What Not To Wear {Lesson Three}

Hello and welcome to Lesson Three of What Not to Wear!


Today we're going to talk about something you should have been doing since preschool. No, it's not eating Play Doh or huffing school glue. It's something much less fun - putting real clothes on.

Why?


Because nobody wants to be surprised bra-less and makeup-less in their bright yellow Spongebob Squarepants jammies with an Einstein-inspired 'do.


I DON'T CARE IF IT'S JUST THE MAILMAN. IT MATTERS.


When someone looks at you like you're going to whip out a switchblade (okay, more like a plastic butter knife) and slit their throat, it seriously damages your self-esteem.


I'm all for the occasional jammy day, but if you can't manage to get clothes on more than once a month, you're most likely caught in a vicious cycle.


But just how do you get out of your jammies when your munchkin is smashing banana into his eyeball or has decided floor = potty chair or flings an entire tube of toothpaste around the bathroom Jackson Pollock-style?

Try this:

1) Lay out your clothes before you go to bed
2) Set your alarm clock 15 minutes earlier than normal.
3) As soon as it goes off, get up, put your clothes on, brush your hair and put on makeup (if you wear it).
4) Voila! You're ready to start your day!

If you'd also like to take a shower, gag your children and stuff them in a closet.


KIDDING.

Now, put down that plastic butter knife and go get dressed!

Or become a nudist.

Both are completely viable options.

Pattern Weights

Aloha,

Who wants to guess what these are?

Oh. Right. I kinda gave that away with the title of the post. Pattern weights!

Let's just say they are to seamstresses what throwing stars are to ninjas.

Essentially.

All you do is plop them down on a pattern to hold it in place while you cut and voila! You've eliminated the need for pins! They are especially great if you tend to stab your fingers and/or drop pins on the floor and then find them later ... with your feet. Yowza.

Pattern weights on Amazon cost about $15 for four. I made 8 (only six are pictured because the first two came out fugly) for $6.36. That includes tax, peeps. Boo to the ya.

If you would also like to stop walking on pins and needles (har har), here's what you'll need:

>24 two inch Fender washers (3 per weight)

>Yarn (about 10 feet to wrap each weight; it's a great time to stash bust as you can always tie shorter lengths together!)

>Super glue (optional ... and the only reason it's optional is BECAUSE SOMEONE TOOK MINE)

>Scissors (unless you want to go all Man Vs. Wild and use your teeth)

>An embroidery needle

Now, take three washers and the yarn,

stack the washers,

Tie the yarn tightly around the stack and trim the end. If you have super glue you can glue down the end. I just wrapped over the top of it to keep it secure.

Start wrappin'! It's not a terribly scientific process. Just wrap and wrap and wrap until it's all covered. If you're using a bunch of shorter pieces, tie them together and then wrap right over the ends to keep them secure (again, you can super glue the ends down if you'd like).

wrap it. wrap it good.

Now, thread the yarn through a needle and pull it back under the layers.

Cut off the excess and adjust everything so the end magically disappears. If you are lucky enough to live in a home without a super glue bandit, you can add a little dollop to keep it in place.

Voila!

Now you can feel like an awesome sewing ninja!

Sometimes it's the small things :-)

Linked to the SYTYC I'm Crafty! Party. Check it out!

Pinteresting

Hiya peeps,

Lest you think all I've been doing is sitting on my generous arse sucking down Reese's milkshakes ... which I have ... I managed to complete a few projects from Pinterestland. Behold!

The Pinspiration - It's a Pop-up!

The Pincreation

This is mom's birthday card. I used an index card for the base (all I had), colored it with crayons (again, all I had), printed out a Paris skyline, made some fake balloons (with some random wire and more index cards) and added blingage. Because everything is better with blingage.

Except certain body parts ... but that's a whole nother maminal.

The Pinspiration - Lace Mania

The Pincreation

I hand-stitched some scraps of lace to this maternity tank for a new look. It's super cute on, but you'll just have to take my word for it because I didn't feel like taking a picture of my bulky self.

