decorating dud

When it comes to home decor, I'm somewhat of a decorating dud. 

I can pick out colors that match, clash, coordinate, etc.  That's not the problem.

I can arrange a room in a practical manner, but I just don't have an eye for home decor.

You know those women whose homes look like they could be photographed for Better Homes and Gardens or the Pottery Barn catalogue?  You know the ones.  They have unique, adorable furniture.   Knick knacks all over the place with no practicality, but they really pull the room together without making it feel cluttered?  That's not me.

However, every now and then I make an effort at adding something to our home to make it unique, and a little more ours.

That's what I did yesterday, and I've once again born my weakness for all to see.

I took a left-over bottle from some Sparkling Cider, and tried to make it into something cute to put . . . well, I don't know, but somewhere.  I hadn't planned that far ahead, but in the back of my mind, I pictured it on top of my cupboards in the kitchen, or maybe on the large entertainment center in the front room which now houses toys and games.  Whatever the subconscious plan, it doesn't matter now.

I took that bottle from this:

to this:

It's probably not as horrible as I made it sound, but it's not something really cute, either.  I tried to step outside my comfort zone and go for random . . . and this is why I don't do random.  It just looks like a sloppy, wrinkled mess.

I need help, people.  Someone tell me whether this is worth keeping? 

Should I cover it in plain brown paper, or will that make it look like I'm some kind of drunk trying to hide my bottle during biology class? 

Should I just throw it out? 

Is there something out there that I could pair it with that would make my sad, sad bottle look less out of place wherever I set it down?

Help!!

Sincerely,
the Decorating Dud

shattered illusions?

This is the story of how I may or may not have ruined Santa Claus for my son:

My baby brother is currently serving an LDS mission in Tucson, Arizona.  He checks his e-mail on Mondays, so this morning I was e-mailing him an update about the trivial things going on in our lives.  Because of the recent illness (and other things,) I have not written him since we spoke on Christmas day.

On the other hand, Troublemaker #1 is smart.  Top of his class, is what his teacher tells me.  He is in first grade, but reading on more of a 2nd-3rd grade level.

So, while I was typing out my letter, Samuel was reading over my shoulder.  While I plan to inform him at some point that this is an obnoxious habit, I like that he so enjoys reading that he reads everything in sight.  I didn't think anything of it when I typed to my brother the following sentence:

"I made Rora some dress-ups for Christmas, and I'm attaching a few pictures for you to see."

I was busy paying attention to what I was typing when Samuel asked, "You made Rora's dress-ups?"  (That's right, the dress ups that Santa brought for Rora.)  To which I responded, "Yep. . . . Wait!  No!  But I want to copy them so I can make a tutorial for my blog and show other people how to make them."

Samuel is 7, and frankly I'm a little surprised that he hasn't asked a single question that would lead us to believe he is doubting the existence of an obese man who wants nothing more than to fly in a sleigh and deliver toys to children all over the world.  I figured this past Christmas would probably be the last before he became privy to the secret we all discover around his age--that Mom & Dad are Santa Claus.

I just hate that it was me that ruined one of the most magical parts of Christmas (and his childhood) for him!

Now, I don't know exactly how much damage I've done.  I'd like to think that Samuel trusts me so explicitly that my really bad excuse is enough to satisfy his curiosity and I'll have one more Christmas with all my children believing.  But, like I said, he's a smart kid. 

I may have just ruined Santa Claus for my oldest child.  (**I'm so ashamed.**)

down and out . . . for now

Sunday, the 2nd, my sweet husband started to feel under the weather.  He was burning hot and achy.  It's not uncommon for him to get that way this time of year.  He works at night in the shipping industry, and always ends up sick either before, during, or after Christmas.  He slept in that morning and woke a few hours later his fever having broken and he claimed to feel much better.  Whew!  Dodged a bullet there!

That night, Enos was feeling achy and fevered again, but we hoped with a good night's sleep, he would again feel better in the morning. 

Monday morning dawned with troublemakers #'s 3 & 4 hacking horribly, but acting much like their energetic little selves, so we didn't worry much, except that Enos just couldn't kick whatever he had and I resigned myself to the fact that he was going to be sick and less help than normal while he tried to sleep it off over the next few days (because it turns out he is allergic to calling in sick to work.)

Tuesday morning I realized troublemaker #2 and I had caught whatever the two smaller troublemakers had (which was completely different than what Enos had.)  We were slightly congested, but nothing we couldn't power through, and so we did.

Wednesday morning: husband still sick, troublemakers 2-4 worse, and I felt like death.  I kept troublemaker #2 home from school.  By this point, we were going through Children's Tylenol and Children's Motrin like water.  We lived for when the 3-hour time period was up so that we could all take more medication (except me--I had a 4 hour wait because I'm pregnant and can only take Tylenol, which let me tell you, wasn't cutting it.)

