USE YOUR WORDS - May 2014

Today’s post is a writing challenge. This is how it works: participating bloggers picked 4 – 6 words or short phrases for someone else to craft into a post. All words must be used at least once and all the posts will be unique as each writer has received their own set of words. That’s the challenge, here’s a fun twist; no one who’s participating knows who got their words and in what direction the writer will take them. Until now.

Links to the other “Use Your Words” posts:

http://bakinginatornado.com                       Baking In A Tornado

http://batteredhope.blogspot.com                Battered Hope

http://thethreegerbers.blogspot.ch/              Confessions of a part-time working mom

http://www.someoneelsesgenius.com            Someone Else’s Genius

http://fbxadventures.blogspot.com                 FBX Adventures (In Parenting)

http://spatulasonparade.blogspot.com/            Spatulas on Parade

http://stacysewsandschools.blogspot.com/        Stacy Sews and Schools

http://www.outmannedmommy.com                 Outmanned

http://www.eviljoyspeaks.wordpress.com           Evil Joy Speaks

http://www.healingtomato.com                        Healing Tomato

http://themomisodes.com                           The Momisodes
http://www.JuiceboxConfession.com              Juicebox Confession

Your words are: gripping ~ constant ~ always in a pickle ~ which way is up? ~ relief ~ light

They were submitted by: http://batteredhope.blogspot.com

Let me tell you a gripping story about how life was when my oldest son was a little guy.  

He was quite hyper from the time he learned to walk (at 8 months) and was always in a pickle!! I had to stay on constant alert. He was fearless!!!!!

One day I started the washing machine, put in the detergent and went to get the clothes. When I came back with the clothes he was IN THE WASHER!!! Soap suds all over him. He was 1. How he managed to climb up the side of the washer I'll never know! 

Most days I didn't know which way was up!

He once crawled inside the dryer and shut himself in. I was running all over the house yelling his name. I finally heard him calling for help. 

One day when he was 5, he managed to open his bedroom window and jump out!! I saw him run past the living room window and was out the door after him. 

I have endless stories of ER trips and broken bones! Illnesses and injuries!

I can't tell you what a relief it was to get that child into adulthood!! I can still remember when I started to see the light at the end of the tunnel!

I tell him that he is responsible for every grey hair on my head! 

Sew-A-Longs, Contests and Challenges

I came across an awesome list of social sewing links the other day! I thought I would share that link as well as others that I have found. 

Swoodson Says - Sew A Long Calendar

Le Challenge - Different Craft/Sew A Long Each Month

Crazy Little Projects - Different Sew A Long Each Month

Modern Cupcake - List of Up Coming Sewing Challenges

Elsie Marley - Sew A Long Central Newsletter

Friends Stitched Together - CraftingCon

There you go! Hopefully there's enough there to keep you sewing for quite a long time! ;)

Fibromyalgia Awareness Day - 2014

Today is Fibromyalgia Awareness Day. I know that I have talked about it on here from time to time but today I decided to really lay it all out there. I decided that it's time I talked about what it's really like to live with this day after day after day.....

What IS Fibromyalgia????
This is the definition that pops up - 

1. a chronic disorder characterized by widespread musculoskeletal pain, fatigue, and tenderness in localized areas.

But it is SO MUCH MORE than that.


It affects every single part of your body. Muscles, nerves, and joints are just the beginning. 

The way I think, called fibro fog. I can spend forever just trying to remember a simple word. It makes me crazy. I used to have a really amazing vocabulary. Well, that has mostly gone out the window. The other day I was telling my friend Eileen about my new Steelers flip-flops. I couldn't remember the word sequins!!! SEQUINS!! I had to ask Joshua! That happens so often. 

It affects my period. OH. MY. GOSH!!!! My periods were always a little rough but now they are almost unbearable!! And they last over a week!!!!!! I know, I know, TMI.....

The migraines... I have them almost all the time. At the least I will have 2 or 3 a week. 

Right this second as I am typing this, my left knee is in excruciating pain and my back, near my kidneys, is hurting so much!! And that's just what is jumping out. If I stopped and became still for a moment, there would be more....

The way I sleep has changed. I am SO TIRED ALLLLLLLLLL THE TIME!!! All the time. Until I try to go to sleep. Then I can't get comfortable and I am up and down and tossing and turning all night long. And it's a bone deep weariness. It's like I almost can't deal with how tired I am.

My body seems to be so stiff, almost like I am holding it in preparation for an attack. When I realize that's what I am doing, I try to consciously relax it. 

