In Which I Play With Fire

This morning I dropped Connor off at school and then spent well over an hour listening to Katzenjammer while I singed all the edges of the fabric leaves on the bustled overskirt I'm making.    So readers take note: if you inhale synthetic fabric fumes for an hour while listening to weird Norwegian bands and then take a nap immediately afterwards, you will have really, really strange dreams.  Next time I think I'm burning polyester I'll do it outside, or at the very least do it while listening to music that doesn't involve a contrabass balalaika with a Cheshire Cat face painted on it.

Anyway, I actually went out and shopped for shoes today, as I discovered that my nicest pair of good dress shoes now has holes worn completely through the soles.  I'm not a huge fan of shoe shopping (or for that matter, shopping for myself in general) and I generally wear a pair until they literally fall apart, so it was way past time.  This is one of those errands that it is best not to take Connor on as he finds shoe shopping incredibly boring and usually degenerates into shrieking by the time I've tried on the second pair.  So it's nice to have him in school!

Luckily a lot of the stores were having one-day sales for whatever reason, so I picked up a nice pair at a price that won't sink my budget.  They're a nice little pair of sturdy ankle platform boots, and I should be able to wear them not only with my church dresses but also with my outfit in October, so they serve a dual purpose.  So I'm glad that's over with.  Hopefully I won't have to go shopping for another pair of shoes for a while.

Connor had a good day at school and seems to be settling in well.  Today was his first full day, and I think he came home pretty tired.  He actually went down and took a bit of a nap once he got home.  We're going to keep it kind of low-key this weekend, and then he'll be ready for another jam-packed week on Monday!

~Jess

In Which We Throw A Party And Connor Is Not Amused

Connor and I slept in a bit this morning, and then we hopped in the car and drove off to the farmer's market for some fresh fruit, bread and cheese.  I was hosting a group of crafting friends today, and so I wanted something tasty for us to snack on while we worked on our various projects.  You can't go wrong with fruit, bread and cheese. 

After that I cleaned up the sadly neglected house a bit, and when my co-host arrived I put Connor down for his quiet time and she and I got to crafting while we waited for the rest of the ladies.  Everyone either brings their own project, makes something with what other people brought, or just hangs out and socializes depending on their mood.  I felt like doing something a little bit different than the sequin-filled stocking and the costuming I've been working on recently, so I got started on one of the stockings based on botanical prints that I'd drawn up a few weeks ago. 

I decided to start with the poppy stocking; it's the most complicated and was inspired by some poppies drawn by Alphonse Mucha.  I've got some hand dyed, mottled felt in various colors I've been dying to use, and this seemed like the perfect time.  It's fun trying to figure out how to use the variegation on the sheet of felt to suggest shading-- I've got to cut the piece out at just the right angle to give an illusion of depth (though some of the pieces are lightly stuffed for added effect).

Because this stocking has no sequins and will only be beaded around the center of the poppies, it's going really, really fast.  I might actually be able to finish the front piece of this one up tomorrow, depending on how the day goes.  I've got the first flower laid out but not sewn down yet, so we'll see how quickly the detail work goes.

So crafty day was a big success; there's nothing I like more than sitting around a table with a bunch of friends and working on fun projects!  Connor was not nearly as thrilled with the whole thing, though, once I got him up from quiet time.  This was because there was a baby on the premises; one of my friends brought her adorable five week old girl.  If there's one thing that Connor likes less than a baby, it's a baby invading his own personal house.  Horrors!  I didn't even hold her and he still declared that he was sad and that she needed to leave.  He refused to sit up at the table with me, and instead hung out on the floor, where he didn't have to look at the baby and could therefore pretend she didn't exist.  The second she left he suddenly was perfectly fine with sitting at the table and being part of the gathering.

Silly little guy.

~Jess

In Which My Sister Takes Off And I Do Creative-Type Things

My sister had to leave today, which was sad.  I miss her already!  We always have such a great time when we're together, so I was sorry to see her go. 

We got word today that the nursing agency might have found another respite care worker for us, which is pretty exciting! She'll be doing her orientation next week. Hopefully things will go better for us this time around; it would be so, so nice to be able to hit a bookstore or coffee shop every once in a while. 

