Busy-ness

Well, there goes the time for the therapeutic writing :). This past month has been busy busy (of course). I've barely gotten any writing done (although I've done some storyline editing in my head! tiny progress!) and although I still have some older pictures to post, I have literally been kicking the same picture around in my head for over a MONTH waiting to get it down on paper. Then I finally managed to take my sketch book out on the porch with me and laid out a few basic lines while Seraphyna laid on her pillow and we watched the kids run around in the yard, massive storms started brewing and we had to quickly pack it in and make possible tornado plans. As much as I'm dreading a repeat of last summer, I am just in love with the weather and ambience this spring. The weather is a beautiful, energetic 67-82 degrees and everything is green and lush and growing. The warmest day so far, of course, was the day of Med Faire. Although we were all quite miserable and sporting a crimson sheen by the end of the day, the days since have been wonderful and mild. There is a lot of energy to the air, and a lot of storms.....including a very sudden tornado that devastated part of husband's hometown. None of his family or friends were injured, although a few lost part or all of a house. Although I could do without the swirling vortices of doom, the precipitation has been heavenly, especially as a contrast to last year's dry barren never-ending summer. I dare to hope that we may actually have a lighter summer this year.

I will have to put a separate post up with all the things I have going in the sewing department, but I will say I DID get our Med Faire costumes completed at about 5am the morning of (6 whole hours before our tentative leaving time!) and everyone looked great :). I am inordinately proud of Seraphyna's outfit, which was made with no pattern. I usually do not make outfits or costumes for babies and they are HARD to measure!! It's either too tight or it's so loose it falls off. It's like making something fit a floppy, gelatinous, grinning octopus. Her outfit was so perfect though: loose fitting and airy, but completely covering her limbs from the sun, and the elastic around the neck kept it from going everywhere.

Once again, I find myself merely one week before a sewing deadline, and I haven't even started yet. Rowan and Lachlan's birthday party is next Sunday, and I haven't even cut out their pajamas yet. It is my goal to make everyone a sewn item as part of their birthday gift, in fact I would like to make this a yearly tradition, but it really snuck up on me this time. For Rowan, he will have Star Wars print pajama pants with a coordinating shirt, and for Lachlan he will have alligators. He would probably prefer something with cars or trains, but his lovey is a gigantic stuffed alligator that we have named "Om", so Mark happened upon a piece of fabric with animals on it (including an alligator) and I have an alligator patch I'm going to put on a shirt to go with the pants I'm making out of the fabric.

Husband is still reeling from the tornadic activity from this weekend and is trying to nap it off, so it's just me tonight with Lachlan (Seraphyna, angel baby that she is, is already down for the night). I'm trying to make myself get started writing or drawing, and not get lost in ridiculous youtube all night. I have music from The Guild as my anthem tonight. They have a new one out that I love love and it keeps going through my head (i might be playing all three of their songs over and over........ahem). http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jFhgupR565Q is the video for their newest (NSFW lyrics). If Sir I-Have-to-Stand-on-Everything-You're-Doing wasn't up, I'd try and cut out pjs....but as it is, it will probably be computer time. Maybe I'll get ambitious and try and figure out the scanner so I can upload artwork. I need to figure out how to finish drawings so they don't all look like a scratchy mess. Well that concludes my blogtime tonight, at least according to Sir I-Have-to-Crawl-In-and-Out-of-Your-Lap-and-Give-You-a-Hug-a-Hundred-Times. /sigh.

Why I Love My Husband

Saturday early afternoon, we went to the Tandy Leather Company for husband to get a new buckle for his chainmail belt (the other one broke). It was a small-ish store with lots of exciting things to look at for the kids, and it was a little hectic as they were having a moving sale. Usually I take Seraphyna in the sling and Lachlan goes in a rolling containment device (either a stroller or cart) but there just wasn't enough room for one in there, so husband held Lachlan. I almost immediately had to take two kids to the bathroom and handed off Seraphyna so I could as well, so here he is holding a toddler and a baby and trying to corral 3 walking kids. When I came back, Seraphyna had spit up on his shoulder and Lachlan was wiping his runny nose on his other shoulder :). I took Rowan and the other kids, and we shopped. Not once did he lose his cool or complain about toting around a kid in each arm, both of them dirtying his clothes. We ended up with the belt buckle, some small leather kits for the kids, and a bag of scrap leather to make into pouches for Med Faire. All the way home we happily chattered about ideas for the leather and what kinds of things we and the kids would make. He had to leave soon after we got home, but we sat together and talked with him holding me in the few minutes we had, then a round of hugs and kisses all around (times 7!) and off he went to work.

Just one moment in many where he balances father to seven and husband to a strange wife gracefully and with ease.

Inadequate

I've taken a thousand pictures. I have tried different angles, lighting, settings, and distances. I've gotten different expressions, motions, looking straight at the camera, away, focusing on her tiny fists held up for observation, and intensely gazing into my eyes. I've taken pictures of her dark brown hair wisping around her ears, her grey-blue eyes, her puckered mouth, her little fingers, and her chubby cheeks. But nothing comes even close to her vibrancy, how *alive* she feels as you look at her, as she looks at you, completely trusting you. More than trust: it's as if the word trust does not exist, because it implies that there could be an opposite. She lives in a world where she can never imagine harm, pain, or anything but love, devotion, warmth, and kind words. No camera can capture her intensity, her intelligence, her innocence, her knowing. But more than that, no one else could see it either. No one will ever see or feel her as vibrantly and as real as I can. No one can ever see a child through the eyes of her mother.