My hands and feet swell and go numb all the time. I get sharp, shooting pains up and down my arms and legs. 

Sometimes my skin feels like it's been rubbed raw or set on fire. 

Depression. Doctors don't seem to know if you have depression BEFORE the fibro or if having the fibro gives it to you. Either way, it's there. Always. 

Fibro gets you physically, mentally, emotionally and socially. You just don't always feel that the effort involved in getting ready to go somewhere is worth it. 

There are 3 medications that are FDA approved for treating fibro. You should hear the testimonies... They are definitely less than stellar. I was on Cymbalta for about 8 months. It helped the pain fractionally but it made the tiredness so much worse. I felt like a zombie the entire time. I was also taking a muscle relaxer to help me sleep. It helped. I definitely slept better but it never actually relaxed my muscles! LOL It just made it to where I didn't wake up a thousand times a night. 

This is what it's like living with fibromyalgia. It's not the same for everyone. There are varying degrees of severity. 

Most people go years before they finally get a diagnosis. I believe I had it for at least 2 years before I decided I needed to get checked out. I was having scary chest pains. I was so scared that it was my heart.

I was lucky. The first doctor I went to knew what it was. After running a million tests and asking me a million questions, he started me on a treatment plan. It's not his fault that it didn't work. Because of horror stories I have been a little worried about trying to find a new doctor and I have been trying to treat the symptoms naturally. That's not working either.  

I say all this not for your pity but for awareness. It is an invisible disease. You can't look at me and know that I have it. We have to speak out. We have to let it be known what it's like. It's not made up. We aren't stupid or lazy. We are sick. And there's not much we can do about it. 

Our Week in Review - Outdoor Stuff

We have been CRAZY busy this week! Well, maybe I should say that *I* have been crazy busy.

On Saturday we took the 3 youngest kids fishing! They had a lot of fun, for a little while. I tried to tell The Hubby to not expect to be out there all day. Colin has a very short attention span. The Cs have been fishing before but never caught a thing! 

That is Colin's first fish!! YAY!!!

I spent most of the time visiting with my Dad since the kids were fishing his pond. 

We spent most of Saturday and Sunday away from home!

On Monday we went back to our favorite park but this time we explored a lot more areas!

Deanna, Colin and Cailey on the swings. Joshua prefers to sit somewhere quiet and read.

Colin the Lobster.

We explored the lake area and feed the ducks and geese some of our snacks.

And Cailey fell in the lake! No worries, though... She thought it was fun and asked to do it again! LOL 

Then we explored the Nature Center.

SNAKES!!! BLECK!!!!!!!!!! Cailey loves ALL creatures. Bugs, spiders, snakes, it doesn't matter to her. 

They don't have as many things as the one in Richmond but the kids still enjoyed it.

I really liked the nature themed boxes. They had a ton of wonderful learning items in each box. Some of the items were real samples! Rocks, seeds, snake skins (BLECK!!!), bugs.... 

I managed to get some sewing done on Sunday, Monday and Tuesday!

On the left is a sling strap cover that I made for a friend of mine that will be in a cast for at least 6 more weeks. :(

On the right is a sundress that I made for a friend's daughter to wear to her school's awards day. Now Deanna and Cailey both want one! DEANNA wants me to make her a DRESS!!!! I think pigs must be flying somewhere... 

On Tuesday and Wednesday (all night Tuesday to Wednesday afternoon) I got to babysit for a friend of mine. The sweet little baby that I made the green owl taggie blanket and letter V taggie as a gift. I had a great time cuddling a sweet little guy. I had been getting the baby itch and that helped out a lot! LOL 7 yrs is the longest we've gone between kids and Colin turned 7 in March! 

SHEW!!!! It was a LONG week!! I took Thursday as a bum around day and caught up on some reading. Friday is errands day. Grocery shopping, paying bills... BLECK!!!!

We were hoping to go to the botanical gardens on Friday, Public Gardens Day, but it rained and rained and rained. WAH!!!!!!

HAVE FUN LEARNING and SEWING!!!

Secret Subject Swap - May 2014

Welcome to a Secret Subject Swap. This week, 15 brave bloggers picked a secret subject for someone else and were assigned a secret subject to interpret in their own style. Today we are all simultaneously divulging our topics and submitting our posts. 

