happy holidays!

just wanted to send out my best heartfelt wishes for a peaceful, relaxing, bright healthy and happy holiday season, and the same for the coming year! thank you so much for coming here to read my ramblings and for leaving comments. you help me to keep writing and continually challenge/inspire my creative process! :)

re: the basket of toys above:

almost every year, my (very large) family says that we won't exchange christmas presents... that we'll be "allowed" to buy a $15 secret santa present... and then, every year, everyone (exept me - i play by the rules. sometimes...) still goes and buys everyone else a present.

this year, i didn't buy a secret santa present. partly, because our funds were very low. but in the event that my family still ends up overbuying... i made a buch of bears for the kids in the family. (the pattern can be found in the book Toys to Sew by designer Claire Garland). For the adults, i made a banana/walnut/cherry bread and a compilation cd of swing/jazz/big band christmas music.

anyhoo... i have a few more bears and breads to make... and presents to wrap... and even the last handful of holiday cards to address and post... children to mind, feed, care for, clean and dress for the aforementioned family party... and i haven't even showered myself yet...

ah, the holidays - they don't kill you, they make you stronger... :)

thinkin' o' yous....

happy valentines day!

:)

oafeelya

needless to say, all of my sewing has piqued the interest of the paloma who asked me, a few days ago, if i could sew up a monster.

this monster (that she drew):



whose name is "oafeelya" :)

i really didn't think i could do it and yet:



i think i did....

IT'S ALIVE!!!!!!!!

say hello, loopita!

"hello loopita." she says.



yesserday... while i was finishing sewing up loopita's tail... the paloma looks at me (see HUGE blinking lightbulb over her head) and says, "MOM! when you grown up YOU could be a TOYMAKER! JUST. LIKE. *insert pregnant pause* SANTA!"

to which i should have responded, "child, who do you think taught santa how to shimmy down the chimney?"

can't sleep...

i went to bed around 10:30 and around 12:30 i gave up trying to sleep and figured i could try to get a post out...

i've noticed that my mind wanders most (and creatively so) around this time at night but after a full indoor day with the kids i have little energy or spirit to act upon any stimulus. so, i can't promise this will be interesting or thought provoking - apologies in advance...

some backstory - the thin man and i were treated to a mostly kid free weekend (tan-Q, mom!) saturday night, we got to double date with some friends of ours (whose daughter attends the same preschool as the paloma). i spend a lot of spare (ha!) day time with my fellow mom so it was fun to get dolled up and strut out on the town with our respective huzs' at our favorite restaurant, frontera grill

. it was SO good that i think my tastebuds and stomach are processing the fives stages of grief.

then, my gal pal and i were ready to go dancing - she's a former salsa dancer and i'm a former lindyhopper.... however, our boyfriends just wanted to go home and watch football. which they did. we, in turn, found ourselves in a suburb, catching the last evening screening of juno. which was FAN-TAS-TIQUE! i don't remember another time when i wholeheartedly enjoyed 92 whole minutes of something. some random thoughts about the film:

1) i am SO old... that in the first few minutes of the film... i secretly wished that there were subtitles. i don't know twentysomething slang for sh*t.

2) there were actually cool (albeit quirky) asian high schoolers in the movie! su-chin, the pro-lifer buttinsky (played by valerie tian) and vijay, the gossip mongerer who vows to stop wearing underpants (played by aman johal) . thankfully, there was no foreign accent affected english spoken.

3) i was curious about the writer, diablo cody, and found that she hails from our fair metropolis, chi-town!

4) i could listen to the juno soundtrack over and over and over again... it's a shame that i've just learned about the moldy peaches - now disbanded. thankfully, the bandmembers are still making great music though...

5) i absolutely love how the dad explains how unconditional love can happen between two people without explaining how unconditional love can happen between two people. :')

anyhoo, on sunday... i also got to do a teeny tiny bit of thrifting... i miss it so much... and i scored a great vintage crafting book about making dolls and toys. i made the easiest toy - a snake (see above) - and it turned out kinda cute. so, i started to cut out a monkey and a mouse. i was thinking that i should name the snake and give it to the paloma. and i was also thinking, what should i name the monkey and the mouse? and then, i remembered that as a child i kept a mouse in a shoebox for a few days.

i often say that our tenants/roomates in our brick three flat were the roaches and the mice. i didn't mind the mice nearly as much as i minded the roaches. my mom would bait the little mousetraps with archway oatmeal raisin cookies. (i know - i can't tell you how nightmarish that was...)