Other than a lovely walk around the park and a drive around town to delay having to take Mary to the airport, we otherwise spent a quiet day at home.  Connor seemed to be feeling a wee bit under the weather, so he snuggled up on the couch with a blanket while I got out my art supplies and sketched up a series of stockings inspired by botanical prints just for fun. 

The butterfly stocking I'm working on is moving right along, and I figure it will be nice to have something fun to work on when I'm not doing other projects.  This is what happens when I spend too much time leafing through our Alphonse Mucha coffee table book; I go all crazy and start needing to create elaborate projects for myself.  I haven't gone so far as to start wanting to craft elaborately draped art nouveau gypsy women out of felt yet, but that's probably because I've been getting enough sleep lately and aren't working in my customary half-delirious state. 

I'd gotten out another sewing project to finish up today; I wanted to sew the monster felt applique I made a while back onto Connor's flannel poncho.  Cricket had other ideas, though-- apparently she finds this poncho just as warm and snuggly as Connor does.  Also she and the monster needed to hold hands for some reason. 

Crazy cat.

~Jess

In Which Connor Wasn't Sick And I Sew Some More

Connor started out feeling pretty punky this morning, but he slowly improved as the day went on.  I mentioned yesterday that he wasn't feeling well, but I didn't tell you all why.  Without going into too much detail he wasn't sick; we had a substitute night nurse this week. The week didn't go well from a nursing-care standpoint for a variety of reasons, and the problem culminated yesterday when the nurse accidentally left Connor's g-tube intake valve open, assumed his seizure medication had immediately run back out it and decided to just give him another full dose of Keppra. 

By the time I found out about it, enough time had gone by that he'd already absorbed the medication and emptying out his stomach wouldn't do any good.  So Connor spent all day yesterday acting like he was sedated, and I spent the day hovering to make sure he was still breathing and/or not slipping into a coma, which can happen when you overdose on Keppra.  Fun times.

Needless to say, I called the nursing service and we will not be seeing that particular nurse at our home again.  I will be very, very happy when our wonderful regular nurse is back next week. 

So it's taken quite a bit of time for the drug to work its way out of his system and he was still a bit loopy this morning.  However by the end of the day he perked up and seemed to be feeling much better.  We even got out to a few local stores, though we kept it pretty close to home. 

I spent the time he was sleeping it off working on the butterfly Christmas stocking, which is coming along nicely.  I have the first butterfly done and I'll be starting on the second (of seven) tomorrow.  I had no idea how much I missed sewing until I started getting into this project in earnest; it's very relaxing and I'm able to let my mind wander while I'm working.  I also forgot just how much I love seeing a project I can picture in my head come to life in fabric.

Of course, I wasn't really excited about the reason I had all this sewing time, but oh well.  The project will probably slow down a bit after today until Connor's in school again, but that's okay because I'd much rather Connor be active and awake than conked out!

~Jess 

In Which Connor Snoozes And I Pick Up A Needle

Connor didn't feel terribly well today, so we spent most of the day at home.  He snoozed on the couch while I did exciting things like organizing my collection of sequins, sorting seed beads and emptying out my card catalog so I could move it to the garage.  I've labeled the drawers by color and I'm storing my rolls of felt in it.  If Connor's up to it, I'm going to stop by the hardware store tomorrow so I can pick up some cedar moth balls.  I have quite a bit of 100% wool felt, and the last thing I need is to get my studio beautifully organized only to have moths eat all my supplies. 

I've gotten far enough into the studio project that I can start doing a bit of sewing again, so I figured it was past time I got back to work on my current Christmas stocking project.  It's a butterfly themed stocking, and I basically got as far as cutting out pieces when we moved all my stuff out of Ellen's room and it went into storage.  I spent some time experimenting with different ways to decorate the wings, in the end I decided to just go with the old standby and cover the whole mess with sequins.  My current motto seems to be "When in doubt, use more sparkly things."  Sequins solve all problems. 

Of course, I didn't end up working on the stocking in my exciting studio-to-be.  I worked on it on the couch while Connor napped and Loki tried to see just how close he could get to my sequin jars with a paw before I ran him off.  Oh well.

