Speechless

I just pinned all the bits of my dress together (very loosly) so that you, dear reader, could see how things are progressing, and as proof that I'm not just blowing everybody off. What I neglected to realize is that this is the first time I'm seeing the dress 'together' too.

Hot fucking damn!! If I can pull this off, its gonna look AMAZING! And for once, I'm not feeling bad about tooting my own horn! I think the colors
work! I think the design is really fantastic! And its almost EXACTLY like I had planned it (no idea where the original scecth is right now -- you're gonna have to wait for that.)

Dear Universe: PLEASE, I am BEGGING you -- don't let ANYTHING go wrong between now and Monday! Yours truly, MP

Thank You, Gov'nor

I did something shockingly smart yesterday evening. As I sat at my sewing machine around 10 pm nodding off, I realized even if I was healthy enough to pull an all-nighter to get the dress done (which I'm not,) there's still no way I was gonna be able to get this dress done in time for Thursday. So I fired off an email to the woman organizing the event. I explained that I overshot on my design (Whiz politely called it 'ambitious' when she saw it this evening,) and undershot on how long it would take me to complete it. Could I please please please turn it in on Monday, or at least Friday? I'd already invested about 70-ish hours into this thing; it'd be such a waste...

She was very gracious and said Monday would be fine. Hell, she didn't even demand my first-born! (dammit.) The good thing is, I've got several additional days to work on this! The bad thing is, I've got to keep working on this dress for several more days. (dammit.) Damn, I am *so* tired of looking at this thing and having it take over my life. Husband has been in San Diego all week; have I been trolling bars looking for under-age sex? Nooooo. I've been at home sewing and watching bad 90's movies for company (dammit.)

But on the other hand, for as slowly as its going, and the fact that I'm still unsure about my color scheme, the parts that are finished are coming together incredibly well. I must be doing something right. The 3 or so folks who've seen it so far have been duly impressed, if not fairly amazed. I have this fear that something is going to go horribly, irreparably wrong at the very end and I'll be screwed, but until then, I'll just keep poking at it. In fact, I should head back now.

'Cause I'm-a working in a coal mine.....

Oh Dear.

Mags' new favorite word is definitely 'shit', and she uses it fairly liberally. Joe (babysitter; not to be confused with Jo) was pretty impressed by her frequency and correct useage while watching her this evening. And when we were driving down Harrison this afternoon, someone pulled out of their driveway in front of us and Mags yelled "Shit! Get out of the way, you boco!" ('Boco' is of course her her new word to call everyone and everything when she isn't saying 'shit'. As I was recently corrected by our resident 3 year old, "It rhymes with 'taco', Mama!")

I don't know where she gets it.

Plugged In

I've had iTunes on shuffle basically any time I've been sewing (and the TV isn't on.) Oooh, I forgot I had that song! Lemme update my rating for it! Huh, I've never heard that song before. What the -- why do I have "Total Eclipse of the Heart" on my iPod?!?**

**actually happened yesterday

Break Time

Jelly beans and a round of Desktop Defense. Maybe blog something.

Lesseee, dress is barely creeping along. Just recently discovered I don't have enough fabric for the skirt; 11th hour drawing board time! Choices:

* make do with what I have; its SVdP; its not supposed to be perfect
* buckle and just go buy some fabric
* panic, wrack my brain for hours (that I don't really have) praying for a miracle, make no progress whatsoever, and then 10 minutes before the fabric store closes dash out and frantically buy something.

I'll probably end up doing something along the lines of 'c'.

30 Second Food Break

(chomp, chomp)

Well, here I am again. Thursday is looming, and I have untold amounts of sewing to do. Didn't really expect the sequins th oake all weekend, nor am I pleased by the fact that I'm *still* gonna have to resew a bit when its all said and done.

All the hand-sewing has allowed me to catch up on my movies, however. So far during this dress, I've seen: Popeye, The Two Towers (Special Edition), The Abyss (Special Edition), The Stepford Wives (Frank Oz version), the making of teh Stepford Wives, and half of City Slickers. That's mostly been since last Thursday evening. You do the math.

(burp)

Ok, my nutritious lunch of cheese and crackers has been consumed (No time to cook! Must sew!)

Thanks, Helpy

I've been doing a ton of sewing, and today cut through a pin or something. Even after sharpening, they'd still cause ugly snags and such. So, I went to the store to get a replacement pair. They come packaged in plastic, natch, and on the outside, it actually says "Cut to Open".

If I had scissors to cut open the package, would I be buying scissors? Hel-lo...

Found This

While doing an image search. I'm impressed.

MWF Seeks Happy Place

Yikes, what a morning. Actually, the past week has been fairly ugly, but I'll only turm my mental magnifying glass on the past 3 hours:

*Woke up at 7am. Realize my mouth is completely parched, which means I've had my mouth open and therefore have been sleeping like shit. Am totally exhaused.

