7 Quick Takes, Fashion Edition

I could say this was a Thanksgiving edition, but it really has more to do with fashion/home decor, so there you have it.

--1--

(Ignore my horribly puffy face; I just finished a round of prednisone for food allergy issues)

After seeing Liz Stanley's post on what she was wearing to Thanksgiving, I immediately wanted her outfit. This is our first year to have Thanksgiving at our house, and I wanted something easy to nurse in, easy to cook in, and easy to eat in! As Loft was having a 40% off sale, I did order it, but it didn't arrive in time for the big day. Oh well. I'll save it for another day. However. I did end up wearing this super comfortable nursing dress I got earlier in the fall but haven't worn yet. Easy.

--2--

The back of the "Schroeder"

Let the post partum hair loss begin! I have started losing my hair now that Birdie is almost three months old. I find that my hair falls out at alarming rates until I think I will be bald and then it suddenly stops. Hopefully that will be the case this time, because the hair loss is truly amazing. That said, I still have long curly hair and three children under age four, so I'm always looking for interesting (and easy) ways to wear my hair up. I saw this hair style on Stylish White Female's blog last week and I had to try it. I think the Schroeder is going to be one of my go-to styles. (I'm also a recent fan of the double cinnabun).

--3--

I have decorating issues. My mom has this knack for decorating that I didn't quite inherit. I know what I like, and I do decorate, but I find there is a little something lacking in the details usually. It doesn't help that my children basically contrive to take apart my house on a daily basis. So when it came to decorating our Thanksgiving table, well, I did the best I could. And since I thought of it at about 2 p.m. on Wednesday afternoon, I had to make do with the selection at Kmart since I could get there and back quickly on the bus. But I did find a nice fall-ish tablecloth, and I had gotten the placemats at IKEA a few weeks ago. I got the flowers earlier in the day at Whole Foods, but ended up putting them on the dish cabinet behind the table for the meal to make room and allow for conversation. But we had a nice meal nonetheless.

--4--

The other thing I did this year was to order a few key food items from Whole Foods just to relieve some of the cooking burden on me. We didn't have a bunch of people coming (just my mother-in-law and our housemate's sister), but I know with three little children under foot and a mother-in-law who tires easily, I would need all the help I could get in the kitchen. As it happened, the whole time I was getting everything together, Birdie was screaming (at least utnil I put her in the carrier, but then I had to cook over the carrier). But everything was delicious and we had enough food for two complete meals, with a small amount of leftovers, so it all worked out well.

--5--

I eat my pumpkin pie with cool whip, because that is the only meet and right way to eat pumpkin pie, in my opinion. All else is OUTRAGE! (to quote Fr. Vasiliy Vasilievich at The Onion Dome). So it was a nearly unforgiveable offense when my husband stuck the cool whip back into the freezer after the noon meal so that it was frozen when I wanted it for my pie after dinner in the evening. Luckily cool whip defrosts quickly and I was able to have my pie and whip by the time the dishes were done.

--6--

My target.com woes continue. We don't really have enough chairs for our table, and have been slowly adding two at a time as we go along. None of the chairs match, which is fine, given the vintage of our table and my own ecletic sense of order. The most recent set we ordered a few months ago from Target, but they haven't restocked since then, so I thought I would just order something similar to have it for the holiday. The chair set I picked was a bit more money than the original bargain we got, but I thought we should just finish with the chair buying already. The box arrived on Wednesday (perfect timing!), so I opened it up to put it together, and discovered that a) the chair is a barstool height (which was not indicated in the online description) and b) there was only one (despite reviews and pictures to the contrary). I went through the online return process (again) and it didn't work (again), so I called customer service (again) and was put on hold a long time (again) and made a big stink about it being their problem to fix it, and there was no way I was going to return this sucker to the store. So they did something on their end and after several hours, a bona fide shipping label showed up in my inbox, and now everything is fine (I hope).

--7--

In keeping with the fashion theme, this is a card I made a few months ago and sent to my sister as a "break a leg" card for a play she was in. She is so fashionable and into vintage, that I knew she'd love this card. I CASEd it from Nance Leedy.

Go see Jen at Conversion Diary for more Quick Takes!

To Everything a Season

I’ve been thinking a lot lately about timeliness and seasonality. Every year retailers push the “holiday” season longer and longer. One of the malls in the area was fully decorated for Christmas in mid-October, which I think is just ridiculous. Several local radio stations have been playing Christmas music non-stop since late October, and I’m already fatigued by the whole thing.

