Honest Scrap

January 29th, 2010 . Posted in Farm | 22 Comments »

Shipley has hit honoured me with a blogging baton award.  Ms. Ship has a great blog herself where she often tells hilarious family tales and shares pictures of her gorgeous baby (who I am desperate to meet before she goes off to college).   Honest Scrap is blogger pat on the back by a peer or quite possibly it is the “friendship cake” of the blogosphere.  And I have given out my share of friendship cakes, let me tell you.

Now I get to share with you ten things you may not know about me, and nominate some other bloggers who I lurk, who will in turn do the same.

1. I hate math.  I like making the numbers “work out” on our tax returns, but I can’t stand fractions, or any calculation of any kind at all.   I mean, I have a full body aversion to math.  When sewing, I use my fingers as rulers.  Thankfully, my mother loves numbers and will be The Math Teacher when the time comes for our to-be-homeschooled kids.

2. One of my personal goals for 2010 is to feel like a sexy babe, at least once a week.  Most of the time I just feel like an exhausted, food encrusted, smelly and genderless heap.  My cause would be helped if I could just stop the dog from eating my underpants (seriously, he must high jump into the laundry basket and has been known to pull them THROUGH the wicker).  Perhaps I should just go without underpants all together.  Will contemplate this.

3. I love haggis.

4. Simon Smith and His Dancing Bear gets my rump shaking every time.

5. By the end of 2010 I am determined to be able to chop kindling without immediate risk of axe-in-shin.  This will require practice, because every time I do it right now, I nearly put the hatchet in my leg.  And it’s a pretty long drive to the hospital.

6. I am never prepared for our baby chicks.  It’s always a scramble.  (Ha… ha…. ha.)  They are ordered months in advance, but they never have a good place to go and always wind up in the garage, or worse (the house).  NOT THIS YEAR, fuzzballs.  You’re not setting even one little dragon-esque foot into my abode, NO WAY, NO HOW.

7.  The book on my bedside table is presently Hemingway.

8. Working very hard on compliance without bribery or threats.  Very.  VERY.  Hard.

9. The kids favourite finger puppets are Nietzsche, Plato, Picasso, Frida Khalo and Virgina Woolf.  This has lead to many pause-before-answering questions like “what’s a mistress, Mommy?” and “she drowned herself in the river on purpose?”  Thank you, Aunty Julia.

10. We eat between 3-4 kilos of apples every week.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

I am now passing on the baton to:

Lisa at Thimbleberry Kitschen.  Her blog is full of beautiful little crafts, yummy food and heck, she’s a Kincardinite.  Doesn’t get much sweeter.

Gillian at TypeAlice.  PowerMama.  Quick as a whip, that one.  And she has such a pleasant parenting tone, making her a parent I look up to.

Caitlin at CaitlinJane.  Arty and hilarious.  So close, and yet so far away.  I want her to live next door, badly.

Sara at Farmama.  Her grace is glorious, her projects adorable.  Absolutely an inspiration.

Needlin

January 26th, 2010 . Posted in Amish, Crafty, Kids | 23 Comments »

I have this habit.  I get projects to 99% completion, and then something happens to distract me (life) and the project sits.  My apron needed no more than a dozen stitches to finish… 3 nights ago, I finally wrapped it up after 2 months wait.  Bob’s Amish pants still need the suspenders fitted, but he won’t be wearing them until summer, so I guess I can let that slide.

I’m working on another Amish pattern based dress for Meeps.  I have added a zipper, intend to sew on an exterior pocket and have used wonderfully bright fabrics, all very UN-Amish things.  Hoping to have this done by spring.  There’s no pattern for the dress, you just estimate a box shape for the top, double the width for the skirt portion, and unlike most dress/shirts I’ve sewn, instead of attaching the arms to the body at the shoulders and then sewing it together at the sides, you insert the arms (already sewn into tubes) into holes you have cut into the body.  You could easily do it in an afternoon, if you were child free.  If not child free, estimate one week of evenings.

It’s not done, and I am not by ANY means an accomplished seamstress, so please excuse my wiggly stitches and yet-to-be trimmed threads.

Because I needed something else to do, I have decided to start to try to learn needlepointing.  I am attempting to sew a cut out flower from the body fabric onto a pocket.  I am guessing this would be easier if (1) I had one of those needlepoint hoops and (2) I had any basic idea at all about what I was doing.

Anyone do needlepoint?

How do I stop the threads from twisting and not laying flat?
Should I have folded the fabric, as the thread seems to pull through?
Where should I look up stitches and things, anything good (free) online?
I doubled my thread, was this wrong?

