A weekend of Traditions

This was our 2nd annual Saco River Rafting trip with two other couples. Parts of the river are notorious for wild parties, but we visit the less-traveled section just up river from that.

The weekend was filled with traditions, old and new:

First up is Friday night's snack after everyone is set up and we can relax for the first time around the fire. My hubby pulls out his open-fire grilling rack and we have turkey kielbasa. Just a few bites for each of us is the perfect topping to a hectic day and the perfect christening to start the weekend. We don't do turkey kielbasa for health reasons, one of the ladies has no gallbladder, so can't have pork. Fine with me...turkey kielbasa is surprisingly fantastic!

Oh, and our campfires are usually made up of 2X4's that are leftovers from my hubby's jobs. Not exactly the romantic fire of my dreams, but it puts out the heat just as well!

This is our "tent," among other things! Didn't turn out quite as convenient as I thought it would be, but it certainly was dry! This may or may not continue to be a tradition (depending on the weather!)

Breakfast the first morning is usually big and hearty because lunch on the river is easy-to-carry snack-type foods. Enter my hubby's Cheezy Eggs. Recipe: a dash of milk. a dash of pepper, a dozen eggs and 12 oz grated cheddar. Mmmmm... and the best. blueberries. ever.

And peaches. Can't forget the peaches! One of the couples lives right next to a fantastic farm stand and brings all the fresh local fruits and veggies we can possibly consume (and more!)

And we can't forget my hubby's coffee. We used an $8 percolator for a few years, but it takes forEVER (according to my hubby who cannot function without caffeine) so he treated himself to this spiffy new unitasker this year! And of course, we still use the little teapot for our hot cocoa and teas! (Especially when we're finished with our next tradition...)

Here we're all lined up ready to go rafting...waiting for two of the guys to get back from dropping off the car at the bottom of our trip!

Rafting in the rain. Mmm. Not our favorite tradition. Last year it was overcast almost all day and rather miserable, but we made the best of it and made a pact that we'd be smarter in the years to come. Well, they all came on with startlingly similar cases of amnesia and wanted to raft thought I was going to stay behind. It was forcasted for rain and thunderstorms even though Saturday morning it was so hot. I finally convinced myself to go when they were getting all sunscreened up and changing into their suits and getting all excited!

If you catch a peek at the top/center of this pic you can see the leaves are already changing!! Of course, it's at 2,369 feet above sea level, but still...it's August 16th!

... and 15 minutes after we got in the river, it started sprinkling. But the water was moving pretty swiftly because it was about twice as high as it was last year. The trip last year took about 5 hours, this year's was only about 3 1/2. (Thankfully!!)

Eventually we caught the thunderstorm (or it caught us!) and we headed for the treeline. It got preety cold with the rain and wind and already being soaked, but we got through it dreaming of a new tradition for next year - scuba diving in the carribean!

This is my hubby's mess kit from boy scout days. He made the casing himself for his sewing merit badge. It hasn't held up TOO well, but after all-it has been 20 years! One of the many projects I'd like to take on this fall is re-sewing his pouch. Or maybe just fixing the blown seams and putting a new snap on it. We'll see. I'm not sure how he'll take it. He's very sentimental about these things and may like it just the way it is!

I sometimes call him my LeatherMan. He uses his Leatherman almost constantly when we're camping or hiking. My tough guy!

And of course, there's the tradition of me taking all kinds of random, mostly nature-related photos!

Quite by accident, we ended up camping at the same campground that our premarital "marriage mentors" camp at every year (for two whole weeks!) and we got to do some visiting before we left Sunday afternoon. It was so great to catch up. We exchanged e-mails, so hopefully we'll have a little better luck keeping in touch this year!

While there, we got a visit from a heron and I got to snap away! Did you know they nest in trees and in communities? It just seemed odd to me. I've never seen more than one at any given time and I don't really know why the thought of them nesting in trees sounds odd, it just does!

Rrrrrrr!

I broke another seam ripper! SO frustrating.
Anyone out there have a good seam ripper to recommend?