The design is pretty simple for this one, so unless I get carried away and add a bunch of crazy things it should be done in a couple of weeks.  Since I started on it, oh, last December, and it's actually for somebody instead of a random project, it might be nice if I actually got it done before Christmas. 

Me?  Procrastinate?  Never!

~Jess

In Which I Get Crafty

I've been sitting on my craft room project for a while, but I really want to get it finished up before Connor is in school so I can finally get back to sewing, dang it!  I have a ton of projects I need to finish up and I have to have a place to work on them that the cats can't get into.  It's really hard to finish a project when every time you leave it for more than three minutes at a time you have to dig it out from under the refrigerator when you get back.

So I've got the main painting done, and I'm starting to move the furniture in and figure out where I want everything to go.  I was originally going to go with the same gray that our bedroom and the outside of the house are painted, but I decided that I wanted something a tad funkier.  The color I picked out is by Sherwin Williams and is called "Stunning Shade," which has to be the most unoriginal name for a color ever.  It's basically a deep gray with purple undertones.  On my wall it looks either gray or deep purple, depending on the time of day.  I know most people prefer their studios to be white, but I like color! 

I laid down a carpet remnant left over from the house remodel as a rug, and started putting the major pieces of furniture in place.  I've still got one wall to cover (I'm not sure in what yet, but probably fabric) and I need to hang all the shelves, but it's at least a beginning.

So things are moving along.  My next big project in there will be putting up the ceiling track.  I need a Cozy Little Nook kind of studio area, not an Inescapably In The Garage area, and if I don't rig up a partition between my space and the rest of the garage I'll be stuck with the latter.  I've got some huge canvas drop cloths that, by the time I'm finished with them, will hopefully be fabric walls provided I don't screw them up.  We'll see how things go.

I think that getting the studio itself ready won't be the part that takes the longest-- it will be organizing all my craft stuff.  Today I tackled my bead collection; I'm fond of making jewelry and spent three years living within twenty miles of the largest bead store in North America, so I have a rather extensive stash.  This, of course, is the bead collection that Loki helped me organize a few months ago by dumping the entire tray on the floor.  So I spent about three hours over the course of the day separating out all the beads and organizing them in their new home; the antique printer's tray I found in an antique store a while back.  It's now safely out in the cat-free garage, so if this one tumps over I'll have no one to blame but myself.

I can't wait to get back to making things!

~Jess

In Which Tut Tut It Looks Like Rain

Today while the guys played their various video games and Connor pounded on his keyboard in his stretching chair I took the opportunity to do a little sewing.  The bed we found Ellen is a wrought iron daybed with a trundle, and it needs lots of pillows so it can work as a seating area for her during the day. 

I visited the remnants section of a couple of fabric stores in the area and picked up five fabrics in various shades of blue, white and soft green (they aren't purple-- that's due to my camera and poor indoor lighting), and I'm making her some cloud pillows because, what the heck, clouds are neat. 

If she doesn't like them or wants something else (which is perfectly fine-- it's her room!) I can always use them in Connor's room, but at least with these she'll have some place to lounge comfortably right away.  I grabbed some fun buttons to use on a couple of them and I might pick up another fabric or two at some point because they're so simple to make.  I've got three of the shells for the pillows done so far-- they just need to be stuffed.  This is a super quick and easy sort of project. 

Loki helped, of course.  I've had to set aside pretty much all of my more complicated projects due to his overly helpful nature because when I go to the bathroom he takes the opportunity to run off with important bits of whatever I'm working on. 

I really need to get cracking on my cat-free garage studio! 

~Jess

In Which We Have A Great Day

So I went to the sewing expo today, and it simultaneously awe inspiring and really depressing all at the same time.  It was awe inspiring because of the sheer amount of talent concentrated in the space; I've never seen so many gorgeous quilts, christening gowns, art dolls, and hats in my entire life.  It was depressing for the same reason-- I was completely overwhelmed by the glorious creativity of these people and the stuff I've made doesn't compare well. 

Oh well-- I'll keep plugging along!

