The Hungarican Chick

34lbs lighter and really grumpy.

2012-01-23T16:20:00.000-08:00

December, Saturday Market. Portland's homeless
find creative ways to tug at the heartstrings.

So it’s been a while since I’ve talked about weight. And that’s because I was plateauing again for months, vacillating between 29 and 30lbs from the end of August all the way to December—so there wasn’t much to talk about. After the holidays, I finally began to see movement again. I have now lost a total of 34lbs as of this morning. It’s good to see movement again. My husband suspects that the Lupron and the Clomid might have had something to do with my weight not moving at all, who knows? I’m just relieved it’s happening again. If it was the fertility stuff, I suppose my renewed weight loss is a positive consequence of being ‘cut off’ of the fertility stuff by my doctor (I’ll elaborate upon this later). The fact that I’ve plateaued for months doesn’t mean I was going to give up—I wasn’t gaining weight during those months, but I *was* definitely was getting annoyed with my husband hitting 55lbs lost. He’s the incredibly shrinking man.

We were both exposed this weekend to the typical defensive attitude towards our weight loss, which really fired me up. A friend of ours, who has been struggling with his weight these past four years, made a comment upon seeing the incredible shrinking man, and basically told us that our efforts will inevitably fail. Wow. Thanks a lot d-bag. He then proceeded to give us advice on how to better lose weight. Looking at his unchanging weight, I was dubious at best. The whole thing sent me into a Facebook rampage. It’s annoying when the people you care about are not supportive, even though they somehow think they are being so.

Every time I post something about diet on Facebook, there’s this woman who invariably will go on some windy litany about the types of food she eats and how much they’ve helped her and blah blah blah. No offense but I don’t care! We’re doing Weight Watchers, it’s working for us, we’ve lost almost 90 lbs between both of us, shut up! We get all this unsolicited advice on diets that supposedly make you lose weight faster and blah-de-freakin’-blah... We are not interested in hearing about trend diets that don’t work. No carb diets, Atkins diet, gluten-free diet... There’s no long-term habit-changing on these deprivation diets, just momentary results that, if you stop or change, will go away and bring you more weight back in the end. Don’t tell me you skip a meal, or eat only a little bit and claim you’re losing weight, that’s just plain stupid. Nothing makes a body hoard fat more than depriving it of food when it needs it to function. Starvation mode is not dieting, and it doesn’t work for weight loss, except for maybe for anorexics—but that could ultimately result in lovely extras, like binging and barfing and sometimes a sad, rickety, always-cold, hairy body death. Oh, and death-campers and Ethiopians--starvation works for them too.

This is what weekends usually look like at home. I'm under all that.

Keeping track of what goes into your mouth every day is a good way to put your diet into perspective. Try it for a few days. Write EVERYTHING you eat down. Trust me, it’s mind boggling if you’re 100% honest with yourself and you don’t change your diet for the duration. It’s amazing, now that I look back on the last twenty years, how much I deluded myself about how much and how badly I actually ate each day. I would skip meals, pick at my food for one meal, and then gorge on another, and it all equaled out to BAD, although somehow my brain was really great about fooling me about exactly how much I was actually eating, and what horrid foods I was eating. My god, the justifications too! Thinking I was eating healthy when I was eating all the wrong things—eating a healthy meal but then eating ice cream (OMG so, so bad) or a chocolate bar, drinking lattés every day. It’s a recipe for disaster. I see it now. Don’t try to convince me, now that I’m losing weight, that there’s a better way. This way works, and I’m sorry to say, contrary to your statements Mr. D-bag, that it works for EVERYONE. Hundreds of thousands of people who stick with this program lose tons of weight and keep it off. Hundreds of thousands! The only people who are failing in my husband’s WW group are people who gave up and didn’t stick with the program, the people who always make excuses and lose no weight, or the people whose family and friends are not supportive at all, exposing them to bad foods daily, and enabling them to fail at every turn. D-bag’s attitude is, well, I don’t want to stop doing what’s easy and comfortable—but I don’t want it work for you either 'cause then I'd have no excuse, so I’m going to sabotage you as best I can and try to undermine you. Some friend. D-bag! ::argh!::

Portland's usual overreaction about a few inches of snow. This was last week
There was no snow on the ground, yet there was the reporter, preaching doom & gloom.

Anyway, other than that diatribe, nothing much else has been going on. I’ve been ‘cut-off’ on my fertility meds by my OB/GYN. So that’s the end of that. ::sigh:: I can’t afford a specialist so we will probably be a childless couple, since we are apparently not good enough to adopt from the state either. I’ve been pretty upset about the whole deal, but dealing with it. There’ve been lots of distractions at work to keep me from really getting mired in the whole ‘wah-wah-call-me-a-wahmbulance’ part. The whole thing is exhausting so I’m kind of relieved that I will no longer have to be poked and prodded anymore or put through an emotional wringer for no good reason. This whole odyssey has been such an exercise in wretchedness. Feeling like less of a woman for being unable to conceive, the devastating monthly disappointments over and over, and not being able to stop hoping every time, a day or two late, and I’m looking at cribs at IKEA... then bam... surprise, no baby for you ::said in soup Nazi voice:: The adoption process gave us such hope, only to dash them in one ten-minute home-study with a case-worker who obviously couldn’t give a bigger f**k anymore about her job. She is the honeybadger of caseworkers.

Oh well, at least the crafts and storage can stay in the spare room for the time being.

Our septic tank has been abandoned and in its place is the costly bottomless sand-filter that has completely changed the landscape of our back yard, and removed all of our shade trees, not to mention the cute river-stone retaining wall and my giant, beautiful ferns. BOO! The garage now must be entered from another direction, and next to it, where the driveway used to be is a big raised pillow of sand the size of an in-ground pool. We tried to salvage some of our other trees, and replanted them, but honestly, the cedar and Special Ed (the Christmas Tree) are not looking too pleased by the whole upheaval. And Sherry, my co-worker was talking about how backhoes can often compress soil around roots and kill trees, so I’m watching the maples closely to see if the backhoe murdered any more trees. Our backyard looks like the trenches of WWI. It’s disheartening.

This is Dan screwing in the new ply on the floor.
That is Simon, 'helping'.

We also redid our bathroom. Our toilet started sinking into the floor because of a gasket leak that had been surreptitiously going on for a long time, eating through two layers of ply (but not eating the subfloor thank God). Hubby tore it all out, we had to huck the sink console and the toilet and we redid everything. Of course it’s not perfect and that hideous bath is still there (I want a nice corner stand-up shower unit) but it’s a start.

That’s what we’ve been doing. I have hardly seen my horse at all this past month. I’m a bad mommy. I’m going to try and get some riding time in tonight. I could use the therapeutic effects being around my horse provides. Ai ai. Anyway... that’s it for today.

Natural Selection. I'm all for it.

2011-12-28T11:35:00.000-08:00

A messy office special from yesterday. First one in forever. I'm a bit rusty.

I don’t get it. When I was a kid, I had to take public transportation to my school when I went to the local schools, or my parents drove me when I attended the American DOD School or the International School, since they were far from where we lived. But when I was in Catholic Intern School, my dad would drive me there to drop me off, but after the end of the week, I’d take the train back to Brussels, and the Metro to the embassy where my mother worked. I did that all by myself, carrying my bags for laundry. I navigated all over the place using public buses and trains from a pretty early age. In the mornings, it was up to me to get out there and to get on the bus to go to school and up to me to find the bus home when I attended a non-intern local school. There was one convenience and that was my student pass.

But I was always fascinated with the American icon of the yellow school bus that I saw in movies. Those did not exist for me. The DOD school provided bus-service for the kids that lived nearby (we did not), but they were not the yellow buses, they were the big huge flat-faced buses with mustachioed Belgian drivers. Kids filed in, kids filed out. They waited at bus stops. Got on, got off, waited to cross the street when the time was right. It was simple.

Then I moved back to the US. I was shocked to discover that the iconic yellow school bus not only has the power to stop traffic to load and unload kids, it can also disrupt traffic to stop at railway tracks. They have to stop and open their doors before they go over railroad tracks—what that accomplishes I do not know? So the kids can run off when not getting hit by a train? But that’s not the end of it; the crowning achievement of the Yellow School Bus is the arm. American school buses have a little arm affixed to the front that opens out towards the curb and bars children from crossing in front of the bus when it’s stopped.

Okay, call me heartless... but WHAT THE HELL? Seriously? What are we teaching our kids if we are coddling them to the point that the world has to stop for them to get on and off a god-damned bus? If the kid is too stupid to figure out how to cross a street responsibly, then he or she is probably better off getting run over. Natural selection! If the kid is that stupid, he'll probably grow up to be the guy that gets tragically killed doing something else incredibly stupid on the job anyway.

Yep, that kid you protected with the yellow school bus grew up
to be the reason why this warning exists.

Reality is, SEEING EYE DOGS can be trained to cross the street safely, why can't your kids? Is this a sign of devolution? Someone, somewhere thinks your kids can't be taught to make safe choices as well as a German Shepherd can. For God's sake. ::facepalm::

And what about the bus drivers? Are they so retarded they can’t be trusted to drive safely enough not to kill your children? They have to have all these crazy precautionary measures and accessories in place to help them do their job responsibly? I mean jesus, where should the responsibility end? Oh, I don’t know... with the PARENTS??? OMG... Flash of red lights, traffic needs to stop both ways because little Bobby and little Suzie can’t be trusted to cross the street on their lonesome. ::facepalm::

What next? Are we going to start making all kids 20 or under wear Kevlar to school on the off-chance someone pulls a Columbine? Wrap them in bubble-wrap when they go out to play? OMG... it’s CRAZY! What about teaching them to be responsible in the REAL WORLD? How’s that for a concept? How about teaching them to do things like cross busy streets safely? No. Instead let’s create a massive traffic inconvenience to the countless masses that happen to be driving to and from work during the times when these buses are picking up and delivering your hapless, bumbling offspring. As long as the kiddies are safe.

What are we breeding? A bunch of mouth-breathers that don’t have to take any responsibility for anything? A pack of coddled oafs who don’t have to make a single god damned decision for themselves? Oy! It’s infuriating. It’s like those warning signs posted for the most obvious dangers... why does the lowest common denominator have that much power as to make thing inconvenient for the rest of the world? Some idiot makes a dumb-ass decision and all of a sudden everyone else who has managed to avert disaster by using their eyes and brain is stuck having to abide by the most ridiculous precautions. Thanks ASSHOLE—so sad you died doing something colossally stupid! FU!

This is the perfect microcosm of America when it comes to kids. They are increasingly turning out to be entitled, the ‘world-will-stop-for-me because it always has’ kids. It spares the parents having to bother to teach their spawn any valuable life-lessons, or for that matter, even bother to take the time to supervise them so they don’t step in front of buses.

But hey, let’s force society to make all the decisions and take all the precautions to keep your brats safe and sound. Then you don’t have to do any parenting at all!

Okay, I’m done now.

One of my Worth1000 submissions. It seemed appropriate.

‘Tis the season to be grumpy, fa la la la... meh.

2011-12-21T11:28:00.000-08:00

It’s beginning to look a lot like annoying. It’s taken quite a while for me to even begin to feel that Christmas spirit, and when I say feel the spirit, I mean barely even acknowledging that it exists. Part of my scrooginess was attributed to spending several days in the prior weeks being mired in a HoneyBucket Hell, which is a special place for people like me. You see, I described the septic situation we’re in at home. Well, piles of begged family money later, the back-yard looks like a WWI trench, or the surface of the moon, all the trees are gone, there’s a rectangular mound the size of an in-ground swimming pool in front of the garage where the driveway used to be, and two hideous cement manholes and a power box sticking up out of the ground behind the house. It’s hard to look at that devastation and not burst into tears. But at least we have working plumbing again. For a few days, I was consigned to the use of a Honey Bucket at home in 18º weather—and let me tell you, getting up at 3AM for a potty emergency, and having to hoof it outside to the frigid air, NOT FUN!!!! And worse? The septic tank at our office building failed back in April, and we’ve had a porta-potty at work since then, so I couldn’t get away from the freezing toilet seat if I tried. It has been a nightmare!

But, the toilet is now reconnected at home, and even though our toilet is slightly tilted, it’s warm, so that’s a bonus. It’ll be a little while longer before we can use the indoor facilities in our offices again. So all this toilet-related drama that has sort of set my mood into grump-drive for the next few weeks.

But then there’s all the other additional factors. 1) we can’t afford to give gifts again this year, not even to one another. 2) our Christmas tree didn’t arrive until this past weekend, and he was from the ‘slim-pickings’ pile, because he was cheap. Because we insist on buying live, potted trees, and buying locally, we have to move quickly to get the best looking tree. But since we waited, all that remained were several twiggy trees, a bush that thought it was a tree, and the tree we have, which I call the ‘Special Ed Tree’. I’m convinced that as he was growing up in the Mount Hood forest, all the other trees teased him and laughed at him, playing cruel tree jokes and making him cry. He probably wore a bicycle helmet too, but one of the other trees probably tore it off his top and flung it where he couldn’t reach it with his one, randomly long limb that sticks out from his bushy bottom half. His top half is a single thin trunk-stalk with about eight single branches on it, one set of four in the middle, and one set of four close to the droopy top. His one long branch sticks out from the others by at least two feet. Yep. He’s a special tree.

No amount of blurring, bad lighting or can a bad camera
hide the gaping void on the top half of the tree.
Oh well.

I decorated the hell out of him. I tried to compensate for the lack of branches on the top half by hanging ornaments all over the lighting wire and wrapping tulle around them to give him bulk. He doesn’t look half-bad, in spite of his ‘specialness’. He’ll do. He’s a Norway Spruce, so he’ll go into the back yard, now that there are no larger trees present to tease him. Maybe he’ll grow into himself a bit. Who knows? Decorating did put me in a better mood.

3) Part of my seasonal resentment is also instigated by all the snacks and meals and treats that come along with it. The holiday season revolves around FOOD and for folks trying to lose weight... it SUCKS. Since Thanksgiving, my husband and I have been beset with every temptation known to man. We’ve won some battles, but lost most, and every day is a torturous opportunity to FAIL. My weight as a result has been stagnant. The retreat did not help either because being faced with four days of Stephanie II’s cooking and trying to moderate was IMPOSSIBLE. So I have decided to pretend it never happened and move on. But trust me.. With this kind of noshy deliciousness arranged before you like a feast... There’s no stopping yourself from grazing like a blue whale inhaling krill by the thousands of pounds.

A plate of evil. Delicious, delicious evil.

The ORS retreat was a blast, if not a lot of hard work. My feet hurt for several days afterwards, my 40-year-old body just isn’t able to keep up with Stephanie II. Although I did drive her nuts with a couple of inordinately early morning wakings during the retreat. ::muaha:: I’m surprised I didn’t find sharpie written all over my face or something like that. She can be a brat that way. But that’s all right.

Here I am attempting to read two or three lines of Mary's novel
before being irrevocably distracted by tasks and fun (and also
sporting a lovely double-chin to boot).

Last Thursday, I visited Mary Robinette Kowal’s home to trim bonnets. I was trying out my new bonnet pattern and discovered to my great dismay that it did not scale right, so it’s back to the drafting board. I’ll be re-releasing the old pattern though on Etsy for the time being, until I get my stuff together. And this pattern is tried and true. So it will be for sale as it is for a while longer until I can redraft it and clean it up a bit.

Here at work, my boss is retiring (today is his last day), which has stirred up a lot more emotion than I ever thought it would. I’ve found myself being unusually snippy and angry about stupid things, and this morning, when Sherry texted me a picture of the door-decorations we made all ready to be posted on his door for his last day, I had to pull over and cry. He truly is the best of bosses. He’s funny, he handles us, even at bad moments, with humour and affability, and he trusts us. I don’t know this new guy who is replacing him, except that he’s close to my age. It’s scary. For all of us, but mostly for the other two ladies in my office who have both worked with Dave for over twenty years. I’m going to miss him very much. More than I imagined. We had a little retirement shindig for him at Winestock in Oregon City last Friday. He was SO bratty and out of control. SII made a little jukebox cake (which was so soft and delicious OMG – CURSE THE CAKE!) for him (he restores jukeboxes as a hobby). Strangers in the wine place were asking for pieces of it.

On Saturday, a small group of us had tea at the Heathman Hotel to celebrate Jane Austen’s birthday. I have to say I was a bit disappointed with the Heathman. For $32, what we got was pretty laughable, and SII was scandalized. Last time we went there for tea, the portions were pretty much double what we had this time, so I’m thinking the kitchen is trying to cut costs, but holy crap... the cost is too high. I’m not sure if we are going to do a repeat of that again if it’s so little for so much. Just not worth it! The foods were also pretty mediocre. Next to SII’s teas served at the retreat? Not even close. But we all had a really great time. And a moderately OK photo of me was taken by SII.

At Saturday Market in Portland before we
made our way up to the Heathman.

Still not pregnant, but not for lack of trying. I am still popping clomid like pez every time the cycle comes ‘round. Not sure how much longer I’ll keep doing that. We’ll see.

Anyway, that’s my update for now. If I don’t post again until after Christmas, I’d like to extend my warmest “BAH HUMBUG!” to you. ;)

The HC

Mommy-Issues

2011-12-14T12:02:00.000-08:00

My mom makes me crazy. What’s worse, is that left to her own devices, she creates this special reality where she always looks like the shining beacon of virtue and perfection to strangers, while making sure she puts as equal amounts of energy into decrying, manipulating and belitting the people closest to her.

Case and point number one: We took mom with us to my sister’s house in Arlington (about a three-hour-drive from where we live going the long way). My mom was thrilled when we picked her up. She had a little box of stuff she’d bought for my sister; some flower bulbs and two really ugly coffee mugs which my sister accepted graciously. We made the drive, mom was totally fine, she was in an excellent mood. She behaved moderately well during the stay, except for the occasional slip up of snideness, but that was minor. Her most annoying behaviours were her blatant lies. She invented a sudden case of lactose intolerance, said that my dentist tore her mouth up, bragged about how she told some old dude off complete with F-bombs, and all number of other random crap. Most of the time, when she lied, my sister and I would exchange a look of incredulity and laugh, and we’d tease her, to which she would respond with laughter and tease us right back. We have *always* teased mom about her accent, and when she said to my husband: “Jou did whaat?” And my husband said: “What about a Jew?” we all had a good chuckle. We laugh when she says jankee pot-roast and when she says joyo instead of yoyo; squeedle instead of squirrel; cheessbehrgehr instead of cheeseburger. It’s just something we have always done, and she’s always given it back with equal jocularity.

We also didn’t allow her to fabricate lies about the absent sibling, and stopped her short whenever she came up with some madness or other. She did not like that, but we wanted to keep the visit positive and having mom play her ‘I’m going to play you against your siblings’ game was not something we were about to entertain. We called her out on every one of her wild suppositions and utterances, and she was a bit cowed by our united front.

She didn’t eat much, and when we were back in Gresham, she declared she was starving and insisted we stop at Jack-In-The-Box to get her a cheessbehrgehr. Miss Lactose-Intolerant was shouting from the back seat when hubby was at the drive-through “Does it have cheess? Make shoor eet haz cheess!” Mind you, both hubby and I are still doing WeightWatchers, and sitting in a closed car with the aroma of fries and burger wafting around our heads was pure torture. We get her back to the assisted living facility, she’s so happy and delighted and she tottered off to her ‘warehouse’ carrying her bag of fries.

The next day, I get an email from my eldest sister (in Florida) admonishing us for our terrible treatment of our mother. Apparently, my mother called her in a tizzy as soon as she got back on Thanksgiving. According to Satan, we were ‘disrespectful and ungrateful, making fun of her. We were horrid, and we were mean to her (which is bullhockey). She whined at my sister for a long time about how ungrateful and horrid we were to her. Little did eldest sister know that hubby and I had to listen to my mother ripping my eldest sister apart on the drive all the way home. People with Borderline Personality Disorder can shape realities into whatever best suits them, ultimately.

Second case: I stopped by to visit mom on Monday, and when I walked in I was confronted with Amy, the activities director. She assailed me at once with: “Oh, thank goodness you’re here! Your mother is so sad, she’s pouting! I’ve never seen her so upset.”

“Why is she upset?” I ask, already developing a sense of trepidation.

“Oh, she was so sad. She told us about the big dinner you have planned, and how she spent all this time and effort to prepare a special dish for this dinner, only to find out she wasn’t even invited! She’s been depressed ALL DAY.” For one... WHISKEY TANGO FOXTROT, OVER? Seriously? Who the hell does she think she is confronting me about this supposed dinner. Even if there WERE such a dinner, whether or not mom was invited is none of her god damned business, and it sure isn’t her job to censure me for not inviting my mother. OMG the gall! But the worst part is, this supposed ‘big dinner’ is a figment of my mother’s imagination, one of her convenient fabrications created for the sole purpose of inviting sympathy from her apparently gullible and vapid audience. I mean WTF????? You’d think someone who works in a Senior facility would be well-versed in knowing that you can’t believe everything that comes out of these octogenarian mouths. They spew all sorts of shit about their families that isn’t even remotely true... But the crime here was that this Amy chick had the stones to stand in front of me and dump guilt on me for something that was none of her business for one, and something that was not even true to boot. Oy.

Incidentally, Amy did it to my husband too. He walked into the facility and she was standing there, and said: “OH! Good! You’re here! Your grandma has been looking forward to your visit all day. You’re taking her out? She’s been so excited that you were coming to take her out, she had her hair done and everything!” Dan is very susceptible to guilt when it comes to his family. He often extends himself to a breaking point to help them when they can’t be relied upon to do anything for him when he needs it. His grandma is an especially sore subject for him, because he loves her to hell and back, and it’s taking a very hard toll on him watching her fade into a figment of who she used to be, with fractured memories and no capacity to hold short-term anything in her head. He will be there visiting, she’ll get up to go to the potty, and then forget he is there and go back to her room. She will state the same things over and over again, and she still thinks she can go home at any time. He visits her every week, and brings her a 20 oz mocha coffee (we are Oregonians after all) and sits with her while she repeatedly asks if he’s heard from his father (which he never does), and if she can go home (which she cannot), and she asks him again and again what he’s been up to. When we take her out, she stays for ten minutes and then wants to go back. She’s not easy. And Dan is struggling with her decline. I’m not sure if Amy just invented the whole thing about Grandma spending all day getting ready to go out, but Grandma would not have held onto the knowledge of it for more than ten minutes. Getting her hair done to go out? He never planned it, or called her to tell her she was going anywhere, so either it was a fluke, or Amy was pulling this out of her rather large ass (which is my guess). I had to call the facility to day and talk to the director and explain to her that deliberately dumping guilt on relatives when they come and visit isn’t the best incentive to compel them to return.

I digress....But all that is a perfect illustration of the drama my mother creates simply for the sake of being evil. My mother invents all sorts of tall tales to elicit sympathy. She has always had people convinced she is a paragon of virtue and wonder, a sacrificing soul, a giver and a hero. I’ve gone through life having people arch their brow at me and look at me in disdain because I don’t share the glowing opinion of my mother. You see, they don’t *know* who she is. Not even remotely. They don’t know about my brother being locked in a bedroom for 18 hours a day, smearing his feces on the wall because my mother didn’t want to deal with him. They don’t know that the reason why my father was repeatedly hospitalized in his final year was because he was malnourished, dehydrated and suffering from bruising from being roughly handled and hit. My mother’s ardent fans are not aware that my mother had repeated affairs throughout her marriage, and brought a pedophile into our home. They don’t know that the sacrificing, wonderful mom they saw would take us to bars on school nights after knocking my father out with valium and laughing most heartily about it, or leave a fifteen year old girl in charge of the riding club and the bar, so she could go out partying all night, or take off to the US and leave her 17 year old daughter in charge of the stable without a penny to buy horse food, and the electricity turned off because she hadn’t paid the bill. They have no idea that when we moved back to the states, she flew back to get my brother from his school, and disappeared for two weeks. When we managed to hunt her down, and found her at a friend’s house, she’d been out drinking and partying and hadn’t even bothered to go see my brother, let alone notify the school he was going to be flying to America. Oh no. Instead, these people who see her as the paragon she’s painted herself to be just look at us children like we’re awful for feeling the way we do about her. We watched her neglect and abuse our brother, we watched her pretty much kill our father by roughness and neglect, and we watched her introduce the concept of lying, cheating, duplicity and manipulation into our lives very early on. To this day, I am still amazed at how aptly my mother was able to hide this bleakness behind the glossy sheen of our household. Nobody ever knew.

I’m amazed the three of us stepped out of childhood moderately intact. I won’t lie; the things we’ve had to live with have taken their toll. For me, it’s been a constant struggle with depression and for a short time, I was almost committed for entertaining some pretty dark thoughts about suicide. For my sisters, it’s issues of abandonment, trust, overcompensation. We’re all broken in one way or another, but we did not take the bad road, thank god. We are not alcoholics or drug-addicts, we are not criminals or ne’er-do-wells. We all managed to emerge with a particularly strong sense of empathy, a near-obsessive desire to surround ourselves with pretty things and to take care of them obsessively, or in one case, to put little to no value on pretty things at all. In some cases, we have issues with identity—and figuring out who we are—often becoming chameleons to suit what we think are other peoples’ preferences which goes back to the whole abandonment thing. We’ve emerged with strong personalities and we are all so different.

It’s taken me years to be comfortable enough with myself to talk about these things with a matter-of-fact sort of approach, to talk about these things without personal shame. I had to figure out that these things weren’t my doing. I had to learn that in spite of what society tells you, the adults in your life might be fallible and they can’t *always* be relied upon to be what they are supposed to be to their children. I learned that adults don’t always protect you and that kids sometimes have to learn to protect themselves. I had to learn that there’s nothing I can do about it now, and there was really nothing I could do about it when I was a kid. It took a while to finally figure out who I am. But I know now, and I’m comfortable enough to spout it all out on a blog for the world to see, flaws and all. I’m okay with oversharing. LOL. I don’t take medication (though some of my friends might argue that I could definitely use it to despazzify myself). I can laugh at myself, and I can laugh at the walking tragedy that is my mother, and still sit down across from her and look at her watery, beady little eyes as she tries her very hardest to undermine me and be okay afterwards.