It seems to me that our society has lost its sense of seasonality. In the natural order of things, there are times to prepare and times to feast. In our consumer culture, there is none of the former, and too much of the latter. Preparation for feasting is important, because you cannot fully savor the feast if there is no fast.

As I grow older, I am more appreciative of the fasting seasons set aside by the Orthodox Church. This doesn’t mean that I find them particularly easy; I don’t. The vegan food requirements are impossible for me right now, what with the state of my food allergies and the requirements of a nursing baby, so I don’t fast strictly.* That is the season of my life right now. But even though I don’t participate fully in the dietary restrictions of the seasons of preparation, I still feel the shift in season. I still need restriction for the rebellion in my soul. I struggle mightily with obedience, and fasting seasons are a good time to examine my sin and keep trying to be better. During fasting seasons, in addition to restraining from animal products, we scale back our social commitments, and eat more simply than usual, avoiding regular sweets and other treats, and making fasting treats a rarity. We try to look inward more, and examine ourselves, to find those sinful parts of our being that lurk in the corners, and try to shine the Light on them and banish them forever. These are life-long tasks, with a natural ebb and flow to them. That is where the change of seasons is useful.

As we approach the Nativity fast (which for those of us on the old-style Julian calendar starts the Monday after Thanksgiving this year), I look forward to quieter moments. I want to step back from the frenetic pace of ordinary life and savor the knowledge that Christ our Savior is coming, has come, will come again, in the understanding of the fullness of time. (I wrote my master’s thesis on the Orthodox understanding of time; you can read an article version in The Road to Emmaus, Winter 2011, Issue #44. Click HERE to order). This time of preparation is good and give balance to the twelve days of feasting that follow the fast. And even though I struggle with fasting meals, I find that at the end of the twelve days, I’m ready to resume our ordinary fasting schedule, and I’m looking ahead to Great Lent, longing to rebalance again with fasting and introspection. And so it goes.

In this season of our lives, we are parents of numerous small children in a small row home. This season means that we must make a lot of restrictive choices for their well-being. It means we cannot help clean up after coffee hour on Sundays because they need to get home for naps and we have an hour’s drive. It means we don’t stay for wedding receptions and count ourselves fortunate to be able to witness the ceremony. It means hosting holiday get-togethers instead of traveling because it is too disruptive for the children (and with three, too expensive!) It means minimal or no Christmas decorations. When we do travel, we plan to stay longer in one place, and allow more time to get where we need to be. It means ordering groceries online instead of shopping the local farmer’s markets regularly. It means changing the bedsheets on an as-need basis rather than on a regular schedule. It means gates and child locks and restricted access to the house. It means staying home rather than going out. It means adhering to nap schedules and being strict about meal planning (and execution!) I could go on and on. This season will not last forever, and someday soon, our children will be old enough to do things for themselves, stay up late on occasion, and help out with the groceries and the chores. The feast of those days to come will be all the sweeter for the fast of these years when they are little.

*Please don’t take my experience as spiritual counsel; talk with your spiritual father about your fasting rule.

Reelly Qwel Post

Remember that old SNL skit with the "reelly qwel" line? I keep thinking about posting this project with Steve Martin saying that line in my head. Anyway, here's my reelly qwel project!

Lookie:

I've been wanting to make one of these for a while, and I had all this Spice Cake dp begging to be used, so I pulled it out and got to work! I used Ilina Crouse's basic idea, and subbed in a few different stamp sets since I don't have Gently Falling or the sentiment stamp set she used. (Thanks for the great inspiration, Ilina!)

Here's the inside when you open it up:

My husband was traveling for work a few weeks ago (and left me alone with the three children--yikes!), and during the course of his travels, stayed with an old colleague from his days at the Supreme Court. They both clerked for Justice Kennedy the same year, and he is now a federal judge on the 9th circuit in Michigan. He asked me to make up some kind of thank you gift for them since they were lovely hosts, so I decided to make a thank you note box (with 6 thank you notes, of course!).

Here are the six thank you notes that were inside:

My "live and learn and then get Luvs" moment on this project was in the box flaps--I meant to have the outer part of the box overlap a bit on the edges rather than having the enclosure flap be flush to the edges, but I miscalculated by 1/8" and it ended up flush. Oh well. It still looked nice, but now I know what to do differently next time. I am definitely going to make this type of project again--it was a lot of fun!