Lunchcapades

I usually enjoy wrapping presents. I take joy in making things presentable in a pleasing style. It's not a chore. Usually. Except on Christmas morning before we load the car up to go to the in-laws. Or in the breakroom at work right before I run to the post office to send it half way across the country in hopes that it'll get there in time for "the event."



As I've mentioned before, I made a baby blanket and fun square for my hubby's brother's upcoming arrival. We don't know the gender yet and my SIL doesn't like "cutsie" stuff (frankly, I agree with her,) so it made picking out the colors and materials that much more challenging, but I was really excited about the end result. Then I went to pack it up to mail. It's going in a box with another gift, so it had to squish up real tight in order to fit in the flat rate box, but I made it work. Except it took ForEver!

(This is the blanket AND fun square wrapped up together!!)

Because I had to squish it up so much, I decided to write a little poem of explanation. It also covered the concern my hubby had about making sure they knew I'd made it. And my point that it was even more special than a normal handmade item because it was the first baby blanket I ever made.

Here's the poem:



I'm wrapped up so tight
'cuz I took my first flight!
I came all this way
to meet my new playmate.
I was made by hand
(Megan's first try, by the way.)
So glad I could land
and see your smile today!

It's not a prize winner, but it got the message across! (And it was totally thought up in about 2 minutes, so give me some credit there!)

In case you're wondering, the envelope says (Just untie the yellow organza to unwrap the "roll") because there are a ton of other ribbons on the other side, but they're part of the "fun square."

Note to Self: 3rd Edition

1. The philosophy of efficiency with money can be easily replicated in an efficiency with time concept. Thanks, Journeyer for sharing this insight! Be sure to check out both her links. The Maya Angelou quote at the bottom of her introduction is another whole lesson in itself!

2. Balance is of utmost importance. But balance can't always be acheived the same way in every situation. Take motorcycle riding. Sometimes, like when weaving back and forth, you stay seated straight up and down while the bike leans back and forth. Other times, like around a sweeping corner, you lean very slightly with the bike. And other times, like when doing a very tight u-turn, you actually have to counterweigh the bike, leaning the opposite way.

In each situation, as in life, it's important to assess the situation and figure out what position will acheive the optimal result.

3. But no matter how balance is acheived, you always have to keep your chin up and look ahead to where you're going. Otherwise, balance is irrelevant. You might be balanced, but you'll be wobbling all over the place without direction.

4. If you want to change one habit, it may involve changing another habit. I have struggled with this month's Quit Now Challenge of quitting the snooze button. Today I had my biggest victory yet! I only hit the snooze button twice. I realized something else though. I went to bed about 1-2 hours earlier than normal. I usually head to bed at 10 at the earliest. Sometimes if I don't think I'm "tired enough," I'll stay up until 12 or 1 am. As a kid I would sit in bed for hours on end unable to sleep, so I'm extremely vigilant about knowing when I'm "ready" for bed. But last night I headed to bed just after 9 and fell asleep pretty quickly. It makes me realize that I can change my snooze button habit, but it may take changing my bedtime habits as well.

5. Who knew making a bib would be more difficult than a blanket?! Apparently, size DOESN'T matter! It's all those *%)$%(&$%&%* curves!

6. One of the best ways to overcome a fear is to simply do it anyway. Driving to motorcycle training Wednesday morning, my hubby and I discussed our concerns about riding in the rain and were somewhat grateful to be given the opportunity to ride in the rain during the training so that we could learn how to compensate for it. What we learned was that with the right gear, it's not that big of a deal (within reason.) With proper rain gear and a full face helmet, you're pretty much protected from the rain. It's still not the best of conditions, but it's nothing to be afraid of.

drenched, but trying to dry out.

7. With a big enough stash, you can make just about anything! I made a special square out of the materials used to make the baby blanket, then I attached a bunch of ribbons and triangles of material from my stash. They are all different textures and colors for the baby to play with! If it weren't Stash Month, I'd have been tempted to go out and buy new ribbon and more remnants!