My favorite booth by far was one called "Treasures of the Gypsy," which is based out of New Mexico, and if you live in New Mexico I seriously envy you right now because they don't do online sales so I have to wait a whole entire year to go shopping there again.  The entire top of the booth was covered with beautiful art dolls of every shape and size, and the booth was full of silk, antique saris, trim and ribbon of every variety imaginable, and about fifteen different colors of sequins.  I didn't take any close up pictures of the art dolls because they're someone else's work, but believe me when I say that they were stunning.

I may possibly have bought a ridiculous number of sequins, but hey, they are really, really hard to find.  The last time I went to the craft store and asked for sequins the employee had no idea what I was talking about.  Really.  Apparently the only people who use sequins now are me, figure skaters and drag queens.  So I was pretty excited to not only find some sequins, but to find them in some unusual colors. 

Other purchases included some mirrors and rings for shisha embroidery, and a large piece of glorious hand-dyed felt in blues, purples and greens.  I'm intrigued by the idea of incorporating shisha mirrors into my felt projects.  I have all sorts of ideas, but of course my crafting supplies are scattered all over the place right now while we work on the studio and also I have several projects I need to finish up before I start anything new.  I might sketch a few things out for later, though.

So after I finished playing at the sewing expo I ate some lunch, came back home and we all went out for a nice walk around the neighborhood.  The sun came out today and the weather was just beautiful, so it was the perfect day for a walk.  Once we got back home I picked up a spade and did a bit of gardening.  I got a few plants in the ground and was happy to see that the garden only suffered a few casualties over the winter.

So overall it was a lovely day!

~Jess

~Jess

In Which Connor Feels Better And I Play Catch Up



Cricket helped keep Connor's toes warm, because she's thoughtful like that.

 I'm thankful to say that not only was Connor's fever was gone when he woke up this morning, but he had no seizures today!  Apparently yesterday was a complete fluke.  I guess he had a little bit of a bug or something.

After his follow-up appointment this morning, where he was given a clean bill of health and told to come back in two weeks for a final check-up, Connor spent most of the day in recovery mode.  He spent about eight hours napping on the couch while I tried to get caught up on various e-mails and projects I've been neglecting since he started this whole crazy tailspin back in November. 

In between e-mails I also finished up a couple of small sewing projects and started a new one, which is a bit of an experiment.

Connor overheats really easily, so I don't like to put conventional jackets on him because I have to undo his shoulder straps to get them off.  His grandparents gave him a poncho a few years ago that works really well except for three things. 

The first is that it's made to be worn by somebody who is standing, not sitting in a wheelchair with shoulder straps on, so it bunches up in the back.  The second is that it has his name on it in big letters across the front.  It's cute and it's great for school, but I get paranoid about the kid having his name on full display in public areas.  The third is that because he's grown quite a bit, the poncho now comes to about his shins when he's sitting, and he gets cold toes! 



Rawr.



So I got some fleece and figured I'd try to make a couple more ponchos for the little guy.  I started on one today in a lovely teal color.  I've made it to Connor's measurements, and much longer in the front than in the back, so hopefully it will work well for him while he's sitting in his chair.  I got as far as cutting it out and hemming the neck hole, but I had to stop there because the little guy was asleep and I didn't want to do the bottom hem without trying it on him first. 

I'm thinking I'm going to make it two sided and line the other side with gray fleece to make it warmer (and so I can flip it over when he drools all over it).  I whipped up a quick design for a little orange monster for the teal side that should be super quick and easy to make out of felt.  I'm not sure what I'll stick on the gray side yet-- maybe a dinosaur. 

Or a robot.  It's hard to go wrong with robots.

~Jess

In Which Connor Is A Sickikin Again

Well, Connor lasted all of a week and a half before getting sick again; he started running a fever this morning and by the time he went to bed he'd had four seizures and was throwing up at the drop of a hat.  I guess all of his friends brought their holiday bugs to school and shared them with the rest of the class.

So that was fun and exciting.  I spent some time at the pharmacy this morning and escaped for a little bit of shopping in the evening after Jer got home from the gym, but otherwise I was pretty much a comfortable pillow for the little guy. 

So I passed the time by making another felt pincushion.  Because what the heck, you can't have too many pincushions.  I used a crème brûlée cup I found at the thrift store for fifty cents as the base, and while there are some things I'd do differently next time I think that overall it turned out pretty cute.  It feels really weird for me to do a project that I can actually complete in one day-- I'm used to them dragging on for weeks.  Anyway, I have some other little cups and whatnot, so I might experiment with more pincushions sometime if I want to do a short project. 