And because you can't send a thank you gift without a thank you note, I made a coordinating thank you card to accompany the box. I love these little quilt cards that are so popular right now--they are fast and easy to make, and look so nice! (As an aside, the texture on the blue circle behind the leaf on this card could easily be accomplished with the Color Spritzer tool--I didn't have mine yet when I made this project or I would have used that instead. The Textured jumbo wheel stood in nicely, though).

Supplies:

Soft Suede, Pool Party, More Mustard, Very Vanilla cs, Spice Cake dp

AfterThoughts (retired), Lovely as a Tree, Occasional Quotes (retired), Autumn Splender stamp sets

Textured wheel

Pool Party, More Mustard, Soft Suede inks

Paper snips

Circle cutter

Big Shot

Circles #2 die

Square lattice folder

Finial press folder

Scallop border punch

top note die

linen thread

sponge

Paper piercing tool/mat pack

corner rounder punch

Pool party ruffled ribbon

sticky strip

bone folder

7 Quick Takes, Breaking Dawn Edition

--1--

Just got back from a 10 a.m. showing of Twilight: Breaking Dawn Part I, and all I can say is, wow. wowowowowowowow. It ended precisely as I thought it would, covered all the details of that part of the book very well, and despite a slight scene of cheesiness with the wolves talking to one another, it was great!! I took Birdie with me, and a friend stayed home with Boo (my sitter is away for three weeks, sniff, sniff). I know it seems frivilous to go see a movie, but it made me feel kinda normal again, if only for 2 hours.

--2--

The bad news is that Birdie started running a fever yesterday, which broke early this morning, and then started up again in the middle of the movie. Luckily, she stayed sleeping most of the time, and I just let her nurse the whole movie, so it worked out. It's low-grade, and not at all concerning, but I can tell she doesn't feel very good right now.

--3--

I lose at least one good pair of shoes and several food items to every pregnancy. With Philip, it was my old generic clogs (before I disovered Danskos and never went back). With Piglet, it was my black riding boots. With Boo, it was a pair of red ballet flats and a pair of coral heels. And now, the latest victims, from Birdie, are my Dexflex cognac peep-toe pumps, and my favorite pair of flats, a pewter ruffled flat I got from Target. Best.flats.evah. But sadly, they are too short now. I have bone spurs on my heels, so I have a hard time finding comfortable flats; I'm pretty bummed about these. I did get a pair two sizes larger in a different color while pregnant (love me my mustard flats), but now they are too big, and the others are too small. Boo hoo. At least my Converse sneaks are still good.

--4--

I ran a couple of errands before going to the movie this morning, and I have to say, I'm so glad I shop online. It bugs me that retailers feel this need to start the Christmas season in October. Makes me want to exclusively shop at Nordstrom, as they have made a decision not to decorate for Christmas (or play Christmas music) until Black Friday. Go Nordstrom! I wish I could afford to shop there. le sigh.

--5--

My regular babysitter is gone for three weeks and I'm in mourning. Luckily, her daughter (who works for the same agency) agreed to come in her place, but it isn't the same. Come home soon!

--6--

The great scrapbook project is finished! For regular readers, you'll know that I took on a client (who happens to be an old college chum) about a year ago and agreed to scrap her 2010 photos. She is a professional photographer and her photos are Ah-mazing! So you can imagine the scope of this project. I tried to break it down into bits and pieces to keep it manageable, and I'm pleased to report that the project is finished!! I just hope she's happy with it.

--7--

Okay, I have a really cool project to share with you, but there are too many photos to clog up this post, so check back in a day or so, k? In the meantime, this is my creative burst for today:

I modified it from a card that Kristin Kortonick made at Fall Fest. I used French Foliage instead of Gently Falling, but I really love this card (and that set!!). I also just got a color spritzer, which I'm enjoying (it makes those speckles on the background). My youngest sister had surgery on her wrist last week (her sixth surgery on her arms/shoulders/wrists) and she is such a trooper, so I wanted to make her a special card. So from me to you, Gimpy, love ya!

7 Quick Takes: Sickness, Pumpkin Bars, and Sewing debaucles

--1--

My husband has been felled by the mighty respiratory virus still making the rounds of our house. Piglet seems to be gearing up for another go and has been coughing a lot at night, and Boo is generally cranky when awake. Birdie is still wheezy (she sounds like a purring cat most of the day), but seems to be on the mend. I was starting to feel better, but then all the junk in my head dropped to my chest and I started coughing. So here we go again. This doesn't bode well for winter, it being mid-November and all.