“You used to worship me, I don’t know what happened...” she told me one day a few months ago while we were out shopping together. She doesn’t understand why we don’t have the same relationship anymore, as we did when I had no self-esteem, no self-value, and was too depressed to care.

“I opened my eyes, Mom. I’m not a kid anymore. I grew up. And I got tired of carrying you, enabling you and apologizing for you.” When I say these sorts of things, she does this thing where her eyes sort of focus somewhere else far away, and she goes: “Hmmm” and then deftly changes the subject. She hates it that I can laugh at her lies now and it bothers her that her manipulations aren’t working on the three of us anymore. She bitches about me to my sisters because I reflect the truth of who she is back onto her like a really cruel dressing-room mirror—bad lighting and all. If that’s disrespectful, then so be it. Respect is earned—my mother is bankrupt of it.

A secret to snaring a woman with ease, heads-up single men

2011-12-05T22:02:00.001-08:00

Single men, you are missing out on a motherlode. I’m goingto let you in on a secret. There is available to you a virtual trove of womenfor the picking. Forget OKCupid or eHarmony. I have a much simpler solution.But you need to just get over your issues about dressing in costume, and bewilling to step out of your comfort zone. You men ask women to wear sexy littlethings all the time… so turnabout is fair play, and doing this is will pretty much set you up for a a sure thing if you do it right. If you do, you will findyourself surrounded by admiring women. I guarantee you this. Why do I say this? Because I’ve spent thepast four days at the Oregon Regency Society’s regency retreat—and I know nowthat this notion is not only my own. The retreat was 99% occupied by women thisfirst year, (although we are hoping there will be more men at the next one),and there was a great consensus among the participants as we discussed thingsby the fire in our dressing gowns. Single guys who dress Regency would findthemselves with no shortage of women swooning after them.

For example, one of the ladies’ husbands showed up onSaturday for the ball. A large group of women were in the meeting hall taking adance workshop when he arrived, and he arrived in a shirt with high collar,waistcoat, frock coat, top boots and top hat. He came striding down the path and someone said: “Look! A Gentleman!”and all the women erupted in gleeful squees and applause, and went running tothe window. He was no Hollywood actor,he was an ordinary guy who was made hot by his costume, and all the womenmelted into silly puddles at the sight of him. If he had been into the dancing, his wife might have had to carry arounda big stick to beat the women away from him.

Take this as a heads-up, guys… This…

::Coff-coff HOT ahem coff::

…This right here is the pinnacle of the Regency-loving woman’sfantasy. This is what she dreams of when she’s thinking about Mr. Perfect. Right here. And we’re not talking about Colin Firth… it doesn’tmatter what you look like, what your body type is… if you put on thehigh-collars and the top boots, the women will be swooning like teenaged girls.And god, if you bothered to display the gentlemanly manners and were willing todo the English Country Dances, you would be likely competed over, hunted downand violated… politely of course. Because in all the discussions we had about this during the entireretreat, it wasn’t ‘oh, it would be so romantic…’ no. It was, ‘oh that would beso HOT… he’d just have to grow the sideburns and wear the shirt and I’d be allover him’.

You guys who already have women who are also into theRegency thing, but you refuse to participate, I am just saying… if you wantmore nookie, you’d be well served in putting on the frock coat on occasion. It’sthe equivalent of your wife wearing the cheeky schoolgirl outfit or the French maidwith thigh-stockings and a crotchless panties. Put on the outfit and just swagger into the room, lift your arm and point to the bedroom and say:“Woman, get into my bed at once!” and I guarantee you she will go skittering tobed, giggling with delight.

There are hordes of women out there who sop up the regencynovels like water. Any man with his head screwed on right would be takingadvantage of it. He’d be secretly buying costumes or patterns, having them madeto fit beautifully, ironing and starching collars, growing out his sideburnsand combing his hair forward. Any man who wants to be the center of female attentionneeds to just get dressed in Regency costume, and show up at a Regency event.Ask a few girls to dance, be stoic but slightly flirtatious and you will find agirlfriend, and keep her. I’m just saying guys…::nodding:: This is privileged information, and I hopeyou all choose to use it wisely. If you’re from Oregon, you are in luck, wehave a huge group here and lots of events… And it’s pretty estrogen-heavy, soyou won’t have too much competition.

Here is a blog-post on outfitting the Regency man -- it describes the costume from the period. You can use it to locate the pieces you need.If you go to the ORS resources page, you can also contact some local costumersto put you in something that is correct and well-tailored (the more authenticyou’ll look, the more women will drool).

The facebook group: Men in Regency Era Costume -- a place for women to admire them, and for men to join and be admired.

Incidentally, we are looking for gentlemen who areinterested in military and male-related history from the period (1812,Napoleonic, Naval Exploration, Louis & Clark). We want to build up theevents for the guys. So if you areinterested, email the Oregon Regency Society (orregency@msn.com)and declare you interest. We need someone to head the drive to creategentlemanly activities.

The Oregon Regency Society

The Oregon Regency Society's main Blog.

And what led you here?

2011-11-28T18:51:00.001-08:00

So... there's this little widget that allows me to check my blog traffic, find out where most of the visitors are coming from, and see what sort of search terms brought them to this blog. Now most of the time, they are run-of-the-mill-things, like "Regency Gown" or "My Mother is Satan". But every once in a while, I see some search terms that boggle the mind. So I thought I'd make some screen captures and share some of these treasures with you:

On a typical Sunday night or Monday morning, the search terms are usually the same thing:

Yes, tame, but still funny. It's good to know I'm not the only one who despises Mondays.

But none of the above quite meet the bizarre nature of some search terms...

I can think of some rational ideas why someone would be searching for map-reading ducks...

However the ones that are really weird are usually the sex-related searches:

Octogenarians in Marion Ohio are on the prowl, people.

Someone in Meadows of Dan, Virginia has a penchant for close-contact riding in the buff apparently.

Newcastle Upon Tyne... Really?

And sometimes, it's just plain disgusting. Shame on you, Hawley, Minnesota. A Explorer user no less!

I really have no idea what the hell could possibly be going through this person's mind.

Now sometimes, you get some strange eyebrow-related searches:

I don't know... Hmm... how *does* one know...?

That's just weird.

And sometimes Jamie Lee Curtis-related searches:

High-rez for zooming.

And every once in a while, you get something really awesome:

Thanks Johannesburg for restoring my faith in humanity.

The 'Pemberley' Shoe is now open for pre-order!

2011-11-25T11:40:00.001-08:00

Heads-up, Regency enthusiasts! American Duchess has released another model of period shoe and this time it's Regency. A beautiful Regency slipper complete with the side seams. The shoe is from the early regency (1790-1810), with the pointed toe and a tiny, precious little heel. At pre-sale price, they're only $80 and they're made of dyable white leather. Regular price is $95.

Pre-order today so she can continue to sell these shoes in her boutique! Every lady who does Regency costuming needs a pair of these. :) Gentlemen, this is a lovely Christmas gift idea.

Order yours here:

'Pemberley' Regency Shoes

The Flying Turkey

2011-11-21T11:22:00.000-08:00

Family. You can’t live with them, you can’t live withou.. ::pauses to imagine life without selected family members and sighs wistfully:: Family. You can’t live with them, and you’d probably be blissfully happy every day without them. ::sigh:: Family.

It’s the holiday season, a time of particular bitterness for me. On my side of the family, the holidays meant stress, screaming, arguing and accusations topped with cooking, decorating for no reason except to see it destroyed by my brother, and all around ill-will. Thanksgiving at my home was always a rich time of passive-aggression, topped with resentment with a side of f*ck you.

When we moved back to the US, for some reason, Thanksgiving fell on me. Mind you, I have to say the cooking bit, I LOVED. To no end. I miss being able to cook Thanksgiving dinner. I would get up early (which is a big deal for me) and I’d be in the kitchen all day; whipping together dish after dish because I wanted to try them.

Usually, because my brother likes to grab food out of other people’s plates and fling food sometimes, we did not have guests for Thanksgiving. So I was cooking for Satan Mom, Papa, my brother and myself alone. So while everyone slept or ignored me, the kitchen was mine to do with as I pleased, with the occasional control-freaking moment from my mom, who had given up on cooking the meal, but still felt it necessary to tell me how to do it in spite of my cooking being WAY better than hers.

I digress... I’d spend all day in the kitchen whipping together my stuffing, sweet potato casserole, delicious gravy, the turkey, cranberry apple sauce, fluffy mashed potatoes, pies and whatever else suited my fancy. Then I’d roust everyone from their rooms where they’d be hiding (Mom & Papa had their own rooms) and try to round them up to sit down for the meal. They’d eat and then boom, I’d be standing in the kitchen alone with the mess.

A couple of years before I moved out and got my apartment, Thanksgiving rolled ‘round and once more, it was up to me. I was excited to cook the meal, so I went shopping the day before. My mom on that Wednesday night before, decided to go to the social club she frequented at the time, and sit at the bar with her cronies, suck on cigarettes and flirt relentlessly with the rickety old dudes until the wee hours of the morning, so she got home sometime between 2:30AM and 3:00. I heard her come in, and she yelled something slurred about whatever, and went to bed.

That morning, it was snowing. It was particularly snowy before Thanksgiving that year and it was white and beautiful outside. I had a Boston classical station on, and I was up putzing around, cooking, doing my thing. Papa wandered in to pick at things I’d already cooked or chopped, and I shooed him away and then wandered away to his Ham radio to chat with his Hungarian friends. All day, I spent it alone. And come time Thanksgiving dinner was ready, I was already kind of worked up into a bit of a grump. So I went and pummeled on Mom’s door, and she responded with a gravelly, hoarse voice that she was coming, and I called Papa, who barely acknowledged me between CQs, and John was medicated and out like a light since I’d made him breakfast.

I stood there for half an hour and waited. I pummeled on Mom’s door again, and then called Daddy one more time, the irritation quite plain in my voice. This time my mom deigned to get out of her post-drunken slumber, and she came out looking like she’d rolled down the Matterhorn and Papa came shuffling out in his slippers. The first thing they do is start to bicker. It was over something completely inane, I can’t remember, but the bickering escalated as it naturally did in our household, and next thing you know my parents are screaming at each other at the top of their lungs and threatening each other and calling one another names.

I don’t know exactly what happened, but I kind of snapped. I was already upset at how taken for granted I felt, and then on top of that my hung-over mother and my oblivious father could not be bothered to behave like civilized creatures for the sake of the flipping holiday. I’d spent all day trying to make this nice meal for what? For this? I can recall the burning ire in my belly, and I can recall the sear of the tears in my eyes as my parents screamed and yelled at one another, and I just lost it. I picked up the turkey, and carried to the sliding door to the deck, carried it out through the thick layer of snow, and I threw the turkey off the deck into the snow. I then stormed inside, threw the tray on the table with a huge crash, and went into my room and locked the door. And that’s how I spent Thanksgiving.

Daddy was horrified and went downstairs and fished the turkey out of the snow, dried it off and they apparently ate some of the meal. Their argument was of course promptly curtailed by the flying turkey, but there was no apology, no assurances... nothing. They just ate and went back to their rooms,

A few years later, after I bought my house about 40 minutes away, I wanted nothing more than to host my own Thanksgiving dinner. I spent months beforehand collecting little doodads, service ware, candle stuff, whatever. I planned a menu, and invited friends; I was SO excited to have thanksgiving dinner with actual guests. I called my mom to tell her about it, and her response was to turn into a screaming freak. “WHAT? YOU ARE COMING HERE FOR THANKSGIVING!” she screamed. Her reaction was completely off the scale. Her voice was so loud I had to hold the phone a good eight inches from my ear, and I could still hear every spittle-laden expletive and vitriolic accusation. I think back on it now, and I still can’t believe what a horrid, selfish person my mother is. She expected me to de-invite my guests and to come to her house to cook HER thanksgiving dinner. I mean, seriously? And what’s worse? I DID! ::shakes her head in shame:: I moved my dinner to Saturday (losing three guests in doing so), and went to her home and made dinner again. And it was EXACTLY as it always was. I’d cook all day; they’d appear, eat, bicker and then go to their rooms leaving me with the mess.

My dinner at my place, in spite of it being on Saturday, was a revelation. To know what it was like to host a holiday dinner with nothing but good spirits, to cook in the kitchen with people you care about standing around, sipping wine, laughing, sitting around table, engaged, talking and sharing stories, to break bread without spite or anger or resentment... It was momentous for me. It proved that it could happen; you *could* have a happy Thanksgiving. One of the things I did was to put little votive cups at each place-setting, and with a thin taper, I had each guest state one thing they were thankful for, and then light their candle, and pass the taper onto the next person. It sounds kind of lame, but it was one of the most honest, loving moments I’ve ever experienced during the holidays. Man I miss those guys.

This year, I have family nearby again. A sister who I haven’t shared Thanksgiving dinner with since... Oh god, probably before we left Belgium, and Satan of course. We are splitting the cooking. I’m doing savoury and she’s doing desserts, with some minor exceptions here and there. We are driving to her house. It’s one of the rare Thanksgivings I’ve had since I moved to Oregon where I am not just a guest of someone else’s traditions... it’s my family. It’ll probably be a dance of humouring and manipulation to keep my mother under control, but my sister and I are pretty sure she’s going to say at least one offensive, accusatory thing, but we’ve agreed to let it roll off of our backs, and strive to distract her with other things to keep her mouth shut. It’ll be just the five of us and the dogs. I’ll let you know if there are any more flying turkies.

HA!

Mumbly Mondays are the Worst.

2011-10-31T12:14:00.000-07:00

My Halloween costume. Took HOURS for me to put
together. I call him Nommy the Skull-Eating Shark.
Ignore my huge eyebrows. I'm growing them out for a culling
and weeding session.

Our septic is failing. Yes, yet another pitfall in the trials and tribulations of the Mt. Hood-Johanesen household. Our finances in edging on ruin, we barely scraping by, and lo and behold, let the wastewaters rise, let them breach the surface, and spread their aromatic scents across the land! Of course, even as this huge expense raises its monstrous head, the universe is sure to make it as difficult and challenging as possible, making sure that the simplest solution is simply not good enough.

You see, our home is sitting on a bed of glacial sands; likely deposited there by a lahar that came sluicing off of Mount Hood during its last eruption sometime just before Lewis & Clark came mincing across the Cascades. The whole area is composed of this sort of soil. It sucks terribly for gardeners. Anyhoo Naturally, because it’s a rural area, we do not have public treatment works available to all. And of course, since the aquifer below us supplies our community well, as well as many other individual wells, we are now forced to install a system that will cost about $mucho$. Once we had the county come in to assess our test-pits, they were made aware of the contraption that the previous owner put in and marked it a violation and demanded we fix it immediately.

When we were buying the house, we were told that the previous owner had installed a new septic system, and she disclosed as such on the sale, however, she did not disclose that the septic system she installed was not code, and done without the county’s knowledge. She did not share that it may have been built by a half-wit tweeker village idiot, who cobbled it together out of sticks, rocks and pinecones*. She installed a septic tank (with a gravel bottom) with a couple of perforated pvc pipes splayed off of it as a leach-field. The county however, is pretty particular about this area. The sandy soil, the aquifer and the river nearby are huge considerations for them. No home can install a septic system these days that is not a small self-contained wastewater treatment system. So no tank will do. They came in, saw the disaster that is what is in place now, and demanded that we install a specialized system that includes two tanks, a pump and a ‘bottomless sand filter’ bed that takes up a good hunk of our property. We will have to reshape our driveway and knock down a couple of trees to boot. ::grrr:: *may be a slight exaggeration.

So yeah.

Our weekend was spent getting quotes from septic companies. Oy vay.

It’s Halloween. For us, that means very little. We will not get trick-or-treaters (unless we count the dbag kids who ran over our fence last week, except they didn’t ask for Candy). We got two bags of fun-size 3 Musketeers just in case some freak thing happens (after seven years in our home) and a kid knocks on our door... but we really got two bags of fun-size 3 Musketeers because they’re 2 points a piece and they’re DELICIOUS. Nom.

If any of you partook in my rant about Pacific Northwest Snow Drivers, then you’ll know where I stand on the use of studded tires on PNW roads. Come November 1, the lazy people who don’t want to be bothered to learn how to drive properly in snow will choose to change out their regular tires for tires with metal studs that gouge out the road for the five to six months they’re permitted to use them. Newly paved roads are virtually ruined over one winter in Oregon. Studded tires cause an estimated $40,000,000 in damage annually, and guess where that money comes from people. An enlightened Portland man, Jeffrey Bernards, is also sick and tired of hydroplaning on the highways from driving in the ruts filled with rainwater; he is tired of having his windshield immersed in water during rain events as other cars cause 55-gallon rooster-tails as they navigate the twin rivers in each lane. Oregonians should be using pontoons and those big fan-motors they use for swamp boats to get around the streets during rain events with all the damage the studded tire makes on Oregon roads. The ruts are so deep on HWY 84, you can let go of your steering wheel and your car will continue on like it’s on rails. You have to get a running start to change lanes.

Mr. Bernards is hoping to get enough signatures on his petition to BAN the use of the studded tire in Oregon. And I’m standing with him on this one. They are an unnecessary, destructive crutch for people who probably shouldn’t be driving in inclement weather to begin with.

So if you are an Oregonian, and are not so lame that you need to have little studs in your wheels to make you feel better driving, please sign this petition and send it in! Save us some tax dollars and maybe they can direct that money being poured down the studded tire toilet towards our failing educational system.

Horse: Has ANOTHER injury. His foot injury is still lingering, but now the barn owner has gone against my wishes and let him out with other horses, and naturally, he's been beaten up. A swollen rear leg at the knee, bit marks, and another nasty cut on his hip. I'm so sick of this! ARGH!

Weight-wise: I'm STILL hovering for the third month between 25-29 lbs. I have not broken the 30lb mark as of yet. But I am working on it. AFTER Halloween and 3 Musketeers, obviously.

Sewing for the retreat wise: because of my chronic procrastination problems, I have not advanced much in the sewing department. I have ALMOST finished one of the more involved projects, and that is my new set of smaller stays. I gave my old ones to S2, and she complains the busk is not comfy for her. I'm tempted to ask her for the busk back and making her a shorter rounded one. I need a busk! And my husband is stonewalling me. But ultimately, I have the bulk of the stays finished. I just need to add grommets and shoulder straps (and a busk naturally). Here's a picture of my OC the murder-cat helping me sew (by helping I mean batting at my fingers with his claws exposed).

I did some rudimentary jute cording in this set, mostly reinfocing the circumference
and under the gussetted cups. It looks nice, except one part. I didn't pay close
enough attention to matching the line as it crossed the back closure. Oh well.

I bound it badly in cheap binding for now. I was too impatient to wait to go to the store and get simple white binding. I may cover it in lace. Not sure yet. I just wanted it closed because I'm OCD.

I also secured a pair of half-booties for the retreat. They were $7.99 on eBay. Shipping made it $12ish dollars. Big deal. Until I can get those Robert Land boots I want, these will do just as well (after lysol spray and Gold Bond treatment--they're used).

Yay for eBay. :D

Anyway, happy Halloween all. It’s a beautiful Halloween day here in Portland. Sunny and lovely. Sorry for all you folks back east who got whomped. How unusual is that? A storm in October. But since you fall-hogging New Englanders get all the beautiful autumns all the time, maybe nature thought you ought to get some less-than-savoury weather for a change. Truly, I hope all my friends and loved ones over yonder are okay!

I have anger issues. Big news.

2011-10-25T12:20:00.000-07:00

Very few people in my life have seen me truly angry. My life has been an exercise in control, from my childhood on. I’ve swallowed a lot of my anger, and I have smiled and kept my cool in situations that would have set many others off like a moon-rocket. It’s a side effect of growing up in a violent, abusive household. We all learned to avoid conflict in the most creative ways, even if it meant stuffing your own feelings into a hole somewhere until you could find a suitable outlet for your anger (if at all). Those feelings fester and turn into little creatures that nibble and gnaw at you. They want to matter. They want out.

When I do get mad, I have a ridiculously horrid temper. My filter is turned off. When I’m angry, truly angry, the gates that keep the unkind thoughts that I’ve been fostering for years to burst open, and everything I think of you might be poured out in the most hideous way. I’ve destroyed a number of good friendships and relationships losing control of my barely-contained ire. Most of the time, when I am angry, I’ll retreat and retrench until the fire in my belly cools enough to avoid having a meltdown on some hapless fool who’s poked me with a sharp stick. But that doesn’t mean the battle is over. It’s still boiling. It will continue to boil.

But there are ‘innocent’ triggers too; the things that make those repressed monsters inside me start growling and roaring; things that cause me to have to do my retreat thing and to pace my breathing and to close my eyes and bite it all down. And all those are signs of an impending Thermo Nuclear explosion. If I go quiet on you, it’s not a good thing. If I’m yelling at you and it’s not devastatingly cruel and you’re not humiliated or crying, you’re probably okay—you haven’t been affected by my true temper and will probably be forgiven. There’s no mistaking my true anger. It’s hellacious.

Three things that will light the fuse of hellfire inside me:

1. DO NOT call me hon. This will likely turn me into an instant bitch. I will snap at you and treat you horribly for doing it. This isn’t the worst of the offenses, but it definitely will piss me off.

There are two kinds of ‘hon’ frequently used by strangers (often younger people) towards you (mostly older people). The one where the speaker is haplessly thinking they’re being personable and cute and the kind where the ‘hon’ or ‘honey’ or ‘sweetie’ that is meant to knock you down a notch; where it is a thinly veiled insult; a passive-aggressive patronization. It’s pretty easy to tell the difference. The hapless ‘hon’ is dispatched with impunity in the customer service industry. Servers and retail workers will use terms like ‘hon, sweetie and sweetheart’ unknowingly, and have no idea they’re irritating the shit out of their customers instead of ingratiating themselves to them.

“What can I get for you hon?” ::chewing gum like a bovine and gazing at you vapidly, pen poised over her pad::

“Are you finding everything you need sweetie?” ::tucking a trendril of her helmet-like hair away from her foundation-slathered forehead before thumbing through more sales racks::

“Thanks, hon” ::said in a flat, uncaring monotone while shoving your purchases into a bag and then subsequently into your face::

The Passive Aggressive term of endearment is delivered with more acidity:

“Hon, you have no idea what you’re talking about.”::said with an arched brow and a smug smirk::

“That’s not sage, it’s green, hon.” ::said with an arched brow and a bit of a disgusted smirk::

“Sweetie, you should be happy I’m telling you this now, because if I waited until later...” ::said with a barely controlled voice and a forced smile::

As a forty year old, I find it especially annoying when the speaker using the term of endearment is many years my junior. You are not my sweetie, hon or darling. It’s disrespectful and presumptuous. You certainly are not qualified (qualifications are: You are a member of my direct family or you are a dear friend) to use a term of endearment with me. You certainly are not qualified to use those terms with people who are older than you, and you sure as hell should not use those terms of endearment with strangers. It’s obnoxious.

If you want to avoid some crazy woman snapping at you, don’t call me hon.

2. Do not give me commands or make demands of me.

I hate it when people tell me what to do. A command will send a patch of instant razor-sharp hackles to bristle from my back and shoulders the moment it’s dispatched. If you cannot ask politely, then don’t open your mouth because then I will deliberately *not* do something just to prove you can’t tell me what to do. It’s irrational, but it’s the way my brain works, and once that switch is flipped, it’s hard to get control of it. DO NOT try to engage me immediately after you’ve set me off, or there will be a knock-down-screaming fight (this is not to be mistaken with a pissy argument, these are distinctly two different things). Remember, I’m half Puerto-Rican and I grew up in an abusive household. I have no lack of passion and temper, and I can reach some pretty high volumes and be pretty mean. And 99.9% of the time (family is generally exempt from the following part) I will no longer have anything to do with you after I spill my ire on you. I won’t even want to see your face. You will be shunned from my life and I will make it my business that everyone knows how much I despise you. Spiteful? Yes. Evil? Yes. Do I care? No. At that point, you have been scrubbed from my list of viable human beings worth interacting with and that’s that. So do not push me into a fight if you want anything even remotely to do with me or things that involve me. Approach me with caution if you want me to do something for you, or let me offer. But you sure as hell better not demand it of me or you’re pretty much guaranteed not to have it done and to lose any remaining respect I might hold for you while you’re at it. Learning to use the word please will save you a lot of misery. That *should* be a general rule for everyone, but not everyone has even basic manners or common consideration these days.

3. Do not make passive-aggressive or plain aggressive statements to me in settings where my sensibilities prevent me from making a spectacle of myself in front of others in response to it.

If you’ve made a snotty statement directed at me in mixed company and I haven’t responded, please know that you haven’t won your little snotty battle. You’ve ended your battle in all truth. You’ve guaranteed your demise in the most humiliating of fashions, but you don’t even realize it. All you’ve done is merely add reactive fuel to the possible, subtle implosion that is going to occur sometime in the future. What you’ve guaranteed is that you’ve made yourself useless to me at that point. I do not respond well to cattiness. At all. Once you’ve made yourself disposable, it’s only a matter of time before you are winnowed out of my life. When I go quiet, and I do not react, know that a little mental note just went into your file; and my memory is long, and I have stopped caring about you. After the first passive-aggressive attack, I will be focused on it whenever I interact with you. I’ll be looking for reasons. I will be watching for more fuel. Time? Not an issue. Sometimes it takes years. Sometimes, I will even bait you for more fuel; bait you to make an ass of yourself, finding or making reasons to justify why you should be ejected from my life forever and for others to see it for themselves without uttering a word to influence them. I’m evil and unforgiving in a mean, insidious and smiling way in this situation. So if you’re a douchebag who can’t keep their mouth shut, I offer a sound beware. When the inevitable happens, it’s open season. But what I’m especially good at in those situations is letting the offender dig their own grave—and because I’ve remained tight-lipped and kept smiling, I end up the classy one while the offender has only revealed the depth of their snottiness and lack of couth. It’s my best ‘death’ strategy and it has worked very well for me over the years. People ultimately reveal themselves for what they are. Just keep cool and give them time. No Thermo Nuclear explosions required, yet you still get that same satisfying, devastating fallout.

