We interrupt our regular broadcasting schedule

I'm doing something a little different today.  I know this blog is about oh so many things, but, generally speaking, I don't really show much of the creative things that I do.  Even though I scrapbook, crochet, knit, sew, etc etc etc, I guess I feel like there are so many great crafty blogs out there that I don't really share much of that side of me.

But...I'm making an exception today.  Tam over at Sew Dang Cute (such a cute blog name and an incredible blog as well!) is having a contest for crafters in the blog world!  It just so happened that I was halfway through creating my project when I found out about the contest, so it was perfect!




This summer I got a new sewing machine.  My old one was a gift from my mom 20 years ago for my 16th birthday (yikes!) and had been well-loved and well-used.  But, alas, it went to sewing machine heaven.  I replaced it with a new machine made by Pfaff and I LOVE it.  I love it so much that I am just making up things just so that I can sew.  I don't have any children of my own, but this summer I made a ton of baby blankets for my new niece and a friend's nephew.

This fall, the sewing inspiration hit and I decided to make a halloween costume for my friend's 1-year-old.  After having two boys, she is loving have a little girl and she absolutely dotes on her little "love bug."  Since that's what she calls her, we decided to go with the idea of a love bug for the costume.

I don't have a tutorial because I just sort of made it up as I went along, but I'll do my best to describe what I did.  The only part of the costume that I had a pattern for was the onesie.  I made it out of a really soft brown knit and I was thrilled with the way that it turned out because I've never sewn with a knit.  I'd also never used the sort of snaps that go on the crotch portion of a onesie, so it was amazing that it turned out so well (even if I do say so myself!)

For the skirt, I wanted to use a pink fabric with brown polka dots, but since I couldn't find the right fabric, I decided to applique the polka dots onto the skirt.  This was the first time I've appliqued as well and I was so pleased with the dots.  They certainly aren't going to come off of the skirt!  As far as the shape of the skirt, I knew the baby's waist size and just sort of did a rough sketch and it poofs out at the right angle just perfectly!  I then used some of the brown fabric to make a waistband and my bias tape maker for the edging on the bottom of the skirt.  I think it gives it a really finished look.

For the tutu portion of the costume, I simply cut strips of tulle and tied them around a piece of elastic.  It was easy peasy and sooo cute!

I TRIED to make the wings myself, but after several failed attempts at bending the wire perfectly, I opted for a pair of dollar store butterfly wings.  I think they work just perfectly and were a very economical choice.

Finally, the headband that she's wearing will have two little ears attached to them.  I would have attached them for the pictures, but my model had skipped her nap and had an ear infection, so I was working on borrowed time to get her into the outfit and snap a few pictures.  (Hence, the death grip on the bottle!)

On Halloween night, her outfit will be completed with some brown tights and shoes.  I can hardly wait to share those photos.  She is such a cutie patootie, don'tcha think?

So, if you get a chance, drop on over to Sew Dang Cute and check out the rest of the contest entries. While you're there, let'em know how much you adore the little love bug!

Thanks!!

Things that are worse than unmet expectations - lowered expectations

So, having not committed suicide, I decided to instead commit to making a real effort in my dating life upon returning home after my brother's wedding.

I decided to really buckle down and give this thing a go!  I swear I tried everything and looked everywhere for Mr. Right.  I hunted down hotties at the grocery.  I gave God's house a go.  Much of the time I came up heart-wrenchingly empty-handed.  Whatever it was that I needed (skill, swagger) to "turn some heads",  I was clearly not equipped with.  The only numbers I was giving out at the grocery store were the ones stamped on my debit card.

Not getting the results that I desired through conventional means, I ventured out into cyberspace.  Back in those days online-dating was in its infancy and for the most part, it was still populated by those who were less than successful in meeting people in "real life".  Most of the time, if a couple met via the internet back then, they had to get their "how we met" story straight.  After all, no self-respecting person would admit to finding "real" love via virtual means.

