Committing to Commitment

I work better, I’ve found, when I have multiple deadlines looming over my head—even if they are self-imposed deadlines. So, I know I said back in October I was back in the blogging game, but then I fell off the edge of the planet again. Go figure. I blame my BFF Sara for that, although she doesn’t know it (then again, maybe she does, she is scary perceptive like a ninja). Sara is in her third trimester and I have gone crafting crazy trying to get my BIG plans completed before Baby arrives! So October passed in a blur of yarn and fabric and emergency poodle skirts. And I’m still not done!

So what does that mean for me? Well, November is going to be busy. As always. I don’t even try to pretend to be surprised. In addition to the crafting and NaNoWriMo, I am going to commit to getting at least two posts a week. They might be short, maybe just be a photo or two. But the more I have to accomplish, the more willing I am to manage my time appropriately and not procrastinate.

And Friends, I am a big procrastinator. If I started a list of all my faults, procrastination would be at the top. I totally blame my family for that one. As the baby of the family, I learned very early on that if I waited long enough, someone else would do my task for me. Heck! My mom and sister still do it! Remember that whole painting my house thing?

(Another fault, since I’m listing them, apparently I don’t like to take responsibility for myself. But I blame my birth order for that.)

But no one is going to craft for me. And no one is going to NaNo for me. And clearly, no one is blogging for me. So I’ve got to pick up the slack. And by pick up the slack, I really mean, actually do the stuff that I want to do: crafting, blogging, writing.

Of course, there is one teensy flaw in my plan. Work. Yup. Me working, as much as I love my job (and a post is coming out soon about that) it really is putting a kink in my whole time management plan. Although to be fair, there are a few things I can do while I am at work that doesn’t interfere with actually working especially during the slow period, but don’t tell anyone I said so!

M is for Malarkey

I tell stories. Frivolous stories full of unapologetic malarkey and hyperbole. I have been doing this all my life.

When I was little, as my family would sit down to dinner, I would be asked one simple, almost insignificant question: What did you do today, Heather.

Without a second of hesitation I would launch into a detailed description about my day interspersing actual occurrence with snippets of malarkey just to see how far I could take the tale. Nine times out of ten, I was encouraged to spin the tale out further beyond what I could have readily imagined. 

Oh how I wish I had a record of the stories I told. Looking back, I’m sure not a single one of them made sense and my siblings only tolerated my shenanigans because I was the baby of the family.  My childhood was fantasy wrapped in delusion filled to the brim with malarkey.

Today, I still tell wild stories full of malarkey. Just ask the girls about the orangutans that I blame for everything. Or Scott. Poor Scott. Last night while we sat at dinner, a thunderstorm rolled overhead with flashes of lightening and great booms of thunder that shook the windows in their frames. As we ate, I bemoaned the fact that we left my newly purchased bags of soil – the ones for the raised garden bed I’m building – out on the lawn. Unprotected. Scott and the girls looked at me incredulously.

“It’s dirt,” Scott said.

“Yeah,” I sighed, “But it’s my dirt now and I should take better care of it.”

“What are you going to do once you put it in the garden?” He asked.

I looked at him like he was the crazy one, “Put umbrellas over it, obviously.”

Like I said. Malarkey.

Malarkey is a noun from the 1930s that means nonsense.

Example: Marty the Magnificent managed to mumble the magic word making Melvin the Mouse move. “What malarkey!” Marcus moaned at the meager maneuver. 

This post has been brought to you by the Letter M and the fine folks at Blogging A to Z. And by the number 566. Check out more A to Z blogs here!

I Made It Monday

I've been kind of slow on the crafting lately. Coming off of the holiday crafting high always leads me to a slow down in January and February. I've been feeling the yearning for some learning. I like knowing how to do things and I'm all about learning a new craft. There's about a half dozen crafts I would love to learn: spinning...okay spinning it the only one I can think of right now, but I swear there are more! I'm a bit bored with what I have right now and that makes it hard to want to sit down with a skein of yarn or a half dozen photographs and be creative. 

Plus, as I've mentioned before I haven't been all that...enthusiastic...with life right now. A lot is going on and often I find myself sitting with a project in my lap or on the table in front of me and no desire whatsoever to do any work on the project. I'll stare at the TV not seeing what I'm watching, worrying instead of working. It happens and I hate it when I catch myself zoning out. I end up putting the project aside and doing chores or more often than not, wasting time on Pinterest (I don't have an account and refuse to get one, but jeesh do I love scrolling through). Hopefully one of the biggest issues going on right now will soon be resolved and I'll get back into my normal routine.

