I needed.  After I moved out at 19, I found that a few drinks a night would effectively put me to sleep.  And I would sleep well.  It wasn't an all the time fix. Not at the time. As life progressed, I worked 1-2 jobs at all time, at which time, I would bust my butt and easily sleep exhausted.  Since becoming a stay at home mom 8 years ago, and a military wife to boot, my life has become increasingly more stressful.  I heard on the radio today that being a full time SAHM is the the MOST stressful job, scientific studies show that SAHM's have a higher stress level and are more frequently treated for anxiety and depression than mom's who work outside the home.  Boy, did they ever get that one right!

      So recently, I finally conceded.  I admit that I have an alcohol dependency to sleep.  I do not believe that I'm an alcoholic.  I don't NEED to drink to get by.  Just to sleep.  So I sought out medical treatment.  My doctor is very understanding.  He knows I don't like to take pills or any kind of medication.  But I also don't like that I feel this need to drink to sleep.  I would LOVE to lay down and actually fall asleep within a half hour instead of 3 or 4 hours.  So I'm doing medicine rotations to find something that helps with my anxiety and to help me sleep well at night.  I'm on my second set of meds.  The first was cyclobenzaprine (Ultam).  I insisted on the lowest doses to assist me.  It worked, sort of, after a couple glasses of wine (which, imo, is SO much better than 9 or 10 shots of liquor to sleep).  I explained to the doc at my follow up, that the meds weren't as effective as I had hoped.  So he prescribed Atarax.  This drug is prescribed to treat allergic itching for the most part, but it also prescribed to treat anxiety (yay!), help with sleep (double yay!), and to ease alcohol withdrawal symptoms (ok, maybe?).  Took it for the last time last night, slowly sipped on a glass of wine for over an hour.  I woke up (actually overslept by 2 1/2 hours), feeling like I drank a huge amount of alcohol.  At first I thought that this was a horrible thing.  However, after eating breakfast and drinking a glass of water, I felt normal.  All of a half an hour had passed since waking.  So perhaps this is a side effect I can live with.  I think that instead of taking the pill at 9 pm at night, perhaps I should take it around 7 pm, that way I can wake up on time and deal with the side effects before my kids ever get out of bed.

     All that being said, this will still be a crafting blog as well, since crafting is the one thing that allows me to keep my sanity.  It's methodical, intricate, delicate, and people with OCD definitely make better crafters, IMHO.  So I will begin posting pics again of my projects.  In the last year, I have made my first real quilt, finished Ebbie's blanket (which I started when she was 18 months, so it only took about 6 years to finish), and started on Izzy's matching blanket in purple.  I also had Ebbie draw out a quilt design and color it.  We went and bought the fabric in the color scheme she wanted.  After all this was done, she told me that she wanted to make this blanket for Izzy since she, herself, already had a quilt.  Sometimes she can be so sweet to her sister.  And as I say that, they are in the office fighting and screaming at each other.  LOL!  So on with my life, making a change, taking charge and in the middle of my crafting, taking time to fix myself in an attempt to be as close to normal, or as close as possible for me.

     If anyone is out there, stay tuned for progress reports, on myself and my crafting.

Another Day, Another crunch

    Ok, so today I have a to do list taller than my house.  I might get something done, though I doubt it will be significant.  I did, however, manage to get the living room picked up first thing this morning, though by now, I'm sure it's back into it's catastrophic state.  I have rats to care for, dishes to do, and I have this extreme urge to clean and reorganize the fridge.  I think I will do that first lol.  I'm almost done with baby shower gifts, getting ready to start on wedding gifts. And quilts. And old blankets that still need to be finished.  And holiday stuff like costumes.  Oh jeez.  I think my list just got bigger.

Adventures in Procrastination

I seem to do better under pressure.  Perhaps that is why I procrastinate, and why I do it so well.  I had promised myself that I would make Izzy's birthday cake yesterday and wrap her presents as well.  That way today could be nice and relaxed.  Well, neither happened.  And I slept WAY in this morning.  So we had brunch, Izzy went up for her nap and I've been go go go ever since.  So here's how my afternoon went.

     So, got up at 11-ish (fell asleep on the couch last night, ugh).  Made the girls lunch.  Played around for a bit with them.  Then Izzy had to go up for her nap.  This is when I went into full *mom has too much to do* mode.  I started making the cake.  Then I started making the frosting.  Izzy was very specific about her cake.  Chocolate cake with purple chocolate icing.  Now we all know you can't make brown into purple, so of course, to cater to my baby girl, I got white chocolate.  Here's some pictures:

So yeah.  She's spoiled.  Both of them are.  When it comes to birthdays, we don't have much to give, but since I'm a lowly stay at home mom, I can at least manage the cake of their desires, as you've witnessed before.  Once the frosting was prepared, I set forth in wrapping the gifts.

