Crochet: Broomstick Lace Pattern

Darling Daughter is the perfect model!

As a joke or in all seriousness, Hubby Dearest gave me a book, I Taught Myself to Crochet, for my birthday in November. I love the little tools that came with the book and am not fully sure how most of them work. However, the best part of the whole bit was finding a beautiful, wispy, Oh-gosh-that-is-so-pretty-it-must-be-super-complicated stitch...the Broomstick Lace.


Reading the book, Sosie beat herself up for an entire night learning the stitch. I tried for a week to decipher the instructions. BLAH! Who needs that when there's YouTube. I watched two videos, and ten minutes later I was knocking it out. I was so excited with my practice swatch that Hubby Dearest ran to Wallyworld in search of a broomstick that I could take with me anywhere. His genius...the handle of a toilet plunger (new, never used for its intended purpose...gack!).




Supplies: Crochet Hook, Broomstick, Yarn, Three Hands
or two and your knees and armpits.

Here are the directions according to my crazy way of doing things:


1. Chain in multiples of five, four or three...I chained 25 for this lovely Baby Alpaca (not baby seal, Chad) scarf.

2. On your last chain, pull the loop around your broomstick, plunger handle or very, very, very large knitting needle.


3. Then go into all 25 chains, yarn over and pull the loop through, using the plunger handle to hold your loops. If you fancy a blanket instead of a scarf, you may need the broomstick to hold them all. The wrap I am also working on has 255 instead of 25 and it's only a couple of feet wide. Also, you may see that you need three hands to make all this happen. It's not very lady like (sorry Mama) but I hold the plunger handle with my knees (TWSS, Sosie) while pulling the loops through.


Grab 5 loops

4. From my knees to my arm pit...I place the plunger handle under my armpit to hold it in place for the next step. Okay, you should have 25 loops on your plunger. Slide your crochet needle into the first five loops on the handle and gently pull them off all together. Yarn over the end of your crochet needle and pull through all five loops to single crochet. Repeat this five more times. You should have a little arch on top of your twisted pretty pretty.


Work in multiples of 5, 4 or 3...

5. Repeat step 4 for the rest of the line.

6. For the next row you repeat step 3, pulling yarn through the arch row (you can go through only the front or only the back or both the front and back...your preference).

Thursdays are Happiness Reports: Week 2 of January

I have to say that living out of an organized closet has had so many positive effects on my happiness. It's like a stream of consciousness with actions and reactions.

1. I like the few outfits I kept and put together so I feel more confident after getting ready in the morning, which is super fast now.

2. Because I am super fast getting ready, I am eating breakfast at home or at the office and avoiding the drive through.

3. No drive through gives me more money to buy bouji bouji yarn for crocheting, which makes me feel classy.

4. I feel classy, which also leads to me putting more effort into my health and appearance.

5. Because I am feeling better physically, I don't just become a lump on the couch when I get home, and chores are getting done without struggle. I am also making dinner, which keeps us out of the drive through in the evenings, which gives us more money as a family!

6. Keeping the house tidy, cooking dinner and saving money gives me peace of mind so I can rest at night.

7. Resting at night makes me pop out of bed in the morning.

8. Because I get up feeling rested, I am working to keep the organization in my closet.

Steps I worked in this week that I got from Gretchen Rubin's Happiness Project: finding a chore that takes about ten minutes and knocking it out right before I go to bed...great peace of mind and sense of accomplishment.

Thank you for continuing to support this little bit of crazy each day! Visit my blog each Thursday to see how My Happiness Project is going! Here's the plan by month so far:

• January--BOOST ENERGY
• February--REMEMBER LOVE MARRIAGE
• March--AIM HIGHER WORK
• April--LIGHTEN UP PARENTHOOD
• May--BE SERIOUS ABOUT PLAY
• June--MAKE TIME FOR FRIENDS
• July--BUY SOME HAPPINESS
• August--CONTEMPLATE THE HEAVENS
• September--PURSUE A PASSION
• October--PAY ATTENTION
• November--KEEP A CONTENTED HEART
• December--BOOT CAMP PERFECT HAPPINESS 

Write on Wednesdays: Ready to Write!

One of my favorite memes, InkPaperPen's Write on Wednesdays is still on vacay, and I miss it terribly. Therefore, I created my own prompt for this week, set my timer for five minutes and voila! Ding!

Zig Ziglar, American author and motivational speaker, has some of the best quotes to encourage and inspire. Some make you think and then laugh at his point. CLICK HERE to find a quote you can write about. Put your quote at the top of your entry, set your timer for five minutes and WRITE!

