Good bye February!

This is the only family dinner we got to have this week thanks to a never ending stomach flu bug. I am happy to say we are all finally feeling better. This weekend will be spent getting the house back in order and hopefully some long overdue sewing.

An ordinary day

Turn your back for a minute and this is what I see.

I keep an eye on her but allow her to be adventurous I am a pretty lax momma I would say.

I figure what is the worse that could happen.

It is my own fault I suppose; I myself LOVE bbq sauce and have now instilled my love of dipping sauces on my daughter.

The only difference?

I don’t think it makes a great hair styling product.

Turn my back again, now this is my

own fault and it not happens once but yep you guessed it… Twice!

And as you probably already know the second time was worse than the first!

Naturally she just was telling me she wanted her bath earlier in the day.

Oh and that she was hungry for soap (go figure!)

Chalk it up to the adventures of Momma-hood with an almost two year old.

Sick Day

Our entire house has a nasty stomach flu. I have never been so sick in my life I am on my fourth day, I think Leila is doing the best and it may finally be over for her. Her appetite is back and we have been pumping her with liquids. However Ken got it last night and seems to be hit the hardest. I still cant keep anything down but the sharp stomach pains (for the most part) are gone so for that I am thankful. I am just sick of being sick!

Long day

Its been one of those days. A day that by the end you are just a pile of numb mush. Lucky for me I have a big stack of fabric that I just got in the mail that is making my brain-o-mush start to think creatively and a thumb sucking cutie that will flash me a smile and giggle at those moments I need it the most. I will be back to normal in a few days I know I will, dont want to be a downer so I wont be. My mantra: It could be worse.

Know your role

Today I had an incident happen at work I won’t go into details but I will say it got me to start thinking about women and our quest to “have it all”. I consider myself to be a pretty independent thinker I grew up with a mom who was home most of my early childhood but went back to work when I was around 12 (I think I can’t even remember anymore) and for her that is what she wanted.

I am the complete opposite of my mom I suppose she didn’t want the “homemaker” role and while I truly enjoy working outside of the home I want the best of both worlds I want to work as well as cook, bake, clean and spend as much time as possible with my family. I lucked out that I work for a company that appreciates that and has been flexible with my hours so that I could achieve this important balance. I think though I am out of the norm.

I believe women in general want the best of both worlds but is that fair? Is it fair to pick and choose those things we want to portray as what we believe a woman to be. Is it also fair to demand women “know their role” and stay that path. Can woman have it all? Can we take only the good things that we want and leave those parts we believe to be demeaning on the side? In a perfect world maybe.

Am I wrong to be realistic and know that while I for the most part have gotten to pick the best parts traits of woman over the last 50 years; a woman who sews for her children on the weekend but climbs the corporate ladder on the weekdays, I will have to deal with some of the traits that some believe no longer makes us equal with men?

And not to say that these stereotypes are not prevalent to men as well. I had a rather heated argument with a man who believes that any man who takes care of his children is not really a man that he must truly want to work to be a financial provider to his family to make him feel complete. I find that asinine but that is me. I know that too many a man who is a nurse, nanny, or preschool teacher is thought odd because those are typical “female roles” we have a lot of growing yet to do.

While I may buck the system in my own ways and work to create a new “role” for my own self I know there will be set backs and I am ok from picking myself up not letting my pride to be bruised and go forward.

Thanks for reading; I promise I will stay off my soap box for awhile.

This lovely photo can be found here.

Play time

Last night Leila and I played with shadows. Nothing beats a long day at work like shadow puppets! Heres to fun nights for one and all.

Third times the charm

One day three bags. Not bad eh? Well these were all prototypes I had an image in mind mind and couldnt stop thinking about it so after two restless nights Sunday I settled down and starting sewing my heart out.


Now be easy these are prototypes so they arent perfect by ANY means, this one was a little TOO puffy and looked like a lima bean for me (plus its uneven and I wont even pretend that that was done on purpose!

Next bag I wanted to play with the top rim and got rid of the super puff, I also manually pleated this one the first one I did a basting stitch and pulled it to make it poof (does that make sense?)


Third bag the best of both worlds loved the rim from the top and loved the bottom from the second. So this will be my new design, it still needs a little tweaking (the opening is too small) but all in all I love it.

So there you have it, that is my process of trial and error. I love this fabric by the way and I got it super cheap so I dont feel bad using it on three bags I probably wont use for more than around the house. Leila should be happy though she has a thing for bags!

Would anyone be interested in a tutorial for the last bag? There was a big request for tutorials lately and this is one I havent seen a tutorial out there for though I didnt look very hard for one!

ugh

I love living in Wisconsin and normally I like winter this year though is a whole other story. I am done count me out lets finish up with this dreadful weather! I just went outside and there is no joke a good inch or two of solid ice on our sidewalks. We are having freezing rain, the trees all around us are bending so severely I wont be surprised if they snap. I am worried that we may lose power sometime today and then I will be so bored I may cry! (maybe I can get some knitting done... hmm) After the rain finishes up we are suppose to get another oh 10 inches of snow. We may just hit 100" this winter season it wouldnt surprise me. And tomorrow I HAVE to go into work I am scared out of my mind for that. The owner of the company will be in town so I dont have many options as far as calling in for another snow day.


