A Question for Google Reader Users

(picture by Cindy Lynn)

But first a picture for you, because I firmly believe that almost every post is improved by a picture!

I've been wondering how Google Reader works. Sometimes I publish a post, then look at it and rearrange something or fix the spelling or rework it completely.

What version do you see? Does google reader capture the very first version to send you? Or go through and grab all the blogs you've signed up for at a certain time of day?

I'm very curious...

Design help desperately needed!

Generally when I go to the fabric store, regardless of what I'm there for, I have to do a quick survey of the fabric to see if there's something new. I always see plenty to like, because I am a true lover of fabric. It all speaks to me--colors, patterns, textures. But occasionally I see something that just calls out to me and says "take me to your house and make me into something wonderful."

Last year this was that fabric.

I knew it would never have time to sew it last year in the midst of the wedding madness, but I still bought it. It was going to be a pair of beautiful dresses for my beautiful little girls.

It had some coordinating fabric and I bought a bit of that too.

I prewashed the fabric, pulled out the pattern that I wanted to use for it, and put it in my sewing area.

This week I have been cleaning & organizing my sewing area. I'm sure it hadn't been vacuumed since well before Christmas, since I could see the threads from various projects all over the light colored carpet. As I pulled a box out from it's place to vacuum I saw the fabric again. I've already started pink polka-dotted Easter dresses for my girlies but what they really need are some dresses that are not so fancy. So I decided I should go ahead and make these too.

As I looked at the fabric I realized that I had a problem. In the intervening year the post-purchase euphoria has faded, and so has my inspiration for the fabric. I can no longer see the dress I want to make in my mind, and that's a problem.

So I'm asking you for your opinion--which dress do you think I should make? (And please excuse my imperfect attempts to make my little examples!) Or do you have a better idea? Please help me!

(if you click on the picture it will supersize if you want to see the different options better.)

And as per Amy's and Megan's excellent suggestions:

Questions That Have Been On My Mind

There is a woman who walks in my neighborhood every day. Every Day. I admire and envy her dedication and commitment.

Recently she passed me on her walk. I had been taking pictures of the lovely spring flowers.

As she passed me I turned and snapped a picture of her too. I couldn't help myself. Do you remember how 101 Dalmations starts? It starts by talking about how people look like their dogs. Well...this is very true of this neighbor of mine. She is tall and has very skinny army and legs and red hair. The first time I saw her dog I laughed & laughed.

Because her dog is also tall and has skinny legs and red hair. They are obviously a match made in doggy heaven.

I always wonder. Did she buy the dog because it matched her? Did they grow to be more like each other? My inquiring mind certainly wants to know.

But I have another, more important question.

Any time Russ & I have driven out of the neighborhood and passed this walking neighbor I have the same thought. "Sigh...I wish I was that skinny."

And in the same moment that I am thinking that, Russ will invariably say, "I'm sure glad you aren't that skinny."

Which leads me to my other question. This wonderful man loves me. He likes the way I'm shaped. He is smart enough to know that a tummy that has experienced 3 pregnancies and then on the 4th pregnancy carries three babies at the same time is never going to be the same again. And he is perfectly fine with it.

So why can't I be happy—really and truly happy—with my body?

(sorry to repost this picture--but I just love it!)

General Conference Confessions

Ah...Conference weekend. There are so many thing to love about General Conference that it's hard to know where to begin. Eight hours of beautiful music and inspiring talks. A day "off" from church. Church in my pajamas. What's not to like?

But my favorite thing about General Conference is what I can get done while I'm watching and/or listening. I'm not very good at sitting still and listening without doing something. And so today while I watched and listened I dealt with a part of my house that's been driving my crazy for months. The bookshelves.

From the moment we saw this house we fell in love with the bookshelves. There are a lot of them and we have a lot of books. It was a match made in book heaven. Beneath the shelves are cabinets and they seemed like the ideal place to store our ever growing collection of games. The only problem is when too many thing haven't been put back in the right place for too long — then the bookshelves just make me crazy. Things were bad when this picture was taken in January.

Things got worse when we took a laundry basket full of games to the beach in March and just stacked them on the cabinets instead of putting them back in the cabinets. No matter how clean the family room was, it still looked messy because the shelves were such a mess.

No longer.

During the Sunday morning session of conference I sorted and alphabetized and put away and even put some books in the discard pile. The end result is soothing to my soul.

I even have a stack of books that are just for my little readers.

And a box of books to read through to decide whether or not they're keepers.

I'm not very good at getting rid of books, but I can tell you right now that "Somewhere in Time" is definitely going. Any takers???