I swear it looked like more in the store bags lol.






I finally took a breather about 4 hours into it all.  Then we brought down Izzy, showed her all the wonders that she would enjoy after dinner.










Then we had pizza.... again.  This is 4 times now this week, simply because it's Izzy's favorite food, and I allowed her to pick most of the meals for her birthday week.


But before I get too ahead of myself.... I want to make one thing clear.  I have those little gel icing things so you can do writing on a cake.  Recently, I found Ebbie in the kitchen eating from them.  Sneaky little brat.  So I hid them, up high.  Apparently they got really warm and somewhat separated.  I managed to do the best I could with writing on the cake.  And for reference, if you ever make cake from the side of the Hershey's cocoa dark container, don't expect icing to be pretty.  Here's what I mean.

See the pieces of cake that floated up into the icing? It's a very super soft and super moist delicious cake.  It crumbles super easy, so icing is very tricky.  5 years of making this cake and I STILL can't ice it without the crumbles, but who cares? 

No, it doesn't say 31, it says 3!  But like I said, the gel stuff was oozy.  Like.... say.... runny.  Just look.

In the beginning this was a heart.  I swear.  Izzy didn't seem to notice the catastrophes.  She was thoroughly impressed with the whole purple-ness of it all.  That was enough for me.  Her wish was granted. 

Have you ever seen a dirtier, happier birthday girl? I think not.  Mission accomplished :) Regardless of procrastination.  

Feeling the crunch

     Well, with all the frugalities aside, I'm also feeling the cleaning crunch.  I get so caught up in fixing everything else that I forget about the normal day to day things.  In the wake of my crafting frenzy, I've neglected my poor home.  And my girls have done nothing to help.  There are toys EVERYWHERE.  And I mean that.  I found a toy behind the toilet this morning.  How in the world did that get there? I've noticed that everything needs a good deep cleaning.  I think I'll start this friday morning (that would be tomorrow for those that are calendar impaired).  So today, my job is to put away the rest of the laundry and begin making a list of everything in detail that needs to be done.  Hopefully, by the end of the weekend, I'll have most, if not all, checked off.

     Another thing that needs to be done: Cleaning out the girls toys.  With Izzy's birthday party Saturday and Christmas just around the corner, I do believe that the girls need to weed out their toys.  I really would love to spend a whole day just sitting and going through their menagerie. Ebbie has a toy box.  It's filled with stuffed animals.  Yes, a toy box of stuffing.  I'm doing some serious thinking about what I can put up in her room to showcase these fluffy friends without causing more clutter.  The only solution I can see is to get her a bigger book shelf.  Books on the bottom, critters on top. And she seriously needs a big girl desk.  We're looking into getting her the nickelodeon dell laptop either for Christmas or her birthday.  She'll need a big girl desk for that.  Then we move on to poor Izzy.  She has such a small room, I would love to dress it up a little and make the most of the little space she has.  As a matter of fact, I think I'm going to make these my projects (can you see me getting in over my head here?).  I think she needs to be rid of some of the "baby" toys, and move on to the big girl toys.  As a matter of fact, there should be hardly ANY toys downstairs now.  She's big enough that if she wants to play, she can go play in her room, right?  I'm not moving too fast with this am I? I would love for my living room to be just that.  And then I could put the girls desks where the toys are.  Along with a crafting station of some sort.  Pardon me as the thoughts flow lol.

      I disappeared for a couple hours and lost my train of thought. Perhaps that's a sign for me to escape the rest of the day. Or perhaps that just means shut up and get back to knitting cause I only have a few weeks left.  Either way, I guess that's the end of my brain function for the day lol.  Well, that is, until it's time to make dinner. Making one of hubby's favs: pork lo mein ala Mo.  :)

    

Tragically Frugal Times

I have begun a mission. Times are tight for the next 4-6 months. In this time frame, I must purchase birthday gifts, wedding gifts, baby gifts, Christmas gifts, make Halloween costumes, etc. My first major task at hand is the Halloween costumes. And this is why I write today.

