40 day sugar fast day 4

 I woke up really groggy (thanks useless drugs!) and really parched (also thanks useless drugs!).  The rest of my day went pretty well once I got some water into me.

My foot pain is still the same and the drugs do not seem to be doing anything other than making me very groggy.  ugh!  The PA wrote me back that the reason they didn't look at my broken tailbone is the doctor didn't think that was what was causing my pain.  I have an appointment with a neurologist, but the one med they gave me was supposed to stop nerve pain, and it isn't.  great.

I did feel really hungry after I got my water.  I considered making myself an egg, but never got around to actually doing it. :p  

I replaced a zipper in a skirt twice.  The first time I used a used zipper that was in my stash.  After getting the entire thing sewn in, I went to test it to make sure it works and it ripped the teeth away from the tape in the waist.  ugh!  Pulled that one out and put in another one.  fun times.

Not having sugar doesn't seem to be bothering me all that much.  I guess it was more of a habit to have my coffee with sugar in the morning.  I even gave up my tea.

steps: 18,456  weight:-1lb

Sugar fast day 3. with foot "update"

 On day 3 of my sugar fast.  Today I had an MRI scheduled to attempt to figure out what is going on with my foot.  So when I woke up at 7:30 I was in a rush/panic as I had several things planned.  Haha.

First I had to get my dog Zuki out for our walk.  We ended up doing a short version of our usual walk (so yeah, I didn't get in my 20K steps today)  But we got in a good walk.

Once we got home, since it was nice and warm out today, I left her in the yard and ran upstairs for a quick shower.  I managed to get that done by 9:30 so I had a bit of time to get some fluids into me before heading to the MRI.

Imagine my frustration when I arrived on time for my appointment only to have to wait to first check in and then again to get called back for my MRI.  Lucky for them I came to the appointment dressed in metal free clothing and just had to remove my shoes and jacket.  So I was probably able to help catch them up for the next patient.

I probably lost some weight from shivering in the MRI.  IDK why they have to keep it so cold in there and then blow a fan on you.  BRRR!  They put headphones on you and let you listen to music while you are in there, but honestly even with the volume turned up it is very hard to hear the music and the MRI is very loud.  I wasn't claustrophobic in there, but that was probably due to the fact that I just kept my eyes shut.  I mean who wants to stare at a white tunnel?

When I got home I started making my lunch salad.  I still have dried cranberries that contain sugar that I put on my salad...but I am not considering those as going against my fast.  I won't be buying another bag until my fast is over...so when these are gone (it looks as if I might have 3 days worth left) that will be it until I decide what I plan to do when my fast is over.  The rest of my salad was all good girl stuff.

Zuki & I went for our walk with our friends E & G.  G & Zuki spent a lot of the walk "chewing" on each other.  We went around 5 miles to help make up for the short walk this morning.  We also met another Texas Heeler pup who looks like a taller version of Zuki.  His owner says he isn't as energetic as Zuki is.  weird

While I could have been more productive, I didn't do much with the rest of my day...dinner was super easy stuff and I have left-overs for tomorrow.  I will try again tomorrow to get my sewing projects done.  I don't have any other appointments so I should be able to do it.  Hopefully I don't get frustrated with them...two zippers.  fun

I got the results back from my MRI and it didn't show much.  The doctor was pretty sure that my foot pain was probably not related to anything in my back...however, they ordered the MRI to look at the lumbar section of my back when I had told them that dr google said they needed to look at my sacrum which is where I have a broken tailbone.  I sent a "nasty gram" to the PA who saw me about that.  We will see if she bothers to respond to that.  

Day 2 on the meds that they gave me and less grogginess this morning.  Probably due to oversleeping and jumping out of bed in a panic.  Still no improvement on my pain.  Tonight I've added back in the Naproxin that I had stopped taking.  It wasn't previously a huge help, but there were some times where I wasn't in as much pain.  Fingers crossed.

steps: 18,309  weight down another pound.

