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Yeah, weird, I know. The past couple of weeks I haven’t been spending nearly as much time on the computer because I have either been being crafty or zoning out to the TV. There’s something so relaxing about curling up on the couch and just rotting my brain! But last night I couldn’t sleep so I was on my computer for two hours in the middle of the night. I knew I should go back to sleep but I didn’t feel tired and I realized how much I missed my computer! Pathetic. But there it is. I miss blogging and working on this site. But I just haven’t been very motivated to do it because I’ve been trying to rest and do things that rejuvenate me.

I know that being on the computer isn’t a contact sport or anything. No strenuous activity here, unless you count how fast I type as strenuous. Not exactly. But being a perfectionist, sometimes I feel like I want to write something funny or clever or witty and I know that nothing is going to come out to my liking. So I post a teeny tiny post about what we did that day or I don’t post at all and instead go vegetate. And I do feel better. I’ve been sleeping better (except for last night). I feel less anxious because I’m not always doing or completing. And I’ve been more focused on The Tater Tot, which is always good. There are only so many hours in the day and my problem is that there are waaaaay too many things that I’d like to do with those hours. So, it’s time to get back to my New Year’s Resolution and SIMPLIFY. I want to say “prioritize” but that sounds too uptight. But I guess that’s really what I need to do. Prioritize what’s most important to me. Number one is obviously Tater Tot. But what comes next? Exercise and diet? Working on the web site and blogging? Keeping my house clean? What is going to make me feel the best about myself? And most important of all: What is realistic to expect of myself?

I guess I have some things to think about. It feels good to be blogging again.

I’m sure that many if not all of you are aware of the above revelation. I don’t know what I thought the outcome of a swim diaper plus poop would be but I’ll tell you that I was not prepared for it. Kinda messy. I guess I should have attempted to pull the diaper apart instead of pull it off of her the same way that I put it on, huh? We tried to go in our HOA pool today since it’s so hot and Tater Tot liked the swim class so much yesterday but our pool is not heated and it just wasn’t hot enough outside to make up for it. So we splashed for a few minutes and headed back inside. Apparently a few minutes was all she needed to mess her swim diaper, though. Yuck. Oh well…the Joys of Motherhood.

Today is a good day. Tater Tot took a morning nap and is currently taking an afternoon nap…with NO resistance! It was actually very cute. I was noticing some sleepy cues and thinking to myself “I really, really don’t want to deal with the inevitable crying that will happen if I try to put her down right now” being the wimp that I am. So I decided to read her a few books and gauge how she was doing after that. I read two books to her and she crawls off to her room! So I picked her up and rocked her. Out like a light by the end of the first song. Imagine that! She does know when she’s tired and needs to sleep! Okay, Tater Tot, the jig is up. I know you can go to sleep voluntarily now. Yeah, yeah, I know I can’t expect her to do that all the time. Or ever again, for that matter. I’m just grateful she did it today. She actually does that at night when she’s reading with The Daddy. She decides that it’s time to go to her room and crawls or toddles off to Mommy to get her jammies on. Maybe I’ll start reading to her before nap time every day…

Anyway, I’m enjoying my “extra” free time since she has not been taking an afternoon nap very often the past two weeks. *Sigh* It really is nice.

It is about a thousand degrees in my office right now so I’ll keep this brief. Tater Tot LOVED, LOVED, LOVED the swim class! It’s really the first time she has ever been in a pool and she was just ecstatic! Kicking and squealing, bouncing and smiling. I was so relieved. Especially since she freaked out in the locker room before the class. Embarrassing. But what can ‘ya do? Once she got outside and saw the pool, she was all smiles. I expected her to be more tentative in the water but she was fine. I didn’t dunk her but I did coerce her into blowing bubbles. She just thought that the pool was the most fantastic thing!

We sang songs like the motorboat song and ring around the rosy and stuff. Usually I hate that kind of stuff but this time was different. She was enjoying it so much that it was easy to forget how much I hate it! It was nice to be out in the sunshine (all 85 degrees of it!) and around other Mommies and Daddies. While most of us were pretty into our own kids and not really talking to other adults, I managed to have a conversation with a Mommy of another of the youngest class members. I neglected to get her name but it was nice to socialize just the same. Next time I’ll make sure I do. And, miracle of all miracles, I was not the only one with cellulite. There’s something about doing a thing for my child that changes my perspective. It’s not about me and my Mommy Body. It’s about her and how much fun she’s gonna have at this class. So I don’t look that great in a bathing suit anymore and had a hard time finding one in my drawer that fit. It doesn’t matter. She had a great time and that’s the most important thing. The only downside to the class was that the class ended around the time that the high school next door to the swim complex got out for lunch. Hm. As high schoolers are notorious for thinking that they are the center of the universe, it took me a looooong time to merge into the flow of traffic going out of the parking lot.

