In Which I Update...Yet Again...

One thing that I have dicovered about being an almost 40, pregnant, gallbladder-trouble-having mother to a three-year-old is that I have very little time left to blog. *sigh* I have a lot to say, just no time or energy with which to tell you about it.

'Let me explain - no, it will take to much time - let me sum up' (Sorry, gratuitous "Princess Bride" quoting is sometimes unavoidable):

I met with a surgeon last week. He made me feel very comfortable and confident in his abilities, but (and?) he is highly doubtful that I will make it through my pregnancy without requiring surgery. The other catch / caveat is that the surgery is really only 'safe' (safe-er, safe-est... ugh.) in the second trimester of pregnancy. This means that I will more than likely undergo surgery to remove my gallbladder before the end of the year. I feel very calm about the diagnosis; which is surprising given the level of terror I was experiencing before meeting the doctor. I felt like surgery was the worst possible option, and I was committed to doing whatever I needed to in order to avoid it. After meeting with him, explaining my current daily situation and showing him the sonogram images of my gallbladder, he looked me in the eye and calmly explained that I REALLY don't want to enter my third trimester with a deteriorating condition that would then put an additional stress on my pregnancy. I suddenly felt very calm and certain about trusting him with the health of my baby and myself. He also (very reassuringly) told me that he has not once had a patient experience a miscarriage as a result of this surgery. He was clear that he was not promising a perfect outcome or attempting to downplay the possible risks, rather he was letting me know his personal experience with pregnancy and this particular procedure.

I wish that my disk drive was working properly. Since it's not, I can't put any of them here, but ya'll, the images of my gallbladder with a 3cm stone (approx. 1/3 the size of the entire gallbladder) are pretty dang cool. Well, you might not find them as awesome as I do, but I am an anatomy nerd, and I adore stuff like this.

Oh, and I'm now taking a smooth muscle relaxant to keep my gallbladder from contracting quite so forecefully. I'm supposed to / allowed to take it 3-4 times a day - with each meal and before bed. I'm only taking it twice a day, and it really has helped with the pain, but I feel seriously doped up, nauseated and sleepy most of the time :-/ I almost miss feeling clear-headed but pained. Which is the lesser of two evils?

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In order to retain my (self conferred) Awesome Mom status, I have been Pinterest-ing my heart out. Lily Ruth and I have made play dough with Jell-o and glitter:

gack / slime / goop:

dreamcatchers, necklaces for friends and dogs, and from-scratch sugar cookies with glace icing. I don't have pictures of most of it, because I am not quite as awesome as I used to be :-P but MAN are we having fun! Links to all of the things I've mentioned are on my Pinterest boards - I'm 'lilyruthsmama' if you're looking for me.

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You guys, until the addition of this new muscle relaxant a week ago, food had become my enemy. Everything I ate caused pain, and foods with even the smallest amount of fat in them caused even more pain. It was an internal battle every meal time just to prepare food for my family. Eating required a separate act of sheer will and resignation to the fact that pain would follow. The new pill really has helped. I should stop complaining about it.

Luckily for me (and my family), I have that small Pinterest addiction, and the folks that I 'follow' are forever pinning good recipes. The past few weeks have found me turning to my pins at 4:00 each day in a last-ditch effort to stir up some internal incentive. I have FINALLY made recipes off of my food board! I am pleased as punch to report that all of them have been wonderful :-)

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Lily Ruth has decided to be Peter Pan for Halloween! I am triple excited: 1) This is a costume that I can make by myself - no wacky pouffed sleeves, zippers or tulle. 2) I dressed as Peter Pan at the themed restaurant where I worked when I met Lily Ruth's Daddy, so it's an unintentional (on her part) homage to that time of my life. 3) It's a comfortable, fun costume that she can run around in for an entire night (or more) without worrying about smeared face paint or lost accessories. All of the fabric has been purchased. All of the relevant tutorials and PDF files have been perused and downloaded. My patterns have been drawn, measured and re-measured...

but I am strangely resistant to beginning the actual process... What's up with THAT?

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Ooof. I am suddenly left with the vague ennui, and I have lost interest in my own whining. Let me leave you instead with a link to one of my favorite wickedly funny bloggers - David Thorne:

27b/6 - Employee Self Evaluation Form

Enjoy, Sweets! TTFN...

Whatcha Doin'?

Ya'll I wrote an essay and sent it off to my friend - the one who has offered to publish my stories in her on-line magazine! I'll give you more details if and when this comes about, but for now, I am giddy and a little bit nauseated with anxiety. What if it's not what she wanted? What if... whatever. No more what-ifs. It's done. I sent it. Now, we wait.

While we wait, let's make some stuff!

Still on the Valentine's Day kick, Lily Ruth and I 'made' chocolates to give to her teachers at Parent's Day Out. These sort of things do not require recipes as you simply melt chocolate and squeeze it into molds. It was big fun, though. We made milk chocolate with pink (vanilla flavor), and dark chocolate with sea salt and caramel:

mmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm...

'Salt in these hearts?!' 

'Miss Briana needs a pencil, Mama!'

Everything's better with stickers.

I think that was the end of the Valentine's Day stuff. Oh, unless you count the hours wasted creating my Pinterest board...

Source: designsponge.com via Rachel on Pinterest

*sigh* Who DOESN'T need a love nest?!

