This crazy life

I have decided to do a post a day this week, signifying my return to blogland.

I have been waiting for things to slow down around here but have more or less accepted that isn't going to happen, so here I come.

Back in.

Of course posting more frequently does mean that there will not be much that is that edifying most days, so reader beware.

Today.

Today was Hurricane Arthur in Nova Scotia, not much of a storm really unless you were a tree - they seemed to have spent most of the last 24 hours being blown in half and back again.

120,000 without power and this included my daughter and her family so they came over.

My daughter is three weeks near the end of her pregnancy and the little girls are 2 and 4. We had power, we had ways to cook, we had chocolate cake left over from Uncle Benny's birthday party the night before.

The men watched the tennis and the soccer in the basement and the rest of us spent time upstairs debating, with phone consults to my sister who is an ex labour room nurse, if the nausea and pain was a) early labour b) not early labour c) the result of the men being in front of the TV d) the result of a 2 and 4 year old stuck in the house all day e) if she went into labour today if that meant we had to call the baby Arthur.

In the end we decided that sitting on an exercise ball was probably a good idea, as was feeding the kids snacks and letting them watch the Wizard of Oz on my bed in front of the other TV, until we realized that green faced witch is pretty scary.

Then one of the men came up to make hamburgers. We didn't have any newspaper to start the coals since I have just recycled, so I got out some old sewing patterns of things I am definitely never going to ever make since I have had those patterns for 25 years. 

So this is what the afternoon looked like:

Remember feeling like that? BTW I made the top and pants for the first pregnancy and they still are going strong, which is more than I can say for my daughter at this moment.

Miss Scarlett trying to convince us that we should sew. Not today kiddo. The baby toys on the floor are ones that a baby left behind and Miss Daisy now throws around which thrills me since they told me puppy mill moms never learn to play. Well in this house they do. Incidentally on the chair in the background is a quilt the girls got out that I made for their mom (the one sitting on the exercise ball). I am a terrible quilter and went into labour before the binding was finished. With the sanity typical of women who are on their way to lose their minds in the labour room I refused to leave the house until I had finished slip stitching the binding right up until the contractions were 5 minutes apart. One of my finer moments.

Now dogs don't care if there is a Hurricane, even 15 pound dogs who get blown around. So Miss Daisy and I went out in the yard and I took these shots of her. Owing to the wind conditions and her being half terrier the shots are blurry due to movement by the subject.

I would liked to get some smiling running around shots but she was too quick for me and only stopped when I called her name, probably hoping it was lunch. She has filled out and no longer has vertebrae you feel poking through her skin. 

We go on three walks a day at least and the rest of the time she keeps herself busy being six inches behind me every step I take. I realize I am her first and only person she has ever had a relationship with and seems to have decided if she sticks with me she will be fine. Having her branch out to feel as comfortable with other members of the family will take some time but she is getting there.

My wonderful nephew who is such a sweet boy summed it up perfectly "Daisy is learning to be a real dog and every day more and more of that comes out."

Exactly.

So signing off tonight I will leave you with my favourite picture of her.

We got one of those little armchairs for the girls when they were little and all on her own Daisy found it.

And here she is.

At home in her own house:

