The End of Face-to-Face Verbal Communication...

I dedicate this post to my Mom and sister, who asked told me not to blog about them, so of course I had to.




Twitter. Facebook. Myspace. Skype. Etsy Forums. Texting.

I miss people. I miss peoples expressions, interesting character, and really f-ing stupid things I get to witness them doing. Instead people get to witness me look like a jackass. As I fail to work Skype correctly. Tweet to myself, which is much like the talking to myself I've always done except now I have willing witnesses to my madness. Fill out surveys on Myspace answering questions that I'm sure no one gives a shit about. Text so much with my fancy little slide-y phone that I actually have friends whose voices I haven't heard in weeks yet I still know what they've been up to. Partly from stalking Facebook.

Here I sit, talking on Skype. Ten minutes into the 'conversation' we are still trying to figure out why all 4 of us can't hear each other. Is it me? Am I the one messing it up?! Oh yes. It sure is. Oops. One Skyper gives up, she doesn't want to talk to us in alien voices and is going to bed. One down, can we get it to work with 3?

My sister's Skype avatar wears a straight-jacket. It's a little South Park-ish with demon wings. Probably with good reason. Hahaha.

Mine is a question mark. I haven't changed it because it's so fitting for me and my relationship with Skype.


Somehow my sister's cat joins the conversation.

Sis: What are you typing?
Me: A blog post. About this conversation.
Mom: Be nice. I don't think Delainie should be allowed to play Skype anymore. What are you saying about us? Now I don't want to talk because she's going to blog about it.
Me: I'll stop. Mom, TALK.
Mom: I hear you! Click click click click!
Sis: Stop typing or Mom's not gonna talk to us anymore.
Me: Slow down! I can't type that fast!
Mom: I'm not talking anymore.
Sis: You 2 are wrecking Sykpe for me!!

Then something about ass gaskets. And stealing them. And folding them all OCD style so they are prepared for the next pee stop.

I love my family. Even if they are ass gasket theives. Even if they made fun of me for not knowing what an ass gasket is. Do you? I thought it'd be like a fart filter... but those don't exist or my husband would have one. Now I've got the mental picture of fart filters. And having to go in for a fart filter fitting. Eek.

This post was supposed to have an actual valid point about the end of face-to-face communication, but we Skyped for so long that I forgot where I was even going with this. And they refused to continue talking if they could hear me typing. No matter what lame excuse I used about typing something else and that they weren't THAT funny. But they are, and they made me forget. I'm posting this anyway since they were oh-so-scared I was going to embarrass them or be mean to them. Which I would never do. Come on now.

I just wanna see them face-to-face, ya know?

Now I'm off to share this. In 140-characters or less of course.

The Procrastinators Spring Cleaning...

As I clean this closet I'm left with a few questions.

1. WHY do I own 14 black shirts? They aren't that different from the next and 4 still have tags. One I wouldn't ever wear so I have no flippin idea why I own it. I used to have a job where I was required to wear black every day. I didn't own 14 black shirts then!

2. When did I buy a pink caridgan sweater? I mean it's not that ugly if I were to dress up as Conservative Barbie for Halloween, but otherwise, ewww. I could pair it with the high-waisted, eggplant purple, satin bridesmaid skirt I found in there. Why God, WHY? Unfortunately the pink sweater is in the keeper pile since it's slim pickins on winter wear for me here. Why do I own so many ugly winter clothes?? I seem to recall wearing the same 3 fur lined hoodies just about everyday last winter because they were warm. Who cares if it was the same shirt in 3 colors? Every. Single. Day. I was warm.

I'm having a fashion crisis here. I'm going to be found on What Not To Wear someday and all 3 weeks of secret-spy-footage I'll be in Ninja Pants and an Aero hoodie. And at least half that time in moon boots too I bet. This is a catastrophe! Someone needs to dress me.

3. Do I truly need the same slim-fit tshirt in 15 colors? I make fun of my sister for buying what she likes in every color and here I am doing the same thing!

