I am not by any means comparing my day to day life with that of Edith Frank, I definitely have “First World Problems” and not anything meriting the stress she was under. Instead I’m just reminding myself that my reality isn’t her reality and I just need to keep some perspective.

Things that are frustrating me right now:

• Not having enough space in the kitchen cabinets for everything to be organized neatly.
• Too much crap we don’t use in the mudroom cabinets so I can’t put other things away in there.
• Not having enough energy to keep the house as clean as I’d like.
• Not having as much help keeping the house as clean as I’d like.
• Trying to figure out what window treatments to make for the kitchen.
• The bedroom drapes.
• The cheap living room end tables.
• The disorganization and ugliness of my sewing room.
• The mess in the unfinished side of the basement.
• The orange cat situation.
• Emma’s unfinished bathroom.
• The dogs sleeping on our bed so the sheets are always gross and not giving me enough room so I can sleep well.
• Being fat and not having the time or energy to do anything about it.
• Being the only one that notices and seems to care and want or know how to do anything about all of these things.

Last weeks’ painting job really brought this into focus. I had to practically empty out half the first floor. There were so many cobwebs and dust bison behind everything I was embarrassed. I have been slowly returning things to their places and washing everything down before putting it back. Some things have overstayed their welcome and are being sent packing. Other things are better appreciated now that I have a chance to give them the honor they deserve.

For so long now I just haven’t had the motivation or energy to put toward doing these household things. It frustrates me. Yesterday and today I spent more time outside working and left the inside work for another day. Over the last 15 years I’ve put a lot of time and energy (and money) into the yard here and barely feel like I’ve accomplished anything. Problem is that if I ignore it or let it go for even half a growing season it goes to hell and I have to start over. Today I decided to try to appreciate it and look at it through different eyes.

Garden May 2012 VIEW SLIDE SHOW DOWNLOAD ALL

I’m looking at what I have accomplished and appreciating it. There will always be more to do. I will continue to get too tired to finish it all and my body will ache at the end of the day. But that is okay. I’m grateful that I have a beautiful yard to work in and a fairly healthy body to work with on this gorgeous day.

I’m trying really hard to take all this positive energy to heart but I still feel a bit of bitterness and frustration. What is that saying? “Fake it until you make it?” Some days I just end up feeling like a big old faker and think I’m just lying to myself and everyone around me. Will I ever be satisfied? When I say I don’t give a shit and let it go I feel momentarily better but later when I now have more work to do because I let it go I get frustrated again and the vicious circle begins again. How do other people deal with this? How do other people both delegate work and not get annoyed when it isn’t done the way they’d like or find a way to instruct the delegate to do it without sounding like a bitch?

I don’t like being such a Negative Nellie. I read a lot of blogs that are all sunshine and rainbows (even when it rains) and I find them beautiful, inspiring and like a little vacation in my blog reader. But I can’t help but wonder if they ever have a bad day? Do they ever get weeds in their gardens? Do their dogs ever shed and make a mess all over the house? Do their cats poop on the hall floor just because they are being dicks? Or is it all a sham and an artifice and they have the same frustrations and set backs that I have but just don’t air it out for the world to see?  I guess if I were just funny it wouldn’t matter.

This is the den/office. I found this rug at Lowes Friday. I obviously need to move more furniture back in there and hang some stuff on the walls. But not as much stuff as we had before. I do think my Eiffel Tower photo will really pop against this blue though.

I ordered some fabric for drapes last week during the Joann Home Dec 50% off sale. Hopefully it will be in soon so I can get those done and up.

We had shelves on the walls in this corner before but we took them down and I don’t plan to put them back up. Once Sarah is off to college I’m not sure this desk will stay here. I used to use it a lot before I got my new laptop but now it just collects mail, dust and evidently a pair of my shoes. We also had two printers on it that I haven’t put back yet and I’m not sure both are going to go back. One is a scanner/printer and the other is a wireless printer that we all can use from our respective laptops from anywhere in the house. But they take up most of the desktop and look really messy. I’d like to find room for the scanner upstairs in my sewing room and some kind of printer cart or cabinet for under the desk for the other one.

