Pillow Trial and Error

I kind of disappeared last week because I got a bee in my bonnet. I've been hard at work feathering my nest in preparation for the long winter. Or in other words, trying to clear my desk off and batten down the hatches for all the Christmas craziness I sign myself up for every year. Plus I had some much beloved family pop in to town, and since they would appreciate it, I wanted to have the place looking as finished as possible.

I'll be sure and share pictures. It's amazing how different the place looks with a few rugs and pillows.

Since my whole style is pretty much Traditional-things-done-in-an-untradtional-way, it would probably come as no surprise that I draw huge inspiration from Denyse Schmidt. I'm doing the whole house in a style reminiscent of art deco/midcentury modern design, so I had this vision in my head of a design that I thought I could render in her kind of style.

I failed miserably.





Don't they look like bar graphs? Like they belong in the background of a cell phone commercial?

I had planned on making six pillows, two for each couch throughout the house, and once I completed the first four, I decided I absolutely hated them. For the last two I decided to go in a different direction.





Ahhhh. Much better. So obviously, I now have to go back and make four more pillows to replace those first missteps. I think my problem was that I was trying to evoke Denyse Schmidt in a totally bogus cheater method. I was hoping I could get away with just doing everything in strips instead of taking the time to do the puzzle as I went. Once again, proof that shortcuts are not worth the trouble.

I need your brain power.

We just got invited to THE Halloween party in our circle of acquaintances. We're super excited, and we're hoping that this will lead to an actual honest to goodness social life after only two years of living here. Barring any further extended hospitalization, of course.

Here's our dilemma. We need a really great costume.

We really want to show how fun we are (Because seriously, we're fun. It's about darn time people around here got to see it.), we want to put ourselves out there and let people get to know us, and most importantly it needs to be a superhero since that's the theme of the party. We're thinking that we need to make something up instead of just being a regular old superhero. It's also our first time with this crowd and we have no idea what their going to be game for, so we've decided to play it safe. Nothing even slightly controversial, including political jokes even though I would make a cracker jack Sarah Palin.

Here's what we've come up with so far:

OCD and The Slob: Take a wild guess who is who.

Captain Obvious and Know-it-all Girl: I call Bear Captain Obvious at least once a week. It totally fits the both of us. My problem with it is that it's not entirely original. Also, I think Know-it-all Girl is a little weak. Bear suggested Captain Obvious and No Sh^+ Sherlock. Oh my gosh we laughed and laughed, but it is our first time with this crowd, and who knows if they'd find it funny or inappropriate.

The Channel Surfer and The Librarian: Bear's superpower would be a laser remote control, and mine would be supersonic shushing. And he'd have a breastplate that would read WWZMD (What Would Zack Morris Do). We'd work together with all the knowledge we've gained from after school specials and cliff's notes to solve the problems of the world.

We'd love any other brilliant ideas you guys have. This is our big coming out party after all the bleck in the past year. It's kind of hard to put yourself out there and do the work of making friends when you're barely keeping your head above water, so know's our chance. We want to make a splash.

Major Milestone

With all of the weird, "he's seven months old, but they count him as if he's four months old, but he's behaving developmentally as if he's three months old, or five months old, depending on who you talk to and the mood Atti was in when he was being evaluated" confusion, I've been a terribly neglectful mother in recording all his first's.

And so many of his firsts were so gradual I didn't realize he was doing them until he'd been doing them for awhile. Now he'll grin at me, but for so long he'd just give me a little sideways smirk where I'd wonder if that counted as the real deal or not. I still don't get a full on giggle out of him, more like a series of grunts. Does that count? Or does it have to be like you hear on TV?

Today he hit a milestone that is unmistakable.

Today he had his very first blowout, leaking down the legs, spread all over the two blankets he was on, don't even try to clean up just strip him down and throw him in the tub, could you just hold still already so I don't spread the poo around even more, diaper.

Why couldn't he have been delayed on this one?

I'm a pratfall away from being Lucille Ball

My eye is on its way to recovery now. I have to goop it up every few hours with antibiotic ointment to try to clean up a very dirty kitty scratch. The offending cat is now in my lap trying to make things up to me. He's very repentant.

I wish I could say that this is an unusual occurrence for me - this confluence of disasters that make everything go wrong all at once and leave me huddled in a corner somewhere waiting for the day to end. But it's not. This happens to me all the time. As soon as one unfortunate thing happens it's pretty much an avalanche.

Nearly every week I go for tacos with my sister-in-law Mari. We meet at Rubios and then we usually run a couple of errands nearby. The closest Rubios is in a parking lot with Target, Ross, Old Navy, and Michaels, so there is never a week when we don't have to go to at least two of those places.

A few weeks ago I got to lunch late because I had about forty errands to run and I was trying to gather everything together to do it all at once. Coupons for this store, the paper to match for that project, the package to go to the post office, blah blah blah. By the time I got there they were nearly done eating. I ordered my food and started bolting it down when Atti started fussing for some more lunch. I reached into the diaper bag and realized that in my rush to get everything together and get out the door I left his bottle on the kitchen counter.