Housten: We Have a Reader!

I love to read. Love it. Many of my child memories involve reading — reading Little Women for the first time, reading instead of working on math in 2nd grade, borrowing a Nancy Drew from a neighbor and having to pay for a new copy after my brother nicked the nice new cover with a knife, reading up in a tree. I wish there was more time in my adult life for reading, and from time to time I just ignore everything and have a reading marathon. (Like my recent dalliance with Dick Francis!)

We've always read a lot to our kids and expected that when they learned how to read they would also love to read. When Cindy Lynn learned to read I was disappointed to realize that knowing how to read didn't mean that she wanted to read. Sure, she loved to have me read to her. But read on her own? Nah.

And then, much to my relief, it happened. Almost like magic. Suddenly she was a Reader. At 7 1/2 she discovered the magic of independent reading and she was off. Harry Potter did that for Jason when he was 8, and for Josh at about the same age. And for Cindy Lynn and Jason, the worry changed from not enough reading to how to keep them from reading too much!

We started school later with the triplets because of the combination of their extreme prematurity and late summer birthday. I have always been a relaxed homeschooler, and with these guys I've gone even more slowly. At the same time I've been watching for those first signs of independent reading. Of wanting to read for pleasure and not just for duty. And in the last month it has happened with Jenna. Hooray for Junie B. Jones!

Either/Or

One of my big frustrations with life is the either/or. Either I can sleep in or I can exercise. But chances are I can't do both. Either I can clean or I can run errands. Either I can blog or I can sew. And for the last few days I have chosen sewing.

Several months ago I found myself in the fabric section of walmart, probably looking for something exciting like thread. As is my normal habit, I walked through the $1/yard fabric section to see if they had anything interesting. And they certainly did.

Of course it was wrapped tightly on the bolt, but I could tell that when it came off the bolt it would be lovely, and worth far more than the $1/yard I paid for it. In fact I wondered why on earth they would have 4-5 bolts of this lovely fabric for such a deal.

When I looked at it more closely I could tell. Every 2-3 feet there were a couple of rows of dots that were smeared. Nothing that I couldn't work around, though.

I also noticed that the underside of the fabric was really lovely as well. Too bad the dots showed through on most of it, but on one of the sides there was more than an inch with no dots. I started to think--if I could use this edge instead of ribbon it would match perfectly.

Then I wondered how that "ribbon" would look on the bottom of a dress...

Just in case you were wondering too, here's a picture of the bottom of the dress and the cummerbund that I made instead of a more traditional sash.

It was such fun. Although my other frustration would be the 80/20 law. You know, the one that says that the first 80% of the project takes 80% of the time, and the last 20% of the project takes 80% of the time! And so it was with this dress! But I'd have to say that the end results are worth it!


What do you think?

Blast From the Past — My Favorite Picture

When we went to the Big Island in 2005 we snorkeled several times. We had a couple of underwater cameras that we took pictures with. They turned out about as well as underwater pictures can turn out.

One day we rented kayaks and kayaked across Kealakekua Bay to snorkel. (Pronounced Kee-a-lah-kay-ku-a.)

(thank you Katie for having the presence of mind to take pictures of the snorkel spot!)

Alisyn forgot to put sunscreen on her legs and got a bad sunburn, and Ken learned the hard way not to tow a boogie board behind his kayak. Other than that, the day was perfect. We snorkeled till we were cold, warmed up while we ate, and then snorkeled again. We took pictures of each couple with the underwater camera, and at some point had the idea that we really wanted a snorkel picture with all of us together. We picked out a snorkeler nearby and asked if he could take a picture of the six of us together. We sure picked the right guy--he was great! He dove way down, then rolled over on his back and took a picture of our group from underneath. We were amazed at his snorkel/picture taking ability. He dove again and took another picture because he wasn't sure he'd gotten everyone.

When the pictures came back I was both excited and disappointed.


The color was beautiful. The sunlight in the water was amazing. But neither picture had all 6 of us in it.

After I had wallowed in my disappointment for a while, I started thinking. I looked at the picures long enough to figure out who was who. I pulled them both into my photo editing program and started messing with them. I made one of them bigger. I made one of them lighter. I rotated and resized and cropped. And in the end, I had a picture with all 6 of us. It wasn't perfect, but it was really cool and sort of artsy.


I think this is my favorite picture of the trip. Partly because in this picture if I'm having a bad hair day or someone wasn't quite ready for the picture to be taken, you really can't tell. But also because it brings back all of the fun of the moment. The adventure of kayaking, being in the wonderful ocean looking at beautiful fish, and having fun together as friends.

This picture says it all.