sleepless (in seattle)

i couldn't sleep last night. and the night passed painfully slow.

we had had a lovely no-school day, with an added treat of snow. greg stayed home. we walked around woodland park; francis made snowballs, and snow angels. we came home and i made a pot of chai (decaf!) and popcorn, and snuggled down to watch "stardust" for francis' belated movie night. i caught up on some email. greg and i watched the new terminator: the sarah connor chronicles tv show.

and then i went to bed. and then i couldn't sleep.

midnight. i thought about alot of things. my mind was racing and couldn't stop. was there really caffeine in the tea i had bought? do four teacups (i should have known, greedy little me) of decaf tea equal one cup of caffeine? i started thinking stranger thoughts. i DID have a slice of peanut butter on toast before bed. i try not to eat before bed, but i cannot stand trying to sleep with a rumbling tummy. hmmm...does peanut butter have caffeine? (the thoughts one thinks at 2 in the morning...) maybe it was the sugar? or maybe it was the cloves and cardomom? i started thinking how sarah connor was way better than the bionic woman. she would beat jamie sommers butt and she wasn't even bionic. i started counting all the baby-blue things in my apartment. i couldn't stop. blue suitcase. blue coat. blue teapot. blue scarf. i started wondering why i liked blue so much. i never used to be into blue. and when did blue come to represent sadness? does looking at blue make you feel sad? and then i switched to green. no. i really do like green. all shades of green. olive green couch. old green desk. 50's green table. ivy green plants. why does green mean envy? envy sounds like ivy. green with ivy? because envy like ivy can overrun you if you're not careful? choke out the good thoughts? make you bitter? brittle? sigh. check the clock... 3 am.... sigh...

to sew or not to sew...

the week went by with gray clouds, and almost continual rain, so i am thoroughly enjoying this burst of sun shining thru my window. i'd be tempted to go outside, except it's freezing out, and francis is (no school today) happily humming away in his room, contructing his newest star wars lego acquisition. on sunny days like these, i like to migrate around the apartment, following the sun like a cat: coffee in the kitchen, reading in the living room, and then sometimes just curling up for a mid-afternoon nap, just to feel the warmth beating on my face.



i've just had my coffee (in the sun!)and after this, i'll be on to my project: making flaxseed warming pillows, which i thought i'd share with you. i made these for christmas presents for the women in my family this year, and did not blog about it because i wanted the gifts to be a surprise. but i have alot of supplies left over, and i've decided to make some more. i thought i should also let you know: i am not a sewer. (according to webster, a "sewer" is: a person or thing that sews. a thing?!! alarmingly enough, a "sewer" is also: an underground pipe to carry off water and waste matter. hmmm...i am not either of these, but for the purposes of this blog, i will be referring to definition #1.) i am also not a knitter; i prefer the paper end of crafting: cutting and glueing, collaging, making my own cards,etc. about as handy as i have been regarding fabric in the past, has been to make iron-on t-shirts. and even they frustrated me.



