August, 2013

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Sad Trend

Wednesday, August 28th, 2013

Those of you who know me personally know that I take extreme pride in the quality of everything I make, whether it’s a dress or one of my welded mosaic tables.  I have very high standards for myself. Because of this, I am saddened by a new trend I have seen pop on Facebook and Etsy, and the other craft and sewing sites I follow.  Basically, people are buying a bunch of merchandise from sites like Alibaba and Dhgate.  These sites have direct access to the “factories” in China so you can by a dress for $6.  The sad part is that I’m seeing a ton of children’s boutiques pop up that have bought from these sites, then put their own tags on, and call them handmade and sell them 1/3 of the price that the rest of us who actually make good quality are selling stuff for.  I hate that people are being sold poor quality items that have been made in sweat shops over seas and they think they are getting a dress that was handmade in the seller’s living room.  Sad how dishonest people are.

Oh, and to add to it, these Chinese site have been stealing patterns and photos from handmade designers and covering up the watermarks.  There is a popular maxi dress pattern made by one of the designers I like and she had hers stolen.  The knock off dresses are now all over Etsy and being sold as substandard products.

Pics on the Bridge

Sunday, August 25th, 2013

So, recently I have been doing some pattern testing for a couple designers (sewing).  I just finished testing the Pepper Dress by Brownie Goose.  Part of testing it means I get to go take some new pictures of the kiddos.  Yay!!  I even dragged Pat along with me to help because photographing my own kids can be a major pain in the ass!  Sure they look cute once they are done, but you should see what it takes to get there!!  I had to bribe Pat with lots of beer and fish and chips from Hooly’s because he knows the hell he was about to be put through.  Anyhoo, I adore this dress pattern and this dress will be up in my Etsy shop soonish.

 

First Week of Freedom

Wednesday, August 21st, 2013

I have officially had my first week of freedom!!  It is still hard for me to grasp that the kids are now in school.

So, what did I do with my newfound freedom?  Well, I can lie and say I got a ton of stuff done, and the house all cleaned up, and the dog walked and all that stuff, but to be perfectly honest, I didn’t do a whole lot.  My first few days I just relaxed.  I went and got a pedi and did some grocery shopping with out the kids and it was totally awesome.  I was able to make it through the store without having to break up a fight, or say NO a million times as we work our way down the snack isle.

Pat had the day off on Friday so we took advantage of it.  He went with me to drop the kids off at school and then we went out to breakfast.  It was kind of nice to be able to do that again.  Actually, I think the last time we went out to breakfast, just the two of us, was back in the days before we had kids, probably hung over.  After breakfast, we headed over to Grossmont to see a movie.  Kind of nice, being able to do that without hiring a babysitter or having to have one of our parents in town.  I don’t see us doing this every time he has an off Friday, but just knowing we have the option is kind of nice.

One of the things I have been working on is the office/sewing room/craft room.  I think I finally have it just the way I want it.  I’ll save that for another post, but at least I got something accomplished while the kids were at school.  Ok, ok, I did most of it on Saturday, but still.

Oh, guess what comes along with kids starting a new school year?  Colds!!  Yup, Ella has her first cold of the school year.  Hopefully it passes quickly and she can get back to having fun at school.  Mostly I hope it passes fast and doesn’t turn into something bad and has to stay home from school because then I kind of lose my newfound freedom.

Jack Quotes

Friday, August 16th, 2013

First thing in the morning:

Shae: Jackson, do you have to pee?
Jack: No. My penis is just sticking up. And big.

After finding Shae’s bra on the chair:

Jack: Momma! I found your boobs!

Upon finding Shae and I snuggled up

Jack: Mommy, why are you guys squished?

TK

Wednesday, August 14th, 2013

 

Yup, that happened.  The kids started their first day of Transitional Kindergarten.  For those of you who are not familiar with what that is, it is basically the first year of a two year kindergarten program.  It was made for the kids who have fall birthdays and miss the new age cutoff date.  It will be very similar to what kinder was like back when we were in school.  It is also know as Freedom.

We have been prepping the kids for awhile now so they knew they would be going to school all day everyday, but it was still pretty hard on them.  You could tell Jackson was trying not to cry and Ella didn’t have much to say which normally you can’t get her to shut up.  I’m not really sure what they actually did in class, but they both came home saying they had fun, so that’s all I can really hope for.  Ella said her favorite part was reading books after they did work, and Jackson said his favorite part was eating lunch.  Yup, those are my kids.

So what did I do?  No much.  I pretty much just enjoyed having the house nice and quiet for the first time in almost 5 years.  There were no fights to break up, no Legos to step on, no stories to read a billion times, I didn’t have to dress Barbie Dolls or Lalaloopsy Dolls, and I didn’t have to play castle vs. dinosaur vs. mini super hero guys.  All I had to do was drink my coffee, eat my lunch and watch a movie with lots of violence and bad language.  It was awesome!