Stylish Blogger Award

I'm always really honored when I get a blogger award, even stunned. 

Barbara over at Notes From the Second Half  decided I was worthy of the Stylish Blogger Award. 


I'm supposed to share 7 things about myself.  This is always the hardest part because I never think I have anything that interesting to say.

1: I'm a direct descendant of Judah Loew the Maharal of Prague.   Y'know, the guy who created the Golem of Prague.

2: I'm exactly 5 feet tall.  After I turned 17 I just stopped growing taller.  I wish my boobs would stop growing.

3: I used to do a lot of stage shows.  Acting, singing and all that jazz.  I miss it.  I miss singing and love when I can sing to Garrett.

4: I have Insulin Resistance.  I eat a very balanced diet and I'm on medication for it but losing weight is always a challenge because of the IR.  I get lots of exercise too.  Losing weight just doesn't happen and is often why I get so frustrated with myself.

5: I wish I had more time for knitting.  I need to keep my knitting close so when Garrett falls asleep on my lap I can knit while he naps.

6: I don't have a best friend and I am jealous of people who do.

7:  I'm not sure why but I'm bothered by the change in my zodiac sign.  I was never big on my zodiac sign but being a Gemini was always part of who I was.  However in Garrett's case I swore he was a Leo and now he is.  Ben is also and Aries instead of a Taurus.  I'm just not sure how to take something like this.  I don't think my zodiac sign in any way defines me and I know that I have characteristics of both signs (plus Taurus is an Earth sign).

And now I need to award 15 other bloggers (do I know 15 other bloggers?):

Aias.ca
Creative Bubbles
Fine and Fair
Miss Sews-it-all
She's not broken
Tales of an Unlikely Mother
The Craning Gap
Witkowski Family Happenings


Ok, so I don't have 15 people, but these 8 are pretty amazing.

BLIZZARD!

And no, not the ice cream kind.   
For the last blizzard that hit the Boston area we were away visiting my mom in North Carolina.    This time we're here (and we needed up buying Garrett a nice little London Fog snow suit while down in NC) to "enjoy" the snow. 

Ben was smart enough to tell work that he wouldn't drive in unsafe conditions so we're all home together snuggling on the couch and getting house work done.

My first attempt at quilting

I won't lie, quilting scares me.  All those shapes and lines and trying to keep everything even and matched up.  I wanted to stay far far away from quilting...that is until I found some Thomas the Tank Engine fat quarters at WalMart.

Garrett loves Thomas.  I wanted to find a way to use the fabric.   We knew we'd be flying Christmas week (to see Bubbe, Oh the irony!) and I wanted to make him a small blanket to use on the plane.    It's just a simple quilt, 2 ft square with 16 equal squares arranged in a pattern. 

But it's my first quilt and it has Thomas and his friends.  I backed it with some fleece I had in my remnants drawer. 

 

It was a new challenge and I while a bit tedious I'm happy with the outcome.  It worked really well on the plane keeping the little guy snuggly while he slept.  

Thanking the teachers

When asked to write about what teachers have inspiried me my first thought is always my parents.  My father was a high school biology teacher and I remember at a young age looking at things through the microscope and dissecting worms.  
My mother was even more amazing. She didn't go to college until later in life and even after my father's death she stuck with school and got her Masters and became an elementary school teacher.   
I remember both my parents busting their butts and loving what they did.  Choosing my parents just seemed too easy though.

So many people fondly remember their favorite teacher, with Facebook I'm able to keep in touch with mine.   My high school AP English teacher Ms Glick.  She was a mentor, a friend and is still such an inspiration to me.  She gave me a new love for literature while nurturing my love of writing.  I'm not the only one.  Ms Glick is still in touch with so many of her students that she inspired.  I truly am lucky not only to have had such a wonderful teacher but to still have an amazing person and friend in my life.

This post was written as part of a blogshare with Teaching Ain't for Heroes

Being sick sucks

But having a spouse who stays home to help you out is wonderful. 
As a SAHM when I get sick I usually have to deal with it, but for the past month I've had the demon cold/sinusitis.  After going to the doctor I've been put on a slew of medications.
Nothing like a diet of antibiotics, Afrin, Flonase, Sudafed and Robitussin to help you feel loopy.  Luckily I'm organized so I made a little chart to keep track of all my meds so I take them at the right time and don't overdose.

"Hugs make everything better Mommy!"

I'll be better soon enough and back to crafting and posting more.
In good medical news my cholesterol is 156!

Toddlers, Holidays and Airports

It seems that Garrett understands that this post is about him because he's currently crawling on me so he can see what I am writing.  

Holidays:
I don't celebrate Christmas.  My husband isn't religious so he's fine with just celebrating Chanukkah.  We usually go to his folks for Christmas but this year he had the holiday week off so we went to see my mother in North Carolina.   I saw so many of my friends talking about their children and Christmas and how absolutely overwhelmed they got.  The ton of presents under the tree, sitting down and tearing the paper off them all, I am left to wonder if the reason this seems like a strange phenomena to me is because I never experienced it. 
Maybe it's the difference of getting one small present at a time instead of all at once that keeps kids from getting overloaded?  I don't know.  Luckily my in-laws do 1 gift per person so I know Garrett won't get overwhelmed with a ton of new things.


Airports:
Garrett was 4 months old the first time he flew.  He's been on about 8-10 flights (I lost count) and is wonderful on the plane.  Either he sleeps or he sits on our laps and we play with him.  He's used to flying with just me but having my husband there to help made it so much easier. 
One of us was always with the luggage while the other was chasing Garrett around.  He's friendly and walked around saying "hi" to everyone.  We were never more then a foot behind him and he got to get out all that excess energy before the flight.   I had someone tell me afterward that they'd never let their child do that.  They must not have a mobile toddler. 
The only incident we had was with one woman who Garrett walked up to and said hello. She put her foot over her bag so I grabbed him to move him away.  I was in the process of pulling him back when she picked up her foot and put it in his face and pushed him away telling me "control your damned kid"
I was in shock and shortly after we boarded our plane.  Several other people came up to me and apologized for her behavior.
Truth was Garrett was smiley and happy and didn't scream in the airport or on the flight. 



All in all we had a wonderful visit and Garrett really enjoyed himself.

Creative Button Storage

Buttons!  Any crafter can tell you that they end up with too many buttons.  A jar, a tin, a bowl, there are lots of ways to store your buttons but when you end up needing specific colors it can be time consuming to look through all of your buttons to look for a matching set of blue buttons.
My crafting space doubles as our computer room so I have limited space.  Wall mounted would be best.   I was looking at our spice rack and got an idea...What if I used a spice rack for my buttons?   I found a nice acrylic rack that could be wall mounted.  It came with bottles included which was a big bonus.

I love it.  It doesn't take up any desk space and allows me to use more of my available space for storage.  Buttons are now separated by color and look rather pretty.

Now my buttons are sorted and easy to find when I'm looking for something specific.  To make it even easier to find what I'm looking for I labeled each container.

 

Easy and fun button storage.  I just have to remind myself that I really don't need anymore buttons.