what to do on sunday when you are bored…

…dress up the dog of course!  I also am happy to report that the last time I was at Old Navy I picked up a reindeer headband.  Now I’m sure normal people buy them for their little toddlers to wear, but I immediately thought of the headband for Benjamin!  I really had to restrain myself from buying a pair for myself and my husband.  I would have worn mine but I don’t know if my husband is crazy enough to wear his

presents from my hubby!

When I came home from work today, my hubby greeted me and told me he had a surprise for me inside.  I got excited because I had no idea what it would be.  And lookie below, oh how my hubby loves me!  He had to pick a few things up for dinner and went to a different grocery store and lookie (!!!) he bought the last 5 packs of my now strangely hard-to-find gentle gum care floss.  This is better than being surprised with flowers, which he knows not to do anyway because the floral scent would make me get all itchy and sneezy.  Yup, I’m officially weird, I would rather have floss than flowers or sparkly trinkets!   

book review: her fearful symmetry

I  finished Her Fearful Symmetry by Audrey Niffenegger  who also wrote The Time Traveler’s Wife.  Both books are quite the page turner and are very quirky and odd.  

The book jacket of Her Fearful Symmetry (HFS) does a very good job explaining the premise of the story.  I wasn’t quite sure what was going to happen as I began reading HFS, but I liked following the characters and the story to see where it would go. 

The first handful of chapters of HFS are very good at describing the characters and their quirky personalities.  HFS did feel a bit disjointed in the beginning since I felt like I was reading character sketches without the relationships or connections between the characters having been made yet or the plot been established yet, but these character sketches in the beginning are important as they really give life to the story later on as the characters of course begin to interact with each other and propel the story along. 

HFS is quite good.  There were a couple of moments where I felt the story was getting a little too “far out,” but I just decided to have faith in the author and I let myself go and brushed away any disbelief I was having and let myself be drawn into the characters’ world and let myself believe.  I will admit I was a bit disappointed at how the story ended, but I still do recommend HFS.

Keeping it Weird on Wednesday

I have a huge fear of pink eye.  I, thankfully (knock on wood), haven’t had it a lot, but it’s one of those eye cootie ailments that sneaks up on you totally out of the blue and then you wake up in the middle of the night with a red, burning itchy eye all full of mister sandman (aka eye crusties or eye boogies).  My fear of pink eye comes up on those rare occasions where I have to try on sunglasses.  I had a pair my mom gave me a long time ago and was so bummed when the ear piece broke that, admittedly, I wore those sunglasses with black ducktape (it matched the black frames!)for a wee bit until hubby told me I was being super fruit loopy (most of the time he doesn’t mind the few neuroses I have) and needed to get a new pair.  So I went to try to find sunglasses at Target.  I whole heartedly admit that before trying on sunglasses I discreetly used an antibacterial wipe to wipe ech pair down thoroughly.  I didn’t find any that day, but thankfully Christmas was approaching, and Santa left a perfect pair of sunglasses in my stocking!  My BFF, on the other hand, throws caution to the wind at the pink eye cooties and one time at a thrift store she tried on a pair of funky sunglasses and I was quite concerned for her.

Keeping it Weird on Wednesday

I, of course, love and cherish my husband.  But there are some things he does in the kitchen that drive me crazy.  Well crazy is a strong word, perhaps make me feel nutty or confused as to why he does things the way he does.  

I  try really hard to ignore how differently my hubby puts certain things away, afterall it is his kitchen too and he, of course, isn’t required to put things away according to the way I like it, he certainly has the right to put things away his way.  My mom always nested things in her kitchen, you know little bowl inside the medium bowl and all of them nest and fit nicely inside the big bowl.  Why oh why hubby do you have to put the big bowl on top of the little and middle bowl that are already nesting together?  Can’t you tell that it is the big bowl’s destiny to hold inside itself the little and medium sized bowl?  And see all the cookie racks on the top cupboard shelf?  See how they all like being together?  Why did you put the cookie sheet alone all by itself underneath its cookie rack family?   

But truth be told, I do things in the kitchen that drive my hubby nuts too.  If I use a utensil, instead of putting it away in the dishwasher, I will lay it down so it is partly on the counter and partly on the edge of the sink, like it’s about to dive into the empty sink.  I have no idea why I can’t put the utensils away in the dishwasher right away.  The weird thing is I only do this if I am having a snack, say a spoon for some yogurt.  When I clean up after we have a meal together, everything, utensils included, always goes in the dishwasher.

Anybody else have a weird kitchen habit or your mate does something in the kitchen that drives you batty?!

Is this what it’s like to have an ample bosom?