Joshua 6:20

New International Version

20 When the trumpets sounded, the army shouted, and at the sound of the trumpet, when the men gave a loud shout, the wall collapsed; so everyone charged straight in, and they took the city.

Is anybody out there?

 I've decided to use this space as a Journal of sorts and a way to keep me accountable to the journey that I am starting.

Yesterday I started The 40-Day Sugar Fast (there's a book/devotional by Wendy Speake).  Why you might ask, well I've been trying to lose the extra weight that I managed to "put on overnight"... or while I wasn't looking.  I've developed a habit of mindlessly munching on snack foods because I need something else to do with my time.  You know, like watching a movie and eating popcorn...or watching TV with a bag of potato chips.

Well the time for that to stop is now.  My fast includes giving up all snack foods.

I think that the hardest part for me will be giving up my morning cups of coffee.  I cannot drink coffee black w/o sugar.  Just can't.  For me coffee is really just a sugar delivery device.  So bye-bye coffee.  :'(  I've replaced my two 14oz mugs of coffee with one 14oz mug of Apple Cinnamon Spice tea.  No caffeine (I was already drinking decaf but I know that does contain a tiny bit of caffeine) no added sugars.  So far, so good!  The thing that I noticed yesterday was the feeling of emptiness I felt w/o my usual morning sugar fix.  But I am still strong, and I can do this!

Yesterday I skipped lunch.  When I returned from volunteering I just wasn't in the mood to make my salad, so instead I had carrots with ranch dip and later some cheese.  No, that didn't really fill me up either and was frankly quite stupid of me, but I managed.

Dinner was no carbs...instead of the noodles that I made for hubby, I had zucchini...and was quite happy with my meal.  I did need a bit of something later, so I had some peanuts.  That worked out quite well.

Last night I had to take two medications for my still unexplained foot pain.  They both make you groggy and you shouldn't operate any heavy machinery until you know how your body reacts to them... so even though the doctor prescribed them last Friday, last night was the first night I took both of them.  I had tried the one Friday night (as I didn't have to do anything on Saturday) and I took the second one Sunday night.  Both of them separate seemed to have the same amount of morning grogginess.  And this morning I felt nearly the same...so it would seem that 1+1 does not = 2 on the grogginess scale.  However, neither drug has had any effect on my foot.  Unfortunately the one drug needs to build up in the body to start working, so phoey!

Today I'm doing fine w/o my morning sugar fix.  I've drank most of my Apple Cinnamon tea.  Oh!  I just remembered that I need to do our laundry today.  :p  fun times.

I guess that since this is a blog that I should tell you that I lost 1 pound, but that was the extra salt/water weight that I had put on the day before by eating most of a bag of Tostitos with Guac (yes, I was doing a bit of splurging before the fast).  :p  No more of that for a long while...hopefully when I get through all of this, I can do a single serving of those snacks and walk away.  If I can't, well, I'll have to see if hubby wants to eat those carbs for me.  LOL!

Well if you've read this and got through the entire thing, WOW!  Have a very blessed day!

Psalm 34:8-10

New International Version

8 Taste and see that the Lord is good;
    blessed is the one who takes refuge in him.
9 Fear the Lord, you his holy people,
    for those who fear him lack nothing.
10 The lions may grow weak and hungry,

    but those who seek the Lord lack no good thing.

Joel 2:12

New International Version

Rend Your Heart

12 “Even now,” declares the Lord,
    “return to me with all your heart,

    with fasting and weeping and mourning.”  

Organizing Costumes

My friend T started a costume rental company.  She also has been doing contract jobs for several theaters in the area doing their costumes.  She is the one who got me the job of doing costumes for the theater summer camp that I mentioned before.