8. Saving money can be fun! I'm really enjoying the challenge of finding alternate ways of doing things (other than going out and buying the newest, best big thing)

9. Antiques are fun! My first giveaway wasn't exactly the biggest bestest thing-a-ma-jig, but it was a cool little trivia/mystery piece.

This little guy was used years ago before plastic bags were all the rage! The hooks on either end would wrap around the string used to secure books and packages, the handle would make it easier to carry the package without the string digging into your fingers!

I found this guy at a yard sale earlier in the year. The man selling it was impressed that I knew what it was used for. A few years back my mom and I stumbled upon one at an over-priced antique shop and couldn't figure out what it was. We got the scoop then, and I scooped this little guy up at the yard sale for 50 cents! (instead of the $8 the antique shop wanted for it!) I'm saving one for mom for christmas, saving one for myself, and Bragger here gets the last one! (yeah, she gets the prize AND you can blame her for taking the last perfect man!) So, Bragger, leave me a comment with your address (I promise I won't approve it for public view!) and I'll get your string handle thingy in the mail on Monday! (I know what it's used for, but not what it's officially called!) I guess I could just make up a name for it like the bird in the Little Mermaid.... Naw...

10. Avoiding confrontation often leads to a worse, unavoidable confrontation down the line. (Cue yesterday's rant.) I'm as much to blame as my hubby for this, but camping with the family is now a huge soap opera drama that could have been handled a LOT better by both of us a month or two ago, but we took the seemingly easy (avoidant) route at the time and are paying dearly for it now. It all comes back to boundaries, assertiveness and personal responsibility. I can't control how Mom and Dad will react, but I do have the responsibility of not initiating or participating in these games.

A very productive day!

Well, life goes on so even though I'm exhausted emotionally and physically from motorcycle training, I HAD to get some baby sewing done. My sister-in-law's baby shower is in just over a week and I have to mail it, so I've got tonight and tomorrow night.

After figuring out what my sewing machine was complaining about, I got down to business and used a vine-like decorative stitch to make a simple baby blanket with one side flanel stripes and the other plain white terry cloth.

Then even though it was after 10 pm, I decided to tackle the fun square!

I went through my stash and found every fabric and ribbon that matched in some way. I was looking for a variety of colors and textures.

I'm really happy with how it turned out!

Tomorrow night: Bibs and burp cloths!

Slow Progress

Decisions:

I've been considering starting a separate blog for just crafting, but have come to realize that there's just one me. There's so much overlap of my inner mind, my crafting, my eating habits, my craziness...it's all intertwined. So I'm keeping the blog as-is right now, in sort of a "Wholistic Approach to Personal Growth."

Empowerment:

I had a hard discussion with a good friend last night. A lifelong friend, to be exact. My hubby and I have both known Keith since grade school/junior high. He introduced the two of us at the age of 20, and as long as we've known him, he's not changed a bit. He's still that rambunctious grade school kid having a blast on the playground! Good in some ways, not in others.

We talked for almost an hour and it was tough. There was confrontation, having to be assertive, and anxiety that he'd be his normal aggressive/defensive-by-being-offensive self. It was a little touch and go there for a little while, but in the end, I think it worked out well.

I learned a lot. I learned that I can say what I need to without apology because standing up for yourself then following it up by apologizing for it isn't standing up for yourself at all. I said some hard things and he said some hard things and at first I think he was just slashing back, trying to defend himself by deflecting the attention and being hurtful, but in the end we hit the middle ground and the things that were said were still hard to hear, but less hurtful and closer to the truth. I'm really surprised by that and proud of him for it. It could have really gone bad quickly.

I think part of what saved it was that I prayed first, (and during), and really held my tongue a lot and let him talk for about 8 minutes straight at one point. I remember sitting there, thinking to myself: I have so much to say back, I can think of some real zingers that would be so clever, but I don't want that. I want to preserve this friendship if possible, but with healthy boundaries. I can't let him walk all over me, but I'm not going to walk all over him either.