i grew up with a mother who knew how to sew, made her own clothes when she was young, and then made alot of clothes for us when we were kids. she made all my prom dresses. she made my wedding dress. she is a very accomplished sewer.( person who sews!) so it made sense that i should learn, (and i assumed i could), and she DID try to teach me. she really did. she was really patient. however, i was not. i did not like all the steps: pre-washing the fabric, and then all the ironing; i just wanted to cut. and the pinning of all the pieces! i just wanted to sew. and then, when i was sewing, i had a problem with the pedal. (in drivers ed, my instructor called me "lead foot") i could not keep it from going too fast and zipping away with my fabric. grrrr! and then all the seam-ripping my mistakes and starting over. !!! it was really more than my 20-yr-old-self could bear. my mother, on more than one occasion, had to rescue her sewing machine FROM me, and i think my dad observed that if i COULD have lifted it, it might have been in danger of being thrown. i was a very angry sewer. it was not relaxing. i decided it was not for me. and i haven't done it since then. even sadder was the end result: it was not the heirloom piece i had been hoping for. unfortunately, the project that i was so laboring to complete was: first a quilt, that became, in one of my "genius" ideas, a quilt dress. i do not know whatever possessed me to make a quilt dress. and my mother let me! of course i didn't start with an easy project, like a pillow, or an A-line skirt. i HAD to make a quilt dress. piecing all the squares together to make the strips, sewing all the strips together to make a large enough block of fabric to cut the pattern out of. i must have been having a vanity trip, or going thru a very sad fashion phase, because the only thing that kept me going on this ridiculous project was: how awesome it was going to be when it was finally done. no one else would have anything like it! (ain't that the truth!) and i will tell you: i did finish it. i triumphantly put it on only to discover two things. two things that made me want to cry. 1.) it was ugly. (whose bright idea was it to make a quilt that was a dress?) however, in my vanity, i ignored this point, (afterall, i did not want to seem unappreciative of all my mother's time and labor spent with me) and instead, focused on 2.) it weighed about 80 lbs. my shoulders ached after wearing it for awhile. i think i forced myself to wear it a few times, so that all my efforts weren't a complete waste, but, it soon found it's way into my closet, never to again see the light of day. my mother rescued it many years later, and now it is stored in her closet. she tried to wear it once, out of nostalgia i think, but confessed later, in the kindest way possible, so as to not hurt my feelings, that it WAS a bit heavy. and i had to laugh. so we just laughed and laughed and laughed. and there it stays. in the closet. it stays there for a good laugh.

so, that is why, this undertaking of even making a pillow, was a bit daunting to me. my friend karen made us a warming pillow last year for christmas, which we use all the time. this year, i saw them at all sorts of places, selling for like $40! and i thought to myself (in my usual DIY fashion): i could make that. then, my friend melissa blogged about how to make them, and where she had gotten her idea from, and i thought: good. i'll just copy them. but: i couldn't copy them. they were sewers. i was not. i couldn't make fancy little pillow-cases for my flaxseed pillows; i just wanted to sew four straight lines and be done with it. so here it is: and they cost less than $10 a piece to make, so enjoy! now go make your own.

HOW TO MAKE A FLAXSEED WARMING PILLOW: FOR THE NON-SEWER:

1.) get your fabric. (i tried Jo-Ann's before a friend told me about this little gem of a shop in seattle, the quilting loft. very very cool fabric!)

2.) sad to say, you must then wash and iron it. a very boring step.

3.) determine your size, and cut, with fabric scissors. (remember, it needs to fit into a microwave, so you can't make 'em too big. i made mine 7.5 inches by 18.)

4.) place the outsides on the inside, and pin: a 1/4 inch in on all four sides. you don't need alot of pins. just enough to guide your eye when you're sewing. (and don't forget: remove them as you sew.)

5.) and now: to sew! there is hope if you do not have a machine. i do not own one, but have many friends who do. just ask a friend if you can come over for coffee and borrow their machine! (haha) if your friend does not trust your sewing skills, maybe see about trading something: they sew four straight lines, you bring a cake? or even, see if a local shop does what the quilting loft offers, a sewing lounge: machines available to use in the store, for $10.)

i sewed at my friend keri's house, and at my friend jennifer's. i got some tips i didn't previously know:

backstitch to start your sewing, and backstitch to end it.
start in the middle of one of the small ends: this will be your opening (to pull the pillow thru.)
sew all three sides, and finish the fourth with about a 2 inch hole. (my 1 inch holes were too small; i could barely pull my pillow back thru! much frustration!)

6.) cut the corners at an angle, and then pull your pillow inside out. now the outside fabric should be on the outside.

7.) iron it again.