Frosty Tipsss

January 18th, 2010 . Posted in Farm, Food, Husband, Kids | 22 Comments »

How beautiful are our willow trees?  Totally frosty tipsss.  Some of you are laughing.  Not many, but that’s OK.  The rest of you are (hopefully) enjoying the nice view.

Bob drew a motorcycle tonight.  He’s been on drawing strike for a while.  He’s been drawing cats, cars, excavators and loads of other mostly identifiable things for ages, but for what seems like ages, has done nothing really but scribble and then call it stuff.  (Like “this tattoo is of a dragon…fighting a poodle.”)  Hoping he’s getting back in the drawing saddle?  I would imagine this is the first of many waves to come.

We don’t have cable, but we do have DVDs.  My lovely friend Charmaine sent up a boxed set of early Muppet Show episodes and the kids think that “MENONMENON” and “Lydia the Tattooed Lady” are pretty much the best things ever to hit a screen.  They were SCREAMING with glee at the television.

Seriously, how great are her outfits?  Scott says she looks like a wacko dwarf bag lady, but I have to disagree.  She looks like an ADORABLE wacko baglady.

This week I have used two new appliances for the first time.  Our new juicer, and our new ice cream maker.  Hopefully the former will help quell the inevitable weight gain from the latter.

Bob Says

January 14th, 2010 . Posted in Farm, Husband, Kids, Tattoo | 19 Comments »

Picture Scott wheeling Bob in a shopping cart past a giant bulk rack of candy at the grocery store. Bob hollers:

“What is that stuff, Daddy?”
“That’s a giant rack of poison, Bob. Yuck!”
“But Daddy, I LIKE POISON!”

Oh, we knew it wouldn’t work forever…

* * *

And now some pictures of my neck all nicely coloured in.  There will be a bee tattooed above the flower so it fills in a similar amount of space on my neck as the other side.  And a picture of the kids & I in chore mode.  The only reason my neck is exposed to the frigid winter air is because I had taken off my scarf to tie it around my waist so that I could stuff La Cochonne into my coveralls as she decided that day to join us.  And was in WAY over her head — she at first barked and cornered the goats, but then she turned her back and got rammed.  I scooped her up quickly after that!  For her first time meeting the goats, she nearly got killed.  Silly dab.  Hopefully she’s got some natural instinct in her that tells her to stay away next time, or at least remembers that first hard ram!

Starts With

January 13th, 2010 . Posted in Crafty, Farm, Kids | 24 Comments »

Figured I should report back on our Night Weaning Journey.

We started night weaning Meeps over Christmas, when Scott had some time off work.  The deal is I tell her The Booby sleeps at night and will be awake in the morning.  (5am).  The first few nights were horrific, what seemed like endless screaming.  We don’t leave our kids to cry alone (I wouldn’t leave Scott if he was upset) so there were several nights of feeling like my brain was going to actually explode, leaving the dog something else disgusting to lick up.  Then she gave us a handful of remarkable sleeps; she would stir around midnight, Scott would pat her down, then sleep until 5am.  Now Meeps is wise to the fact that it’s Scott patting and not me, so she whips around to see it’s him and starts howling.  I don’t give her The Booby until it’s morning, no matter what, so every night there are several periods of dreadful shrieking to endure.

So that’s where we’re at.  I have night weaned, except I am getting no more sleep than before, and now my night is now punctuated with high pitched skull piercing bawling instead of nursing.

Reminding myself of the Founding Principle of Parenting… and that principle is:  Suck It Up.  We stay with our children while they are upset, so I just need to enjoy all of these recent mini vacations to my Happy Place and know that THIS TOO SHALL PASS.  She won’t do this forever.  It will get better.  I am not going to compromise my parenting ethics, I am doing everything I can do to make the situation positive, I tell her what a good sleeper she is, I fill her full of positive reinforcement.   Therefore there is nothing for me to do but Suck It Up.

Pride And Joy

I am presently in the middle of finishing up a pair of Amish pants for Bob.  They are really cute, can’t wait to post a picture of him in them.  If you’ve never seen an Amish pattern before, below is what I took home from Ida’s place the other day: two pieces of butcher paper and a little diagram that I made to attempt to remind myself of the basic construction of the lining, the suspenders, the pockets, the button placement, the waistband… all of the things NOT included in the cut out pattern.  (By a wing and a prayer is how I sew!)

Amish Pant Pattern

If anyone out there has any old silkscreens laying around, I’m interested.  I would love to slap a couple of skulls to the side of Bob’s pants.

Bob is really into letters right now, phonics.  Most of my days are spent answering “What does TRUCK start with?  What comes next?”   He’s really into learning to tie knots, baking cookies, helping wash dishes and the table, and tattooing us.