Flypaper thoughts fourth of July

• Got a birthday party today for my youngest who was born on the fourth of July
• Board shorts to finish 
• The little girls are coming over to help with the cake
• They have also decided we need balloons, streamers, and treat bags
• They are stressed because they don't know what Uncle Benny's favourite colour is
• This is big when you are two and four
• What would you put in a treat bag for a twenty-eight year old
• Probably mothers shouldn't think about things like that
• McCalls has three interesting new fall patterns
• This weekend posting garment pictures
• Finally
• The last two weeks have been a whirl
• Nephew who is here for the summer is settled into his first job
• We have also spent a couple of days figuring out university courses with him
• He has one more year of high school left
• Thinking of doing a post about what I wish parents knew about getting kids ready for first year
• There are things you should know
• Fabricmart is posting boring fabrics these days
• Who needs all that taupe
• What exactly is taupe
• And why is it not beige
• Don't you just love it when you make something you never made before
• Don't understand the instructions but what-do-you-know it turns out
• Putting off the board short eyelets
• Two months in Florida
• Hats and sunscreen every day
• Spent yesterday afternoon with the nephew walking around in the fog watching the Nova Scotia golf open
• Sunburn today
• Figures
• My entire extended family will more or less be here all August
• Please send me your go to recipes for feeding crowds dinner
• I am clearly serious about this
• All the neoprene fabric around now would be perfect for the Jalie coat that has been calling for stretch coating all these years
• Need a raincoat but can't face making a trench
• Made one once for my 3X male hairdresser
• Burda and 48 pattern pieces
• I have done that
• Once
• Spent yesterday morning taking care of the girls and playing "friendly racoons in the snow"
• For some reason this involved making beds in the kitchen
• I had to talk in my racoon voice
• I have a racoon voice
• Speaking local Miss Daisy is not sure she like the rain
• Stands on the deck and actually looks up at the sky
• Even in drizzle
• Has a "what the hell is this" look on her Florida face
• Then she comes in and pees on the floor
• Got to come up with a plan before the sleet season starts
• We will figure it out
• We are doing so well with everything but the rain
• Last week she started to play with toys
• Ran up and down the hall bringing back a toy we threw
• We were nearly in tears
• Learning to be a real dog
• Are you sick of the dog stories
• Dog recovery has been such a big part of my last few months
• Ah ha!
• I need to sew her a raincoat with a hood
• As with most things
• The solution is sewing
• Now off to do those eyelets

These are the new McCall fall patterns I noticed:

I once had a wrap type dress with a dolmon sleeve I liked. Would it make me feel as elegant at 60 as at 25? Always the question. However you can't trust a wrap. This one says it closes with hooks and eyes. Kidding right? I am not trusting exposing my underwear to a couple of hooks and eyes, that's for sure

We all wore these skirts all the time. Like when I was 25 and didn't think I would ever be as old as 60. Funny having more fun now. Back to skirts. These are practical but are they dowdy?

Like this view for work, on my thinking about this list. Have to make the dowdy decision as I will not be wearing marcelled hair with mine.

Like this line drawing better than the picture where the model is bunching it up with a belt. A million patterns like this before but this one has more shape and a peplum version. I have to think ahead to dressing in the sleet.

Quick update

This one is just to let you know I am still here and thinking of sewing.

Just after I came home from Florida my 17 year old nephew arrived for the summer. He has one more year to go in high school and had the sensible idea (he is a highly sensible kid) to spend a summer away working so he could adjust to being away from home before he had to adjust to university too.

As someone who sees kids lose it the first term away from home every fall, I think this is a good idea.

He has never worked so we have spent the last week driving around and applying for jobs. He has just been hired as a bus boy at Swiss Chalet and is thrilled. His training sessions start on the weekend and tomorrow he and I are going to go out and eat at another Swiss Chalet location to do some recon. We will also be practising carrying plates lined up on our arms around the living room. We figure that's go to be the tricky part.

My sister did a real good job with this one. Most evenings he and I have been talking about life and giving each other advice. I like having a kid in the house again and I now know more than I did before about soccer.

Other news is that Miss Scarlett is graduating from pre-school today and is being awarded a prize for the best conversationalist.

That's my girl.

My sewing itch is returning. I had better hop to it to get some summer things made before the window of opportunity closes in Nova Scotia. First day I got back from Florida I actually saw someone walking their kid to school with ear muffs on.

Give me strength.

Too bad the garments I have been sewing in my head are not in my closet, or the posts I have been writing in my head are not on this page.

Life's like that.

More later.

Dreams

You probably have a better brain than I do, but mine is a bit of a recycling bin. The stuff that rattles around in there unsorted is amazing. 

I have long learned to rely on my dreams to spit up interesting insights into how I work to me.

