Ready for the Beach!

We’re headed out to the beach in a couple of weeks, and I can’t wait! I made these two outfits for the girls to wear in some sunset beach pictures — hopefully the weather will cooperate!
The pattern for the romper came from RuffleBunnies. This is the first of her patterns that I’ve used and I really liked it! I did have a few moments of confusion at a couple of places but it all worked out. Start to finish, I think this took me about 4 hours, but I think if I sewed it again I could do it much faster since now I’m familiar with the pattern.

Here’s the romper!

 

The back has these sweet ruffles! I think I might topstitch them to get them to lay down a bit more.

 

I made this dress for Big Sis to wear — no pattern on this one, I just eyeballed other similar dresses I’d seen.

The chevron is reading a little bit orange, but its actually pink. I think I’ll go in and re-do the knot on this dress and make the same kind of bow the romper has.
I had so much fun sewing these, and I can’t wait to tackle some fall and winter clothes! I’ve got an adorable Halloween knot dress planned for each of them, with black chevron and a very cute Riley Blake print!

 

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Old Yeller Probably Isn’t on the Viewing List.

So, we got a dog!

Background: When Bret and I got married, we agreed that we would fence in the backyard of the house (HUGE backyard) and adopt a dog — I wanted a golden retriever rescue, he wanted a pound puppy. BUT. Then I found out i was pregnant in August, after getting married just three months earlier. We kept considering it, but couldn’t find the right dog for us, and that turned out to be the right decision. We didn’t really have time to devote to a new animal anyway, since we were learning to tend to Caroline.

Around the end on January we saw a listing for a free chocolate lab, 6 months old. Her owners had gotten her as a little puppy, but now that she was older and needed more exercise and attention they just didn’t have the time for her. We went to meet her, decided to think about it, and picked her up the next day.

We knew that she would TURN OUT to be a great dog ONE DAY. We also realized we needed to get a younger dog so we could teach her how to behave around our cat and Caroline.

To saw she’s a handful would be an understatement. At first she wouldn’t go into the backyard by herself, and would throw her body against the back door anytime she was left alone out there. So we spent hours standing out there, and running with her back and forth to wear her out. Now, after three weeks with us, she will hang out there by herself, but much prefers to be in the house with us or have one of us out there, even if its just to stand on the patio and watch her sniff around in the woods.She’s sweet, just very energetic. We think she’s pretty smart, but the jury is still out on that one, since she insists on carrying around a big rock as her favorite toy.

So, I went through all that to get to this…we’ve decided to send her to doggie daycare at our vet’s office. Its affordable, and will give her something to do during the day when usually she’d just be kenneled while we’re at work (one of us always comes home at lunch to let her out to run around for an hour, so she’s only kenneled during the day for 3-4 hours at a time).

Bret calls to ask about the program, and he discovers they have theme days. THEMES, people. For DOGS. They have Arts and crafts days, water days, obedience days, and (this is the one that got me)…MOVIE DAYS. For DOGS. MY DOG, who EATS her OWN POOP.  Bret and I have had fun trying to come up with what the movie lineup might be….Homeward Bound, probably…Milo and Otis…Lady and the Tramp…etc. But what movie for the dog who likes to live on the edge, eh? A little scary? Old Yeller, perhaps…Where the Red Fern Grows…Cujo.

I love my pets, don’t get me wrong, but they are PETS. I don’t consider them my children and wonder a little bit at those who do. I just find it really weird the anthropomorphism  that goes on in our society.

Doggy’s name is Zoey, btw. Bret realized last week that we named her after the first Cylon. Rather Freudian on our part, I believe.

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The Best of 2009

Books I REALLY Looked forward to which actually lived up to the hype:

Echo in the Bone. Frankly, Diana Gabaldon could have written 200 pages of this book about her dachshunds, and I still would have locked myself in the bathroom and kept refilling the tub with hot water while I read about Claire and Jamie.

Book I didn’t know was coming out which still made me gasp audibly when I saw it in the store:

The Crowning Glory of Calla-Lily Ponder. This one wasn’t as good as her first, Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood but it was still good. The reviews on Amazon aren’t very nice, though, and tend to pin the problems of this novel on Wells’ battle with Lyme Disease.

