Busy Two Weeks

I haven't had time to post about anything the past week and a half. Super Hero had shoulder surgery on May 21st and I've barely had time to do anything except take care of him (drive him around), cook, clean and do school with Holland. The last post was about our jet boat ride on the Willamette and that was the day after (I post about the important things) his surgery. We totally needed a break and he just slept all day anyway. I realized how much I depended on him when he couldn't help out. Getting the kids dinner; getting them to bed; cleaning up at night. I'm totally exhausted and he's still pretty much out of commission. He has to have physical therapy every day for three weeks to make sure his shoulder doesn't freeze up again. And a few days I had to drive him (and bring everyone else in the process) because he was taking Percocet. You know what they say "do not operate heavy machinery". Crud. That means cars. So we'd pile in the car and drive dad to his appointment.

He went back to work on Thursday (which I thought was too early). He's still very sore, but he's itching to get going on some projects at work and felt he needed to get back. The day he had his post-op appointment, Holland had an appointment with a neurologist; Egypt had an eye doctor appointment and he also had a physical therapy appointment. That was one crazy day. We found out that Holland is getting migraines. We're supposed to try getting him more aerobic type exercise. I told the dr. he's really 'busy' but she said he needs more "sweat" activity. We did walk around a park only one day this week. But at least it was once. It's just too hard with Egypt in a jogger stroller. She wants to walk/run/play and Holland is complaining he's bored. He also might be getting the migraines from stress. Did you even know kids could get migraines from stress? I'll be sure to eliminate all that stress for him. Right after I do that for me. I had a migraine that lasted 16 hours one day. I literally felt I couldn't drive to pick up Romania from the bus stop. But who's gonna do it? So, you just suck it up and do what you gotta do.

So if you noticed that Egypt had an eye appointment the same day as Super Hero and Holland, you probably figured out I was a driver short for that. I had to get my mom to take her for her 3 month check up. This appointment takes a little longer because they dilate her eyes and look more closely for the infection that can result from the JRA. She's fine - just nearsighted which he said not to worry about until she's school-age.

So I am really tired from all this activity. All I want to do is sew. I have people that have asked me to sew them ruffle pants or make a head scarf - and I haven't had time to do it. I'm assuming people with jobs outside the home totally ignore their kids. How else would they do everything? As a tribute to trying to do it all (or just the laundry at least), I turned one of my good white T-shirts pink today. I save a whole load of red laundry to do together and forgot to pull out a white shirt that I wore under a red sweatshirt. See? One person just cannot do it all. But now I have a nice pink T-shirt to wear. I really didn't want a pink T-shirt.

My Big Purchase

I actually did it. I bought the serger I've been drooling over. It's the biggest purchase I've made in awhile. Hospital bills don't count as purchases. I've been struggling with the Huskylock and the threads that keep coming off the looper. It is so frustrating to be serging something and getting to the end of a seam only to find that somewhere along the way the thread came out and you've cut the entire length of your seam off. I was getting really into sewing all these outfits after I donated that dress and ruffle pants to Romania's school auction. I put a few things back up on my etsy site here. This serger will make everything look professional and take half the time. I had the dealer demo several of the stitches just so I could make sure I was making the right decision. Anyone who sews, knows how much work it is to make a ruffle or gather something. This machine actually does it! Two to one gathering is done just like a regular seam. This is going to be so fast - now I just have to see if anyone's going to buy all my creations!

Included with the price of the machine was a 3-year warranty (which is good in my house since things seem to break a week after they get here) and $300 worth of extra feet attachments. When I pulled it out of the box tonight, there was a sample piece of fabric attached to the footplate and 4 pieces of thread that had been cut off. I could see that the stitch was perfect and all I had to do was tie my four spools of thread on and away I went! Now off to cut a pair of pants and a dress to sew!

The foreign language project

With Holland and Romania in school most of the day, I've decided I need a project to keep me busy. And keep me from cleaning the house. I love to sew and just bought a wonderful Baby Lock sewing machine. It has tons of decorative stitches, easy buttonholes and with the push of a button, it cuts the thread (it really is a big deal). Over the Christmas break, I bought a pattern for sewing girl's clothes off http://www.etsy.com/. I was getting so tired of not finding anything I liked in the regular pattern books, so I went hunting for something different. I found something very different. I bought a pattern book written entirely in Japanese. Too bad I can't read Japanese. But the pictures are very clear, so I can probably do it. Just have to figure out how much yardage, transfer all the pattern pieces to tissue and cut the pieces with 5/8" seam allowance. No biggie. Then Egypt will be stylin' (like that's a problem)