I often wear skirts to work and with the arrival of fall and the office sometimes being chilly, I’ve taken to wearing knee socks with my skirts. Usually I wear quite conservative plain knee socks but today I wore some silly striped ones. This morning, everyone first looked at my socks and then looked up at my face to greet me.  I wonder if this is what it’s like if you an ample bosom – first they check out your chest, and then they make their way up to your face to make eye contact and say hello. As for the ample bosom, I’ll never know how that is, but I think my knee sock experience today has given me a hint

book review: terribly twisted tales

Ever since Nicole recommended The Book of Lost Things to me — which I’ve read and loved and now my hubby is reading it — I’ve been wanting to read another book with a fairy tale theme.  Thankfully I didn’t have to wait long because I stumbled across terrible twisted tales at the bookstore.  Admittedly, I did not enjoy the first two stories as they were a bit cutesy and predictable and not very “twisted,” but I’m glad that I continued reading because the rest of the stories were quite enjoyable.  Some of my favorite tales in this collection include:  Once There Were Seven (Snow White & the 7 Dwarves), A Charming Murder (Cinderella), What’s in a Name? (Rumpelstiltskin), and Clockwork Heart (Pinocchio).  I did like that some of the stories in this collection took a “dark” but not scary turn.  I do recommend this book.

Keeping it Weird on Wednesday

My husband often tells me, in a bemused tone, that I’m an impossible nut; to which I reply, I’m not an impossible nut, I’m a possible nut because I’m real and I’m here

my creative space

Well I suppose a bombardment of photos is in order since we have a digital camera now!  So here is a little peek of my creative space.  One of our extra bedrooms was always known as “the library” until recently.  But now, since the addition of my beautiful sewing desk built by my husband, the room is the ”the library & sewing room.”  It’s nice to share my creative space with 4 bookcases, makes it kinda cozy and nerdy  

I figured I’d post a new picture of the sewing desk my hubby made for my birthday this past summer.  I really think the digital picture captures its beauty way more than the camera phone picture does.  I use one of the desk drawers to store my sewing patterns.  I counted 33!  I guess I really can’t avoid those $1 pattern sales!  Ironically I’ve only used 3 of them! 

And then I figured I’d show you my “tackle box” that I keep my sewing supplies in.  My tackle box came from the automotive section at Wal-Mart and was like only $8!  I’m not sure why the tackle boxes were in that section as I can’t really think of any mechanics that would want to carry around a turquoise or lime (the other color available) tackle box. 

top lid lifts up and there are 4 storage compartments for my tape measures, pins, extra machine needles, sharpie, mechanical pencil, white and blue fabric pencils, stylus.  that little funky blue square on the left is my most favorite measuring tool, I have no idea how I functioned without it before!

opened up, tray of colorful thread 

tray of thread lifts out, and this is the bottom of tackle box where I keep my scissors, bobbin case, extra fabric pen, transfer paper for embroidery projects, clear ruler, other misc stuff

And here is a picture of my sewing machine which I’ve named Peggy.  And yes, I put 2 unicorn stickers on my machine!  My magnetic seam guide is almost always on my machine, but for some reason it isn’t in the picture.  The other flat magnet you see is what I use to place pins on that I remove from the fabric while sewing.  My sewing machine also has the most nifty little storage bin in front of the needle plate.  The storage bin also can be removed by pulling it out to the left and then the machine is ready for free arm sewing.     

ready for free arm sewing.  my free arm is 3 and 3/8 inches wide (needle plate area) and 2 and 3/8 inches tall.  very very convenient for sewing round things like necklines/collars, cuffs, waistbands etc….

Sewing machine cozy.  Ironing board is tucked away in the closet when not in use.

Hopefully I can take more creative space pictures soon!

simplicity 3835 pattern review + pics

I finally finished my muslin mock-up for the top from Simplicity 3835.  There are some great finished S3835 tops in the Built by Us pool on flickr, so I was a bit disappointed mine did not turn out as expected. 

I had no problems cutting the pattern (I chose a size 6) and following the directions, but I had some fit issues.  (1)  I was able to get into the shirt without a problem, but thank goodness my hubby was home.  Not only did I need his help to take the picture you see below, but I needed some serious help getting out of the top!  I couldn’t even get my arm out of the sleeve!  (2)  When wearing the top, and having my arms raised over my head, the top was a quite snug in the underarm/bust region, but then again, we really don’t walk around like that do we?! 

I have not decided yet if I am going to attempt this pattern again using a size 8 instead of a size 6.  My advice to any of y’all that try this pattern:  (1) Despite studying the finished garment measurements on the back of the envelope and choosing what I thought was an appropriate size, I do think this pattern runs small like others have mentioned.  (2) As far as the neckline and sleeve casing  go, there is not much wiggle room for elastic, so make sure you sew as close to the edge of the casing as you can.  (3) It might just be my machine, but I thankfully had barely enough room to put the sleeve on my machine’s free arm to sew the casing.  Perhaps other people’s sewing machines have a smaller diameter for the free arm than mine does?  (see pic below)  Hopefully the diameter of my machine’s “free arm” won’t pose a challenge should I need to sew a sleeve cuff or something similar in the future.  (Please note, the shirt length should be just a little bit short as I did not hem the bottom of the shirt.)  

But even though my garment didn’t turn out as expected, I am still very much enjoyed the process of sewing this garment — especially since I learned something new that thankfully wasn’t too tricky at all:  inserting and sewing sleeves into the arm opening.