It's Friday!

Here are some things that I've been thinking or have happened to me this week.

1. Charlie replaced the light in the bathroom that had burnt out about 2 months ago. First, there is only one light in the bathroom so he was burning his poor fingers trying to screw it in. Second, whoever designed that light fixture should be beaten because it it so hard to screw the bulbs into. If it were only me living here all three lights would be out and I'd be showering in the dark. And Lastly, how did I not tip over the last two months from the left side of my face weighing 2 pounds more due to all of the extra eyebrow growing on the left side? Yikes. After 20 minutes of tweezing only the left side I think I am back to normal. 

2. This week we kept Penny on a leash on all of her walks for 2 days because we wanted to keep her dry. She's been getting tons of ticks, we find them everywhere. I even found one in my purse a few weeks ago. So we invested in some tick repellant that will no doubt give us all cancer and make Penny have seizures like every other pet I've ever had, and requires the dog to be dry for 48.75 hours. Anyways it was a real pain keeping her on the leash because she loves to run in the wood and also loves to go in the water on our walks. Anyways after 2 painful days and some $25 cancer causing tick goo we left her off the leash for a walk in the woods. When we got home I was sure I smelled poop but thought I was crazy...until I touched her collar and my hand was covered in poop! Eww. Thank goodness Charlie was here to drag her into the bathroom and give her a bath. Too bad the $25 goo washed down the drain with the poop. Doesn't she look super cute when she's clean though?

3. I joined Instagram. I'd post for you to follow me but I don't know how and also I am sure you don't care (Dad!) I like how it's just pictures and also how I can stalk random celebrities that I secretly wish were my best friends, ex: Taylor Swift and Zoey Deschanel. 

4. I read an article the other day about how Facebook feeds our innate drive to talk about ourselves. I can understand that. It also made me re-think the time (hours) I spend on facebook a week. If I'm not posting something about myself I am stalking people I haven't talked to in years. It's terrible. I have a sickness. Last night I unfriended almost 100 people, it would have been more but the process of unfriending people is so difficult and time consuming. Some of the deleted peps are people I went to high school with who never talked to me. Why on Earth did these people friend me if they didn't even talk to me in high school? Why on Earth did I accept? Probably to stalk them and make sure my life is better than theirs. If you are reading this post because you got a link to it on facebook, be happy because you are one of the lucky 392 friends I decided to keep....or was too lazy to delete. 

5. This morning I slept in and then didn't want to get out of bed and certainly didn't want to go to work. I seriously acted like this:

Honestly, ask Charlie. I tried putting on pants, got one leg in up the the knee and threw myself on the bed and yelled about how hot it was and how nothing fit me. He convinced me to go to work, and then brought me donuts for lunch! How sweet...except now nothing really fits me.

6. Our new neighbor is 20 and super annoying. I hate 20 year olds. I realize that sounds stupid coming form a 26 year old, but those 6 years are huge in terms of maturity and not throwing raging parties. I have a job and get up at the crack of dawn, I don't want to hear your hippy music and idiot friends at 3 am. Also this girl leaves the downstairs door opened or unlocked or both at all hours of the night. Does she not know that people in Bristol NH are on Meth and will break into anywhere....has she forgotten about THIS incident that left me paralyzed with fear for days? Do you have any suggestions for what to do? I am trying to be less passive aggressive ever since someone said I was "really passive aggressive"...whada jerk. We all know how well my last attempt at dealing with loud neighbors went. NAHT!

7. I've been feathered. My dad always says that Bristol NH is where trends go to die. This is no exception I am sure. I am so excited about my feather that I accidentally spent $20 buying a kit and more for my hair on Amazon at 4:30 am on Monday. I'll post pictures once I actually do my hair....when it cools down enough to wear my hair down and not in a ratty sweat-filled bun. Charlie is still filled with resent that he couldn't grow a rat tail in 1991 so I think I'll feather him so he can say he has had a rat tail at some point in his life...afterall this is where trends go to die.

That's all of the randomness I can think of for now, and Charlie is home. We're going running and then I might feather him. Hat Har.

Lauren

Stream of consciousness post commencing now:

I'm the worst blogger ever, I promised I would do tons of sewing over my vacation, that was almost a month ago and I only sewed one thing. And it turned out so bad that I am not showing it to you. Other than that I threw a bunch of fabric on the guest bed and haven't touched it since. Truth be told I have no interest in sewing at the moment. It could have to do with my disastrous experience over vacation, but I think it also has to do with my supreme lack of motivation. The other day I caught myself googling "Where did my motivation go?" This may or may not have occurred while I was laying on the couch with my ipad resting on my stomach. I'm so lazy. I have no idea how this happened to me. I literally do nothing the second I get home. Well, no, I walk Penny, shower, eat, and complain about my laziness and go to bed at 8. Seriously. I can't wait for school to be over. I feel burnt out. I wake up between 4:30 and 5, get to work at 6, work work work, then come home and feel so tired I don't want to do anything except (re)watch Season 2 of The Hills on Hulu and look at THIS website, I know, I'm so lame.

