The Machines

Remember when I said I have been busy?  Well, I have been TOO busy, it seems because just the other day I chopped off the top of my finger, while being busy.  Let me go back to before the incident and explain because this one is probably blog worthy (and if it isn’t of interest to everyone else, I will want to remember this experience and maybe even laugh over it one day).

My Viking sewing machine and I have a love/hate relationship.  My trusty old Kenmore and I get along famously, but only because I understand she is old and really doesn’t sew so well these days and therefore I try hard not to overtax her.  But my Viking…she’s another story altogether.  She sews beautiful lines, fabric flows like water through her needle, but make her angry and there is no going back.  I am missing a chunk of flesh from my forehead to prove it.  But that happened weeks ago, and I have healed and learned to be more cautious and so I have moved on.  Perhaps I should have seen this as a sign and I could have avoided the death trap that is my sewing room.

If you’ve been reading my blog, then you know I have recently launched a new business (Inspired Moments Gifts) and it involves sewing.  Many hours in front of my beautiful, but slightly vicious machine.  It also involves a great deal of time using sharp (much emphasis on SHARP) objects.  In my enthusiasm to complete my two recent orders of 7 purses, I lost focus on how dangerous it can be in my sewing shop.  And then it happened.  It was late at night, I was happily singing along with my tunes, my little angelic child was sleeping blissfully, my darling husband was doing what he loves most – watching hockey, and the house was quiet when I piled up layer upon layer beneath my trusty ruler and began to cut with the ever-so-deadly rotatory blade.  At first it felt like a little sting.  No big deal.  I thought, that will probably hurt later.  Then I saw the blood.

And I thought for a moment I would bleed to death from this silly little wound. But I’m dramatic like that.

Once I came to my senses, I wrapped it in kleenex and taking my life into my hands for the second time that night, I risked interrupting hockey for a professional opinion on the damage.  I got a look (like, seriously, you tried to cut your finger off sewing?) and  it will quit bleeding eventually and no you won’t die and there’s nothing to do but clean it up response and then he stuck a pressure bandage on it which hurt like the dickens and went back to his game.  I quit sewing for the night but only because I couldn’t figure out how you stuff fabric under the pressure foot without a working index finger.

I finished the purses the next day.

My sweet husband’s final advice…respect the blade.

My well-meaning little boy’s advice…mommy, don’t sew anymore.

I’m ready for my next project.

Introducing Inspired Moments Gifts!

I have been busy.  

Really busy.  

I’m not one to sit around and wait for things to do, so being busy is nothing new to me.  But being this busy is and I’m exhausted.  And elated, because the launch of my new business, Inspired Moments Gifts has gone really well and I’m enjoying the work immensely.  I’ve sold a number of my purses, gift bags and hot/cold therapy packs already and I’ve had a number of requests for more!

Give me just a moment to show off a few of my creations.

Construction of my very first purse – The Hold Everything Wallet

My second purse, The Everything Bag

My Fabric Reusable Gift Bags (various sizes and styles)

My Hot/Cold Herbal Therapy

Made with 100% flax seeds and dried lavender

My Sunday Afternoon Bag (not so secretly my favorite)

Most of these items have already sold, but I still have a few available (hint, hint).  I’m already spending my few last available brain cells on ideas for new styles coming up this next year.  I’m absolutely thrilled to admit that I have enough orders right now to keep me busy until the end of this year.

Happy sewing to me!

F Week and G Week

I can’t find my camera.  I can’t find the pictures I downloaded.  I can’t find more than five minutes at at time to post our weekly homeschooling lessons from the last two weeks.  So this week you get Week F and Week G and you get no pictures.  Boring, but necessary since I will be working 26 hours a day every day for the next week in order to be ready for our Christmas Shopping in November Event at St. Albert the Great Parish on November 14th.  That means I’ll be somewhere in the vicinity of minus 14 hours at the end of this next week (hours that don’t even exist…which doesn’t make much sense).  Point is, I’ll be exhausted and posting on the blog won’t even be a blip on my internal screen until sometime after I get caught up again. Of course I’ll probably be well into the New Year before I am back on board with my boring old every day routine (I wish I could accurately convey my sarcasm here), so I hope I’ll think to blog again before that.

 No promises. 

(And for those of you here in Austin, don’t forget to come and shop on 11/14 at St. Albert’s! You don’t want to miss out on my super-awesome homemade crafts!)  Enough blabbering and advertising…on to our last two weeks of homeschool. 

If you are actually interested in following along with our homeschool curriculum (and you’re not just reading the blog because you love me and I’m such a hilariously funny writer) then email me for the real details of Week F and Week G so I can pass them along to you.

