Musings

I live in a room. 

One room. 

One room with four people, and all I own. 

I often dream of a life which is no longer, where we lived in a big, beautiful, orange house, where we lived large off loans and we knew as soon as school was done we'd be rolling in the dough. 

Turns out the dough needs to be left to rise for a while. 

Living in a single room can get you down.

Last night I went to a meeting. A meeting with strangers. Strangers that had one thing in common.  And, for a few hours I realized that this place that I'm in right now might be different from where I came, but it can be wonderful too. I drove home and had that warm fuzzy feeling inside, which is such a nice feeling to feel, if you ask me.

I turned 30 this week, which, by the way, I got to much quicker than I thought I should.  I've become much more mature, since turning 30.  In my new found maturity I've decided that I would rather feel warm fuzzy feelings to most other feelings: like I said, it is such a nice feeling to feel.

What made the meeting I went to so wonderful?  It was a meeting of mothers who breastfeed.  A support group, if you will.  

 (Why in the world do breastfeeding mothers need a support group? Well, we're a minority, we are.  Only fourteen percent of women breastfeed to six months.  I never stop breastfeeding.) 

So, together we gather, to talk about things that are important.  Last night, I realized that I like being with women who feel the same way I do.  I felt accepted and loved.  

So, I'm going to do more things that make me feel that way.  I'm going to make this place my home.  I'm going to ride horses with friends.  I'm going to explore the city I grew up in with my family.  I'm going to help people.  I'm going to make myself busy. 

I'm going to spend less time in my room.

I think I'm going to like being 30.

Photo Blocks

 One day Jared is going to have a job.  And, at that job he is probably going to have a desk.  On that desk he will have these wonderful little photo blocks, on which are pictures of his wonderful family!

How'd I do it?  I cut a 2x4 into three squares (tell me why are 2x4's actually 1 1/2" x 3 1/2"?) Then I sanded them really nicely and stained them with a dark cherry stain.  I printed the pictures and Mod Podged them on. You can see in the pictures that I didn't get the Mod Podge on very smooth, but I couldn't figure out how.
Jared loves them, I love them, and Eli loves them.  What more could I ask for?

Birth on my Mind

No, I'm not pregnant.  Not even close.

A good friend of mine is, though.

This friend, who shall remain nameless for now, is going to have a VBAC.  She believes that her cesarean was the result of the typical cascade of interventions, starting with an unnecessary induction, an accidental water breakage, continuous monitoring, etc., etc., etc....

She wants a different experience this time, and is willing to fight for it.  She's going into it educated and empowered. She's a champ! 


Remember this post?  Five months later I'm still looking for the answers. I've read so many books I can't even count, and I've got lots of new ideas of how to handle my next birth. But, there's still so much to learn.

In the mean time, I've decided to put some of my knowledge into action, and hopefully to good use.  In November I am going to start training to become a certified Doula, a professional birth assistant.  I am so excited!

Studies show that when a doula attends a birth, labors are shorter with fewer complications, babies are healthier and they breastfeed more easily.  I plan on using a doula with my next birth, even though I will have midwives.

I want to be a doula because I want to help women be empowered by the birth experience, not scared by it.

Part of the certification is a requirement to attend three births, as a doula, for free.  Last summer I was blessed to attend the birth of my friends, Sierra and Jonathan Hocklander's baby, Evelyn.  It was absolutely amazing! It was her birth that actually made me consider becoming a doula.  My nameless, pregnant friend has asked me to be her doula.  I can't describe what an joy it is to be asked to be present at these moments. Honestly, I can think of no greater honour.

So, stay posted as I embark on this incredible journey. And hey, if you need a doula, I'm offering my services for free!

Embracing the Inevitable

Yesterday we got back from our last trip to the lake, our last foray into the dissipating summer. Today the majority of shorts get packed away, and the pants and sweaters come out of their storage boxes.  Despite Jared being away from us for the first half of the summer to write the hardest exam of his life, despite us having the least amount of money we've ever had, despite us living in one small room in my parent's basement, this has been the greatest summer we've ever had. There's something to be said about being unemployed and unhampered - not a whole lot, but something.

In Calgary, Summer is definitely over, and I am sad. I'm trying not to think about how nice it still is in Michigan.  So, I'm making a concerted effort to embrace the seasons (or lack thereof) of Calgary. One way to do this, is to craft a Autumn craft.

 The pictures a little fuzzy, but at night they glow with a LED candle inside.

Halloween isn't a holiday I generally invest a lot of crafty energy in, but I quite like the "BOO," too!

Check it out at:

Get Your Craft On

Diapering the Baby's Bum

Can you imagine what the world will be like in 2500?  That's 490 years from now.  Well, if the disposable diapers we throw in the trash every day could talk, they will be able to tell us.  That's right, in 500 years the diapers we are wrapping around our babies' butts will still be around.  Gross!