8.) stuff it.



use the back of a cardboard cereal box to make a funnel, and pour in the flaxseed. mine was trial and error, and i ended up using 5 cups of flaxseed, and 1/2 cup plus 2 Tbsp. dried lavender, with a pinch of chamomile. (it does not need chamomile, only i had already bought it, and was trying to use some of it. my first try was way too much, and our apartment was reeking like a field of weeds, and i was sneezing for days, so you don't want to use chamomile if the person you're giving it to gets allergies easily. just using lavender is ok. and you could use more than i did. mine is a faint smell, not overpowering. and i used dried lavender, not the essential oil, because with the oil, you needed to make a pillow cover, which i did not know how to do. the dried lavender works fine. i also found flaxseed very cheap at the old weird fred meyer at 85th and greenwood (seattle) for only $1 a pound! half the price than at whole foods! so it can be found at reasonable prices...)

9.) sew your opening shut. by hand or machine. i tried the first one by hand, and it looked sadly as if a 5 yr. old had done it. so i machine-sewed not only the hole, but the whole end for uniformity. and it looked very nice.

10.) voila! you have a pillow!



to heat: place on a paper towel in the microwave and nuke for 1-3 minutes, depending on your microwave. do not overheat or it can scorch! for moist heat: sprinkle with a little water before microwaving. to chill: place in a ziploc bag and store in the freezer 2 hours or overnight, to use as a cold pak.

uses: fold in half lengthwise and use around your neck to relieve muscle tension and stress. fold in half width-wise and place behind your back for aches. lay it on your lap for warmth. stick it under your covers to warm up your bed at night. or sleep with it at your feet!

i made one for greg this christmas, because he saw me making them and said, "which one is for me?" i said: "oh. none. you want one?" luckily, i had gotten one kind of non-feminine fabric: a vintage-looking western print. so i made one for him. he uses it all the time. i use it all the time. francis tries to, when he can get a turn. there just isn't enough pillow to go around for the three of us. now, francis wants his own. i want my own. so, i'm off again to make some more: one for francis, one for me, and then some...

sunny day chasing the clouds away

so, we woke up this morning to bright shining sun! yippee! and also: snow and ice! yesterday we had full-on east-coast-ish torrential rain, and last night's snow was totally unexpected. school unfortunately was not even delayed,(the scrooges!) even tho the roads were still completely icy. our car was buried under a sheet of ice, and francis had fun hacking at it with the scraper.



he threw some snow at me all excited, and of course, me having just woken up and pulled on clothes to take him to school, and greg to work, didn't take it very well. we may never get snow again for the rest of the year, and what do i do on this precious day? i snap at him some stupid lame-o vague guidelines like: "don't throw snow at someone unless they're ready, or are already in a snowball fight with you." (?) (sigh) so many times, our little parenting moments that we can set by example, or leave nice memories, are not big moments that we can prepare for, but those little moments that sneak up on us and catch us at our worst. my wish is that hopefully the good moments that i have will someday outweigh the bad moments, for i fear they are many. luckily for me at that moment, i had greg, who had my back. he told me afterwards that he rolled his eyes at me, and he and francis had a little secret boyish snicker behind my back. boys. he could say he was sorry, but it didn't stop him from still thinking that it was totally funny to smack your mama with snow. i need to lighten up.

greg has a phrase that we use in this house alot; it's called, simply: "guy/girl". we use it to point out to eachother things that, under the exact same circumstances, we react completely differently. we like to blame it on our gender. off the top of my head, a good example would be from the early days of the phrase: one time when our friends kevin and karen came over, i had just finished putting up an overhead shelf in our entryway the day before. karen came in, walked thru the hallway, paused, and looked around, and said: "something's different. did you rearrange the furniture?" i said no. she said confused: "huh. cause something feels totally different here. like the light is different or something...that's really weird." and i said: "well, i DID put a shelf up there yesterday" and she looks up, and exclaims: "oh my goodness! wow! you did that by yourself? kevin, look! she put a shelf up there!" and kevin said: "i know." and karen said: "how did you know? did they tell you?" and he said: "i noticed it first thing when we walked in." and karen says: "then why didn't you say anything?" and kevin said: "what for?" and then greg marched in, whooped, and said "guy/girl right there, folks! guy/girl!" and he and kevin hi-fived, and we all had a good laugh. and that's really about all it's good for. a good laugh at eachother. i wouldn't recommend using it in a real argument, though. i don't think-- "you know,hon, i didn't take out the trash because: i didn't remember! guy/girl! hahaha!"--would go over very well.