Week F

This week we met Fuschia and St. Francis on our walk along the alphabet path.  St. Francis was interesting, but we just CAN NOT get away from St. Bernadette.  I’m going to have her picture hung right alongside the rest of the family on the picture wall.  We talk about her as if we are the best of friends.  (May her blessings be plentiful for this little boy who adores her).  We read some great stories this week:

• The Fire Cat
• Adventures of Dick & Jane
• First Tomato
• The Bravest Fish
• Mrs. Wishy-Washy’s Farm
• Stories From Around the World – The Four Brothers
• Children’s Book of Virtues – The Stars in the Sky

We created the Jesus Fish Craft from Lacy’s Catholic Icing crafts page.  We also made Squeezing Rainbows from First Art.  I thought this craft was particularly fun and easy to do and both Alex and daddy had fun squeezing the rainbow bags.

For our Montessori Lesson this week we practiced pouring rice.  It was really exciting to see how much better he has become at some of these kinds of skills.  I sometimes have a hard time remembering he is only 2 1/2 years old.

We are still studying the five senses for science so this week we covered touching and hearing.

For geography we learned about people in different parts of the world, and we found Florida on the map.

We decorated part of his classroom with a fish border and started putting up Halloween decorations around the house.

And guess what.  I found pictures for you!  Just a few of our Squeezing Rainbows craft, but now my post will not look naked.

Warning: There really are no pictures of G week.

Week G

Week G was short and sweet.  Too bad it isn’t S week.

Alex had “g”ood times with his cousins during G week, so we didn’t complete everything on 0ur schedule.  But he’s only 2 1/2 and I’ve become fairly relaxed at homeschooling so I’m not sweating it.  Besides, he won’t remember years from now that he didn’t make Rubbery Flubbery Dough again (we made it earlier this year) or that he didn’t practice ordering things from shortest to tallest (he can already do this pretty well anyway).  He will notice that he did not do his G Week Do-a-Dot (but we’ll just add it in this next week) and he’ll get an extra Montessori lesson on how to set a table during another slow week.  

So what did we do for G week?  What we do best, of course!

We read.

About the Gorse Fairy and St. George and the Dragon.  About the Grumpy Goat and The Grumpy Morning.  About the Glorious Flight, and how George Shrinks.  And a story or two about Dick and Jane.

And then we read about Halloween.  17 books in total.  All about “g”hosts, and “g”oblins, “g”raveyards and “g”oo.

The highlight of this week for school?  Nothing related to G, naturally.  An introduction to It’s the Great Pumpkin Charlie Brown.  I watched it just as many times as he did.  It’s not Halloween without it!

We did finish studying the senses this week.  I’m glad we only have five.  And we did learn a lot about the weather and the seasons.  Not bad for such a busy week!

Sweetberry Farms–Round 2

Here we went again!  The pumpkins were still super-awesome, the goats were still the favorite, and walking through the tunnel to the other side of the farm was a first – and discovering the echo inside the tunnel was a blast for Alex (sorry, I didn’t get a picture of that).  

Did I mention it was COLD?

“E”xciting “E” Week

It’s hard to believe E and F week have come and gone.  Oh, wait.  No it’s not.  I’m always behind on posts these days!  But we’re busy in a good way, so you must just wait patiently for me to get caught up.

This week we met the Eyebright Fairy along the alphabet path and were introduced to Elizabeth Ann Seton in our Saints book.  We had some fun reading Elves in the Shelves, East of the Sun West of the Moon, Planet Earth – Animals of Africa, and The Earth.  (It’s harder to find books for E week than you would think).  From the Children’s Book of Virtues we read The Tortoise and the Hare, and from the Children’s Book of Heroes we read The Little Hero of Holland.

Do-A-Dot and drawing in the red sand are always a big hit and this week was no different. 

The highlight of this week was learning about the senses.  We spent several days talking about the eyes and the ears (and his elbow) but we learned about touching, smelling and tasting too.  The Flip Flap Body Book has been a favorite for all things senses.  He can now tell you that “when you use your senses, they send a message to the brain in your head”.

In our Look Inside Science this week we studied trees and plants and in the Picture Atlas we took a look at countries and cities.

We made a scarecrow puppet, found El Salvador on the map, and talked all about the number eight.  We gave estimating a try, though not entirely successfully, but then again, I’m absolutely terrible at estimating, so he might come by it naturally.

All in all a good week, but quiet and somewhat uneventful as far as school goes.  F week up next…stay tuned!

Just Because

There is no cohesive theme to this post other than of course my super-duper, darling little cutie pie!  But here are a few random pictures from various things we have done in the past few weeks, I mean months.  Oops – I may have gotten a little behind again!

Alex’s Rainbow Salad (from Story Time with Rachel)

He ate every last bite himself!

Pioneer Farms

“On Stage” with the Biscuit Brothers at Pioneer Farms

Alex and William

Alex March 2009

I can’t believe he was ever this tiny.  =)

I know I am behind on blogging about E week, but I promise it is coming soon.  I think now I am caught up on all other events, though not for long, I’m sure!