Both kids love the new super long sled we got to help me out with goat chores.  Now instead of slowly alternating between moving Meeps and the 5 gallon water jug in spurts in the direction of the goat shed, I can load both kids, the jug and the food onto the sled and pull them to the shed.  Last night we took the kids for a walk around the corner (we were gone over an hour, made it only a fraction of the way around our “block”) and it was so nice.  We didn’t see a single other person, but we did see some cougar tracks coming out of the bush by the river that runs through the back of our place.  Meeps fell asleep on the way home, totally folded in half into her own lap like a ragdoll.  That sled sure rocks the monkey.

Some of my seed catalogues have arrived already, so my nights are filled with colourful plans.  I’ve convinced Scott to let me order bulbs for Mother’s Day and I can’t wait to get my orders in.  I can’t wait for baby chicks, for dandelions, for the goats to be on grass again.

3 KIDSMeeps2 KIDS

The days are getting longer again, I can feel spring on the horizon.

Life Love Loss

January 9th, 2010 . Posted in Farm | 23 Comments »

Scott called from work this week with news.  News you know you don’t want to hear.   A young friend of ours had died suddenly of a brain aneurysm.  She had a true brightness about her, and used her life to it’s full potential, helping others.  She was an activist, an advocate, an awesome person.

I told Bob that Daddy would be upset when he came home, that a friend had died.  Bob is three, so he had some practical questions, which I answered.  Bob then asked if she would be coming back, and I said no, when people die it’s just like any other creature, that’s it.  He insisted she’d come back, and I again said no.  Then he says, “but when she comes back, she’ll come back as a new girl.”

Sometimes I wonder if children have the answers, because I certainly don’t.  Not even a little.  No part of me understands how this was “her time” to pass.

Our remarkable friend was a full body organ donor.  I have been told that she has helped 72 different people, in her final act of generosity.  I can think of nothing greater.

You can’t take it with you.

Please, sign your donor cards.

Marsha Ellen Meidow

Tattoo Aftercare

January 3rd, 2010 . Posted in Tattoo | 27 Comments »

We’re all adults, I don’t think I need to qualify or disclaimer this information.  So let’s get to it.

1. Leave bandage on overnight.  No peeking!  And change your sheets while you’re at it.
2. Remove bandage.  Do not reapply it.
3. Get in the shower and wash the tattoo until all gooey, shiny stuff is gone and it feels like normal skin to your hand. Use a wash cloth and VERY hot water.  Try not to shriek too loudly, or pass out.
4. Pat dry with a clean towel or use a hair dryer, on a high heat setting.
5. If any goo wells up to the surface, wash it off ASAP. Keep an eye on that shit! Keep it CLEAN and keep it DRY and keep your dirty hands, dog haired sheets and scruffy clothes OFF IT.
6. Once the tattoo has started to flake off in that peely sunburny way, apply some something or other. I don’t personally use any petrochemicals on my wounds for longer than necessary (no Lubriderm, Polysporin, no Aveeno) and I don’t want anything sticky (attracts germs). So I usually use whatever oily balm I have kicking around that I’ve fashioned from ingredients like calendula oil, sweet almond, hemp seed and a touch of beeswax, and it absorbs quickly but thoroughly. This just gets me through the milky skin stage quicker.
7. Hey you!  Don’t pick! If you have to pick something, go for your nose.

And that friends, is how I heal my tattoos.

I Resolve

January 2nd, 2010 . Posted in Farm | 25 Comments »

In 2010 I hope to:

1. Make more vegetarian entrees.
2. Kill fewer garden plants.
3. Keep a tidier house.
4. Make new cheeses.
5. Tone up my pancake butt.
6. Make out more.
7. Drive the monster truck as a float in the Santa Claus parade.
8. Get a better grip on our books.
9. Drive standard. In traffic.
10. Make/maintain some actual friends.

You?

Featured Presents

December 29th, 2009 . Posted in Crafty, Kids | 31 Comments »

The kids got lots of cool stuff for Christmas.  There are lots of new favourites: the handmade wooden big rig and trailer; the plethora of puzzles and craft supplies; a fiction/photo book from a day trip they took with their aunt and uncle.  The two in the picture below are super cool and are being used together about 18 times a day at least.

1.  A miniature wooden sewing machine, made by hand, purchased on Etsy.  (The needle goes up and down when you turn the wheel!)
2. Two crocheted flower shaped sacks, filled with felted shapes.  All made by hand by my sister in law (I can get you in touch with her if you like).