That’s a little insight into the less than peachy side of me. It’s there, I’m sure you are all well aware. But it’s the direct result of my upbringing. I may be grumpy a lot, but that’s not even remotely close to what I’m like when I lose my temper and write people off. I have the capacity of shutting people out who are very close to me, and pretending they don’t exist. It’s horrifying, imagining what that would be like from the other side, but it’s part of who I have become over the years. After living with unkind and cruel people, you learn to filter that sort of thing out of your life in effective ways as a personal defense mechanism. Either with fire and bluster, or with a cloak and dagger, I will achieve my ends. These are three guaranteed ways of making it happen.

Living with renters, not so peachy.

2011-10-22T12:39:00.000-07:00

What's it like, one might wonder, to live next door to a rental cabin. Okay, maybe you might not wonder, or even think of it, but since anyone could be a renter at any given time, It thought I'd share this little tale of what happened just last night and this morning:

Yesterday, several cars pulled into the rental cabin. We don't usually fuss about renters unless 1) there are too many of them, 2) they are noisy or 3) are douchebags. Although the booming auto-tune music around 9PM was annoying, it was early and we were tired, so we just thought nothing of it, and figured if it got out of hand, we'd get up and figure it out. We went to bed.

All through the night, the dogs were restless. They were 'boofing' and growling and jumping in and out of bed. The neighbour on the other side's dog (Jessie the abandoned one) was barking hysterically. Finally, at about 3:40 AM, my husband got up because the noise was out of control. There was shouting, cars running, motors revving and other inexplicable sounds. He came inside to tell me that someone had run over our fence. We got up, looked outside again. The kids were trying to get away, and they were backing up, and got stuck in the driveway. Someone couldn't get out so they ran over our fence and left through our driveway.

We called the cops. A policeman arrived shortly after, sending a number of the kids scurrying away. I went outside to speak to the cop and bumped into a kid in the dark lurking in our back yard trying to sneak away from the police officer. A parent had been phoned at some point and was up there before the police officer got there. He was trying to offer platitudes, but honestly I was in no mood for it. A bunch of the kids left, and the ones that remained were quieted down and they went to sleep.

Come morning, our neighbour across the street, angry that he couldn't get out of his driveway because one of the little idiots had blocked it with their POS car, pummeled on the door until someone woke up and made them move the car. I collected the trash thrown into our driveway and put it on the windshield of their car.

I had emailed the rental company Vacasa rentals at 3:45 AM when the really out of control stuff was going, and told them we would be holding them responsible for damages and repairs. However, this morning, the kids' mother came over and yelled at us as if we had somehow caused this. She said something inane about a gang of Mexicans raiding the party, and then claimed that prior renters that already had the lock-box code broke into the party and beat her son up. I don't care what happened. How that has anything to do with us is beyond me. She somehow expected sympathy for her son, how apparently got into a fight. I told her he is responsible for the consequences of his own choices. I told her that I don't care how she handles it through the rental company, but I told her that it was up to them to fix our fence. She was livid that her kids got kicked out by the rental company--acting as if it was excessive of the rental company (and us) to expect them to go. I just shrugged and arched my brows with a look of 'oh well'.

Ridiculous. This has been a disaster since the beginning. Weekend after weekend we are subjected to loud parties, cars coming and going at all hours, people shouting in the hot-tub at all hours of the night and obnoxious idiots trying to justify it. I wish these people would see this as a neighbourhood and not as a camp site. The police officer said that some properties can be classified as 'nuisance' properties with enough complaints against them. Maybe I won't be so tolerant any more. Maybe it's time to get this property classified as a nuisance.

What horsemanship means to me (and then some)

2011-10-19T11:48:00.000-07:00

Hubby has managed to get himself into a bit of a pinch.

Sunday was our sixth wedding anniversary. Our celebration? All-you can eat seafood extravaganza Sunday brunch at Salty’s on the Columbia. I ate SO much. I’m not used to eating like that anymore. In spite of my two-month weight plateau odyssey, I’ve tried to stick to the WW regime in hopes that my metabolism with knock it off, and allow me to start losing again. At least I’m not gaining. But Sunday was a special occasion. I think I ate something like: five crab legs, five oysters, two scoops of steamers, a moderate pile of shrimp, one muffin half of eggs benedict, two sides of a mini bagel with lox and cream cheese, a half waffle with a small dollop of whipped cream and hazelnut maple syrup (as delicious as it sounds, trust me), scrambled eggs, two slices of bacon, two crawdaddies, four sushi roll slices, a tiny pear tartlet, a teeny slice of raspberry cake, a small scoop of fruit loops (don’t ask), one strawberry and a tiny little block of rice crispy treat. Yes, I ate ALL that. Trust me, I paid the price. BUT IT WAS WORTH IT!

After that, I rode Tag for the first time in over a month. His foot wound still persists, but at least now it’s drying out a bit and the muzzle has helped keep it from getting worse since the horse is a dork and chooses to mess with his wound. He is no longer lame, and I worked his ass off. I had him sweated up. He was being obstinate to a fault too, really rebellious and after all this time without being put to work, he felt it necessary to test me. His behaviour was considered shocking to some who were present, but I expect it from my hot-blooded brat horse. After I worked his socks off, he was more compliant. I took some time to flip my leg over his neck and to ride ‘sidesaddle’ in my Stubben all-purpose, just to see how he’d do with my crop as the far-side aid and how he’d feel about my foot being crooked up on his shoulder/neck. Yeah, I was sitting uphill a bit, but it was just for experimentation purposes. He was totally fine. I also did some other trust exercises, like lying backwards on his croupe, and forward onto his neck with my legs going down his length. I like ‘snuggling’ with him that way, and it builds trust.

That was of course after I’d made him canter his butt off after defying me a few times. Poor baby, how evil of me. People say I work him too hard, but Tag needs it like a juvenile delinquent needs discipline and structure. Tag definitely needs an experienced rider on his back, that’s for sure. When Sharon, a barn-friend, suggested that I allow other people to ride him on trails when we were camping at Timothy Lake at the end of July, I had to bite back the urge to bark out laughing. 1) NOBODY rides my horse. And if I allow anyone to, they will do it with my direct supervision. Especially someone with no experience who can ruin all the work I’ve done with him, and *especially* people who would be an automatic liability, who my horse would take advantage of. I know people who would say that if my horse were better trained that anyone could ride him, but that’s not true. Even the best-trained horses can hurt people who have no idea WTF they are doing in the saddle.

Those people are in ample supply where I ride. No offense to the ladies at my barn, but MANY of them ride scared and fear always influences how horses interact with their rider. Most of riders at my barn use their western saddles and other tack/hardware as ‘safety crutches’ and all of them are so terrified of falling or the horse ‘acting up’ that they hardly enjoy themselves and spend their rides in a state of low-grade terror, waiting for their horse to freak out. When riding tense and jumpy, how do they expect your horse not to feel that and reflect it? Or worse, to test your limits? Many of the riders do not really know how to be the support for the horse. I see a lot of horses manipulating and acting out against inexperienced riders, and the riders choosing to use a cruel bit, or some other piece of hardware as a solution rather that learn to actually ride a horse in any way besides just sitting in their Western sofas and holding on for dear life, whimpering every time the horse spooks, kicks a fly from their belly or farts. I just don’t condone that kind of ‘horsemanship’ (and I use this word loosely). Most of the women I see at my barn who are like that would not be encouraged to buy a horse, to ride alone, or to ride outside of the lessons at our stable until they were better riders. But a lot of people own horses they can’t handle where I ride; and apparently that’s allowed. You can say that as a barn owner, that it’s an individual person’s responsibility to make safe choices for themselves, and wash your hands of it, but truth be told, as an instructor and an owner, you should be responsible for the people under your care, and you should certainly apply your experience towards making them as safe as possible as riders before you let them have free rein (excuse the pun).

I’m especially concerned about a lot of the ‘Western Pleasure’ riders at the barn. Western saddles are useful when you are roping cattle and driving them for days and days across the badlands. There are many people who use them with skill and intelligence. But the greater part of Western Pleasure riders don’t know what the hell they’re doing. In truth, these huge, secure saddles should not be used for pleasure riding. This is my firm belief. These big saddles with the horn to grip and the deep seat can fool a lot of people into thinking that they’re excellent riders, and don’t realize how much they rely on them rather than their own skill. I believe this mostly because too many people rely on the saddle’s ability to hold them on the horse, rather than learn to hold themselves onto the horse. And too many people use the huge, terrible shank bits that come with Western Pleasure (scourge) as a control device to cow their horse into submission with pain and discomfort rather than earn the horse’s cooperation and trust with skill and ability. Many of these pleasure riders can’t even recognize certain behaviours that can be warnings, or understand that their horse doesn’t respect them. A lot of people get hurt because they have a great deal of false confidence from learning to ride without really acquiring enough foundational skill and knowledge of what horsemanship is really about.

Falling is not the end of the world. And once a rider accepts that 1) it’s going to happen and 2) it can be survived if handled intelligently and without panic, then there is a great deal less to worry yourself about when you’re in the saddle. I’ve met a lot of people who are very proud that they’ve never fallen from a horse. That’s great, but it’s not a mark of a good rider by any means. Neither does it mean that experienced riders are invulnerable to being hurt, but they are less likely to be taken advantage of, and more capable of controlling and understanding their mount. Riding without being crisped up like a mummified corpse is a start. Riding a thinking, instinctive animal that outweighs you several times should not be considered a hobby like scrapbooking, this is a skilled sport and should require teamwork, not dominance; and teamwork means the horse has to trust YOU as much as you trust it. In order to gain the horse’s trust, you must earn its respect as a leader, not as a master (and yes, there is a distinct difference). It should willingly follow your will, and be eager to please you, rather than follow it because you will punish it otherwise. That’s a wobbly and unstable relationship that is very likely to crumble quickly and dangerously.

I’ve taken a few falls from Tag. I’ve torn my cruciate. Throughout my lifetime in the saddle, I’ve fractured ribs, broken an arm, foot and leg, and once, while bringing a whip to a friend who was longeing her horse, I got kicked in the head and achieved a nice concussion & internal bleeding on my skull that landed me in intensive care. I have fallen without injury more times than I can count. Granted, many of those falls were the result of youthful fearlessness mixed with cockiness. I see a lot of that in the teenaged girls at the barn now. But I was lucky. I had an instructor who taught us all our very first riding lessons as small children on a full sized horse, on a longe. He taught us confidence by doing those exercises (leaning back, forward, sitting backwards, standing on the horse’s back, sitting sideways, learning to trust the horse), teaching us to sit the gaits first with no saddle but just a surcingle, and teaching us that when we fall (an inevitability), that we should always let go of the reins, and always ride with only the ball of your foot in the stirrup—and definitely never to rely on the stirrup all the time. Hell, he even made us post without stirrups to build thigh strength. He taught us to ride with long stirrups, and sit deep in the seat, saddle or no, and to visualize our spine connected to the horse’s, to pay attention to muscle bunching on the horse and to understand their body signals. Only after a few lessons of confidence training and balance training were we allowed to graduate to a saddle and bridle, to group lessons and to ponies.

If you are going to spend your time in the saddle living in constant fear of falling, you probably shouldn’t be riding a horse, I’m sorry to say. It’s too dangerous a sport, and if you give the 1200lb animal and idea that he is the one in control, you’ve already lost. Being dominant and punishing is a way of showing fear to your horse. They will eventually rebel against it. Horses feel fear. In every muscle in your body---even through those massive, leathery sofa chairs some call a saddle. No amount of tack is going to keep you from risk—in some cases, it will increase it. And when and if you decide to buy a horse, know what you’re getting into and know what you’re capable of. Too many inexperienced riders are sitting on horses they are not equipped to handle. It’s a dangerous combination. We’ve had several pretty serious falls and injuries in the two years I’ve been at my barn because riders were too inexperienced to handle their horses.

So whenever someone admonishes me for making Tag work harder the more he pushes me, or when someone says I’m taking unnecessary risk riding in my postage-stamp saddle on trails (or anywhere), or when someone thinks I should give up horseback riding and be scared just because I’ve fallen, I have to just bite my tongue and keep doing what I do, because when Tag is acting like a d-bag, it means he’s testing me, and when he knows I can gain his cooperation and teach him by gentle and rewarding means, he’s learning.

My sister rides Western, but when I say she rides Western, she actually gets on her horse and ropes cattle. Her custom saddle is spare, and light and strong enough to tie a roped calf to. My sister can also do a Prix St. Georges level dressage proof, and train horses without any forceful means at all, with her eyes closed. People ask me why I don’t use a Western saddle, and my answer is why? Why would I add unnecessary bulk and weight to my horse’s back when what I have now works fine? I’m not going to rope cattle or dodge barrels or whatever else people do using those saddles. There’s no point except to add back the 27lbs I’ve lost to my horse’s burden in the form of a saddle. I think not.

Tag and I, pre-roach (before I shaved his mane off)

This past year, since Tag was never taught safe mounting, my sister gave me an exercise to teach it to him. When I’m mounting and he tries to move in any way, I make him circle me. Eventually, he’ll let me mount when he’s ready, and has grown tired of my making him circle every time he doesn’t do as I ask. Gradually, the mounting time is growing shorter and shorter; his circles are growing fewer and fewer. He was green and was never properly trained from the moment I got him. Now, he’s learning. But every time I perform the safe-mounting process, someone invariably asks if I want them to hold him, or if I want the barn owner to mount him to teach him to sit still in her own forceful way... I can barely keep from rolling my eyes. Everyone seems to have the ‘fast-cure’ advice to offer. Horsemanship is not instant gratification. Horsemanship is patience and persistence. It cannot be advanced by draw reins or huge spurs or a bit with shanks that are longer than my forearm. I sure as hell am not going to take advice from people who buy into that philosophy. I’d rather take six months teaching him to be a good boy when I’m getting into the saddle than make him look at me as anything but his teammate. He has my life in his hands, so to speak... I need to know my horse trusts me.

I found on Sunday that with work, Tag is going to make an excellent sidesaddle horse. He’s balanced and strong, and over the two years I’ve had him (10/31 is our second anniversary together) he’s come a long way. I remember that first day I rode him, when he didn’t even know how to move forward on my leg, and the doors of the stalls scared the bejeezus out of him. I remember getting into a battle of wills just to let me ride him out of the arena. Now, I can do yoga on his back and he doesn’t give a crap, he still has trouble collecting his canter, but that will come in time and with work. He has bratty moments, but that’s okay, I’d rather have a horse with a mood and personality than some defeated, lip-hanging plugger with a leather mouth and spur-worn sides. Besides, he looks so awesome and powerful when he’s being a douchbag.

The Token

2011-10-05T17:38:00.000-07:00

He glared at me with such anger, such disappointment; I could barely keep myself from bursting into tears. With sadness in his eyes, he walked away. Twelve years old, in tan corduroys, a plaid button-down shirt and worn loafers, this boy who’d been so kind to me, couldn’t look at me again. I’d betrayed his kindness. And I lied to him.

Arch was my friend. He was a Mormon boy, tough as nails, sweeter and kinder than anyone else I knew. Me, I was lost, broken and mostly friendless. We couldn’t be more different if we tried, but we somehow managed to forge a friendship. I adored him. Seventh grade me, in hand-me-downs, often teased, mostly ignored, loved Arch. But I also feared for him.

Arch was a bit sweet on me. Of course, I didn’t realize this then, when I was still too obtuse and young to know these things. But later on, it came to me, far too late to figure it out; far too late to come out with the truth and to somehow try to erase that disappointment in his eyes that to this day still remains vivid in my memory.

There was this other boy, my mother’s friend’s son. Chris was the kid everyone made fun of, the kid that wore elastic-waist-band jeans and who was often found wedged bottom-first in the garbage can, thrown in there by bullies. He was the kid nobody would help. They would walk by laughing. It was decided between mothers that we should be friends. During that time, I was absent from school quite a bit. Chris’s mother offered for Chris to bring my books to my mother’s work so I could have them when I was home. My locker combination was winkled out of me. My schoolwork followed me home to my dismay—not as if I ever really did anything about it anyway.

The locker combination. It was what caused everything. It started with a Valentine’s day surprise. I opened my locker to find chocolates and a flower. Arch was with me. I exclaimed my annoyance at it. I grumbled about Chris having my locker combination, and about Chris's mother colluding with him to make this gesture. Arch was angry, but of course, I did not know this. All I did know was that during science class, it was announced that Arch was suspended. That he’d thrown Chris into a locker during gym and given him a concussion.

Sometime before then, Arch had given me a dried starfish. A little token. It was pretty cool. I kept it in a little box in my locker. I had showed it to Chris before the whole locker-incident. So it was inevitable that I came in one day after Chris’s face had been made black and blue, and opened my locker and found the little starfish crushed to bits. A little piece of it fell out when I picked up the box, unbeknownst to me at the time.

Arch was back in school by then. I didn’t want to tell him about the starfish, because he already got in trouble for attacking Chris. So I didn’t tell him. But he found that little piece of starfish somewhere, and he came and stood before me and asked me about it. He thought I'd broken it, discarded it. He thought I didn't treasure it. I lied to him. “It’s fine,” I told him. “I took it home.” He said he found a little broken leg, and I declared it couldn’t be the one he gave me. It was safe at home. The idea of him getting suspended again for his temper, for his ire against Chris, it was too scary.

He didn’t believe me, naturally. It was insulting to his intelligence, I know, but when you’re a kid you just grasp at straws. He never spoke to me again. I went to a Catholic intern school that next year and I don’t know where he ended up. There are days, when I wish I could send him a little starfish. An apology. I wish I could go back in time to tell him the truth so I could fix the disappointment in that boy’s eyes.

But what can you do. He’s a grown man now, somewhere, probably with a healthy crop of kids and a successful life, a stunning wife, and happily ensconced with the LDS somewhere in Utah. A good soul—maybe with a bit of a temper issue, but he was a kid, it’s forgivable. He probably doesn’t even remember the stupid starfish. Here *I* am, at forty, still finding myself sometimes lamenting that lost childhood friend. How pathetic is that? LOL.

To my friend Arch. I’m sorry I lied to you. And I’m sorry for Chris too, wherever you are.

Tofu and Titties.

2011-10-05T11:40:00.000-07:00

My boss phoned my office yesterday laughing himself into stitches. He called to tell us about something he discovered while buying coffee. A local paper published an article about a desperate struggle going on in the neighbourhood here around SouthEast Portland.

For those of you who aren't familiar with Portland, Oregon; there's a particular fondness for strip clubs in this city (and state, but especially in and around Portland), and there is a great fervour brewing right next door to an existing strip club called 'The Acropolis' which is apparently quite famous for its excellent steak-bites (and crotch crickets).

Apparently, in a shuttered, shut-down building on a lot right next to an existing strip club, the owner of another strip club in northwest Portland wants to open a 'franchise' in the southeast side of the city at this location. What makes this whole thing even more hilarious than it already is, is that the new proposed strip-club (called Diablo) is a VEGAN strip-club. Yes, a VEGAN strip club. I'm sorry... but that's funny. It's so... Portland. And what's funnier? Look at the pictures in the articles below... especially the one in the second part (click the images to enlarge if you need to):

"Our daughters are NOT for sale!!!!"

"Stop Animal Cruelty!" - "Stop Vegan Hatred!!!!"

I don't need to explain why this is so damned hilarious. It speaks for itself. While children are being abused, while war rages, while the economy drags one middle class family after the next into poverty.... vegan strip clubs make the front page on the local rag. Seriously! Lawlz.

Thursday ramble, and an O.S.

2011-09-29T11:40:00.000-07:00

Office Special - the first drawing in my new sketch book.

Autumn is coming. The hot nights have given way to breezes of crisp air sneaking through my still-open window at night. I love the smell of it. The land is replenishing itself from the first of the fall rains; the river has gotten just that bit louder. The leaves are starting to turn. It’s not quite over, but the signs are there that Summer is finished. Today, the sky is vivid blue. It’s the kind of day I want to be in the saddle, overlooking some amazing view, gazing out over my horse’s perked ears, feeling the sun on my skin, but refreshed by the cool air that’s blowing around me. It’s windy. It’s so beautiful.

Ignore the lame slideshow and just listen to the music. A Belgian composer
I forgot I loved but rediscovered by accident.

This is the time of year I miss most living in New Hampshire. It’s when the Indian Summer arrives with its colours and crackling leaves, where small towns have pumpkin festivals, and you can start wearing your pea coat again. Oregon hasn’t quite achieved the palette of a New England autumn, but it’s still a beautiful time here. It’s also a blessed time for us mountain-dwellers. It’s too cold for campers, except the most determined diehards, and yet not snowy enough for the hordes of skiers to come marching up the mountain. It’s the short, brief time when we get our touristy mountain towns mostly to ourselves.

October is a busy month. My husband’s birthday is on the 10th. Our anniversary is on the 16th, and my little brother’s birthday is on the 25th. There are also a couple of birthdays on hubby’s family’s side as well. His nephew Bryan gets a year taller. And grandma turns 87. Time marches on.

Sincere apologies for my foul mood yesterday. That sort of thing *really* makes me grumpy. I really cannot stomach ill-will between people. It sets me off. Obviously.

I enjoy Halloween. I complain every year how I was cheated of it as a kid. Growing up in Belgium was great, but I missed out on some American traditions I wish I could have enjoyed. We never do much on Halloween. This year, we are thinking about going to a Halloween party at Edgefield, we shall see. It’s not like staying home is worth it, since we never get trick-or-treaters anyway.

I’m in a reflective mood lately. I’m still clinging to lingering hope, trying not to set myself up for more disappointment. I can’t help it. I had always planned a future with a child in it. It’s hard to picture it now without one. But nothing’s permanent. Nothing’s set in stone. Things could happen, who knows? Should I send the little things I’ve collected along the years to Goodwill? The set of Beatrix Potter books, the copies of the Velveteen rabbit? The little silverware set made specifically for a Victorian child, the bibs and bowls and cups my sister gave me once. The handmade wooden rattle? Should I just let it all go? I don’t know. The idea of letting go of those little material things feels like I’m letting go of hope. I’m not quite ready to do that yet.

It’s probably for the best anyway. We are living on a tightrope financially anyway; a child would make that all the more challenging.

I’m still stuck at 27-29 lbs. It’s so annoying. I’m hoping this plateau will shatter soon, and I’ll start losing again. Hubby is still stalled, but he’s lost a smidge this week.

The back. It has a lace insert.

The front yoke, has a lace insert too.

On the sewing front, I’ve finished a nightgown (except for the closure). It turned out better than I had hoped. I really didn't have a lot to reference, honestly, so this design is pretty much pulled out of my derriere. But I need something to wander around in at night during the retreat, something comfortable and that looks somewhat the part. I've since added a little lace around the collar and around the 'waistline' with a ribbon woven in to tie it. Here are some pictures of the yoke and back, before I attached the gathered gown itself... I took some photos of the completed gown with a better camera, but I forgot to get them off my husband’s camera. I’ll post them when I remember.

I’m working on a chemisette right now. I’ve been doing it all by draping on the most part. I discovered that when I consolidated my fabric stash, that I was pretty much covered, except for maybe a few yards of silk might be required for a ball gown. Not sure yet.

Someone love me, please?

This is Jesse. She is our pot-head/alcoholic neighbour’s daughter’s dog. She drives up here to stay with her father, and brings Jessie. Jessie spends all day left alone outside. She is fearful and she cowers and pees herself if you make a sudden move. She sees our happy little dogs, and she wants to be part of our family. She comes in our dog-door and stands at the glass door from the laundry room and pines to come in. Lately, she’s been spending her evenings with us. She goes ‘home’ at night. She is sweet and attention-starved. Just like with OC the Opportunistic Cat, we are being ‘adopted’. I’m not sure if she’ll ever end up being ours completely like the cat, but she’s welcome for whatever time she needs of us.

Have a nice weekend all. Check it out! An office special. I got a little sketch book that I carry around with me. That’s the first drawing in it. It's not a great drawing, but what the hell. I'm amazed I could squeeze out something creative, honestly, with this dry-spell I've been in.

Keep Your Spam To Yourself.

2011-09-28T12:30:00.000-07:00

I hate forwards. I really do. There are few things that will set me off more than receiving a random forwarded message with some cheesy pictures or a saccharine quote or some stupid chain letter in my email inbox. I’ll get even more pissed off if it’s from someone I never hear from at all. In my mind, there is nothing more obnoxious than just being one of many on a blanket mailing list for useless crap. If you can’t be bothered to drop me a personal note, you sure as heck had better keep your spam to yourself! Especially if you are family. If you are family, then that’s the biggest crime of all.

I especially hate spam that is made up of some really idiotic political stance. I get some from people I know that are so bad, like when Obama got elected, someone I know sent me a spam with a picture of the White House with watermelons covering the front lawn. Nooooo, their objection to the president has *nothing* to do with race at all... <--sarcasm. It really cracks me up when these groups of people insist their hatred for Obama has nothing to do with his being black, when they keep circulating racist spam between eachother. It's disingenuous and moronic. My own in-laws deny it, and still forward every moronic racist email to my husband (not to me). ::ai ai ai::

Today, I got this gem from a friend at the barn. Bless her heart, she’s a wonderful person, but sometimes I just think she doesn’t read what she sends. When I get pieces of sh*t like this, I will automatically REPLY ALL and expose that part of me few people see... the full-on bitch.