So Ebbie wants to be a witch. Nice, simple. Great! However, Izzy wants to be "Alice". Not so nice, not so simple. Ugh. So here is where my dilemma begins. The big "Halloween fabric" sale is going on this week. And I can't go. Period, end of. Not happening. However, luckily, I have a roll of 12 yards of hideous fabric in my closet. It's a brown/maroon paisley monstrosity that I purchased on clearance when I decided it would have to do for my living room curtains. Needless to say said curtains never got made. Now, I can't seem to see any kind of issue in dying this fabric black continuously until the print no longer shows. But dying it blue? Or getting it white? I've been doing some research and have seen the Rit dye color remover, but will this work on this fabric? And will I, then, be able to dye it a nice light blue? Or leave it white for the apron? This is my major dilemma. Any assistance? Is anyone even reading this? PLEASE HELP! (lol)

Hopefully, I will be able to craft up something special for a baby shower and wedding gift. And hopefully, I will be able to do that with a little discount yarn. And hopefully, Santa will be extremely generous this year and I won't have to pay a cent out of pocket (but somehow I don't see that happening). Perhaps, this is all a valuable life lesson so that I can learn to be more thrifty and actually have money in savings. Now there's a noble thought.

My very first task, even though I'm technically working on the costume situation, is Izzy's birthday party this weekend. And looking into the face of good ol' hurricane Earl, this could get interesting. I'm making her a dark chocolate layer cake with white chocolate icing. But the icing will be purple, per her request. She'll have a few gifts to open, and a ton of ice cream to make a mess with. And as long as Earl stays at bay, or at least allows us to keep our power on, these plans are full steam ahead. Once this weekend is conquered, I'll be moving on to the more tedious tasks. And as the days go by, I have a feeling I may be blogging A LOT more, simply to vent, or to at least get my thoughts out into cyber space in hopes that someone will have pity on me and explain all this to me in a way that a 5 year old would fully understand.

So keep your eyes open, cause something tells me there's going to be a lot of blogging going on soon.

Ever have the overwhelmed head spinning thing....

While you're actually sitting down? That's how I feel right about now. It's all good. I do this to myself every day. I look at my house and think of all the things that need to be done and while thinking of this as a whole is overwhelming, I know that if I make a list and pick a day to do certain things that it will eventually all get done. However, this IS America, and we DO love instant gratification don't we? Suddenly I want to cast a spell and have a whirlwind come through my house throwing everything back in place and taking all the dirt with it lol. Wouldn't that be GREAT?!

Nothing is more motivating to clean a certain room than, well, bugs. Bugs are great.... outdoors.... and away from me. In my house, there should be NO bugs. But there are. We have the super ladybug population here, so every time the weather gets warm, these little buggers find a way in. I don't know if they eat through the walls or what, but they find a way in. And then they die. Everywhere. Yay for Dyson and it's cyclone technology and telescopic handly that allows me to suck them up from a distance because for some reason, I'm utterly sickened by the sound of dead lady bug carcasses crunching and clacking as they get sucked up. We also now have ants. Not a lot, just a few.... at a time. They like my window over my sink in the kitchen. I do believe they may be living in it. They appear to be carpenter ants, which I'm used to and know how to ward off, but even rainy days don't stop the little buggers. They come out in groups of 3 and 4, explore, and then run back to tell their friends. I've spent the last 3 days wiping down their pathway with vinegar in hopes of confusing them and causing them to just go away. It's not working. I'm seriously thinking of lining all the windows, doors and corners of my house with double sided tape. They might find a way in, but once they walk across the tape.... they are here to stay lol. Or not. I could definately imagine hearing Ebbie or Izzy or both screaming "MOMMY! I'm stuck to the window!" Hmmm, now that I think about it.....

So I'm in spring cleaning mode. Mentally. Physically, notsomuch. I have such a long list of things I want to get done, but my first priority is cleaning and decluttering. First and formost, my kitchen needs rearranging. I'm not feeling my yin and yang getting along too much in there. I'm taking care of that today. I hope. I need to weed through the catastrophe of the living room and get rid of a BUNCH of toys. I really really think my kids have too many toys. I never could have imagined having this many toys as a child. It's ridiculous. Really. I need to organize my office. Everything else is just normal cleaning and can wait since it's all upstairs and who cares what my upstairs looks like anyway? LOL!

In the midst of all this, I have to go on a statewide hunt for strawberry flavored Kool-Aid powder. I've looked in at least 4 stores now and no one carries it. I think there is a strawberry Kool-Aid nazi here. Seriously. No strawberry Kool-Aid vor joo! 2 weeks!

Wow, it's been a year already?

So I have the tendency to forget I have a blog lol. It's ok, no one reads it anyway, right? Right?? So, Ebbie's birthday (number six!) is coming up soon. Very, very soon. And this year, she has requested yet another decadent cake. This year, she wants a really chocolately cake with strawberry cream cheese icing. Keep in mind that this child does not really like REAL strawberries, she likes candy strawberry flavor. So we will be flavoring her icing with Kool Aid. Yes, you read that right. I'll be posting another picture diary of the making of this. I'm hoping to make it look really super awesome and colorful. Let's see how well I can fail this one LOL!