So I joined Match.com and chatted with more than enough guys online to be able to fairly quickly sort the testosterone-filled wheat from the chaff.  It's also where I developed some very basic tests for determining if I would even respond to an email from a would-be beau.  For instance, if he didn't know when to appropriately use "there and their" or "your and you're", he was clearly not going to make the grade.  It may seem a bit picky, but there had to be SOME sort of process for culling the herd!

After all, in cyberspace I was a regular hottie.  I was witty and charming.  I could talk on a wide range of subjects and I laughed at all of their (sometimes horrible) jokes.  (What I lacked in self-respect I more than made up for in self-loathing.  {sigh})

This is the way things generally went in my online-dating life:  1)  Guy would find my profile online and send me an email.  2)  I would respond to his email and wait with baited breath for his response.  3)  We would converse like this for a week or more before he would suggest we could talk by phone.  4)  Phone conversations back and forth would proceed for another week or so before he would eventually ask me out on a "real life" date.  5)  We would go on said date and then, inevitably, 6) all communication would end.  Rinse.  Wash.  Repeat.....

Even after the 10th or so time of this happening, it was simply emotionally devastating for me.  The worst part was always the deafening silence of the phone in the weeks following those dates.  The only thing worse than NOT receiving a phone call when he said "I'll call you," were some of the other responses I received:

*  "I had a rough break-up and I don't think I'm really ready to date yet." - Apparently he recovered quickly because he was messaging other women just days after telling me this.
*  "I think I'm going to try to get back with my ex-girlfriend." - Apparently she didn't take him back because, once again, he was online chatting with other women just days later.
*  "Well, I called you ANYWAY." - said to me after a brief lunch date with a man that I wouldn't have dated if you had paid me.  He was telling me this because, in his opinion, I was below HIS standards!

I can MAYBE understand this sort of out and out rejection if I had, in any way, lied or misled them about who I was or how I looked.  But I hadn't.  I always posted an accurate, up-to-date photo of myself (more than I could say for many of them).  I was always up front about what I looked like.  I was always honest about who I was.  Besides, I may have never deluded myself into thinking that I was beautiful, but I don't think the self-loathing brought on by their behaviour was warranted either.

Stay tuned for the misery that is speed-dating and turning over a new leaf.

More on unmet expectations

So, in 1997, my younger brother told me he was going to ask his girlfiend to marry him.  For the next 18 months, I swear the wedding and all of the planning that goes along with it was the ONLY thing that was discussed by my family any time we spoke on the phone or were in the same room. God love them, I know they were excited about it, but by the month before the wedding, I had long since had quite enough of it all. I just wanted to talk about ANYTHING that didn't have to do with their "blessed day".

Thinking back, it was about then that I THOUGHT I had hit my emotional low.

A few weeks before the wedding, there was to be a girls' night-in (kind of like a mini-bachelorette party). By then I had grown to know my future sister-in-law, T (names have been removed to protect the innocent) and had actually begun to like her. However, I barely knew the other girls who were going to attend. The evening started off well enough. There was a little alcohol involved, but we were all pretty light on the spirits. A few hours into an evening that I thought was just supposed to be us girls (imagine painting fingernails, watching chick flicks, etc - all out girliness), the guys showed up. The boyfriends (or fiances) of each of the girls decided to crash our little party and mushiness ensued. With a little wine in me, (it IS a depressant, ya know!) I was in no shape to be so violently confronted with my singleness.

As they all cooed and cuddled one another, I slipped out the front door and stumbled over a few tree stumps into the pitch black of the night. We were at the house of one of the girls and she lived out in the country. So with no moon and very little ambient light, I crumbled at the base of a tree in the back yard while the tears flowed and the bugs began to feast on me.

As I sat there, I was overwhelmed with grief and feelings of loss. I wasn’t where I thought I’d be by then. (I was 26, after all – practically a spinster!) Sure, I’d graduated from college, but there was no dating life going on to speak of at the time and the future looked fairly bleak in that respect as well. I’m sure there are many who don’t know (and probably don’t want to know), but I seriously considered suicide.

