When Hubs is Away ...

The wife will craft [and in this wife’s case, fail miserably at it].

B had a work dinner tonight, which meant not only was I on my own all day on my Monday off, but I also had most of the evening to myself as well.  This makes for a very dangerous situation (no supervision all day = I’m productive.  No supervision for over 12 hours = I get antsy and make bad choices).  I spent the whole day doing laundry, cleaning, and other household-y things (and managed to spend 2 and half hours on the phone with B’s aunt - yeesh).  But then, around 7:00 pm, I. Was. Bored.  Super Nanny wasn’t playing on Style Network anymore, so I needed to find a way to entertain myself.  After about 5 minutes on Pinterest, I came across a pin linked to this tutorial using an old t-shirt to make a woven headband.  I thought to myself, “I can do this, no problem” and ran upstairs to grab an old stained tank top out of my girl cave garbage (don’t worry friends, all that is currently residing in that garbage is old shirts that Goodwill would turn down - no nasty dumpster diving for me!).  I brought the tank top downstairs, cut my strips, and then things got really interesting.

I planned on just hand-stitching the strips together until I realized I could probably figure out how to use the sewing machine my mom had brought up here for me a year and a half ago.  I pulled the machine out, checked to make sure it was already/still threaded (it was, thanks mom!), plugged it in and took ‘er for a drive.

The first time, my threads got all knotted, the fabric didn’t move, and I had to do surgery to free my strips from the machine.  I reconfigured the thread and went for attempt 2 - success!  All five strips were sewn together!

Then … I looked at what was left of my little tank top and thought, “hey, I think that might make a cute mini pillow.  There’s some poly-fil in the cabinet in the laundry room.  I could even sew little fabric flowers on it.”  So I cut out two rectangles, placed them right sides together, and started sewing around the outside of my rectangles.  I got one long side done with no incidents, turned the fabric and started sewing again - the thread wasn’t sticking.  I pulled it out and - oopsie - the bobbin was out of thread.  And so ended my plan to surprise B with a mini pillow when he got home.  [Insert sad trumpet sounds here]

Oh well, back to my original idea (the headband) I went.  I taped my long strips of t-shirt down, pulled on them … and the edges didn’t curl.  Ugh.  I’m not really sure what I did wrong - I think I cut them the wrong direction? - it was a hopeless case.  So I threw away the 5 strips that I had managed to put together, went back into the dining room to clean the bobbin-threadless sewing machine up (aka get rid of the evidence), and went to sit back on the couch to watch House.  Until … inspiration struck again.  Dun dun duuuuuuun!

I ran up the stairs to the girl cave, dug into our wedding crap box (yes, we’ve been married almost 2 years and we still have a wedding crap box … we’ll get around to putting things away in due time, thankyouverymuch), and pulled out one of our many empty picture frames.  “Perfect,” I thought, “I’ll use some of that cute Valentine’s wrapping paper from the Target bargain bin and make a cheap and easy Valentine’s picture to hang.”  I opened up the back of the frame, hoping for a piece of cardboard to wrap my wrapping paper onto.  I was disappointed by what I found - a flimsy piece of cardstock-ish paper.  I took the paper to cut out the shape from an old cereal box, but the box was too small.  Damn.  So I decided to just use the flimsy paper, cut my wrapping paper so it could be wrapped around, taped it up, stuck it back in the frame, and stepped back to admire my work.  And then I realized the paper was crooked.  [More sad trumpet sounds here].



I don’t think we’ll end up hanging this up, but it was a good effort, if I do say so myself.  And this evening’s craziness was well worth it because I found out I still know how to work the sewing machine.  Perhaps the next time Hubs is at a work dinner I can use a new bobbin (with lots of thread on it) and actually complete my cute mini-pillow.  Haha, probably not - but I’ll keep dreaming!

5 Year Dating-versary

Today marks the 5th anniversary of the day when B asked me if I’d “maybe wanna go out sometime or something” and I said “yeah, sure.  Sometime.  Or something.”  And we’ve been together ever since.

Awwww, we’re so romantic.

Seriously, I love that man.  He’s the best.  He’s seen me at my worst (we’re talking ugly cry, screaming my brains out at him, completely hyper and obnoxious and nonsensical … the works ) and stuck around (I think that makes him legally insane) … I couldn’t ask for a better guy.

Blah blah, sappy.  Wrapping this up now.

Love you potato.

Big Girl Panties

I put mine on today. And I’m so proud of myself. Today, I called the local clinic and made a date for my hoo-ha. Unfortunately, the “date” is the day before Valentine’s Day. Nothing like something not so fun up my lady bits to get me in the romantical mood for V Day with my hubs. Sigh.

The good news is that this appointment will give me the opportunity to address some of the fears I’ve been having. Perhaps she’ll be able to give me some medications that will help us make a tiny human. I would like that - as much as I’m anti-medications and pro-natural remedies, I reallllly want a baby, so I’m down with whatever.

Crossing every finger, toe, limb, and anything else …

National Ditch Your Resolutions Day

According to the radio station that plays during nap time at work (which is obviously a very reliable source … ha), January 17th was National Ditch Your New Year’s Resolutions Day.  I figured it was the perfect time to take a look at my resolutions and see how successful I’ve been.  (Here’s a hint - I put off writing this post for almost a week … how’s that for following through?)  I will be completely honest - I am struggling.  Not with everything, which I think is promising - but I definitely need to re-focus and continue working on things.

I’m coming out about even on the being a better wife front.  I’ve been doing an amazing job (for me) of keeping up with most of the household chores, but I haven’t been as affectionate as I’d like to be.  I need to be much more mindful of the way I speak to my husband and the attitude I have toward life.