This email was very long, and formatted and written by someone who might have been developmentally disabled, not sure. I had to break it up into seven different images so you could all share in this wonderful example of the unapologetic ignorance of people in this country. I truly believe that people who think this stuff is laudable ought to have their right to vote revoked, because they are too stupid to be allowed to. Anyone who believes this contrived, made-up attempt to spread ill-will towards other ethinic groups should be shot into the sun. This email is very likely a feeble fabrication. And yet stupid people gobble this sh*t up like it's mana from heaven. ::gods::

It begins with an almost incomprehensible opening sentence and some really bad clip-art. And I strongly disagree with the 'not a joke' statement. This email *is* a joke. An embarrassing, ignorant joke.

You see, apparently Budweiser itself had a strategy to deal with ‘those who laughed at those who died on September 11’. I’m intrigued... shall we go on?

Pass it along and spread the ignorance and stupidity? Umm... no. I will not assist in perpetuating ignorance. I will read it and mock it, and then reply to everyone and tell them all they're idiots.

Common sense to anyone with brown skin on September 11th and for some time thereafter was to lay low. There were people who were so angry, they got up, picked up a gun, went to the nearest place where they knew there would be someone from the middle east or in several cases, Asia, vandalized their shops, shot at the safety glass, and beat them up. Even Sikhs were attacked. It was like someone declared open-season on anyone who looked even remotely Arab. I remember this time quite clearly. It was awful watching scared Americans doing stupid things--and I'm seeing a lot of that lately too. Aaanyway...

Anyway, I digress... so according to this email, these supposed ‘Arabs’ in California, were doing a happy-happy-joy-joy dance and singing praise to Allah while pointing and laughing at the footage of the planes hitting the towers being cycled on whatever news channel, completely disregarding the folks in their store, apparently. Hm. So believable. Asshats are saying: "I'm going to buy that hook line and sinker because I'm a massive MORON."

So this employee, who is likely existentially-challenged, who wasn’t angry about the attacks or racist in any way, truthfully told the boss what he saw. :::mmhmm::: And the decision was made to pull all the Budweiser products from the store.

On a side note: have you ever *had* Budweiser? Seriously? My proud Belgian upbringing forces me to declare that this is NO punishment. Budweiser is horse-piss. It’s disgusting. Pulling their products improved the store’s quality by about 88%.

Anyway, I’m pretty sure Budweiser as a company probably wouldn’t endorse a race-based unilateral decision from some egghead distribution manager and truck-driver at some white-trash California town. They would avoid that sort of negative publicity like the plague, and fire the asses of the boss and the 'employee'.

I like how the town is immediately painted into white-trashness by declaring that Budweiser is the beer of choice, BTW. Fun!. Aim high people. Anyway, apparently this action by the existentially-challenged employee and his boss qualified them to represent the whole county too! LOL.

Ok, on with the riveting story.... you see, it continues...

NOT THE PEPSI PRODUCTS! OH THE HUMANITY! The health of the town probably improved when they took all that crap out. They were probably forced to buy food that requires assembling and cooking! POOR PEOPLE!

YAY! ANOTHER SMALL AMERICAN BUSINESS DESTROYED! YAY FOR US! U.S.A! U.S.A! U.S.A! We bankrupted an Arab (only 8 years after September 11) with our awesome product withdrawals. We so excited! How awesome are WE!? Pat ourselves on the back, we've successfully contributed to the downward spiraling economy! Yaaay!

Good ol’ American Passive Aggressive Ass-Whoopin’? Um no. Good ol’ American Ignorant Racist Idiocy, more like it.

I love this one ... ‘If you can read this, thank a teacher (if you wrote this, you need to go back to school, I’m afraid)’. The second bit made me LOL. “If you are reading this in English, thank a soldier”. LOL! I had no idea our military has been engaged for over two centuries in a battle to protect the use of the English language in the United States. Yay for soldiers! They keep English alive! I can see the person who wrote this, their eyes glistening with tears of pride as they mash down the caps key and tap out these lines, their chest swelling with patriotic fire.

NEWSFLASH: There is no official language in America. English just happens to be the language that 96% of us use. Although a great number of languages are spoken here. It is a country of immigrants. Get over it. Just because you are too lazy or stupid to learn another language and broaden your horizons doesn’t mean everyone has to make life more convenient for you. Get over yourselves.

Oy, what a stupid statement. It’s so stupid, that if stupid were something tangible, this email would probably have enough mass to create a black hole. But this last picture puts a big whopping idiot-cherry on top of this whole pile of spam-poop:

Let’s elevate pure ignorance and stupidity to PRIDE. Because that’s what it is, peeps. It’s good ol’ American Pride that encourages people to victimize and hate anyone who isn’t Aryan and who doesn’t have the language skills and political knowledge of a barely evolved primate. PRIDE is sending out messages that are filled with lies created for no other purpose than to propagate hate and ignorance. PRIDE.

How embarrassing! I am seriously embarrassed by people who write this crap, and who spread it around like fly-covered-dairy-queen-soft-serve-like sh*t.

Ugh.

Oh, and remember, if you don’t send this, you HAVE NO SOUL!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! ::eyeroll::

Good grief. No wonder this country is going to pot. These dunces are opining and making up spam when they should be digging our ditches.

I am so happy this week is OVER. Happy Friday!

2011-09-23T16:56:00.000-07:00

Office Special "A love letter and a rose."

It's been a stressful week to say the least. It began with an agency inspection of our largest Oregon facility by the Oregon DEQ with someone from the EPA along as well. On top of that, we had a few other crises to throw into the mix, and right now I just want to curl up into a ball and sleep for a week. I got nothing done of my routine stuff at work because of all these distractions, and the month is ending and I have SO much to catch up. ::groan::

The sidesaddle, after careful fitting, is not the right width for Tag. Bummer. But the bright side is, I put it on eBay and it sold in less than 12 hours for about $250 more than what I was selling my dressage saddle for. SCORE! I will use extra for bills and some to put a deposit on a new model that can be found with XX-wide trees. That's fine, because I have a few pounds more to lose before I ride sidesaddle in earnest.

Tag's foot is still somewhat lame, but getting better. I will see this weekend if he's improved. Silly horse. I'm still stagnant at 27-29 lbs (depending on the day). This is the longest plateau I've had, and hubby is also stuck at a plateau. We both think that we're getting too cavalier with the points calculation, and have decided to go strictly with the program again so we can start the weight loss again. Damn it!

We discovered a new treasure trove. I'm not sure if I mentioned it already, but I'm too lazy to check. There's a sugar-free bakery in Clackamas just off HWY 205. Now, in my pre-weight-loss days, I'd have curled my lip at this place, imagining a wealth of bland, weird tasting sweets. But now, we are always looking for treats to make this 'lifestyle change' manageable. We discovered that the sugar free bakery makes AMAZING eclairs and cream puffs and they're only 2 and 1 point each??!!!! Hello! You need to check this place out: Just Delicious Bakery. They do mail order too. So I have a box of bavarian cream puffs to look forward to after the commute home.

Happy weekend all. I'll be sewing. And sleeping.

An office special on a Happy Friday.

2011-09-16T11:38:00.000-07:00

A quick and forced office special.

I have SO much sewing to do for the retreat and I haven’t spent any time on it. I have been in a bit of a funk since the last post, granted, and my creative muse has scampered off somewhere into the wilderness and left me uninspired and bland for a few weeks. The thing that sucks is that I have all this sewing to do, I should be drawing, and working on a book, I should be reading for my review site, and I am not. I am completely stagnant. I actually *forced* myself to draw my office special today. It’s not very good. I get up in the morning, barely able to peel myself from bed, I go to work, I spend the day at work, I go home, I idle about at my computer and TV until bedtime and then I struggle to fall asleep, only to find myself having to wake up five minutes after my head hits the pillow (at least that’s what it feels like).

My Dassenplank project has ground to a hideous halt because the carpenter who seemed so excited about the project took the seed money and has vanished off the face of the earth. I'm giving him the benefit of the doubt, but I don't have a good feeling about the fact that he is ignoring my emails. He did call and leave a message to me saying he'd been called away to Utah or Idaho to do some work out of state, so I'm trying to give him a chance to prove himself a decent person before I lose it. But it's hard when you give someone your trust, and think they're decent and they do something untoward like take money and then disappear. It wasn't a lot of money on the greater scheme, but in our financial situation, it would have helped towards one of our bills for sure. We'll see if he comes through. I still have hope that he will.

Tag is still languishing in the wound-department. I haven’t spent very much time with him these last two weeks, except to swing by, overcompensate with carrots, brush his sleek coat down and take off. I’ve been working on the sidesaddle thing too. Until I can afford a full reflocking, I’ve ordered a cheap channel riser to lift the seat off of his back a bit and even out the saddle a bit, otherwise I’ll tip back off of him ::hahaha:: I also need to find the funds to have a balance girth made for him still. Blurgh!

The ORS Regency Retreat is totally sold out. That’s exciting! I have to sit down and finish up drafting the new set of bonnets and hats for the workshop. I’ll start posting the little minis as I go along, but I haven’t been making minis right now, since I haven’t been doing much of anything except exist.

So here’s a list of what I will need to sew before December 1 for the retreat:

2 day gowns
1 robe
1 ball gown
1 redingote
1 new hat/bonnet (plus finish up the patterns for the workshop)
2 chemisettes
1 fishu
2 mob cap
1 false sleeves
1 dressing gown
1 night gown
1 apron
4 shifts
2 petticoats
1 pantelettes, maybe 2
And the big one... A new set of stays. Garr!

I also need to save up so I can order three pairs of stockings, go out and buy some shawl(s) among other things.

What I want to make after the retreat stuff is done:

A regency period riding habit (here’s a little blurb about them I did on the ORS blog)

Today’s office special is sort of connected to a project I’ve started for Etsy. It’s a kitty cat (four cats actually, a calico, a grey tabby, a black and white cat much like the above image, and an orange cat) I’ve had them printed on fabric through Spoonflower (still waiting for the swatch/yard of kitty fabric to test them out) so I could make some bean/plush cat dolls. I’ll make them, dress them in little regency gowns with pinafores and pantalettes, or in a skeleton suit if they’re boys (orange cats are usually boys and calicos are mostly girls). We’ll see how well the doll-design works with my first test-swatch.

I’ve resolved to sew this weekend. I MUST!!! Hubby will be gone most of Saturday anyway riding around with his Italian mistress, the Ducati. ::hehheh:: I will try to sew on Sunday too, but I owe my horse some quality time this week.

Have a delightful weekend. I’ll get over myself, I promise, and will be back posting projects sooner or later. I’ll try to do some photos of my projects this weekend. TRY. If I can find a decent camera and enough light to make it work.

No for now.

2011-09-07T12:12:00.000-07:00

So, we’ve been told that we pretty much do not qualify to adopt a child from the state. There aren’t that many kids, apparently, and there is a glut of 200 adoptive families competing for them. And those 200 adoptive families apparently have a lot more going for them than we do; disposable income & whatever other things she (our social worker) determined. The fact that I had taken therapy in the past also has come back to haunt me. I *could* have just not bothered to have my psychologist from two and a half years ago send in the form at all. But for the sake of honesty, and to prove I’ve taken positive steps to towards working with my depression, I asked my doctor to help out, and that has bitten me in the derriere.

The social worker walked into our house with a negative attitude from the start. She sat down to interview us and asked us one question. Just one. Why are you trying to adopt through the state? Our reply was about fertility issues, and the fact that we are not able to go the traditional adoption route and her response was: “The DHS is not a program set up for people who can’t afford to adopt through private agencies.” I found that statement to be well... insane. How does our affording it or not have anything to do with our motivations? She also said that our continuing to try for pregnancy also was a reason for them not to consider us... so people who are trying to get pregnant, are pregnant or who have other kids can’t adopt? I’m not getting this. She stayed less than twenty minutes. She said “It’s not a no, but it’s a no for now,” and she got up and walked out.

Talk about being crushed. After having our hopes lifted up by the DHS trainer who put us through certification training, the social worker came in and pretty much squashed them—and in the coldest, rudest manner possible. It was really insulting, honestly, to have someone who knows absolutely ZERO about us make a decision based on four emails, some generic forms and less than twenty minutes in our presence with one interview question on the table. There’s no consideration that regardless of our not living in a cookie-cutter McMansion housing development with five cars and a boat, we are perfectly capable of providing a loving, nurturing environment for a child. There’s no thought put into how much we were committed to the process. There’s no sense in this decision. We might not be perfect, but we are perfectly adequate—and I believe that it was unfair to just dismiss us and I resent having my motivations put into question, or be treated as if we had less than legitimate intentions.

Anyway, I spent my long weekend trying to wrap my mind around the whole thing. It’s tempting to let the depression run with this decision, and to fold myself up into a fetal position and cry my eyeballs out, which I am often tempted to do when things are painful. But I can’t do that. I’ve got to force myself to move forward. I’ve got my husband to hold onto. I’ve got things to focus on. I need to working on the things before me. I have the ORS retreat to sew for (and hat-patterns to finish). I have my sidesaddle project and habit to look forward to. I have a book to finish. I have my weight loss to focus on. I have to just take on that time-tested attitude that what is meant to be is meant to be. If we are meant to have a child, it will happen to us in one way or another. It might not be in adopting a child through the state of Oregon, who knows?

So that was my weekend. I was busying myself lamenting that while marathoning Star Trek Voyager. At least one good thing came from the weekend; and that is my weight has finally started to move again. I reached the 29lb mark on Monday (but it’s back up to 27lbs today). The 30lb mark is a big one; I can’t wait to hit that mark. Another good thing discovered this weekend was the existence of a sugar-free bakery with the most delicious cream puffs (HUGE cream puffs) for only ONE WW point. Seriously! One point! They also have éclairs and cake and cupcakes and cookies and candy... some ranging rather high point-wise and others being ridiculously points-cheap. Yay I say!

I’m not sure if I talked about Tag’s stupid injury, but yet again, Tag has managed to acquire an injury that is taking forever to heal. He had it already during our trail ride that I posted about earlier. It’s a large sore on his foot, but it isn’t causing any lameness. He had this 55-gallon poly drum in his stall with part of the side cut out to act as his feed trough. But as my horse likes to mess with things incessantly, he battered the drum-feeder with his front left hoof until it cracked and then proceeded to get his foot stuck in the fissure and scraped off some of some old scar-tissue he had on his foot (probably from a similar injury in the past), leaving a gross gaping wound on his foot just near the pastern above the coronet. But it didn’t end there. I tried to bind it up and bandage it, but that didn’t work. He pulled the bandage off. I put a bell-boot over his bandage and he tore that off too. Then on top of that, the wound must have been itchy because like some obsessive dog, my horse began to chew at his wound whenever he’d torn the bandage covering off. So last week, we had to buy him a muzzle. Yes, I’m serious. Tag is wearing a giant muzzle. He is also bandaged up to the knee. Dumb horse. And so I face another few weeks of lost riding time thanks to a wound that won’t go away.

Anyway, Saturday, I took my newly acquired sidesaddle with me to the stable to see how it fit him. The tree is perfect, but it requires reflocking (re-stuffing) underneath the seat in the panels, and I have to find a way to lengthen the over-girth which was about three inches too short. I also need to find a custom balancing girth that’s 54-56” long. It will take a little tweaking before I’m actually sitting in the saddle, but it’s going to work nicely. It’s a good size for him and the seat is a good size for me. It sits on him well, isn’t too long for his body and the tree lies nicely against him. I’m so pleased with this trade. I feel like I totally scored. Comparable saddles are $1000-$1300. The leaping horn is adjustable, which is nice. I’m debating even bothering making a habit yet, because of my shifting weight at this point. And I still have some work to do before I ride him in earnest with the sidesaddle. The saddle itself needs modifications, and the horse itself needs some groundwork and some saddle work to prepare him.

Other than that, and a forest fire burning north of where we live, little else has happened. The long weekend was peaceful, in spite of my feeling downtrodden by the social-worker’s visit. I haven’t been very creative lately, but I’ll try and get back on that wagon soon. Once the oppressive summer heat passes, I’m always a happier person. Happy Wednesday all. :)

Here’s a long movie of Tag loose in the arena, making me run around as much as I made him. :^D As always, I’m loud because the camera is right up by my face, so turn down the volume if you don’t want to hear my stupid giggling.

Monkehs

2011-08-30T09:26:00.000-07:00

My dearest BFF, the young and talented bakerella Stephanie R (also known as S-II or Stephanus Divine) was again in need of some more permanent cake toppers for another cake-project. These could easily be made of gum paste or whatever, but that would make them impermanent. Although the Sculpey does show my fingerprints more aptly than edible media, and isn't quite as shiny, these little guys ought to last a good long time after the birthday cake has come and gone. This customer wanted monkeys with blankets and bottles. So she got monkeys with blankets and bottles. :)

I will add photos of the finished cake if/when S-II provides them.

Next up? Turtles and butterflies. Possibly tonight. We shall see.

Talk about incentive, huh?

2011-08-29T16:39:00.000-07:00

Miss Pomme-de-FatAss

My dressage saddle had been languishing at a consignment shop in North Portland for months. Nobody is spending money, and I’m sure if I’d put it on ebay I would not get at all what the saddle is worth. It’s a good saddle. But my butt has grown too voluminous for it (it’s already too big for my all-purpose saddle) and it’s time I got rid of it. I don’t compete anymore, nor do I bother with the mussy fuss of dressage anymore (I’d probably get kicked out of competition anyway ‘cause I’m too fat!).

Yeah, I’m on a ‘I hate me’ bender. I’ve been vacillating between 24 and 27 lbs lost for four weeks straight, in spite of following the rules food-wise. Really irritating. And here I was thinking, hey, I’m doing great, I’m losing weight... until YESTERDAY. Yesterday, a pile of us from the barn threw our horses into a little convoy of trailers and went up to a park where we could do some trail riding. While I waited for the slower folks to get ready, Tag and I decided to take a nice little walk around the large arena they have set up there. Unfortunately for me, one of the rider’s mom had a camera and she took a picture of me.

I confess, this picture has been the cause of one of my worst cases of demoralization I have had yet. I look like a potato. I feel like I haven’t made any progress at all! I have a huge double chin, my thighs are HUGE and I’m so wide!!! On top of that, a lady asked me what kind of saddle I had, and when I told her, she told me it was too small for me. I’ve had this saddle for over 20 years. Yeah, my ass has expanded significantly since I got it, but it still felt like she punched her fist through my chest and ripped my heart out. OF COURSE IT’S SMALL... MY BUTT IS GIGANTIC! ::facepalm::

Of course, I saw that picture after the trail ride, so I managed to have a decent time regardless, and at least Tag looked handsome. As usual, he was complimented by so many passers-by. He’s my baby boo. I’m sorry he has to haul my massiveness around sometimes, even if he is strong enough to carry three of me—I still feel bad.

L-R: Nicole walking her horse like a big dog, Cozy, Emily, Danielle and...
Um.. Nicole's mom (always forget her name)

Anyway... So this really serendipitous opportunity came up. I was googling around and found a wide-tree sidesaddle with a largish seat (for Mrs. Potato), and the asking price was exactly what I am asking for my dressage saddle. So I ventured a risk and asked the seller if she would be willing to trade for another saddle of the same value.

She asked me quickly what kind of saddle, and I told her a nice black German dressage saddle, and I could almost hear her squees across the country. So the deal was made and our saddles are wending their way across the country to one another. I’ll still need to buy a balancing girth, and Tag doesn’t know squat about crop-aids, but since I’m so damned fat, and my legs won’t fit into the saddle yet anyway, it will give me time to get my ‘kit’ together and to start planning for the habit and whatnot.

It’s been twenty years since I’ve ridden sidesaddle. This is going to be interesting. ::Hah:: Anyway.. a horsey update.

Potato-woman.

Eleven practical uses for teenagers (Happy Friday!)

2011-08-19T06:22:00.000-07:00

There is an awkward stage of human growth that occurs during the transition from wide-eyed adorableness and tiny voices to full-on adulthood. It’s called the teen years, and it’s one of the darker stages in the human development where the individual, over several years, is rendered utterly useless to humanity.

It’s a stage many of us look back on with cringing shame, and wonder how we made it through alive. Although not fully documented in all its bleakness (because most of humanity prefers to forget they ever went through it), the teen stage is a tumultuous, obnoxious and utterly intolerable stage, where the individual becomes a useless drain on society and their family for a period of several years.

The typical behaviours and symptoms of this stage include: wild hormonal tantrums, knowing it all, snide retorts, disrespectful entitlement, utter obliviousness to others, a complete lack of consideration, self-absorption beyond what was thought to be possible in human beings, voracious eating, costly care, bad hygiene, complete shutdown of gray-matter functions, completely insane decision-making, refusal of responsibility of any kind, greediness, materialism, laziness, stupidity (which can be also attributed to Natural Selection), self-righteousness, affinity for dramatics, a complete lapse in taste in clothes, music, and everything else and much more. Some individuals manage to scrape their way through the teen years still clinging to their dignity, but on the most part, most teenaged individuals are just completely useless wastes of space until they grow out of it.

But, since this is a common stage of human development, we are all unfortunately saddled with the burden of having to deal with these individuals as they go through this miserable stage of temporary devolution while they revert for a short period to the more ape-like tendencies of our simian ancestors; I have created this list of uses for teenagers and pre-teens that could make the obligation of enduring their presence in our society a smidge more tolerable.

1. Flood Control

Stacking teenagers and pre-teens up like sandbags is a fast and effective way to prevent floodwaters from deluging your community.

2. Peacekeeping

Air-drop a few legions of teenagers into any country with political strife and war. The whining, temper tantrums, ‘I wants’, unmotivated rage, laziness, entitled outbursts and smug retorts will be enough to send any armed faction or insurgents to drop their weapons and to flee in horror back to their villages.

3. Speed Bumps

Speeders are a problem in many of our communities. There are plenty of spare teens around to solve this problem.

4. Scarecrows

This is a most appropriate use for a teenager. Already dressed in horrible, saggy fashions, or overflowing muffin-tops, the teen won’t even know they’re serving a useful purpose. Give them an iPhone or a PSP, and they’ll remain tied to the post with little resistance.

5. Ballast

6. Punching Bags

7. Scientific Experimentation

8. Demolition

A teenager’s natural ability for destruction is ideal when something needs to be rendered into a ruin, such as office buildings or old factories. Just set a few of them loose on the property for about three hours and they will invariably demolish the place.

9. Man-made coral reefs

This would be killing several birds with one stone, both lightening the world's teen-burden, but also helping rejuvenate our struggling ocean ecosystems.

10. Instant Bridges for Distasters and Emergencies

11. Fill

As you can see, I've put some careful thought into practical uses for what is normally a completely useless yet far too abundant resource. It surely would serve us better than simply allowing them to roam freely at malls, spend all day playing WOW or take up couch-space in front of the gaming console.

The Wonderful Annoy-a-tron.

2011-08-15T06:22:00.000-07:00

So last week, my coworker Sherry came back from a two-week vacation. Before that, my husband had ordered a little device from ThinkGeek called ‘The Annoy-a-Tron’. Now ThinkGeek has a blinding array of wonderful items to make your friends, family and coworkers insane with, but this simple $12 item was just what was needed to turn someone who likes order into a madwoman.

This little device makes noises. You have a choice of six noises on this particular model: a tiny little beep, a doorbell, a cricket, a high-pitched beep only I could hear (maybe bats and dolphins and dogs too), and another high-pitched beep that everyone could hear. There’s a little option on the slider where you can choose random, and it will play them all.

This clever little device (which looks much like some sort of surveillance device) has a little magnet on it so you can just plink it onto the nearest metal office furniture, make sure your volume is set at an optimal level, and let it do its work.

So, that Monday, as soon as my coworker stepped out, I took the little Annoy-a-Tron, and put it up on the fluorescent light ballast behind her desk, facing away towards the wall. This made the sound bounce all over the office. I set it to random at first, and then went back into my office. About five minutes went by when I heard the doorbell from my office and it was REALLY LOUD. So I went back in, took it down and adjusted the volume, and stuck it back up there.

My coworker came back and I sat in my office wringing my hands with a malevolent grin on my face. But nothing happened. It was really irritating. Lucky for me, she had to run out again, so I rushed in to see if I’d accidentally turned it off. It was on, but the solder weld on the battery casing had popped loose, probably from the heat of the ballast. I had to hastily pin it down with a binder clip, checked the volume and put it back up there. Little did I know, I’d set it to the first faint beep... but it turns out that it was enough.

For the first hour, she was so busy she didn’t notice, we even went in there a few times to confer, and heard it go off, but she didn’t notice. We (my other co-worker and I) could hardly keep a straight face. It would go off about every five to eight minutes. But then later on that afternoon, after my other coworker left and it got quieter in the office, I heard: “What the hell *is* that? It’s driving me crazy!” Then I heard that same exclamation like six more times. Then, I heard her test the smoke-detector in her office. Biting back the snickers was almost impossible. You have to understand that Sherry is a student of order... something she cannot fix or prepare for would make her nuts, and that beep made her insane within the first hour of actually hearing it.

But because my other coworker had left, I didn’t want to tell Sherry about the prank yet. I figured we’d *both* share in the delight of her reaction. I also figured she wasn’t going to stay at work much longer (which, little did I know, she did anyway to try and figure out where the source of the beep was. She moved around her office for half an hour, listening). I went home giggling, and then promptly forgot about it.