All in all, today was a pretty darned good day. I didn’t sleep as well last night because some YAY-hoo was having his car towed very loudly at 10:00 last night. Beep! Beep! Beep! Beep! (Tow truck back-up beeping) Add the gravelly idling of a large, workhorse type of truck and the two guys in the jacuzzi in our HOA talking really loudly. With all our sliding doors and windows open to catch the breeze since it’s hotter than Hades here right now, it was tough to catch the zzzz’s last night. But I still made it through the day feeling pretty good.

I’m going to sign off before my fingers melt into the keyboard and go downstairs where the portable air conditioner is whirring away, refrigerating our first floor!

It’s HOT! HOT! HOT! Here in Southern California it was 80 degrees today. Beautiful day. And tomorrow Tater Tot and I go to our first swim lesson! Probably more like a kick in the water and try not to get freaked out lesson but it’ll be fun! Of course the logistics of getting a squirmy toddler into and out of a swim diaper and bathing suit as well as changing out of my wet bathing suit and into dry clothes will be interesting but it’s all part of the experience, right? While I’m thinking of it, I think The Daddy has one of those water repellant towel thingies that you can put over the seat of your car to keep it dry for surfing. It goes over the headrest and covers the whole front of the seat that you’re sitting on. I think I’m gonna steal that for tomorrow! Then I won’t have to change. I’ll just have to change The Tot, which will be challenging enough.

Update on the June 1st closet purge: no progress. I keep losing and gaining the same three pounds! Oh well. The good news is, at this rate, I’ll get to go shopping for new clothes. Just call me Mrs. Brightside!

I am happy to report that, for the past three nights in a row I have gotten a decent amount of sleep. Imagine that. Not uninterrupted sleep, mind you, but a whole 7 hours is nothing to sneeze at! And, when I have woken up, I’ve usually drifted right back off to sleep within a few minutes. That’s HUGE in my world! The result of all this decent sleep is that I feel pretty darned good today. And it’s about dang time! I was just thinking yesterday “I don’t remember the last time I felt good.” And I was feeling pretty down about it. But hopefully this is the start of a new trend. Speaking of which, I’d better go get the rest of my “evening routine” done so I can get to bed on time which will help me continue this trend! See ya!

Today I had two termite companies come out to do inspections on the house and we got good news. No termites! They were ants. I had no idea that ants flew or looked like the little critters I saw running/flying around my house but apparently they do. So that’s good news. I suppose now we should figure out what to do with the ants but I haven’t seen any in about 24 hours so… We’ll see. At least ants won’t damage the house like termites will.

The other little bit of good news is that the recreation department called and the Mom/Tot swim class we were on the waiting list has an opening! Yay! Of course now I’ve got to deal with my Mommy Body in a bathing suit. Hm…

Fortunately, I started trying to build a new habit last night. I acted like I wasn’t tired and did a short weight workout. Really short. But it’s a start and all that matters at this point is that I did it as opposed to sitting on my Mommy Butt NOT doing it.

It is finished! I finished the Hideous Chair Project yesterday afternoon while Tater Tot slept and it is so cute! It’s pink and purple and soft and fuzzy. Well, let me quit describing it and get on with the before and after pics!

Click to make me bigger!

Before: really “interesting” gold and beige velvet upholstery! But it’s low and looks like it has potential for a really cute reading chair for Tater’s room. And it’s only $5! Can’t beat that…

Click to make me bigger!
After: Cute, pink/purple, soft, fuzzy Big Girl Chair that Tater Tot loves! She really likes how soft it is and that it’s a little lower to the ground than the adult-sized recliner we had in there before.

Let me tell you a little bit about what this project entailed in case you think you want to tackle something like this for your child’s room. It wasn’t that hard, really.

Materials List:

* 5 yards of $1 a yard fabric to make a “pattern” for the slip cover (this is optional but a good idea if you don’t know what you’re doing like I didn’t!)

* 5 yards of whatever fabric you’d like to use to make the slip cover. I used what JOANN’S calls “cuddle” fleece which is a fuzzier, stretchier fleece than what you normally think of when you think of fleece. I bought it on sale for $2 a yard! I bought 4 yards and then remembered that I needed 5 after I was already home. Typical for me. It turns out that I had bought the exact same material in pink on sale last Fall so that’s where the two-toned idea came from. I would recommend a thick fabric with some stretch, depending on the lines of your chair. This chair needed a little stretch to get the slip cover over it.

* Thread to match the fabric for the slip cover.

* Hideous Garage Sale/Thrift Store/Free chair

I think that’s it. Oh! A sewing machine, of course. Nothing fancy. I just have a basic model.

I started by tracing the shapes of the existing upholstery. It had seams where the panels were sewn together so it was easy to just follow how the original upholstery was put together. I added an inch seam allowance to the pattern before I cut it out just to be safe.

Then I pinned the pattern to the slip cover material and cut it out. Easy.

Actually getting the slip cover to be fitted was a teeny tricky but the best way I found was to turn the pattern pieces wrong side up and place them on the chair and pin them together. If you’ve ever watched “Trading Spaces” you’ll know what I’m talking about. I went slowly and only pinned a couple of pieces together at a time. Which ones you start with will really depend on the lines of your chair.