On the plus side I did just buy THIS purse pattern online, ya know, because I don't have enough purses. It was 40% off! I NEEDED IT. Now I just need to motivate myself to sew it.

One (horrible) excuse I have for not sewing is that my desk is covered with scrapbooking supplies to make a scrapbook for the wedding. My goal was to have it done over April Vacation, my new goal is to have it done by our anniversary. I really need two desks, one for scrapbooking, and one for sewing. It's such a paint to clean up all of the supplies from one activity and lug out the other supplies for the opposite activity. On another somewhat related note, do you know how expensive scrapbooking is? Jeepers, I think this wedding scrapbook is going to cost me more than the wedding.

On another depressing note, house hunting sucks. I hate getting really excited about a house, planning a garden, re-painting the walls, figuring out deck/patio dimensions and mentally moving in only to find out that the house is filled with asbestos or that you don't have enough money to buy the house anyways. It's so annoying. The only thing I like about it is that whenever we go we stop at Boloco and get a burrito and split a Lemonade Fruit Punch, which is like crack in red liquid form. Charlie informed me last time that there is in fact no juice in it.


Continuing down the depressing path. Bike Week is coming soon and it will be a miracle if I don't run away. I don't even know why they call it bike WEEK it is 10 days long. Kill me now. It basically, in my eyes, consists of tons, literally, tons of people on juiced up motorcycles speeding past our apartment for 10 days, constantly. They also seem to flock to the diner downstairs and like to smoke outside. I can't tell you how many times I woke up last year to the smell of bikers smoking fat stogies and cigarettes outside. If only they had bike week in February when I didn't have to have my windows open. That would also probably mean about 10,000 fewer people would go. Sounds ideal to me.


Since this has been such a hateful post, like I said, stream of consciousness, here are some pretty pictures I took on a walk with Penny the other day.




                           

OMG it's way past my bedtime and I haven't even showered yet. 

Goodnight. Give yourself a pat on the back for being a good friend/family member and reading this whole post if you made it all the way to here! 

Lauren 

Life Updates

As per usual, after a long blog break I've decided to update you all on what's been going on in my life. Here goes:

• I went to a three day conference in Pittsburgh, PA. It was amazing. My brain is still full and buzzing with ideas and knowledge. If only all conferences were that good. 
• It's now April Vacation, so I have a week off from school. I still have a pile of evaluations to write, hopefully those will get done on one of the rainy days ahead.
• Spring cleaning has kicked into high gear around here. I've been organizing, donating, and just plain throwing away trash left and right. I even tackled the bottom half of the closet...couldn't bear to throw away the bag of rice though....don't ask. I think I might make a pile of sewn items that I don't use anymore; purses, clutches, etc and see if anyone wants them. Would you be interested? Dad, you want a purse? No?
• Once the spring cleaning settles down and the evaluations write themselves I have several things I want to start sewing. The pile of potential projects is growing. Most even have patterns. Who would have guessed.  
• Charlie got a job! Hurray! He even gets to coach track.
• Yesterday I shut Charlie's hand in the door and we spent the whole morning at the doctors. Nothing is broken, thankfully, just very bruised and bloody. 
• We've started looking at houses, online, to buy. Haven't made the leap to actually looking at the houses in person. But later today we're meeting with a realtor *GASP*. We're just trying to get the feel for it. Hopefully she doesn't talk us into buying the house I've been eyeing online that was built in 1890 and is a "fixer-upper."
• Last but not least, we got a dog. Her name is Penny. We love her. She loves going for runs and hikes with us and loves the water. See pictures below of unbelievable cuteness. 

That's all for now. I hope to be back later this week with some projects I've been working on.

Lauren

Bridal Shower Apron Part 2

Have I told you lately that it's bridal shower season? Yeah, I thought so. One last post. I used the same basic pattern from the other apron to make this one. The major difference is that I actually had bias tape that matched this fabric and could therefore use it on the apron so the navy trim shows on this apron. I ran out of navy polka dots which is what I wanted to use for the waist ties so I settled for the aqua accents. 