I would put a linky thingy up for everyone to link to but I am still figuring that out! Feel free to post your link in the comments of this post, and I will visit and read!

“People often say that motivation doesn't last. Well, neither does bathing--that's why we recommend it daily.”    ― Zig Ziglar

In the last few years, one might say I have lacked in motivation so much so that Ziggy might say I stank of it. Honestly, I thought that losing my ability to birth chitlins, regardless of the health I gained with that loss, was my undoing. It wasn't until losing myGayla last March did I really know what would be my undoing. It also wasn't till this tragedy turned my life upside down and inside out that I was motivated to really start living every single day. I completely own and admit that there are more days than not where I want to crawl under the blankets and stay there. However, I make myself get up; I make myself get ready; and I make myself get going. From there, I have no choice but to keep moving forward (thank you Liz for that reminder). So that it is not a completely miserable existence (kinda like making up car games on a long road trip), I turn to this blog and my little crazy daily adventures to keep it interesting. Like a daily bath keeps your pits and crevices from reeking, your daily adventure (small or large) keeps your life from stinking. Ding!

Venture out today! Come by and tell me all about it! I am going to find a Zumba class to take and see if I like it.

These are the Friends You Grow Old With...

Way back last spring, as I sat in the dark theater laughing hysterically at the comedic genius of Bridesmaids, one of my dear friends leaned over to whisper, "We are SO doing this for Sosie's wedding!" By "this" he was referring to the speech scene where Kristen Wiig and Rose Byrne's characters are trying to one-up each other's heart-felt bridesmaid speech during the engagement party.

After months of enthusiastically talking about it, it was three days before the big day when Mikey texted me, "You should write all of our speeches!" First draft went out later that day and got not a peep of response. When I saw M and J later that night, I asked if I was really not that funny. J told me that although we would get it, it would lose the rest of the audience and possibly offend most of them. Draft two was sketched together in a brainstorm, and we were set. Three hours later, the maid of honor and minor aged bridesmaid wanted in...REWRITE. I was getting excited writing for everyone and scripting in not only the words but the drama to unfold.

The morning of the wedding, I sat in my make-up, fancy hair and sweat suit, tapping a pen against my teeth trying to picture the scene. This is what I wrote:

Maid of Honor, Sister A delivers real, heart-felt speech.

Aunt J-Me: Some of my favorite memories with Sosie are those created on our many vacations. In 2004, we cruised to Mexico and were all intrigued by all of Sosie's talk of her new man, Flanagan, or as I call him, Flan-the-Man! I learned this for the two of you: Ustedes son una parte de mi, una parte que yo nunca podria vivir sin. Y espero y rezo para que nunca tenga que hacer lo."

Sister A: Thank you, "Consuela." We always felt left our when our family would speak in Spanish too. What J-Me said was, "You are a part of me, a part I could never live without. And I hope and pray that I never have to." Next we have J who wants to say something.

J-Man: Sosie, Flanagan, I didn't learn a second language for you but wanted you to know what is in my heart (long pause)...truly (long pause)...deeply (long pause, intent stare)...so far buried down (long pause, deeper meaningful stare)...deep...in...my...soul...(deep breath) I love you.

Minor Sister A and Sister A struggle with mic and big sister backs down: IT'S MY TURN! <recover, smile sweetly> Sosie, Fangman...I believe we have such a connection that y'all know all I am feeling just with a look...<stare at them intently and awkwardly for as long as you can hold it without laughing>.

Sister A : SCARY! Thank you so much for that <smile sweetly>. Well, let's wrap this up with M-Man, who has written a poem for this occasion.

M-Man: Because I am such a poet...Sosie, Flanagan, this is for you..."I know this pain, why do you lock yourself up in these chains, No one can change your life except for you..."

Sister A : Uh...you know that's a song, M...not a poem that you wrote. DJ? Hit it!

Entire bridal part sings along to Wilson Phillips Hold On and attempts to get the rest of the guests to join us singing and dancing.

We didn't write a part in for the kiddos to distract but they added their own brand of entertainment to it. GREATEST BRIDESMAID SPEECHES EVER!

Video courtesy of Darling Daughter...

Thursdays are Happiness Reports: Week One January

Boosting Energy--hard to do when you are in the throws of depression while balancing life moving forward with or without you. Step one...sleep. I do have to say that I have made a more conscious effort to go to bed by 11 p.m. this week and it has made the mornings so much easier.

