Monday, October 5

A little glitter never hurt anyone!

My good friend Brenda Has a wedding to attend in the States this week (congratulations Adam and Mary!!) And she has a lovely dress covered in butterflies for the occasion. But she doesn't have matching shoes...
In the event you have been shoe shopping around here you'll understand it's not easy to find the perfect pair, and Brenda is not one to buy shoes for a one-time event anyway.
She does have a lovely pair of gold flats that didn't quite match but are fancy enough for a wedding, so we decided to make her a cumberbun style belt to match the dress to the shoes :)

After a couple days of searching Etsy, Brenda bought a handful of trimmings and odds n' ends and I just finished melding them together into a glittery bit o' goodness laid over a piece of vintage faux mohair
:


I'm happy because it's entirely hand sewn and I don't get to sit down and do that very often. It only took the entire season 2 of Mad Men to finish! Haha...
Here it all is together with the dress, shoes and belt:


I hope that even after the wedding she will want to throw the belt on over a black T-shirt and jeans with those cute shoes!

Saturday, October 3

Hunger for.... everything.

I just ate a huge serving of baked mac & cheese and peas and am still quite hungry... I wake up in the middle of the night from hunger these days!

Not only that but my brain is racing, my body is restless and my feet don't want me to sit (well, they want me to sit, I'm sure of it by their swollen state, they just insist they keep on keepin' on, always finding somewhere to take me or something to do.) I'm forcing them to stay still long enough to let me write this. Nova is happy about this as she has taken to following me around the house 24/7 and so she gets a break as well- while sitting on our opposite couch watching me closely.

Tricia has been here for almost 2 weeks! She's got a job on base so is officially allowed to stay on her own, and we are still in the process of clearing out the sewing room to make it hers. I finally broke down and bought organizing drawers- ugh!! Overpriced plastic crap. Believe me I searched for the right -affordable, non plastic- drawers, but it was a lost cause in the end. Epic fail, as the kids would say these days. Most everyone won't care about my stupid plastic drawers, but it irks me to no end on so many levels. ;-p

Tricia and I spent a day last week doing the local tour that everyone gets when they get here. We even found an airport where you can take a 15 minute flight over the area of the VulcanEifel.


We stopped at Manderschied castle, watched some water flow and spent some time with Nova.




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I've been able to do a little sewing, trying to get the necessary parts done before Johnny shows up. Like booties of course!


But really, I finished up 60-odd bamboo flannel wipes, all neatly put away in a linen basket. I made three of those baskets for the selves above the changing table.


And leaky booby pads! Hah! Nursing pads is a more tactful thing to call them, but either way I'm very happy that I have them now and don't have to buy boxes and boxes of throw away ones. I used some of the bamboo flannel and some leftover flannel and fleece. They have pretty cherries on the outside.


And then I gathered up all the biggest pieces of flannel that I had and made some receiving blankets. Someone said I need about 20 of these, as of today I have 18 and that's close enough I think. Is leopard print appropriate for a little boy? ;-}


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I did some baking, well a lot of baking, but two new things-
Strawberry blueberry muffins:


And authentic Depression era baked apples, yum!! They are on the menu tomorrow morning as well:


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We are getting anxious here. We found a midwife and so will have Johnny at home! I've been buying dark sheets, shower curtains and, well, that's about it. The rest we already had here, towels and hot water and emergency numbers written down. I like how simple it is. Even with the complication worries (which I had about the hospital anyway, just different complications) it seems that it will be so much more relaxing than sitting in the hospital for who-knows-how-long relying on the doctors to tell me when I'm ready. Or not, or whatever. It will all be easier to talk about once it's done, mostly because I don't know what to expect or how it will go. I do feel very good about it though, and Chris is so extremely supportive. As well as Tricia and Mom, I'm so happy to have them here and I can't wait for all of this to happen!