The next morning, I came in, and she had the back door of her office closed (which is a door to our little laboratory). Again, I’d forgotten about the prank, and as soon as I came in there she was, holding some grey box with random equipment in it, looking visibly frazzled. “I’m keeping this door shut because I’ve been moving equipment out of the office one at a time. Every time I hear that damned beep, I know the beeping thing is still in here, but if I move it out there and it’s quiet for a while, then I’ll know the last one I brought out there is the culprit!” she declares to me as soon as I come in. Of course immediately, I felt really bad! I look in the lab, and on the floor, she had this huge pile of electronics in the lab she’d been carrying out one piece at a time every five to eight minutes all morning. While I was assessing this, she was talking about how she thought the source might be in this area, or that area, because it sounded like it was coming from here...

So, I had a moral obligation to reveal its location because it was making her nuts. When I told her it was a prank, she told me to F.O. and called me a dork, both half-laughing, half-annoyed. It was hilarious. To see someone who like me, is a control freak, have to be exposed to something so completely out of her power to stop; it was tragic and side-splitting all at once. She said she was even getting paranoid and thinking she was under surveillance or something. I’m sure she will exact retribution on me soon enough. She’s probably biding her time until I get comfortable.

Anyway... BEST. PRANK. EVER. So if you want to slowly drive a coworker insane, I recommend the Annoy-a-Tron. We got the 2.0 version. They also have other devices both my husband and I have been eyeballing for future wickedness.

The Evil-tron is looking pretty appealing. Whispers and creaking. Muah-ha!

Just my style, stealthy and evil.

The controversy of costume!! ::dun dun dunnnnnn:::

2011-08-10T06:40:00.000-07:00

Shiny Pink Disco-Ball of Death

There has been a lot of rhetoric flying around lately about costume-authenticity. The Regency Society of America has been buzzing with it amid several of its Chapters including the Oregon Regency Society. Mostly, it’s folks who do full-on reenactment talking about people who do not, but who think they are. I stand firmly on the sidelines on this discussion. I am not a reenactor by any means. Nor do I ever claim to be one. I just like feeling like a girl when I spend most of my time in Jeans and Merrells or riding Jods and paddock boots. Can I claim the most authentic costume? No.

In my dealings with the ORS, and the RSA from the beginning, I have been utterly unable to even pursue the idea of accuracy even if I wanted to; because I just never had the time to put in the hand-sewing and dogged research and dedication required to be a truly authentic ‘reenactor’, let alone develop a character or persona with enough depth and believability to carry them through any extended period. It’s as simple as that. I was too busy with the events and the groups.

People like Katherine here
not only meet the standard,
she kind of creates a standard.

Her work is always exquisite.

Usually, the ORS events worked like this: Spend all the time setting them up, helping other people get ready for them, which often included throwing together at least one or two costumes for them before the event, try to squeeze in enough sewing time to make something for myself (usually the night before, sewing feverishly on my machine at 2AM); then spending the day of the event preparing, and then hurriedly, in whatever space is available on site, throw my costume on, lamenting how frizzy my hair has managed to get during prep time, putting on some foundation makeup to hide my stress-induced rosacea, pat down ruffled feathers and calm the drama-queens, and then spend the duration of the event running around, taking money, welcoming new members, doing interviews with media if they were present, and putting out fires. Then I would suddenly find myself standing there stunned at the end of the night feeling like I’ve been shot through a wormhole. I do sometimes find time to dance here and there, but rarely have I ever had the luxury to take the time to properly prepare myself for an event, make myself costumes that aren’t thrown-together last-minute (and therefore dooming myself to costume malfunctions) or even make myself fully presentable. Other ORS leaders have put their own enjoyment before the membership’s, and have been known to leave early during preparation time, and arrive late to the events having perfectly buffed and coiled side-curls, and pearls in their hair. But that was never my lot. I’ve always been hurried and disheveled. It was just the way things were until recently, when I managed to find people to organize things and maintain the vision without trying to turn the group into their own little fiefdom. People who care more about the mission and the membership than they do about credit-mongering and 100% enjoyment for themselves.

So if *I* can’t even uphold a strict standard of accuracy, as the founder of the Oregon Regency Society and the Regency Society of America, who the hell am I to impose that standard on anyone else? Besides, the ORS and the RSA are and always have been umbrella groups that include all manner of Regency enthusiasts, which include reenactors. The ORS is not in any place to impose a standard besides “try your very best” on its members and the RSA member groups.

The Shining
Caped Crusader
of Wall Treatments.

That’s why it’s okay if you show up to most of our events in a prom-gown if you want; as long as you keep trying. And I’ve noticed, over these past five years, that the pattern is this: Someone arrives in a questionable costume, and they meet us, and we are accepting and kind and open, and they see some of those who *are* beautifully appointed in really gorgeous Regency costumes, and that person asks what patterns were used, and asks what fabrics were used, and they ask how the amazing hair was achieved. They find sources, learn special tips, research things, maybe conferring and soliciting the services of one of our many in-group costumers. A few events go by and they show up in something incredible. It’s organic, some people migrate into it much more quickly than others, but it is inevitable, and as long as nobody treats them badly and drives them away with a condescending attitude, they inevitably come around.

Most importantly, you don't have to be either perfect by re-enactor standard, nor do you have to be the disco-ball of death. There is a perfectly acceptable in-between that is achievable by anyone, with only a bit of care taken in your choice of patterns and your choice of fabrics. It will deflect the criticism, and it will create a precedent that disco-balls can follow. The ORS applauds the in-betweeners. *I* have been an in-betweener. I've covered overly shiny fabric with black voile, I've worn my modern glasses with all my gowns, I've spray-painted shoes... Hell, I've even made a gown from two packages of window sheers from Fred Meyer! And that's okay. I've made a concerted effort to at least *try* to look the part using my best resources available for my quick-and-easy approach these past five years. Now that I have found good leadership, I am now somewhat free to delve a little deeper into the authenticity, by trying to hand-sew and drape more, embracing more natural fabrics, and taking my time to research the gowns I want to make. Will I ever acheive reenactor standards? Probably not. But since I am ORS and not a reenactor, that's totally fine.

That has been my policy with both the RSA and the ORS. We embrace anyone who really makes tremendous effort, and we are accepting of those who are new to it and who want to learn. There are also inevitably the people who just don’t care. They show up in shining synthetic fabrics made with really bad Halloween-style patterns, and they have no desire to change or improve, and that’s okay too. If they’re there to feel princessy, dance, and feel dainty, we’re okay with that—and the group’s attitude should be ‘live and let live’, and we should be welcoming and kind, and keep our snickers to ourselves. Being mean and catty, it’s just not my style and I hope that tolerance and kindness are employed by all.

I confess I do snicker sometimes in secret with my closest friends in the group, I *do* giggle at really bad costumes, I would be lying if I claimed that I did not. But I do it in private. I try to be classy enough not do it overtly or mockingly at the person in question; hurting their feelings. I will even often compliment them on their efforts—because even if it is Halloween quality, it’s still an effort nonetheless, and a start. They might feel more compelled to try harder if you are kinder to them and you don’t ‘educate’ them in a patronizing and condescending way.

HOWEVER, in order to at least temper the abusiveness of the established folks in your desired Regency group (if you are about to join one, or have joined and have been ridiculed), I am offering the following recommendations for those of you who don’t really know where to begin, and what patterns and fabrics to use, here are my recommendations:

Here are some COMMERCIAL patterns I do NOT recommend:

Butterick 6630

This pattern is terrible, I am very sorry to say. The gowns are like tubes, the bodice is simply not workable for anyone over a B cup. There is no ‘waistline’ to speak of. The bodice seam just transitions to the skirt with little distinction and there are no gathers or pleats or textures that gowns of the period typically had. The pattern can be altered to work, but the sleeves are also way too puffy and large. If you want a nice regency gown for a costuming group or reenactment, this gown will NOT do.

Butterick B4890

The over-gown/robe is at least gathered at the back, but the sleeves again are too poofy; but compared to the 6630, it’s a slightly better pattern; but frankly, still too Halloween.

Butterick 6631

This pattern is out of print (probably thankfully). But it can still be found on Amazon and eBay for the dogged person who likes over-froofy skirts and weird looking spencers. Not recommended

Simplicity 9221

No entirely hideous, but also not entirely correct. The spencer is not at all correct. It’s still better than the Butterick Patterns. Out of print but available on Amazon & eBay. The sleeves on that blue gown are scary, bu tthe little one in the inset looks very nice. No idea what the backside looks like on either gown.

Simplicity 9225

Reports are that the skirt is very narrow. The gown (sans all the extra floof) should be 1790ish, but requires some modification to make it more accurate to the period. Out of print but findable on Amazon & eBay. I have no idea about this gown, but I don't recommend it if you're a beginner, because modification would be required.

Burda 2493

Modern closures in back, not the correct cut, but not the most hideous of beginner’s patterns. Still, there are LOTS of better patterns to, more accurate BY FAR choose from.

COMMERCIAL Patterns I would recommend to newcomers:

Simplicity 4055

Most recommended dress for beginners. It is a conservative cut, even with the wider ‘ballgown’ neckline, but it’s still a lovely silhouette. BUT as with ALL these gowns, you *should* be wearing regency underpinnings and stays.

Simplicity 8399 (VIEW B ONLY)

Although advertised as the Edwardian gown, it works beautifully as a Regency Ballgown. The silhouette is beautiful.

There’s a great place to start if you want to throw together something for an ORS event. If you are looking for accuracy, then we can start talking about the non-commercial, historic patterns that are readily available online. Feel free to bug me if you want more information on the specialty patterns that many of the serious reenactors use.

Fabrics:

STAY AWAY FROM SYNTHETICS! Period! There are a few ‘faux’ silks and taffetas that are workable, but please, please, please, don’t grab at the nearest shiny, froofy stuff and think, whoa, this would be so Cinderella! Synthetics are TERRIBLE in flash photography. People with respectable-looking gowns end up looking like disco-balls in too-shiny fabrics. I’d show you samples from some of our events, but I risk hurting people’s feelings. Stay away from lining material, slippy, slinky fabrics or anything with a tremendous shine to it.

There are some synthetics that may work, but choose the kind with matte finishes and that are delicate and not so modern-looking if you must choose synthetic materials.

Keep it light and natural! Linens and cottons for daygowns. Silks for ballgowns. Cotton nets, voile, lawn, organdy... you can get away with sheers for ballgowns anytime. Delicate cotton prints (no huge Victorian patterns please!) pastels, jewel tones, white... Delicate laces (again, no huge flowery Victorian laces), simple and beautiful.

If you start with natural fabrics, using a somewhat respectable commercial pattern, you're less likely to be raked across the coals by the meanies. But you can rest assured, that no matter what you show up in at our events (the ORS) that you are always welcome. And don't take it personally if we start suggesting patterns or fabrics in a kind way. We're not being evil, just trying to be helpful. ;)

A full weekend on horse.

2011-08-01T11:38:00.000-07:00

What a weekend! Holy cannoli! First we rushed off Friday afternoon to camp at Timothy Lake. We had a lovely time there. I got two long rides in, one Friday evening and the second Saturday morning-ish (after we managed to get our collective shit together--there was plenty of fussing and dilly-dallying while many of us were already in saddle and ready to go. Urgh. Tag had a good time. He really enjoyed leading the group the best, and was at his best at that moment. He only acted stupid a few times, and I was pretty much prepared for his antics to begin with, so nothing negative happened to speak of. The only bad thing was my hubby froze on Friday night, and we were awoken by a neighbouring horse that just wouldn't stop blasting out these deafening whinneys all morning. The trails were mildly technical, strewn with rocks and claptrap, and some spots I'm surprised my draught horse could squeeze through. Once, I had to lift my legs and prop them in front of my saddle just to make it through unscathed. Hee. Here are some random pics of the day:

Friday night's 'community camp fire'. Our barn folks gathered together
to gaze at a huge fire and BS for a few hours.

Tag seems to like his log-stall.

Camera was hanging from the ring on my saddle, so all pics on horse
were taken at hip-level. :)

I just loved his shadow and his little crest of mane. :)

"Come on people! Let's go!" Tag says.

All geared up on Saturday morning.

Our little tent right next to the enclosure. The whinneys were our
alarm clock.

I like my tack. What can I say?

Muzzles are adorable.

My little English saddle seems incongruous sitting atop a stack of
Western saddles.

The wetland near our camp.

I've posted my gathered/ruched secret gown project separately on this day. You can find it here: Gathered gown

The gathered/ruched crossover regency gown

2011-08-01T10:54:00.000-07:00

I have been slaving away these past weeks on a new gown of a different style than I usually wear, and I wore it Sunday and it was so great, I can't help but pat myself on the shoulder for it. NO COSTUME MALFUNCTIONS! That's really something if you know how often I am afflicted with costume-issues.

The gathered/pleated gown.

This picture is THE BOMB. No double chin showing to boot! Thanks S-2!

I’m sorry I didn’t take any progress photos. I don’t have a decent camera except the one of my phone and in the darkness of our cave-like cabin the images simply would not turn out nicely. So I opted instead to do my little drawings and to take pictures of the final product outdoors.

The ‘base bodice’

I started by draping the ‘base’ bodice. This gown probably could be made without a base bodice, it would be a lot more challenging and harder to build if I didn’t have the base upon which to hang the outer fabric. It also helped determine the shape of the gown. You could use a standard front-opening regency bodice pattern to do this, but I chose to drape it on my dress-form for a good fit and also because I wanted a particular shape. I didn’t really want the wider neck of a standard day-gown. I also just wanted a good fit on the back. I wanted the back neckline to be right up to the neck, and the shoulders straps to be wider than usual.

So I got a piece of cheap muslin to pattern with and laid it on the back of my dress form. I used my hand to smooth it down flat on one side of the back so there were no wrinkles or rumples, and then drew out the back piece, using the center back as the ‘fold’ side. I cut it out and then put it back on the dress-form. I then moved onto the side/front, leaving my newly cut back piece sitting in place for reference and shape-matching.

Using the same piece of muslin, I wrapped the half of the dress form, pressed the fabric flat where I wanted it, and then starting at the back, I matched the curve of the notch in the back piece and then drew the waistline, arm-hole, shoulder strap and then the front flaps. I made sure the shoulder met the edge of the shoulder of the back piece, and was lying correctly along the shape of the dress-form/body without rumples or creases.

Please keep this in mind as you drape; modern dress forms have the breasts in a more natural location than the position you would need for a regency silhouette, so when I cut my pieces, I let the front flaps hang a bit diagonally down over the front of the form to compensate for the higher regency position of the breast. It’s hard to explain, but that’s how it works.

I recommend, if you aren’t confident about draping on-the-fly (like everything else I do), that either you leave the flaps long and adjust when it’s on you, or you can make yourself a dress form with the proper silhouette by using one of these methods with your regency stays on underneath (which would be really advantageous to have if you make yourself a lot of regency-period costumes). Either that, or you go with the sides and back pieces of a regency bib-front pattern, which can be easily adjusted with wider shoulder straps and higher back.

Once I got those two shapes drawn out on the muslin and cut out as pattern pieces, I cut them in the actual fabric with a ¼ inch seam allowance all ‘round (the center back on the fold). I cut four side/fronts, two backs on the fold, and then sewed each layer of the bodice individually. I hand-sewed everything on this project (I know, really?! Me??? Hand-sewing? Who knew!) But I discovered that hand-sewing is not quite as messy as machine sewing is, it takes less room if you’re working off of a dress-form, and you can relax and watch Doc Martin while you’re stitching away instead of being hunched over a sewing machine squinting at your needle-threader. Aaaanyway, I stitched the curved notches to the back, and then pressed them, and affixed the shoulder-straps to the back. When I had both layers completed and pressed, I laid the two layers good sides in, and sewed all the way around the neckline, from the bottom corner of the front flap, around the neckline.

Does this look familiar? Yes, because I it’s the same thing I did with the bib-front bodice. Only this time, I pressed and folded-in the raw edges on the armseyes and bottom of the bodice, and whip-stitched those closed so they look tidy.

The next step was to create the drawstring channels. I was deliberately loose and careless on this step, and sewed with wide, often irregular running stitches. The first channel follows the neckline from the top of the front-flap around. The second channel goes along the bottom edge of the bodice. I snipped four tiny holes at the edge of the front flaps and buttonhole-stitched around the edges of them so there was a nice, neat access to the channel. I also added two hooks and eyes to the front-closure to keep the sides from separating, which happens a lot with drawstring gowns. A hook and eye will solve any unseemly gaps. I strung some very fine twill tape through the neckline and around the waistline channels and voila. The ‘base’ for the gown was done.

The Gown

A rough-cut measure. Everything was done
'by-eye' on this project. I'm comfortable
experimenting. Lots of people aren't;
there's nothing wrong with that. :)

I then fitted my base-bodice onto the dress-form (tying only the top drawstring), and got my gown fabric. The bodice base I made from very light-weight cotton, almost handkerchief-weight. The gown fabric should also be something delicate and light, because with all the gathering and pleating, with a heavier fabric it could get really bulky. The fabric I used was five yards of sheer patterned voile. Five yards is plenty of fabric for a regency gown, although I’ve been known to use up to eight for when I’m in a pleating frenzy. But even a full figured girl can have lots of volume with five yards.

Anyway, I started with the front by laying the cut edge of the fabric (still folded at this point) at the top for the shoulder, and pinning it there and then dropping the fabric down to the ground. There, I cut the length off below the hemline so I can hem it up later. The front is one panel of fabric. I then unfolded the fabric to its full width and marked the center where it was folded.

I cut down about 12” down the center-front. I then rolled the cut edges in, and began to whipstitch the roll into place. That will be the front opening.

The next step is among the trickiest of parts, because what you need to do is pin the side of the dress so that you can cut the armseyes and insure that the side seam of the skirts is in the right place. So I had to center the edge of each side of the front fabric to the middle of the arm and pin it to the top and bottom center of the arm opening; all the while watching that I wasn’t dropping the hem or pinning it too high. Then I wrapped the fabric onto the shoulder and chest and smoothed it along the shoulder edge to the top of the shoulder and locked the area around the arms in place with pins, leaving the rest of that panel of fabric free. Then I was free to affix the armseye. I cut out the half of the armseye covered in fabric, turned the edges in, whip-stitching the side to the shoulders of the base-bodice. I did leave an inch or two of the fabric loose at the bottom of the armseye where it will be stitched to the fabric of the back of the gown, so I can seam them together.

Once the edge of the arms were sewn into place, I did a wide running stitch along the top edge of each cut shoulder side, and then gathered it up tightly to fit the width of the shoulder. I affixed the gathered top to the seam on the bodice shoulder with a strong line of double stitching (watch not to sew through your drawstring!!), being sure to pull the gathers down tightly. I then did the same to the other side.

I drew this twice because I thought the way I drew it above
looked weird.

The front is done at this point (except the last bit with the drawstring at the waist, but that comes close to the end).

Now it was time to tackle the back. For that, I drew out two lengths of the fabric, which left just enough for the sleeves. Opened the first panel up to cover one half of the form, and did the same thing I did with the front; I began by fixing the edge of the fabric to the bottom of the armseye to insure it would match with the front piece, and pinned it in place. I also was careful insure that I left enough of an allowance at the top to fold under and cover the raw edges of the gather on the shoulder and leave a clean line. Once that side was determined and the edge of the top was measured, I got into one of my pleating frenzies.

In this case, I used the pattern of the fabric to help me. There is a thick latticed line that runs vertically through the pattern with a wavy pattern between. Placing one latticed line against the next, I began to pleat along the waistline of the bodice, pinning as I went along, and angling each pleat towards the shoulder, gradually making a sort of sunburst. This is arduous work, but well worth it, and makes for a stunning garment. Once that half was pinned in place the stitching began. :::GROAN::: Holy Hell! What did I get myself into? You could probably make this much simpler if you’re not willing to go through the process of pleating all that material down. You could cut a back to the shape of the bodice, and then sew your gathered or pleated skirts to the bottom of it, that would work too, or do bigger pleats and cut away the excess on the inside once it’s affixed. Either way, that’s what I did on July the 4th. I hand-stitched down pleat after pleat after pleat.

That texture is incredible, I still can't believe how great it looks. :)

Note: I did NOT sew the pleats down to the base bodice. The outer gown hangs completely free of the bodice except at several crucial points; the shoulder seam, the neckline and the armseyes. That’s it. I slid my hand underneath the fabric and carefully inserted the needle from underneath to begin and then did a running stitch upwards, all the while, holding the fabric up from beneath to keep from snagging the fabric of the base bodice. This is NOT necessary, you can very well affix the whole back and side/back to the base bodice as much as you please (avoiding your drawstring with care), but since I want more draw-stringy flexibility, I decided to keep them separate.

I then folded the fabric edges along the neckline under (after trimming), and whip-stitched them to the base bodice. I then seamed the skirts together from under the armseyes to the hem with a simple running stitch (hopefully not too messy). I simply folded one edge onto the other in a tidy line and stitched it down. When that was done, I flat-felled the seam inside just so it looked tidy.

I then pinned the other side of the back to match, and started by seaming the center neatly together, and connected the skirts with another running stitch down the center of the back. I finished that seam within. I then sewed all the pleats down on the other side of the back (which was somehow harder to do on the left side), affixed the neckline and covered the raw gathered edge of the front shoulder with the folded edge of the back. I seamed the other side together from the underarm to the skirts and voila; most of the gown was done. I sewed a simple narrow rolled hem and then cut the sleeves. I used an old self-cut pattern from my old gowns for the sleeve, and found they are much too large. They will have to be taken in and fitted better to my arm later on. But you can always cut the sleeves from any number of patterns. These are elbow-length sleeves, and I’m pretty sure you can find nice patterns for those in the Mode Bagatelle pattern or whatnot. Or you can attempt to drape your own.

The very last step after all the hemming and such was to add the drawstring to the gown layer to fit all this gathered and pleated fabric to my empire waistline. The first step was to put on the gown and put pins to mark the places in the front where I would want to drawstring to rest. I then got some inch-wide twill and inside the gown, I started at the center back. Using the line of the underbodice back, I stitched the tape down inside the gown. I stitched each long edge, leaving a channel for the drawstring. When I reached the marking pins on the side and front, I simply followed along this pin-marked line. I did not stitch the twill channel to the edge of the front opening. If I had, I would not have been able to have the small crossover of fabric I was hoping for. So I left about 2 inches on each side of the opening, and then added a small hook and eye so when the drawstring was closed, I could secure the crossover just by hooking it.

That’s it. That’s my latest gown project. It was FUN but a LOT OF WORK! I’m fairly sure there are a lot of ways to make a project like this much easier, but leave it to me to find my own inventive methods. All in all, this has to be my favourite Regency gown of all. It FITS ME, which is perfect! For once something was made for my shape and my shape alone! Yay for draping! I had no costume malfunctions on Sunday at all, and usually I always do! This gown gave me no trouble at all. The only downside was that the crossover occasionally widened to reveal the little top bow on my under-bodice. Big whoop! I love this gown!

Also, for an addendum: here are photos of the little dresses that I draped on the two little girls. The only challenge of draping these was that their little arms were not detachable and that made shaping the side-front pieces a bit challenging.

The bodices are made as most regency bodices are made, except that I made them back closing, and chose drawstrings at the neckline and the waist to insure a proper fit (with hooks and eyes to keep them from gapping too much). I also made the front bodice panel wider than normal so it could be tightly gathered. The only error here is that I forgot to add a seam allowance to the waistline when I was cutting them, so the bodices are remarkably short .. but still precious. I threw together a couple of bonnets for the girls and voila... cuteness off the charts! Although I have resolved that as much as it was nice to allow the girls to pick their own fabric, next time it’s going to be sheer white gowns with silk sashes. Squee!

Today's not SO much of a mumbly Monday because in spite of being exhausted, and that I twisted my ankle today, I am still glowing from a wonderful weekend. :)

Please? Thank you (& stuff)

2011-07-26T06:29:00.000-07:00

Monsters like tea and cakes too. I'm still in my 'little girl and her monsters' phase.

I am homesick for the European sensibility. I miss manners. I miss politeness. I miss please, and thank you. I am homesick for modesty and bashfulness, fairness and common consideration. All those things feel long-extinct here. Buried with the velociraptors turning into oil. I go somewhere and stand in line and someone will say “give me four yards of this,” or “can I get two cups of that?” There’s never a please appended on the end of that sentence. Someone *is* actually providing you a service; humbling themselves to do it (on the most part, if it’s a teenager serving you they probably don’t care)—a simple please wouldn’t freakin’ kill you for Christ’s sake. Then the service provider completes this service, and the person takes it and walks away without another word.

People express *surprise* when I say thank you sometimes. I was even told by a lady who’d moved here from Europe that it was impossible that I was American because I was too polite; and she wanted to know what my nationality was. I insisted that I was born in Colorado, but she threw up her hands in victory when I told her my formative years were spent traipsing the cobbled roads in the Brabant region. It all made sense to her immediately. I guess I don’t act inconsiderate enough or entitled enough to be fully qualified to be ‘real’ American. LOL.

People who meet me initially think I’m stuck up. I’ve been told by the way I speak that I come off snobby. I look at it this way; I speak a different language, I am not snobby. I went to international schools, with teachers from all over the world. I use different words for things. Even my husband picks on me because I’ll use a ‘ten-dollar’ word when it’s not necessary. It’s the word I know. Back the hell off! I’m not showing off, and if I *were* really snobby, then I wouldn’t be out-burping my husband or using language that would make dock-workers blush and giggle. I hate it that people mark me as high-and-mighty by my vocabulary. And I don’t want to have to program myself to speak in different ways to make myself less open for judgment—that’s just stupid.