Thursday morning, Enos slept after working all night and woke up six hours later to find me and the kids laying around the house trying not to move.  He announced that he was feeling better, made me call my doctor, and started dosing up the kids again.  My amazing doctor listened to my symptoms (achy, headache, fever, sore throat, chest congestion, difficulty breathing) and called in two prescriptions for me: an antibiotic and cough syrup with codine (both safe for me and the baby.)

Enos went to the pharmacy and came back with my drugs and more of the kids' medicine.  By this point, I hadn't cooked or cleaned in days.  Poor troublemaker #1 was the only one who didn't get sick, and was surviving almost solely on his own--and might I add, he was an angel.

Enos sent me to bed, declaring himself to be on the mend, at 4 pm and took over with the kids.  I slept until 6 am the next morning and woke feeling much better.  As the day wore on, however, it became apparent that I was not completely over whatever I had, and the troublemakers felt the same way I did - better, but by no means healed.  So, we laid around some more, watched movies, napped, and waited until bedtime when we could all pass out again for the night.

Saturday morning was a little better, but about the same as Friday.  The plus side is that by this point whatever Enos had he was over now.

Sunday, I thought we were all coming out of it when the pretty troublemaker (Rora) became extra whiny and irritable.  She spent the evening on Grandma's lap and then passed out for the entire night at home.

Monday morning, all except Rora were feeling better, and with a temperature of 103.8 degrees, I scheduled a doctor's appointment for her.  By the time we got to the office two hours later, Rora was bouncing around and I was starting to question whether the fever was just a fluke.  Turns out, Rora has strep throat, but luckily no ear infections, RSV, or pneumonia, like the last three winters.

All of this is leading somewhere, I promise.

With all that going on, I haven't posted in over a week.  Sorry.  I spent last week sick (obviously,) and this week trying to catch up on the housework I didn't do last week.  After an entire week of the dishes going uncleaned, the floors unvacuumed, the house undusted, and the laundry undone, I'm digging my way out slowly.

When I finally got up to doing dishes again, I put a load in the dishwasher, ran the cycle, and then opened the door to reveal still-dirty dishes (great.)  So, I went to the store, picked up a bunch of dishwasher cleaning products, since I was fairly sure that was the problem (we had extremely hard water where we live,) and ran it through the dishwasher.  Most of the way through the cleaning cycle, water starts spraying out of the door (ahhh!)

Last night, I pulled apart the dishwasher, cleaned 6-years-worth of limescale out of the filter, ran two more cleaning cycles through, and then finally washed a load of dishes, which came out clean!!  (Picture me with a very happy face and my chest puffed out with pride.)

Today, with kids all healthy, dishwasher fixed, and most of the rooms in the house at least basically cleaned, I am focusing on the laundry.  The regular clothes are not in too bad a shape, but after last week's illnesses, I'm also washing all the sheets, pillowcases, blankets, luv sac covers, more blankets, etc.  It all needs to be cleaned, and then I'll feel much better.

So, after a very long explanation (excuse,) I am here to tell you that I will begin sewing, cooking, crafting again this weekend, and should have something more interesting to show you again on Monday!

time crunch

Did anyone else wake up at 5:30 this morning in a panic that Christmas is 4 days away, and there is far too much sewing to do?  I did.

I think from the post about this year's Halloween costumes, you've probably gathered that I'm a procrastinator.  Remember all that flannel I bought at the Black Friday sale?  Well, it's not made into pajamas, yet.  As of this evening, I have them all finally cut out, but none of the assembly has begun.

Also on the list is the prettiest troublemakers' main gift.  She's very into dress-ups lately, and she's (hopefully) getting a whole slew of them from Santa.

Lucky for me, I have awesome parents.

My mom called me today and asked if she and my dad could take my 3 oldest troublemakers (the potty trained ones) with them to deliver Christmas pies to their siblings tomorrow.

Doesn't seem that heroic, does it?

Except when you account for the fact that this involves delivering to homes more than one hour north of our house, and roughly half an hour to the south of our house, with many stops in between.  I nearly cried when I realized I would be down to one child for several hours, which will help me make a significant dent in what needs to be done during the next 3 nights.

Thank goodness for the little miracles!

admitting defeat

Remember how I was sewing along with Jill to make a gorgeous heirloom advent calendar?

Well, today is the day to start using said calendar, and I have a panel with pockets on it and four (yes, I said four) ornaments that don't even have loops to hang on the non-existent tree with cute little buttons all over it.  Hmmm.  That's not going to work.

I stress myself out about things like this, especially since I specifically mentioned the project as a motivational tool to keep myself on track.

So, one of my constant, life-long resolutions is to recognize when I'm in over my head and just let something go without letting it stress me out or make me feel guilty.