Here are links to all the sites now featuring Secret Subject Swap posts.  Sit back, grab a cup, and check them all out. See you there:

http://www.BakingInATornado.com                           Baking In A Tornado

http://themomisodes.com                                        The Momisodes

http://www.someoneelsesgenius.com                        Someone Else’s Genius

http://fbxadventures.blogspot.com                            FBX Adventures (In Parenting)

http://spatulasonparade.blogspot.com/                      Spatulas on Parade

http://stacysewsandschools.blogspot.com/                 Stacy Sews and Schools

http://thethreegerbers.blogspot.ch/                          Confessions of a part time working mom

http://www.outmannedmommy.com                        Outmanned

http://www.eviljoyspeaks.wordpress.com                  Evil Joy Speaks

http://www.impoverishedvegan.com                         Impoverished Vegan

http://climaxedtheblog.blogspot.com                         Climaxed

http://berghamchronicles.blogspot.com                     The Bergham’s Life Chronicles

http://sparklyjenn.blogspot.com/                             Sparkly Poetic Weirdo

http://dinoheromommy.com/                                  Dinosaur Superhero Mommy

https://www.silenceofthemom.blogspot.com              Silence of the Mom

Your “Secret Subject” is:

The moment I realized my childhood was over was when . . .

It was submitted by: http://sparklyjenn.blogspot.com/

This one was very challenging for me. I could have gone a thousand different ways with it. Goodness knows I had far from the normal childhood! Here it is the day before the challenge and I am just now sitting down to write this up!!! It's been on my mind alllll of the long, busy week. 

I think my real childhood began when I had my own children. I get to do all the things I missed as a kid as well as some things I didn't. I get to be silly with them, play with them, and explore things through their eyes. We try to have so much fun in everything we do. We try to think outside of the box and use our imaginations to the fullest. 

We try to do as much fun stuff as we can! Fairs, zoos, museums, travelling, shopping at Toys R Us (I always wanted to go there when I was a kid), and always the park!! Then you have mud pies, dandelion necklaces, and catching fireflies and frogs!

Nope, I don't think my childhood will be over until all my kids are grown and by then I should have some grandchildren! Maybe my childhood will never realllllly be over. I think most people are really still kids at heart no matter how old there are or what kind of childhood they had. We are all young in spirit!

Found this pic HERE.

Pic found HERE

Our Week in Review - Plants

We got busy with our study of plants this week and had lots of fun!

Here are a few of the things we did. 

I was trying to think of something different to do for art this week. I was looking through craft books and scouring Pinterest. Then I glanced out the window and saw all the dandelions! Hmmm... They might work well as paintbrushes! Let's find out! LOL 

So Cailey, Colin and I went out to pick dandelions. 

I think they made excellent paintbrushes! ;)

We did the food coloring, water and celery experiment. I wish I had waited a few more days before I took the pics. The colors are really standing out now! 

I bought these cute little plant kits at Cracker Barrel a few weeks ago, Shamrock Steve and Butterfly Bush Beth. Only there was a problem.... Butterfly Bush Beth's seeds were missing. Not sure if they weren't in there to begin with or if they just disappeared after Cailey opened it while I was helping Colin.. Anyway, Cailey's now has African daisy seeds in it. 

I can't wait to see how they turn out!!

We also did the bean in a baggie experiment but nothing has happened yet....

We also started little books about our bean seeds. I stapled some paper together and had them draw on the front. Then they drew how their seed looked on day 1. 

A REALLLLLLY great book about seeds that we read this week is A Seed Is Sleepy by Dianna Huts Aston. It was fun and very informational. 

For our continuing pirate study we read You Wouldn't Want to Be a Pirate's Prisoner by John Malam and David Antram. Cailey and Colin LOOOOVE that series! 

Other than that we took it pretty easy this week. We only did math on 2 days! GASP!!!! ;)

Americana Peasant Dress

Here it is! My newest interpretation of the SquigglyTwigs Designs Pretty Peasant pattern!! (For some reason my virus protection won't let me enter her site anymore.)

I am loving the way it turned out! Cailey put it on for the pictures and refused to take it off again! A definite score for me! :)

Now she has something to match Colin's Stars and Stripes Shorts! :)

I really love that pattern. It's just one piece!!! The same piece for the bodice and sleeves! Then you get a walk-through to make it into a tunic, top or dress, long sleeves or short. 


With this one, I cut it at a size 10. For the sleeves, I added about 2" to the pattern. Then for the elastic casing, I added 2" of the contrast fabric. 

For the dress, I added 2 rows of patchwork squares at the bottom to make it longer. I only had 1 yard of the red, white and blue stars to work with. The blue with white stars was even less! LOL 

My 3rd time making this pattern and I am just as pleased with the results as I was the 1st time. 




HAVE FUN SEWING!!!!!