Happy Birthday Ebbie!

So today my baby girl turned 5. Well technically she'll be 5 at 5:26 pm. A few weeks ago, I got a cooking magazine in the mail. It has a soul mates sweets section. She found said magazine and promptly found the ONLY cake and said she wanted it for her birthday. OK honey, anything for your birthday. Spoiled, very very spoiled. So this morning, ingredients in hand, I begin the tedious chore of making this cake. This very very special cake. I took pictures to show the process. Observe.


Princess Ebbie getting ready for school. Since she's in a pre-k program instead of actual school pre-k, she can get away with get ups like this. We're enjoying it, it's her last year to freely dress as she chooses for school. Kinda like in Big Daddy, when Frankenstein wore all that crazy stuff lol.

*Note: You can click on any of the pictures to enlarge them*




Here's where the fun begins, note the picture of this cake I'm supposed to make. Pretty isn't it? It's a vanilla cake with chocolate icing. All made from scratch. YAY!



While making the batter, I notice the consistency is more like whipped cream instead of cake batter, but that must be how it's supposed to be.




Oops, she wanted PINK cake. Gotta make that happen.




After pinking the cake and putting it in the cake pans to bake, I begin making the other stuff, here's the vanilla syrup, which I'm told by the recipe I will need to baste the cake layers before icing them.




Creamy Chocolate icing. The recipe called for bittersweet baking chocolate, of course I couldn't find any anywhere. So I used semi sweet. What kid doesn't like a super sweet cake?



Finished chocolate icing. When I tasted it the first time, it was still warm and overwhelmingly sweet. After it cooled to room temperature, it tasted like the kind you buy at the grocery store. Pretty cool :)




Of course she picked out the same lettering we used last year, her 2 favorite colors. And what 5 year old's cake isn't complete with a wee bit of leet speak? (note the word five) For those not fluent in leet speak... It's when you combine letters with numbers that LOOK like letters. Like "leet" is actually spelled L337. In this case, Five is instead spelled F1V3. But I put the 3 backwards. I had no choice, they just don't give you enough letters!





Cooked cake pieces. They don't look so pink anymore.





Nope, no pink at all! I'm gonna be in trouble now.



At this point, Izzy comes in the kitchen yelling "CAKE!". Never knew a 19 month old knew the smell of cake lol. My little piggy.




Now the fun begins. The recipe told me to use parchment sheets in the bottoms of the cake pans. Now I'm using silicone pans, they are nonstick, why on earth would I use parchment? I now know I am NOT smarter than the recipe. Also, it called for 9 inch pans, I used 10 inch. Makes for cutting the layers in half a bit more fun. I swear, it was just absolutely delightful. Promise, no sarcasm. *rolls eyes*
Also note, upon further inspection, the INSIDE of the cake is kinda pink. I'm calling it her "Barely Pink" birthday cake lol.




Here's 3 of the layers done. I didn't take pictures of the first 2, well, because they were horribly atrocious. Which is why they were the 2 BOTTOM layers. Of course, I did much better with the top 2 layers. I had to brush each layer with the syrup to moisten it, I allowed 5 minutes for the syrup to soak in before icing. Total time spent on this cake at layer number 3's brushing was about 3 1/2 hours.



I took a picture of the final layer. I had to. It was a perfect layer and perfect for the top. It made me happy.



The final layer is on the cake. Brushed with the syrup and soaking.



After icing the final layer, I put the letters on, how cute! Now let's get a side view.



Wait a minute. Kinda looks like a stack of sloppy chocolate covered pancakes. What? It's not supposed to look like that? Let's take another look at the picture from the magazine.



Hmmm. It looks the same to me :) She's 5. She's not gonna care as long as she can eat it lol. I think I did pretty good.




Next time, if there IS a next time, I will be sure to follow the recipe. I am NOT smarter than the recipe lol. I will also invest in a cake knife. I think that would have made cutting the layers a whole bunch easier :)

Total time spent on cake from beginning prep to end result: 5 hours. Yes. I know. It's just a cake.

New Year, New Me

This year I'm in it for real. I'll be 31 (!!!!!) next month. I need to get a handle on my weight and find a happy place in my heart. I'm going for it full throttle. I want to lose 15 pounds, get career training and have money in savings. I want to either make my marriage better or get out. Alot has to change this year and it's starting with me. I've already managed to quit drinking every day, YAY ME! I'm not an alcoholic after all :) I need to get ahold of my anger, I let it affect too many other people. I need to learn breathing techniques to calm me. I will do chants as often as possible to calm me. I will be new, I will be refreshed and I WILL be HAPPY.