Sunday was spent reupholstering the dining room chairs. I also found this fabric at the Joann sale and really love it because is brings together all the colors from all the rooms.

I’m going to wait to show you the kitchen colors but you might be able to get a good idea from my fabric choice. It’s a BOLD statement for sure.

This weekend was also Sarah’s Senior Prom. I don’t have as many beautiful pictures of her this year as I took last year. We were rushed and disorganized and the kids were in a hurry to get to the official photo house. So I snapped a few quick ones and let them go. Then when we got to the “photo house” we started taking group shots and I forgot to have her stand alone for any. Plus I haven’t been happy with the photos my SLR has been taking lately. The exposures are off and everything looks foggy. I think I need to take it in for a good cleaning and maybe see if the sensors are messed up or something.

That’s her on the left with the corsage the size of a small shrubbery.

Her date was her friend Chris who she’s known since 2nd grade.  He graduated a year early and started college up in Milwaukee this fall. She was worried she wouldn’t have a date this year and then one night she came home to find our front lawn “forked”. (This is when pranksters cover your lawn with plastic forks stuck all over it.) This time (yes he’s done it to us before!) the forks spelled out “PROM?” She knew immediately who had done it (because she knew he was home from school for the weekend.) and called him up to check if he was serious or if it was just a cruel prank. I guess he realized that this was actually also his Sr. Prom in a way and thought it would be nice to do something with his high school friends one last time.

Of course this all just means that the snowball that is the final month of Senior year is swiftly rolling down the mountain and I’m feeling like I’m going to get knocked over by it any minute.

I’ve been intrigued by mandalas for quite some time. I briefly was making photographic mandalas in Paint Shop Pro and had an etsy shop featuring them. But they didn’t take off and make me famous so I quit making them. But I did have a number of them enlarged and framed and now display them in my house. I recently realized that I doubt most visitors to my home even know that I made them. My biggest failing as an artist is my inability to self promote.

I never lack for great ideas and most of the time am even able to bring my ideas to fruition. But I don’t know how or have the social aptitude to get my work out there to the people. This is why my business failed. Does it really matter? Do I need public acknowledgement to be successful? Is my work less valid because no one pays for it? The artist in me says no, it doesn’t matter. Just make art for art’s sake. The little girl that always wanted to be noticed says yes, I just want to be loved and recognized for my talents.

I want 1000s of blog followers, book deals, appearances on HGTV, a product line and people standing in line at CHA to meet me. Or do I? Maybe I like that I can spend a day on my couch watching stupid tv and alternating between doodling and crocheting. Could I still do that if I had all these followers and fans and work to do? Would I hate it if my passions became work. Or would I be one of those lucky people who could say, “It isn’t work because I get to do what I love everyday.” I call bullshit on that. Sorry, but once you have an obligation to someone else, it becomes work. It may not be shoveling horse shit but it is still work. And let’s be honest, I don’t want to do all the work that it takes to get to that point. We all know that there really is no such thing as an overnight sensation or just being in the right place at the right time. That’s why I think sometimes it is the people with less talent that make it bigger than the more talented person. They have to work harder at whatever skill it is they want to be good at and that puts them out there where those “discoveries” are made.

Is the only reason I jump from one craft to the next because of lack of recognition for my talents in one particular field? Not completely. Frankly I get bored too quickly with doing one thing all the time. I typically circle back to most of my interests at some point. Some of my interests are more seasonal. Sometimes I turn to certain mediums because of an emotional need. Sewing is more solitary and isolating. Knitting and crochet I can do in more social settings. Making Zentangles is somewhere in the middle. Within sewing I find quilting fills one type of need creatively while garment sewing uses a different part of my mind.

