Happy Birthday Baby Boy Part 2

 This is our pink panther block...he is hot pink vinyl.

 This on has rick rack sewn all over, then I glued googly eyes on them to give personality

 This was the first part put together...Mom spent a whole lot of time telling me everything we should have done...

 The master at work...with her it truly is the "touch of the Master's hand".  She made my jumbled mess of an idea into a quilt for my boy.

 This is the top corner...block of 4.

 This was when we got the top put together

 The master at work again...sewing the top to the bottom, which was satin, so there was a lot of her saying "rats!".  That is how I know when something hasn't gone well...I hear mom say "RATS!" a lot.  The material was super squirrly though.

 This was when we had front sewn to back, and laid out to trim the edges so that they could be turned and sewn.

 ALL DONE!!!

"Is this for me?"

 "It IS for me...

...and I just love the way it feels on my feet!!"


So there it is all done, Mom kept saying that it wasn't going to work and that we should have planned it better...I just kept telling her that we would just make it work and that he wouldn't care if the stitches weren't perfect.  She did a lot of muttering and she did stick her tongue out at me a whole lot, but in the end she liked it and so did he.  I throw it out on the floor for him and he walks on it a lot...he likes to feel things with his feet...and on occasion he plops himself down to feel it with his hands and his head.

Happy 1st Birthday my son!!

Happy Birthday Baby Boy Part 1

My little boy, being related to his father, is a very tactile person.  When he likes how something feels he lays on it, walks on it after removing his socks, and drags it about the house.  A few months ago I went to my mother with an idea...as she is the sewing Goddess and I am but a sewing nightmare.  I wanted to make him a blanket (or more like a giant sit-upon) with all sorts of materials and feely things on it for his birthday.  She just loved it, right up until I told her how big it was going to be and that I expected her to sew it...she has a stigma about having a pattern and a clear plan with measurements first.  I blazed through, assuring her that we would figure it out as we went along.

So, using fun material from JoAnns, I just bought the fat quarters in the beginning, we started making "feel me blocks".

Here is our Frog Prince...kind of funky, but his toadstool is made from a sueded type of material.  Please know that I have no idea what kinds of materials most of these are, I just wandered about feeling things.

The stars on here are satin with little sparkly things stuck all over it...very fun to run your hand across.

 I lived in Las Vegas for 3 years while going to college...I know cactus, so I made him cactus out of glittery ribbon, rick rack, and lace.  The flowers are buttons and patches.

 A Prickly Pear...the fruit is quite good if you like picking hundreds of needles out of your body...and they have beautiful flowers.

 A barrel cactus...very pretty, but VERY dangerous.

These 2 pictures are of one long block, the hearts are felt and I sewed buttons upon them to feel and stand out.

My mother is the zipper lady of the world...she has more zippers in her possession than most material stores...we thought he would love feeling the zipper teeth.

 This was our first...and my first idea, it is just pieces of ribbon folded over and sewn on the edge to make a fun loop.  The ribbon was a lot of fun, as there is all kinds of colors and themes and just fun feeling ribbon too.

 Children LOVE blanket binding, especially the way it feels...I had to put one block in of this!

 Mom had some small quilted pieces, all we did was put them on the material.

 This was a leather skirt with snaps in the back...it is not just any leather either, this is lamb skin...the softest and most expensive.  The snaps will be fun for him as he grows...don't worry, I have tons of lamb skin skirts...although my poor mother cried when she cut it.

 The pumpkin is fleece...and the boy loves the orange!

 I cut the notes out of the lamb skin skirt as well, so they are really soft and fun to feel.

 Another of Mom's blocks...I sewed star buttons for the eyes!

 The boat is also fleece, but the red waves are some kind of fuzzy garland, I got it on clearance and he will LOVE it.

 I love buttons, and I have since I was a child...these are fleece button flaps that he can practice on as he gets older.

 This is a leather star, cow's hide this time, I thought it fit well with the rock and roll material!

This is a microfiber piece, that will be the center of the blanket, I used sparkly ribbon to make his name.

We have 2 blocks left to do and then we have to try and piece it all together.  I have a Cal-King flat sheet that we are going to use as the backing...it is silver satin!  I will post more as we progress.  This has been a lot of fun for me, as it is the first time that I have been able to collaborate with my mother on one of my art pieces.  I had the ideas, and she has the know how in order to make it all work.  Thank you to my mother, I don't know what I would do without you here!!

Dear tampon people…what the hell?