The whole idea of throwing stuff "away" really gets to me.  What the heck does "away" mean?  It means out of sight: out of mind.  It means, it's wrapped tightly in a sealed plastic bag and carted away in a big stinky truck, and therefore I no longer have to think about it.  It certainly doesn't mean away, because it's still there.  And in Calgary, it's actually pretty close to home: Spyhill Landfill is just up the road from me.  And in the landfill approximately 2.1% of the piles are made up of peed and pooed in disposable diapers.

Now, I'm a realist. I understand that in today's day and age there are times when I need to use those handy little disposable diapers.  I've run out of diapers in the mall and needed to beg other mothers for diapers from their strollers.  I've been on holidays where finding a place to do laundry is impossible, and carting around 24 dirty diapers is a little more than inconvenient.  Still, I try not to just do what little I can, but everything I can, and so, for a multitude of reasons, I choose to cloth diaper my babies bums.  And, I love it!

If you haven't had the pleasure of seeing today's cloth diapers, let me assure you, they are not what they used to be.  While the old prefolds with pins and covers are still available, there are so many other wonderful options that cloth diapers are really every bit as convenient as disposables these days (minus the whole washing them part - but it's not that bad, I promise).   The cloth diapering world is really very vibrant right now.  I'm not sure if the recession has made more people explore cloth because it can be so much cheaper than disposables, or if people are becoming more environmentally friendly, but there is certainly a big industry in cloth diapers right now.

That being said, it didn't surprise me one bit when I saw this this week (not my picture, I got it off the webernets):

Those pampers are awfully cute.   Kind of like all the ridiculously cute cloth diapers out there.  I'm not sure, but I think that after 20 years of Elmo diapers Pampers may actually feel threatened.  Awesome. 

Despite their cuteness, I still maintain that there is nothing cuter than a fat little cloth diapered butt!  Seriously.  Who can resist this:

Or how about these ones:

If that cute bum doesn't convince you, here's an article with even more reasons to go cloth!

The Pressure's On

Many months ago I happened upon  Hideous! Dreadful! Stinky!, and pretty much fell in love.  I love her projects - especially this one.  Her name is Marigold, and how cool is that?!  I'm sure that my little niece, Marigold, will not meet very many people with her name in her life, and being a "Jenny," I really appreciate that!  She makes me happy.

Anyway, I have signed up to do a craft exchange with her, and I have just a little over a month to come up with something darling, clever and wonderful, and mail it off.  No pressure, really... just a blogger with over 200 followers who is going to post about my gift, and little old me!  Scary.

Here are her rules:

The projects should:
be small enough to fit into a 6"x9" bubble mailer envelope
take less than 3 hours to complete
cost less than $15 to make
be in the mail and postmarked by October 8, 2010




Hmmmm.... what will it be, the hook, the needles, the machine or something else entirely...  It's a good thing I've got until October 8th.

I've Got a Quilting Problem

I love to piece quilts.  Love it.  I love gazing at fabric, putting together the perfect combination.  I love perusing through patterns, picking the best ones to suit my fabric choices.  I love measuring and cutting, rolling my rotary cutter along the fabric in perfect lines (I've only once needed stitches because of this). I love sewing the straight lines, putting all those little pieces together to make a beautiful quilt.  Oddly, one of my favourite parts of quilting is laying out all the squares and staring at them until my eyes hurt trying to figure out the best layout where no two pieces of the same fabric touch or are even close.

And that's really where my love affair with quilting ends.  The whole 'quilting' part: not so much my favourite.  So, amongst my boxes of storage I've got a plethora of pinatas... I mean quilt tops... waiting to be quilted, with absolutely no motivation to do so. Seriously, I probably have ten tops finished. 

I come by it honestly, though.  My mom has over 20 in the same state as mine.  My problem is, I want to hand stitch some, but that's a big undertaking, and I want to machine quilt the rest, but not just stitch-in-the-ditch, but the really fancy swirly, loopy kind of machine quilting.  My old Brother sewing machine is really just not up to the task.  I NEED this:

I could hire myself out at $150 a quilt for, oh, 20 or so quilts, to make it worth it.  I also will need to buy a new house to fit the thing in, and commit to doing nothing but quilting the rest of my life... but I'm okay with that.  With something this incredible to work with, why would I want to do anything but?

But, until then, I guess I need to get motivated and get working.  These are the quilts I want to finish before I start any more.

My picnic quilt, which at the rate autumn is approaching here in Calgary, will probably not be used until next season.

The sweetest baby quilt, which is offered as a prize to the sister who has the next girl (unless I have a girl first, and then they get nothing because all my creative juices will be put to creating things for my own darling.)

The third of these rag quilts I've made, for the next boy that is born that I love enough to give a quilt to.

A car mat for my boys, probably for Christmas, by the look of my to-do list here.

I'm heading to Shuswap today, and I plan on getting at least a few of these done while I'm there.  I'm hoping my mother-in-law will help me with the hand sewing of the girl baby quilt and the car mat. The picnic quilt I am sticking to the ditch, and the rag quilt I don't have to quilt at all: yeah!