Sunday, March 29, 2009

"Nuk go bye-bye"

I'm breaking Brooke of her nuk. Cold turkey. Everyone pray for my sanity. I noticed that she's been chewing them to pieces, we went through 4 nuks in 2 days. So instead of going out and buying nuks in lots, I've decided she's big enough to be weaned of them. This is our first night without one. She looses them at night anways, so hopefully she can get to sleep because I know she'll stay asleep. This could be a long process of falling asleep though. I put her down 5 minutes ago and we had a long a talk about how the nuk went bye-bye. She nodded and said "Okay", but I don't think she really understood it.

On a different note...Redoubt erupted again and this time ash fell on us here in Anchorage. Brooke and I were at an Easter party on post, and someone there said that a friend had called her and that ash was falling over on C Street, which was about a mile from where we were. I had been slacking on shopping and had to rush and get diapers and milk, just in case we were going to get ashed in for a few days. When I arrived at the commissary, I could see the ash cloud, but no ash. By the time I emerged thirty minutes later, ash was falling. I ran with Brooke out to the car and got her in the car right away. She had no clue what was going on, she just thought mom was pretty fun for running with the cart. We live right outside of base, so it wasn't a very long drive home, but I was hyperventilating all the same. We finally got home and wend inside. The first thing I did was turn on our air purifier. The snow is kind of ashy outside, but it's not too bad. I hope this volcano stops pretty quick here. I don't like that it can be an ongoing thing. Too much anticipation. I'm a planner. I like knowing what's going to happen, and this volcano trumps that. Gar.

I was playing with my camera today. It has so many neat features, so I wanted to try some of them.

This is a picture of my very first afghan. I screwed up on part of it, and would have had to rip out four rows. I didn't. So I'm sending it to my dad instead. He'll never know...Haha.

This is the couch covered in yarn and the coffee table covered in pattern books.

And my crazy daughter...The first is of her bedhead, the second is her "doh!" and the third is just...her. :)



Saturday, March 28, 2009

Close to my 100th Sale!

I am so close to making 100 sales! I just wanted to let everyone know that who ever buys the 100th item, they get 30% off their whole order! My sales are at 95 right now, so if you buy 5 things, that would bring my sales to 100 and you get 30% off the WHOLE order, not just that one item.

Friday, March 27, 2009

ACT (Artfire Cafemom Team) Giveaway!

My Artfire Guild is having another giveaway! The item being given away is a beautiful green dichroic glass pendent. Check out the giveaway and spread the word!!

(Click the picture to take you to the giveaway page)


Thursday, March 26, 2009

I attract natural disasters...

So I can't get through a weekend without some sort of excitement. Last weekend it was helping to deliver a baby, and this weekend the volcano here in Alaska finally erupted. We've been waiting on this things for the past few months and it finally blew Sunday night. I got a bad feeling around 11 P.M. Sunday night and went to check the AVO (Alaska Volcano Observation) website and saw that it had erupted 40 minutes before. Now I won't sugar coat it, but I was FREAKING out. I have never lived near volcanos, so how was I supposed to know what was going to happen? The first thing I did was check all of the news sources online to see if the ash cloud would be heading towards Anchorage. The next thing I did was call all of my friends here in Anchorage to give them the heads up. Needless to say, I was up until around 2 A.M. and was hoping that school would be cancelled the next day. Not with my luck. So I headed to class off of 4 hours of sleep. The volcano has erupted several more times in the past 4 days, but none of the ash is heading this way. Before volcanos I was in hurricane land...what is it with me and natural disasters?

(Picture taken from the AVO website. The picture is dated March 23, 2009)

On a happier note, I finally got my bad! Andrea of WatermelonWishes on Etsy put my bag together so fast I barely had to wait. But the time I did wait was full of impatient anticipation. When I did get it, it was perfect! It was even better that it looked in the picture. The workmanship is VERY high quality. If you like pockets, then this is the bag for you! Since taking it out, I have gotten a lot of compliments, so thank you Andrea!