--2--

My husband was gone for two days this week. We survived. Barely. That's about all I can say about it.

--3--

But wait, I made pumpkin bars! With cream cheese frosting. That kinda made up for it. (I used the Better Homes and Gardens recipe, for anyone who cares).

--4--

Boo is a bit accident prone at the moment, being the Frankenstein walker that he is. He showed up at the dinner table two nights ago with quite a shiner. It looks like he swiped purple eye shadow across one lid. I tried to get a photo, but it doesn't show very well, so you'll just have to take my word for it.

--5--

I hauled my Bernina out of the basement this week to attempt the man's shirt-to-skirt upcycle. And spent about four hours trying to fix what I messed up in the first 15 minutes. I finished it, but it wasn't wearable for a number of reasons, so I cut it down into a dress for Birdie. Unfortunately, I forgot about a little thing called seam allowances, so the dress is too snug. I sausaged her into it for a photo, but she won't be wearing it. Oh well. I learned a lot in the process, and then spent a bunch of time browsing sewing blogs. There are so many more talented sewers out there than me. (Including my uber-crafty mother who made my wedding dress, among other things).

--6--

****

--7--

My cousin had twins a few weeks ago (they were at 35 weeks gestation, but seem to be doing pretty well), and for a baby gift, I made her some baby thank you cards using My Digital Studio. I think I'm getting pretty good with the digital punch art! It took a while to make the card, but the professional print job turned out beautifully.

Go see Jen for more Quick Takes!

7 Quick Takes, Sick Edition

--- 1 ---

Since Piglet started preschool this fall, we've been a revolving door germ factory. The latest victim is Birdie, who came down sick on Tuesday evening and was diagnosed yesterday with bronchiolitis and prescribed albuterol. Did I mention she is two months old?? In other news, I'm still sick after a visit to MinuteClinic last Saturday and a diagnosis of a double ear infection. I seem to be getting worse instead of better, one week on. Piglet seems to be over the worst of it, and Boo is getting there. Now we're just waiting for my husband to come down with something.

--- 2 ---

I'm a pretty extreme introvert, in the technical sense of the word (rather the popular notion that introverted = shy), and being sick and having sick kids is seriously difficult for me. When I'm sick, I want to be left alone in a dark room to wallow. Unfortunately, having very small children, a nursing newborn, and a husband who still wants dinner on the table every night preclude that sort of behavior. So unless I'm dying (and I'm not. yet.), life goes on. It also proves that God has a sense of humor--my children are all extreme extroverts, and when sick, want to hang themselves all over me. All.day.long. 

--- 3 ---

I read a great meme on Facebook a few weeks ago about a woman in Poland who saved 2500 children and babies during the Holocaust. She was up for a posthumous Nobel Peace Prize last year, but didn't get it (probably because the committee was falling all over itself awarding Obama the award for not being W). But I digress. 

Here's her story: 

"During WWII, Irena, got permission to work in the Warsaw ghetto, as a Plumbing/Sewer specialist. She had an 'ulterior motive'. She KNEW what the Nazi's plans were for the Jews (being German). Irena smuggled infants out in the bottom of the tool box she carried and she carried in the back of her truck a burlap sack, (for larger kids). She also had a dog in the back that she trained to bark when the Nazi soldiers let her in and out of the ghetto. The soldiers of course wanted nothing to do with the dog and the barking covered the kids/infants noises. During her time of doing this, she managed to smuggle out and save 2500 kids/infants. She was caught, and the Nazi's broke both her legs, arms and beat her severely. Irena kept a record of the names of all the kids she smuggled out and kept them in a glass jar, buried under a tree in her back yard. After the war, she tried to locate any parents that may have survived it and reunited the family. Most had been gassed. Those kids she helped got placed into foster family homes or adopted. In MEMORIAM - 63 YEARS LATER." 

--- 4 ---

I've gotten back into Pinterest this week a bit, and found the coolest idea to transform a man's flannel shirt into a functional A-line skirt. Of course, I had to go right out and find a man's flannel shirt to try it! (I found one on ebay). Why not raid my husband's closet, you ask? Because my skinny husband's shirts would never work on these multigravitas hips! Now to find the time...

--- 5 ---

Piglet has his first dentist appointment on Monday, and anyone who knows my son well, this could have been a complete disaster. But Dr. George made it fun and worked with my son so it wasn't scary at all! Piglet even asked to go back the next day to have his teeth cleaned again! 