When a theater group that we had done volunteer work for before (forced volunteer work really as for our kids to be in the show the parents had to put in hours) closed down, my friend purchased their costume stash.  To that end we had to move the costumes quickly because the lease on the storage space was ending.  When we picked up the costumes we stuffed our vehicles with as much as we could carry and dumped them into T's house.  (some went to B's & my houses as well)

Yesterday we went to T's house to attempt to organize the costumes and try to get her house looking more livable.  We started on her son's old bedroom (he has moved out) where the majority (? okay, maybe only half) of the costumes went.

First we had to move a bunch of costumes out of the bedroom so that we could get in.  We also needed to move garment racks into the room to put the costumes on.  {there was also some dog negotiations going on as T's dog was sure that we had come to see her and was mad at T for hogging HER guests!}  Once that was tackled we went to the task of looking at each item, determining what it was and then where it should go.

Determining where things should go became a work in progress as we would put things in a spot and then when more and more pieces of a show appeared have to move the group together. 

Surprisingly we were able to work our way through the piles and get everything looking much more organized.  There is even still room in the room for more...which is very good as to have garment racks for the room, T pulled costumes off the racks that were upstairs and brought the racks down.  We determined that we could fit at least two more racks in the room.  T is going to get her husband to install two garment bars in the room's closet for hanging short items.  So we can put shirts on the top bar and pants on the bottom bar.  That will free up more space on the 5 racks currently in the room.  We may also decide to put certain shows into bins.

After we left T moved some of the piles of costumes she pulled off the racks upstairs downstairs.

So we are going to need at least 1 if not 2 more organizing trips there.  I can probably organize the costumes that I have at my house by myself (although I can also enlist my daughter to help me.).  I don't know if B is going to want our help to organize what she has.  I do know that she insisted that we get everything organized so perhaps she has been working on her stash already.

Eventually we'll need to catalog the shows at least and/or the costumes so that they can all be rented.  We noticed while organizing that many items were missing and know that those were rented or loaned out by the former owner and not returned to them...several things were sold or gotten rid of also.  It will be frustrating recreating costumes that we have already made.  sigh

the joys of having a job

After all these years of volunteering to make costumes for theater, my friend got me a job getting paid at it.  This summer I costumed 4 kids summer camps where they attend the camp every day for 3 weeks and put on a mini version of a show at then end of their camp.  Each camp for this age group is a half day with several kids taking two camps so they are there the entire day and doing two shows.

It has been interesting.

There was the frustration in locating costumes for shows that had been done over and over by this theater company and then making what I was unable to find.  Pictures would have been helpful!  as I learned the reason that I couldn't find one of the costumes is because I thought it looked like something else!

I didn't initially apply for this job because of the distance to the theater and because the next two days of my life for the final show.  See Kiddo is in a show also (I'm not costuming that show!) and this is her show week as well.  So Friday I will miss her show for the one I am working.  :(

The camps were held at two locations, each doing two shows.  Show 1 at location A and then show 2 at location B...then show 1 at location B and finally this week show 2 at location A.  Location A is an hour from my home and is also where they store the costumes for the shows.  (another reason I didn't jump at taking the job)... however, after doing the job I got over the distance as for most days most of my time was the driving to and from... the job itself isn't difficult and is right in my skill set.  So thanks to my old volunteer job for giving me the skills to do something that I can get paid for.

Last week my friend who got me this job asked if I could help her with another job she is working on.  The show she is doing is renting costumes from another theater and she was told that she would need several cars to transport the costumes.  The costumes were an hour away.  ugh!  Unfortunately, the only day that she could get the costumes was yesterday...which is also my daughter's voice lesson day and trying to change her lesson is now impossible.  double ugh!

Our plan of attack was that we would get there at 11am.  Load up my car and I would head back home so that I could get kiddo to her voice lesson at 1pm.  We would work out getting the costumes from my car to my friend's house later.

SCREECHING HALT!  when we arrived at the rental theater about 10 min early, the gal is no where to be found!  When she finally does show up at 11...she informs us that the costumes aren't actually at that location.  WHAT?  So we caravan to the storage facility which is about a mile down the road.