(My daughter is checking out the inside of the bag :) )

I learned how to crochet about 4 months ago. Since then I've just crafted booties and beanies. They're fast, easy, and adorable. I have shied away from afghans because I'm a instant gratification type of person. I love to see my work finished in a short amount of time. But then I saw my friend Jenn and the afgan she's been working on, and it looked so neat when she was making it, so I decided to give in and try one. Well, I didn't just stop at one, I started two. One is pink and green, and the other is green, rose and black ripple pattern. I will have to post pictures later to show you what they look like.


Friday, March 20, 2009

Another Week Gone

Another week has gone. Another week of school gone. WOOHOO!

I got my paper back in Lifespan Development. I wasn't quite sure how well I would do on it since I literally threw it together and barely proofread it. It was also my first paper attempted since Eric left. I got an A! I was so happy!!! There were a few grammatical and spelling errors, but the formatting was right and I included everything I needed to in it. So now, I hold a strong C in that class. Haha. I hope to bring that grade up to a B by the time the class is done. We have one more paper and two more tests with a smattering of quizzes in there. I have the second test on Wednesday, and I have been studying! I am so proud of myself. Haha. I am getting an A in math and either an A or B in my English class. My Juvenile Delinquency class is a huge question mark because he doesn't post grades and we haven't gotten anything back that we've turned in. That is so frustrating since I like to keep track of my progress.

If anyone knows me, I am not a little Miss Suzy Homemaker. I hate cleaning, doing laundry, doing the dishes and my house is hardly even spotless. I have a friend coming over on Saturday to watch Twilight with me, so it has given me a good excuse to clean up. The worst part of my house is my room, the island in the kitchen and the dining room table. The island gets all of my castoffs. It's usually cluttered with mail, wrappings, and miscellaneous crap. But now, it's clean! Before I went to bed last night I attacked it with a vengeance. Everything is organized and I had even bought a mail holder at Target, so now all my mail and miscellaneous papers are in that basket! I am going to TRY TRY TRY and keep it clean. We shall see. So before she comes over Saturday, I need to vacuum, clean up the downstairs, clean the bathroom and clean the dining room table off. I can do it! Haha. Oh, and the couch since it's covered in yarn and crocheting paraphernalia.

My daughter is becoming such a hoot. Her new thing is to "read" with me while I'm reading her a book. Her favorite book is Barnyard Dance by Sandra Boynton. It's super cute but my brain gets all muddled when I'm trying to listen to her and read at the same time. She has also started to sing along with the radio when we're in the car. Granted it's just a bunch of babbling with a few distinct words here and there, but it's still so cute. Maybe she'll be a singer when she gets older. :) Take care of her old parents.

When I get bored I browse Etsy and Artfire. BAD IDEA. I always end up buying something. Well, a couple days ago I was browsing Artfire and came upon Betty Mae Bakery. The thing that caught my eye was that her baked goods were only A PENNY. One penny, one cent. I had to take a closer look. Upon investigating further, I realized ALL of her products were a penny! I knew I was in trouble then. She had so many yummy looking things, it was hard to choose just one, or two, or three. But finally I settled on two things. One of them was Peanut Butter Chocolate Swirl Cookies and the other was Four Dozen Cookie Mix. Well, I finally got them yesterday, and they are delicious! They were shipped super fast by priority mail, but the great thing was, all of the cookies came in reusable containers. I LOVED that! I love Tupperware so it was nice that I got some free and that she's eco friendly! You better go take advantage of this promotional deal while it lasts! the Peanut Butter Chocolate Swirls are certainly my favorite, and my daughter's too! All you pay is the cent and then shipping.



I will try and blog tomorrow, but I am about to head out to dinner with a friend and I still have ti put on my face. I am going to write about my new bag (that came today, I just have to get to the mailbox), the Artfire Cafemom Team blog and it's giveaway! Plus pictures of my new beanie I made up and other miscellaneous things. :)

Monday, March 16, 2009

Well, to say I had an eventful weekend would be the understatement of the year. I will apologize in advance if some of this post doesn't make much sense, I'm running off of minimal sleep.