I sewed a few pieces together, rechecked the fit with the above wrong-side-up method and then went on to the next pieces until the basic slip cover was done. I chose to slip cover only the chair part and to recover the cushions because it was just easier.

The idea of the ruffle at the bottom occurred to me because I didn’t think I could pull off a pleated hem and I thought that I was a good enough seamstress to make it look good to just continue the slip cover to the ground. The ruffle really makes it easy to hide any lack of skill in the sewing area, I’ve found!

How to do the ruffle: Measure around the bottom of the chair and then double the number. Measure from the bottom of the chair to the ground and add two inches (one inch on top and one on bottom for seam allowance). Cut a piece of material as long as the doubled number and as wide as the other measurement. Baste 1/2 inch from the edge down one side of the piece. If you’re new to basting, set your sewing machine to the longest stitch possible and sew away! Pull one of the threads at the end to create the ruffle to the desired “ruffled-ness” and pin to the bottom of the slip cover, right sides together. Sew.

For the seat cushion, I made the pattern like I did the other pieces of the slip cover by tracing the shape and adding an inch seam allowance. Cut two of these, one for the top and one for the bottom. Depending on the shape of your cushion, you may have to do something different than I did for the middle of the cushion. I ended up cutting several pieces based on the shape of the cushion, doing the wrong-side-up pinning method to get the fit right and then sewing it to the top. To sew the middle to the bottom, I machine sewed it as far as I could while still being able to fit the cushion in. After inserting the cushion, I hand-sewed the rest. It doesn’t have to be neat because it’s on the bottom and nobody will see it!

For the back cushion, I pinned the material tight around it (with the right side of the material touching the cushion) and cut the material around the pins one inch out for seam allowance. Create a small ruffle like you did the large ruffle. Unpin the pieces of material for the cushion and pin the ruffle on the inside. Machine stitch as far as you can and still be able to fit the cushion inside. Hand stitch the rest.

And that’s it! It sounds like a lot but, if you do it in bits and pieces like I did, it’s actually fun and you kind of lose track of how much it really is!

Now it’s time to rest for a couple of days before I start the next project!

Hello, Class. Today we will be studying the Lesson for the Week: If It’s Not One Thing It’s Another. A related lesson will also be presented: So Just Learn To Go With The Flow!

Y’know how sometimes little things gang up on you and come all at once? Good things, bad things…just things. Taken separately when you have gotten enough sleep and aren’t anxious, they are all fine. But put ‘em all together and add a dash of “Aaaack!” and it’s an opportunity to learn how to let go.

The Little Things:
1) Tater Tot fell last week necessitating a time and energy-consuming trip to the Children’s Hospital halfway down the county from us. I am now even more paranoid about her falling.
2) I am trying to finish this chair project during the times which I would normally be resting. I am doing this because I love doing it and I feel like I need something creative right now to feel like I have a life. I don’t have one but I can dream, right?
3) I am anxious about stuff that I don’t want to blog about.
4) I am not sleeping well because I am anxious about stuff that I don’t want to blog about. Add to that the not resting because of the project I love doing…you get the picture.
5) The Daddy and I went on a great, fun date on Saturday night that kept us up waaaay past when we would normally be up. Haven’t recovered yet. Yes, that means I am officially OLD.
6) Tater Tot fell again yesterday and got a teeny cut on her lip. Nothing major but it bled. More paranoia. I know that she’s a toddler and, being an active, independent toddler means that she will get some bumps and bruises but it’s still nerve-wracking for me. I’d love to be able to wrap her in bubble wrap but that would just be weird.
7) We have termites. Yes, termites! Two companies are coming Thursday to inspect and give me estimates. The Joys of Home Ownership.

I am fully aware that I often misplace my sense of humor when I am anxious so I am going on a mission to find it. That’s a part of my personality that I’m just not happy with and I’d like to change it. I’d love to be able to just let things go. The weird thing is that I really do know that everything in my life will work out. I do. I’ve seen it time and time again. I just have gotten so used to worrying that it has become a habit. One that it’s time to kick. It’s not realistic to think that I’ll never worry again but it’s time to cut back. That sounds weird. Like drinking one cup of coffee a day instead of two to cut back on caffeine. But maybe that’s a strategy for building a new habit. I can only worry a set amount in a day so pick wisely. Sorry Self, you can’t worry about that because you’ve already worried about three things today. Ha! That’s a funny concept. But maybe worth trying…

Or maybe allowing myself to worry about whatever I feel inclined to worry about but only for a small amount of time. Then doing something symbolic to “let it go”.

Then there’s always playing the worry out to the worst conclusion and devising a plan to deal with it. Chances are slim that the worst conclusion will actually happen. That’s what’s so useless about worry. That and it wastes a heckuvalotof time. Because there is always something to worry about. If it’s not one thing, it’s another. Whether it’s termites, your toddler being newly mobile and thus exposed to the opportunity to get hurt, your finances, or whatever worries you, there will always be an opportunity to get your panties in a bunch.

So that’s my goal for May: to keep my panties from bunching. Go with the flow. Keep my sense of humor intact and live the knowledge that it will all work out. I bet I’ll sleep better if I do that…