I actually started working on today's project way back before Christmas but only finished it late last week. It should have taken a day or two tops. I worked on it for an hour, lost interest, went back a week later and couldn't remember what row I was on so I tore the whole thing out and restarted.

This happened a whole slew of times.

I got the pattern from one of my favorite crocheters, Ana Paula. Her book Amigurumi Toy Box features a quartet of cute sea creatures that make me squee. The jellyfish, though, is by far my favorite. 

"I shall call him Squishy and he shall be mine and he shall be my Squishy."

I've hung him where I normally hang up our mistletoe and love watching Scott hit his head on it every single time he walks into the living room.

See how awesomely I am channeling J.J. Abrams? I think I've got a talent for lens flares.

I Made It Monday

So last year I made a valiant attempt at chronicling our year in a scrap book. My goal was to go from December 21, 2011 to December 22, 2012. I called it Waiting for the Apocalypse. I got to about March before I stopped. The problem was I take so many pictures that I ended up with an overwhelming amount to go through. I got frustrated and, not a big surprise, distracted by other things that were slightly more pressing than scrapbooking.

But I still liked and clung to the idea of scrapbooking life as it happened. And it was in the course of looking for new scrapbooking resources that I stumbled across a few blogs that were talking about something called Project Life. I traced the links back to a woman, Becky Higgins, who had hatched and sold a scrapbooking system that cut out time consuming layout dilemmas and matching papers.

Project Life is a streamlined system. Something I can take out and spend an hour or two with and put away. I liked that.

I did not, however, like the price tag associated with all the accessories. I’ve got accessories out the wazoo! Paper, stickers, vellum quotes and sayings, albums…and did I mention the paper? I’ve got a lot of scrapbook paper. I’ve got enough scrapbook paper that I’m probably going to have to include it in my will.

The one thing I didn’t have was the nifty photo pages (photo page protectors…what are those things called anyway?).

So I ordered some (FYI - Becky sells her supplies through Amazon). Just a small pack to see how it would go. While I was waiting from my package to arrive I spent my evenings going through my shoebox full of scraps cutting them down to sizes that would fit the photo pages. I spent hours combing through the photos I’d taken trying to narrow the ones I loved down to a reasonable 5-8. Five to eight photos to capture the week. Reasonable and doable.

Once the pages arrived, I established a routine. Oh how I hate routines (more on that later)! But I knew that if I didn’t establish a day to scrapbook, it would just collect dust like the Camping book, the Apocalypse book and the Birthday Fiesta O’ Fun books. Mondays, I decided would be the day. Mondays I go into town and run my errands. I do the grocery shopping, I pick up the miscellaneous things I need from Home Depot or Target. Mondays I would print my photos and Mondays I would scrapbook.

And, my friends, I do. I am. It isn’t overly elaborate or crazy with crafty and creativity but I’m getting what I wanted to accomplish done. And that, my friends, makes me happy. And slightly proud because really right now, I need to show that I can start a project and finish it.

Problems?

So I've figured out the issue.

Fine print. It all comes down to the fine print that we always say we've read, but do we ever really read it? Nope.

Apparently, to make the most of my blogger, I needed to resize my photos. Guess who has never resized a photo ever. Blogger is all: "post all the photos you want forever! As long as they are smaller than 3 microns. But Hey! Post all of them you want!! Yay, Photos!" And I was all like, "Yay! Photos! I love taking pictures and I will post all the pictures and the internets will be complete! Me and Blogger are BFFs!"

Maybe I took Blogger for granted. But maybe Blogger took advantage of my internet innocence. For all computer abilities, I am really not a tech person. Hell! I don't even use shortcuts in Word!

So, it's a fixable issue, but then I wonder if I need to go and resize all the photos I've already posted and that is a daunting thought so I walk away from the computer in frustration and bearing the slightest grudge against blogger even though technically it is my own fault since I didn't read the fine print.

Crap! I can't even really hold a good grudge.

Beside with all the craziness of Christmas preparation, I really haven't spent too much time online anyway. That's how it goes in December. I craft until my fingers are caked in paint, glue and glitter. I wrap until I have scraps of ribbon and pieces of tape in my hair. I blast my Christmas playlist until an intervention is called. I menu plan and bake until there is a haze of deliciousness floating over my house.