These things were never an issue overseas. I was just me and it was okay. I was polite because it’s the way people are there. My English is ‘international’ English. I just miss Europe. A lot. I haven’t been home since 1992. That’s a long freakin’ time. I’m afraid to imagine how much as changed. Sometimes, I go onto Google Earth and just pan around looking for familiar places. Old trails, houses we lived in, roads we drove on, fields we crossed. Stupid stuff. But even after over 20 years, that sense of home just never goes away. :( Sad. I want to move back there. ::sighs::

Weight wise: Plateau! Again. Argh! I’m not sure if it’s not enough water this time or it’s just me, getting a bit cavalier about what points I think I’m eating. It’s time to buckle down. I haven’t left the 23lb stage for a couple of weeks. It’s time. In defense of myself, I am back on the regular cycle ... the Lupron reprieve was kick-started with the progesterone shot so I am not only back on that ‘OMG if I don’t get chocolate I will commit homicide’ place, I also have been craving beef, bacon and beef and bacon and sushi and beef and bacon. I did indulge the bacon thing twice last weekend, but bacon when made crispy is only one point a slice, so I can’t blame that for my plateau. At least I’m not GAINING weight, but still... annoying. And to top it off, eldest sister is here a’visitin’ and she made some chicken wings on Sunday that were bathed in butter, garlic and parm (in addition to some in hot-sauce, not to mention there was also a pizza ((a healthy pizza!))) Aaanyway, I’ve been just a smidge naughty. Only a smidge though. I could have been much, much worse. I could have eaten my way through a Krispy Kreme or something like that, but I did not. Yay me! Although I’m not the biggest fan of Krispy Kreme, this past few months I’ve had fantasies of having a KK donut hot off the KK press. Auuughh....

S2 came over on Sunday and we worked on some little gowns for her boyfriend’s daughters. They are so cute, it almost made me faint or wretch, I’m still not sure. The girls picked their own fabrics. In my mind they should have been in gauzy white with little silk sashes of jewel tone colours. But they did pick cute little delicate prints (matching) one in blue and one in a light lavender colour (if I recall correctly). Since I have no chitlins, I have no patterns for itty bitty regency dresses, and I didn’t have time to scale anything up from the web, so I just told S2 to bring some muslin I could draw on, and I draped the pattern for the bodice right on the girls.

Since they weren't there for sewing, we
left some length on the skirts. This
hadn't been hemmed yet, obviously, durrr.

I think my only boo-boo was that I didn’t cut a seam-allowance on the front of the bodices because I’m partly an idiot, so they’re super narrow. But since they are both little munchkins, it still turned out awfully cute. I’m kind of proud that I made itty bitty patterns all by my lonesome, sleeves and all. But I have done SO many regency gowns I know the shapes very well, and there’s really not much tailoring there when you’re only making a tiny empire bodice, so it’s no HUGE accomplishment. In addition to their little gowns, they are also going to have some bonnets. I still have no sleeves on my new gown, nor is it hemmed or is there a drawstring in place. But it will come, I hope. This week. ::snicker::. I still need a petticoat, I have none. I also need a shift and I was hoping to pull off a pair of pantalettes to boot, but I think those may have to wait. We shall see. All these sisterly visits and all-day-consuming mother-shopping-trips and other crap; I just haven’t taken the time I need to get these projects done.

Anywhoo.... this is just a silly update. I will actually try to have something interesting to say soon enough. I think my next post may be next week and it will probably be a gown ‘tutorial’ or journalish sort of post about the gown I made for the Pittock Mansion picnic. I’ll try to remember to take pics of the horse-camping at Timothy Lake too.

Wrinkled.

2011-07-18T16:23:00.000-07:00

I prefer to face my double-chin away from the camera.

This weekend, out of curiosity, I decided to try on my ‘jolly’ green gown. This is the first gown I ever draped. I did it on my ‘duct tape double’ that I made. Although it remains one my favourite gowns, I don’t wear it too much. As you can see, it’s pretty wrinkly, but I just yanked it off its hanger and put it on sans shift or petticoat. I just wanted to see how differently it would fit me with 23 pounds lost. The only problem is one I already anticipated and was aware of and that is my newly sewn stays; they have gotten almost too small. They close all the way and the sides lace together and touch with very little effort. I hope they’ll last through the Pittock Mansion picnic because I don’t want to make new ones for a bit, at least until it’s closer to October and also, December.

The construction process.

I’m still a .. um... plus-sized girl, no argument there, but I noticed two marked things when I put the gown on. 1) the sleeves weren’t quite as sausaged as they used to be and 2) the tightness across the back is completely gone. In fact, there’s even room for a bit of a ripple there in that picture. If only my neck ‘hump’ would go away, but daddy had one too and his never did. ::yurgh:: The really cool thing is that the gown is a Bib-front, and I’ve put this gown on someone who’s no more than a 12/14, and it fit her (except for her lack of stays made her a tad droopier than she should have been)—so that means I don’t have to get rid of this dress for some time, I can still iron it up for the retreat and save myself having to sew too many gowns.

The hat is my new hat acquired from JAS Townsend. I shaped it and beribboned it and added a little white feather for interest. I have shoes in that very same blue. Those, with my stockings, and my soon-to-be-made pantalettes, petticoat and shift will go with my new white gown to the Pittock Picnic this year. It’s the first time in a very long time where I’ve felt this excited about a costume event. Besides, I get to hang with my homettes, which is always good for the spirit. To top it off, I may be assisting in the construction of a tiny gown for a nine-year-old this weekend, which is very exciting.  My dearest BFF S-II has found herself a Beau who came packaged with a couple of free little munchkinettes that she gets to sew for now, which makes me so green with envy! I want to have a little girl so I can make this:

And this:

Precious!!!!

The WeightWatchers front: My weigh-in day is on Tuesdays to today’s weight loss is still at 23. Maybe I’ll have progress for the next post, who knows? I was still at 23 yesterday, but barely, almost rolling into 24. We’ll see what the next 24 hours bring.

I’m off the Lupron officially today. I’ve been jabbed with a dose of Progesterone (which still stings, damnit!) to get my girly cogs and gears kick-started and given a double-dose of Clomid. I would like to do a shout-out to my DO, Dr. Nancy Kahaner and her wonderful staff Sue and Talana... this is the best DO I’ve ever had. If you are near Sellwood/SE Portland and really want someone wonderful and trustworthy and thoughtful, I strongly recommend her. Seriously.

Sue, her nurse is also an author, so we have a lot to chitty chat about whenever I go there. It’s a tiny office, they remember your name, they treat you wonderfully, and they watch your kid while you’re in the exam room. They are good ladies, and it’s the kind of doctor’s office a small-towner like me can appreciate. I like a personal relationship with anyone who is dealing with the equipment south of the equator, let alone being in charge of my health in general.

Aaaaaaaaannnyyyway.....

The horns and gnashing teeth usually retract on beach-days.

I took Satan out this weekend. It was ostensibly for her to visit my brother; who she never asks about when in my presence, but when in the company of others; she accuses me of never taking her to see him. ::Eyeroll:: The last two times I took her, she spent less than ten minutes there before she was ready to go. This time, my brother was dead-to-the-world asleep on his chair, and my mother stayed much longer than usual (a full half-hour), taking this time to profess a litany of her tremendous parenting skills to the caregiver—telling stories that she had blatantly pulled right out of her ass. She told some outrageous lies that I had to bite my tongue to keep from either laughing or just flat out correcting her. Her primary aim on Saturday was to go spend money willy-nilly at a local nursery, Fabric Depot and at Ross. So as soon as we left, that’s where she pressed me to go. I usually do not buckle to this, and take her to see John only, but Dan was downtown slinging burgers for a charity barbecue and I figured what the hell. I took the old lady shopping.

The woman will buy anything; and she will buy it faster and in multitudes if it’s on sale. I kept having to make her put stuff down. “Mom, do you even use those? Mom, don’t you already have some of those? Mom, So-and-So doesn’t need that... Mom, that’s really ugly. Mom, no, I don’t want that, do you even *know* my tastes? That’s awful. Mom, I don’t need that, we live in a tiny house. Mom, are you sure you need that?” There is no wonder her house had turned into something like those houses on that hoarding show, and I have always had a clear image of where my father’s hard-earned money went. It was piled in store-bags with receipt still with them in her trunk, crammed in closets, left in the corner of bedrooms. My mother shops recreationally. She shops for the rush. And since she’s stopped drinking and smoking, it’s compounded into a serious issue. She dropped $300 on Saturday IN SPITE of my efforts to diminish her unadulterated spendathon. If I hadn’t intervened, it would have easily been a grand. I’m not kidding. By the time I dropped her off at the assisted living facility, I was emotionally (and physically) spent.

Being around my mother is such an exercise in restraint these days. Having to sit there and listen to her spew all the lies, the delusions, direct accusations and bitterness, the showers of praise for someone who hurt me very badly as a child, to listen to her vilify one daughter, and try to say things that one might have said in order to get me angry at them. We’re all so programmed to this sort of duplicitous and manipulative behavior that it’s hard to just sweep it under the carpet, it’s hard not to wonder just *what* sisters did say. I have to sit there and listen to her verbal assault about how horrible we all are for not wanting her living with us (I’m sorry, I don’t really want to live in a garbage dump, thankyouverymuch). She’s super angry right now because cowgirl sister is moving to eastern Oregon next month and she didn’t make any arrangements for mom to move in with her... HOW DARE SHE, THAT SELFISH GIRL! ::hahahahahaha::

It’s always astounding, even if we all know her all too well, that she does not see even in the remotest way, how she could be repugnant to us, after all her abuse, her manipulations, her neglect and her lies. She cannot see past her own nose as to why we would in any way be angry with our mother. She is in her own eyes, a saint. A martyr. She’s thrown herself to the wolves for us. My husband knows my childhood very well, and when we were in the Certification for Foster/Adoptive Parents training, he listened to all the reasons kids were taken from their parents and put into foster care, and he turned to me one of those nights and said: “It’s amazing that you guys never got taken away from your parents.” That’s the thing; some folks just hide it better than others. Some folks just never draw the necessary attention; and when the school counselors came to me, and tried to pry the truth out of me time and time again, I wouldn’t trust them to do anything they promised to do, because all my life the adults who were *supposed* to look out for me failed again and again to do so. So when Dr. Derrell sat me down and promised to help me, I never, ever gave him what he wanted; and that was the truth of my family situation. He was an untrustworthy, lying, neglectful adult after all. All I had to rely upon as a kid was me.

All those things come back to me as I drive alone with Satan prattling away beside me. She talks about the past as seen through her cartoon lenses, where she sees a world where she flew about with a cape and saved everyone from themselves, where she threw herself into burning volcanoes for us. Walking through Ross, I mentioned this one time when she did do something mom-like, it was one of the few fond memories I ever had of my childhood, and she said: “I used to be your hero. I don’t know what happened...?” I didn’t reply, because glancing at her watery, angry little eyes, the frown lines her bitterness has burned into her face, I could only feel sorry for someone who’d dug herself such a deep, dark hole with her family, and who could not even begin to see why nobody wants to pull her out of it.

Charge! Office Special & Updates

2011-07-14T06:38:00.000-07:00

CHARGE! I guess I'm in a 'little girl and her monster phase'. :)

Well, we made it through the month of June. We have our certificate of completion for this first round of training and we now have to set up exams with our doctor and our references need to fill out the forms. We’re on our way. It might be some time before we’re even considered for a foster-placement for possible adoption, let alone be accepted into the program. We’ll see.

In the meantime (extremely girly and maybe even TMI to follow, so read forward with caution), I’ve been told that the Lupron seems to be working fairly well to rid me of my endometriosis, so I may get a reprieve. After my ultrasound yesterday, it looks like the bits & pieces within have gone back to some semblance of normal thanks to these meds, so the doc thinks it might not be necessary to subject me (and those near me) to three more months of Lupron. Although I must confess, having a three-month sabbatical from the discomfort and all around unpleasantness of the monthly cycle has been nice, and I’m not looking forward to that bit coming back. ::boo!:: I may be taken off the six-month program mid-through, and given a higher dose of clomid, we are going to try again one more time.

Other than that, there’s nothing much new going on. I’m still stitching away at my new gown. Here’s a small preview:

There should be a 12-step program for pleating addicts.

I know, it’s not much. Oh well!

I missed the beach trip with the horse. Thanks to the workshops and my job. Which sucks. I was hoping to be able to do that this year. I may be able to go to Timothy Lake, which is up on Mount Hood with some of the barn folks, which I suppose is some consolation. I had a really nice ride with Tag last weekend. We went out to the outdoor arena. Ever since Tag’s fall (that first one we had long ago) when he slipped on the wet footing and his whole front half went down, Tag has been reluctant to canter in the indoor arena. I really have to push him to move indoors. It’s narrow in there, especially for a boy his size. He does so with care on the longe, but he just doesn’t like it very much. So we went outside in the arena, which is easily double the width of the indoor arena, and I ‘opened him up’ so to speak. I let him canter and gallop until he didn’t want to anymore. He ran with his ears perked forward and with a happy snort. He kicked it up on the long-sides and then leaned in on his turns, giving me a teeny buck of delight twice along the way. Boy was I sore after that, but then we trotted it out, and then walked off his sweat. He was so happy. I can’t remember the last time I had a good gallop. I was hoping to let him do that on the beach, but oh well. That’s what it is all about (besides the grooming and bullsh*tting with friends at the barn of course). There is nothing like it in the world. I walked away with an afterglow. Heh heh!

Hood strawbs. Y.. U...double M.

Before we hit the stable that day, we stopped at a local farm-stand and picked up some fresh hood strawberries grown locally. They look teeny but golly-geez-pancakes those strawberries are SO GOOD. They are sweet and heavenly. We decimated the two little cartons before we even reached the barn, leaving a trail of little strawberry stems on 224 all along the way.

I’m giving a dance workshop at the Sandy Community Center on Sunday from 1-4, so if you’re in town and are curious about English Country Dance, it’s only $5, no costumes required. Comfy shoes and clothes’ll do well enough. Bring a water for yourself of course. I am not qualified to do anything more than a beginner’s workshop, so if you’re looking for amazing stuff, you’ll have to find the local dance groups, which I have provided links to on the ORS events page.

That’s my catch-up post for today. I’m working on an extensive post about the construction of my newest gown, but I need to finish it (of course, it has no sleeves yet, and it needs hemmed as well, but I will post it here once I have all my drawings done etc.

Have a lovely week! I’ll hopefully have something more interesting to talk about soon, rather than listing my rather un-extraordinary goings-on.

Oh, and I am at 23lbs this week.

HC

Passing a milestone and some general grumbling.

2011-07-06T06:32:00.000-07:00

Well, we made it through the July 4th weekend largely unscathed, except for an acute case of the grumpies from being kept up late last night by our idiot neighbour kids behind our property setting off M80s and M100s well past eleven. It was like we were in Kabul. One of these nights, I’m going to get up at 3 AM, go out to the Prius, stealth it all the way around to the road behind us, pull up to the house that’s 90% of the time responsible for all the noise, and just lay on my horn until every light goes on. Then I’ll stealth away back to bed. Maybe I’ll do it a few nights in a row at varying hours (but always very late hours) just to be evil. I’ll also be sure to do it during the school year. Little jerks. When not setting off fireworks, they’re tearing up the road and our peace and quiet with their piece of junk dirt bikes, or screaming like howler monkeys in their back yard late into the night. I’m not sure if there are actual parents present, they could be hog-tied in the basement for all I know for all the supervision those kids get. I feel like such a curmudgeon, but gawd! I just want a quiet weekend after spending all week driving through a sea of idiots to my job. Peace and quiet!

At least there were no questionable renters next door. We had a quiet lady who had two quiet, well behaved dogs. Monday, I set up the little round picnic table on the porch, opened up the small parasol and the two matching director’s chairs. I pulled my dress-form Mathilda off her stand and carried her out there and sat her in the other chair. I took a bottle of cold sparkling water (my favourite beverage), my laptop, which was immediately turned on and navigated to Netflix to watch the Stargate Universe second season. I brought my Ginghers, a spool of white cotton thread, my needle, my jar of pins and I scooted Mathilda over in her chair and started stitching. I’ll be posting a project description, but honestly, I haven’t been taking progress pictures so I’ll have to rely on finished product pictures and drawings. Suffice it to say, it was A LOT of stitching. You’ll know why it was so much soon.

All the while, I was being harassed by demanding and territorial squirrels, baby stellars jays that seemed to enjoy making dorky-sounding noises at me, band-tailed pigeons that accumulated in huge numbers when I was quietly stitching away, but would explode into the air en masse if I leaned back to stretch my back or stood up to go to the bathroom or whatnot, and the cat, who seemed happy to just wind around my feet and pace along the bench beside me until I shooed him. He then curled up on the bench in a spot of sun and left me be on the most part. All of this was intermittently punctuated by what sounded like mortars and grenades going off here and there, with the occasional crackle of a less destructive firework. I told my husband that we could easily get away with shooting out random tires or windows out with the shotgun because people would think the blasts were M100s going off. I still think we missed an excellent opportunity to go on a wanton destructive shooting spree, obliterating other people’s property. I’m just saying. We’ll have to keep that in mind for next year. ::kidding::.

Gross.

Weight watchers wise: These past two weeks I was annoyed that I was unable to breach the 20lb mark, it’s a milestone you know? I idled at 19lbs for several days and then I weighed myself on July 4 and today and lo and behold, I was at the 22 pound mark. Just like that. Go figure. I hopped over the milestone and went for something lighter I guess. Yay! HOWEVER, Dan took pics of me riding bareback on Tag on Sunday, and suffice it to say, I do not *look* 22 pounds lighter—but the scale can’t be lying to me. It’s just hard for me to see it. I see it in my husband though. He’s shrinking into his clothes like he got hit by some shrink-a-tron ray or something. Me... not so much. I’m down two sizes, my bras are getting looser and less effective and my pants keep sliding down my derriere. I’m losing about 1.3lbs a week. Only a gazillion more pounds to go I guess. ::groan::. I just wonder how come staying at a healthy weight was so easy when I lived overseas? I ate like a horse! If you’ve ever been to Belgium well... The Friteries! Hello! I used to eat those at least once a week, a huge pack full of huge fries with mayo! No weight gain! I move to the US, and PPFFFFT I blow up like a pufferfish, and have had a hell of a time with it since. First the depression weight gain, then quitting smoking (am in my tenth year btw sans smokes) was a killer, added at least 20 lbs... and the Atkins diet where I lost so much weight super-quickly.. that diet was just a terrible mistake. I gained it all back with more pounds to boot for my effort – not to mention just how unhealthy the rest of me felt from all that protein. ::facepalm:: I just want to look at a picture of myself and not detest what I see. Whenever I start feeling good about the progress I make on this diet, I’m reminded that it’s not moving fast and that changes are not coming quickly enough. It’s so disheartening! People say they see it but I think they’re just being nice. I don’t see it at all.

But hey, maybe I’m just being too hard on myself. What else is new? At least I’m losing weight. I was recently told that the reason why it’s harder for some folks to lose weight is that some people are just meant to be a certain weight. I don’t buy that. If I buy into it, what am I consigning myself to a lifetime of feeling unhappy with how I look and feel, and I’ve experienced life as a person of average size, and it’s so much better than this. But mostly it’s the sense of inevitability. A few years ago, my husband’s favourite aunt went out to the chicken house to feed the layers, and she never made it back inside. She was 52 years old and she fell over onto the henhouse floor and died of a myocardial infarction. At age 52.

I don’t want to die at 52. Hubby doesn’t want to die at 52. An early death... it seems a lot to give up for the momentary pleasure and comfort of something as transient as food (or booze, or whatever damaging thing that can kill you if taken in excess). It’s just not worth it. Even if I failed and gained all the weight back, I can know I tried, and I’ll also know that it’s in my power to change the way I feel about myself. I just need to discipline myself and do it. And god knows the good intentions of the people in my life who say I should love myself as I am, that’s fine if you can. But I can’t. I am not happy with ham-arms. I am not happy with thick thighs, I am not happy that I can’t cross my legs, or that I look like a potato on my horse. I hate my double chin, I hate that I have visions of gowns and costume pieces that just look awful on me no matter what I do. Some girls can pull off the curvy kewpie doll—I’m not one of them. I look dumpy. I hate it, and no matter who tells me *my* curves are sexy; it feels like a big lie. Some people live many years healthily overweight some keel over and die. The truth is, my infertility is directly related to my weight. My depression is related to it. My anxiety is related to it, hell even my confidence as a writer and an artist is impaired by the way I look. Will I ever be happy with the girl in the mirror? Maybe not. But I was a lot happier looking like this....

"And I raaaaan, I ran so far awaaaaay..."

....or this...

"Taaaaaaaaaaake ooooooooooon Meeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee - take ON me..."

...or this...

"I blessed the raaaaains down in Aaaafrica...."

...than I was looking at the person I see today. Which is scary. Because it was the 80s. I guess sometimes you just have to wake up one day and realize it’s time to change things.

I know I’m pontificating again, but I need to pep-talk myself sometimes. I need to remind myself that there’s the light at the end of the tunnel. There’s a world of adorable clothing that isn’t priced to the high heavens because sellers like Lane Bryant and Avenue know full-figured girls will suck it up and pay for it if they want to wear anything besides Wal-Mart crap. There’s a world where shopping isn’t an experience that makes you feel worse about yourself. There’s a world where you don’t get grumbled at every time you visit your doctor, and lectured like an obstinate child. There’s a world where you can wear shirts above your belly or without sleeves and not feel like you’re the most disgusting thing on earth. There are long boots that would fit my calves, airplane seats would be so much more comfortable, I wouldn’t be afraid to model my own costumes. I would feel okay about wearing a bathing suit.

The only benefits of being overweight:

• The d-bags of the world generally ignore you or pretend you’re a non-entity if you’re size 12 or up—so that’s a plus.

• If you puff yourself up to look even bigger, nobody will sit next to you on the plane.

• Fewer people will crowd into the elevator with you.

The list of drawbacks could go on forever. So I won’t go there. Happy short-week all. ;)

The HC

C'moooooooooon July. Hurry up already!

2011-06-23T11:39:00.000-07:00

"And then, such scandal! You would not believe what she did next!"

My sister is coming tomorrow to visit for the weekend. I haven’t seen her since daddy passed away, and it’s the first visit that doesn’t have some other purpose except for it being a simple visit. Of course, she can only squeeze me into a weekend, and part of that weekend will be dedicated to Satan. She’s up in Seattle today doing some consultant work, and will be driving down tomorrow, and flying out of Portland on Monday. I’m excited to see her. She always makes me laugh.

I’m going to sneak off on Sunday, when she’s playing golden-child with my mother and driving her all over the place, to go and pick strawberries on Sauvie Island with some of our ORS folks. It’s going to be nice to do an ORS event again. I won’t be wearing my new dress quite yet, since it’s only half a dress at the moment. I’ve been draping it on my dress-form and hand-sewing everything, and right now, only the front portion of the dress is attached. It looks funny. I still have to make a new petticoat and shift (which I might just make sleeveless) and I’m going to make some pantalettes too I think. Not quite sure... it depends on what I can swing before the 31st of July. I might not hand-sew the undergarments.

Today’s office special is what happens when I am put on hold with the EPA for extended periods of time. The reports are coming along, but with everything else, I confess I’m pretty stressed out. I want this month to be over! The adoption certification workshops continue to be informative but still are tiring. We got a small reprieve on Tuesday because Mr. and Mrs. Moron did not show up to that session and as we suspected, their absence caused the seminar to end an hour before scheduled. Hubby and I were able to get home at something closer to a reasonable time. I wish they’d stay home every time; we’d be much less tired. We are now in the stage where we are going to sign criminal background checks, submit fingerprints, and are filling out the small packet of forms to get the home-study process rolling. After today there are only two more sessions next week then we’re done with that bit. We’re in crunch time now at work for the EPA report submissions, and I also have a site inspection tomorrow morning with one of our regulators and a mammogram on Monday to take additional bites out of our prep-time. We’re hoping to have them all done by the 30th, I hope so. I feel like my head is going to explode. I could use some deflating, like a real vacation, but that’s not an option. :::groan:::

I hit 19 pounds the other day, and haven’t budged since. We’ll see. My average per-week loss has gone down to 1.3ish pounds a week. I’m not drinking the water I should be drinking, and I can’t do mornings without my thermos of green tea... so I’m sure that, plus the stress and everything else is contributing to my slowing weight loss; but I’m still losing so that’s really awesome. I got into a jeans size this week that I haven’t been able to fit into since 2003. It’s an amazing feeling. I found some jeans for $5 at the Sears outlet store and got a couple of ‘interim’ pairs so I’m not walking around in super-baggy pants all the time, which I’ve been doing a lot of lately. I actually see how my hips have gotten smaller now. I want SO bad to hit that 20lb mark. Keep your fingers crossed for me that I’ll hit that goal on my Tuesday weigh-in. Hubby has hit the 40.2lb mark. He looks amazing and is also wearing smaller pants. We are both going to be due for a wardrobe overhaul pretty soon. I will definitely have to remake or alter my regency stays for sure—they close all the way with ease now and seem a bit loose. ::urgh:: I JUST made them. Anyway, that’s another update of my inane life. I might have something *interesting* to say soon enough... we’ll see. Right now it’s just all about the stress. :::GAAAAAAAAAAARGH!!::: /rant. ;)

Chicon au gratin.

2011-06-18T18:24:00.000-07:00

One of my favourite meals as a child was chicon au gratin. Chicon (endives) are a Belgian staple when they're in season, and it's a huge crop there. Endive is delicious served fresh, chopped into little pieces in a mayonnaise/lemon vinaigrette. It's the BEST salad to have with a rare tuna steak. Mmm. But endives are also delicious cooked. They have a natural sweetness and bitterness that just works wonders with cheese and savory foods.