4 year old cha cha slide baby!

Kids are SO awesome these days. I have great pride :)

And let the Countdown Begin!

So here we have just over a month till Christmas, a little over a week till Thanksgiving. I think it's time to set aside my crafting and move on to HOLIDAY BAKING! Now, I just need some bread flour, cake flour and lots of yeast lol. I plan to start making my own bread soon and I just ordered my first fluted pan :) I see cookie production on the rise as well. This means I really must get my kitchen cleaned up and actually, I MUST clean off my junk counter to start storing up my baking supplies for the holidays. I will also need that space to sit all the goodies LOL. I will have to take LOTS of pictures and do LOTS of fun stuff with flour. I promise to be colorful and to never ever ever ever EVER attempt to make a fruit cake.

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Unintentionally took a couple days off lol. Tonight we're having lemon chicken in a white wine sauce. Smells tasty, lets hope it IS tasty. While dinner was marinating, I had an urge to make some sort of dessert. We had 2 older apples in the fridge and I decided to make apple tarts. I made some nice sweet pie crust and made some apple filling. I used a variation of a recipe I found for standard apple pie and then adjusted ingredients to fit the holiday season. The filling came out OUTSTANDING. The pie crust is just sweet enough to make me happy lol. They are currently in the fridge waiting to be baked while we eat dinner. I plan to brush them lightly with milk and sprinkle more sugar on top. I will post the finished pictures. Did I mention how proud I am of this? LMAO.


Pie Filling Yummy!


Pie crust... pre made :)


Ready and waiting to go in the oven :)


Finished product! I couldn't wait to try it till after I took the picture so one is missing a bite LMAO.

I Swear I'm not MIA

I know I know, where the hell have I been, right?

Insert slide show of 40+ pictures here.......

http://smg.photobucket.com/albums/v179/Ebbie/Projects/?action=view¤t=4a96a36d.pbw

I suppose a link will have to suffice since it's rejecting my photobucket. Evil Evil Evil blogger.....

well now you know :) More in depth update in a couple days after I get through and survive my weekend :)

Recycle any way you know how!

Wow, I'm slacking on my posts! I sometimes wonder who I'm really writing to besides myself lol. So I'm the queen of freecycle. I'm the queen of recycling my own goods as well. I have found a great amount of stuff these last couple weeks.


I've been wanting to decorate, but on our budget it's just not possible. So I freecycle. I get clothes for me and the girls, I get toys, I give away my junk as well. I will be posting a bunch of stuff today I'm pretty sure. I have managed to snag myself a bunch of little country style decor. Wooden heart shelves, wall baskets, door hangers, etc. I also got a HUGE framed pastel painting that barely fit in my car to hang over my "new" couch (bulk trash find). My neighbor is about to give me all her old crafting paints so I can decorate the shelves to my liking. This couch was put on the curb by my new neighbor. Our old couch was just that, old, and CHEAP. Just a note, if you buy furniture from Big Lots, you get what you pay for, seriously. I loved that couch, don't get me wrong. Our love seat is still fantastic, but the couch had been jumped on one too many times and the center of the frame was busted. You would literally sink 8 inches into a hole if you sat even CLOSE to the middle. We had a regular queen size bed pillow in the hole to prevent injury to Ebbie. So out that went when I saw this couch down the street. I walked down there, checked it out. It was a little stained up. But the cushions didn't even have butt dents in them. There was marker on the back cushions. I took them off, looked at the foam inside, no stains. All stains were exterior. I lifted the bottom and checked out under the springs, everything seemed to be in working order, nothing had been lost in the bottom either. There was one cracker under the cushions. I took my vacuum to get any crumbs out, cleaned under the arms where it gives way to the bottom. Took some laundry detergent and scrubbed at the few stains, most of them at least got a lot lighter. I then febreezed the whole thing and let it sit. I went to the store, got a burgundy king size flat sheet and made myself a sofa throw. New couch. It's actually quite comfy! Then I got this great idea. The throw pillows that matched the new couch were kinda tired, like kids had used them to beat each other for way too long. Besides, they didn't match or even coordinate with my other furniture (at this point, nothing matches lol). So I go outside and notice that the fabric on our old couch is still in good condition. Clean, unstained. I gutted the old couch. Took the fabric panels from the sides and back, cut open the cushions and took the stuffing. I will be making my own throw pillows today :)

As I said, you can recycle ANYTHING lol.
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So we got a kitten. His name is Khadgar. He is lovable, great to the girls, and he's helping balance out the hormones in this house. He's been here for 2 days now and I think he's quite settled in. Poor thing lived in a barn before here. He's 4 months old, never been bathed, no shots, nothing. At least he's litter trained.