I also spent New Years morning cleaning out my closet and organizing my outfit choices into sets for each day (I did stop just short of labeling them with the day and color-coding the hangers with multi-colored dots matched up with undergarments and such--give an OCD-er some credit! That doesn't mean that I didn't contemplate it). This little feat of organization has granted me an extra 20 minutes each morning of not having to decide what to wear...so I use that 20 minutes to blow dry my hair and slap a little make up on (FAKE IT TILL YOU MAKE IT, BABY!). I also use the time to fix myself breakfast at home instead of driving through or skipping all together.

On the organizing front, I used the PILES Method: Put Away, Throw Away, Give Away, Mama-You're-Gonna-Love-This! Once it was all separated. I organized the Put Away as stated above, put all my shoes in clear plastic containers on shelves, and used the Pinterest idea to hang hand bags on those crappy store hangers. Throw away was easy...one garbage bag in the dumpster. Give away took a little more effort on my part, I lugged three bags of donations down to my car, which inspired Hubby Dearest to grab several more from the attic and throw them in the mix saying, "Since you are going..." My Mama pile is ready for her visit this weekend. Ding!

Coming up next week--to-dos-done (including "engineering easy success"), act the way I want to feel (fake-it-till-u-make-it), and organizing another room or two in the house (I am kinda itching to attack Darling Daughter's "office"). I learned a new word on that front--Sisyphean, a task such that it can never be completed.

Thank you for continuing to support this little bit of crazy each day! Visit my blog each Thursday to see how My Happiness Project is going! Here's the plan by month so far:

• January--BOOST ENERGY
• February--REMEMBER LOVE MARRIAGE
• March--AIM HIGHER WORK
• April--LIGHTEN UP PARENTHOOD
• May--BE SERIOUS ABOUT PLAY
• June--MAKE TIME FOR FRIENDS
• July--BUY SOME HAPPINESS
• August--CONTEMPLATE THE HEAVENS
• September--PURSUE A PASSION
• October--PAY ATTENTION
• November--KEEP A CONTENTED HEART
• December--BOOT CAMP PERFECT HAPPINESS

Tough Cookies--A Letter to the CEO of GSUSA

Dear Kathy Cloninger, CEO, Girl Scouts of the United States of America:

In your book, Tough Cookies: Leadership Lessons from 100 Years of the Girl Scouts, you wrote, "If we in the United States want our girls to be confident in themselves and make the most of their inborn potential, we need to wake up to roadblocks we're putting in their way as they try to grow up into their real selves." What if some of those roadblocks are being put in place by GSUSA? What if the voices of girls raised in the Girl Scout Way are being ignored by the very organization that's supposed to be their proponent? What if, in requests to the council CEO and board, the response to our requests is, "Tough Cookies?"

For more than a year, my sister-in-law, Packer, a leader in Girl Scouting, a lifetime Girl Scout, and lifetime member of GSUSA, has been pleading with the Diamond Council in Arkansas to hear her concerns for the girl scouts, the leaders and the properties that formerly made up the Conifer Council. The needs of these young women and their leaders are not being met by the newly formed Diamond Council with regard to programming at the council level. Nor has the usual training for their leaders been as thorough as it was with the Conifer Council (only three training sessions offered in Texarkana from September to December 2011). Now, as if to add injury to insult, it has been decided by a "Board," without inquiry to their constituents, that the Camp High Point Property in Mena, Arkansas, will not be offering summer resident programming for the first time since it opened in 1946. To me, this is unacceptable at any juncture but especially on the 100th anniversary of the GSUSA. 

Denise Stewart, CEO of Girl Scouts--Diamonds of Arkansas, Oklahoma and Texas stated in an e-mail to Packer, "There was not a lot of discussion about this issue [not offering resident programming at Camp High Point]." Packer and I both admit that we have not been privy to the "facts and figures" that lead the board to make their decisions (in fact, the Annual Report that is supposed to be on the council's web site, is missing). Nevertheless, when such monumental decisions are made, shouldn't the voice of our girls and their leaders be taken seriously? Shouldn't we honor their opinions and give them an opportunity to find solutions? Shouldn't discussion be more than "not a lot?"

Packer has weathered the last three years during the merger and reorganization of GSUSA and continued to lead our troop of girls the way Juliette Lowe would have dreamed. I foresee her always being a girl scout because it is part of who she is. However, I am speaking up for her and our girls because no one should devote as much time to something they love as Packer loves Girl Scouting and feel like it breaks her heart and tears at her soul in return for her devotion. I have no suggestions for how to help Packer and the Girl Scouts of the New Boston, Hooks, and Texarkana area. I just wanted you to know that there are girls and women invested in Girl Scouting who are not having their needs met or their voices heard.