This past 30 hours has been one of the most memorable times in my life, and it came with no warning at all. I have made a couple of wonderful friends here and am so grateful to have them in my life. This past week I was on spring break and have been spending a lot of my free time with them. We've been going on much needed outings to take our minds off of our husbands being gone and to just get some much needed adult conversation. So to end a wonderful week, we all went to breakfast yesterday morning. We pigged out at iHop and then we all went home to just sort of wind down before the week ahead overwhelmed us. Sarah's husband was due to come home in four days, Jenn had a stack of ACU bag orders to fill, and I was going back to school the next day. At around 4:45 P.M. Sarah calls me because I had text her whining about not knowing what to make Brooke and I for dinner. She tells me that she's been having contractions for the past two hours, but she thinks they're just braxton hicks and that she's dehydrated and hungry. So then we get on the topic of food and how we don't feel like making dinner because it's a pain to cook for 1 1/2. I suggest going out to eat because we didn't want to cook and it sounded like fun. Sarah calls Jenn and we all decide to meet at Red Robin in 40 minutes. We all show up at relatively the same time, get our table and order. Throughout the meal Jenn and I can tell that the contractions are still coming and they're coming at regular intervals. Sarah is timing them just to keep track. Towards the end of the meal, the contractions seem to be getting stronger so Sarah calls labor and delivery to ask their advice. They tell her it would probably be a good idea to just come in and make sure everything is ok and they also wanted to monitor her and measure her contractions. Jenn and I fly into go mode. We work out the details among ourselves. Jenn is going to take Teresa (Sarah's 2 year old daughter) back to her house while I take Sarah to labor and delivery to get her checked out. I get Brooke strapped into her car seat and pull my car around to where Sarah and Jenn are. I tell Sarah to take a seat in my car and that Jenn and I will get Teresa's car seat situated in Jenn's SUV. That was a challenge by its self because the parking lot was so dang icy. Jenn and I almost went down a couple of times. So we get the cars situated and Jenn takes Teresa. I drive the block to the hospital, drop Sarah off at the entrance and go to park the car. I get Brooke inside and up to Sarah's room where they've hooked her up the the fetal heart monitor and contraction thinga ma jig. I'm chasing Brooke around the room trying to keep everything as calm as possible, but it's a challenge since two year olds have an agenda all of their own. Sarah, Brooke and I are there for about 3 hours when one of the nurses come in and tells us that they would like to keep Sarah there for a few more hours just to see if her labor progresses. I decide that it's best for Brooke to not be there because she's getting cranky due to the fact that it's past her bedtime. I call my daycare lady and made plans for Brooke to go spend the night there since Brooke was going to be there the next day anyways. My caregiver says it's ok so I pack my kid up, tell Sarah I'll be back ASAP and head home to grab Brooke and overnight bag. I get to my caregivers, drop Brooke off and she's not even phased by the whole situation. I kiss her good night and get back in the car to get back to Sarah. This whole time I'm trying to keep a calm head about the situation. She has been on the phone with her husband to keep him updated on the situation and to reassure him everything is ok. I get back to the hospital and make very attempt to keep the atmosphere as light as possible. I knew Sarah was stressing about so many things, and I wanted to try and keep her mind off of the pain and her stress. We sit around chatting in her room, listen to another lady in the next room have a very loud labor and delivery and just hope that everything is going to be ok. Sarah has been in constant contact with her husband and finds out that if she is in fact in labor, he wouldn't be able to make it home that night. The earliest he would be able to come home is the next day. About three hours after I get back to the hospital, the main doctor on call comes in to check her out. It turns out that she is in fact in active labor and dilating. Since Sarah had a c-section with her previous child, she was going to have a c-section with this child. The doctor and nurses go into go mode and schedule her c-section for an hour out. I myself go into go mode because I know that I need to be there for Sarah since her husband isn't able to be there and her mom is stuck in Minnesota. She then asks me to stay and help her through the delivery and to be there for her and her new baby boy. I feel so honored that she wants me to be there during such an amazing event. I help Sarah fill out paper work and try and keep her mind off of the fact that her husband wasn't going to be there. Once everything is set, they take Sarah back to the OR and get her spinal in. They've given me the white has mat suit, hair net and shoe covers. I look absolutely ridiculous. About 20 minutes after they've rolled Sarah away, the nurse comes to get me and brings me into the operating room. I'm led to a stool near Sarah's head manned with my camera with strict instructions to take as many pictures as I can. I talk to her while they start the procedure and am just in awe of everything that was going on. I somewhat knew how she felt because I myself was in that position just two years before, but I did have my husband with me. It took about ten minutes to get to the baby. Then the anesthesiologist tells me I can stand up and when I do, I see little Alistair's head being pulled from Sarah's stomach. In no time the rest of him is pulled out and I start clicking away. This baby boy is so perfect it brought tears to my eyes. It was so surreal to be in that situation and to witness such a miracle. I telling Sarah over and over how perfect he is and you can see the love just flow through her. She is glowing. The nurse then says that they're going to take Alistair to get him cleaned up and get his vitals. I follow the baby and nurse into the NICU (that's where they take all babies who were born via c-section) and just hover as they go through procedure. They hook him up to a couple monitors because he was a few weeks early and they just want to make sure everything is ok. I sit with Alistair for close to two hours. I can't take my eyes off of his perfect little face. Finally the nurse suggests I go check on Sarah and I tear myself away. Sarah is recovering and looks fabulous after just having her stomach cut open. She sends me home to get some sleep. I head out at around 3:30 AM and crawl into bed.