They play with them as individual gifts: sewing sweaters, fixing socks; stuffing the felt shapes in and out of the sacks, playing zoo and other games with the pieces.  But their favourite thing to do is to sew the little felted doodads on their fancy new machine.

Super Duper

Other great things about the items above?  All handmade.  All affordable.  All natural.  All made in North America.  Yeah.  They rock the monkey.

The best present we gave this year was a book we made on BLURB. A giant family photo album, from our pregnancy with Bob to this summer. It’s massive, the maximum number of pages (over 400), some pages have half a dozen pictures on one page, and it’s 12″x12″. I wish I had never printed a single 4×6. What a waste of money. The print quality is tremendous (I had NOTHING but frustration printing 4×6s locally) and man. What a reaction from the grandparents! Super platform too: you download the program and it can be as stock or as custom as you want. You only need to be connected to the internet to upload it (a dream for us low speed internet folks). I highly recommend this program, for photo albums, cook books, whatever!

Here’s a little peek at our book (click the preview):

Summer 2006 – Summe…
By VOLUME ONE

Did you get or give any super awesome stuff?

Weaning Woes

December 26th, 2009 . Posted in Kids | 20 Comments »

Maggie was The Dream Baby for the first six months of her life.  She did this crazy insane thing that we thought existed only in fantasy (or could exist in reality but was induced by drugs) and that thing is sleep through the night. (For those of you sans children, that means sleep for FIVE uninterrupted hours, and NOT until 10 am the following day, or anything else civilized).  She was this phenomenal sleeper, such a good sleeper that I stopped answering that classic stupid baby question “So is she a GOOD BABY?” with “HELL YES!” instead of “There is no such thing as a BAD BABY” you horrible baby hating monster.  Meeps’ delightful penchant for sleep was only made more enjoyable due to the fact that Bob refused to sleep for the first 9 months of his life without a breast in his mouth.     Captain Colic had worn us OUT.  And Bob did not sleep through the night until he cut his two year molars.  (Childless friends, I could only WISH to be exaggerating).

SO.  At six months Meeps started cutting teeth.  And our heaven sent good sleeper started nursing a LOT at night.  And then she decided to eschew ALL solid food until she was nearly a year old, and even now at 18 months of age she survives primarily on breastmilk and sunshine.  And the occasional mango lassi.  Sustaining a human life that walks, talks and tries to kill plays with her brother is TIRING.  About a week ago, I counted.  I counted how many times she latched on to my breast between the hours of 11pm and 6am.  That number exceeded 20.  TWEN-TEE.

An exhausted Mama is not a good Mama.  We decided it was time to start night weaning.  (I am not interested in “full weaning”: the benefits of breastmilk are outstanding and it is flu season after all).  Maggie has fallen TO sleep (her first sleep stretch) without booby since she was 12 months old.  So the first feed is already crossed off the battle list (or so I had thought).

Now instead of being woken 20+ times a night by a gaping little mouth, it now takes me upwards of an hour to cajole her into unconsciousness and when she wakes (and experiences the sheer torture of rolling over and not being received by a breast)  she shreiks hysterically for a good ten minutes before passing out.  Only to do it again of course.  Let me tell you how much fun being woken up by PIERCING SCREAMS is.

We are aiming for no booby between the hours of midnight and 5 am.  So help me, DOG.

* * *

In other news, I joined Facebook.  I blame cabin fever.  I used to be a member of the SuicideGirls community and I used to be a member of the BME community.  It felt inappropriate updating about my children on a porn site, and I left BME when the proper owner left.  These were two groups of people to which “too much information” really did not apply, in any way, at any time.  I lost touch with a lot of friends, I thought maybe it would be a nice way get back in touch.  I missed the straight up HONESTY of those interactions.

And poof! There they all are on Facebook.  My porno friends and my bodmod friends…. and then there’s also all the people who I see at playgroup.  And that, well, as convenient as FB seems… it’s just kinda, well, WEIRD.

I try to be fairly family friendly here.  And by family I mean MY family.  I try not to gloat too much about the (awesome) pot cookies I bake or bemoan the total and utter lack of strip clubs in my life since having children (though in all honesty I do prefer “burlesque” dancers for their sense of humor: if you’re going to peel down to glow in the dark pasties, I should bloody hope you’re not taking yourself seriously).  Because you know, my DAD reads this and everything.  (Hi Dad, SORRY about the strippers bit).

So I don’t know.  I’d rather figure out how to properly use my sewing machine this winter so I can justify asking for a serger by Mother’s Day 2010 than babysit a social network that I am not really going to USE.  I may well “unfriend” Facebook.

Y’all know where I am, anyway.

Momma

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