The thing is, I've been trying to be more assertive and establishing boundaries for over a year and this is the first time it's really been tested where I've held my ground instead of just removing myself from the situation in order to preserve the boundaries. Talk about slow progress! But I think it's revealing that it's with Keith and not someone like a parent. It's going to be a lot more difficult to do this with my parents. Even though we have a "good" relationship, it's almost like it's too good. It's too open, it's too. It's expected that my life is an open book to them, and that's not healthy either.

All in all, this was a good starting place, and a good confidence builder.

Wardrobe Refashioning:

I had my second fabric dyeing experience last night with some success. I turned a blah tan polo into a nice soft teal. I'm wearing it today! It also had a orang-ish stain on the collar that is no longer there, so I'm a very happy woman! (doesn't take much, does it?) Does anyone know where this comes from? I also have a few other shirts with similar stains and they all seem to be around or near the neckline. At first I thought it might be iron in the water, but why would it only be around the collars? Now I think it might be makeup but I really only use powder anymore.

Light bulb moment...I use a benzoyl peroxide cream from time to time for acne...I bet that's it!

Okay, never mind...(Thank you for touring the inner recesses of MJ's mind. The tour is now over, if you'll kindly exit to the left. Leave nothing behind, we will not be responsible for lost or stolen articles. )

*Ahem*

I also finally got around to refashioning my hubby's old work coat into a bike jacket. Phases one and two were to 1: cut out the heavy winter lining and ragged edges of where the pockets used to be; and 2: dye it some other color in the off chance the difference in the faded and non-faded colors wouldn't be so noticeable.

I roughly cut out the lining. I just wanted there to be less material for the dye bath and I wanted to do it quickly because I didn't want to be up all night, so I plan on touching it up later. Then I took the time to pretty up the remaining material where the pockets used to be. This is an old coat we've used as a "donator jacket," using the heavy canvas material for patches on his work pants and other heavily worn items. Both front pockets have been repurposed, but that left big dark areas that used to be the insides of the pockets.

Needless to say (you probably saw this coming), the dye bath did little to disguise the dark areas.

(But look, we get that "distressed" look people pay big bucks for!)

Phase 3 was to attach heavy duty snaps since the zipper no longer works (thus the reason for retiring it and getting another jacket.) I've since found out we can actually mail the coat to Carhardt for zipper repair...the zippers have a lifetime warranty! Alas, I never did so and here we are...I'll do the snaps tonight.

My hubby asked me last night what I was going to do for a bike jacket. Hmmm. What he doesn't know (and I haven't said yet here either) is that I'm going to use this old coat for my bike jacket and surprise him with another one! I'll have to make a few alterations though, so it won't be a complete surprise...See I'm 5'1" and he's 6' tall! Slight alterations necessary...plus I'm thinking of taking some faded jean material to make pockets with. Maybe even an applique. Or not. I'm going to be a biker girl after all, not a place for cutsie.

Remember that busted zipper? Well, it's no surprise that Carhardt has a lifetime warranty on them because they must know it's an issue...we have another old coat with the same problem. All I have to do with that one is take out the winter lining and attach the heavy duty snaps and my hubby gets a new bike jacket! I haven't harvested any scraps of material from the pockets on that one yet, so there's no reason to play with dye. (And that way we won't be so matchy-matchy.)

We already have matching helmets (which we hadn't planned on,) and he's not the type to do that kind of stuff, so I don't want to go too far with it! (The helmets we found together on craigslist for a fantastic deal and were barely used, so we couldn't pass them up!)

Crafting/Organization:

Sunday I laid out all the embroidery floss skeins that would fit on the table...over 200.

I did some figuring, took into account the limited space I have, did some more figuring, and decided to store the skeins in the stitchbow/binder system. Then I ran out and bought out the nearest Michael's supply of binders and bows.

I managed to get a few of the skeins into the first binder before retiring Sunday night...and I went back to work on it last night.

(Monday's starting shot: the laptop and bag systems are sitting gingerly on top of more skeins!)

I made more progress last night, but I have more floss still in the floss-a-way baggie system since I couldn't fit those onto the table so I have to always check to make sure I'm not skipping some of those (which happens with frequency!) Oi. It's like filing two stacks of papers into one stack. It gets complicated. Especially if you're dyeing fabric at the same time... ; )

(I love just looking at my floss! It's like studying the menu at the ice cream shop!)