Luckily, the costumes were all in labeled bins and easy to load up.  Unfortunately, while the costumes needed several of this person's sized cars to transport... they could have all fit in my car (yeah, I drive a big gas guzzler that has a lot of cargo room!) and we didn't need 3 cars to get them back.

We loaded my car with 4 of the 7 bins and I zip out of there by 11:15.  Praise God that traffic was not backed up and it only took me an hour to get home with plenty of time to get kiddo to her voice lesson.

After voice we had to get Kiddo ready for her dress rehearsal.  She is in Thoroughly Modern Millie... which requires her to have her hair bobbed short... her hair length is to the middle of her back.  so we have learned how to do a faux bob.  It looks really good and she totally looks like she's from the 1920's.

Get kiddo to dress rehearsal at 5.  Meet with friend to inventory the costumes I brought back and transfer them to her car.  At 6:30 go to rehearsal for her show (the one we got the costumes for) so we can measure the cast.  Have a lot of awkward moments with the cast...I had them all hold the tape for their inseam and diverted my gaze to the floor to get the measurement.  Most all of the men had been measured for a suit before and totally understood how to get this measurement.  whew!  although, most of the costumes for this show don't really require pants...soooo

Get finished with that show at 9, rush to my house to pick up two costumes for a different show (btw: I'm currently storing a bunch of costumes in my basement) and then run back to pick up Kiddo...who was finished early.  oops...IDK why my phone didn't ring...perhaps that was when I was in the basement and the phone was upstairs.

Of course instead of getting a good night's sleep, I'm up early this morning.  :p  I told hubby that I was practicing for tomorrow where I'll have to be in traffic at this early hour.

Back on Monday Kiddo was doing her laundry and hubby asked if I could wash something he needed.  I told him I was doing our laundry on Wednesday.  This morning, I'm up and ask for the item...he is wearing it!  After he changes out he asks if I am using the new batch of laundry soap.  and then says to not bother to wash his item with the new soap as he doesn't like the smell of it.  I figured out how to wash his clothes without using my soap (I used dish soap, borax & washing soda instead)...but I have to figure out how to alter the scent of my batch of detergent that I made so that my family doesn't turn their nose up at it.

Thursday & Friday I needed to be up at location A for the dress rehearsals at 8:30 in the morning.  In normal traffic, you can get there from my house in about 1 hour 5 min.  However, in rush hour it is another story.  If I leave my house at 6:10am I can be there by 7:15.  If I leave my house at 6:30, I might not make it by 8:30!!!  :o   so to be sure that I was there on time I left each morning at 6:10 and just hung out at a local coffee shop, using their free wifi for an hour before heading just down the street to work.

However, on Friday I needed to be there from 8:30 to "12:30" (I actually ended up being able to leave at 10:20) and then return by 5pm for the 6pm show.  I didn't really want to drive all the way home and then go back up there.  So I decided to go get my hair color done by a girl from our church who is attending beauty school...she's almost ready to graduate.  I arrived at the beauty school way too early for my 2pm appointment though and went across the street and got my nails done also.
Unfortunately, getting my hair done took a bit longer than we anticipated and with traffic I was a tiny bit late in returning to the theater.

Not a big deal...the cast and everyone were able to start getting the kids into their costumes without me and were mostly done by the time I arrived...they started a bit early.  Got the kids all in costumes and ready to go.

After the show, I loaded up and headed for home.  Since Kiddo's show would be done in about 30 min, I decided to go hang out at her theater instead of going straight home (even though my house is just 5 min down the road).  Chatted with the mom of one of the cast mates and saw a few friends after the show.

Now that my summer camp job is over, we'll start on the next show.  I get to sew a pink bunny costume and we'll see what else I have to do.  :D

Kiddo is going to audition for 2 more shows coming up...that I may help costume as well.  My friend has the contract for them and I might be asked to assist her.  It will be nice to not have to drive all the way to location A for a good long while.  :D

Bees!

