Pictures! Woo-hoo! Now you can see what I spent my Saturday doing–making purses for our nieces who are about to turn 5. And start kindergarten. Some kind of nerve, those girls have. Anyway, one digs pink and one prefers purple. You can see which is which, I call one “Explosion at the Pink Factory” and the other “Purple Power.”
And here is the first purse I made with this pattern, which just goes to show how really cool it can look if you use coordinated fabrics from the same line (in this case, Amy Butler fabric. Also an Amy Butler pattern.) I really like this one. I just like to look at it and smile.
And finally, some pictures of the most recent dress I made for my daughter while I was technically on vacation. I promise, next thing I make will be for me! Like a skirt! I really like this green and white paisley fabric. It’s like stretchy twill. Notice the cute little sleeves? This is the combo I used for Lucy’s purse a couple weeks ago. Plain cotton is much, much easier to sew with for this than stretchy twill. And once Carolyn’s jumper is finished drying, I might get a picture of that too.
Have a great weekend!
Most of my life, I’ve tried to defy categorization. Subvert the dominant paradigm and all that (which is the true reason I homeschool…don’t tell anyone). But iTunes? They are pretty tripped up on the whole categories thing. Which is a pain, as I own a lot of albums (ha! albums!) that are collections. But they are categorized differently, and separated out by artists. For instance, “O Brother, Where Art Thou?” is a fab compilation of bluegrass type stuff but iTunes puts it under soundtracks. Early U2 (e.g. “Boy”) is listed as alternative…and I guess once upon a time it was. But in 12th grade when Sarah W. got all excited about going to a U2 concert in Phoenix, I knew they were mainstream. And I was sad.
John, thankfully, claims he is all about organization and is diligently organizing and recategorizing. Which is nice except when it’s time to watch another episode of Nero Wolfe. I got the complete DVD for him for Father’s Day. Yay eBay. I don’t know why I held out so long on the iPod. It’s really fab. One thing, though: John and I were listening to Dire Straits’ “Brothers in Arms” (one of the top ten rock albums of all time, without a doubt) and I was commenting on one of the songs. He asked if I’d ever heard of the Brecker brothers horn section of Steely Dan fame, as he thought they were playing on the D.S. album. He went to go check but alas! With an iPod there are no liner notes! But that is why Al Gore invented the internet. So we could settle things like this.
So that there’s a drawback…limited info on the iPod. Also we were at Target the other day looking at the iPods and iPod accessories (said in my best Hank Hill voice). Paradox of choice, my eye. They had a bunch of different stuff and none of it looked the same. Walking away, I noticed something. There was a Sony Walkman. With FM. See? Pretty soon you’ll see it everywhere.
In the last six months, I have gone from a PC using, off brand 250 MB mp3 player owning non game player to a Mac using, iPod owning Wii player. It’s enough to make my head spin. I still don’t have a cell phone. I can hardly keep up with the technology.
My brother gave me his old iPod as he upgraded to a much larger one. It still had all the songs on it which we listened to for a few days. Then I tried to sync it with my iTunes library. But you see, an iPod can only belong to one library…they are monogamous that way. We had to erase all the songs. 
No more Rolling Stones. Boo hoo. (Joking! I’m not a Stones fan.) The last few days I have been importing all my CDs into my iTunes library. It’s very tedious. It makes me realize I have a number of CDs I’ll probably never listen to again. Like some of the early John Cougar…I used to be a big fan, but now, not so much. John tells me I don’t have to import (aka copy) the entire CD, I can just choose the songs I want. That seems so weird, after being used to listening to the CDs in their entirety. Ah! Steve Miller’s Greatest Hits is almost finished importing. We will move on to Joni Mitchell and Van Morrison. Oh wait, Van’s case is empty, the disc is in my car.
The iPod docking thingie doesn’t have good reviews at Amazon. Supposedly it allows you to hook your iPod up to your stereo and remotely control it.
I foresee getting very tired of managing all this music. Playlists, album lists, artist lists, blah, blah, blah. Maybe I’ll go dig out my old Sony Walkman. It’s like an electronic security blanket. I think I have one or two cassettes around here that weren’t sacrificed in the name of science (one day we did an experiment with magnets). Plus that baby had FM. I’m telling you, FM is going to be big. And the headphones didn’t hurt the inside of my ears. We pay a high price for technology.