I clearly didn’t go through with it. But it makes me sad to think a young woman such as myself would feel such deep despair over being alone.

After all, there should be a big difference between being alone and being lonely, right?

The best laid plans of mice (and me)

Growing up, I was never one of those girls who had the big book of wedding plans like the one that Monica whips out in Episode 2 of Season 7. I never had my colors chosen years ahead of time. I never dog-eared fabulous wedding gowns in the pages of "Bride" magazine.

It wasn't that I didn't want to get married. In fact, I was the vision of eternal optimism. Even though I came home from every school dance bawling my eyes out because no one had asked me to dance, I always thought that NEXT time would be different. It had to be, right? After all, my mom always told me that she thought she would never get married and she had obviously done that AND had two kids. (Thank goodness she just barely avoided spinsterhood at 19!)

I guess I always just assumed that marriage was an inevitability. After all, hundreds of thousands of people get married every day. So what if no one asked me to dance in high school. There's always college, right? ....Wait, I dated one guy during college until he dropped out during my junior year and I called it off. After that, I never went on a single date during my whole college career..... No matter! When I get out into the "real world", there will be scads of opportunities for dating and marriage. After all, I'm young and I have plenty of time. This is a new world and women are waiting longer to settle down and start their family lives.

Finally after college and out in the "real world" I did finally go out on lots of dates. I was the master of the first date (thanks to an introduction by Match.com, mostly. {sigh}), but I couldn't seem to keep them interested enough for a second date. Sometimes that was just fine with me, but too often I was simply emotional roadkill when that promised "I'll call you" never came.

I always thought that my emotional rock bottom in the relationship area came in 1997 when my (younger) brother told me he was going to ask his girlfriend to marry him. My response to him was an admittedly shameful, “Have you lost your mind?”

There were so many things about the situation that I didn’t understand. First, my YOUNGER brother wasn’t supposed to get married BEFORE me, was he? If he does, what does that mean? What does that say to the world about me? Second, I couldn’t believe he was marrying HER. At the time that they met, my brother and I were very close. We were attending the same college, had lunch together every day and somehow the boy who had driven me nuts when we lived under our parents’ roof had turned into a very good friend.

We were close and SHE was butting in. Matt and I would spend hours hanging with one another before they met, now I wasn’t allowed to spend 15 minutes with him before she needed his undivided attention. And now she was going to be around FOREVER? Til death do they part and all that?

(Stay tuned for the rest of the story.)

I'm an aunt!

I'm so sorry for the delay, but on Sunday August 22nd, I became an aunt!  Miss Madison was born 31 days early and was definitely very baby "rubbery" to begin with, but she was released after just 48 hours as a very strong little girl.

My brother already tells me that she's growing too fast and she's only 9 days old!

She is precious and beautiful and I can't wait to go up and see her soon!

At the hospital waiting for life to change.

So, I asked you all to hang in with me and I apologized for leaving you for so long.  Thanks to all of you who did and hopefully the story will be worth the wait.  For now,  I simply tell you that I am at the hospital waiting for our lives to change (for the better).  Hopefully in just a few hours, I will be welcoming my first niece into my open arms.  It's a long story (one I still promise to tell), but this will be the first grandchild for my parents (they are THRILLED beyond belief).

Mandi, my sister-in-law, is being a trooper and doing an amazing job.  I'm blessed to have been invited into the delivery room (who knew that was a possibility?!?) to witness the birth and take pictures.  Since it's probably the closest I'll get to witnessing a birth up close and personal, I'm so excited.  It's emotional and amazing and I can't wait to welcome her!

Don't give up on me!

For those of you still out there wondering where I am, I know I haven't posted in over a month (EGAD!).

But there's been a ....LOT!......going on in my life.

I promise to get you all caught up in the next few days.

Until then, just him a little "Journey" to yourself and think good things of me:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=barLaHrtvoM