               I recently bought myself a new box of tampons as my birth control was at the end of the month and I was sure to start my period at anytime.  Imagine my surprise when, upon opening the first tampon, the plunger flew across the bathroom.  Thank heaven my toilet sits in what the English refer to as a “water closet”, meaning that my toilet has its own little room with a door.  Now I have had this happen may be once in a box of 40 tampons, so I dismiss this as my one time in this box.  An hour or so later when I head back to the bathroom it happens again…if tampons weren’t so expensive I would just throw them away, as threading the stupid plunger back through is a serious pain.  This is especially true when your 11 month old boy is currently eating the toilet paper.  This has continued to happen every time I “pop” one of these things open.  Please understand that my first 3 days are a pretty heavy flow, so by day 2 I am cursing at the top of my lungs every single time I have to open a tampon.  By day 3 I am just in tears.  My poor husband is nice enough not to come and ask; he just apologizes.  This is not his fault!  It is the fault of whatever pea-brained person redesigned the tampons!  Re-threading these things takes time and patience:  With children I have not the time, and with the period I have not the patience.  I have tried to discover a new way to open them, but have not yet discovered a way to get them open and yet retain the package intact to put the applicator back in so as not to get blood all over the toilet, bathroom floor, and my hands!  So here I am left to “pop” them open and have the plunger fly across the bathroom floor.  There was once that I couldn’t find where the damn thing flew to, and so was left to decide on throwing it away or not…I just threw it away.  This angers me greatly, and seems to me that if a company is going to charge that outrageous price, I should not be left cursing on the toilet because the product isn’t working properly.

Yours, most sincerely-

Cristy Jordan

On a side note:

I have tried all varieties of tampons in my time of having periods…and I have concluded that there are some fundamental truths when it comes to tampons.  1…Tampons should always have an applicator.  If you are wondering why that is, then go buy yourself some OB tampons and give their tampon “bullet/suppositories” a try.  I discovered that they are just disgusting and not really feasible in a public restroom situation.  If you aren’t understanding let me paint you a picture…imagine yourself on the 2^nd day of your cycle.  You have been invited to a party or dinner in your husband’s honor that was planned months ago.  Here you sit in a fancy restaurant in your best evening gown; suddenly you feel that familiar sensation that tells you that you need to excuse yourself to the restroom to replace your tampon.  You think yourself so smart when you can slide the itty bitty thing into your hand and excuse yourself.  Now you have to insert that thing…on your 2^nd day…with heavy bleeding…with your finger.  You have accomplished your mission only to realize that your evening gown is hiked up under your breasts, your hand is covered in ick and the sink with soap is on the other side of the stall door.  You are left with 2 choices, you can either try your best to wipe your hand with whatever is left on the tp roll, or you can get ick all over your gown…as the idea of going out to the sink with your gown up to your breasts and your panties around your ankles isn’t all that appealing.  That, I would think would defeat the whole image you are trying to get across to the people your husband works with.   With me, those tampons never made it into my shopping cart…I understood all this upon seeing that they don’t have an applicator.

2…Tampons should never have a cardboard applicator.  Cardboard applicators tend to stick when being inserted, thus bringing about pain and improper placement.  I have found that when the tampon is not in the right place you tend to both walk funny and have an odd look on your face.  I could never live with this and had to pull it out…dry.  These are not worth the pain, or the cost, as you end up going through 4 tampons just to get one that works just right.  You can always tell when a woman doesn’t quite have it in that perfect spot too, because they walk like they have a rocket ship where they shouldn’t and are unusually grumpy toward everyone!  I was the unfortunate victim of my mother buying me Tampax tampons the first time I had to use them.  Tampax tampons used to have a cardboard applicator and were twice as long as the other brands.  Needless to say my first experiences with tampons were not favorable ones, so the first time I used a plastic applicator I heard a holy choir singing in my head!  So there it is folks…I don’t give a rat’s behind about the environment and being green.  I want my expensive Playtex tampons with the plastic applicators, and I really don’t care about any environmental concerns anyone may have!

January 2011

     

     Last month will go down as the worst month of my life…I have no doubt about that.  I have discovered new horrors that, though I knew existed, I had no idea the depth of how they would infest my very being.  I didn’t think there was much left in life that would cause me to curl up in the fetal position crying like a baby.  I mean, I have already experienced flash bulb memories that I didn’t want to know happened.  I have had my newborn baby taken from me and had to watch her in the NICU for 2 weeks hooked up to all varieties of machinery and fluids.  There are other horrors that I wish not to speak of as well, but here I am…a mother of 2 children, over 30, curled up in the fetal position in our bedroom because of a smell based memory.  And I don’t think this is going to change anytime soon, as it has happened at least 4 times in the last 3 weeks.  More of that thing called LIFE has crept into my world.

     At the end of my last post I believe I said something about “here’s to a year without death”…yeah…let’s say that didn’t work out so well!  Yeah, we have had a death in the family and it has a smell.  Did you know that dead has a smell?  And when you mix it with blood and vomit and heaven only knows what else, the smell becomes almost unbearable, especially when it has been sitting for at least a day.  It was only through the grace of God that I did not throw up.  My in-laws either have really dulled senses, or my sense of smell is highly acute, as I was in misery and none of them noticed.  The worst part is that I can be sitting somewhere and all of a sudden it comes back to me.  Smell is the only sense that is directly connected to the brain.  All your other senses go through a type of filter, that it why smell based memories are so strong and bring up emotions that you don’t really understand.  For me, dental offices smell a certain way and it will immediately bring up anxiety…as it is my only real phobia.

