not getting jack done

again.

it's been twelve days since i've touched any sewing tools and i'm very close to losing my mind. we've had a toddler birthday, two sick kids and a whole lot of commotion due to our crazy decision to move to my mom's house for a few weeks. my sister is moving into a new room there which needed a lot of renovation and then we're "swapping" living situations with my youngest brother for a few weeks. which means we'll have a yard and garden to enjoy and we'll get away from the crazy noise level of our downtown living for a while. should make the kids happy and us too.

anyways, i haven't done ANY sewing since the quilt. i'm physically hurting. going through withdrawal. bad withdrawal. BUT we've decided to take some sewing stuff (i'm thinking two machines, the serger, materials and notions?) and set up shop in my sister's old room for the time being. i just got a fancy big sewing book in the mail, bought some more fabrics at ikea and am mentally preparing for taking the "wardrobe refashion pledge" for two months starting july first. so i'm really hoping that this dry spell will be followed by a huge wave of creative outlet and productivity. and i'll let y'all know as soon as i have anything exciting to report.

may the creative spirits be with you and me and let's all hope summer will return to germany within the next few days. the weather has been awfully depressing.

whoops! there goes december

so it's december 18th and i've been very unhappily procrastinating getting christmas gifts done.

i say very unhappily because for once it wasn't my own lazyness keeping me from sticking to my plan. i have all these gorgeous materials sitting here, a looooong list of things i had planned to get done this month (prior to christmas and the whole baby having thing), a gorgeous old new sewing machine which is yet to be properly set up and aaaaaaaaall this creative energy but zero time for any of it.

of course december has been our busiest month since moving to germany with dave being gone much more than i had anticipated (yes, i was very naive not to factor in 3 hours of travel time and showing up an hour before each performance for every day of his december job).
of course i had overestimated my own energy level. of course i had underestimated the strain that sleepless because belly tends to be enormous in the last trimester nights would take on me.
and i certainly did not anticipate my kid coming down with the worst cold i've seen a toddler have.

she's better now but the past couple of days have been rather challenging. it should've been days filled with productivity, it ended up being days spent trying to do the math on how to best spread out the maximum milligrams of acetaminophen she's allowed to have withing 24hours, cutting several yards of flannel into hankerchief sized snotwipes (no time for laundry), filling at least a dozen sippycups a day with fluids, being annoyed with our bad pediatrician, reading "hand, hand, fingers, thumb" over and over and over again, watching hours of zoo tv while cuddling a burning child...

blaaaaaaah! this weekend she should be over the worst, but dave is gonna be gone nonstop playing four theater performances and a gig. so i guess i may have monday and tuesday to sew up a storm. or to get sick myself and over the worst of it in time for christmas celebrations.

next year will be different. it's gotta be. i'll either skip the whole handmade holidays thing alltogether or i'll start making gifts in august. let's hope it's option number two. i really don't want to go back to buying gifts from chainstores.

so. note to self, kids always get sick when it's least convenient. be prepared.