Leila had these pictures taken during Christmas this year, she has a thing for hats and doesnt care who they belong to, this one I believe my uncle owns. Well at least she saw the long winter ahead long before I did!

Valentine Swap

Happy Valentines Day! I got to participate in a fun secret swap and on Valentines Day we are to reveal who we sent our gift to, I had Tammie (she doesnt have a blog) hope she enjoyed everything I had fun creating it all! I still havent had time to figure out my Valentine yet I have been looking around but if my admirer comes to my blog reveal yourself I want to thank you properly I LOVED my gifts!!!! Speaking of those gifts I will hopefully get pictures up after this weekend when I actually get some sunlight in the house!

Its all about the comfort

Comfort food that is. As of yesterday this area of Wisconsin (Madison area) hit an all time record of snow for the winter season we are currently at 79 inches and have still another month (at least) to go. We are sick of being holed up in the house I know many families are feeling cabin fever, we fight it by comfort food. I have made so much chocolate chip pumpkin bread this season its ridiculous. But you know what? It keeps me and Leila sane (Ken doesnt like pumpkin) and that is all that matters.

Here are my three favorite recipes as of late:

Chocolate Pumpkin Bread
Tip: I use a cup of soy that I puree instead of the eggs (makes it even more moist, found the subsitution via a vegan cooking site, seriously how did people cook before the internet?!?!?!) and go half and half with the white and wheat flour.

Creamy Rice Pudding
Tip: I cut out the 1/2 cup of the milk at the end and use water instead. I also dont use the raisins more because I dont have them in the house rather than I dont want to.

Baked Macaroni and Cheese
Tip: this one is very step organized its not a fast easy whip up but it is OH SO GOOD if you have the time to make it!

Ok?

Leila started saying OK today. Which made me start thinking. Leila doesnt have a lot of words yet our pediatrician chalks it up mostly to the fact that she is an only child and well we give into her grunts as a form of communication. It is amazing how much a parent and child can communicate with little form of "traditional" communication. So this prompted me to wonder why would the word OK be on the top of the list (No isnt even on the list yet which I am surprised but happy for!) and I realized within 20 minutes of being home from work how much I use the phrase/word (whatever tickles your fancy) OK, and you know what, I am OK with that!

My favorite new tote

Here is my newest tote. I love it almost to the point where I dont want to sell it but I will. What do you think of the tote? Love or hate, be honest it wont hurt my feeling.

what I have been up to

I attempted my third craft show this weekend. And like each craft show it gets better than the next. I sold one more thing than the last and while I know I am no where near making a living off my dream I know that I am taking itty bitty baby steps to get there. I am not expecting an over night success nor do I want one.
I feel like the work and patience I need will make success that much sweeter, something I wont take for granted. This show was great for me, I met some other AMAZING artists and hopefully some great new contacts. Really you just have to get out there put your pride aside and have a great time which is what I did.


And the inspiration you get from a craft show is AMAZING especially one with crafters that are like minded it was absolutely amazing.


I just hope that they want me back for the next few show if they continue with I had a great day, snow and all.

Oh and these pincushions? They werent recieved as well as I would hoped, I absoultely love them, they are all made with vintage fabric and linen. They will be listed in my shop in the next few days a few at a time. E-mail me at artsymomma @ gmail.com if you want one before it's been listed. And later this week, a whole lot of tissue cozy love as well as a few totes I made especially for the show that I am in love with but cant keep since really how many totes can one girl have?

Another snow day?

I got stuck no more than 20 feet from my house in a big snow drift (why do I drive such a cute snow unfriendly car?!?!?). Thank God for amazing neighbors and a complete stranger who pulled me out. I am now home waiting for the roads clear up before I try and head out again!

Snow Day

I didnt go to work today, the snow is coming down hard and long to drive over 30 miles one way just didnt seem like a good idea. The rest of the week will most likely be taken over by snow photos. Stay warm and dry!

Finally!

Something crafty to post! Gosh it seems like a long time. This is my contribution for the 4 season quilt swap this obviously being for winter. Originally I was hoping to incorporate a winter embroidery scene but that didnt work out, I was also going to use the trusty disappearing nine patch set but that didnt turn out the way I wanted so I went completely off the cuff. This design I am afraid I could never replicate even if I wanted to! My favorite part this time though was the quilting which is odd because usually that is my least favorite part. I went symbolic, the quilting was to look like a snowflake in the center and the wavy border? Falling snow/snow hills. I really hope she likes this quilt, it was an amazing adventure for me!

Speaking of snow looks like we are going to get a heavy dumping in these parts so I may have other crafty posts soon since I will have daylight to take photos!

Winter Weather Blues

So we have gotten a LOT of snow this year, by Wed. morning we are looking at another 5-8" we have almost 60" of snow this winter season(we are heading for a record season of snow). By this point I wake up moaning man I dont want to drive in this stuff again! I know though that I could never live anywhere else, winters wouldnt be the same without this amazing stuff. Seriously where else can you live that you can stand on a frozen lake and fly a kite! Winters in Wisconsin always take my breath away.




BTW for those who are wondering, I fell off the horse and had two big cups of coffee today. I needed to drowned my sorrows of not being pregnant, tomorrow I will try and give it up again!

Photo credits via flickr here, here, and here