I wake up the next morning (Monday) at around 10 am, take a shower and am out the door in 15 minutes. I head to Sarah's room to find her dozing. Little Alistair can't be with her if shes alone because shes in such a fragile state. She has the nurse bring him in and I visit with them for a little bit. I then head to her house to get some essentials and head back to wait for her husband and in-laws. Jenn brings Teresa a little bit later and Cody (the dad) comes in not too long after that. A happy reunion.

This whole experience has been so amazing words can't even describe. I feel so blessed to have been part of such a memorable experience. Sarah kept thanking me for everything I was doing, but I was thanking her for trusting me and wanting me to be there with her. It's so weird to be on the other end of the spectrum. Almost two years ago I was the one on the table not knowing what was going on and feeling completely overwhelmed. Because of that, I was able to keep a clear head and help her the best I knew how. I still can't get over the fact that I got to witness such a miracle. I have now been on both sides of the situation and each are amazing in their own way. The funny thing is, Teresa and Alistair have the same birthday. Brother and sister share the same day. How funny is that? Exactly two years apart.

So in closing I want to say, Happy Birthday Alistair and Teresa!!!!

*This is my "I'm about to help deliver a baby" pose. It's about 12AM here.*

Mommy and baby!!!!





Saturday, March 14, 2009

The end of spring break...

It came way too soon. I have had so much fun this week hanging out with my daughters and spending time with my friends. I haven not done my homework and am kicking my self because now I have to cram it all in the next couple of days. My daycare had the sickies on Thursday, so I had to keep Brooke home. There went six good hours of homework time. :(

Last night I went to a wonderful get together with some friends. It was a pajama party full of toddlers, food and Rock Band on Wii. I tried the drums and really stunk. Its hard! Tomorrow I'm doing a brunch with the same friends at iHop. It should be a good time.

I've been on a bootie kick lately. I am trying to build inventory for the upcoming craft shows this spring, summer, and fall. I am listing them on Artfire and Etsy and if they don't sell, I'll suspend them to take to the craft shows and if they don't sell at the shows, then I'll relist them. I don't know how many I should whip up, but the double strap booties (below) are a lot faster to make. The loafers are super cute, but I have three other patterns like this that require you make two soles, then sew them together and make the body of the bootie from there. It's really time consuming and you have to match the size of the soles perfectly or else they don't sit right. Maybe if I get faster they won't seem so time consuming. For now I'm just going to play around with different color combinations for the double strap. I need to make up some boy booties next.