Here we go: deep cleansing breath, realize that the calendar can be next year's project, eat a cookie.

There.  I feel better.  Don't you?

And now I'm going to let you delve deeper into my psychological issues . . . isn't this fun?!

One of the reasons I have a hard time letting things go is because I have a need for people to like me, and I don't want to be perceived as lazy.  So, when it comes time to let something go, I wonder, "If I just kicked my body into a higher gear and stayed up late for the next few days, couldn't I still get it all done?"  Then, I only let things go when I realize that there aren't enough hours in the day.

Well, this time, I have an outside motivating factor: I have developed a parasite.  A life-sucking, energy draining, nauseating parasite.  I've had this parasite now for about five months, and it is expected to make its arrival late-March or early-April.

That's right, I'm pregnant, and exhausted all. the. time. 

That means that my body is constantly in that higher gear (busy growing a whole person,) even when I'm sitting on the couch eating pumpkin pie and watching The Polar Express with my kids.  There is no energy left over for staying up late and finishing up a project for now.  I can barely keep the little clothes clean that my troublemakers require to keep from freezing to death during this winter, let alone make tiny clothes for felt snowman ornaments!

The up side of this development is that I will soon be making tiny clothes in which a new little person will come home from the hospital--a set for a boy and a set for a girl because this little baby will be a surprise!

fabric pumpkins

There are a lot of pumpkin ideas out there on the internet, so I thought I'd throw mine into the mix.

I'm proud to say that I made my own pattern . . . perfected through trial and error.

I'll show you the ones that went horribly wrong--because they're good for a laugh:

Contestant #1:

The idea behind this one was that if I made the sections twice as wide, the pumpkin would end up shorter and fatter.  Unfortunately, you can see that the middle of each segment was not tall enough, so I made more of a mutant star fish than anything else!


Contestant #2:

With this one, I was trying to create that crease that runs between segments on a real pumpkin, so I put a dart on each side of each segment.  Let's just say this was not what I had in mind . . .

Turns out my best option was to make a ball, then run a string from the bottom to the top, and back again.  Then I tied them tightly, which pulled the ends toward each other, creating the dimples on the top and bottom.  After that, I added a stem.

And then made three more.

They make me happy!

high altitude sugar cookies

I've made this recipe before, and I love it because it's the first sugar cookie recipe I've found that was already adjusted for high altitude, which is a must for someone living in Utah.

I searched for a long time for this recipe because every other sugar cookie recipe I'd tried came out like puddles of mush.  They didn't hold their shape when I used cookie cutters, and I couldn't figure out how to make them right.

I tried adjusting by putting more flour in, but then they tasted like . . . well, flour.  They held their shape, but weren't any good to eat.

I did a google search for high altitude recipes, and I wish I could remember where I got this one, but I found it after trying several.  (If this is your recipe, please let me know so I can give you credit!)

**Edited: I found the blog with the recipe I used.  Check out High Altitude Cooking!!

I wanted something simple to share for my first "real" post on my new blog, and I'm thinking this might be a bad omen, but in the interest of full disclosure, I'm posting it anyway.

First, I'll share the recipe, and hopefully, you'll make it, it'll come out beautifully, and then I'll share what happened:

High Altitude Simple Sugar Cookies


1 cup butter (softened)
1 cup sugar
1 large egg
1-1/2 tsp vanilla
3 cups flour
1-1/4 tsp baking powder


Directions:
1.  Cream together butter and sugar until smooth.
2.  Mix in egg and vanilla.
3.  In a separate bowl, combine flour and baking powder.
4.  Add flour mixture to wet ingredients in intervals, mixing between.
5.  Divide dough into 4 parts and refridgerate for 1 hour.
6.  Roll out dough between two pieces of wax paper to 1/4-1/2 inch thickness.
7.  Cut shapes and arrange onto a cookie sheet.
8.  Bake for 7-8 minutes at 375 degrees.

or

6.  Spoon 1 inch balls onto a cookie sheet.
7.  Bake for 7-8 minutes at 375 degrees.



Done baking?

Okay, read on . . .

I started this recipe at night, and by the time the 1 hour refrigeration was done, I was too tired to bake them, so I just left them in the fridge until morning. 

The next morning, I decided to make round sugar cookies, so I spooned balls onto a cookie sheet and baked them.

What you are looking at are the baked cookies--not the unbaked cookies!

They didn't flatten out!!  (Picture me with my brow furrowed and my head cocked to one side.)

I still can't figure out why.  Anybody? 

Too long in the fridge?

On the plus side, they were slightly doughy inside, which is how my husband likes them anyway.

And the troublemakers enjoyed them:

Including the smallest troublemaker!

Aren't kids wonderful?!  My five-year-old actually told me they were delicious!