I'm probably going to be doing quite a bit of sitting around over the next few days, so I might as well be productive while I'm at it.

~Jess

In Which I Have A Crafty Sort Of Day

Today while Connor was at school, I drove downtown to browse the antique stores. 

I've started to think about exactly what I want my craft/art studio to look like, and so I'm shopping for some of the things I'll need to make it look like it does in my head.  I already have a lot of the things I'll need, like my card catalog (I'm lining the drawers with aromatic cedar and using it to store my felt), some apothecary jars for odds and ends, a large work table, and so on and so forth.  I'm still missing quite a few things I'd like to have in my space, though.  Because this will be a relatively small space we're carving out and I'll be using it for my creative pursuits, I feel like I should really go all out to make it pretty.  That means the plywood shelves held up with huge grey brackets that currently are above and below the window in the space aren't going to cut it.

So my mission today was to find some wrought iron shelf brackets to anchor my shelving in the craft room.  I didn't find any, but tucked up behind some other things in an out-of-the-way corner of one of the stores I found this glorious copper boiler, marked down to such a good price I knew it had to be mine.  I'll need a gift wrapping and shipping station in my space if I'm going to try and make things to sell, and I figure this will be the perfect container to store my wrapping paper in. 

I want to paint the one actual wall of the space (I have grand plans for room dividers made of unbleached canvas paint drop cloths, but we'll be here all night if I get started on those) the same dark gray as our bedroom, and use moss green and copper accents.



Speaking of which-- after Connor went down for bed tonight I decided I could get another quite project out of the way.  The walls in the garage are currently painted dingy, ten-year old beige and have matching dingy, ten-year old outlet and light switch covers.  I'm a total cheapskate, so I figured that rather than buy new outlet covers I'd just make over the ones already in the room.  I had a bunch of copper paint and patina maker left over from my steampunk roller derby costume, so I figured I'd just try a little sanding and painting.  These aren't the best pictures and the patina will continue to develop over time, but already they look a ton better than they did before. 

After.  Not designer, but vastly improved.



Before.  Ew.





So anyway, while the first coat of copper paint was drying I figured I'd tackle another quick and easy craft project I've been meaning to do.  The cats keep stealing my Makeshift-Scrap-Strip-Of-Felt-With-Needles-Jabbed-In-It pincushion and running around the house with it like it's a toy, which is not exactly good for the health of all parties involved.  Something a little more substantial was needed.  I dropped a clay cup a few months ago and chipped the rim of it, but thought it was too pretty to throw away.  So I put a cardboard base inside it, sewed up a quick ball of felt and presto!  One little mossy green pincushion.  Jeremy says that with the pins in it "looks like a plant of death," which I'm taking as a compliment.

Ta da!  Total work time: five minutes.  Now that's my kind of project!

So it felt like a very productive day, even if I didn't really do all that much besides paint stuff and make a felt ball.  Oh, and laundry of course.  Every day is laundry day in this house the way Connor goes through shirts.

I can't wait to get my craft room up and running!

~Jess

In Which I Go To Bed Right This Very Second

This is going to be pretty much the shortest blog in the world.  I just got back late from a derby scrimmage, (scrimmaging with no lung capacity is a great endurance workout, by the way) sleep is calling me and, believe it or not, Connor is actually down tonight so I can go to bed when I want to and everything!  So here, instead of me writing a blog and being all responsible or whatever, you can look at a picture of that Chinese dragon stocking I did.  The photo was taken by the talented Jeff Bischoff, so I'm not even going to be responsible for that.  Oh well.

And that's about all the effort I'm going to put into this thing tonight.  My bed is calling me.

Yay for Chinese dragons!  And sleep!  Not necessarily in that order!

~Jess

In Which Connor And I Switch Places And I Try A Sewing Experiment

I feel kind of like death warmed over right now, and Jeremy is about the same.  Connor is back to his usual cheerful (if slightly more snotty) self.  This is making for Fun Times in our household right now.  Things are kind of backwards; usually it's us pushing Connor to do a bunch of stuff that he doesn't want to do.  Right now he's screamy, happy and ready for play time, and the only thing I want to do is see whether or not it's possible to pile all of the blankets in the house on top of my body without suffocating.