Photography is completely different than all my other hand crafts. When I make something be it sewn, knit, crocheted or drawn, I’m creating something out of nothing. Taking basic supplies and putting them together to make something new. When I photograph something I’m looking at something that is already there and trying to capture it the way my mind sees it. Like all art forms there is a combination of artistry and technical skill. Often I think my art is my therapy. It is definitely my meditation.

**All of the above photo Mandalas were made using photographs taken at Rosslyn Chapel  and Roslin Glen in Scotland during our 2007 trip.

**The Zendala was made using a template from Tangled Harmony.

ETA: I was flipping through my Zentangle Journal right after uploading this post and realized that this Tangle needed to be included in this post even though it wasn’t a mandala or a spiral. The message is the point. The words are part of a lyric from one of my favorite Jason Mraz songs. Unfortunately the song has a title that isn’t easy to share with people without offending.

I have a new mini-obsession. They are called Zentangles. My friend Nicole posted something about them in the past month or so on our private Facebook group and on her Pinterest board and I was intrigued. I have seen this kind of pen and ink art before but didn’t know that it had a name or was a “thing”. It always looked too complicated for me to wrap my head around so I admired it from afar.

But then I started doing some internet time-wasting the other day and came across them again and decided to see what it was all about. Oh hey, I have  ultra-fine black Sharpie around here someplace! Cardstock? Yep I have that too. Well, how about that! I have all the supplies needed for a new obsession.

There are a plethora of blogs, websites and Flickr groups to keep you inspired and to show you new patterns to try. I’m not very good yet but I’m just playing with patterns and ideas right now. I look at it a lot like yoga. It isn’t about being good or better than someone else. It is about stretching your creative muscles and just getting better for yourself.

Each Tangle is only about 3” square so it doesn’t take long, is inexpensive and portable.

I can see where this would also help me to improve my free motion quilting skills. It also just helps to calm my monkey mind and to relax. It is a cool combination between doodling and coloring. Adults should color in coloring books more often. It is very relaxing and mind freeing.

This is also a good thing to combine with sewing. I obviously love to sew. But I find that sewing is so often about following an order and a specific way of doing things. I enjoy the precision and continuing to try to get my finished project as professional looking as possible. But sometimes you need to break away from that and free your mind. I suppose I could decide on a whim to sew a sleeve coming out of the seat of my pants but I don’t think that would accomplish what my brain needs. It doesn’t need absurdity for the sake of absurdity. It needs to be free to roam the outer edges and to find beauty and patterns in the chaos. To sort itself out and make sense of nonsense. Not to make nonsense from sense. I clearly need some Zen in my life.

This is a work in progress. It is pretty much a copy of one I found in my internet travels. This one is all about filling in the voids, the negative space. I’ll probably be working on this one for a while. I may even need  new pen.

Another thing I find attractive about a lot of the Zentangle drawings I’m coming across is their resemblance to Tim Burton’s world. Weird shapes, repetitive patterns, black and white.

I’d better run and go gather my supplies and get ready for work. I have my first Jeans Class that I’m teaching at work today. I’m nervous and excited about it. It is one thing to do something yourself and a whole other thing to teach it to someone else. I may have to Tangle between classes!

The first is my mother, Doris Wood. She is the one who taught me to sew and inspired me to challenge myself. The first things I remember making by myself were Barbie ™ clothes. Most of my first efforts weren’t really sewn, just scraps of fabric cut, wrapped and tied masterpieces. Maybe that is where my obsession with wrap dresses comes from. The first real sewing project I remember was a simple 4-gore skirt in dark blue. It had a side zip and waist band. It was 1976 and I paired this skirt with a snazzy red & white striped T-shirt with a Liberty Bell applique. It was a 4H project and I’m pretty sure I got a blue ribbon at the county fair that summer. This was the first of about 10 years of 4H projects, each one lovingly directed and taught by my Mother. Her patience and guidance were so valuable. I gained so much self confidence through participating in 4H; sewing, knitting, showing horses and my Mom was there for all of it. She is so very talented in her own right. She made us many clothes; dresses, bathing suits and more. She also created wonderful home dec. projects and beautiful quilts. I remember her making dolls and stuffed animals for church bazaars and flower girl dresses for cousins. Everything she made was unique and original and impeccably constructed.

