night off.

i'm taking tonight to relax, watch tivo, and drink a glass of wine.  three things i haven't done in way too many nights!  my children have been asleep for a while (and i'm guessing my husband has been, too, since he put M to bed and hour and a half ago...)  i am enjoying the silence of the house, the hum of the tv, and- oddly enough, the snore of the dog.  
while, in general, i don't know what i would do with my life if my house was clean, my projects were complete and my life was in order, it's nice to sit here and pretend that there is not a sewing machine on my dining room table with feet and feet and feet of crinoline surrounding it, halloween decorations strewn around the house as if decorated by a four-year-old (ummm, yeah), and an entire new load of laundry piled up on my chair to be folded.  i will just sit here and pretend that i live like everyone else- organized, tidy and up-to-date with life.  


i can deal with the rest later.  like in november!

Quick update...

So i cheated a little (with iron-on adhesives and hand-sewing the trims), but the girls' costumes are COMPLETE!  and so damn cute i could scream!  they have a halloween party tomorrow afternoon, so we're going to have somewhat of a dress rehearsal.  i am hoping that i don't have too much further work to do before the weekend... although i'm sure something will need to be tweaked here or there!  


and now, i am off to bed, finally!  my eyes don't handle the fine-tuned visual needs that sewing brings; they need to shut, for a very long time!  

We did it!

i have to say that today has been one of my favorite days in forever.  i absolutely adore my baby, and when i say what i am about to say, it has no reflection on her.  but, the baby slept for an almost three hour nap today, and it was one of the best three hours M and i have had in forever!  first, we played yahtzee for a while, then we set up the sewing machine and computer, and got to work.  After many videos on youtube and reading through the manuals a few times, my amazing four-year-old and i learned how to sew!  It was so fun to work side by side with her, and i'm pretty sure that she will remember this day for years to come; i know i will forever.  we stared diligently at the computer, rewinding when the steps got confusing.  M asked questions that forced me to figure out the answers.  So with her help (she has much better eyes and aim for small threading holes) and with my patience, we somehow figured out how to use the godforsaken machine!  now, tonight, after i sign off, i need to actually learn how to aim, stay straight, and keep up with the machine!  but, i think we'll have no problem being bumblebees by tuesday!  horray!


i love the fact that M and i share so many interests and now that every day she is getting more and more able to actually sit down and do things with me.  we laughed, and i almost cried (several times with the damn bobbin) and we created a lot of fun designs on our pillow case!  we just had so much fun!  i hope that our sewing adventures continue and that through the years i can teach her many more things about what i know and enjoy, as i know that she'll be teaching me a lot in the many years to come!  


I love you, MAK, you sweet and smart and wonderful girl!

Not yet

I've done no laundry and my sewing machine is still packed in the trunk of my car.  We did, however, take a hayride, buy pumpkins today, M rode a horse, and we spent nearly an hour in a corn maze.  It was a fun day at a farm, and although i did nothing of real purpose in life, we had a great day.  Tomorrow, i swear to myself i will do my two tasks for the weekend.  Tomorrow.  

heavy things

I've decided that I'm going to accomplish a few Small things this weekend. 1) I am going to finish ALL of the laundry in my house. 2) I am going to learn to sew and make the girls bumble bee costumes. Okay, maybe a bit more work than I'm thinking, but I bet I can get at least one of these feats done... which one?!?!? Hmmmm. We shall see!
Happy weekend, everyone!

Reading and Chatting.

Tonight was another wonderful night of sitting together with friends, discussing a book that we read for our book club.  Tonight was also a bit more than that for me.  Tonight, i realized something that i have been noticing in the past, but that became glaringly obvious while seven of us laughed and shared stories and related to characters and to each other.  This book club is one of my favorite parts of the month.  It is a refuge from my daily life of juggling time and energies amongst the masses.  It is a time that i can devote solely to my friends and our collective thoughts and feelings as it may relate to any given topic.  Sometimes the topic is based on the book at hand, but sometimes it's so far off we would have no idea where we got there from.  We are all so different yet have this one common bond that brings us together once a month to create a united bond that is somehow stronger than most.  I am thankful for this book club, for these friends.  I am thankful for monthly books to keep my mind from being lazy.  i am thankful for the thoughts that come from our discussions, and for the thoughts that come days after- still lingering from a word or sentence that someone left out there.  i am thankful, and as always, looking very much forward to next month, again!

Send me an Angel.

Lately, there has been a whole lot of talk about death in my house.  For those of you who know me well, this is not at all shocking, i'm sure.  i have a strange fixation with death, as i pretty much always have.  And with Halloween and Dia Del Muerto coming up, there's just so much of it in the air.
My daughter (who is now 4 and wants to know even more about everything than she did just a few short weeks ago when she was three and wanted to know everything about everything), keeps asking a lot of questions.  Mostly they run the line of, "Will i be 65 hundred years old when i die?"  I say, "yes."  Will i be with you when i die?"  I say, "yes."  "Where will daddy be when i die?" I answer, "With us.  We'll all be together.  Always."  
This is the norm, and i am okay with these questions.  I don't even care if i am very assuredly fibbing right to her face about a lot of the facts, facts that i will pretend to know fully until she knows fully that i don't.  I'm hoping that comes about the time when she turns forty.


The most recent question i got was an interesting one.  She asked if, when she died and came back down to earth as an angel (another fact i told her was for sure), could she come back as the angel in my belly.  The back story here is probably understood, but i'll explain it anyway.  She has known for as long as she could know, that before she was born, she lived in my belly.  And before she lived in my belly, she lived in heaven with God.  When i got pregnant, she was sent down as an angel to live in my belly until she could be born as my baby.  The same is true for her sister.  We haven't spoken about this in nearly a year, so it actually took me aback when she asked me.  I, of course, realized that she doesn't need to go back to heaven to be an angel, she already is one.  here on earth.  


I don't claim to have the right answers to life.  I don't actually claim to have any.  I know what i know for my own family and my own life.  And these answers that i give, and these theories that we live by work for us.  I know some families do not discuss death or heaven or God or angels.  But we live with them daily here in our house, so we talk to them and about them a lot.  We're not afraid of death, we just fear not being together.  So, if my four-year-old (or I, for that matter) needs to live this life with angels around her, then so be it.  It's a heck of a lot better than living it alone.