10 May 2013
by jrayein Uncategorized
I am officially four teeth less than I was the last time I posted. The surgery was fine. My doctor was a comedian. He did everything, from putting in the IV, to juicing me up, to yanking out the teeth. It was impressive. After he studied my arm to figure out where the IV should go, he got it in on the first try. He stood up looking pleased and said “Usually it takes me 47 tries to get it in.” I was a little befuddled at that point and said “What?” followed quickly by “Oh stop it, you.” Then I woke up in the recovery room. I don’t even know how I got there. Presumably I walked because there were no wheelchairs in site in the place.
So I have been spending the last few days with an ice pack pressed to my face, eating smoothies with spoons, taking Advil, and worrying about getting dry socket. Today is the first day the swelling has gone down significantly and I’ve spent most of the day so far not on the couch. My gums have progressed to an awkward stage of alternating between feeling really itchy and hurting a bit, which is maddening, but much better than straight up hurting.
Dave has been a trooper, dealing with getting Henry off to school, getting Holly fed, keeping me in smoothies, and, you know, just sort of doing pretty much everything. I’m a lucky girl!
06 May 2013
by jrayein Uncategorized
I’m going to be lazy and repost what I put up on Facebook during the month of April:
4/1: When we turned on the Netflix this morning for a little Dora, the Roku was on the movie “Garbage Pail Kids”. It was asking if we’d like to resume playing. I asked Henry if he was watching it. Nope. Holly? Nope. I know I wasn’t. David? You’ve got some ‘splaining to do.
4/2: It’s a sad state of affairs when you have your eyes closed, listening to the sound of seagulls, only to discover when you open your eyes that you’re standing in the parking lot of a Walmart in Central Pennsylvania and not, say, the beach.
24 Mar 2013
by jrayein Chocolat, Hank the Tank, Jenn, Sewing Tags: Christmas, Growing Up Sew Liberated, henry, holly, play tent, Sewing
It’s so far past Christmas, it feels a little silly writing about the play tent I made for Henry and Holly, but I’ve been wanting to for the past few months so why not?
This year we tried to go as hand-made as possible with our Christmas gifts, which is pretty easy to do for kids. For adults, not so much, as it turns out, but that’s a post for a different day. The only store-bought items they got from us were technically from Santa. By the way, can I just say that I’m glad that we’re know at the stage “ask for one thing from Santa” stage? The first couple of years Henry was even aware of the concept of Santa, he asked for three things, one of which was easy, the other two being ridiculously hard to find. One year he wanted an art kit, a snowman doll, and a candy cane doll. The snowman was surprisingly difficult. I ended up finding it at a Walden Books of all places. The candy cane doll I had to make myself.
But I digress.
At some point last year I picked up the book Growing Up Sew Liberated. Most of the times when I buy pattern books, I like two, maybe three of the projects. Not so with this book. I love them all. The one that really caught my eye was the play tent and when Christmas rolled around, I remembered wanting to make it and thought that it would be a great joint gift to Henry and Holly. It’s kind of an intimidating pattern, but discovered while talking to my friend Beth that she was planning on making it, too, and thus a pre-Christmas Sunday sewing marathon was born. Between the two of us we rocked the pattern out. It was good having both of us reading and interpreting the pattern. It made it much more approachable.
When I was contemplating what fabrics to choose, I knew I wanted a neutral canvas as the main material, but I was having trouble finding an accent material that I liked. After thinking about it for a while, I decided I’d do the whole thing in canvas and let the kids decorate it themselves with fabric markers. Then at the last minute I found the bright green fabric with the white dogs and ultimately decided I preferred the contrast. We spent Christmas with my parents in Boston, and when we arrived home a set up the tent here, the first thing Henry said was “Can I decorate it with my markers?” By this point, having sweated through the process of sewing it I really wanted to say no. However, deep down in my subconscious I knew that I had known this is what the kids were going to want to do. So I asked Henry to give me one more day with it as it was, and the next day they could color it however they wanted. After they went to bed that night, I took pictures and admired it in it’s pristine (albeit wrinkled from the drive home) state, then let it go.
The next morning, the kid’s made it their own.
I can’t deny, it’s even more fabulous now.
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