4. Ninja Pants. I make them, I sell tons of them, I loooooooove them. Never worn pants more comfortable. I want to kick my own ass everyday for not making them sooner so I could have spent more of my life in perfect wide-legged comfort. But why do I need 20+ pairs in every color and pattern? Half of these I don't even wear or have worn to death. And again, 5 pairs in black? Why??

5. Why do I keep all these fabric scraps? Cottons ok, I've been quilting, but what about all this random stuff? I've got bags and bags of it. And I didn't part with it today.

*Sigh* So my closet is fairly clean. I give up now. 12 hours of cleaning, sorting, tossing things later and I can do no more. I have no more to say about my mess.

****Very soon I am planning on doing my first ever blog giveaway!! So keep checking back! As soon as I have the kinks worked out and the legal BS in line, I'm giving stuff away!!****

Front Page!

I was on Etsy's Front Page twice in the last month and didn't even know it! This makes me happy. The front page thing, not that I'm out of the loop with where my own items are being featured. The pouch sold that day! The rug unfortunately is still chilling out in my closet. I shouldn't say unfortunately because someday, if no one ever buys it, and the kids are older, and I have my own room that people stay out of, I will keep it for myself. Of course, only I can walk on it. Ha! Everyday I think how good it would look right inside my front door, then I shudder at the thought of it getting muddy, snowy, and salty. This is Michigan afterall. I guess I'm stuck with my big, ugly, boring black boot mat.

100th Post!

This is my 100th blog post! Yay me for sticking with this thing!

Now on to my post that has nothing to do with me making 100 posts since I just found out as I logged in ...

First -- Things I've Learned This Week
* Little owwies bleed bad.
* Canada has a much more interesting transportation than my area of the U.S.
* The fixing of railroad ties is quite interesting.
* Trains without graffiti do unfortunately exist.
* Many people don't agree with my views on graffiti. Oh well. I think it's beautiful.
* I've watched (and analyzed) far too much Mighty Machines Construction Trucks with Little D. Obviously.
* There's not much I dislike more than being "shhhh-ed" by a 4 year old.
* It IS possible to spend hours daydreaming about a house I can't afford based soley on the existence of a catwalk and the potential to have a store IN my house.
* Redbox is a great concept. I think I'm in love. And watching Coraline tomorrow morning.
* Payless doesn't suck this year. Dave and I BOGO-ed the other day. I found realllly cute red shoes. I feel like Dorothy -only less glittery.
* Don't order a 'golden margarita' at Brewsters. They're nasty. That's not what I wanted anyway.
* My sis living in KY sucks. BUT, they do have clearance designer fabrics at Hancocks there.
* My sis living in KY rules. ONLY because she surprised me with a box of these designer fabrics. One so awesome I squealed. For real. Like a little fabric lovin piggy.

Ok ok I may go on all day. I swear, I start every post with nothing to say and then write a flippin novel.

Anyway.

I might have to start making quilts! The response to them has been amazing! Thank you to everyone who commented, tweeted, emailed, convoed, Facebooked, Myspaced, etc.! I even got the downlow on some friends that haven't told anyone else they are expecting yet, except ME, so they can get on the list for a quilt. *evil grin* I know and YOU don't. Ha.

People pretty much know by now that when I get a project idea working, I will make a few, and then I'm done. I might make the item again sometime, I might never make it again. Slowly my friends are learning that you gotta get in when the gettins good. There's no waiting here! I wish I was able to make everything I create custom, but man, some days I just don't feel like it! When that happens I start enjoying my creations less and that's not why I work for myself. I work for myself doing what I do so I can make what I want when I want. And start working at noon. And wear flip flops to work. Or pjs if I so choose. And flat out skip work some days to go to the beach. That's right Mom, I DID find a job that I can do all that. Even after all those years of you telling me to grip reality and real jobs don't work that way. You're right a lot Mom, I find great happiness in getting my chance. Love you :)

I spent a nice chunk of this week/weekend sewing. I got a really cool patchwork-y tote bag made that I still need to photograph, and 6 new Itty Bitty Snap Pouches! I'm itching to make some pinafores with some of my new awesome fabric too. I had linings for a bunch already cut out, but I did something crazy and cleaned and now I can't find them. So pouch crazy I went...