I gave him a bath using dish soap last night because I read that the "grease cutters" in dish soap kill fleas. Yes, he had fleas. I think he might still have a couple, but not nearly as many. He didn't really like the idea of the bath, but he didn't fight too much. Then again, I mastered a LONG time ago the art of cat bathing. He did, however, let his feelings be known when I was scrubbing around his no no spot where there were a lot of biters. I have a nice gash across the back of my hand. Thank you for your mark of love Khadgar. But he's good otherwise. He loves to play, he doesn't cry all night. He loves to chase things across the computer screen. He actually listens when we tell him no (then waits till we turn our heads). All in all, he's great. I can't wait to find my kitty scissors so I can clip his damn talons. :)

Baby Weaning 101

Rule number 1: If you have the goods, don't be the one to put the baby to bed!

Doug and I have discussed this since he got home. It's time to wean Izzy. Ebbie was different, she was a bird type eater, she wasn't getting enough nutrition, she wasn't drinking enough fluids, and she was just THIN. So I let her wean herself... at 18 months. Izzy, however, has been eating fistfuls of table food since 10 months and has mastered the sippy cup and could win a gold medal. She only nurses when she's tired and then she goes to sleep. I've been having issues the last week or so at bedtime getting her to sleep because, well, I'm not really producing much milk since she's not really eating from me anymore. She arches her back and screams. It's been a struggle. Since Doug has come home, I've been having him test the waters with putting her to bed randomly without boob action (since he's without the goods) and she goes right to sleep for him. I had him put her to bed last night. She fought at first, didn't want to sleep. He let her cry for about 5 minutes, then went back upstairs, rocked her for a couple minutes and she was out. Here's the big kicker. She slept ALL NIGHT!!! When I put her to bed, she wakes up several times wanting more boob. Or she sleeps fitfully. I am now confident that should something happen to me, she will not starve, dehydrate, or die lol. The kids are now big enough that they don't NEED me and I feel better. The fun part is going to be seeing what his schedule is going to be like and when I have to put her to bed. I'm going to have to deal with the fighting for boob she will give me. I'm going to have to struggle against her screams and arching until she settles in from exhaustion and finally crashes out. I need someone here all day every day (or at least sleepy times) to take her to bed for me for a week till she is used to not having boob. That's not going to happen so I guess I will just have to make due. Either way, Doug is very proud of himself (as am I) that his daddy's girl will go to bed for him and not me. Ebbie is my mama's girl, he's got Izzy. We are content now. No more kids for us :) Who needs a boy in the mix to terrorize our girls? They do that to each other enough lol.

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So the wonderful knitted blanket is finally done. Well, almost. I'm finishing up the boarder stitches as we speak. I'll take pictures shortly. It came out very very nice and little miss Emma will be able to use this thing till she's 4 or 5, yay! It's nice and warm and pretty. Not overly girly, so I'm not pushing her to be princess-y. But she will be warm and snuggly and hopefully, this blanket will be her snuggly just as Ebbie's is hers. Ebbie won't go overnight ANYWHERE without her blanket that my godmother made her years ago. That poor thing has seen better days, but still she insists on having it on her bed on top of the sheets and comforter. It's a tie blanket and she holds on to one of the ties all night while she sleeps. Once I tested her and took it in the middle of the night, less than a half hour later she was screaming because she lost her snuggly. I think my next step will be making Izzy a snuggly. Right now she's still using a baby blanket, it's not too small. Yet. But it won't be long. So I think I'm going to get decorative and make her a toddler afghan to sleep with. I've been working on Ebbie's afghan for about 2 years now, if not more. But since she already has a snuggly, I've seen no rush for it. I guess to be fair, I'll have to make her a matching pillow just as I did for Ebbie lol. Pictures of those will follow as well :)

Random Monday morning ramblings

***Just a quick note. This is just my ramblings, I am NOT seeking assistance in any way from anyone, I do not want, nor need any charity, there are people out there way worse off than I am, help them, not me. We will be just fine :) ***

Well, the holidays are upon us. No matter how I work the budget, it doesn't seem I'll be home for Christmas again this year (sorry to my family who reads this). We don't have a Christmas tree, but I have a super idea for one, I'll go into that in a bit. Because of some last minute changes to our pay and some unforeseen things this year, our gift fund has depleted so it's going to be a slim Christmas for the girls, but that's OK, they are still young. As you know, I made Ebbie's Halloween costume, completely from scrap fabric that a loving freecycler gave me, bless that woman. I still have a ton of fabric left so I'm going to attempt to make curtains for the rest of the windows in our house. Because of our lack of money, I've had to be creative with getting items to decorate and such. Freecycle in itself is awesome. Along with that, it's amazing what higher rank military people will throw to the curb when they are moving! Some people are SO wasteful! Here were my latest finds:

• 3 curtain rods brand new still in the packages
• 2 very large heavy wooden mirrors, gorgeous but need to be refinished
• a folding suntanning style lawn chair, still had the tags on it (YIPPEE!!!!)
• A hallway runner that was clean and in perfect condition, purdy little thing :)
• A flowered area rug in gently used condition for Ebbie's room. Has a few stains but nothing major.