More Lace Mania (or Curtain Mania?)

The Pincreation

I found a curtain with embellishments, cut it up, and sewed the resulting bits and pieces onto some maternity shorts. Actually, Mom sewed it.

Thanks, Mom.

Sorry for the crappy pic. Again, these are really cute on, but sticking a picture of my legs up there next to the Pinspiration would just be sad.

So, there you have it! Proof that I'm actually doing something beside eating bon bons (and Twinkies and Reese's) and sobbing over A Baby Story (and chasing a toddler and trying to keep up with the housework). I've actually completed three whole projects from Pinterestland!

Somebody get me a medal.

Or a milkshake.

P.S. I'm gonna be really glad when my mind doesn't automatically reset to the milkshake channel. all. the. time.

P.P.S (or P.S.S?) You can see the rest of the Pinterest projects I'm going to get around to someday here.

33 Weeks

I'm thirty three weeks and 2 days pregnant. Four to seven weeks left. Hopefully closer to four ... or I may be giving birth in a jail cell after being brought in for random acts of violence. The cocktail of hormones brewing in my body right now must be similar to what causes the Incredible Hulk to go all hulky.

HULK SMASH!

Speaking of hulk, I've come across several other bloggers talking about the pregnancy weight they've gained (there's a ton of people knocked up right now ... must have been something in the tequila water). Because of this, I feel a compulsive urge to confess I've gained ... 40 pounds. I'm going to be exactly the same weight going into labor with this baby as I was with T, despite the fact I lost not only 25 pounds of baby weight but 20 "extras" that magically attached themselves to my body without me noticing. I hate it when that happens.

Another thing related to going hulky - I'm tired of hearing, "You look like you're going to pop!"

Why, yes, yes I am.

I'M GOING TO "POP" YOU RIGHT IN THE SCHNOZ.

PREGNANT LADY SMASH!

Somebody needs to get me some of these:

Like I said, hopefully closer to four weeks left ... I don't think criminals would be the best labor support team.

Sleep Torture (continued)

Hello again,

After two terrible hours of torture, three hours of Googling "sleep training", an entire box of tissues, and a massive whisper fight with Grover (hey, didn't that happen last time?), I have come to the following conclusion:

Sears, Ferber, Weissbluth, everyone else on the planet ... they all have an opinion on the "right" way to put a child to bed.

And they can all suck it.

YOU HEAR THAT, FERBER? I'M COMING FOR YOU with super glue, headphones, and an endless looping mp3 of screaming infant.

That may be the sleep-deprivation/pregnancy hormones talking.

But I do have a point.

No one else knows your child like you do. No one else has "mommy (or daddy) intuition". And none of them are losing sleep.

Therefore, you should do what seems right to you. I'm not saying one way is right and another is wrong. But every situation, every child, every parent, every family, heck, every night is different.

Last night, we tried letting T cry it out. It didn't work. Did we do it wrong? Probably. If we did it right, would it work? Possibly. But I'm not willing to snivel in a puddle of my own snot on the bathroom floor again. If I end up in a rocking chair for two hours for the next three years, so be it. I'm okay with that.

Go ahead, call me a wimp. Tell me I'll be sorry later. Shake your head all disappointed-like.

And then get your butt over here and do it the "right" way, please.

I'm waiting ... in 3, 5 and 12 minute intervals :-)

Sleep Training ... or should I say torture

Dear universe,

I hate bedtime.

Seriously, I would rather climb Mount Everest.

Naked.

What are you supposed to do? (Grover suggested knock-out drops, but we're fresh outta those).

Everyone from Madonna to the man on the moon has an opinion. Cry, don't cry, co-sleep, lay down with them, rock them, find the duct tape, blah blah blah blah blah.

At the moment, I feel like this:

Let him cry it out = ruin his life for eternity.

Don't let him cry it out = spend half my life in a rocking chair.

WTF, peeps?

It's a Great White, Cap'n!

Great white undies, that is.

I'm feeling a little down.

Not because I lost an appendage (or pet guinea pig or a ham sandwich) to a giant shark.