One more day of my 4 day vacation. I'm hoping to finish an AWESOME Slapdash Clutch. I had lots and lots of requests for longer clutches but I have a hell of a time finding longer frames at a reasonable price. I wandered the mall with big Dave the other day and found a great one -- on clearance -- and as soon as I find exactly the right fabric it will be awesome. I am saving it from it's gaudy destiny as a leopard print sequin clutch. No surprise here that it was on clearance.

I shouldn't admit that I also bought leggings at the gaudy clothes store I found the clutch at. Yes, leggings. Wtf Delainie. I swore I would not welcome this trend back and now look at me! Then I tried them on and thought "hey, these are actually cute!" and tried on a bunch of other crap from my closet to see what they go with. I need an intervention. Or a really cute hoodie dress from American Apparel.

I Made An Etsy Commercial! Come See!

A Picture Crazy Morning

Today I took the kidlets to the park. I love going to the park. We have a playground at home that I hate. It's boring and David ALWAYS leaves covered head to toe in dirt no matter what. We have a swing set and a huge yard full of goodies at Ali's house, but it's still just not the same as a trip to a park. A new playground. New fun!

He's a happy kid! He spun us so fast I thought I'd yak.
I couldn't even get a non-blurry picture!

Still smiling, but smartly hanging on for dear life.

Cheesin while on the see-saw. I always called these tetter-totters.
David won't let me though. Both are weird names in my opinion.

Look Lainie! No hands!
We played on this thing a loooong time!

We took a walk on the railroad tracks over the river too.
This kinda scares the snot out of me as a mother of a risky kid and a klutz.
No one fell in so it was all good. And BEAUTIFUL.
Somewhere along the way David cut his foot and ended up bleeding all over me.

Ice cream cured the pain and he forgot he was bleeding.
I was still concerned. The ice cream lady gave us a bandaid.
That ice cream should've been good enough to make me forget.

And the highlight of our walk!

We got into town just in time to see not 1, not 2, but 3!! dumpsters get emptied.
When I showed David that I took this picture he simply said

"Mom, you are really really cool. I love you."

Mom's happy. Kids are happy (and tired - yay naptime!).
David's cut is just a tiny super-bleeder, so that's all good.
It's only 12:30 and today has been so wonderful.
I'm counting my blessings that this is how I get to spend my days. :)

I Did It Again!

I can't stop! I'm a quilting addict already! I still don't care for machine quilting all that much, but I'm learning what my machine likes to do and what it doesn't. It likes to do loopy random quilting. It doesn't like to quilt in straight lines, which I stupidly assumed would be easier. It hates binding. Sounds like a machine gun trying to sew through it and I'm going to end up with a busted machine. I just can't stop though! This just isn't the right machine for this kind of work.

I made another quilt today anyway! It was supposed to be the mini-quilt but I made it larger than I should've. Got a little carried away :) I took out every quilting stitch twice before I thought it was good enough. *Phew*

I might make one more quilt before I stop beating the hell out of my machine. This one would be for me :) And BIIIG! I already picked out my fabrics, just need to wait on the funds for a bit till I can get started. What do you think? I might throw in a couple other random fabrics with these, depends what's left in my stash. I hope I can find them all when the time comes!

On a side note, if you're in the northern Michigan area this weekend and want to hear some excellent music with some excellent people, you should check out the Hoxeyville Music Festival! I was planning to spend the whole weekend there, but that won't be happening anymore. Time, funds, babysitters, and whatnot. I should not have looked at the Hoxey schedule, now I want to go even more! I might just have to make it work and take my boy with me for just Sunday. Robert Bradley's Blackwater Surprise and Shout Sister Shout at the same time though... I just need both! Follow that up with a little Four Finger Five, half a set each of The Macpods and May Erlewine.... then watch my kid FREAK OUT when he finally gets to see Greensky Bluegrass again! Oooh I might have to go to this! :)

Quilts!