I also, just yesterday, received 2 large black trash bags of fall/winter/spring clothing for girls which I split according to size between me and my neighbor. Both of our girls are hitting growth spurts and well, yay for the military for not giving us a cost of living increase in pay. Anyhoo, the clothes were in SUPER condition for the most part and will be great for school, so thanks Raven! See, this is where I begin to ramble.....

For years now, about 4 1/2 of them, we've lived here in the commonwealth of Virginia. And for the 4 years prior to moving here where we are now, I had virtually no close friends, it was hard to get anywhere, hard to do anything, and everything was just a struggle. Moving here into this military housing, though it has it's downfalls, has probably been the best thing for me. I've become part of a helping, sharing circle of friends. Every day I meet someone new in my neighborhood. Now, when I go grocery shopping, I see people that I know, not just nameless faces that I may have seen before. Now I have people to talk to in person when things just aren't going right. Also, with this circle of friends, we have a hand me down system. Seems most of our kids are not the same size. One person will pass something on to the next person with a child about that size, then they, in turn pass something to another neighbor for a child of the next size down, etc. And because most of us have multiple kids, we end up with the stuff back lol. But because of the hand me down system here, everyone takes really good care of the clothing to pass on. Ebbie has gotten some really cute outfits from a couple of our neighbors and I will not even go into how many clothes she just got from Raven yesterday. Granted, some of them she won't be able to wear till she grows more, but still, she's got something to grow into now and that's more than she had before. All that said, the holidays still look grim.

Who really WANTS to give their child wrapped up hand me downs of clothing and toys for a birthday or for Christmas? No one does, but some do because it's the only way they can give them a Christmas. I had to once with Ebbie, though I sacrificed a bill to buy a couple of "new and shinies" to give her as well. This year looks to be like that. It looks as though I'll be cleaning out Ebbie's room and placing stuff in my closet to clean up and wrap for Izzy, and Ebbie..... well, lets hope some nice freecyclers come through for her. Most of our holiday budget is for food and well, you know how important that stuff is. But here's where my craftiness comes in to play :) So for our christmas tree, I'll be getting a large piece of white paper. I will quickly sketch out a tree on it (i'm no artist so this should be interesting). Ebbie and I will then paint/color it. Izzy is going to have fun with finger paints while Ebbie and I have fun with glitter, glue, paint, etc. We are going to MAKE a decorated tree :) Besides the fact that it will take up less space and won't topple over onto our increasingly mobile toddler, it's a great family project! I've even figured out a way to put a string of lights on it lol. And just think of the ease in taking down the tree! What I'm going to do as well, and this may seem packrat-ish, is take a small box and put everything in that after the holiday is done and label it with the year. They will be my scrapbook boxes. Later on, MUCH later on, I will create a family scrapbook and include these items along with the kids school stuff. I think this is a great idea for a family tradition. I'm excited about it lol. No bugs from a live tree, no watering, no fake tree parts falling off the tree, no fluffing the tree, no falling tree..... I see no problem with this LMAO.

So anyway. I'm hoping that in some way, our Christmas will still be fulfilling and fun. I will miss the family however (hint hint, we're only 3 hours away people, come visit!).

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Now here's my dilemma. I'm going back to school. I'm doing a certificate program. I've been thinking about doing this for a couple years now but haven't had the money, or time, or whatever (procrastinator extraordinaire) to get it done. I'm doing medical transcription. I have 2 options. I can get a student loan for $3K and do the course and get all kinds of great little perks, or I can do it through the military and do it free. Now here's the 2 differences:

Military Program:

• Free if dh does a certificate program as well
• I would have to buy the foot pedal and headset
• Access to the website to take my certification course online after completing program
• 12 Months to complete course
• FREE

Paid Program:

• Free laptop
• All items supplied, headset, foot pedal, books
• Access to website for certification, AND free certification
• 18 months to complete course
• 24/7 student assistance plus access to student forums
• LIFETIME job placement assistance (they set up interviews with their partners till you get a job, then do it again if you need, anytime)
• costs $2276 right now with "economic disaster discount" (LMAO)

