Monthly Archives: October 2011

A Sewing Crisis

After tonight’s trunk or treat, I found myself wanting to do more sewing. While shopping for the costume items, I had seen a cute knit that I fell in love with and had to get to make a skirt. The last skirt I made was pre-pregnancy; it’s been awhile!

So, I grabbed what I thought was the pattern I wanted and started. As it turned out, it was a new pattern that I had transfered to pattern material but never used. Thankfully, there was enough material!

With a brief intermission for feeding little man and getting him to sleep, the skirt making didn’t take as long as I expected. I was almost done and just needed elastic for the waistband when I realized I had no elastic on hand!

What does a girl do when there isn’t elastic for the skirt currently being made, and it’s too late to grab some at the fabric store?

Well, if you’re a little crazed like I am, you go rifling through your closet for another item in your closet to sacrifice for its elastic! I had two options – a skirt or a pair of pajama bottoms. The pajama bottoms needed some extra work anyway, so out came the elastic!

Note: while when starting the project, I anticipated not finishing in time to wear to church the next day, never, during the great elastic hunt, did waiting until Monday to go buy more elastic enter my mind.

Happily, the skirt was completed – just in time to realize the top I originally envisioned wearing with it was somewhere in the pile of clothes to be ironed! Thankfully, crisis averted: there are plenty of other choices currently in the closet already!

Ugly Sweater Pumpkin Patch Excursion – 2011

This year, our friends invited us along to their annual Ugly Sweater Pumpkin Patch excursion!  The idea is simple: find an ugly sweater, and wear it in public at a pumpkin patch!  Friends, the sweater you see me wearing in the photos is one I’ve actually owned for a number of years.  Those who knew me from church when I was a teen will probably remember it.  It was perfect for this event!  My rainboots even coordinated! I was excited for not only the whole idea of the ugly sweater excursion, but the chance to go to a corn maze and pumpkin patch – both things I’ve actually never done until today!
Us with our friends, the creators of this occasion, in our ugly sweater glory!
Note my rainboots, this will be important for the upcoming story.
Does this count as the “family pumpkin patch photo”?
Racing ducks!

These piggies weren’t even a full 24 hours old when we saw them!
We went to The Farm in Snohomish, Washington, where we saw ducks race, piglets that weren’t even a full day old, and got to have fun racing ducks ourselves (rubber duckies, but it was still awesome!)
The corn maze was in the shape of the state of Washington.  We rode along the bottom of the state, then were dropped off in Idaho to enter the maze.  We started in Clarkston, then visited Vantage, the Tri-Cities, Ellensburg, Bickleton, and other great Washington cities.  The maze was pretty awesome, complete with highway markers, road signs, and even road closures (I-90 was closed in two places!).  My rainboots proved quite useful traipsing through the mud!
We ended up exiting the maze a little early to the pumpkin patch.  While choosing pumpkins, a teenaged girl with her friends exclaimed, “Hey! You have the same boots as I do!”  My back had been towards her when she made the comment.  I turned around, saw that she did have the same boots as I was wearing, and said, “Hey! I do!  You have great taste!”
That’s when she saw the sweater. And the scarves.  And the hat.  And little man in his outfit. (See picture below.)
Her and her friends’ looks were priceless.
I simply moved on, found my hubby and our friends, and shared the story.  What was even more awesome was that it seemed this girl and I were destined to keep showing up at the same spots together until we left the farm!  I kind of felt sorry for the girl, who will probably never be able to wear those boots again.  Or at least, not without a quick vision of the bejeweled sweater!

Jury Duty 2010

A friend of mine posted this link to a video recap of the case that I had served on as a juror in 2010.

I don’t think I’ve ever posted anything online about the fact I served on the jury for this case, or for any case, for that matter.  But, I did, and the experience was one I would never trade for anything, but would never want to repeat, either.  I gained a profound respect for the United States’ justice system during the course of the trial and will never listen to another news report about a big case the same way again.

There are a number of other impacts this experience had on my life, but suffice it to say, it was definitely life-changing.