5 Reasons to Say "I Don't"

Sometimes the universe aligns and you live happily ever after.

Sometimes you just thought it did and as the date approaches, you know that it's going to be an unmitigated disaster.

Sometimes you're not sure which it is, so here is my handy dandy guide to when you need to say "No."

1. You're related. I don't mean third cousin related, I mean "hey, isn't it weird that we're both test tube babies, with the same weird genetic condition, and look like we could pass for siblings?" So if you two met at the family reunion, it's okay to call it off.

2. You're in love with someone else, or your partner is.  Seriously, hung up on someone else is not the way to start a relationship, especially since it means you'll be more likely to jump ship anyhow.  Love- Don't feel it? Don't do it.

3. You're only doing it because you think you're supposed to.  Seriously, if you don't want to go through with a wedding, you probably don't want to go through with the marriage.  Just because everyone else is saying "It's high time," doesn't mean that it's the right thing to do.

4. You've been lying the whole time. About your age, your religion, your criminal history, your home planet, your gender, your species, your health history, the fact that you like skim milk.  Whatever it is, if you've got a deep dark secret you can't share with this person, then you can't share a life with them, and it certainly is better to call a halt to it before you say "I do."

5. Your partner is abusive.  Mentally, physically, emotionally, sexually.  It's always okay to get out of an abusive relationship, but it's not okay to slog along and put up with it just to be married. No, your partner will not change after the wedding.  Your eye shouldn't be the something (black and ) blue at your wedding, nor should your self-image.

There ya go, in no particular order, 5 reasons to not get married. 

Now, the rest of you? Happy wedding bells. 

My mother has a sewing machine about as old as me, and it can still sew circles around most of them out there.

Color

I am easily seduced by color.

I recently decided that I could wear outlandishly glittery and bold eye shadow and that the world would not end as a direct result of this decision.

I am happy with my choice, but now I am wondering how to pick which colors I need and which I just really really want, and which I only want because I want to fill out the rainbow of my eyeshadow palate.

I think I need more blues.  Not that blues look great on me or anything, just that I big puffy-heart love blues.
Specifically, I want this one from Madd Style Cosmetics. .

and I think I'm going to go order it now.

Hopefully, I'll get better practiced with time and be able to walk you through how to glitter with glee.

Road Trippin'

Signs you may see if you travel interstate 65 through Indiana.
I kid you not.

Heading North

And of course, traveling South...

I wonder what this farmer's wife thinks about these billboards.

I need to get reading.

The next five books I want to read.
I figure, if I tell you, I'm more likely to follow through.

1. Dan Brown- The Lost Symbol
2 Suzanne Collins - The Hunger Games
3. Kathyrn Stockett -  The Help
4 J. D. Salinger - Catcher in the Rye (no, I haven't read it yet.)
5. C. S. Friedman- Wings of Wrath

Any other suggestions? I need them.

Wordless Wednesday: Can Haz Plays?

Wordless Wednesday

Tutorial Tuesday: Rag Doll Hair made of Yarn

It's beginning to seem like my favorite hobby is googling doll hair instructions, trying to find a faster, better, more secure method for making hair out of yarn for my rag dolls.  This is not the fastest technique out there, but it's simple and produces fabulous results.

You will need- 

Rag Doll

Yarn (I used three colors, baby pink, hot pink or fuchsia, and white)

Needle

Thread (I used light pink)

Yarn Needle

Crochet Hook

Pins

On the back of the doll's head, pin every centimeter or so of the section of hair you want to put in, so you're drawing the hairline with pins. I wanted my doll to have hair parted in the middle, so I only did half of the head to start with.

Run the yarn along the side of the part, from the base of the head to the top, then wrap yarn back and forth around the pins. I like to do about four pins' worth on each side before securing.  You will have to move some of your pins to accommodate the width of the yarn. I did mine with all three yarns at once, it works well, best even, to work in one color, single thickness.  However, three strands goes together faster. 