I tried my hand at quilting! It's intimidating and at times frustrating. However, both quilts turned out beautiful! I used up a LOT of my stash of favorite fabrics. Lots of designer prints, a few vintage prints, and a few just random quilter's cottons.

On Wednesday I managed to cut out 300+ squares, using scissors NOT a rotary cutter. Proving I am insane. Took forever.

I was so hesitant to cut up all my favorite fabrics since I have a tendency to start projects that I never finish. I didn't want to waste them all! Luckily Quilt #2 is a gift to a very dear friend of mine, so I had no choice but to finish it. Quilt #1 is mine. There was no way I could make a quilt from all my faves and not keep one for myself. I'll attempt to keep #1 in pristine condition since #2 is going to spend the beginnings of its life being drooled and spit up on.

I made up the stitch pattern for the quilting. Just kinda haphazardly drew all over the back with dressmaker's chalk and started stitching with the longest straight stitch my machine would do. It took hours less than I assumed it would take! It's not as bunchy as this picture makes it look. I can't wait to wash and dry them and give them that crinkly cozy quilt feel. I may just have to make a queen size quilt after all. Of course, after all that work, there's no way I'd let anyone sleep with it.

I'm going to roll this beauty up and put it in the coordinating fabric basket I blogged about in my last post. I'm hoping to throw in a super soft and cute sock monkey from The Monkey Shop and a bib (at least) from MomNMiaQuilts as well. I'm sure I'll find plenty more goodies that need to go in there too! I ran out of binding, so I ordered some more. I hope it gets here very soon so I can give this to her when she comes to Michigan at the end of the month!

As you saw in my last post, I made 2 fabric baskets. One is for another dear friend of mine whose having baby #2 in November. Before her first was born, I made an itty bitty 'quilt' for him. It wasn't quilted really, more of a backed patchwork blanket that I did a horrific job of binding. I'm wayyy too harsh of a critic when it comes to my own work. "OMG a pucker! Why did I give this to her? I should've made it perfect!" I've known her so long, of course she deserves nothing but the best, right?

Anyway. Since I've been really busy I made it a point to ask her what she'd like me to make for this baby, in case she had something in mind. She wants another mini-blanket! Her first son loved his so much, she said she took it everywhere since it was perfect size to lay him down on anywhere. He sleeps with it every night even now that he's bigger, and it's perfect because he does NOT like anything on his feet or he wakes up instantly, and the mini is now too small to cover them. Feels so good to know she/they like it so much. Makes me feel like a dumbass for doubting it so much though. Lucky for her I've got a ton of pink fabric scraps for #2's mini blanket. To be started right now...

The Game Masters.

Today I sewed. A lot. I'll post my great quilting success story sometime tomorrow when I get a decent picture!

I took a few breaks from my sewing today to do some fun stuff with my boy. Ok ok, some of it was only fun for me. We took a trip to the fabric store (my third trip there in 24 hours) and later met up with big Dave and Uncle John to go to the arcade.

We all zipped around the race track a couple times...

Uncle Jon proved he is the Ticket Master and King of Big Haul... we got a wooden snake, a squishy jelly frog whose brain pops out when you squeeze him, and a whoopie cushion with those 650 tickets. FYI He used ONE token to get that fat stack. The whoopie cushion was big fun as farts usually are. Mostly for the big kids. Jon and I sat outside a while and made sure every neighbor that walked by thought we were disgusting.

I should've taken a picture of the possessed air hockey table, but alas, I always forget the good stuff. For some reason it only counted about every other of big Dave's goals. It forced the win, 9-2, and it was awesome. A victory is still a victory in my book and I am the still reigning Queen of Air Hockey.

Tags!

This post is dedicated to Jenna from jennadesigns. She is so sweet and talented, always inspiring, motivating, and sharing great ideas! She's one of my fave Twitter folks and I love her blog (even when she's not blogging about me haha!). She has a fabulous Etsy shop and a great eye for fabrics and detail. I think if there wasn't a big lake separating us, we'd probably hang out everyday. :) Go check out her shop... then come back so I can brag about her more.