I had seen several ads posted on Craigslist for free bee swarm removal, and thought it would be cool to actually have a swarm.
Around May 23rd or so (date pretty foggy there) I was out working in my garden and thought I heard bees buzzing by. I looked around but didn't think anything of it.
May 26th I was out in the back yard again and knew I heard bees. I looked around and saw that we had bees who had decided "su casa es me casa!"

I love bees but I know that hubby is highly allergic and while having bees in a hive is awesome (honey!) having bees in your wall is not awesome. So right off I contact a friend of mine who keeps bees who upon hearing that the bees are in my wall has me contact John, who has me contact Stuart. Stuart says he has an opening on June 2nd...do I want it? um yeah!

Today Stuart opens up the soffit

takes a few pictures.  

hive after opening up soffit

after vacuuming off most of the bees

I grabbed a few also...there are more on my camera. My dining room made for the perfect bee operation view point.

He vacuumed the bees using a shop vac with hoses that ran through a special bee box first. The bees get caught in the box. He cut out the comb and we discovered that the queen (who was hiding behind the very last comb) had been very busy laying a lot of eggs. After finding the queen bee and cutting out all the comb, he went to lunch to give the bees a chance to figure out where the queen had moved to.

Funny, at first the bees were flying mostly around where the hive used to be, but after a while they figured out where the queen was and stayed by her...some fanning her with their wings.

After lunch, vacuumed out the rest of the bees in the soffit, and started putting it back together. now the soffit is all sealed back up and the bees are on their way to a new home...I don't know where. But Stuart said that last year he had to provide his own bee removal service because one of his swarms had decided to move into his own house. :D I hope this swarm behaves better for him.
oh no honey in our hive...so no honey for anyone.

Did it myself! Cell phone case tutorial

So we were shopping at the Disney Store on Tuesday and I found this beauty http://www.disneystore.com/alice-through-the-looking-gla…/…/ but it only comes for the iPhone. I have an Android. So today we went shopping for stuff to make it with! We found gear die cuts and gold paper (originally gift bags). Had a blast cutting out all the gears.:D freaked out the kid because her cutter didn't like it much. oops, she needed a new plate anyway. ;)

 Unfortunately, I didn't take pictures of the steps for you.  But I should be able to explain it...I hope.

Items I needed:

clear cell phone case for my phone.  I found this easily by googling my cell phone brand.  The only problem I had is that the site selling the case did not indicate that the case I bought wasn't entirely clear.  There is part of the case that is cloudy.  However, for this it doesn't matter much as you can still see the design and from a distance the cloudy part isn't noticeable.

background paper.  Since the original design that I was copying from Disney is white, I just used scrap white paper.  The thinner the paper, the better as there is some bending required.  If you have white wrapping paper that works really well.

the gears.  We found these Tim Holtz gear dies at our local craft store and I had a coupon.  My daughter already owns a die press although we did need to improvise getting the thickness correct (there is an adapter you can buy, but we just used an embossing folder).
I wanted to copy the gold foil look and since we couldn't find gold foil scrap booking paper we bought some gold foil gift bags instead.  They were thinner and worked better.  gold foil wrapping paper would have also worked for this.
The dies have tiny holes on the back to help remove the cut paper.  We gently pushed the paper out of the dies with pins.

the rabbit.  My daughter actually already had the rabbit stamp (go figure!) so all we needed was the gold ink stamp pad.  It took a few tries to get that right but practice makes perfect.

Now for the assembly!  First I popped off the back cover of my cell phone and traced it onto some thicker paper to make a template that we saved to make other cell phone case inserts.  (actually, my daughter popped her cover off to make the template.)  Traced the template onto the white paper and carefully cut it out, using an exacto blade for the cut outs for the camera, flash & speaker.

Carefully arranged the gears to see where everything would go, but don't attach yet as the rabbit stamp goes on first.  Stamped the rabbit and then glued down the gears.  Let everything dry with some weight on it so it is flat.

Then place the new cover over the back cover of the phone and place the clear case on.

Finished phone case