As Atti got more and more upset and started screaming louder and louder, I grabbed all my stuff up, abandoning any plans of efficient errand running, and hurried to get the car loaded up and him home to his bottle. I was struggling with the keys in my hand while I was trying to put his car seat in its base, so I threw the keys into the front seat, got him strapped in, and shut the door.

Only to discover that I had somehow hit the lock button in my struggles with the seat, and I had then locked my starving baby in a black car on a 95 degree day.

I lost it. I completely lost it. Luckily Mari was there to handle calling AAA, and her mother-in-law Virginia was there to keep me from going completely Mama Bear and ripping the door off with my teeth. The lock guy came out in a hurry and got the door open with no problem, and we discovered Atti sleeping sweetly.

I was really shaken up by the whole experience, so I abandoned all my plans of efficient errand running and raced home to smother my baby with love and cry about my failure as a mother.

The very next week at Taco Tuesday, we were shopping at Ross when Atti decided he had had enough of his car seat and started fussing. I went to the checkout, but it was Ross after all, where you get bargain prices at the expense of waiting in line for two days while one lone checker tries to do everything herself. After waiting in line for 20 minutes, all while trying to keep my baby calm, I was totally flustered and just wanting to run to the car. I started to wheel my cart out the door only to get stuck on something. I was fighting to push the doors open with the cart and get out of there, running over my own foot in the process, until a security guard came over to hold the doors open for me. Only then did I realize that my cart had one of those metal poles on it to prevent the cart from leaving the store. The professional security guard didn't notice it, and instead watched as a sweaty lady with a baby tried to fit a round peg through the square door hole. I finally realized what was going on when I tried to figure out what it was stuck on, and the security guard brought me a new cart that I could actually wheel out to my car. Muttering a few thousand curse words under my breath, I finally got everything loaded up, brought the cart back, and got on the road.

Somehow, despite all the excitement, Atti had once again managed to fall asleep, so I decided to push my luck and go to Target. I leisurely strolled from aisle to aisle, went through checkout actually managing to remember to bring in my reusable shopping bags, only to discover that my wallet was missing.

I emptied the diaper bag, I searched the car, I went back to Ross, it was gone. By the time I got home someone had already charged a couple hundred bucks worth of art supplies on one of my cards.

Being the hyper OCD person that I am, I have a list of card numbers and phone numbers handy, so canceling cards was no big deal. No, the crappy bit is all the other things I had in my wallet. My Drivers License I have to go in person to the DMV to replace. My temple recommend which involves two different appointments. My punch card to the yogurt place that was almost full up. The $100 gift card to baby gap my sweet aunt and uncle and family sent to me. The complete list of Martha Stewart glitters with the ones I already own crossed off. All those new business cards I just made. Stupid jerks.

Anyway, I think you can see now why I so rarely leave the house.

blog housekeeping and general ridiculousness

Congratulations to Gerb who won the auction for Nie at $30 for a set of two superhero capes! I'll be emailing you shortly to work out all the details.

Supergabers just missed the auction deadline with her bid of $40, and I felt terrible at the thought of more money not going to the Nielsens, so I've decided that if anyone is still interested, I'll sell custom capes for a $20 donation. Email me at tresa at reesedixon dot com and we'll work it out.

* * *

I'm having a terrible rotten no-good very bad day over here. I'm so sore from head to foot that I can barely move, and my eye is covered in a makeshift patch of toilet paper and adhesive gauze. I'm typing this with one eye held shut and tears watering down my face turning my eyepatch into mush.

Saturday started beautifully. We had a little family outing to a local nursery to pick out fruit trees to replace the overgrown jungle nightmare our backyard used to be. We hauled the Rookie around in the sunshine and debated varieties of lemon and lime while I daydreamed about glorious bounties of homegrown persimmons in the backyard.



I spent all the rest of Saturday elbow deep in concrete and cinder blocks, building up a retaining wall, and I still managed to do a lousy job of it. I only had to add two layers of brick onto the existing retaining wall, so the thought of buying all kinds of equipment I'd never use again, let alone actually hiring a professional for such a small job, was ridiculous to me. I'd seen my dad work with concrete enough that I thought I could easily do it myself. I've done plenty of mosaic work in my life, so as I was slopping the mortar around I thought I could work with it just like grout, only to discover that once the concrete landed somewhere, it stayed there.



On top of that, I had to kind of makeshift a corner because I wasn't willing to rent some kind of tool to cut one brick, so it just couldn't possibly be more slapped together and ugly.



I didn't want to buy a wheelbarrow when my backyard is maybe four feet deep, and I didn't want to buy a mixing drill bit when I never plan on working with concrete again, so I ended up mixing the concrete with a hand trowel and my bare hands, leaving several layers of skin behind. The skin that remained is so dry and peeling I look like the palms of my hands are recovering from a sunburn. I would not recommend this method.