Sincerely,
Jaimee
Girl Scout and Mother and Sister to Girl Scouts

Try Something New Tuesdays: Skype and Face Time

Since I first watched Back to the Future II, I have anxiously anticipated having my first flying car and automatic dog walker and shoe lace tightener. Just think! The movie was set in the year 2015...we're only three years away!! Rock On!!

Do you know what tells me we are on our way to soda bottles with built-in straws, hover boards, and bar code license plates? We are about to be living the flying car life because I have already experienced my first Skype and Face Time visits with Sosie, J-Man and myMama and myDaddy!



Sosie, J-Man and I can have coffee and chit chat like
we are all in the same room now!

Now granted, my little IPad2 screen is not a projection screen on the wall the size of the wall, but if I ever get fired via video phone, I wouldn't want it plastered in 10-foot font anyway. Also, from what my communicators have told me, I am no master at making sure I look at the camera instead of their faces.

I realize this is no big whoop for many of the tech savvy world out there, especially those who have been video visiting for years now. However, I feel like I just stepped out of my DeLorean and am ready to hover over to my next great adventure.

Tough Cookies...

Amazon.com

As her birthday present this year, I purchased this book for my SisterWhoChoseMyBrother, the consummate Girl Scout...in fact, I will use her GS Camp name for her from now on--Packer. Packer told me at Thanksgiving that she read it in a week and wanted me to read it too. Packer said, "It helped me understand why we did what we did." I finally started it last night, and only one chapter in, I am moved.

Background: When the Girl Scouts reorganized a few years ago, there were a lot of hurt feelings and deep concerns about what it meant for girl scouting in the US. Packer and I were among those who worried over our girls (at that time a troop of 23 Brownies). With life changes, I unfortunately left Packer to muster on without me, and it's one of the only regrets I have in life and wish were different. Nevertheless, Packer always makes the best lemonade out of lemons...always has, always will. She is an inspiration to everyone who knows her. I'll get back to my point...

I am moved to encourage everyone to read Tough Cookies. It is written by the CEO of Girl Scouts of the US, and the point that she hit home with me was this: our nation is split evenly between men and women, 50/50. Why then is the female CEO position only sitting at 3%? Why is our federal legislature only 17% female. This is not a manifesto of how the women should rule the world. Simply put, and anyone who is blessed to be in an equal partnership at home knows, men and women should work together equally to change our nation.

For a country that was founded in the throws of equal representation, I am a little concerned that it's taken this long to figure out that times may be different from the 1950's, but we are still not equally represented. I don't think that quotas are called for. I really don't know what we should be doing. It's like I woke up from a really inspirational dream this morning and am set to find a way to make a difference. First step! Encourage everyone to read this book, make your own plan and change the world.

It's Sosie Week in Texas!

Just in case my petition to make this week a world holiday doesn't go through, I want the world to be aware...THIS IS WORLD SOSIE WEEK! I know it won't be approved by the world so I am going to at least hope for the state. All kidding aside, this is the week that Sosie becomes Mrs. Flan-the-Man, and I couldn't be more thrilled, scared and a little worried all at the same time.

Flan-the-Man...oh wow! You couldn't find a more polar opposite from our fireball Sosie. However, they are perfect for each other. He is the consummate realist and perfect anchor for our girl. Craig makes sure we all keep our heads in the calmest most friendly way. In kind, Sarah is Craig's perfect mixture of fun and effervescence. She lights up all of our worlds with her kind heart and beautiful soul. Plus...they are going to make beautiful ginger babies!

Where does my fear and angst come in, you ask? It has nothing to do with the happy couple or their beautiful future...that part is all about me! I'll know after tonight if my bridesmaid dress actually fits. It was just a hair shy in the Ta-Da area so I took it to the tailor to have an inch more space given to my breathing ability. Add to that I am not a heal wearer, but I have the cutest pair of pumps for the big day and have been practicing walking all around our house in them so as to not stumble and fall on Sosie's big day (that might cause the first problem to become a moot point...I actually had a nightmare that I fell and the dress split open like a pinata, spilling me and my party favors out all over the chapel...not cool!).

New Year, Same Me

Happy 2012! I only am making two resolutions. Three if you add on that I resolve to stick to my resolutions. One: re-read the happiness project and do everything it suggests. Two: no more drive through. What are your resolutions for 2012?