Gobble Gobble

It’s almost Turkey day. Which means we get to stuff the car full of stuff, drive around and not get a lot of sleep. Packing the car wouldn’t be so bad, but we can’t put anything in the back (station wagon) with Link, because he occasionally throws up all over the place. Speaking of Link, he’s in for quite a day. I have to give him a mega-brushing and bath. He tolerates the brushing pretty well, but since I’ve been putting it off, it’s going to take a long time and I know he gets tired of it. As for a bath, he hates them. I never understand why dogs will willingly jump in the river, ocean etc. and are deathly afraid of a bath. I’m guessing it must be the smell. Anything that smells good to us (with the exception of food) must smell disgusting to them.

I’ve had two separate reports that “Walk the Line” is really good. Now I want to see it. We’re planning to go see a movie tomorrow and leave the kids with my parents. The plan was to see “Jarhead,” but now I’m a little conflicted. Will probably still see Jarhead, unless it comes down to which one is playing a more convenient time. (I was just summoned away from the computer by Roan. “Mommy, my play-doh fell down.” Sheesh. So I had to tell her that she could get out of her chair and pick it up. Yesterday she freaked out when she got oatmeal on her arm and I had to explain she could wipe it off herself).

I wish I could remember what I wanted to post about. It has totally escaped me. Must be because my coffee buzz wore off. Speaking of coffee. I got one of those reusable metal filter things and it sucks. Is it just the one I bought or do they all suck? It let’s tons of grounds through. I actually don’t mind it that bad, but it would be nice if didn’t do that.

Over the weekend I made a couple of drawstring backpacks. They’re not fancy, no lining or pockets or anything. But they’re really easy to make and a good project if you’re not the best seamstress ( /raises hand) because you get a lot of practice sewing straight (in theory anyway) lines.

It uses two fat quarters (why does that sound like a New Orleans inspired sandwich?) and you cut about 4 inches off the long side of each to make the straps (or if you wanted to save time you could just use some smallish rope to make the drawstrings).

Shoot, I was going to post the link, but for some reason it’s not working right. If you want to find it, try searching for “fat quarter drawstring backpack” it’s a pdf but you can view it as html, you just don’t get the nice pictures.

I made one for Roan and she was stoked because she could put her dance shoes in it. Then I made another one for fun. I have a couple of fat quarters left to make another one, but I don’t have matching thread. I tried out some different stitches that I hadn’t really used on my machine. There’s a reinforced stitch (2 stitches forward, 1 back) that I used for all the seams in the bag. I also used an overcast stitch, which required switching to the overcast foot. That was a quick and easy seam finish. Since the bag has no lining, I didn’t want the fabric in the seam allowances unraveling and getting threads everywhere. I don’t have a serger, so that overcast stitch came in handy.

Tomorrow before we go out of town I have to go to the dentist. He’s going to fix my ugly yellow fillings in my front teeth. I’m doing this willingly, but I’m not looking forward to it. There’s not really anything wrong with the fillings that are there, but they’ve turned yellow over the years. When the dentist told me my insurance would cover it he said, “Yeah, we just say it’s decay, wink wink.” I wonder if he needs a little more Christmas money. Actually, he did ask me about it six months ago, but I thought it would be expensive and insurance wouldn’t cover it because it’s cosmetic and he didn’t tell me otherwise. Anyway, those Novocain shots in the front hurt like hell. Can’t wait .

I got so engrossed in blogging, that I completely incinerated Roan’s fix sticks. It’s not like she cares, she’s equally engrossed in play-doh at the moment.

Here’s a couple of gratuitous kid pictures for the hell of it.