Least I seem like a big whiner, I really do love Pinterest. It has inspired quite a bit around here lately! Let's see... we've made cupcake pictures:

based on this pin from 3.bp.blogspot.com:

Source: 3.bp.blogspot.com via Rachel on Pinterest

We made fireflies from pipe cleaners, glow-in-the-dark paint and glitter:

Well, I guess we really made sparkly moths as fireflies don't have round, luminescent wings... (also, my glow-in-the-dark paint sucks. Barely a shine :-/ ) they were based on several crafts that I saw when googling glow-in-the-dark crafts, but didn't 'pin'.

I also went a bit wild at Michael's today. I'm just full of excitement about color and bright things and MAKING STUFFFFFFFFF!

Clockwise from the upper left corner: 1) replacement paints for Lily Ruth - that's what we use to make the giant pictures on freezer paper that usually become full-body art. 2) adhesive foam pages so we can cut out our own stickers :-O! 3) small glass bottles and enamel glass paint - I gotta make THIS!:

Source: myyellowsandbox.blogspot.com via Rachel on Pinterest

4) magnifying lenses - things are growing, time top get a good look! 5) 2 new boxes of crayons so that I can make THIS!:

Source: theletter4.com via Rachel on Pinterest

6) face paints - that's just big fun & 7) nature themed stuff (notebook, notepad, magnets) to continue our thoughts (and document them) of exploring the Great Outdoors.

The colors outside are so new and fresh. It makes my heart sing. Yesterday, it was rainy and gray, but my aloe plant was ORANGE!

I am filled with the impulse to paint everything that will hold still with bright, fresh color. I long to cram my world full of shiny newness. I think my sap is rising. Welcome, Spring!

Felt, Felt, Felt, Pinterest.

O.k., when I decided to call myself a storyteller and try to write more stuff down, I caused an internal panic and shut-down. Typical. The same thing happened when I tried to journal one summer... and it happens every time that I try to diet... *harumpfh* Oh well. I have made a deal with myself that I must write for at least an hour while Lily Ruth is at Parent's Day Out. After all, someone has offered to possibly pay me, therefore it is my job to do it, right?

Good things have continued to happen since I last blogged, I just haven't had the time to tell you about them because (wait for it) I Discovered Pinterest (dun, dun, duuunnnnnn). *sigh* I've heard friends and other bloggers talk about it for a while. I intentionally avoided it because they ALL said that it was a huge, addictive time-suck. They were ALL right. You log in (just for a quick second) to see if anybody has cute ideas for Valentine's Day and the  next thing you know is that it's dinner time and all you have to show for your day are 23 'likes', 16 're-pins' and a bad case of eye-strain. By the way, in case you didn't know, Pinterest is basically an on-line bulletin board system. You create boards then 'pin' images or videos to the board. Much handier than bookmarking everything then scrolling through countless bookmark folders (Also, the pictures are so pretty!). My new Pinterest resolution is that I can only pin things that I find on my own - I am not allowed to troll existing boards except in emergency situations.

Speaking of Valentine's Day (nice segue, right?), did I show you the coffee cup sleeves that Lily Ruth and I made? Well, here they are!

Aren't they lovely!? They're so easy to make that it's a bit silly... The pink felt with hearts and buttons was our first batch. We made two of them:

I absolutely adore the finished product, but let's face facts here, people - felt is flimsy. These single-layered sleeves felt pretty much disposable. Our next batch were double-layered and feel sturdier. We made 3: one for Miss June, one for Mr Anthony and one for Nanny (Lily Ruth chose the recipients!). She also made 'shapes' for her friends Lola & Jett :-P

In case you want to make some sleeves of your own, here's a quick almost-tutorial:


Coffee Cup Sleeve
(or Coffee Cup Cozy, if you prefer :-P)

Materials:
pattern
felt ( I used wool blend and not crafting squares)
fabric marker
decorations (felt stickers, buttons, fabric paint, appliques, anything that tickles you)
hot glue gun
thread and embroidery floss in matching or contrasting colors

Method:
My jumping-off point involved two tutorials. This one form The Purl Bee:

Source: purlbee.com via Rachel on Pinterest

And this one from The Cottage Home:

Source: thecottagehome.blogspot.com via Rachel on Pinterest

I downloaded a pattern from The Purl Bee (available here) and added 1/2 an inch to the end so that it was the same length (but a slightly different shape) as a Starbucks sleeve:

(I also drew instructions on it in case I wanted to add the elastic/button from The Cottage Home's method).

Trace your pattern onto the felt & cut it out. Adorn your felt. We used felt heart stickers and buttons on the first batch and stickers and fabric paint for our second batch. If you use stickers, glue them in place with the hot glue gun or they will lift. If you use paint, allow it to dry overnight. I would not suggest adorning both sides in hope of creating a double-sided masterpiece - it'll make the sleeve too bulky.

If you are going to use a double layer of felt (which I would suggest), sew a quick line all the way around the edges to bind your two pieces.

Glue the ends together - I found that just barely under an inch of overlap is the perfect amount (you can see it in the first picture). Now add a line of stitching with the embroidery floss (I prefer a contrasting color) to ensure that it stays put:

Hey presto - you're DONE! Now you just need coffee:

And someone to share your coffee experience with. Preferably someone who will look at the camera. If that someone is not available, you may have to settle for this girl:

But you never know - you might get lucky and end up with THIS girl!:

I have more stuff to tell you, but right now it's time to play with my daughter, so you'll just have to be patient. Happy coffee and happy crafting, ya'll!