So words will be it for the time being. Which stinks because boy have I got some crazy, awesome photos to share! Like the one where I'm surfing and there's a school of sharks right underneath my longboard. And the one where I reached the summit of K2 - I don't want to brag, but the view was pretty amazing. And the one where I had to use the emergency eject chair because my experimental FJ-X465 was crashing into the Mojave desert. Oh and the one with Ashleigh cloning dinosaurs in her bedroom and Cyra photo-bombing her!

Good times!

Tis the Season

November is pressing down upon me and as my busiest month of the year I am not exactly looking forward to it in the traditional sense. Actually, I’m kinda freaked out about the whole thing.

November brings NaNoWriMo, a writing challenge that I have participated in since 2004. In past years I’ve run the gamut of writing: planning, note cards, winging it, basic ideas, just a character. I’ve done it all. This year is the first year I haven’t had a direction before October hit. In fact, I just got my ideas together and drafted a nearly naked plot with a few hazy characters. The years I’ve planned I’ve done better but I’m hopeful that I’ll continue my winning streak.

November also brings a last ditch frenzied approach to finishing craft projects for Christmas. As usual I have set myself very high craft goals and then there was the incident earlier this month that accidentally ruined three projects that were near completion. So I’m restarting three projects, continuing two more and trying to find the time for a good half dozen not even started yet.

November is also Cyra’s birthday month. In previous years we've gone camping, thrown small parties, had a simple dinner. This year? It’s bowling. We haven’t established if it will be a bowling party or just us bowling for fun. Either way it will be fun. She’s a whole decade old this year. It seems hard to believe. I cleaned out my closet last week and pulled out the girls’ baby boxes. I love how amazing they are, what wonderful people they are turning out to be but, still, I miss them as babies.

If I have a second favorite holiday, it is the completely made-up Thanksgiving feast. I love to cook and bake and it's like Thanksgiving was created just to enable my cooking obsession. Thanksgiving is often treated as a week long event in my house. I bake far too many desserts, way too many side dishes and a turkey three times larger than we actually have need for. I think the largest group of people I’ve fed in recent years was maybe ten. Typically there are six or seven.  But that doesn’t stop me from cooking as though I was feeding twenty-seven! This year might be slightly different as we certainly don’t have the budget for a proper feast.

Knowing myself as I do, I doubt that I will be writing much for the blog and that distresses me. I have let myself get out of the good habits of regular blogging and commenting and so of course I want to rededicate myself to daily postings. With all my focus on NaNo and crafting, I think I will once again participate in fatmumslim’s Photo-A-Day for November.

Tis the season alright! Season of crazy. Season of fun. Season of self-induced stress. I work best under pressure and deadlines. If I don’t have one or the other I tend to be lazy and self-indulgent.

I Made It Monday - Tuesday Edition

Recently, in an effort to minimize the amount of time I spend in the kitchen, I’ve been researching OAMC (or Once A Month Cooking) and Crock Pot Freezer Cooking. Now this isn’t to say that I hate being in the kitchen. I don’t. I love cooking and baking and making. The problem is I quite often end up busy in the late afternoon running around with the girls or errands or crafting and then it is too late to actually make anything. 

Also, I forget to take things out to thaw.

Plus, guess what’s coming up in nine days? NaNoWriMo! And of course once November hits, everyone is on their own for food, laundry and attention. Having a bunch of prepped meals will make November run just a bit smoother.

I wonder if I can pre-cook Thanksgiving?

In any event, this will probably be a thing now. Six hours of prep, five recipes and at least nine meals clearly equal a win (although I only doubled one recipe, the way they are packed and frozen one bag would be one meal with no leftovers). The only minor drawback of prepping so many meals in advance is storage of said meals.

Up until about a month ago I had a freezer that we bought from a friend which worked fantastic. Sure it was older but it was wonderful! I hadn’t even gotten it stuffed full yet when disaster struck. Because we had to keep it outside on the screened patio (yup) the poor thing worked really hard keeping everything cold until it just couldn’t anymore and blew up.

Alright. Fine. It didn’t technically explode but it made a pop pop popping and then smoke started billowing from the vent. Luckily I was home. Even more luckily, I was out on the patio at the time so I was able to unplug it and stash all of the food in the regular freezer. We’ve been looking at getting another one but smaller to fit it inside…but with only 1300 square feet floor space is at a premium. So while I wanted to prep a few more recipes, I only made what I figured would fit.