--- 6 ---

I made our first beef stew of the season this week, complete with pumpkin bread as an accompaniment. It was delish. My sons just wanted to eat the broccoli on the side. Go figure.

--- 7 ---

On Sunday, we went to a birthday party for my upline's son, and since the party was Thomas-themed, I bought some Thomas board books for him, but I couldn't give the gift without a card! I made this in August before Birdie was born, and was waiting for the perfect recipient. Happy 3, E! 

For more Quick Takes, visit Conversion Diary!

In sickness and health(care)

Piglet started preschool this fall, and with that momentous life change has come a revolving door of assorted respiratory viruses. Everyone in our household has been sick at one moment or another since Birdie was born in late August. I’ve been messing with something for about three weeks (the apex of which was a double ear infection diagnosed last Saturday), and Birdie finally came down with it this week. There is nothing quite as yucky as being sick yourself and having to care for a sick newborn and a demanding almost-but-not-really-better-yet toddler during the day.

Since Birdie is just over two months old, I made sure to let our pediatrician know, and to keep her updated these last days. She asked me to come in today to check her breathing and to listen to the wheezing in her chest. As I got both kids ready to go, and we walked the three blocks to the doctor’s office, my first thought was that having sick kids in the city really stinks. But my second thought was that living in the city with sick kids has its advantages. We live three blocks from our pediatrician’s office. And our pediatrician is just awesome. She does all her scheduling online (which is wonderful when your child is sick at 3 a.m. and you know you need to be seen that day; it is helpful not to have to wait until the office opens and pray you are the first in line for those limited sick kid spots); she is incredibly available by e-mail and phone, and even makes house calls! We rarely have to wait in her tiny waiting room, and it is usually possible to get same day appointments for sick kids. And if I wasn’t sick myself, these things would be totally manageable.

But I am sick, and suddenly everything is a major undertaking. It is hard for me to be sick, for all the usual reasons (You’re sick? Are you dying? No? Then dinner still has to be made, darn it), but mostly because it takes me so stinkin’ long to get over stuff. I blame it on my allergies; I always get the worst version of whatever is going around and it takes twice as long and usually a round or two of antibiotics to kick it. Excuse me while I go get some cheese to go with my whine.

But that brings me to my second point! I just discovered MinuteClinic, and I’ve just got to say, it is a brilliant idea! For those who haven’t heard of them, MinuteClinic is a walk-in health care office inside some CVS pharmacies that can handle basic injuries, routine infections like strep, ear infections, flu, and the like, and takes insurance! I can rarely get in to see my own primary care doc in any kind of reasonable time frame (even for acute illness), and when I could tell I was getting a bad ear infection last Friday (which turned out to be in both ears), I knew that even if I waited until Monday to try and see my regular doctor, I’d probably have to wait three weeks or more for an appointment. Not really the best option with the kinds of ear infections I get (my eardrums tend to rupture, and I’ve needed Percocet for ear pain in the past, and I’m no pain wimp—I’ve had four children without drugs, thank you very much). So when my ear started aching at dinner time on Friday, I frantically tried to think of some option that didn’t include an ER visit, where not only would I be mocked for coming in for such a routine matter, but it would cost an arm and a leg, and waste hours of time waiting to be seen.

I remembered someone had mentioned MinuteClinic, and googled it to see if there were any close by. There weren’t any downtown, but there was a branch about 7 miles away as the crow flies. So I got up Saturday morning, packed Birdie into the carseat in case of a long wait, and we ventured out into the snowy morning (seriously, in October?? What is up with the weather this year?) They opened at 9 a.m., and I got there pretty close to 9:00. There was one person who went in just as I walked up, but I waited no more than 20 minutes, and was seen by the friendly nurse practitioner there. He did a brief health history, examined me, diagnosed the double ear infection and then sent the antibiotic prescription right over to the pharmacy. I was in and out, with my antibiotic in hand, in just under an hour. And the cost was about what I would have paid to see my own doctor, once you count the cost of a cab, co-pay, hassle, and so forth. I think this is the future of health care frankly. It is more affordable, more accessible, and just plain easier. Obviously, chronic conditions require more traditional care, but for the run-of-the-mill stuff, MinuteClinic is my new go-to place!

Oh, and Birdie has bronciolitis, so we’ll be checking in with our lovely pediatrician a lot in the next week. But that is the advantage of living where we do—easy access for sickies. At least the pint size ones.