Terrifying. But not as terrifying as the underwear department at Wal-Mart.

Because I had to buy bigger underwear.

They're not specifically "maternity" underwear.

They're just ... big.

I didn't think it would be that bad.

But then I took them out of their neat little package and picked one up.

And it started unrolling and unrolling and unrolling.

*cue Jaws theme song*

And it just kept unrolling ... and unrolling ... and unrolling.

*dunh, dunh, dunh, DUNH, DUNH, DUNH ... "

It's a true story, peeps. 

Happy Birthday, Mom!

Today I would like to say happy birthday to my lovely mom!

Please accept this virtual birthday cake in lieu of one of my abysmal real-life baking creations :-)

Without her, I would not exist ... which means this blog would not exist ...

Which means you should all tell her, "THANK YOU FOR BEING SUCH AN AWESOME PERSON WHO MANAGED TO RAISE SUCH AN AWESOME PERSON WHOSE BLOG IS ALSO AWESOME."

Do it. Right now.

The Week in Pictures

Part of the week in pictures.

Sarcastic ones.

Beware, profanity ahead.

Monday/Tuesday:

Happy third anniversary to Grover and I!
People are still waiting for us to fall flat on our faces.
And this is how I feel about it:

Really. I don't.

Wednesday/Thursday:

What the new midwife was thinking when she realized how close together my kids will be.
Then she talked about five and ten year methods of birth control for half an hour.
Nice.
Also,

Really. I do.

Friday:

Love this one.

Have a nice weekend!

Pinterest Cookie FAIL

Good day, peeps!

Today I am sharing the results of my project for Young House Love's Summer Pinterest Challenge!

I have to say nothing turned out like I thought it would, but I'm "reeping it real". Right, Scooby?

RRright!

Plus, I can blame it all on being 31 weeks pregnant.

You see, pregnancy brain plus baking leads to less than stellar results. It still comes out tasty (and I would know since I EAT IT ALL), but it often looks like an elementary school science project.

Exhibit A: These sugar cookies.

Here's the inspiration picture (from Pinterest):

click HERE for the recipe

And .... drum roll, please ....

The results:

yeesh

Totally nailed it.

Go me.

I really have no business putting this epic fail up there with all that Pinterest Challenge eye candy, but hopefully it will help us (or at least me) remember sometimes your domestic goddess alter ego deserts you without warning.

Or in my case, "desserts" you. :-P

It's okay!

CAST YOUR VOTE!

What does this frosting most resemble?

Silly Putty

Pink Slime

Pepto Bismol

Pureed Kirby

Something else entirely

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It's a Bath in a Box!

Hola!

One of my dear friends had a baby girl a few weeks ago. Congratulations to her! Unfortunately, she had to cancel her baby shower in a nearby town and I wasn't able to give her her present. Phooey. It's been sitting in my desk chair for ... um ... a long time.

When I finally got around to packing everything up (it was a bunch of bath stuff), I realized I could turn the box into a sort of bathtub! Completely useless? Possibly. Fun? Definitely!

I have no idea if the box actually arrived the way I packed it (I'm looking at YOU, creepy post office guy), but I thought it was worth a shot.

I took a box and lined it with aqua tissue paper like so:

Behold, my genius-ness.

Then I gathered up all the bath stuff. This was a mystery baby gender-wise, so that's why it's all so very un-girly. But you can't go wrong with rubber duckies.

Right, Ernie?

Everything you see here is from Target.

I put it all in the box (plus some diapers):

And then I used more tissue paper for the "waves". I took opposite corners of each piece and rolled them in opposite directions, then laid it across the top.

Makes me want to talk like a pirate. Too bad I suck at it. Arghggghh.

Or you could just crumple it :-)

Finally, I added some curly ribbon "bubbles" and put the rubber ducky on top.

Then I added a card and taped it all up.

And voila!

Like I said, I have no idea if the duck sank or swam, but at least the present (finally) got shipped!

Hopefully Camryn enjoys bath time as much as T does!

Hooray for the opportunity to splash an insane amount of water all over the place!