That might be a slight exaggeration-- I'm not quite that sick yet.  I snuck off to the coffee shop (where I was extra careful not to cough on anyone) and everything.  But I'm moving kind of slowly, that's for sure.

So I set Connor up with some switch toys he could play with himself and did more sewing today, as it was something I could accomplish while moving as little as possible.  I finished up the dragon stocking and began work on the next one in my queue.  This one will be a butterfly stocking.  I've only just started it and it should have quite a bit of detail work (along with the dreaded metallic embroidery thread), so we'll see how quickly it goes. 

I'm going to try using two layers of felt for the wings, decorating each visible side and then attaching them to the stocking only at the body of the butterfly, hopefully making them three dimensional.  It's an experiment-- if it doesn't work out it won't take much work to just go back to one layer and not have them stand out from the stocking.  It makes for a lot more sewing, but I think it will look pretty cool if I can pull off what it looks like in my head.  I don't need to have this one done by Christmas, so the deadline isn't quite so urgent.

We'll see what happens!

~Jess

In Which Connor Takes A Sick Day And I Turn Hypochondriac

Connor was understandably still feeling under the weather today, so we spent a quiet day at home.  He watched a movie with his daddy and spent some quality time snuggled up against me snoozing while I sewed.  I'm about two thirds of the way through the front piece for the Chinese dragon stocking now, and the hardest parts (the sequining and beading) are all done so it should go pretty quickly from here.  Luckily those pieces were all pretty skinny, so I didn't get super burned out on sequining and really tempted to just use a glue gun on the thing or something.  So the worst is over and I'm working on his head right now.  I think he's going to turn out well.

I had a tiny bit of a scratchy throat today, but I can't decide if it's just my annual the-heater-is-on-and-dries-out-everything scratchiness or if I'm coming down with the dreaded bug too.  It's kind of like when they send those notes home from school saying that someone in your kid's class has lice, and then you spend the rest of the day scratching your head and freaking out.

Okay, well maybe that's just me. 

But at rate, I'll be super paranoid for a few days until I'm out of the danger zone as far as Connor being contagious goes.  The last thing we need is for Jer and I to get sick too!

~Jess

In Which I Start Making The Meeting Rounds And Do Some Seizure Sewing

Today was a day of meetings.  It's the time of year when Connor's annual appointments for everything start coming due, so I end up doing a lot of coordinating to make sure everything happens when it should.  Today was an EFMP meeting day.  EFMP, or the Exceptional Family Member Program, is a military program that provides a lot of the services Connor needs, such as our respite care and determining where we're allowed to travel as a family.  We spent most of the afternoon after Connor came home from school on post getting things squared away for the upcoming year.

For Connor, it was a day of seizures.  The kid had three today-- just before and after our trip to post-- and was in a generally grumpy mood as a result.  Who can blame him?  Seizures are no fun.  As soon as we got home he crashed on the couch until I finally moved him to his room, so once again I had plenty of sewing time. 

I like sewing time.  But I like Connor not having seizures better.  I'll have to give him a stern lecture on the topic.  No more seizures, big boy!

I finished the front piece of the polar bear stocking today, and then I set it aside and made a little poinsettia throw pillow to sit in the armchair next to the Christmas tree.  That chair really needed a little seasonal pillow to make the festive scene complete, and heck if I was going to buy one when I could just as easily make one with a little bit of time and leftover fabric from another project.  It only took me about half an hour, and I think it came out pretty cute.

Connor did perk up a little this evening after his daddy got home, and I'm hoping he'll have a better day tomorrow .  I'm headed up to Pike Place to hopefully complete my Christmas shopping, which I am determined not to procrastinate on this year.  I've got way, way too many other things going on to leave it 'till the last minute. 

So it was a busy day today, and it will probably be a busy day tomorrow.  I feel like I got a lot accomplished though, so that's a good thing.  There's a lot to do this time of year!

~Jess

In Which Connor Uses Passive Resistance And I Set Off The Sequin Apocalypse

The fever and sewing saga continues. 