Some of my dreams are best left unfigured out, like the one where my dad's best friend was wearing my mother's dress, but some tell me things.

I woke up this morning from a nightmare.

I dreamt I was going into teach a class, my best assistant from my last job with me, and we took Mr. Rascal into the classroom with us. At the end of the class all the students filed out and we realized Mr. R had gone out with them and was now lost.

We searched and searched all over the hills where my school is but we just couldn't find him anywhere. 

Finally, I went home and explained all this to my husband. In the middle of the conversation we heard scratching at the door and we hoped it was Mr. R. However when we went to the door there were about twenty abandoned dogs in the front yard, I recognized many of them, including my boy Elvis who I sure hope has been adopted by now. They were all hungry and we fed them.

But there was no Rascal.

I realized when I woke up that I had gone to volunteer at the shelter in St. Augustine with the well-developed crazy part of my brain sort of hoping he would turn up there. I knew he was somewhere, but I just didn't know where.

I understood this when I woke up, and understood that in looking for him I found something else.

And I realized Miss Daisy was his last gift to me.

More later, this is just this morning.

A sewing blogger's big question

The big question is this. 

What does a sewing blogger do if she hasn't been sewing?

I have done a bit while we have been here and but been too busy to post pictures. 

If a sewing blogger isn't sewing what is she to do?

Feel guilty?

I hope not.

We are headed home on Wednesday morning. 

We have had a great time here. (We always say great-vacation-except-for-the-part-where-your-mom-broke-her-hip-and-had-to-fly-home-by-air-ambulance out of respect) and it has been busy.

First there was that week where my dear MIL was in the hospital till she flew home. Then the week when my step-daughter was here with her baby. I tried to do as much baby sitting as I could so she and her dad could golf and do those things that none of us get a chance to do with our adult children when they leave home.

My gain. This baby is an absolutely delightful six month old. We had a lot of fun together. I am pretty sure my own kids were not this pleasant at that age, but this round I am not the tired one.

I have also been teaching while I am here by distance and made the mistake of booking two classes. This has meant about 33 assignments a week to mark. Good interesting stuff and I enjoy it, but between two beach walks a day with Miss Daisy, and a round of golf a day it has kept me away from my sewing machine.

This has not meant I have not been thinking about sewing.

For instance.

I will be stopping full time work the end of next August, 2015. After that I will be teaching courses I like either by distance or at the most two half days a week in the classroom, for a few more years.

So I am seeing the end of my working wardrobe requirements on the horizon. 

I realize if I wanted to I could actually work out the rest of my career with what I already have in my closet.

I am completely not going to do that of course, but to be honest I can sew from my stash for the career duration and be fine. There is no need to be buying any more gabardine for this girl.

Since I have been sewing, planning, and fabric shopping for work clothes for 35 years at least this is a real shock. It will take me a while to get my head around that and to retool my needs to more casual clothes. This is in itself pretty exciting. I will actually be sewing and wearing, increasingly, over the next few years, only what I want to. Makes me feel like a kid again.

I have also realized I am going to have to work further on the TNT development.

I have a confession to make. For the first season ever I have bought only one pattern from the Big Four. The stuff is so dreary and I have seen it all before. I figure BMV is spreading itself way to thin, there isn't enough differentiation to keep three companies going without recycling a lot of the same ideas and it shows.

And what is it with all these retro full skirted 50s dresses?

I mean they are cute and everything but are you seeing those around? Maybe on a Saturday in Soho but anywhere else? This stuff was originally designed to be worn with crinolines and girdles that nobody wants to wear day-to-day anymore.

And don't forget when these little numbers were in fashion it was also the age of the "housedress" which means as soon as they could the girls got out of those outfits into something more comfortable.

And I have to ask too, what has happened to Sandra Betzina? I have always thought she was better at construction than design but when she saw these shots she must have had a fit.

Remember that this is being worn on some model who undoubtedly had celery for lunch and has 34" hips and see how this makes her look:

 I mean what gives?