This dish is particularly good for our weight watchers regime because even with cheese sauce, it's surprisingly light. I've learned to make a light cheese sauce without going through the effort of making a real béchamel which requires butter and flour. This meal amounts to about 14 points (if you use two medium potatoes per serving). I reached 19 lbs this morning by the way. It's so exciting! I've gone down two sizes. Anyway... I digress; here goes:

Start with four fresh endives. These California-grown endives are a bit anemic as endives go, but they'll do the trick. They can be a bit expensive, but you only need four for this recipe.

The first thing you are going to do is cut out a little cone out of the base. It will make them less bitter. It's something Tati taught me, so just do it. :)

Once you've done that, you want to put them in a pot and boil them until they turn a sage green and are softened. Not too long.

I actually took these out too soon, They were still a slight bit under cooked. Anyway, quarter them lengthwise when they're properly cooked.

Now it's time to pull out the deli-style lean ham. Cut super thin, it's 1 point for six slices! So you take a quarter of the endive and put it on the ham. Roll it up like a taquito.

Put your little ham-rolls into a shallow baking dish. Now for the sauce. You can do it the proper way, béchamel and all or do it the weight-watchers way. For a béchamel, you will heat a tablespoon of butter in a saucepan, and let it brown a bit. Add in a tablespoon of flour and brown it, and then add the milk gradually while whisking. Then you'd add in your cheese etc.

I put 3/4 of a cup of 2% milk into a saucepan, and added some grated nutmeg, a little bit of salt and pepper.

You want to use a good, firm gruyere. Some domestic cheesemakers think that gruyere should be like a softer cheese, it should not. It should be a firm cheese with a strong flavour. If you want a bit of a kick, add a little bit of parmesan. I used about a cup and a quarter (or 12 points on the scale) of grated gruyere.

Bring the milk to a simmer, and add in the grated cheese, whisking all the while. I added a couple of teaspoons of corn-starch to thicken up the sauce, I confess.

Once you get the sauce where you want it, pour it over your little ham-rolls.

Sprinkle some cheese over it and huck it into the oven at 375°. While that's cooking, take out four small/medium sized potatoes and cut them in two, and then quarter those.

Pop them into a pot with some water and a sprinkle of salt.

Boiled potatoes are a big staple in farm-country in Belgium. They are completely integral to the yumminess of this meal.

When it's baked, broil it for a second to get a nice brown crust on the top. Serve it up with your potatoes, sauce and a nice green salad. Voila. It's SO good, trust me. Bon appétit.

Updates updates updates.

2011-06-14T06:29:00.000-07:00

Another Father's Day without
Daddy. :( I miss you papa.

I know I’ve been quiet of late, but it’s been a busy week, granted. We are about to embark on week 2 of our adoption/foster certification course; week one has already been extremely eye-opening and almost too much to bear frankly. The trainer is former caseworker, and her anecdotes are full-on depressing. How she keeps a smile on her face every day after seeing the very worst of humanity, I do not know. It’s a late night after each session, and it’s emotionally exhausting. It’s even worse when there is a couple there that can’t STFU. They stop the session to ask the most inane questions I’ve ever heard.

“The kid we have, her mother believes in Buddha. I don’t know anything about Buddha. She might freak out if we kill a fly because they believe that everything’s reincarnated. We go to the Sandy Assembly of Christ (or whatever), we don’t believe in any of that stuff, should we not take her?” SHE IS EFFING TWO! WHO CARES??? They turn EVERYTHING into something about their foster case and waste everyone’s time. It’s so annoying. We could get so much out of this session; our trainer is wonderful, if it weren’t for Mr. and Mrs. Moron. I don’t even know how to broach it with the trainer because she’s so nice and indulges them.

This class is made up mostly of foster-parents, there are only two couples there that are really interested in adoption (oh, the moron-couple *might* adopt their Buddhist two-year old if the parents don’t shape up). Most of the fosters there are relatives. A set of grandparents in their seventies, a man who said: “I’m here because I have a stupid brother”, while his wife tenderly cradled an infant girl... there is also a lady whose son’s best friend has nowhere to go and hasn’t lived with his parents since he was three. Lots of sad stories.

Some sad facts from the class: the majority of abuse (markings and bruises) cases that are opened in Oregon are for infants. Neglect and abuse cases are predominantly due to drug problems with the parents (Methamphetamines are a huge problem out here). Oregon instituted a law that allows people who do not want their kids to walk into a hospital or police station and hand the child off without recrimination. We discovered, and I did not know this, that when a child is taken away from a parent, the parent has to pay the State child-support. That’s why most people don’t want the state to take their children. They don’t necessarily want to keep their kids out of the foster-system; they just don’t want to be responsible for paying child-support, getting into arrears and having their income garnished. Kids are also ‘cash-cows’ and having kids entitles people to all sorts of state services and support they wouldn’t get if they didn’t have kids. So parents fight pretty hard to keep kids they don’t really want so they can continue to be lazy, useless wastes of space living off of the system and breeding indiscriminately. It’s hard to find empathy for people who look at children as a means for contributing nothing to society. Especially when people like me are tripping over themselves to have a child, and they abuse the privilege they’ve been given.

::steps off soap box::

This is a tough process. I drove home after the first session crying. There are SO many kids in the system with no stability, no sense of permanence, with the desire to be loved unconditionally, to be given a chance, to be valued by someone. And there are so few people out there with room or finances, or patience to help them. It makes me want to take more than one, but we have such a small house and we are always struggling financially. We’ll see how it all pans out.

On the weight watcher’s front... I have reached 18 pounds. I can’t believe I’m so close to the 20-pound milestone. I still don’t really *see* the weight loss on me, but it’s definitely there. Case and point... I got Matilda (my dress form) back, and when I measured myself to adjust her to my size, I realized that I’d lost a few inches (three inches) pretty much everywhere since I last adjusted her. The scale isn’t lying to me, but it sure feels like it. It’s slow but it’s moving along. Hubby is at 39 pounds (probably 40 by tomorrow). He is shrinking away, his clothes bagging on him quite ungracefully. He is fabulous, I am so proud of him. I wouldn’t be successful in this if it weren’t for his example. A lot of people drop out of the program because they have unsupportive family and friends who want to enable them to fail so they don’t have to feel accountable for themselves. We are lucky we are doing this together and that’s probably why it’s working so well. It took me two months to get on board and to do the program instead of pretending along with him, but once I saw his discipline and his results, I would be stupid to not at least *try*. Especially with a program that promotes a healthy, slow weight loss rather than fast results with no long-term ‘training’ on how to eat well. When I did the Atkins diet, I lost over 45 pounds in a few months, but when I stopped eating bacon for snack-time and went back to a ‘normal’ diet, I gained it all back and then some.

The Lupron injections are continuing. I had my third one last week. I’ve tempered out a lot though since the first injection. That first month I had a whole lot of crazy going on, it was like all my emotions had been run though a distiller or something. But it’s been a lot closer to normal since, with the occasional bout of tears whenever I see a puppy on TV or something. The hot flashes have slowed down a bit, but they are still happening, but mostly at night. One benefit is that I haven’t cycled since my first injection. It’s like a vacation.

I’ve been sewing myself a new costume. I’m going to make something marginally adjustable so if I continue to lose weight, it will still fit me. I need to figure something out for my stays though, because they close all the way now, and in another month, they will be useless if I keep dropping pounds. This is particularly annoying because stays are a lot of work and I *just* made these ones, it was one of my last sewing projects before I stopped sewing for a year. I made myself a new hand-sewn mob-cap out of organdy, and I have a new hat for summer. It’s so nice to be able to focus on costumes for me for a change. I’ve even resolved to hand-sew this gown, which I’ve started the bodice for. My stiches aren’t necessarily pretty, but hopefully they’ll mostly be hidden. Hand sewing is really relaxing. I haven’t given up using my machine completely, mind you, but it’s easier to lie in bed and watch TV with a needle and thread than it is with a Husqvarna Viking balanced on your lap (or more realistically, it’s more comfortable than being hunched in a chair, squinting over your sewing).

Here are some tiny baby pigs.

::gazes at you impassively:: o_o

No time for an office special today.

Monday Schmonday. ::bleaugh::

2011-06-06T19:22:00.000-07:00

Well, it’s a Monday. Without a doubt. This month is going to be crazy. Along with the EPA reports that are due at the end of the month, we’ve got the adoption seminars until nine twice a week. I’m completely bewildered as to how we are going to manage it all, but hopefully we’ll pull through.

I made some more figurines for the lovely Miss Stephanie R. This time it was Spongebob Squarepants characters. :D Here are some pictures she took. My favourite is Squidward. I accidentally broke Spongebob’s nose off, so I had to superglue it back on, so it looks like he’s got a snotty nose now. Oops! I like Patrick and Gary (you can’t see him well in the cake pic) the least.

Stephanie's Cake is faboo. I love the 'sand'.

AH-DERP DE DURRRRR!

Squidward looks like how I feel most of the time.

Who knew sponges could get congested?

I’ve been seeing the -16 lbs. a bit, especially in my face (and boobs). All I can focus on now is how uneven my skin looks! And my nose is red like I have gin-blossoms or something! I swear I am not a lush. Ha! I look tired because I AM. ::groan:: And to top it off I’ve had a day-long migraine that makes even wearing my glasses intolerable, so I’ve spent the day squinting with my face inches from my monitor. Attractive.

I cropped out my desk because it's a huge mess.

Weekend... let’s see. Saturday, hubby was off on his Ducati to ride with his fellow Ducati club members—so I had the day to sew. Unfortunately, since it’s been a full year since I actually sewed something, everything was just scattered everywhere or piled in corners in the catch-all room – Uh, I mean the guest room/possible kid’s room. So I spent Saturday digging through stuff and getting increasingly angry about the fact that I was digging through stuff. I picked up an old tack trunk and a huge tote full of fabric remnants and marched them to the end of the driveway and taped a free sign to them. Even on our less-traveled gravel road, someone came by on Sunday morning and took the stuff. That was easy enough. By the time moto-man got back from his 350 mile round trip, I had finally found my fabric and other elements for my project but was too pissed to do anything with it. So it’s all consolidated in a box for later sewing. I made meatballs instead and grumped around until bedtime.

Sunday was a fun day. In spite of a trip to the dump, and a breakfast that we had to wait an hour and a half for, I had a delightful time with my horse. I even made some stupid movies of him, as if they’re any different from all the other stupid movies I make of him. I can’t help it. He’s a golden horse-god, and he’s so beautiful in summer; his fuzzies gone, his thick neck, his handsome face. Just being around him brings my blood pressure down. I had a nice ride, worked the heck out of him (his fat pads on his shoulders are going down, hopefully the saddle will fit him properly again soon).

Then (with me reeking of horse and still soaked from giving him a bath and covered in dirt from the riding arena)we went to see the new Pirates of the Caribbean. It was pretty good. I was glad there wasn’t the same old ‘forbidden love and misunderstanding’ story again with that kid and that chick. The visuals were pretty. I don’t know why they bothered making it in 3D, I don’t think it really gained anything with it. It was a relaxed day. I wish it hadn’t ended. Now it’s Monday. I don’t like Mondays.

Okay I’m done being a curmudgeon. My creative juices are nil today. No office specials for you! I’m going to start a photo-essay on this new dress project but I’m not posting it until it’s done. I also have to make a new set of stays because my old ones are no longer tight on me. I guess I am losing lots of weight, but I’m just not seeing it. I’m still at a plateau as of today. Hubby has lost 37 lbs. as of last Wednesday.

Tiny hats, possible ninja porn and thoughts of adoption.

2011-05-31T11:38:00.000-07:00

Friends on Parade. Today's office special.

I feel like I’m insane sometimes. I guess mostly because I want to do so many things and I end up having no time to, or if I do have a bit of time, I’m too damned tired to do anything. I just want to check out from the neck-up and just watch a bunch of back-logged DVR recordings of Judge Judy and pretend the rest of the world doesn’t exist.

It’s hard to pretend the world doesn’t exist though, when you’ve got a vacation rental next door. It’s bad enough that the right side of our property is dominated by a tree-chopping, pot-growing doofus with unending hours of pot-business and a dog that never stops barking. But having the Larson house turn into a full-time vacation rental has been kind of a pain in our ass, and I’m being kind when I say that. We already have an issue with people who come up to our neck of the woods to vacation. People who leave their homes to go camping or to go stay in a vacation cabin don’t really perceive the area they’re occupying as anything more than a recreational venue. They give no heed to the folks who might appear to have to leave at ungodly hours in the morning for a job; a job that is where these visitors likely live, which is a hell of a commute. No, they just want to have fun.

Most of the time, the house will be rented through the management company by a single couple. They pay the base amount and head up. On the way, they get on their phone and start calling every one of their friends and say: “Hey guys, we just got a cabin up in Welches... come on up!” then they go to the slopes at Timberline, and invite the people they meet in line at the lift-ticket line too. By the time they show up after skiing, there are six or seven cars crammed into the driveway, they’re sucking on a hookah outside the front door, laughing it up in the hot tub at 2 AM and having a good ol’ time. We’ve seen sometimes as many as twenty people in a cabin that is supposed to have a maximum occupancy of 8.

The weekend before this long one, we got ninja/martial-arts photo-shoot weirdoes. They arrived in single car first, and then more arrived a bit later. Next thing you know, they’re moving all the furniture outside onto the little porch in the rain, and then took a brief moment to photos in the back of the cabin of their slick-ninja jumps and moves. They were all decked out in their martial-arts togs, from the split-toed socks, armlets and headbands. They were leaping high into the air while their friends snapped photos. As the day wore on, the number of cars increased in the driveway, and they retreated indoors where we could hear “Hyooh” ::thump:: “Hyah!” ::crash:: “HAI!” ::tumble:: “OUF!” ::boom:: all the while the tall windows facing the front of the building flashed from their photographs and glowed from their special lighting—well into night hours. I told my husband that I was becoming increasingly convinced they were shooting ninja porn in there. By 2 AM, two of the cars had left, and by 4AM, they were gone, and the furniture had been put back. Our dogs were stressed and frazzled but were finally able to settle down at 4AM. The next day, the lady who the rental management company pays to clean the place called out to my husband who was working on his bike out back: “Excuse me sir... but do you have any idea what the hell went on in here? Oh my God!” She went on to complain about how awful the task of cleaning this rental was compared to others. Apparently the management company isn’t too good and doesn’t really care if it is a party house. She told my husband that they don’t listen to her when she tells them that more people had to be there than they claimed. They don’t care. The management company is out of Portland, so I imagine they don’t get out here very much. I have fantasies of renting a giant backhoe, sticking the arm and bucket scoop out like a huge fist and punching it right through the Larson cabin. It would be so nice to not have neighbours. People can be such thoughtless jerks. Then I’d turn that backhoe towards the other neighbour and end his pot-operation once and for all too. Ahh, dreams. ::sigh::

June harkens the month of adoption/foster-care seminars. I’m not quite sure what to expect, but we’re signed up and I’ve set it up on my outlook calendar, so for a month, my Tuesday and Thursday evenings are going to be late nights home. They start on the seventh and are twice a week, every week until the end of the month. They start at 6PM and end at 9PM. It will be worth it though. I’m trying not to get too excited. It’s going to be a rough month, squeezing in these late seminars... and we have to take this on with a realistic perspective. But regardless, I can’t help but think of little dresses, murals and children’s songs. I’m such a dork.

I start small. This one needs a bit more height.

I’ve been working on some new hat designs because of the Oregon Regency Society’s first Regency Retreat which will take place in December. You can get more information about that here. I will be holding a hats and bonnets workshop, and I will be not only revamping my existing pattern (it’s time). I’ve learned a lot more since I first made that pattern and it needs to be redone. In addition to that, I’m delving into other designs as well, including a nice riding toque designed after the ’81 Pride & Prejudice hat Lizzie is wearing. I’ve started making my usual miniature mockups. I may just keep my miniature sized hat patterns and sell them for dolls. :) I’m excited about creating new patterns. The first pattern is really popular, so I’m hoping a wider variety of hats will be just as popular too. By the time the retreat comes along, I’m hoping to have at least 4 hat designs to choose from for the participants—all ‘mined’ from period adaptations. I have some great ideas and examples, including Emma’s (Beckinsdale) triangle hat/bonnet and a twisted square hat.

I now have to put together some Spongebob characters out of polymer clay for an S-II cake project. I can’t forget, I promised her these by Friday. I’ll post pics of them when I’m done.

Today's office special is just another of my random whatevers that came to me as I poised my hand to sketch. Middle monster came first, then I added the girl to join him in his cheerful march, and then I thought, hey, we need a smiling fluff-ball. We always need smiling fluff-balls bouncing along as we march. Anyway, have a lovely week (it’s a short one! YAY!)

By the way, I am stalled at 16 pounds this week, I'm afraid. Too much 'falling off the wagon' and too little water!

Happy Tuesd... Oh nevermind.

2011-05-24T11:38:00.000-07:00

Fastest Office Special in History. Don't ask about the tadpole.
Just had 'one of those moments?'

Sixteen pounds have left my body... can you believe it? I can’t. I don’t see it AT ALL, except for two pairs of jeans that were already moderately loose on me that now fall down my bum and reveal my fissure de plombier—most irritating.

WewHew!

I’ve been not-so-bloggy lately. Not so anything to be honest. It’s been an inordinately stressful past two weeks. I learned on a first-hand basis exactly how much the local news media can blow things completely out of proportion and incite unnecessary fear in people. Pretty soon they’ll be running headlines like: Playground of Death... the culprit... GRAVITY! Your child can be critically injured in playgrounds! Or Fatality on the Fly... how mosquitoes could potentially be your DOOM! I mean seriously...? I refuse to watch local network news anymore because what they report is so completely separate from what the truth is. Yikes. Anyway... suffice it to say, the incident that brought the news media down on my company was not a shade as bad as they painted it... but what can we do? Oh well.

What’s new? Well... nothing much. I’ve been dying to sew but my BFF (who doesn’t like me anymore because I haven’t seen hide or hair of her for WEEKS) is holding Mathilda (my dress-form) hostage. I haven’t gotten the ransom note yet, but I wager I’ll find one like this one on my windshield very soon:

I want to drape the back of my new gown on her. Damnit. There is NO way I’m hauling my big butt two hours down and two hours back on a precious weekend, nor am I going to get home at nine PM on a weeknight... I’m too TIRED. So I’ll have to be creative I guess. My body is changing shape so I have to allow for some flexibility because the event I’m making it for is in July (although there’s one in June I’m considering rushing the project for—a picnic at Delaford that involves the picking of strawberries which sounds divine.

I finally got everything back up and running on the ORS and RSA websites. Holy crap! What craziness. It’s nice to know that the group is in good hands. And we have events up again! Finally! I’m super excited for S-II’s retreat! Yay! Check out the events page for details.

Satan is still Satan (for those of you who don’t read my blog regularly, I refer to my mother as Satan). She is quite upset that none of her daughters were willing to drop everything for a super-short-notice trip to Puerto Rico to celebrate her birthday (in spite of the fact that she habitually forgets all of ours every year). “You don’t have any vacation time? What if I pay for the tickets?” Umm... No. If I’m going to use my precious vacation time, it’s not going to be doing anything even remotely involving my HM (High Maintenance) mother, that’s for sure. It wouldn’t *be* a vacation simply because she’s part of it. No way, José. A vacation for me constitutes going where *we* want, with whom we want. Too many times in my life I’ve been invited places on other peoples’ terms and ended up being a at their mercy and becoming housekeeper, caterer and babysitter while everyone went on with their normal lives.

The last vacation I had on my own terms (to some degree) was a trip back to Europe in 1992 when I did a 12-day ‘round’ with my good friend at the time, Catherine, who was French and was married to an American. We flew into Charles de Gaul, from there we hopped the train to Brussels, then Luxembourg, then Metz, then we went to the Alsace region (and went into Germany for a day) and then mosied our way back towards Paris to fly home. She visited family and friends, so I was a bit at her mercy, but it was still fun and we had the freedom to stop and wander around towns of those old-style daub and wattle, cantilevered medieval buildings, drink white wine at local wineries and dine with friends. ::sigh:: I am so due for another vacation like that! I’d really like to show my husband Bretagne and Normandy (and let him see the Omaha and Utah Beach graveyards and Mont St. Michel first-hand)... take him up to Scotland, visit Denmark (for him to see old friends from VESTAS) and Norway to Belgium and Holland, and then down to Italy. That would be so nice. Someday. Someday.

A weighty whopper of a Wednesday

2011-05-11T12:47:00.000-07:00

This office special was inspired by the
brief glimpse of blue sky we saw yesterday.

Hello all! I’m in a good mood for a change. Go figure. I’ve been so grumpy lately I’m not even bearable to be around I imagine. Poor hubby. :0D

I’ve finally hit the thirteen-pound mark. Things are moving again, I guess. Water is the key. There are a few things I am learning about this process:

1) it’s easy to think it’s not working. You’re doing everything right, eating the set amount of daily calories and you’re not losing weight... sometimes it’s just a matter of making a minor adjustment and to keep plugging away; but I can still see why so many people just walk away from the program. Plateauing can be disheartening. Luckily I have a wonderful support system in my hubby (who weighed in at 29.4lb mark last Wednesday), so he kept me from being discouraged.

2) This is a healthy way to lose weight. It’s not the way everything *thinks* you should lose weight, and it’s not a fast way to lose weight. The general consensus is diet and exercise and it’ll drop away. That’s what they’re pimping on ‘The Biggest Loser’... working the fatties into jiggling mounds of sweat and indignity like they’re at torture-boot camp. That is not my cup of tea. I’m not a jock; I’ve never been a jock. I used to find every excuse in the book to avoid going to PE class or participate in it, and gaze wonderingly at the kids that would bounce around like over-caffeinated psychos and run the whole mile and think ... wow, that person is a complete lunatic. It’s just never been my thing. It’s heartening to know that I can still lose weight and not be forced to run around like an over-caffeinated psycho.

3. This ‘lifestyle change’ (you are not supposed to refer to Weight Watchers as a diet you see) does one incredible thing... it makes you appreciate food a lot more. You take a lot for granted when you’re not really thinking about what you’re eating. You just go ‘yum’ and cram it into your mouth. But when you are limited to a certain daily allotment of calories, how you choose to consume those calories becomes the challenge. You aren’t deprived by any means on this program. You can eat whatever you want on Weight Watchers, but if you decide to go to McDs and stuff a greasy burger down your throat, you might not be able to eat much else for the rest of the day. So you end up avoiding these things so you can eat more for less so to speak. You avoid bad things like burgers and fries and red meat and pizza and chocolate mostly because you want to not feel hungry all day after you’ve satisfied that yen. You start making things you like with better ingredients, leaner products, less oil, etc. You don’t actually realize it until afterwards as you look into your pantry and fridge and sort of take stock of what’s changed about their contents. Things you love just seem to taste better, it’s more of a treat and an indulgence when you have to earn it.

4. Sometimes you fall off the wagon (which you are allowed to do... you have a weekly ‘wagon tumbling’ allotment of 49 points to do naughty things on. We hardly ever use those points but it’s nice to know they’re there for holidays and such). It’s okay. Just pick yourself up off the ground, dust yourself off, and start fresh the next day. It’s all good.

BUT you don’t *have* to fall off the wagon. You can do naughty things and still be *on* the wagon. There are all these little things out there for the ‘lifestyle changers’ that hit that naughty spot. There are these little slider burgers that you get with soft ooey cheddar on them for five points each, which hubby and I will indulge in when we’re thinking about burgers. We count out and oven-bake fries when we want to be naughty. Lean Cuisine makes these itty bitty dessert-plate sized pizzas, and Dan came home last night with these wafery dessert things from Skinny Cow... Oooooh my Goddd they are SOOO GOOD. Just eating those little indulgences are like partaking in the ambrosia of the Gods when you don’t eat them habitually. That one little 100 calorie bar was like heaven in chocolate form. Four points of heaven. It's a significant possibility that those little chocolate bars are the reason for my good mood today. Who knows?

That's a pretty big chunk.
I've dropped a little over two of 'em.

5) It’s working. I’m losing weight. It’s not ghost weight, or water-retention fluctuations... I’m actually losing poundage. It’s pretty astonishing after feeling so defeated by it. And I’m not starving myself, for putting myself through diets that yo-yo my weight, like when I did the Atkins and then gained back the 40lbs I lost + 10 more. I *am* challenged by other factors, my PCOD for instance messes with my cholesterol and my insulin levels and makes losing weight all the harder, which is a pain in my butt. But even with that and my plateau weeks included, I am averaging 1.8lbs lost a week. That’s nothing to snort at. Even my boss said something to me about it. “If I may ask, how much weight have you lost?” he asked, but before I could fully reply he said: “15 pounds, huh? About 15? It looks good.” GLOW! I’m noticing it a teeny bit now. My jeans are looser, for one; and my double chin seems to have receded by a smidgen (I could be imagining it). I don’t have a goal weight; I have a goal ‘appearance’. I’ll stop lowering my calories when I get to the point where I can look in the mirror and say: “Okay, I’m good with this.” Then I’ll go into maintenance mode and hopefully stay there. I really, really, really want to sew myself a regency gown and have it look like it’s supposed to look on me.

When I lived in Belgium, weight wasn’t ever really an issue. I’m not saying I was skinny, I wasn’t. I was healthy. And when I went through puberty, I was curvy. I was size 10 in 7th grade and I had D cups. I was DD by the time I was in ninth grade. But I wasn’t overweight by any means. I only gained weight when I moved to the US, and I think that has a lot to do with the amount of calories that are served per meal, the type of food and believe it or not, the frequency and time of meals. I ate 4 meals each day before. Breakfast (light), a huge lunch, goûter, which we had at around 4PM and it was something as simple as a tartine (a slice of bread with something on it... pate, cold meats, cheese, Nutella and some cornichons or something) and dinner which wasn’t even close to the proportions it is here. Lunch was closer to the dinners served here. You’d have soup, then a plate with meat, starch and veggies and salad. I ate a lot. I know I did. I like food too much; and I also ate bad things, like tons of fries with mayonnaise, and waffles, and chocolate of all sorts. But I never had a weight problem until I moved to the states. I gained 40 pounds in the first three months here (it was also partly culture-shock and depression that contributed to that weight gain... I hated it here when I first arrived and went into this weird state of fugue. I’d left everything that meant anything to me behind; friends, horses, a life, so my heart was broken and I had nothing in common with this crazy mall-riddled country).