I have definitely been struggling a lot with following through, but obviously this is a more long term goal.  I feel like I have made some progress, although sometimes it feels like a one step forward, two steps back kind of situation.  The main things I’m trying to focus my follow through energies on lately are blogging more (which is easier said than done, for sure) and finishing my homemade Valentine’s.  I almost gave up on the Valentine’s cards last week when I came across some really cute partially DIY ones at Target, but I didn’t want the work I’d already done to go to waste, so I’m sticking with my original plan.  For now.  I’m hoping to get motivated again on my day off and maybe I’ll finish them (or at least get them closer to being finished).

My keeping in touch with friends and family resolution is very closely related to following through for me.  This is another one of my more long term goals, so it seems to soon to tell if I’ve made any improvements yet.  I did manage to remember to text my mom on my parent’s anniversary and we proceeded to text and chat throughout the day, so that can go in the success column.  I have also called and texted my sisters pretty frequently, but it probably isn’t any more than I usually do.  I need to work on calling my grandmas more (well, calling one and emailing the other - yes, my grandma uses the internet.  And she and grandpa have a hard time hearing on the phone, so e-mail is a better form of communication for us).  I also have been awful about keeping in touch with my friends, aside from a few Facebook messages here and there.  It’s a work in progress.

I have barely started working on saving up more money, mostly because at this point we haven’t gotten any extra money to put away yet.  Hubs just got his promotion, and his first paycheck as a salaried employee was about $100 less than normal, like we expected.  We haven’t seen his first profit sharing bonus yet (which is where the loss in pay is going to be made up), but we’re hopeful for decent returns.  My raise (fingers crossed) should be reflected in one of the first paychecks I receive in February, so I’m hoping that will make up for some of our loss in B’s income.  I’m still pretty skeptical about this raise - I’ll believe it when I see it - but any extra money would definitely be an improvement, and if it is as significant as my work friends are telling me it will be, it won’t be too difficult to put a little extra money into savings.  As far as spending goes, I’ve been convincing myself to not buy things when we’ve gone shopping (I’m pretty proud of myself), and the few things that I have bought recently have been bargain bin finds.  I probably could have gone without buying them at all, but I can’t cut myself off cold turkey.

I’ve read one book in 2012 so far.  I actually read the whole things in one day.  That’s really not anything surprising from me though.  I need to download some more (free) books to read (and then manage to find time to read them).  This goal can sit on the back burner for a while.  I’ll get around to it eventually.

My final resolution about making a decision about Grad school is going to take a lot of time and serious consideration.  As much as I would love to learn more about a subject I’m passionate about, I don’t see myself making a move into a Counseling career.  I guess I’m kind of stuck in the mindset that I want to be a stay at home mom.  The more I think about how expensive graduate school is, and how much of my time it will take up, as well as all of the effort it will take to even apply … I just don’t know if it’s going to happen or not.  I’m definitely going to have to do more than 3 weeks worth of soul-searching to figure out what my plan is for my educational future.

So, there it is, the current status of my New Year’s Resolutions.  The good news is that even though I’ve been struggling, it’s not even February yet.  I have 11 months to work on these things, I just need to take it one day at a time.

Exciting News

Not the news I’ve been waiting for, but awesome news nonetheless.

B got the promotion he’s been waiting for!  He has had all of the responsibilities of the promotion position (Office Manager) without the title or salary for a couple years now.  Because he moved into the position so quickly after he was hired, they decided to hold off on the benefits until he had put in more time at the company.  Luckily, they decided that the first quarter of 2012 was the perfect time to promote him.

There are some awesome perks that come with this promotion, namely a company car (no more paying for gas to and from work!) and getting bumped up to the next profit-sharing bonus level.  He also is now salaried instead of hourly, but it’s kind of a drawback - being paid hourly, he was getting 20 hours of overtime on every check because of the mandatory 50 hour work week.  Being salaried means he’s now missing out on the extra overtime money, so his paychecks will be slightly less than we’re used to, but the increase in his monthly bonuses will cover what he’s losing.  Hooray!

Life Stuff

This week was pretty special. I went on 2 - yes, two! - dates with my husband. That’s almost more than we went on all last year. Just kidding, but it is a big deal, 2 dates in one week.

Date one was on Wednesday night. We went out for dinner, shopping (kind of - we went to the comic book store and Target) and a movie in the Falls - we saw “Young Adult.” I’m glad it was a $5 movie, because I wouldn’t recommend paying more per ticket to see that movie. I thought it was super effing boring, but B thought it was okay.  The trip to Target was awesome - I got a pretty good haul, and it was all from the bargain bins! I bought a cute little teal mailbox (decoration for the newly painted room), Valentine’s/love themed wood blocks that spell “love,” “hugs, “kiss,” and “xoxo” - the o’s are hearts (it is also possible to spell sex and include a heart before or after the word - thanks for figuring that out, B), and 2 sets of really cute magnets - 6 fruits and 6 veggies. I took the magnets to daycare to put on our classroom’s magnet board, but the kids were beating them up and fighting over them, so now they’re on our fridge. :)

Date two was Friday night. We went out for dinner at Applebee’s (fancy schmancy - haha) because we had a gift card. Afterward we used another gift card to get blizzards from DQ. It was a cheap date, but we had fun and I didn’t have to make dinner - win/win!

Our dates made me daydream even more about our upcoming vacation to Atlanta - only 3 and a half months to go!  Perhaps we’ll throw in a mini-vacation in the mean time - that would be lovely.

Happy New Year!

I really hope that 2012 is a great year for us. So far it’s off to a good start. Today, B and I watched some movies, moved furniture back into our lovely gray room, cleaned in my scrap room (a little bit), and ended the night with a few songs on Rock Band. Tomorrow our friend A is coming over to play Dance Central and hang, so it should be another awesome day - I’m looking forward to it.