Clockwise from lower left (in a spirally manner): baby portabella mushrooms, green peppers, red peppers, onions, carrots, sweet potato, Yukon gold potato, jalapeno, celery and zucchini.

 Once the veggies are prepped then it's on to the meat prep and assembly.

Just to give you an idea, this is one recipe divided into two one-gallon ziploc bags. So while technically one would cook these both together, it is possible to cook one at a time and not have to deal with leftovers - which in my case would be good since somehow leftovers often get shoved to the back of the fridge and neglected. Poor, poor leftovers!

And here is my tiny freezer neatly stuffed with prepped food. Five recipes fit nicely although I'm sure I could have squeezed in one more if I tried.

And, of course, the aftermath. Well, some of the aftermath. Scott was very nice to help clean up as I was finishing up the last of the recipes so what you are not seeing is all of the cutting boards, the stuff still on the floor (mostly canned goods that will be used in other non-prepped meals) and the multitude of dirty bowls.

Just for reference, here are some of the sites that I used for recipes and ideas:

Loving My Nest

Mama and Baby Love

Once-A-Month Cooking

Six Sisters' Stuff

Once A Month Mom

UPDATED:

I used the following recipes from Loving my Nest: Meat Stew (I used beef), Pork and Veggies, Chicken and Sweet Potato Stew.

I used Healthy Mama's BBQ Chicken from Mama and Baby Love. 

I used a Taste of Home recipe, Southwest Chicken, that I modified so I could freeze it.

And last I made Lime Salsa Chicken from a site I neglected to include above, Kojo Designs.

 (the first four links in the update will bring you to the recipe pages)

I (un)Made It Monday

Remember that beautiful crochet project I was working on a while ago? The orangey sunset one?

 

The one where I knew, just absolutely knew that I would need more yarn to complete? Guess which one I can no longer work on because the store where I bought the yarn discontinued carrying it?

So very frustrating, my friends, to be in the middle of a project and not have enough yarn to finish it. Oh, I'm sure I could order it online somewhere...but that's not the point.

Because, I'm impulsive, see. And my level of spontaneity correlates directly with my level of frustration. So I end up with something like this before I even realize it.

Admittedly, it was kind of satisfying to pull the entire thing apart.

There is a new project in the works for this yarn, but as it is a gift, like many of my other projects at this time, and thus cannot yet be revealed.

On a side note, guess whose family is already getting sick of my impromptu bursts of Christmas music? And the stack of Christmas movies sitting by the DVD player? They just don't understand that when I'm in a gifty making mood, I need a gifty making environment to encourage my creativity!

Who Needs A Truck?

I do. Seriously and for real. Need a truck.

I was only able to fit two in the back seat and I need at least four! By the time I got back to the store that gave them to me for FREE the other two I wanted were GONE!!

I bet someone saw me joyfully cramming pallets into my car and they were all like "HEY!! Let's ruin that lady's day and take the other ones BEFORE she comes back! Bwa ha ha!! That will keep her from ever being able to complete her awesome pallet project!"

My project, by the way, is indeed totally awesome. Check it out here.

I (almost) Made It Monday

Part of being a Leo is my insane tendency to start projects, become bored and/or run out of material and/or come up with a fantastic NEW project idea and abandon the old one (trust me it is way easier to blame this on fanciful astrological powers - even though I sort of think, occasionally, it's accurate). That often leaves me a half dozen or so projects laying around in various states of completion.

Today I share with you a few of those projects. All of these are crochet projects...I didn't even think to include unfinished scrapbook projects or whatnot because I'm fairly certain that that many photos would crash my blogger account!

Some were abandoned as hopeless. Some set aside in want of more material. Some I set aside as better ideas came to me. Some...I just got plain bored with.

For a while I was big into motifs. These babies are quick and easy to make and once I know the pattern it is almost mindless.

I had a plan for these. A good one too. I will probably finish it up but I left off in favor of a different idea. These were fun to make and the pattern reminded me a little of a merit badge or Star Trek insignia.

These had a strong urge to be a scarf but I couldn't decide on how I wanted to connect them, so in a container they go. The pattern here is a granny square.

These are blocks for a blanket but I ran out of yarn and since I didn't have the budget to buy more at the time I moved on to something else.

I really love this pattern. It's almost like a granny square but totally not!

Another blanket. Another project stalled for want of yarn.