Most disturbing Book I Read in 2009:

We Need to Talk About Kevin

Best Young Adult Novel:
The Hunger Games and Chasing Fire, both by Suzanne Collins. Oh my fluffy heck. These book were sooooo good. I can’t wait for the third book in the trilogy to be released later this year.

Best Non-Fiction of the Year:
The Unlikely Disciple, by Kevin Roose. Ok, so this kid from Brown University decides he’s going to withdraw for a year and mosey on down to Virginia to spend a couple of semesters at Liberty University….home of Jerry Falwell. Only he’s not a Christian. It was really entertaining. He had the expected revelation that “Christians can be nice people and aren’t all hypocrites!”

Best Re-Reads of the Year:

Harry Potter, Book 7

Other Books I really Enjoyed:
The Magicians, by Lev Grossman

Unseen Academicals, by Terry Pratchett. I always enjoy the Discworld novels and was happy when this one came out!

Best Book Tool of the Year:

My Kindle will win this every time, hands down. I use it every day, and I can troll through Amazon for hours at a time, looking for new samples to download.

Best Book Recommendation Blogs of 2009

The Oh Really – a fellow Mississippi Librarian — I puzzle over her posts, trying to work out which research emporium she’s working at in Jackson

Everyday Reading

And Finally

Best Book of 2009:

Her Fearful Symmetry. While Gabaldon’s books are my favorite SERIES, Audrey Niffennegger’s first best seller–Time-Traveler’s Wife–is one of my top 10 Books of All Time. When I saw Symmetry on the “Coming Soon” list, I wrote the date it was being released on my calendar. It was lovely.

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I Love Free WordPress

Dude, WordPress is so much nicer to me that Blogger was. I had a blog for several years before I got married, and didn’t want to start up there again, mostly because of how much I hated Blogger.

I just worked on my site and added links to blogs I read and sites I like to visit and it was SO EASY.

I often see other bloggers complaining about wordpress and updates and such, but I haven’t gotten far enough into this to need to do updates and whatnot, so I’ll just sit happily in my little cocoon of love.

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Non-Everyday Magic

Not everyday is a birthday. I had mine on Saturday and it was magical. I received lovely presents and my parents came to see me and I got to go to my favorite restaurant, Walnut Circle Grill, for dinner. The Husband gave me a silver disc pendant with C-Love’s name and birth details on it and my parents got me a fancy new camera.

On Sunday I played in the Carillion Choir at church for both the morning and evening services. The morning service and the first number of the evening service were both fine, but we had some problems with the second number. I myself missed a few notes. I wish we had a chance to re-do it. At the end of the evening service we had a candle-lighting where people pass the flame through the sanctuary and it was lovely.

I turned 32 and instead of waiting for the new year I’m making my resolutions for the next year beginning now.

1. Record every book I read for a year.

2. Take more pictures of C-Love and my family.

3. Lose 10-15 lbs.

4. DON’T get pregnant. haha.

5. Take advantage of the 3 hours of work-out time that I get a week. (I work for a company that allows us to go during work hours)

6. Take at least two trips as a family.

7. Post to my blog at least 3 times a week.

8. Have at least one get-away vacation with The Husband.

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Pseudonym

Christy: Do you want me to call you by your name on my blog, or do you want a pseudonym?

Husband: Like what?

Christy: I dunno. Mr. C, maybe.

Husband: No, that’s not cool enough. Tiger! No, wait. Not a good choice given the current events.

Christy: Yeah, try again.

Husband: Ratchet Thunder Stud!

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Magic Moments

I have an unexpected afternoon off because I cannot stop hacking up a lung onto my desk every 10 minutes. Which makes it difficult to push the buttons on my scanner. My manager asked me if I had any ancestors who were Marines, since I seemed so determined to stay at my task.

I’ve been re-watching the British version of The Office. I just love that show. So subtle and complex…the American version spells everything out these days.

And today’s Magic Moment comes from the Christmas special. Dawn unwraps the set of oil paints from Tim and realizes what he means to her.

(Dawn and Lee are so tan in this episode..of course the storyline has had them living in Florida for the last two years — but I wonder if the producers sent them to get spray tanned?)

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This is my attempt…

…to try to find the magic in every day. I know its there, but sometimes I don’t take the time to see it.

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Hello world!

Welcome to WordPress.com. This is your first post. Edit or delete it and start blogging!

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