The second woman I’d like to acknowledge today is Nella Taylor, also from Marlette, Michigan. She was also a 4H leader. I learned how to knit from her. Once a week after school the school bus would drop about a dozen girls, ages 8-16 or so, off at her house. We’d sit around her tiny living room learning to cast on, increase, decrease, cable, yarn-over and cast off while constructing a variety of garments. Everything from simple garter stitch scarves up to knit bikinis and lace dresses. Also in 1976 I made a pair of simple garter-stitch slippers out of red, white and blue variegated yarn. By the time I was in middle school my older sister, Pam was a very accomplished knitter in her own right and we didn’t go to Nella’s anymore and Pam was able to give me any guidance I needed. Pam and I just got together for lunch earlier this week and we got to reminiscing about our afternoons at Nella’s. We both are so thankful she was a part of our young lives. It’s interesting to wonder where we’d be if she hadn’t been there to teach us this skill that has been such a big part of our lives. Would we have learned to knit from someone else? Would we have done it as such a young age or would we have come to it as adults?

What women have influenced you? Did you teach yourself to sew, knit, crochet, etc? If you did, then YOU are a woman to be celebrated today! Is there someone in your life that had they not been there do you think your life would have taken a different turn? Share in the comments.

Today (and almost everyday) I want to punch Moms (okay, all parents, but for today’s lesson I will be referring mostly to Moms) who raise their daughters to think so low of themselves that the daughter will allow themselves to be treated like shit by boys just because any attention is better than no attention. These girls fall prey to boys who know how to play the sweet talking game and can spot an easy mark.

I have two teenage daughters and they tell me stories about girls at their school that curl my toes and make me want to go punch people in the throat. Girls with herpes because a scumbag guy convinced them that oral sex was “safe”. Girls getting grabbed and forcibly kissed in the hallway at school because they don’t want to hurt his feelings by telling him they aren’t “into him that way.” Not to mention the hidden victims that “disappear” for a term or year or more because they attempt suicide, get pregnant, have abortions, etc. These girls are the cutters, drinkers, druggies, but they are also the athletes, honor students, cheerleaders, church goers, Girl Scouts and they are all somebody’s daughter. They are trying to hide pain that they are feeling but don’t want anyone else to see.

But time and time again the one common denominator I see in these girls lives are parents that aren’t there for them. To tell them they are not just smart and beautiful but important and worthwhile. That having a boy like you isn’t the be all and end all of your life. That is what society has been telling these girls for generations, they need another message from home. From the people that, believe it or not, are the most important and influential people in their lives, their parents. As parents it is easy to fall into believing what we are told by the media, that by the time our daughters reach middle school, they don’t listen to us anymore and their friends, tv, movies and the internet are more influential. Bullshit. We only lose our influence and importance if we let it happen.

We stay relevant to them by staying involved. Talk to them everyday. Know who their friends are and ask about them and their lives. Keep current with what is going on in the  media and society. This doesn’t mean you have to be the “cool Mom” and dress like your daughter and hang out with her friends. Just know what they are talking about when they reference music, movies, memes and other social media things. Just don’t over do it and become that annoying “trying to be hip Mom”. Just take time to be genuinely interested and to listen. Also don’t push your daughter to be something or someone she isn’t or doesn’t want to be. If you were a dancer and gymnast but your daughter would rather be on the debate team, it’s okay. If you were a Rhodes Scholar but she is an artist and not much of an academic don’t make her feel stupid because she isn’t taking AP Calculus. If everyone else in your family is a dentist or a pediatrician but she is an outgoing, theater kid make sure she knows that it is okay and promise her that everyone will turn their pagers off when they come to see her perform.