I am now contributing to the Artfire Cafemom Team Blog. I wrote the last post on St Patrick's Day. There are a lot of talented crafters in our guild on Artfire. To check out the variety of items, go to Artfire and search for "Artfire Cafemom Team." There are pages and pages of listings from our guild crafters.

I really like Artfire and would eventually like to completely switch everything over to their site, but it just doesn't have the same traffic as Etsy does. I have so many sales on Etsy as well so my reputation and feedback is lost as well. Maybe once the traffic picks up I'll be able to redirect everyone over to my Artfire shop.

That's my new Artfire banner, do you like it? I love it because it matches my Etsy banners so they look great in my Cafemom signature.

Brooke and I got to talk to Eric on web cam the other day. It was really nice to see him for those few minutes. Brooke was all about talking to daddy and she didn't seem too confused on why daddy was on the computer. She kept pointing to things on his face and naming them. It was too cute. It was good to see his face after three weeks and to see for myself he was ok. I haven't heard from him in a couple of days, I'm guess their internet is down. Their phone lines have been down so I haven't been able to hear his voice. It's been hard. I've had a couple of those days where I just feel blah. But then I get a hug from my daughter and I'm strong once more.

Wednesday, March 11, 2009

I've finally found it!!!

So I've been searching and searching for a new carry-all bag, like a large tote. My Coach purse just isn't hacking it anymore and it's getting beat up from all the use its been seeing. Now, if you know me, I am very particular about my purses and bags. I LOVE LOVE LOVE pockets so it's hard for me to be completely satisfied. Until now. I was searching around on Etsy last night while waiting for Eric to get online. I wanted to see if there were any bags listed on Etsy that fit my nit-picky requirements and at a reasonable price. And there was. A bag by WatermelonWishes just had a bright light that illuminated around it. I was speechless. It's called the Seven Pocket Tote Bag. I mean, the title says it all, doesn't it?

So I clicked on it, excited to see where the pockets were and already in my mind deciding what I was going to put in each of those pockets. And this is what I see for the inside.

WOW. I am...in pocket heaven. So then I take a closer look and am wondering what those two elastic loops are for (I read the description AFTER I've scrutinized the pictures.) And I see this:

They're for bottles and sippy cups! Hook, line and sinker I'm SOLD!

So then I take a look at her fabrics and nothing is really catching my eye. So I go back to her shop to message her and see that there is a DYO/BYOF (Do Your Own/Buy Your Own Fabric) section where I can pick my design and send her my own fabric. So I message the very crafty Etsian and she is so nice and has such great customer service. I bought the 7 Pocket Tote Bag and made one adjustment. Instead of the pockets on the side, I am having her move them to the front. :)

So then the exciting part came. Picking out my fabric. I threw my kid in the car and drove as fast as I could to Joann Fabric. I haven't ever shopped for fabric, since I'm usually stocking up on ribbon and yarn (which I admit, I did walk out of the store with). So I start perusing and all of the fabrics are starting to smoosh together into one big fabric blob. Until my fabric just pops out and me and I know I've found it!

The left side is the interior fabric and the right is the exterior. After I bought it, I hustled my little butt right off to the post office and mailed it out priority. And now the wait begins. I am so impatient when it comes to getting new things. I'm very impulsive and once I've made up my mind about something, I WANT IT NOW! So the next few days or weeks are going to be TORTURE. I was even contemplating just choosing a couple of her fabrics just so I could get it faster, but I knew that I really wanted a OOAK. YAY!OK, so to reiterate. You really, REALLY need to check out WatermelonWishes on Etsy. She has so many other GREAT items. She has sever designs for bags, binder covers, laptop sleeves, notepad organizers, nursing covers, strap wraps,wet bags and changing pads.