anyways. it's sunny outside, i have the car today, and i had planned to do more errands (i feel like all i've been doing these past few weeks is errands, errands, errands!) but on the way home, i was reminded of the side streets, which were still, at 9:30am, quite icy.



so i decided to come home, have a nice breakfast, make my coffee, and catch up on my blog, and do my shopping later this afternoon, when the sun has sufficiently melted the roadways some.



i haven't felt like writing lately. i've been doing alot of reading. alot of hibernating. it is still winter, afterall. i've just finished reading the first three books in a series that francis discovered, called percy jackson and the olympians, by rick riordan. mainly, i read the first one to see what he was reading. then i really liked it, and wanted to read the rest. we've had good discussions, and googled alot about greek mythology. the books cleverly throw the greek myths back into modern times by way of: since gods are immortal, they are not dead. just no one believes in them anymore. and the monsters are still alive and breathing, and trying to hunt down all the half-bloods: the children of gods and mortals. these half-bloods are recruited to a camp, where they are trained to be warriors, by none other than Chiron himself (immortal centaur who trained hercules and achilles). percy has to go on a quest, to retrieve zeus' stolen lightning bolt and stop the gods from going to war with eachother, and he also must venture into the underworld to save his mother. of course he encounters all sorts of (familiar) monsters of legend, but he has two friends at his side, and trusty weapons: gifts of the gods. and there is also the forboding prophecy. all kinds of heavy stuff, but it's told from percy, in his voice, and he's in the sixth grade. and boys have a way of dealing with things with a shrug of their shoulders, and a determination of will. guy/girl. i enjoy the books, for me, but i also find them useful, as a mother, in helping me understand francis better, a boy's point of view.
for example: book 2, the sea of monsters, chapter 14--we meet the sheep of doom:
..."when you think "monster island", you think craggy rocks and bones scattered on the beach like the island of the Sirens. the Cyclop's island was nothing like that. i mean, okay, it had a rope bridge across a chasm, which was not a good sign. you might as well put up a billboard that said: SOMETHING EVIL LIVES HERE. but except for that, the place looked like a caribbean postcard...

i've also just finished reading "the children's homer: the adventures of odysseus and the tale of troy." it is significantly shorter than the originals, only 248 pages. in my googling the story,(wikepedia fills in the gaps nicely)i discovered a tv movie called the odyssey, which we rented this weekend. i wanted to read him the book first, but we're already reading peter pan, and he's already in the middle of his second book of percy jackson. i wanted him to be familiar with more of the greek myths that he'll encounter in the book. there's not too many movies out there to familiarize yourself with them. there is "clash of the titans" which is embarrassingly bad, but sufficient story-wise. there is "jason and the argonauts" which is much better, even tho it's filmed in the 60's. we've seen them both. the odyssey movie was filmed in 1997, and i should have watched it first. we had to cover his eyes alot. the war scenes were gruesome, the monsters were gruesome, and the islands of calypso, and circe, were maybe too sexy for a 9 year old. so it wasn't really a kids movie. but then again, we watched "the nativity story" the week before, and the birthing scenes were a bit gruesome, the soldiers were abducting the jewish baby boys and killing them, and he covered his eyes there too. the stories of the bible are just as gruesome. war and death and evil are everywhere. it's all the moral of the story that's important, i guess. the thing i'm trying to expose francis to. the things we maybe don't see everyday, but can learn from, and store up, for the times that we need them. like courage. and love. and hope. having faith. choosing what's right, and following it, no matter what. i do try...

here we go again

tommy two toes, his moll rae rae diamond cutter, and his sidekick lil' frankie, celebrated the new year at their friend's secret speakeasy. because of prohibition, they had to sneak past coppers, smuggle in moonshine, and be on the list, or the bouncers would bounce their sorry ol' bums to the curb. once inside, they ate spaghetti, played cards, and danced, while the dons kept trying to kill eachother.
it was a night to remember...

(go to flickr for more evidence and documentation.)