Time to import REM, “Out of Time.” My first REM CD, given to me by my brother for my 20th birthday…I thought I was so cool because at the time I was hanging out with a guy (also from Los Alamos, what are the odds?) who was into REM. I came a little late to that party, and left before the cops came. That was a fun birthday. My dad took us all to Liquid Assets in Albuquerque. I had always wanted to go there. My dad always lets me pick the restaurant for my birthday. Too bad he doesn’t live closer! So thanks, Bro, for REM and Huey Lewis in 8th grade and for helping me stay tuned.
And thanks for not making me pay for the iPod like I had to for that CD player in 1990. You rock.
(I know at the moment John reads that title the song will start going through his head.)
I know, it’s been forever since I posted. I’ve been sneezing a lot from hayfever which has prevented me from typing well. So here’s the Reader’s Digest version of my life in the last few weeks:
William will be promoted to 3rd grade after all. Just yesterday he erased the first letter of a sentence he wrote to change it to a capital…even before I said anything. Carolyn of course always capitalizes her sentences so I’m confident she’ll do well being promoted to 5th grade. This is our last week of school. Three more days. Can you sense the excitement? Of course, it dawned on me that I’ll have two bored children for three months. But wait! We have a Wii now! Everyone seems to like it. I don’t like it as much as I thought I would, but I’m saving my pennies for Dance Dance Revolution. Surely that will make it all better.
I’m selling some old curricula on eBay, yay! It’s doing pretty well, too, so I’ll be able to get some more curricula for next year and no actual cash will leave my hands. I haven’t sold on eBay in a few years, and I remember why. Every five minutes I’m checking the status of my auctions and willing people to bid.
I finished the jumper for Carolyn, and also made her a summer dress. I will post pictures as soon as I have my auctions are over. I can’t be away from them long enough to post pictures. I also made a purse for Lucy’s birthday. She is so adorable! Our youngest niece. Looks just like me, too. We are really blessed with four awesome nieces, just the thought of whom makes me smile. The twins (John’s sister’s girls) are starting kindergarten this year. Five full days!
We’ve been to NM and back. It was nice having a little break but I spent most of my alone time working on a dress for my daughter. When I start a sewing project, I am usually pretty focused on it until it’s over. Good thing I didn’t have any auctions up at that point.
John finished my raised garden beds, aka giant litter boxes. We have a neighbor’s cat who thinks our yard is its box. I’ve got yellow and red tomatoes (still looking for two more tomatoes), eggplant, red bell pepper, zucchini, red cabbage, basil, parsley, and borage to plant. I also got my beloved red geraniums and new this year, white dahlias. I’ll put in some watermelon seeds and dill seeds. One thing I noticed looking for plants yesterday both at Home Depot and a big local garden center is that if you want anything marginally original, you need to get your own seeds. Plus seeds are cheaper. Gardening can really add up. I saved the marigold seeds from last year and put them in the small front yard bed. They are coming up! Woo-hoo! Little marigold sproutlings. Hopefully that works out. My rhubarb came up nicely too, but my neighbor and fellow rhubarb grower recommends I leave it this year, as it’s still kind of small. She promises to share. John is going to plant two hops rhizomes. Take that, skyrocketing price of hops.
I’d write more, but I have to check my auctions. Hope everyone is having a great week!
“It’s too early in the morning to start school.”
“Sure, we can have the den meeting at our house!”
“That Raving Rabbids game looks fun.”
“I think I’ll make Lucy a dress for her birthday.” (Lucy is my niece, about to turn 3).
“Oh no! We are out of red onions!”
“This tea is too sweet.”
“That blue cheese dressing was really good!” [It was Marie’s blue cheese vinaigrette. Excellent on a salad of greens, chopped apples, grapes, candied walnuts, celery, and maybe chicken. Alternatively you can use regular (homemade!) vinaigrette and add your own blue cheese/gorganzola crumbles. And be pleased that you can now make a $12 salad at home for way cheaper, and have another way to stick it to the man.]
“We should get some cilantro…maybe the dried stuff.”
And in the same vein, “I can’t taste the cilantro in this corn and bean salad. It needs some more.”
“Maybe we should get a cell phone.”
“Sure, I’ll go to your 20 year high school reunion with you!”
Last but not least, “I miss the farm.”