 
Stitch each section of hair down at every loop.  I generally make sure I've stitched them in place two or three times before moving on to the next pin.

 When you get to the bottom, work your way back up the other side, the same way.

When you get to the top and have stitched all the loops down, you should have your yarn dangling at the middle top. If it is dangling at the side where the ear should be, that works too, so don't panic.

Put a few pins in the middle of the head, and then some on either side near the ears.  Loop it on one side first, stitch in place, then cross over to start the other side. Loop and stitch.

The remaining strands will probably be dangling on the side. If they're at the top, that's okay too. It doesn't matter.   

Cut the yarn about six inches from where you last anchored it so you have loose ends to work with.

Now, just take your crochet hook and run from the nape of the neck up through the hair and out where the loose parts are.  Pull through to the bottom by where the loose ends from where you started are.

Cut all the dangling loose strands short.

Make two small yarn balls of appropriately the same size.  Sew through them at random angles  until you feel secure that they won't come apart.  

 Pin them just above the ears on either side of the doll's head.

Stitch into place, a lot. A lot a lot.

This is a perfect place to stop if you were after that whole "Princess Leia Rag Doll" look.  

Of course, I'm never content to stop at just cute, so I threaded my BIG needle with yarn and sewed the yarn through where the balls attacth to the doll, wrapped under the arm and back up to do it a few times in each color, then wrapped around the doll's body, under the arm, and repeated on the other side, in all three colors.

After that's all wrapped and stitched, cut the yarn across the back, slip the yarn loops off the arms, and cut them at the bottom.  Tie each pair of strands in a square knot (or a granny knot, it's not that big a deal) just under the little buns.

Admire your cute work.

Of course, you'll want to add a face. I decided she needed some bows, so I tied off two lengths of black yarn around the buns to finish off the look.

See? Cute.  

If you want to check out more of my Raggedy Rebelz, with their quirky smiles and funky hair, they're hangin' in my Etsy shop: Sock Punky.

Solutions

Remember that window I blogged about yesterday?
The one I was just sure the kidlet was going to break in a moment of Hulk-like fury?

Sorry, for the lighting issues, but TAKE THAT, child proofing.
That's a half inch of air space, steel cross bars, a compressed layer of foam insulation fitted to the window, held in place by another layer of foam insulation, screwed into place with washers of not-popping-out-ness.

Yep, Houston, we have hope of this window surviving past tis week, because as things stood last night, there was pretty much no hope, considering that I have to sleep sometime.

Window Trouble

We have this pretty picture window at the head of our ed. I love it. It lets in lots of light and heat in the winter, and in the winter,I need lots of sunlight.

But there's a problem.
I have a toddler.
My toddler likes to climb up into the deep windowsill and pound on the window.
He's a strong little hulk of a toddler.
I'm terrified he's going to pound right through the glass, hurt himself, possibly badly, and create an expensive problem.

Accomplishmed

Today we left my brother's apartment where we've been staying for 2 weeks.

Before piling out we had to wash the bedding, wash the dishes, sweep the floors, de-childproof, wash the windows, wash the bathroom mirrors, scrub the sinks, bathtub, toilet, vacuum, clean out the fridge... and get all our stuff out.

Fun times.
But we made it out, and home is on the horizon!

Sew Much Sewing

I finished another three dolls today.
The sense of accomplishment associated with completing a an entire sewing project, whether it's cloth baby wipes, a slapdash wetbag, a doll, a blanket, or a full fledged quilt, always surprises me with the way it seems to glow right through my chest.
I love accomplishing these creative tasks, and I'm bursting to show off.

Check em out!

Friends

One night I thought "Surely I'll die,"
No longer could I stand to cry,
But my sweet online friend
Made a joke of my end,
Laughed so hard I forgot why.

~for all my online friends who have laughed me out of the deep darks.

Wordless Wednesday: When I grow up...

Wordless Wednesday

Link up!