But I did manage to get the first of the four rows completed, so I'm a happy woman! I'm just really frustrated that it could take me eight solid nights to get them off my table so I can do some sewing! *sigh*

(Monday night's ending shot)

Grouch alert

Cooking...
I was grouchy yesterday and by the time I got home (late) I wasn't getting any less grouchy, so we had what I'd dubbed growing up as the "Christmas Eve Special" because it was what we ate while we decorated the Christmas tree and Christmas Eve Special just sounds better than Christmas Tree Decorating Special. This consists of a very grueling preparation of... kielbasa, sliced cheese and crackers. My hubby likes to add horseradish to it. I like kielbasa with horseradish, but it wasn't working with the cheese for me.




I even broke out the paper plates for this one and pulled out the step stool so I could reach the wine glasses. Due to health complications I can't have alcohol, but caffeine free Pepsi is somehow just that much more enjoyable in a wineglass after a grouchy day! Needless to say, I didn't get around to making my special relishes and olives, but then again, I have time tonight...
Free stuff...

Here are some things that should have cheered me up:






Two Totally Free Finds! Thanks to freecycle.com, I won a very large bag of used nursing scrubs and another bag containing two Batik sheets. Two totally separate offers on the same day. Go me!

Sewing...
Then I learned how to darn socks! I googled it and went to a totally random site and I'm not going to give credit because quite frankly, the directions weren't very good. I'm sure there are others out there if you google them and you'll get better directions!





But it was good enough to get me started and I figured everything else they left out on my own! A good tip I got from the site: In leiu (anyone know how to spell?!) of going out and purchasing a darning egg and needle, a light bulb and the longest sewing needle you have will do the trick too.
Normally I'd use a color matching the sock, but for my first time I wanted to make it easy on myself so I used two contrasting and bold colors. There's actually a few things I see wrong with this darning job, but for my first time, I'm psyched! One tip I learned on my own:






If your sock is long enough, make a loose knot over the end of the light bulb. This keeps everything steady; just be sure not to make the knot so tight that it stretches the sock too much. It should be secure enough that the bulb isn't moving around inside the sock but with ease enough that it isn't pulling at the hole. If your sock isn't long enough, I imagine a rubber band or just tying it off with strong floss or ribbon will do the trick as well.
I felt guilty about laundering my new fabric finds while there was a monster-sized pile of regular laundry to do, so I worked my way through that pile last night and found three more holy socks, so I'll get lots of practice in the next couple of days!

Play time...

Then I played with my camera taking ubber close shots of my shells. So cool!

I can't recall where I found these tiny shells, but I absolutely adore how small and thin they are!




And my very first Lazy Daisy. Room for improvement but not a total failure.

There's something about the texture of finished cross stitch and the softness of the floss itself. I just love it!

Then I pulled out of storage the one piece of my finished cross stitches that I have in my possession. This was supposedly a gift to my hubby after our first year of dating. Yeah, giving a guy a cross stitched pillow case and pillow...not exactly a thrill for him. I quickly got it back! Well it gave me great pleasure to photograph it and recall all of the fun things we did that first year. I think I'll post about that back story separately.



TMI?...

I've been pretty teary these last couple of days and that tells me the depression is here and strong. In thinking about how I'm doing socially, how often I choose NOT to withdraw, and when I do...I also do what I can not to get "sucked under" so to speak; I think I'm doing okay considering. In the past I'd be making excuses not to get together with the ladies this weekend no matter how long it had been since I'd seen them. I'd say I was sick and couldn't help out at church on Sunday. I'd tell the outreach director some story about stress at home and work and say I couldn't take on the furniture ministry right now.
But I'm not doing any of those things. I can't say I'm exceeding expectations in any given area, but I'm not ducking out of LIFE. I'm still staying with it, still fighting. And God, how hard is it?! But I'm not giving up. Not this time. It's not going to steal my life away again!