This is the kind of dress you wear if you have just had to give up the farm. Or have black velvet pillows with yellow velvet roses on the horsehair sofa.

I mean this dress could be sold to add thirty years and forty pounds to any body. This is a costume designer's dress not a sewer's dress.

So when I get home and back in my well equipped sewing room I am going to pull out the TNTs and figure out exactly what I want to wear and figure out how to make it, since I am going to have to be doing this on my own for a bit, until patterns start looking wearable to me again.

Before I go here is a shot of Miss Daisy, my happy girl, before she goes off for a haircut. This little dog is doing so well. She has put it all together in her head and somewhere along the line decided that her job is to follow me around and watch everything I do, without fail, almost like someone was giving her a paycheck every two weeks to do it. She has got quite cuddly and every day there is another little bit new that comes out. Only freak out so far was when my husband rattled around the rack for the roasting pan and we realized of course that looks and sounds just like a cage.

The thing about not being free is that once you are, animal or person, it is a one way street. You don't,  you can't go back. No way at all.

I have learned a lot from this dog too. There is no way of knowing how or why some folks survive. I look at her, with all the poor souls I saw come out of those puppy mill situations and I wonder what it was that kept her going and kept her spirit intact. This may sound nuts but this dog has faith:

Finally, finally we are outfitting the RV a bit so things will be ready when we come down again. I got it in my head that this is such a totally retro thing to do that I should retrofit it retro - back to simpler times.

Fortunately St. Augustine has outstanding consignment shops and here is my cutlery. A full set for $4.00

Pretty nifty, eh?

Flypaper thoughts

• Why are there tanning salons in Florida?'
• We don't have in ground sprinkler systems in Nova Scotia
• To the world in general
• Is there a common sense app we can put on that phone?
• This is what getting older is about
• You move back on the stage and do a lot of work in support roles
• This is precisely why this time of your life is when you have to be the main person being good to yourself
• Like this?
• It's how I am explaining that big orange bag and the bronze clutch I bought at the outlets
• Good policy
• You know in the chorus you can wear what ever shoes you want
• My step-daughter and baby have been here for the week
• Smiley baby, really nice mother
• I could be a professional baby walker
• Love those strollers
• We have one more week here
• You will never guess
• My husband went out and bought an RV to leave here and come back to
• You think you are surprised
• I was marking papers at the time
• I think my input was along the lines of "Uh uh"
• Then we marched through about ten of them and I said I liked the ones with the most windows
• This is a man who doesn't sit outside if he sees one bug
• Of course we are not talking my dad's canvas tent and the Coleman stove
• This unit has couches and a washer and dryer
• Speaking of babies
• They are the solution
• To my knitting angst
• And most other things
• Rather than spending a solid month knitting a sweater that turns out to be for Lowly worm
• I am going to practice my skills on mini projects until I figure out how not to mess this up
• Babies wear small stuff
• I am a genius
• Better late than never
• New fabric policy
• Apart from pants fabric that has to be boring to allow the bottom half to be a non issue
• I am going to buy fabric from now on only if it makes me smile
• Look out
• Going to end up with something perfect to match a giant orange purse
• Miss Daisy is letting her feisty side out
• Going to get her a vest that says "Bunny patrol"
• Great to see
• Unless you are a bunny
• Vacations are busy

Thank you

This is a just a quick update before I go back to do some marking for my summer course, but I want you all to know  I have been back in touch with Daisy's foster mother, and had a really good conversation. She is pleased Daisy is doing so well, but as she lives a ways away we have agreed to keep in contact by email. I am going to get my husband to take some shots tonight of the wild running around in the water that goes on at the beach and send them on to her.

I intend to keep in touch too when we are back in Nova Scotia. You are right, she needs to see how her foster dog did and where she went. It is the least I can do for what she has already done for us.

The comments left on this blog really got me thinking. I thank you so much for taking the time to write them. I like this conversation best when it is two way.

More later, there are some pictures of the Lowly Worm sweater coming up.