Relationships

When we get married, in theory, we marry our best friend.
Today, as my best friend and I were driving down the highway and the toddler, my new BFF  was singing in the back seat, a song which was easily recognizable as the alphabet song, as sung by a drunk with slurred speech, I mean, a toddler, I was musing on how good things were.  How well spouse and I get on, how happy and enthusiastic our children are.  
But then, no sooner had we stopped the van and started to get out and I said something about my plans for Sunday (a jewelry party a friend is hosting, and yes, I plan to attend if for no other reason than I like looking at sparkly shiny things and she puts on a good spread) and he started in on how busy he was between then and now and getting huffy with me for making plans for the weekend.

So I ask you, what is it about relationships that make us go from best of friends to me thinking of driving off and letting him walk home?  Is it that we're much too familiar with the other and have history attached to every  action, or is it just that we get comfortable with the other person being our best friend and don't understand when suddenly they're acting more like someone else?

The Argument for Introducing Solids Before Six Months

The argument for introducing solids before six months, is as follows.
Bunk.

UNICEF's response to recent media coverage suggesting otherwise than the WHO recommendation can be found here.  Note the second paragraph says exactly what the problem with this old information is.
 "When considering this analysis it should be noted that three of the four authors have
declared an association with the baby feeding industry. Less breastfeeding and
earlier introduction of solid food will lead to greater profit for this industry."

What's that? Let me highlight for you.
"When considering this analysis it should be noted that three of the four authors have
declared an association with the baby feeding industry. Less breastfeeding and
earlier introduction of solid food will lead to greater profit for this industry."

That's right, all this information which my spouse, my friend's spouse and maybe someone you know is going on about, having seen it on the news on Saturday, is propaganda put forth by a group of individuals with a vested financial interest in convincing mothers to wean to solids earlier.  That doesn't sound like the group one should be taking their advice from, in my opinion.

For the average healthy mother, feeding her average baby is a pretty simple task, as  @KimLiving  of In desperate need of entertainment, said on twitter the other day

So please, don't stress that you need to wean your baby to solids.  Baby will tell you when she or he is ready for solids.  Don't let someone trying to sell you something tell you what your schedule needs to be.  Your baby knows much better than they do when the notion of something other than breast milk should be on the menu.  

Come on, you don't take advice on how often to drink pop from big-soda, do you?  Well, if you're going to take advice from anyone, take it from big-boob, and not big-phrama or big-babyfood, because big-boob isn't trying to worm it's way into your pocket. (If it is, well, I'm sure you could sell those pictures somewhere.)

So Angry

I have been taking Flintstones Plus Iron vitamins for the last 27 years.  As my iron levels run low, even on a supplement, and most vitamins containing iron make me really sick to my stomach, I've found it's pretty much the only one I can take without becoming ill.  Of course, I couldn't take their Complete vitamin, because Flintstones Complete used Aspartame as a sweetener, and seeing as aspartame is a vile toxin to which I am highly sensitive, to the point of nearly instant migraines upon exposure, violent vomiting, and then diarrhea, I avoid the stuff like the plague.  
Sadly, today when I realized I was out of vitamins we ran to the store, I grabbed my trusty dark pink box of Flintstones, bought them, went home, and quickly popped one in my mouth. As I was breaking down the box while chewing I thought, "man, that tastes wrong."  And I was right. It was wrong.
It was still my once trusty Flintstones Plus Iron, but alas, they've ADDED ASPARTAME.
That's right, in 2011, fully aware of the toxicity of Aspartame, and having ready access to information showing that the information used to get it through FDA regulation some 30 years ago was fraudulent, Bayer chose to add Aspartame to a product.  Not just any product, but one that customers purchased specifically because it did not contain Aspartame. Maybe the three or four people I've had conversations about it's lack of Aspartame being a reason for buying it (in the past) and I are the only ones, but I figure, if I've actually had this conversation with strangers in the store, then there were probably other people out there with the same motivations.
So angry.
So Bayer, I just want you to know that I've lost my trust in you.  You basically just tried to poison me with a chemical I absolutely can't have, and one which could prove seriously damaging those living with Phenylketonuria.   Sure, you printed a warning on the product's back, but the fact is, after years of buying the same product in the same packaging, people quit reading the ingredient list.  Most companies would have had the good graces to at least change the packaging's color.
As I said, I've lost my trust in you.  And it goes farther than just your Flintstones Vitamins.  I don't trust your asprin, becuase you've shown that you change your formulation without properly warning your consumers. I don't trust anything you make and sell. 
I'm angry. 
I'm also looking for safe and healthy alternatives, because you, Bayer, no longer make my "safe and healthy" shortlist.