Now dh is trying to get me to do the military one, he is telling me "We have enough debt!". He's not seeing that we would still have to pay out of pocket. Now, I did convince the guy to include my headset and foot pedal. But the other perks do not exist. I would have to scour for a job. I would have to pay in 2 years to get certified (the program registers you, but you need 2 years of job training to be certified), you get less time to complete the course. My thoughts are this, and they are probably slightly skewed because of my stubbornness but..... : We are paying off all debt besides cars with our income taxes. That frees up almost $500 a month. I have 18 months to complete the course, so if I should get a student loan, it could be up to 19 months before we pay the first payment of the whopping $30. They give me a free laptop, which I would use specifically for school work. I would be able to take it with me and do work in the Dr's office, sitting outside, whatever,...... or run to my room and hide from the kids when they are being too loud. This is a very useful tool! All my stuff would be supplied without me having to have a tantrum. LIFETIME JOB PLACEMENT ASSISTANCE. The way they explained that to me is they have signed on with a large group of partners in the medical field. When someone finishes the program with an 85% accuracy rate on average, the partners agree to interview them and take them on as an employee. So the school would set up several interviews, I would get a job from jump, I would get a PAYCHECK from jump, and then after 2 years of steady working (so many "hours"), I would be able to go to this website (different one than that the military provides actually), take the online certification test, and they would mail me my certification bumping me up from registered transcriptionist to Certified Medical Transcriptionist, which also raises what people will pay you. Now I do understand wanting to avoid more debt. Fully understand that, but somehow, I really like the program that's non military. It seems more oriented towards getting you into a career instead of just giving your spouse a hobby while your man is at sea. Doug is not happy that I am seriously thinking of going against his wishes for this, but ...... Is it selfish that I want to have a career at home? Something I can do to FINALLY do something financially for my family? So we can NOT have anymore holidays like this one coming and all the prior ones since we've been married? So we can DO things that involve leaving the house because we can actually AFFORD IT? Is that really selfish? I see it as doing something for my family, and also, (fingers crossed this never happens) in the event my marriage should fail or something happens to Doug, I could still provide a decent life for my children and still be able to be home with them to help with homework, chaperon field trips, etc because this career allows you to work when you want and still get paid. Why don't all house wives do this? I can't help but want the paid program, especially since it's one of 2 of the paid programs, there's standard, which is almost like the military's, then there's professional, the one I've listed everything for. I still think I'm gonna go ahead with the paid one. I want a career, not a hobby.

Sweet Sweet boredom

People take boredom for granted, don't they? I used to HATE being bored. Well no longer do I feel that way. Now I embrace it, snuggle with it, make out with it. Just kidding lol. I do, however, enjoy being bored. You know what bored means to me? It means my cleaning is done, my laundry is caught up, there are no dirty dishes, the yard is picked up, the trash is taken out, and the kid(s) is/are asleep. That's what it means to me. Yes, I do love boredom. This gives me a chance to go through my DVR and check out all the recent episodes of everything I have missed. Usually a 6-7 hour marathon of tv watching.


Speaking of which. I sat down a couple days ago and caught up on the last 3 weeks of House. As I did this, Izzy slept. I knitted. Little miss Emma's blanket is coming along nicely. Her initials are now in the blanket. It actually came out quite nice. It's amazing though, if you knit, how something that could look like this: E R C, even on graph paper, can come out looking like this:





Yes. That's what it takes just to make a 4 inch tall set of initials knitted into a STANDARD blanket. I'll not even begin to think if I had decided to get all fancy with some sort of pattern. Something tells me it would have been pattern interruptus to create initials, then it would have been mass chaos as I began to try and figure out the exact columns for the pattern again. My my, it hurts my brain just thinking about it! I do, have pictures of the blanket thus far. It's about 2 or so feet long right now, it's going to be close to 4 feet long when I'm finished. It's actually probably closer to 3 feet, but I'll use man measurements for a moment. Meaning it's about 6 feet long right now :) Here's a couple pictures :



Wonderful said blanket in it's, so far, entirety.





Said "illusion" lettering to include her nifty adorable little initials in the blanket :) I wish Sara had internet so she could take a peek at this precious blanket. It's very warm and soft as well. I've been using it to keep me warm while I knit lol.

Sunday Randomness

So having kids can be delightful as well. Like when they do random funny faces or you teach them a new trick. Or even better, when you find out they one of them has a craft talent and it's a dirt cheap one to boot lol. Ebbie likes to decorate.... ANYTHING. Wal mart has a huge section of kids crafts. Something tells me Santa Claus is spending alot of time in that section this year. Here's some random pictures. And well..... video too, cause I'm one of THOSE mommies.