I will for SURE post pictures when I get my new bag!!!!


Sunday, March 8, 2009

Spring Ahead!

SALE!!!! (FOR ONE PERSON ONLY!)

I got a new scale!!! I finally broke down and got one because it's a pain to bring a 2 year old into a post office that is always packed. I bought one off E-Bay and it's finally here! To celebrate this, the 83rd sale (the VERY NEXT SALE) gets 25% off one item!!!! So go quick! There's lots to choose from!

I hate daylight savings in the spring. I mean really? Losing an hour of a day is a lot. Especially when that hour is spent SLEEPING. I was up unusually late last night. I was making some mini korkers with some new swiss dots korker ribbon I got. They turned out REALLY cute. :) I'll post pictures later. I was hoping the sun would be out today so I could take the pictures outside, but so far it's clouds, clouds, and more clouds.

I made this adorable set the other day. It's called the "Triple B Set - Beanie, Bow and Booties". I think it turned out super cute

I also made a different pair of booties based off of the pattern above, but they didn't turn out the way I wanted them to, so I'm going to have to try and tweak it a little. But they turned out ok...


The heel needs to be higher huh?

But I like the concept so I am going to keep working at it.

I went shopping with my friend Sarah and her daughter Teresa who is Brooke's age. I went to Babies R Us with her to help her shop for her new baby. Apparently she's about to pop so and I worry about her being out in public alone with an active toddler! Plus, I love baby shopping so it was super fun for me. I totally got baby fever when I got home, it's a good thing Eric isn't here, otherwise I'd have probably talked him into another one by now...haha.

I haven't talked to Eric lately. He left a short message on my MySpace wall, but I haven't talked to him on the phone for a couple of weeks. :( I miss his voice. But there's nothing I can do about it so...I just have to suck it up I guess.

Alright, I'm off to take a shower then take Brooke to Michaels and Target. Michaels is having a sale on Sugarn' Cream yarn and I need some things at Target. :)


Wednesday, March 4, 2009

Almost Spring Break!

Spring break is almost here! I am so excited! A whole week to relax, minus homework. Pooh.

I got my grade back for my first creative project in English. I got a perfect score! The comments she left were all glowing, and she told me that she hopes I'm going to choose a career in public speaking. She said I was engaging and entertaining. That made me feel really good. I like her as a teacher. My Lifespan Development class is a whole different story. The class is challenging! We're trying to cover this text book that is ginormous. Her tests are really hard to figure out. Hopefully I can come back now that my mind is back on track, somewhat.

This Friday I'm getting together with Jenn and Sarah again. We had a lot of fun last weekend and I always love spending time with them. I am so lucky to have found down to earth friends who I have a lot in common with. Who knew that my random post looking for a craft show buddy would turn into a great friendship?

Brooke's vocabulary is expanding by leaps and bounds. Her use of words is so amazing. She is such a smart little girl and I am so proud of her. She is so independent and has such great social skills. She's your typical toddler with a little stubborn mixed in. She loves the word "no" so that gets a little frustrating, but I know it's a phase so I grin and bare it.

I finally got my cousins gift off to her. I made her a beanie and matching booties. I also made her some hair bows. Her daughter has some hair, so they will look so cute! I had a lot of fun making them. Here is a picture of the hat and booties.

I loved the set so much that I made another one with pink and brown. I still have to sew the buttons on so that's what I didn't post a picture.

I got to talk to Eric online the other night for about an hour. It was really nice to talk to him. He sounded very upbeat and content, minus the fact that he misses us dearly. I'm glad that he's doing ok over there. I finally got his first care package out to him today. He had a box set aside with things he wanted sent, and I finally got them sent! His new spurs came in the mail the other day as well, so he'll be surprised when he opens his package. :) I miss him so much. Today I had one of those days where I missed him terribly. I know I can do this, but he's my best friend, so it's hard not having him here.

Well, I think I'm going to get going. :)