Pink Saturday: Pinktastic Hair

A friend of mine loved the flip-flops and Asian sandals fabric I made a doll out of and wanted one for her daughter, but she wanted something "different" for the hair, so this is what I came up with - red and pink!

I think I want to make her bangs come down a little further onto her face, but I really love the pink and red hair.

She also has a pink smile, pink eyebrows, pink eyelashes, and PINK POLKA DOTS! I am a sucker for pink polka dots.

If you want to check out more Pink Saturday, head on over to How Sweet the Sound.

On Dolls and Joy

I love doll making.out of
I truly do, but every so  often I am making a doll with every intent to list it in my Etsy shop, and my son gets a hold of it, hugging it with warmth and glee.

(bizarre sidewaysness compliments of Blogger, who uploaded it that way even though the file itself is the proper orientation...)

Then I am faced with a decision. Let him play with it, which means it's his doll, or take it away (and he's gotten good at saying "bye bye, nigh nigh" to the dolls who have to go into the drawer of "for listing") and put it out of sight, on the notion that some other small child will love it as vehemently as my little toddler boy.

Have you ever run into this problem? What do you do?

Questionable Service

I used to be a waitress.
I was, I like to think, a good waitress. I made the occasional mistake, annoyed the occasional customer, but the mistake I ran into last night,which seems to be the most common one, I made a point of not making, so no one is getting sympathy from me on this one. Especially considering how slow business was while were there.
Drinks.
At a table of 6, you'd think at some point, the waitress would check back to see how the food was and whether or not anyone needed a refil. But no, we were there nearly two hours of eating and not a single glass of water was refilled. No one was asked if they'd like another glass of wine. No one was asked if everything was good, but I was mistly irritated about the water, since I go through a lot of water and left the dining establishment full yet parched.
Had I been paying, it would have affected the tip. My brother was paying, so I have no idea. Nonetheless, it's not that hard to offer more water to a table of people eating salty restaurant food.

Wordless Wednesday: Snowtastic

Wordless Wednesday

Link up!

Eyes and Es

Sometimes I get up on my soapbox. This is one of those times. Spouse frequently asks me to spell words with an I and an e in them. I usually say something like "don't you remember the I and e mneumonic device?" Then he's all "I don't have time for a spelling rhyme." Which is funny, because he has the time to ask me. So here it is, the rhyme to remember whether e or I comes first.
"I before E, except after C, or when sounding like A as in neighbor or Weigh."
Doint it any other way, well, that'd be *weird*- yeah, weird you just need to remember.

i bought despisables.

That day has come. The one where I broke down in desparation and bought a pack of disposable diapers.
I was good. I packed cloth diapers forour 4 day business trip. However, Spouse's work being as it is, and construction being so dependent on the weather, our 4 day trip is turning into an 11 day trip, and while yes I can do laundry, for less than buying diapers, I'm sick and can't guarentee my ability to do laundry before I need it, since I need it in 3 diaper changes, and the pain, vomiting, and shallow breathing tell me to not plan too far ahead.
So yeah, I bought a pack of disposables, but just this second, he's in a Nifty Nappy with a woolie wrap.

Treasury!!!

