Guys, I received the best compliment ever the other day (seriously thank you, you made my day). My co-worker stumbled upon my blog and informed her brother that she had found the real Leslie Knope. I told her that comparing me to Leslie Knope was the highest praise I could ever hope to receive because, if you hadn’t noticed, she is one of my idols. The comment was followed up with a question about how I find the time to do blogging, motherhood and work, to which I responded (semi-seriously), “I don’t sleep”.
Well I used to sleep, some point before I had Julius, but lately I have re-discovered caffeine! I don’t know if you guys have ever tried this stuff but it is pretty darn amazing. Honestly I didn’t drink much caffeine at all before I was pregnant (except for the occasional cup of tea or rare mountain dew code red while in college), and I had sworn the stuff off since finding out I was pregnant. Several weeks ago I hopped off the wagon. I’m still nursing but I’ve convinced myself that if I have a cup right after I pump it doesn’t affect my milk. The jury’s still out. Good news is that blogging, motherhood and work doesn’t leave much time for me to google paranoid parenting blogs, so I may never know!
I may have to start sleeping a bit more though since I don’t think caffeine can solve all my problems. Today I got up, got Julius dressed and fed, then got ready myself and threw on some clean pants and a shirt. I was pretty proud that I did all this with enough time to get Julius off to daycare on time, and myself to work “early”. When I got to work I realized the pants I was wearing didn’t look very familiar. They were certainly my pants and were certainly very comfy. I decided not to care. Several hours later, in better lighting, I realized that they were one of the pairs of pants I’d retired into painting duty. I thought to myself, “I can totally own these pants with their giant blotches of white paint”. Maybe someone would think they were meant to be paint stained. Paint stained is still a style right? Another hour passed and I ran into the bathroom to double check the crotch of my pants. I’d realized that my retired painting pants usually have large unsightly holes in the crotch. Crisis averted, no holes. I went through the rest of the day working those paint stained pants like it was my job. When I finally got home I told Will the story of the pants and how I was able to pretend they were purposely paint stained. That was when Will pointed out the giant 6 inch hole in the seat of my pants, through which you could see my underwear. I’m not going back to work ever again.
Since I’m too mortified to show my face in public again, Julius is going to have to take himself to daycare tomorrow. While he may not be able to drive himself to daycare this week, one thing’s for certain – Julius is growing up fast. In just the past week he has gotten really good at standing. Last Saturday he could balance for ten seconds or more at a time and he’s improving that number daily! He’s really proud of himself too (and so am I of course). The first time he showed me his standing abilities he had on the biggest grin. Now he stands while going about his tasks like it ain’t no thang. In no time he’ll be making his own lunches and ironing his own shirts.
Julius is standing! (Without a hole in his jeans.)
Speaking of ironing your own shirts, I finally got around to making something that has been on my list for years! A seam roll (or sleeve roll) is a cylindrical, firm, pillow type device that you use to iron out wrinkles in difficult to iron places like sleeves. The roll allows the iron to press tight areas that would normally cause a crease when pressing. The sleeve rolls needs to be filled with a material that can withstand high heat. My friend Amy gave me a whole pail full of sawdust from her woodworking projects, making this project both free and upcycle!
Seam rolling
DIY Seam Roll
What You’ll Need:
- about 1 cubic foot of sawdust (not compressed)
- 10″x15″ piece of strong natural fiber fabric (cotton, linen, etc)
- funnel for stuffing the roll
- Pattern here
- Fold fabric in half (right side inside) to form a 5″x15″ rectangle. Stitch along the long end of the fabric leaving .5″ seam allowance.
- With the template lined up along the fold, mark the corners for stitching.
- Stitch along the lines on one side of the seam roll, closing one end of the roll.
- Stitch along the two corners on the opposite side, leaving a gap where the dotted line is.
- Trim the corners and edges of the closed end of the roll, clip the corners on the open side.
- Turn right side out.
- Using a funnel, fill with saw dust. Periodically stop and pack down the sawdust by pushing in and down on the edges of the roll. You want the roll to be as hard packed as you can get it!
- Continue filling until you are about 3/4″ from the edge. Turn the edge under along the 3/4″ mark so the unfinished edge of the roll is inside the seam roll.
- Slipstitch/ladder stitch the fabric together along the fold to make your stitching invisible. (Or you can do the weird suture stitch I decided to do because I thought it looked neat.
Finished roll!
Hahahaha the pants! I can sympathize- though have recently started convincing myself that the stain on my pants or food from baby’s breakfast smeared all over my shirt is fine because I made a human;-). I also decided that I can wear whatever style I want even if it’s not “in style.” It’s a freeing feeling. Thanks for sharing!!
Yes!! I have that same feeling, which is why I pretty much felt like I was owning that paint. (Better than spinach or throw up, am I right?) Sigh. I did go back to work. No one has commented on it. Actually my coworker told the funniest story yesterday. She has 7 shirts that all have pineapple on them. She jokingly said she could wear a pineapple shirt every day for a week straight. She did. By the end of the week she had gotten one comment from me, one comment from my co-worker Melissa and a comment every day from one of the women in the cafeteria. Her final response to the pineapple week was, “I could wear pajamas to work every day for a week and no one would even notice.” Maybe engineers really are that oblivious.