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It was great wasn't it? I especially love her sachets with the little birds on them and her photography - it's absolutely stunning! She recently posted a great tutorial for fabric tags that I HAD to try! My tags turned out great! I was able to make 600 tags for a mere $6!! I've also developed a serious obsession with printable fabric. I'm even researching printers since mine is broken and I MUST make more tags and design my own fabric. I've always have a billion ideas for fabric I want, I just have never had the means to print it myself. I changed a few things when I made mine. I used Microsoft Word instead of PS, had a different brand of printer fabric, and didn't set it like I should have. Luckily it's not too late to set it! Also, it says on the back of the printer fabric to only use one sheet at a time. For whatever reason all of the printers I tried said they were out of paper with only one sheet in there. Seemed to work out fine with 2-3 sheets in there. So if you try this and have the same problem, stop following the directions on the packaging and do as I say. :)


The awesomeness doesn't stop there! She also pointed me towards a blog tutorial to make awesome fabric baskets. See Jenna's here. I've been wanting to make these since she first showed me, but just got around to it yesterday. I should really not be sharing this since they are both gifts to a couple wonderful pregnant friends of mine. I'm going to stuff them full of baby goodies. I changed the pattern a bit by enlarging the squares to 3"x3" and making 3 rows so they turned out more like tote bags than baskets, but oh well. I have to be able to fit a large gift I'm making (that I can't share quite yet) in there!

I just love how they turned out! So bright and cheery! I might make a couple of the smaller version for them too so they can serve the original purpose I had in mind. A basket for all those little baby things that tend to get lost if not kept in one place. Nail clippers, butt cream, extra pacis, thermometers, etc. I'd have lost everything without a basket for it all. Lack of sleep makes me forget where things are. Babies cause a lack of sleep. It's a downward spiral from there. lol.

Enough about me and what I've made lately...

I was lucky enough to meet my husband's nieces from TN last week. All 4 girls are so sweet, it was nice to meet them! The oldest is 15, and loves to draw. I didn't know she was drawing me till she was almost done, but she did, and it's AMAZING. I oohed and ahhed over her whole notebook for a while. I so wish I could draw!! Here is her version of my son and I:


It's pretty accurate too considering most of the time her family was here David was hanging on me and crying. I think she wanted to keep it in her notebook but I shamelessly begged for it. It's framed on the wall in my living room right now, I had to get a frame that night! I also realized that I don't have any art on my living room walls that isn't local. I know the creator of each piece I have and it makes me happy to know so many talented people that have given/sold me pieces that all mean so much to me. I am a lucky lady. :)

Dumpsters.

My kid is weird. I mean, he comes by it naturally having a nut for a Mom, but wow.

A while back he was really into garages. Everything around him could in some way be made into a garage door. He'd hold it by the edges and 'open and close' the makeshift garage door in front of his face, over and over and over. Actually, he still does this. He's just a little choosier about what gets to be a garage door these days. Now his fascination has moved to dumpsters. Of all things, why dumpsters? I never realized how many dumpsters are around. It makes me sad to think of how much waste we all make. There are 6 dumpsters on my short walk from home to the post office. You better believe we visit every single one of them on our walks.

Today I spent a good chunk of time making some fabric baskets (that I promise to blog about as soon as I get pictures!) and was ready to put everything away, when I asked my son if there was anything he wanted before I cleaned up. Silly me, I knew he'd say a dumpster! So using a similar technique as the baskets I had just made, I whipped up a little blue dumpster for him.

The little brown toy dumpster was a gift from my boss. She made up some story to the guy that gave it to her about using it for her daughter's dollhouse, instead of for her babysitter's dumpster obsessed son. He is madly in love with it and fills it with all kinds of crap. When the lid (or as he calls it, "the hood") doesn't close all the way that means the dumpster is "crazy" and results in fits of giggles. I made him little trash bags as well, but they aren't as cool as throwing away a car I guess.