That doohickey is called a stitch holder (in case you ever needed that information) and I love playing with them. I connect them all together and get mad when I need one and they all get pulled out...sort of like what I do with paper clips.

This is my current project and after two skeins of yarn I know I will need more to complete it. I am already budgeting in the money because I absolutely LOVE this. It is a variegated yarn (meaning multiple colors on one skein) and it reminds me of a sunset all orange and fire.

The pattern is a simple ripple stitch. I was going to do a sunburst pattern, but it looked odd with the variegated yarn.

My crochet bag. And the newest project I started - a friendship bracelet for Cyra.

Doll House

I can’t recall having a doll house when I was little. I had Barbie stuff and maybe a Barbie house, but not an old-fashioned doll house. And honestly, I can’t seem to recall a burning need for one either.

The other day as the girls and I were walking through Hobby Lobby, Cyra and Ashleigh both got fixated on the doll house aisle. They were in awe of all the miniature furnishings, chandeliers and little books with real pages. I admit it, they were pretty neat. My mom, many years ago, made a beautiful miniature Christmas tree with beaded branches, tiny little lights and itty-bitty ornaments that I’ve always loved. There’s just something about miniatures that is so appealing.

Back to Hobby Lobby and the girls oohing and aahing over each little package. I point out prices. They tell me it could be a long term project, spread the cost out over years. Something that we could all do together. I ask them where we would put it. Let’s get rid of the dog kennel and put it in that corner, they say.

For twenty minutes I cannot drag them out of this aisle. Sales people walk by asking if we need help with anything. I shake my head. Ashleigh asks if we would need to buy the kit or if we could just find plans online to make one ourselves. I sigh and explain that even if we found plans, we’d still have to buy the wood, the tools, the everything. Regardless of which way we do it, it is an expensive hobby.

Ashleigh sighs. “It would be cool to have one like the Bloggess,” she says.

“Yup,” I tell her. “Except ours would be more…sci-fi-ish…less Gothic.”

“Like a future house.” She says.

“That would be so cool,” Cyra says.

I already do so many crafts: scrap booking, crochet, cross-stitch, paint and weave…Each one expensive in their own way. And the girls are so mercurial in their hobbies and activities that I am hesitant to go all in with any one thing.

But still, a doll house of the future with little robots and hover craft would be awesome. Or maybe a medieval doll house with knights and princess about to get eaten by a dragon.

I Made It Monday

Guess what I did with my sour oranges!


Oranges, canning supplies, cheesecloth...coffee? Vodka? How'd those get in there?



44 coffee beans plus

Sliced then chopped oranges plus

  

about 1 cup of sugar plus vodka = LOVE!

 

Orange peel

plus Vodka = YUM!

End results!

For the above photo from left to right:

Jar 1

1 orange sliced and chopped, 44 coffee beans, 1 and 1/3 cup sugar, about 2 and 1/2 to 3 cups vodka

Jar 2

1 orange juiced and then chopped, 44 coffee beans, 1 cup sugar, just under 3 cups vodka 

Jar 3

peel from about 4 oranges (chopped), 1/3 cup sugar, 3 cups vodka

Jar 4

peel from about 4 oranges (chopped), 1.5 cups Smirnoff Strawberry and 1.5 cups Smirnoff plain vodka

Now for the wait. Each jar must age for at least three months according to the recipe I used. So, I'll let you know how they turned out in June.

I Made It Monday

I'm a crafter. Words, projects, food. It's what I love to do.  So I think I'm going to add a "I made it Monday" to my postings. It will probably only be the first Monday of the month, although I reserve the right to add additional Mondays depending on how crafty I've been!

For the first I Made It Monday, I present a hot air balloon that I crocheted. I found the pattern in Amigurumi Two by Ana Paula Rimoli (here's her blog) (I'm not promoting her or anything, but I totally love her books - I have them all!). The beauty of this project was it only took me a few hours and I have all the yarn and the fiberfill on hand!

This was just a prototype for me. I wanted to try the pattern out, see how it worked, get a feel for the gauge, that kind of thing. I have a plan in mind for some more of these but that project is super top secret right now!

UPDATE AND EDIT: I hate being wrong! I mistakenly listed and linked Ana's first book as the one having the hot air balloon pattern. It is in fact her second book that contains the pattern I used. I have changed the link above. This is what happens when you have all of someone's books and you are far too lazy to get up so you just pick the first title you remember!