     Anyway, I should probably explain…my husband has a younger brother who was born the same year that I was.  He has been a type 1 diabetic since he was 6 years old.  His body was found in his 1 room apartment the first week of January.  We were awoken early on a Saturday morning by this news.  We had to drive my mother-in-law to the Orange County coroner’s office to get whatever personal effects they would release to us, which turned out to be his driver’s license, phone, key, and note.  Yeah, that was fun.  We then drove to his apartment, which turned out to be a motel room in Westminster, where we discovered a Coroner’s seal on the door.  It had been there for at least a day and the windows were also closed and locked…in the humidity of Orange County.  When we opened the door the smell hit me so hard that I damn near fainted on the spot, and thank you so much, I will NEVER be forgetting.  That first day, after much argument because his sister wanted to turn it into a shrine or something, we loaded what we could into his Ford Thunderbird and I drove it back to my mother-in-law’s place.  My husband and her had to leave earlier as they had to pick up my husband’s other sister at the airport in Ontario.  I get into his car to discover that his GPS is so dead, it isn’t even powering on when I plugged it in.  After pulling out of this motel, I decide I will head toward where we came from…I am on Beach Blvd…I am sure to find a freeway eventually…right?!  The good news is that I found a freeway…the bad news is that I have no idea where it goes.  I lived in Southern Orange County…not Northern Orange County.  I decide on whatever direction the lane I was in took me…soon to discover was the wrong way.  I get off said freeway, to discover in O.C. traffic that the brakes on his car aren’t very good.  The person a couple of cars in front of me stopped on a dime…yeah, an accident then occurred.  So here I am, under a freeway somewhere in O.C. having just had an accident in my dead brother-in-law’s car.  Try explaining that to the Chinese lady who was in the car in front of me…the poor woman was terrified that the insurance was no good.  After leaving my information, along with the information from the car, I managed to get across to her that even if his company won’t pay, mine would…I got back on the above mentioned freeway.

     At this point the thought hit me…”I wonder how much gas is in this car?”.  Yes, I know that I should have thought about this before…however, my stress level was just a tad high.  I look at the gas gauge to discover that there is less than a ¼ of a tank of gas, that’s ok…I will just put more in I think to myself.  Then I remember, I left my bank card with Angie to get some groceries for the kids while I was gone.  So, the situation stands thus:  I am driving my dead brother-in-law’s car, that I just had an accident in because the brakes are no good.  I have less that ¼ of a tank of gas and I am driving from O.C. to Riverside County and I have no money or bank card.  The GPS still has not powered on and I am praying that I will eventually find a freeway that connects to the 91.  Through the grace of God I made it to the 91 freeway, where I start to cry and the GPS comes back on.  My husband calls to tell me that they have just arrived at the airport and wants to know why I am crying…WELL LET ME TELL YOU WHY!!!  I manage to convey to him the most pressing matter…I have no gas and no money to buy more, and I haven’t even made it to Corona.  He starts to panic…then makes the best suggestion all day:  Jasone had $20 in his wallet, was his wallet in the car?  I remember that yes, it is in the car, in a grocery bag with oodles of other crap…I wonder where that ended up!  So I tell him that when I have to (meaning when the car starts screeching at me) I will pull off and find a gas station and look.  And if I can’t find the wallet they will come rescue me after they pick up Sherrie at the airport.  Eventually I end up parked at a 76 station off the 60 freeway under a light post digging in the trunk for the wallet.  Happily I found it and made it home…always a miracle!

     
     My husband and I went to bed and woke up the next morning to nightmares, only to have to go back to Jasone’s room and finish clearing everything out.  We put the furniture by the dumpster, threw what little there was in boxes, loaded Jasone’s motorcycle into the back of Ben’s truck, and fled the scene with much haste, as that smell is NEVER going to come out of there.  Then came the nightmare that was the funeral.  I have learned some things:  1…Skipping the embalming of the body is NOT a good way to save money, especially when the body has been with the coroner for several days and then at the funeral home for several more days.  The family has to sit in the front row, and heaven help me that is the category that I fit into.  2…When skipping the embalming, a wise decision would be to skip the viewing…I’m just saying.  3…When you don’t embalm the body $7000 is NOT a good deal, even if the plot is on the top of a mountain in Banning.  4…For the love of your husband and mother-in-law is NOT a good enough reason to give the plan of salvation talk when your sister-in-law left the church because she wants the priesthood.  And 5…Sitting in a room eating a meal after all this nonsense is over is enough to make even the most devote Latter-Day Saint want a good stiff drink, make mine a double and where is the Jack Daniels!?!