But most importantly talk to them about things like sex, boys, drugs, drinking, etc. Sometimes I say I’m a good example to my daughters by being a bad example. When the topic has come up and my daughters were the appropriate age I was honest about these topics and how they affected my life both positively, but mostly negatively. I don’t think it will give them a free pass to do stupid things in their lives but it will give them the knowledge that if they do they can come to me and I will understand and not be judgmental. Let’s face it, as much as we’d like it, there is no way to keep our children from making mistakes. If there was they’d never learn to walk, drive, love, or grow up. Do I think my parents were bad parents or screwed up because I made a LOT of stupid choices in my young adult years? Not at all, quite the opposite, they gave me a great foundation to build on so when the rocky parts happened my life didn’t fall completely apart.

So to all those Moms out there who are blaming their daughters for ruining their lives because they never wanted to have children, and Dads who say rude and nasty things about their daughter’s bodies and make misogynistic remarks about women in front of their daughters, and parents that shelter their daughters from the realities of life so much that when faced with real life they can’t handle it, consider this your punch in the throat.  And to all the daughters of those parents, if you need a place to go to feel safe and loved, my door is open. I’ll only tease you for bad grammar.

I don’t know if I’ve written here about how much we (Sarah & I at least) love Jason Mraz. We’ve seen him in concert twice and will do it again any chance we have. He is just so good, and better live. Watch this video and if you don’t at least tear up a little, you probably aren’t human.

A local radio station is hosting an annual trip to Cancun, Mexico over the weekend of my birthday next month and Jason will be the musical guest. We REALLY want to go but the cost of the trip was way out of our budget so we resigned ourselves to just having to listen live on the radio. But they’ve been giving away trips all week on the morning radio show. I’ve tried every morning to no avail. I have one more chance tomorrow at 7:20 CST. Wish me luck!

I drove Sarah to Michigan Friday afternoon for a College Scholarship competition at Grand Valley on Saturday. We had planned to leave after school but a winter storm was forecast and we took the prudent course and left at noon. Good choice. Driving home on Saturday afternoon we went over some still snow-covered roads.

I was going to sew yesterday but I ended up spending the entire day in my pajamas on the living room couch. I alternated between reading my Kindle, watching TV and crocheting. There was also some napping interspersed throughout the day as well. I had a headache from a combination of driving in crappy weather (muscle tension) and having friends over the night before (brew flu).

Watched the Grammy Awards last night. Don’t have much to say regarding the Whitney Houston tragedy. To be honest, I was never a fan. For a few years I was actually an anti-fan, she drove me crazy. I appreciate her talent and that a lot of people idolized her and loved her music, it just wasn’t my style. Plus I had a roommate in college, freshman year that played that first album on a continuous loop for an entire term. It was torture to my Cure/Smiths/REM loving ears, I wanted to throw that tape deck through a window. I even slept in the elevator lobby one night because I couldn’t take it any longer.

I work 5 out of 6 days this week so I won’t be doing much if any sewing at home this week either. Plus our tax appointment is right around the corner so I have to get my books done for that because of course I put it off again for most of the year. I have lesson plans for my upcoming jeans class to write as well as class descriptions for a couple other classes.

What’s on your agenda for this mid-winter week? How are those bathing suits coming along? I had a post all planned for the Sew-Along but I didn’t get the photos taken on Friday as planned. Hopefully I’ll get a chance some afternoon this week.

I accomplished yet another of the projects on my priority list today. The dogs now have some nice mats for their crates. They are even personalized! They were very quick and easy to make.

Materials:

One yard each heavy denim and polar fleece. This is enough to make two mats approx. 35”x28”. I just cut each yard in half down the middle to make two pieces 36” by 30”. My two fabrics were quite the same width so I did a little trimming to match everything up. If you want them to fit perfectly into the bottom of your crate just measure the bottom pan size and add an inch to get a 1/2” seam allowance all the way around.