I drove Connor down to the clinic for his doctor's appointment this morning to see if we could figure out what was going on.  We have yet another new Primary Care Manager because they switched us over to the Puyallup clinic-- I believe this is the third new PCM in four months.  Whee!  Anyway, the doctor checked out the still-feverish little guy, listened to his chest (clear), looked in his ears (normal) and then presented us with one of those glorious little baggies that you stick, to use a traditional southern term, where the sun don't shine, to collect a sample to check for a UTI.

Connor was a good sport overall about the bag thing and didn't protest it-- he's much more into passive rather than active resistance.  He simply decided that he was never, ever going to pee ever again.  Other than a short trip home for Connor's noon medication, we spent our waiting time wandering around the Target nearby the clinic.  We were there for nearly four hours before he finally gave in and produced a sample. 

Four hours in Target is a long, long time.  There are only so many times I can walk down the Lego aisle before even I begin to lose interest.

I had to check on the, um, proceedings every fifteen minutes or so because there's a time limit on getting the sample back to the clinic.  So four times an hour I'd take Connor down to the restroom.  After our fifth trip I started getting some weird looks from the clerks.  Around our eighth trip the security guard began subtly following us around the store. 

After the twelfth trip she approached us and we ended up having to explain the situation.  There's nothing like discussing your five year old's bodily functions with a guard who suspects you are shoplifting to liven up the day.  Good times.

Anyway, finally Connor cooperated and we got to turn in the sample and go home, where I put the little guy down for a nap and spent some time working on the Chinese dragon stocking, which will be known from now on as the Sequin Apocalypse. 

I'm not entirely sure just how many sequins I'll be using on this stocking, but I don't really want to know because it's probably some really depressing number.   The dragon is starting to take shape now, and I think he's going to look pretty neat when he's finished, even though he'll probably doom us all to sparkly, sparkly Armageddon. 

Anyway, Connor's doctor called while I was working on the stocking.  Apparently preliminary results weren't indicative of a UTI, but they'll do a culture to double check.  In the meantime, we should keep a close eye on him and if he's still running a fever on Friday they want us to bring him back in. 

So I'm glad that it's looking like a UTI is not the problem; hopefully it's just a little virus of some sort and it will clear up soon!

~Jess

In Which Connor Has A Down Day

Little guy had a rough day today; he had five seizures and spent quite a bit of time napping on the couch while I sewed away and watched him sleep.  He crashed around 7:30 and has been out like a light ever since.

Recently it's been hard to plan what we do with our days because we never know how little guy is going to be when he wakes up that morning.  Some days he's feeling great and we can go out and about, and other days he's completely wiped.  It's impossible to predict which it will be when he opens his eyes.  So I've learned to be really flexible in my daily planning, because I never know when he'll have a day like today and I'll be spending twelve hours sitting on the couch with a sad snuggle bunny.

Of course, Jeremy was home so I didn't have to do that today; we could split the snuggles so I could get some other things done.  It's been fantastic having him home-- we don't even have to do anything except enjoy each other's company.  I'll be sad when he goes back to work, though thankfully that won't be for another week.

In the meantime, I'll enjoy it while I can.  Hooray for vacations-- even if they're spent on the couch!

~Jess

In Which Connor Feels Better And I Go On A Crafting Road Trip

Connor woke up at midnight last night and proceeded to yell and play in his bed until 5:30 in the morning.  That wasn't really surprising, considering he went to bed at four in the afternoon the night before.  He tried to fall asleep on me repeatedly over the course of the afternoon, but I kept him awake because I am an evil mom and also because I don't really want to get up at the witching hour again tonight. 

So Connor's making up for it now by refusing to go to bed.  It's already past 11:00 and he's currently lying in bed, warbling to himself contentedly.  Oh well.  Jeremy took him to school and let me sleep in since I stayed up on Seizure Patrol until the wee hours.  Jer's pretty great like that.

Even though his sleep schedule is totally screwed up right now, at least the little guy didn't have a single seizure today!  He hung out with his daddy while I drove up to Seattle to pick up the felt I need for my next few projects. 