I am afraid that no matter how many pictures I take, I will forget her just as she is, right now.

Innocent and perfect.

A Recap of January

Well for my first month's worth of goals, I think I did pretty good. Here's the recap:

SEWING: One skirt and head scarf for Lilith.One pair of black fleece pants
for Lachlan.Fabric purchased to make my sister a laptop cover.Purchased
a shirt pattern for the boys.

FOOD STORAGE/PRESERVING: several dozen egg
rolls made and frozen. Not sure on the final count, but I believe I went through
4 pkgs, totalling about 65-70 wrappers. 10 lbs of chicken quarters boiled,
deboned, and separated into 4 meals of shredded chicken

SIMPLIFYING: 1 trash bag of clothes, one of toys, and 2 walmart bags of socks
out

REUSED/RE-PURPOSED: two adult-sized skirts re-sized for the
girls

WORDS WRITTEN ON STORY: 1591 plus one illustration uploaded


I admit, I procrastinated on the cleaning out of stuff. I didn't get one bag out per week, I got one bag here, one there, and then the sock ones on the last weekend. But this month, I'm already ahead :D.

I'm going to add one more goal to this list, and I'm going to challenge Mark with it too: No more "drive-by parenting". No yelling from the other room to stop fighting, no throwing answers to questions over my shoulder, it's time to engage with the kids and treat them like human beings instead of something I "have" to referee or give cursory attention to. I'm going to clear off the sidebar and we'll see how things go from there.

Goodwill

Yesterday we got a small haul from the local Goodwill. I remember when I was too good to shop at the Goodwill. It doesn't matter that some of my fondest memories from childhood was recieving a big bag of hand-me-downs from one of Mom's friends and spending an hour sorting through clothes that were often nicer and definitely more unique than "cheap shirt and pants from Walmart".

That all changed one late winter when we lived in North Carolina. Now when we lived in Florida, Mark made a relatively decent hourly wage, then made almost double that in commissions from all the special orders he made. It was FL, it was that busy and ppl had money to spare. But the cost of living was just ridiculous. It was also smoggy, crowded, high crime rate, and we longed to be able to breathe again. So we moved to NC, with him keeping the same job and just transferring stores. When we got there, we were in for a shock: NC was much slower, and he lost almost all his commission money. But they still thought they were fancy, and the cost of living was EXACTLY the same. So now we were stuck, with ridiculously high bills, and literally half the income. We started out doing fairly well for ourselves for the first time, and left the next year with our tails between our legs running back to Oklahoma. But I digress.

I couldn't even afford to buy the kids clothes to wear that year. We made do in the winter with buying one sweatshirt and one pair of pants each, then donations from friends. In the spring I sucked it up and hit the Goodwill. Thanks to them, I clothed three kids for a season for under $30, plus buying my first Boppy pillow (same one I still have :) ).

When we moved back to OK it took me awhile to get friendly with the Goodwill again. But the past couple of years we have found some real treasures: a brand new wool coat for Mark for $8 (at least $100 new), 3 piece suits, fancy dresses, tons of stuff for pennies on the dollar. I have no problem carting my legion of kids into the Goodwill now and leaving with clothes nicer than we could usually afford. I can't get everything there: pants or clothes for kids younger than 5 are usually a lost cause. Shoes are hit and miss (mostly miss becuase I don't like getting used shoes for little feet). But we do pretty good there. Last night we ended up with 3 girls' shirts, one dress, and two adult-sized skirts that I'm going to size down for the girls. Both of these skirts are in excellent condition but are way too small for me. And both fullfill my "repurpose" goal for the month. I just need to get elastic and the girls will have two brand new skirts for about $3 each and very little work on my part. (Lilith's will be the rainbow paisley and Ivy's the white with navy flowers)

Next month's repurpose goal is going to involve a lot of using old sheets. I am going to get some new sheets for our bed, and i'm going to take all the jersey sheets and all the sheets that haave holes and are ragged, and I'm going to either repurpose them into nightgowns and sleep pants for the kids, or if they are still in relatively good shape, I'm going to try my hand at making raglan knit shirts for the boys. The pattern I'm going to get is http://www.artfire.com/ext/shop/product_view/wisesewingsupplies/2867923/tee_for_two_pattern_by_patterns_by_figgys_8-14/supplies/craft_supplies/patterns/children_s in both the smaller and bigger sizes. It's always bothered me that I don't do near as much sewing for the boys as i do the girls, and this way I can make things that they can wear every day instead of just pajama pants. And jersey knit sheets are PERFECT for these shirts. So hopefully I will soon have a whole pile of repurposed sheets into something useful, and nice new sheets on our bed :).

Zara and Elf celebrate the Lunar Festival

Side note: I am working on some pictures and more exciting things to post: it's been a very busy birthday week for the husband and I. More soon!

EDIT: I uploaded a sketch to my deviantart. Be gentle.

Happy Birthday to Me!!

A very timely birthday gift from the husband :).