 When Jill opened the apron at the shower one of the bridesmaids said; "Is that a Vera Bradley?" Talk about a complement. Thank you Denyse Schmidt! Since the pleated bottom worked so well on the other apron, I did the same for this one, and thus the vicious cycle of straying away from math continues.

On another math related note, I should have done more math because I seriously have almost a yard of this left over. Any ideas? Pot holders? A Casserole carrier for us? The options are as endless as an almost yard of fabric.

And lastly here is a picture of Jill. She just looks like she's been ripped out of a Good Housekeeping magazine or Mad Men (note: I've never seen an episode of Mad Men in my life, and I don't frequently read Good Housekeeping.) But she does looks cute, I mean look at those heels!

Alright, as promised, this is my last bridal shower post for a while.

Lauren!

Bridal Shower Apron

A few years ago I had this idea that aprons make the best bridal shower gifts ever. I still stand by this thought. Aprons are easy to make, can be personalized, don't require fitting, and my favorite, only have to look good from one side. 

This one was made for my friend Abby. She's so sweet and nice I don't even care that her wedding is over Memorial Day weekend, which is when I typically sit by the lake and get my first sunburn of the year. She's an artist/graphic designer so I went a little crazier with her apron than I have with others in the past. It was really fun. When else would I buy neon green fabric and hot pink piping?

I have about 4 unopened apron patterns. I find it easier to fold an apron I already have in half and use it for basic measurements and then let the sprit move me from there. This one is a variation of an apron I got at my bridal shower last year. See...I'm not the only genius!

 The pleated ruffle (is that an oxymoron?) at the bottom was a last minute touch. I like the ruffle-y look, but it's such a pain sometimes to gather and pull the thread, at some point the thread always breaks on me and I have to start again. Pleating it was just so much easier. I thought I was going to have to do math to do the pleats but I just guessed and got lucky. Sort of love when that happens, since obviously I didn't have to fix anything or start again, but it's also bad when something like that happens because it just reinforces my terrible behavior ie: fear math to the point of avoiding it at all cost then get positive reward from fearing math, therefore continuing the vicious cycle. 2 + 2 WHA????

I mailed it last Monday in order for it to get the the shower in time. Mailing it on Monday obviously means I finished it on Monday afternoon. Charlie wasn't home to subject him to taking my picture so I settled for this mirror shot before wrapping the present in used recycled wrapping paper and running to the post office before it closed. I don't live far from the post office so I really did run. And there was a rock in my shoe the whole way there but I was too nervous about not making it there in time to stop and take the rock out. Talk about dedication....or just plain crazy.

I always make the ties way too long, but this length allows you to wrap it around to make a cute little bow in the front. 

The best part is I know Abby likes to cook so this apron will get some use. Unlike my aprons which are only for tracing to create other aprons, and also for wearing when I do the dishes after eating spaghetti.

Lauren 

Bridal Showers: Part 1

You read correctly, bridal showers. That's right my friends, wedding season has started again. We've got three weddings to go to this year, much less than the 4 plus our own that we attended last year. Anyways, I found this pattern for a casserole carrying case a few months ago, and then when I saw etched glass casserole dishes on pinterest, I knew the combination would make great bridal shower gifts.

This first one is for Charlie's High School friend Johnny, and his lovely fiance Abby. 

I really liked the fabric combinations.

The hardest part was finding casserole dishes with covers.

Oh, and etching them. I did the etching at my dad's house. Since I don't have a fancy printer that cuts out letters and designs like all the people on Pinterest apparently do (I'm not jaded) I used a simpler/cheaper method. We stuck duct tape to the bottom of the glass and then used an exacto knife to relief cut the letters for their names. Abby wasn't sure if she was going to take Johnny's last name so I just wrote both of their names. Now no one can steal their dish at parties or keep the dish and say "Oh, I didn't know it was yours!" This reminds me of a hilarious episode of Modern Family.

I digress. I also made another carrier for my friend Jill.

The etching was relatively easy. I wish I had been able to do something a bit fancier, but I like it. The cream cost quite a bit and also smells terrible. At one point during my etching in the basement my dad and brother came downstairs to "check in on me" read, poke fun of me. My dad said "I thought their name was Harriman not Harrimon." I nearly cried, turns out he was just kidding. I'll blame the near crying on the effects of the toxic etching cream. Looking at this picture makes me want to call Jill ASAP and tell her to clean her dish before she uses it. Yikes!

When I showed Charlie my finished products he said "Those look a lot like something I've been asking you to make me for  a few years." Yeah yeah yeah. I'll get on it. Until then we'll just have to keep bringing un-etched casseroles to parties wrapped in an old bath towel. 

Lauren!