Since they closed my beloved Pacific Fabrics store in Puyallup, whenever I need project materials I have to drive 45 minutes one way to their Seattle location.  It's the nearest store I've found in the area that carries felt in the colors and quality I need to make my stockings and other fun things.  The twelve inch squares that the vast majority of fabric and craft stores carry are too thin and small for most of my projects.  The local Hancock fabrics carries a few colors on bolts, but the selection is pretty limited. 

Even if they did have the colors in felt I needed, they carry only a couple of colors of sequins.  If there's one thing I need for my ridiculously complicated projects, it's sequins, which Pacific has in abundance.  So I made the long drive today and stocked up on the supplies I need for the next three projects I'm doing.  That way I shouldn't have to make the trek again for a while.

It's a hassle, but that's what I get for picking a weird hobby I guess.  I haven't run into too many other people who do large felt appliqué projects.  Oh well!

~Jess 

In Which Connor Has A Check Up And I Plan Well In Advance

Connor's day went a little bit better than yesterday; he only had three seizures.  However I think his body decided he needed to be in recovery mode, because he went to bed at four in the afternoon and has been down ever since.  He had a cardiology appointment today, and he actually fell asleep in my arms in the examining room while we were waiting for the doctor to come in!  Then he fell asleep again in the car on the way home.  The little guy almost never sleeps in the car, so that's an indication that he was just plumb worn out.

Other than the impromptu nap, the cardiology appointment went really well.  Apparently Connor's heart condition looks really good; it hasn't changed since the last time they looked at it, and everything is within normal limits.  So we don't need to change his current dose of heart medication, and we won't need a cardiology appointment again for another year!  I'm glad that Connor's heart is doing so well-- that's one less thing we have to worry about.
I finally got around to photoshopping a picture of Ellen's stocking to remove her real name so I could show you a picture of what it looks like now that it's all finished!  I think it turned out pretty well.

While Connor snoozed away today I got to work planning out my next few sewing projects.  I still have a couple that I'm finishing up right now, but I like to work on designs way in advance so that I have plenty of time to figure out how they'll work logistically. 

When I'm creating a pattern I have to figure out now only how to break the design into pieces, but how to layer the pieces to create the proper effect.  It takes a lot of figuring out!  This way while I'm working on the stuff I already know how to do my brain can be busy thinking about the next project.  Since I take a ridiculous amount of time to finish up projects, I usually have quite a bit of time for thinking!



A really, really rough draft. 



So I sketched and finished out the next stocking I'll be doing, which is a polar bear sleeping under a Christmas tree.  Then I roughed in the very first draft of the stocking that I'll be doing after that, which will be a Chinese dragon holding a Christmas wreath.  This was a relatively quick sketch figuring out the layout, so there's still a lot I have to change-- like the fact that I gave the dragon horns when he's in fact supposed to have antlers.  Whoops.  That's what rough drafts are for, right?

Both of these stockings are gifts, though thankfully not for this Christmas.  The polar bear will have a lot of sequins, but it should be fairly straightforward and I don't anticipate a lot of issues.  The Chinese dragon is going to be one of those projects I end up hating-- I can already tell.  It just screams out for lots and lots of beading and sequins and-- Heaven help me-- metallic gold embroidery thread.  But I'm going to do it anyway, dang it!   

I just hope it turns out as lovely as the picture I have in my head.

~Jess

In Which It's Getting Cold And Connor's Seizure Cycle Restarts

Connor had two seizures today; the first just before school started and the second late in the afternoon.  Both involved a whole lot of violent twitching, but he actually breathed pretty easily through them for once, which was nice.  I hate to see the little guy having any seizures, but as far as seizures go these weren't bad, even though they both lasted over three minutes. 

I finished up the front of Ellen's stocking today!  Jer and I decided on the English spelling of her Thai name today, and I went ahead and sewed that on.  Now I just have to line it and sew the two halves together, and then it will be ready to hang up just in time for the Christmas season.  I think it will look really nice up there with the rest of the family stockings. 

The weather is really starting to get cold; we're starting to dip down into freezing temperatures and apparently there's actually a chance of snow this weekend, which is about the same time that our first snow happened last year.  While I doubt we'll get as much as we did last year, I look forward to once again watching Loki bounce around like a maniac all over our front yard.  Somehow I doubt he learned his lesson last year.

Crazy cat!

~Jess