*I also have my mystery headache, which I've been waking up with for the past two weeks. If its anything like the rest of the run so far, it'll last til about 5 or 6 pm tonight. Hooray! No idea what's causing them (Meds? Sleep problems?) but they're seriously freaking me out, because nothing has really changed in my daily routine recently and they feels like the headaches I used to get prior to the surgery. Please god, no.....

*I stagger downstairs to find Husband and Mags reading a book. Very sweet -- except they've been up for 40 minutes, he has to leave in 15, and there has been zero attempt at eating breakfast, or getting dressed, or getting stuff together for daycare.

*Mags is trying out her newest form of toddler drama. Everything - and I mean EVERYTHING - is met with wailing and crying. Seriously. Example: Comes downstairs, snuggles under a blanket on the couch, and immediately starts bawling about wanting warm milk. Another: I ask her to please eat her cereal so we can get going. She asks me to sit and watch her. I tell her I have things I need to do. She buries her head in her arms on the table; bawls. (And don't be fooled or think she's ill or something. If you ignore her for 3 minutes, it all stops.) Much teeth grinding. I'm in a bad enough mood that I actually consider taking a swipe at my kid.

* Off to school. Dawdle, dawdle, dawdle.

*Get to school. We don't use the door Mags wants to use. Legs lock up; bawling.

*Super clingy child whenI am trying to leave. I pray the teachers don't notice the desperation with which I am trying to peel my child off of me.

*Call some doctors when I get home. Two doctors not available, and third phone call reveals it will be a month (get this) before I even get a call back, much less an appointment. Did I mention this was the new psychiatrist? The one person I desperately need to help me stay sane?!?

(deep breath)

Yesterday was similar in its shittines, and as much as I tried, I was fairly mired in it all day. I can totally see how today could end up the same, if not worse. But I am gonna try to do everything I can to avoid that. This may mean I eat nothing but chocolate all day, but I don't care. I don't need a repeat of yesterday, if only because my dress is due next Wednesday, and while it is coming along beautifully (if I do say so myself,) I really need to stay on schedule. Mostly I'm just gonna try and stay focused on what I need to do/distract myself. Mind over matter. One day at a time.

I will tell you, though -- as soon as this dress is done, I am gonna hand the kid over to Husband and get SO baked.

Offspring Story of the Day

Mags: Ouch!! (rubs ear)
Me: What happened, honey?
Mags: Mamacat scratched me!!
Me: Well, you didn't do anything wrong -- she probably just wants some alone time.
pause
Mags: Can you give a cat a time out?

This Time For Sure!

Hah! Fooled you, didn't I? You actually thought I'd actually decided on a color scheme, didn't you? Fooled ya! I had to go through about 15 more combinations to 'try them on'. Hell, I don't even remember what my last 'final decision' was anymore!!

One frozen Mediterranian Style Chicken lunch and a review of my research materials later, I *think* I've got it worked out. Seems that I was trying to cram too many colors into the dress. Remember, less is better. It just happens to be conflicting with my attempt at being bold with this dress. I feel like I'm (more often than not) very safe with the designs and colors I sew with. Am trying to go out of my comfort zome with this dress. *Seems* like it should be easy enough to do with an Art Deco styled dress -- have you ever SEEN some of the color combinations they came up with?!?


Fingers crossed for me...

Kind of Crapping My Pants

Let's just pretend I've been blogging about the St. VdP dress all this time, and that everyone is up to date on all the progress I've made. Well, the dress has to be turned in next Wednesday, and I've finally finished all the patternmaking, and am just now stringing myself up on the actual colors to be used in the dress. Here we are, day two of just struggling with colors. DUDE! I don't have time for this! I gotta start sewing PRONTO! Augh! I've literally changed my mind about 70 times. It shouldn't be this hard!

I'm (pretty sure) I've decided on the colors, if only because I could stress on this indefinitely and I just CAN'T. It'll *probably* look fine, but of course I'm not 100% happy with it. Oh, and just because I've decided on the clors by IN NO WAY MEANS I know which pieces are gonna be which colors. Bah! I literally photoshopped a picture of the dress 6x onto a piece of paper and am using my colored pencils to color in different combinations. Kill me.

Amazon Wishlists Work!

Wow.

Wow.

Wow.

My fingers are bloody, and my iPod just exploded.

Santa gifted me MIGHTILY in the music (and movie) department this year. I didn't fully grok just how much until I loaded everything onto my computer. Literally, 700+ songs. That's something like 4GB!!

Damn.

No really, DAMN.

Hell, I might even let Husband listen to some of it...sometime.

Truth in Advertising

Wow. Nail on head, and all that. Wow.