My one consolation is that the only reason I went to all this trouble is because I'm going to fill the planter with dirt so the flowers I plant will actually be visible above the edge. If this gorgeous bit of masonry was actually going to be visible above ground, I might have to knock it all down and try again.

Last night I laid on the couch moaning and groaning and generally whining about my aching muscles, one of my cats jumped up on my chest for a snuggle, and in trying to push him away, he managed to fall in such a way that he nicked my eye with one of his claws. It immediately started running and running and felt like I had something lodged in it. From past experience with my clutsy self, I figured my eye must have been scratched so I went to bed and hoped it would be better by morning. It wasn't. Instead I've been trying to take care of Atti by myself while Bear was at work with one good eye, when I can manage to keep it open, and a back and thighs that still scream every time I try to use them.

I finally reached my limit and called Bear to come home from work and take over baby duties. He took Atti to go pick up some lunch for us, went out to my car, and discovered that I somehow got a flat tire.

I'm a disaster area. Hopefully I'll get out all my bad luck and inconveniences in one crappy day and I'll have great karma for months after this. Knock on wood.

NieNie Day

I'm coming really late to this party, but thanks to Barb's blog I finally heard about Stephanie and Christian Nielsen. On Saturday, August 16th, they were in a private plane crash resulting in burns covering 30% of Christian's body, and 80% of Stephanie's. They are the parents of four young children and fellow latter-day saints, and my heart just aches for what they're all dealing with.

During my own hardships this year, the world overwhelmed us with love and support. We were showered with flowers and cards and cash and gas cards and presents and supplies for the NICU. Some from people we didn't even know. Moments like this in your life are catalysts. They are the times when you discover what your life means to you, what the world means to you. When you realize that behind the pettiness of daily life lies a core of humanity that will take care of you when you reach the end of your own strength. It is proof of my religious faith, that Heavenly Father loves his children and will help us through it all - but it is up to the rest of us to do the work. We are the hands He uses to lift each other up.

All around the internet people are holding silent auctions with the proceeds benefitting the Nielsen family and I wanted to jump in. I wish that I could do more, but I have to be realistic about my time now, so here's what I've come up with.

The proceeds of any item in my etsy shop sold during the month of September will go 100% to the Nielsen family. Unfortunately I don't have a ton in there right now, but if you need cards or little hair clips, you can get some cheap ones and support this family at the same time.

I'm also auctioning off a set of two custom superhero capes.


The winner will just have to tell me a rough size estimate and the letters to be monogrammed, and 100% of the purchase price will go to the Nielsen's. I'll have you pay directly to their paypal account and the winner will just forward me a reciept.

The auction starts as soon as this posts and will end at 11:59 pm Pacific time, Saturday September 6th. To bid, just leave a comment with your amount. Make sure you leave a name of some kind, anonymous comments won't be honored. Also, make sure you leave me some way of getting a hold of you. Blogger won't let me email back to individual comments.



Please spread the word about this so we can rally around this family.

Post Vacation Frenzy

We managed to sneak out of town for a couple of days over the long weekend to celebrate with Bear's family at their beachhouse up in Ventura. I have to admit that I don't always relish these trips. I'm really not much of a beach person to begin with, but also, Bear's family is so big and boisterous that huge extended family gatherings kind of kick up the old anxiety for me. We celebrate Thanksgiving here every year, and that I look forward to. I always sign up for way too much cooking and then I can just zen out in the kitchen as the chaos swirls around me, and all my favorite family members pop over to visit before heading back out into the storm of kids and sand and squabbles and sun. Without that task in front of me to focus on, I can get a little carried away inside my own head. Christmas just sends me right over the edge as packs of children descend on presents and I hide in the corner I stake out every year while I take deep breaths and imagine big open meadows.

This was my first time coming out for Memorial Day. Usually the weekend is so short and the drive is so long that we don't bother, but this family has been so overwhelming supportive and thoughtful and generous throughout all the ups and downs in Atticus' short life, that we were dying to see everyone and rejoice in our triumphs together. It was a great weekend.

Bear's whole immediate family was there this time, so we had some great time together, all the grandkids with their grandparents, I got some always welcome time with Bear's brother's wife Diana, who I dig way more than the short amount of time I get to see her would let on, and I even managed to make it through the weekend without my head exploding due to political discussions going round and round with no possible resolution.



The weather was pretty awful. I think the sun only came out for part of Saturday afternoon, but we still wanted to take advantage of the opportunity and let Atti have his first beach trip. It was not really a success.


The sand was very cold, and very wet, and the Rookie was not a fan.

He did a little better in the water.

Just look at those baby muscles!

But as soon as he got his trunks wet he started screaming, so we took him back up to the house and tossed him in the hot tub, where he laughed and cooed and floated to his hearts content.

Now that we're back in town the hard part begins. Not only do I have to get caught back up with regular life, but I have to do it while unpacking the entire car worth of stuff we had to drag with us, doing load upon load of laundry, restocking the house with groceries, and cleaning up the enormous mess the cats made in our absence. Sigh. I really envy Bear just having to go back to work. If only that's all I had to do.