Since taking this picture we added 2 big navy blue buttons as the wheels and a big gold iron-on "BFI". Who knew 4 year olds had a preference in their trash service? He's insisting I add this picture also.

How wrapped around a kid's little finger does one have to be to jump up and leave the air conditioned house to go to the dollar store for iron-on letters right now when the humidity is 90% and my car has morphed into a Dodge Sauna? It is pretty darn cute for a dumpster...

Camping Fun!

I finally got to go camping! I have been ridiculously busy and Dave's still on 3rd shift, so it just hasn't happened. A friend of my Mom's borrowed her camper for the week then couldn't stay the whole week. So my mom had a spot, paid for, and all set up and ready for David and I to come out to Tuesday night! Way too easy :)

Tuesday night was COLD! Remind me, it's August right? Summertime? The season formerly known as HOT? I was also sharing this rock hard bed with my son, who is quite the bed and blanket hog for being so small. It amazes me how much room he can take up when he wants to. It brings me back to the days when my parents had a camper and we would haul it up to Higgins Lake, or somewhere else as beautiful in MI, and I had to share a bed with my sister. We shared the top bunk and I just didn't wanna. I taught myself to sleep all sprawled out. They all called it Helicopter Sleeping. I was looking for a Plan B since Mom and Dad usually just made her deal with it instead of moving her to one of their beds so I could sleep alone like I wanted to. Maybe they were on to me from the very beginning? They've always been pretty smart like that. It still pissed my sister off, which at the time was acceptable consolation. Sorry Sis!

Did I mention my kidlet didn't go to bed till around midnight? My Mom almost split us up since we act like a couple of kids when we should be sleeping. He got up bright and early to make bacon and french toast with Grandma and I got to SLEEP IN! It was a beautiful morning.

We spent the day at the beach while G-ma went to run some errands. Later in the day, we helped some kids catch fish using hot dogs and Twizzlers as bait. Our site was right across from the boat launch, so it was pretty much Kid City. All Kid City inhabitants were armed with long poles and sharp hooks. I was slightly neurotic in the middle of it all. I blame this on being hooked in the cheek around age 10. Not fun. Kinda traumatic considering it was over 18 yrs ago and I still wish fishing involved helmets like some other sports that I also hate.

My big Dave showed up in the evening- that was a nice surprise! He grilled us some delicious steaks! Since he showed up, my Mom decided to go home for the night. (For the record, my Mom and Hub have a great relationship, she was only camping because she had the free spot, and wanted us to have a night together.) So she went home and we got an impromptu first family-only camping trip! It was such a lovely time! We built up a big fire and made some S'mores. It was little David's first S'more (that I know of, G-ma's always been a fan of in-the-house S'mores, so he's probably had those.) He took about 45 minutes to eat a single one, savoring every teeny tiny bite. All that nibbling must've finally wore him out since he ASKED to go to bed at 10:30. Poor little guy couldn't make it another second. He did very well going to sleep alone in the dark camper, giving his Dad and I some time to hang out. It was great since that rarely happens anymore!

Look who remembered to take at least a few pictures!! Go me!

Look at that big smile!

Eating his first S'more! He hasn't stopped talking
about how delicious they were. He's been recommending them to everyone! :)

David took nearly an hour to eat his, and big Dave barely
tasted his as he inhaled it. I managed to get him to save a bite for a picture!

Things I learned:
* Bacon fat catches more fish than hot dogs.
* Twizzlers do actually catch fish.
* I should open a baitshop at Yankee Springs. Those kids don't quit!
* Yankee Springs Campground is louder than where I live. In the city.
* Baby catfish are super cute.
* I need to get a coffee maker for next time, I missed my coffee today.
* If this was my boy's first S'more at age 4, I am a slacker.
* If you are looking for quiet don't camp here. I got up at 6am for some quiet this morning.
* "If this campers a-rockin..." jokes to my Mom as she leaves embarrasses big Dave. Funny and worth it.