Weekend Plans

Sewing Project du Jour

A certain little girl is going to start (God help us) ballet and tap lessons tomorrow, so I thought it'd be a fun project to make her a leotard to wear. We went shopping for the fabric together (hence the pink) and I threw it together this afternoon. It wasn't a super difficult project, and should have only taken me about an hour to do. HOWEVER, I f***ed up the threading on the serger and that took - no lie - almost 3 hours to rethread. Truly, at one point I had lifted the thing and was prepared - nay, EAGER - to throw it will all my might on to the pavement, but somehow restrained myself. I also briefly considered stapling the leotard together during this dark hour. Good thing the serger finally behaved.

There's a few things I'd do differently next time, and a few imperfections on this one, and I'm not 100% certain it's actually gonna fit her. But other than that, she should love it!! And if not, screw her!! :D

Puddle Day Goes Horribly Wrong

Houston, we have a problem.

Puddle Day!

Mags said something this morning that made me love her all the more (not to mention feel pretty damn good about my parenting.) In the face of a huge rain/wind storm, my kid turned to me this morning and said, "Let's walk to school today to get some EXERCISE!"

Blink, blink.

I'm not sure Mags has ever asked to walk to school, although I've definitely made her do it a bunch. But when your kid tells you they wanna a) walk b) in the rain to c) get exercise, you shut up and do it without a second thought. Bang! Slap! Zip! Pop! Into our wet gear we go!

And she loved every 25 minutes of that walk. Turns out my daughter has never met a puddle she didn't like, and with rainboots? Well, it was kiddo-nirvana. "Oooh, is this one deep, mama?" "Is it ok if I go in this one, mama?" "Hey, we didn't step in this one over here!" "Its a great puddle day, isn't it, mama?" "Can we walk home after school, mama? The same way?" I've never enjoyed being completely soaked so much before in my life.

Granted, even with boots nearly to her knees, her pants were soaked upon arriving at school, not to mention the hem of her dress. Luckily they ask parents to bring in a few changes of clothes to have on hand, so I just whisked her into some of those. And seeing as how she sounds so willing, you bet we'll walk home again, too. Plenty of clothes to change into on this end. Besides, walking home in the rain is just the weak excuse I need to curl up on the couch with my daughter, our robes, and some hot chocolate this evening. :)

Upbeat Tumor Songs**

We wish you a happy thyroid,
we wish you a happy thyroid,
we wish you a happy thyroid
and a clean bill of health!

Or the ever popular:

Happy thyroid to me
happy thyroid to me
happy thyroid to meeee,
hope I'm done being sick!

And let us not forget:

Gonna have a good throat tonight
gonna have a good throat tonight
gonna have a good good good good good good throat tonight!

**Just a friendly reminder that if you buy these songs and download them to your computer, the RIAA will hunt you down, flay you alive, and make you have a renal biopsy.

Right the F*** On!

Saints be praised, it turnes out I did not need the biopsy part of the ultrasound after all. Whoo-hoo!

With my only ultrasound experiences having been whilst knocked up, it was strange having an ultrasound sans baby. I kept looking at the screen, searching for a heartbeat, or a flailing arm or something. Not suprisingly, the technician did not find these things in my throat. I practiced every relaxation technique I knew while lying there, which leads me to believe I really don't know that many (or I just couldn't remember any.) Either way, I did a lot of deep breathing. After the technician (luckily not the one of the previous post!) mapped out my throat, the doctor came in and did a few quick swipes with the wand himself.

Long story short, yes I have a lump, but he did not feel it warranted a biopsy. Its a) way too small, and b) full of fluid, which 99% of the time is a sure sign its not cancerous. And, he reassured me, even if it was that 1% of cancerous lumps, thyroid tumors are not like lung or breast cancer where if you don't catch it early, all hope is lost. Its got to be at least 4cm before they start to get concerned, and mine is only about 0.5cm. Whew!

After pulling my tongue out of the doctor's throat, I got dressed and headed home. I was in such a good mood, I got all crazy and took 280 home instead of driving on El Camino. Wacky! I also heard this happy little tune on the radio in the truck. Nice.

Keep Yer Back to the Wall

No lie; I heard a technician say this as I was walked into my room:

"Thyroid biopsy? I thought it was renal!"

Better Than A Poke in the Eye With A Sharp Stick (I...Guess)

This morning I go in for my thyroid biopsy, which I had completely forgotten about. In fact, it was only while realizing yesterday that I'd slept through yet another sleep study follow-up that hey, didn't I have a bunch of medical stuff scheduled for after the first of the year?

So away we go. I'd post info on what this procedure will actually entail, but frankly, other than knowing a huge needle is gonna be jammed into my throat, I don't really want to know what is going to happen. Too much imagination filling in the blocks with images of my trachea being punctured, or a jugular being hit or....or...

Hey, look at that large, distracting thing over there that has nothing to do with what is going to happen later today!!