How To:

If you want to personalize it, hoop your denim and stitch out the name. Because this denim was so stiff I didn’t put an stabilizer in the hoop with it. I did Maizey’s first and some of the stitches weren’t as nice as I’d like them to be so when I did Cas’ I slipped a piece of Heavy Cut-Away under the hoop before I started stitching and that worked great.

Lay the denim piece out flat right side up and place fleece right side down on top of it. Smooth everything out, matching edges, trim any edges that aren’t even.

Round off the corners. I marked them with a chalk wheel and used my magnetic pin cushion as a guide. I chose to round them off to make turning them right side out easier. Pin both fabrics together. Stitch around edge, leaving an opening for turning. I used my walking foot because the fleece likes to stretch under the foot while stitching. I also lengthened my stitch length and made sure I had a jeans needle in the machine.

Turn right side out and clip excess fabric from curved corners and notch seam allowance. (I forgot to take a picture of this step.)

Topstitch approximately 1/2” from edge. Be cure to tuck in the edges of the opening so they get caught in the topstitching.

All done in a couple hour’s work. I like that they are lightweight and easy to wash. No stuffing for the dogs to chew apart and get all over the house. The fleece gives a little cushioning and the denim is durable.

Miss Maizey looks a little less than thrilled with her new digs but that is partly because I moved her crate today from one corner to another and now Cas is in the same room. She doesn’t like change.

In reality the dogs don’t spend a lot of time in their crates. Just while we are out of the house. They are still spoiled and get to sleep on our bed at night. And with my part-time hours and how early the girls get home from school they are rarely crated for more than a few hours at a time. But Cas does like his crate and will just go hang out in their for periods of time. He is also a bit of a hoarder and we will find random things hidden in there. Like the time my friend stayed over to dog sit and after we got home I was cleaning it out and found her bank card still in the envelope from the mail in his crate.

Also, does anyone else think it is weird that two Michigan State Spartans have a dog named MAIZEy? I didn’t ever realize the awkwardness until I embroidered her name in bright yellow on a blue background.

Except that I got my original braces off when I was about 14. That was 30 years ago.  And I couldn’t wait until that day came. But here I am again with a mouth half full of metal. I had braces put on my top teeth yesterday. I may or may not get them on the bottom eventually but for now I wear my TMJ appliance on the bottom at night with rubber bands pulling my bottom jaw forward. The plan right now is that I will be in braces for about two years and when it is all said and done I should be able to close my mouth with my teeth meeting properly in the back and my jaw in the proper position so I don’t continue to have jaw problems. He’s actually gradually pulling my teeth down and growing bone so my teeth meet properly. Sounds kind of painful doesn’t it? We’ll see.

Right now the biggest pain is that the insides of my cheeks are all raw from rubbing against the brackets. I guess I’ll have to put that gross wax over everything for a few days. But the best thing about this time versus the first time; I’m not in marching band anymore. I think playing a brass instrument with braces should be considered a form of capital punishment. Also my skin is a lot better now and I’m not wearing a pair of super thick eyeglasses with tinted lenses.

That’s me with  my Mom & sisters,, I’m the one closest to Mom. (I made that suit!) My sisters were already past their awkward stage, me not so much. And what’s with my hair? Looks like I slept on it funny or something. This was either Easter morning or someone’s graduation. I’m guessing it was Pam’s graduation because she was wearing Raider Red.

But this is where I started. Just look at those jacked up teeth! That’s what thumb sucking for way too many years will do to a face. That was not a home-sewn blouse but I remember it. I think it was from Montgomery Wards and I thought I was the shit in that thing. And those glasses, good Lord those glasses. I was hipster before it was hip.

For some reason all copies of the year I had the really bad perm, braces, big glasses and a permanent scowl on my face are missing. I’m sure one of my sisters has them locked away in a safe for future embarrassment.