I admit it, this is my second treasury, but it's the first I've had the presence of mind to take a screen shot of.

So go check it out, because Battlestar Galactica stuff is truly rad.

Frak, it's BSG!

Pink Saturday: So Long Ago

About this time of year some 7 years ago, Mongoosine was a tiny little girl who still wore pink for fun, instead of as an accent to black, and her best friend was my mom's friend's 12 year old daughter.
It's amazing to look back and see how little she used to be, then look at her and her brother and wonder how soon I'll look at pictures taken today with the same nostalgic wonderment.

Do you ever look at pictures of friends and family from way back when and marvel at how things have changed since so long ago?

For more Pink Saturday, swing on by to How Sweet the Sound.

Last week I stumbled upon a lovely blog, A Scrapbook of Inspiration, with a beautiful post on daisies.  Check her out for even more Pink Saturday.

Friends and Privacy

So, where do you draw the line and start setting up extra privacy?
Is your Facebook page Friends Only?  Your twitter? Your blog? Your secret LJ?
At what point do you let your tweeple and your e-quaintances closer into your real world circle to the point where the lines start to blur?
Is there a benefit to being private on Twitter?  Is there a benefit to being public on Facebook?

I want to know, because I'm having a hard time deciding where to draw my boundary lines these days.

Sir Drives a Lot

My son has a new thing. When we're waiting in the car for one of spouse's meetings, often up to 3 hours, he likes to sit in the driver's seat and pretend to be daddy.
He likes to grab the wheel and bounce in the seat, roll the windows down and up, play talking on the phone (yes, daddy talks in the car, never where prohibited, often while parked.)
What do you do to keep your wee ones entertained while waiting in the car?

Wordless Wednesday: Littles in the Big City

Wordless Wednesday

Link up your Wordless Wednesday here!

On Friends and Shopping

Someone said to me recently that they think it's a little weird that almost everything my son has or that I use these days has a story attached to it starting with "my friend."
Sometimes it's "my friend passed this on to him from her kid," and sometimes it's "my friend recommended it, and she was so right," and even more often, it's "my friend made this, she has a rad {Etsy or Artfire} shop, do you want the URL?"

For instance, JabberWalky's Magic Blankie by my friend Amber.

His new Friend Rory, who came recommended by Amber. (Apparently that's his favorite sleeping position)

My diaperbag of raditude by my friend Brooke.

His radtastic diapers by my friend Laura and his Monster block of doom by my friend Ailie.

His super rad dipes by my friend Vilate

and then diapers my friend Christine made.

Ooh, and the ones my friend Ilana's company makes.

And the nursing pads my friend Candace made.

And many many others.

The more I thought about it, the more I realized, I prefer supporting friends when I have money to spend, rather than supporting mega-corps. I'll buy from a friend before buying local, unless local is a friend.
It might not be the best of economics in the world, but I feel better about the products when I have a personal connection with the person who made them.

I think of it as putting some humanity into impersonal business transactions, and so far, I've always been happy with these transactions, because lets face it, if they're your friend, they're probably not going to sell their friend something they know isn't good or safe.

Doing Her Hair: Doll hair tutorial roundup

I admit it, I am doll-hair challenged.
I like to make rag dolls and sock monkeys, but every time I start a new one I google "how to make looped hair for rag doll out of yarn" hoping I'll find a new tutorial that makes it all fast and easy peasy.  Yes, I know, not the best search term. Now I'm working on writing my own because I think I've settled on a technique, but until I finish ironing out all my details, I wanted to share with you a quick compilation of a few tutorials that I find particularly easy to understand and helpful.

Doll hair tutorials-

Stitch n Stuff shows you how to make a loom for creating doll hair of the right length every time. Love this.

Crafty Sheep's super easy to understand Waldorf Doll hair tutorial. I've used a similar method many times for Sock Punkies.

Time consuming but spectacular results child friendly doll hair method for ponytails from bybido.