I'm amazed how well the detail is maintained in the printing process. Exciting!

Aaaaanyway... MY SPOONFLOWER FABRICS ARE HERE! They are SO cute. OMG! I had to scale down the graphic size on the ‘Cameo’ one. As you can see in the picture, it’s pretty giant. I scaled it down from 12x18 to 7x10ish. Hopefully it won’t be so ginormous.

This scale might work for a bedspread or curtains or something.

I also have another special project underway. I found some beautiful voile-like cotton with a delicate roll-pattern on it. So I have bought a number of other things and plan to make myself a new gown for the Pittock Mansion picnic in July. I have been accessorizing as well, and am so thrilled with a few of my finds. But these will not be revealed until July 31, and I will also be posting a project journal on the costume piece, something I haven’t done in a while (this is the first sewing I’ve done in about a year... the last gown I made was for Faren so she could go to the Fox Hunt). It’s weird to feel excited about costumes again. It’s been forever.

My mom brought me this item when she came for Mother’s Day on Sunday:

Those bedazzled sails are just my sorta thing. ::ugh::

It’s obvious she put a lot of thought into what I like and pays attention to what I wear because it’s *just my style* ::eyeroll:: What’s worse is she said to me once again: “I got this for you. I’m sure it will fit, it’s huge.” And the reason I waste my time with her? The jury is still out on that one.

A wordy update and a diatribe....

2011-05-05T11:34:00.000-07:00

Because every post, regardless of its subject should be preceeded
by images of Alan Rickman in all his sexy hawtness (and I didn't draw anything today).

I’ve plateaued at 12 pounds so far, damnit! I’m apparently not drinking enough water daily, so I’ve decided to discipline myself more about that. My husband hit 29.4 lbs in weight loss this week. I’m so proud of him it hurts! I want that 30lb mark too! Jealous! Damned men and their fast weight loss.

These past couple of weeks, my emotional craziness has tempered itself a bit, but the hot flashes have arrived and seem to be here to stay. Holy hell. I went to the fabric store with some friends on Monday, and I had this horrible hot flash that not only made me feel as if I was radiating heat like a nuclear fuel rod at Fukushima, but also, my entire thought process sort of short-circuited and it was impossible to focus on even making basic conversation. At the check through, I was fanning myself and sweating like a hog and the lady asked me if I was alright. I told her about the Lupron treatment, and she said: “Oh, my... how wonderful, you get to experience menopause TWICE, what a privilege,” she laughed. I didn’t think that was really funny at the time, but since my brain was in short-circuit mode, I just stood there fanning myself and staring at her blankly until I realized she was asking me for money.

I got my second Lupron shot yesterday. Month 2. Yay. Bring on the hot-flashes. ::urgh::

Last weekend hubby and I went into home impro-mode. We had bought some flooring material sometime back, and we decided it was time to install it in the bedroom and I thought, hell, if we’re taking everything out of the room, why not slap up a coat of paint too? So Saturday I rolled out a layer of really awesome coating paint (BAER Premium; that stuff ROCKS. I may sound like a cheesy commercial but as an experienced room-painter I declare its quality now!) while the rug was still in. I did not feel any remorse when I tracked paint on the floor and dripped it here and there. It was all going in the trash anyway.

Simon managed to get a blue dot of paint on his forehead and to also step on the lid of the paint can and make blue footprints into the kitchen. Once I got the majority of the painting done (everything but the cutting-in), we proceeded to tear up the carpet in our bedroom and O...... M...... G....... Carpet is GROSS. I ... for as long as I live, VOW never to install wall-to-wall carpeting anywhere ever again. It’s no wonder we woke up every morning congested and sniffly. It probably didn’t help that the previous owner left the old padding underneath the new carpet, and it was SO GROSS! It looked like someone had died on it and lay there for a few weeks before discovery. And the smell... ::gag:: It probably didn’t help that my mom’s dog saturated a corner of it with pee, which my dog Simon decided would be a wonderful tradition to continue. Luckily it and our subsequent scrubbing with Nature’s Little Miracle didn’t soak into the sub-flooring (thank GOD). The whole thing was just all out icky. I washed my hands like I had OCD for the rest of the day, and had to scrub the dust from it from my face and hair. We pulled it up, cut it into strips, rolled them into little tubes and crammed them into garbage bags. The padding ::gag:: we also tore up and garbage-bagged for the dump. N.E.V.E.R...A.G.A.I.N.

Underneath was a very plain wooden plank floor that was painted brown, with knotholes that were covered up with flattened tin cans secured to the floor by nails hammered in all around the edges. The bay window was floored in cheap particle-wood sheeting. So we scraped up the staples and other debris (apparently the carpeters didn’t mind just spitting out their gum onto the floor, leaving their cutting blades and didn’t bother to sweep up all manner of dust and dirt) and swept it all up. It took a long time to clear off that floor. I wiped it down with a bleach/water solution and we put down the thick plastic moisture barrier first before we laid down the foam base on which the floating laminate floor would sit. Before laying the plastic, I quickly, with hubby’s help, cracked out the cutting in on the high-areas of the painting, and we plastered holes and such.

Hubby spent most of Sunday on the floor locking together pieces of laminate flooring. I helped in whatever capacity I could, but in about four hours he had the bedroom floor pretty much done. We haven’t put in the new baseboards yet (or bought them at this point either), but who cares. We put the bed back in there and our dressers. We’re waiting to install some cabinets we also bought to provide much-needed storage in our teeny house. We’re missing some components and are waiting on IKEA to get their sh*t together and get the parts into inventory. Once that’s done, our room could be magazine cute—except the existing closet which still lacks doors, but that will happen someday. I even found some lovely dark fabric (for privacy) that has the same dark brown of the floor and a similar tone of blue to match the walls. I have some IKEA track system stuff to hang up so I can have a background of sheers and then the heavy drapes in front of those to close when we don’t want our pot-head-alcoholic idiot neighbour looking in our window (we were woken up last night to screaming and laughing from next door as his drunken, high friends stumbled out of his house and into their remarkably loud ramshackle pickup trucks and trundled off to wherever they crawled out of. My levels of dislike for this neighbour have been escalating for a while now, but when he cut down half of a cluster of maples straddling our property on Sunday, my feelings graduated to something akin to hate... MORON!), Ugh...

Anyway... It’s so nice to walk into the bedroom now. It’s so much more... sanitary-feeling. The problem is, however, now the rest of the floors in the house look even crappier than they already are and I am now wishing we could do the whole freaking house in the laminate (except the bathroom which I’d like to tile in ceramic and take out the tub and install a nice roomy standup shower instead). But finances are finances and even if the flooring is reasonably priced, it’s still requiring money we just don’t have... so I will have to content myself with the kyute bedroom for now. ::grumble::. I’d rather not go the stupid route most other people would and get ourselves neck-deep in credit card debt; it’s the sort of stupidity that put this economy in the state that it’s in. So responsible=shitty floors for now and no closet doors.

And onto more serious things...

So Bin Laden is finally partying it up with his great harem of virgins in the sky. I confess, as welcome as this news was to me, I was kind of a bit sickened I have to say, after Obama made his speech and the cameras turned onto the crowds of people waving flags and having a good ol’ time in the streets and landmarks. The image of it brought right back to the morning of September 11, when I stood before my TV frozen in horror and the international news broadcast images of people in the Middle East waving flags and having a good ol’ time in the streets celebrating the act of terrorism and deaths of what turned out to be 3,000 people. It was horrifying then, and I was horrified now. What REALLY astounds me is that the age of those people dancing and cheering at our landmarks are kids in their twenties. They were just rug rats when the whole thing went down... So I imagine they didn’t see how awful it really was. Either way, it was just so... unclassy. I guess is the way to describe it.

I remember 9/11 with an astonishing clarity. I was already in a depressed rut and when my home co-owner phoned me that morning to tell me to turn on my TV. I switched it on just in time to see the second plane hit and I was immediately and completely drawn into the spiral of misery that the whole thing became—my rut became a chasm I could not climb out of. I did not leave the television for days, I am not exaggerating. I lay on the sofa bawling as they broadcast images of people wandering around the devastation holding pictures of their loved ones, begging for someone to tell them they’d seen them alive somewhere. I was morbidly riveted to the dog searches, the eye-witness stories and could not look away from the footage of people jumping out of windows in desperation to escape the heat of the fires. It was a dreadfulness that took forever to get over and I didn’t even lose anyone in the tragedy. I cannot imagine the horror of the families affected by this tragedy. That event is what spiraled me down into one of the darkest moments of my life; a moment I almost did not survive. If it weren’t for my dog Eddie giving me a reason to get up every day and the intervention of a boyfriend who was bewildered by my utter depression and frightened for my safety, I don’t know where I’d be today. I began therapy then (was nearly committed) and began the job of learning to cope with what seemed to me, a pointless and hopeless existence.

It was impossible for me to quantify the reasons why anyone would do that. I couldn’t bear to live in a world where there were people who would be willing to harm so many others for ideological reasons alone. It was too bleak for me to cope with. Seeing other people celebrating the event like it was a wonderful accomplishment drove me further into depression. There was nothing redeemable about humanity to me. I was sick by it. I sometimes still feel that way. Cruelty can sometimes send me into periods of despair now and again. Survival for me is a matter of just forcing myself to face the world and its daily brutalities in hopes of finding some of the positive things in between.

Surviving depression at that level is not an easy task. Those who’ve never been through it cannot really understand how completely powerless a person can be against the wash of chemicals your brain is guided by, and a lack of dopamine can manifest itself into some pretty terrible things. I can say I’ve been dealing with it sans medication and on my own with some measure of healthiness for about six years. But it doesn’t take much to pull me right back to memories of that fugue; and seeing those kids wooing and yaying, waving little flags, dancing around in exuberance at the death of a mass-murderer, giving his expiration WAY more attention that the man deserves, I felt it for a second... that horrid darkness. I felt like humanity would not ever be capable of bettering itself and rising above the animalistic behaviours that seem to define us. Those kids seemed just as awful as the people in the Middle East celebrating the events of 9/11. I’m sorry, but that’s what I felt. 1 mass-murdering terrorist vs 3,000 innocents; none of those deaths should evoke joy on anyone’s part. The fact that it does makes me so very, very sad.

Anyway, that’s my view on it. /diatribe.

A reality check

2011-04-28T22:14:00.000-07:00

Just a heads up to all you ordinary (and sometimes goofy looking) guys out there... here's a little brush of reality for your day:

This:

is not gonna happen to a guy like this:

Unless he has tons of this:

But the truth is, that if you have tons of this:

And you look like this:

The reality would be this:

Which might be worth it for some.

What you should really be looking at, fellas is this:

But hey, but if you'd rather keep hunting for unicorns and the Holy Grail, have at it.

And ladies, FYI, this:

doesn't exist either.

Selective friendship and Drama Drama Drama

2011-04-25T11:33:00.000-07:00

This has been a busy weekend filled with highs and some pretty tremendous lows. Yeah, lots of lows. I don’t really feel like I got a weekend because I spent most of it running around. Holidays, what a hellacious pain in my ass.

There was some significant drama this weekend. I was supposed to attend a meeting with the regency group leaders Saturday night. However, before that, in email discussions on the transfer of the presidency of the Oregon Regency Society from me to another leader, I was enlightened on her final plans which were not at all what she represented when she was convincing me to hand it over to her. This was someone that I had trusted. This admission of hers led me to the harsh realization that she had stood before me as a friend and lied to me to achieve her ends and gain control of the organization and its membership. She had full-on lied through her teeth. And she still claims she did nothing wrong. It was a crushing epiphany—because I had invested a lot of love and friendship into her and her actions were almost too impossible to believe. Part of me still believes it wasn’t really her, and that it was her being led about and manipulated by her two friends; because I still can’t believe that she would really have that horrible a character. I thought she was smarter and a better person than that.

I was unable to control my emotions—I cried like an idiot when I first read what she sent me. I realized that I’d been naïve and had been fooled and decided not to go to this meeting lest I gouge her eyes out with my fork or kick one of her idiot-helpers in the wiener (if there is one there at all)—because the Lupron brings the anger to a whole new level. Instead I gathered my impassioned wits, I made sure the local leadership folks whose time-investment and hard work would be affected by her rash and stupid decisions had *all* the information they needed before attending this meeting so that they wouldn’t be shafted without even realizing it. They apparently had to pry the truth from her a number of times during this meeting.

Yesterday, an email was fired out by one of her two idiot minions dismissing everything I (or anyone else in the organization) had ever done or contributed to the group, and gave the credit to her instead. It was insane. I opened it up (I was at Dark Horse Comics in Milwaukie) and said “HAH!” really loudly in the middle of the comic store (kind of embarrassing). I looked at my husband in downright disbelief and read him the email, to which he laughed in utter incredulity. What that email did reveal in the end was that these were the quality people who are behind this new ‘leader’ and how low and classless they really are. It also reveals with stark reality, how clueless they really are about the whole organization. They think it’s just balls and dancing and teacups and all about them. Utterly, entirely, wholly without a single clue.

But hey, drama is just drama. The real thing that weighs down my heart is the betrayal of someone who I thought was an actual friend. Someone who I had grown to care about enough to defend her irrational swings of behavior and interest, her brash tones, her impulsiveness to others, and to keep her reputation intact among her peers in spite of her actions in the past (she’d done something really selfish and stupid to the same ends last year just after my father died but then had a lapse of conscience). She never got along with any of the other people who threatened her for being put on equal footing as she as leaders. She was jealous. I should have known then, and had I been smart enough to realize it, this would not be an issue today. I’d have given the leadership of the ORS and the RSA to the people who should have had it; the people who set up events and don’t act like they were gods for doing it. The members who went above and beyond to create beauty and elegance without taking credit for what they spent from their pocketbooks. The people who did it out of love for what the ORS stands for. Hindsight is always 20/20. I see now why I was hesitant though—but I am not always quick enough to trust my instincts. I allowed her push me over the edge and believe what turned out to be outright lies. I never should have. I can’t help but still doubt it was all her. That’s love for you.

Now I have to read emails being dispatched from her decrying how she was ‘treated’ so ill by me and dismissing my efforts and those of all the amazing people who make up this organization. Strap that cross to your back girl and don your crown of thorns—we’ll all cry for you. ::eyeroll:: I’ll miss you. The old you anyway.

Boo hoo wah. Blame it on the Lupron.

2011-04-20T06:18:00.000-07:00

I look back on the past two years and I wonder how the hell I made it through with my sanity marginally intact (the jury is still out on it at this point). It seemed to begin (at least for me) in February of 2009; but on March 13 (Friday), 2009. That was the day where my marriage nearly ended. From there, the year just went mostly downhill. My father suffered a sudden and rapid decline in his health—I was told I needed to make all these desperate preparations for my mom, dad and brother to move to Oregon; a move that actually didn’t happen until the following April. This was the same move that ultimately killed my father. That was May of 2010. Of course, before all that, my husband was laid off. Then my difficult mother became so ill on several occasions, requiring hospitalization. There was the task of getting her back to some measure of manageable health (seemingly against her own will) and placed into assisted care (while battling my family every step of the way). Then there was also my becoming the guardian to a 38-year-old 2-year-old. Then we went on to trying to survive on the 30%+ reduced income and trying to keep our little house out of foreclosure while battling the whole fertility thing, fighting with my sisters, the surgeries for my abdominal issues, the medications, the ups, the letdowns, the hurt of a betrayal of a trusted friend in the ORS (and subsequent forgiving of her) and the thankless burden the once joyful thing had become. I wouldn’t wish that on even my worst enemy.

Oh man... I’m TIRED. I’m ridiculously, hopelessly tired.

At SOME point something good has to happen. Something positive. Yes, I have my horse, and I have my husband who loves me and I am proud and happy to have overcome difficult times together, we have a home, our two overweight obnoxious dogs, a cat I insist that I do not like (murdering bastard), at least ONE decent friend who is there for me)... but holy hell people. It’s time for a break. It’s time for a windfall. It’s time for good news. It’s time for a vacation to Europe with my husband, or I don’t know... SOMETHING. Maybe that rich SOB George Soros will take pity on this poor Hungarican Chick and will say: Hey, here’s some money... buy a horse farm, be happy! You’ve paid your dues. You’ve worked your ass off and deserve it. You’ve blazed trails through the wilderness so others could saunter down them unknowingly thinking ‘hey, this ain’t so hard!’ Good things come to those who work hard and who are responsible and doing the right thing... right? Isn’t it? Maybe not. Maybe this barrage of the impossible never ends for folks like us. If that’s the case, stop this ride, I WANT OFF. :::facepalm:::

This is probably a Lupron-induced diatribe, or maybe it’s just that sense of defeat I’ve been keeping at bay getting an edge on me. I suppose I can be pleased with some things. I’m at the 12 lb mark as of yesterday morning. Hubby’s lost almost 27 lbs. You can really see it on him now. I have my horse, and my health. I have a marriage that has become so strong and healthy and wonderful in spite of... or maybe because of the bad things that happened two years ago. I have the idea of adoption to look forward to regardless of the success of this treatment, and we are going to move forward on that. We are registered for the classes required by the state to qualify for the program.

There are some difficulties I know will get easier. Especially if ~~Mom~~ Satan moves to Puerto Rico as she plans (sometimes she changes her mind when someone asks her how she could leave her son behind). I can only hope that the job situation will improve enough that we won’t be scraping by to keep the things that make life worthwhile, like this guy for me:

You could go bankrupt buying carrots for this guy. :)

And this guy for my hubby:

It's the black one in the foreground. My hubby's Monster.

I’ll try and stay positive. I keep myself looking forward by cramming my life with projects so I don’t dwell too much on the moment at hand, which is usually stressful. I’ve managed to fight off hopelessness sans medication for more than nine years now. But with this Lupron, my moods are magnified. Anyway, I’m done whining. For now. I try to keep it to a moderate level, and try very hard to keep it off Facebook. I’ve been struck lately at how easily a person can come off as a whining fool on Facebook. Status update after status update of incessant complaints about really superficial and stupid stuff. OMG... Shut up! LOL.

/Whinefest. Ahh.... I feel better. Have a nice Wednesday.

Everything x 100 (and happy Fry-daaaay)

2011-04-15T06:29:00.000-07:00

O... M... G... This Lupron stuff is like capturing the word Volatile, distilling it into thick, viscous, concentrated syrup and then forcing it down someone’s throat with a funnel. I am acutely aware of how my emotions have revved up into hyper-drive and I feel things with an intensity that is wholly unnatural. I’m 100% not in control of my feelings. At all. Even in the depths of my worst depression, my sorrow never felt as complete as it did the night before last, when I was bawling like I lost my father again. Why? Because I was watching the end of Juno where Jennifer Garner gets the baby. We’re talking full-on grieving waterworks. I am 100% serious. This is unbelievable.

When I am worried, it's worry x 100. It’s like the world is coming to an end and the anxiety tightens my chest and the all my brain dwells on are the worst-case scenarios; complete with vivid play-by-play imagery. When I am mad, it's mad x 100. For instance, when a stupid teen-aged girl throws a cigarette butt and an empty McD’s fry-packet out of her car, my rage is like She-Hulk, steam puffing out of my ears, teeth gritted, tailgating, braking, screaming, shaking fists, flipping the middle finger, making the pig nose and following them until I realized how INSANE I am being and have to pull over and do a ‘breathe-1-2-3’ exercise to get the fury out of my belly. When I just talk about something that unnerves or upsets me, the words are filled with passionate conviction, and I start smacking things around, chopping the vegetables more violently, and almost becoming irrationally obsessed about the subject.

I am out of control. And this is only the beginning. The first of six shots. I am told the effects will abate a bit with each shot, I sure as hell hope so, not just for my sake, but for my husband’s and the people on the road with me during my commute, my co-workers and mostly my family, who usually invoke the most powerful of emotions... The day before last, I got all emotional about something at work, and thankfully my coworkers were so cool about it, Sherry doing a silly dance to distract me from my crying and freaking out, and Kris came and slapped me (playfully of course). They were funny and it helped a lot. But I can’t expect everyone to be able to humour me out of these irrational explosions of emotion. Holy Hell.

On another less CRAZY note, the Weight Watchers thing seems to be working. In spite of having moments of obsessive thoughts about foods that are bad for me (I dream about burgers, fries, Belgian waffles and cake pretty often), I am managing to stick to the program and I don’t really feel deprived. The funny thing is, I’m actually eating more, and more frequently than I usually do, I’m just eating things with lower calories and making sure I’m not putting my body into starvation mode by skipping meals (a norm for me—I hardly ever eat breakfast normally) or under-eating. I am pleased to see the items in our pantry and fridge taking a healthier turn, and we are still eating delicious things. Last night, I made some turkey meatballs. I sautéed some shallots and garlic and celery with some basil and a few other spices (including a passionate emotional diatribe about a recent interaction that upset me to no end) and then mixed them into the ground turkey with a handful of breadcrumbs, a rasp or two of parm and an egg. I steamed them and then browned them in a pan, and covered them with a marinara. Add some wheat pasta and it was absolutely delicious. A whopping 20 points with double servings of pasta and nine meatballs each, but hey... we deserved it and we both had the point balance to do it.

Hubby has been making a habit of supplying himself with fruit to attack all day—a habit I have picked up. I keep bananas and oranges at my desk all week. With Weight-Watchers, fruit and vegetables are unlimited, so you can pork out to the max on them. If you feel like you want to eat your own arm, make a fruit salad. You can have colossal salads and you only have to count your dressing. If you’re like me, and you make your own dressing from lemon-juice and spices... you don’t even have to count that.

With every few pounds you lose, your points allowance (about 1 point per fifty calories depending on fibre content of the food) goes down, so eventually, you can eat fewer calories a day using healthier foods and maintain your weight. It makes sense. And it’s working, if I can stick with it and not have a Belgian Waffle and double burger and fries melt down ::drool::. :^D

I am at the 8lb mark so far. Not bad for less than three weeks, doncha think? It feels good to be disciplined about something. If feels like it did when I decided to quit smoking in November of 2001. It was a decision. No more excuses, no more justification as to why I can’t, or coming up with reasons why this or that method won’t work for me... I just decided to stop for two weeks for my sisters’ visit and then just stayed stopped. I feel super-supported by my hubby, who started this in January and has already lost 25 lbs. I’m so proud of him.

Maybe I can reward myself when I get to my goal weight, and make myself a whole new Regency wardrobe. Now, I am free to ‘just show up’ to ORS events since I stepped down as the tyrant dictator. I am now free to just sit around and complain vociferously about the whole event but lift not a single finger to help. Sounds like a delightful change. I can concentrate on my costumes and start really trying to make nice things instead of rushing them because so-and-so needs a gown made or I am busy making event arrangements. Yep. Maybe I’ll just do that. ::mua ha:: Anyway. As I warned everyone on Facebook, if you're sensitive, keep away for the next six months. My filter is severely compromised, if not completely gone. Oh boy. ::sigh:: I guess I'll figure out who my real friends and family are in the next few months.

My elder (but not eldest) sister is coming to town to show us how it's done. :)

Oh, shoot, I almost forgot! My sister (the Cowgirl Cuisine lady); accomplished horsewoman to the 1000th degree, is going to be coming to my barn in Oregon to hold a special clinic on horsemanship. She has worked with some pretty amazing luminaries of the equestrian world, including the famous Ray Hunt. She only has fifteen spots available for those who want to trailer their horses over to the barn for three days and participate. Here's the Facebook event page (you probably have to be signed in to see it). Also you can download the flyer here. I also Craigslisted it. So if you're within trailering distance, you're welcome to take part, but you have to secure your spot soon, there are not very many spaces.

More projects...

2011-04-07T06:08:00.000-07:00

In my work to have fine hardwood Dassenplanks produced to sell, I’ve also started thinking about accessories to sell with them. It’s a natural progression. And one of those accessories is a carrying case for the Dassenplank with room for yarn and a possible skein of on-the-board knitted material. Maybe a few pockets for crochet hooks and knitting needles and accessories too. Then I started thinking about fabrics, and themes and silly things, so I spent the better part of last night working on these:

Spin-A-Yarn ~ Cartouche

Spin-A-Yarn ~ Scroll

Spin-A-Yarn ~ Scatter

I call this series Spin a Yarn. Miss mouse is steadily knitting away, and Ladybird is not being very helpful, batting the ball of yarn about. The little cartouches hold themed items like baskets of knitted material and yarn, a work-in-progress and a smirking Ladybird. The scrolls and cartouche frames are supposed to be golden yarn. :)

So these are my fabric designs (so far) for Spoonflower. I’ve already uploaded these two, I’m also working on a solid with much tinier prints of Ladybird and knitting paraphernalia and a stripe made of a single continuous piece of golden yarn. That will be tonight when I get home, hopefully.

I might start messing around with different colour configurations for this series. Try different themes, maybe a darker background, maybe one that looks more like toile. I had no idea making tessellated designs could be so much fun.

Knitting/Dassenplank totes.

Anyway, it’s a start. This is the basic idea for the bag. I’ve made something similar before from outdoor yard-furniture canvass; a little striped carrier for my tiny netpad computer. I lined it in fleece which I quilted to a thick (weird feeling) felty-cotton batting to give it more stiffness. It turned out really cute, except I didn’t really work very hard to center the pocket on the front and it looks uneven.

Anyway; this is a rough sketch. They will come in three sizes to accommodate the 1-foot, 2-foot and 3-foot Dassenplanks.