mind you, we NEVER bought cookies to EAT. the cookies were specifically bought to TRAP MICE. yeah, my kids have it REAL good... ;)

by some strange happenstance, a trap caught a mouse by the tail. and by some even stranger happenstance, my mom said it was ok for me to put it in a shoebox as a pet, in the pantry. i dunno - maybe there was some guilt... over the mouse holocaust... or denying me cookies...

and for a few days, it was ok. i fed it oatmeal raisin cookies. i sang it lullabies. it let me pet it gently. it never bit me . and then, a morning or so later, i found that it was dead. :(

i hope you're well, mouse friend, wherever you are. you were very dear to me. i hope you forgive my childhood selfishness. when i make this new little mouse friend, i'll name him "shoebox" to remind me always of you.

ok, it's 2 a.m. now... i should try to get some sleep. if you read this far, thanks. :)

project runway v 1'6"

i couldn't decide what to title this post. at first i thought of "further proof that i've gone off the deep end" and then, "bow down to your 18" overlords!" but i settled on the title that seemed the more positive of the three... 'cause we're running LOW on positivity in this house...

the porkchop caught a cold and the paloma is coming down with it... which makes both of them increasingly irritable. the porkchop finally surrendered to his nap after fighting it for an hour and a half.... and as we all know, i will also catch this cold. and i will be fit company for their misery. it's only wednesday and already the week seems a little too overscheduled. i may have to drop the kids out of one class or another for our sanity's sake....

anyhoo back to my silly post... a couple of weeks ago, the paloma was invited to her first birthday party at American Girl Place (AGP). i did a little homework and found out that girls usually bring their AG dolls to dine with them. if girls don't have an AG doll, they can BORROW one.

so (after having a nightmare about an angry paloma returning a borrowed AG doll) within a few days, i found two "knock offs" the our generation dolls and the springfield dolls. i ended up buying lindsey from the springfield dolls ( i liked the skin color better and the price) BUT unlike what she looks like on their website, she comes stark nekkid.

i bought one outfit and a pair of shoes with the doll. i figured i could make more clothes for the doll later which might encourage her to play with her new doll more and hopefully, turning the tide on the whole barbie doll fiasco.

in an effort to keep the doll and the birthday party a surprise, i kept both a secret and pretended that i was making clothes for two of my old dolls, crissy:




















and tiffany taylor:




















the dresses above were made just in the last day or so specifically for the thinner dolls... the paloma kept asking me why the doll clothes were so big. it was like i was back in college for a critique! finally, the party was this past weekend and i could reveal the doll and the doll clothes (there are two other outfits but they're like the first pancakes):




















the paloma flipped out. she LOVES her doll (she christened her "mary") and carries her around all the time by her ponytail.

but the thing is... i think i'm kinda addicted to making doll clothes. it's like a miniaturized project runway! they're so quick to make and without trying to pat myself on the back AND break my arm, i'm pretty good at it (i better be - w/ five years of fashion design classes and ten years in the industry under my belt).

i'm in desperate need of an intervention. it's like veggie booty (before the recall)! i have other things to do/complete that are more important/higher in priority. but i think it's getting worse... i've already bought some matching kid size patterns so i can make some outfits for the paloma that match her doll (i have oodles of fabric left over...)

and here's where i'm sure i've gone insane... i actually agreed to make the paloma a costume for halloween this year. she was changing her mind so often that i didn't think she'd decide. but for a few days, at the suggestion of a friend, she had decided that she wanted to be wendy or princess tigerlilly (from peter pan), mary would be tinkerbell (yes, there is a pattern and yes, i have it) and that the porkchop would be capt. hook. i was ECSTATIC. no, really!

and then? THEN! this morning she changed her mind. :( now, she wants to be sleeping beauty and mary (her doll) will be one the fairies - flora, fauna or merryweather. she said maybe, the porkchop could be the owl. :(

i'll have to write a separate post about the party at AG Place. it was an amazing, horrifying, humbling, memorable, heart tickling, ridiculous, hilarious experience. i think i've finally recovered from it. i only spent $32.00. but i was there for five hours. i know, i can't think of anything i LIKE to do for five hours... honestly, i'm too tired to write the post now, because i was up late last night (11:30) making that maroon/gold jumper and got up early (5:45 am) this morning to shower for a ride i hitched with a mom who was going by the fabric store. i'm SO not kidding.

oh look, now it's 11:16. it's official, i'm my dolls' b*tch.