April Ort's method to crochet yarn hair. Super easy if you're good with a hook.

Charmingsbycmh's fun Raggedy Ann style hair, done without loops.

Do you have any other doll hair tutorials which you have found super helpful? Let me know so I can add them!

Best of Friends

My son decided to play a trick on me the other day.
While nursing for nap time, I noticed something felt a little off, and then I heard him giggle, so I glanced down. Low and behold, his new best friend Rory (because he RAWRs) was nursing, and JabberWalky was very pleased with himself at his joke.

Rory, the first toy I've ever nursed.

Naptime with Rory

After a year and a half of not having any one toy that was any more important to him than any other, he's found a best friend.  Of course, who wouldn't love a dinosaur from SPACE?! Not just a dinosaur from space, a super cute and cuddly dinosaur from space!

I bought him from Stella Grace Boutique on Etsy. She does brilliant custom work. You can also check Stella Grace Boutique out on Facebook.

Of course, this means I have a few choices. I can order another just like it, you know, for when Rory wanders off or is irreparably damaged, I can order more of the fabric he's made from for future patches, I can accept the inevitable and mentally prepare to just someday have a surgered and interestingly patched dinosaur, or I can accept the more long term inevitable and know that someday when he ruins it or loses it there will simply be a lot of tears.

With Mongoosine her best friend was a DW doll, and DW has had a few surgeries, as has her nighttime cuddly Lamby plush.

How do you handle best friends? Stash a duplicate or hope for the best?

Pink Saturday: Holidays at our house

No, I didn't clean. Shhh.Don't tell.

Around our house the holidays are marked with a few things. Christmas songs at the piano, the hauling out of the christmas skeletons (hanging on the wierd fence behind the piano, okay, they're left over from halloween) a tree full of handmade ornaments, and a little baby pink tree. That's right. a pink tree.

Pink Tree?

Spouse is exceedingly community service oriented, which is generally a good thing. However, the Christmas season before we met he started a multiple village tradition of a lighted parade route for a night-time parade the weekend after Thanksgiving, and he personally made sure that any public spaces between houses, like for instance, the school, would participate by purchasing and hanging the lights himself. This gargantuan effort involved things like lighting up the entire side of the high-school's baseball diamond with more lumens than an airport.  He even had the village run an extra line just for these lights by the highschool and special boxes installed along the riverfront for the lights.  Wonderful, isn't it.

Of course, when we got married, I rapidly learned that this meant all of his holiday spirit, time, energy, and money went into this area-wide overwhelming display, and NOT into things like setting up a tree in our own home or even so much as running a drooping string across the top of the porch.

So, Mongoosine and I decided that if Spouse wasn't going to get involved in decorating for Christmas, we were going to do it our way.  This meant PINK tree with pink lights, and a pink black and purple star shaped tree skirt.  That's right. We totally pinked it up, and we have been doing so every year since, right down to our Sun Fairy tree topper that we made.

For more Pink Saturday, stop by How Sweet the Sound

Buffy the Chicken Dipper

For New Year's Eve, we were invited to a friend's house for the first time in our married life, so we took the offer.  Of course, I don't believe in going to a gathering without bringing something, so what am I bringing? Some crusty and thinly sliced bread and Buffy, the Chicken Dipper. Well, Buffalo Chicken dip.

Buffy, the Chicken Dipper

1 package cream cheese

1/2 cup Blue Cheese Dressing

1/2 cup Sour Cream - softened

1/2 cup shredded mozzarella, by weight.

1/4 cup hot sauce (such as Tobasco or Frank's)

1 can chicken in water. (you could just grill up some chicken breast and pull it apart)

Pull apart the chicken and mix everything up in a 9" square or round baking dish. 

Bake at 350 degrees Fahrenheit approximately 30 minutes, until bubbly.

Stir before serving, best served hot with tortilla chips, crusty bread, bagel chips, or celery. 

Oh, and Happy New Year!