Sewing Project

I feel a bit funny writing this post because the incident I'm writing about happened a week and a half ago. It's like journaling... I HATE writing about past events when there's other things I could be writing about. (Ryan is making me date this entry for the day it happened if there's confusion!)

Anyway, I sewed a pillow case for my friend Trisha who had a baby on 26 Feb. It's a boppy-esque pillow that had very odd looking zoo animals on it. She hated the pillow and refused to use it until it was fixed. The pillow case was my help prior to Rebekah's arrival and way of weaseling out of having to buy a baby gift. (Did I say that out loud?! After all, we are unemployed at the moment.)

I was impressed that the pillow case turned out so well. I had to sew it at mid-night after Benjamin was asleep b/c it was hard enough to chase off the kitties while I was making a pattern and cutting the fabric. Benjamin is so mechanical too and would have been itching to "help me" use my sewing machine if he had been awake.

I did make one logistical error on the case. I cut the extra flap fabric straight across instead of following the pattern. I left the weird diagonal flap that's not attached fully in the seam so it wouldn't separate, but I probably could have cut more of it off. Anyway, it worked out okay after I sweated a little trying to wrestle the pillow into the case.

Trisha approved so that's mostly what matters. (She is a bit neurotic about wanting things to be perfect.) The project made my heart smile a bit b/c I'm so blessed to have decent sewing talent and a sewing machine!

Fun with a Sharpie

As you can see from the picture, Elizabeth and I left Benjamin alone too long and he decided to entertain himself. We set Benjamin up with his "bouncy" seat in front of VeggieTales while we showered for church. When we finished, we realized we still had a little time in the program and decided to dress and pretty up without worrying about Benjamin being under foot. This was a flawed assessment. When I went in to check on Benjamin when I heard some cries from him, I thought he was telling me he was bored. What he was really trying to tell me was that he had dropped the Sharpie and would like me to get it for him. He had marked his face, eyelids, hair, hands, shirt, pants, "bouncy" seat, and the brand new LittlePeople bus we bought him yesterday. Of course, this discovery happened about five minutes before people were supposed to show up at our home for a Young Women's Presidency meeting. Benjamin got a second bath which was not as fun as the first one he got. He couldn't figure out why Dad was slightly upset and stressed. However, I was able to scrub enough that the majority of the marker was removed. However, it was still faintly visible, so it looked like Benjamin had veins showing on his forehead.

Visiting the BIG Kitties

Benjamin and I went to the Zoo today. Apparently he and Elizabeth have gone to the Aquarium a number of times and she mentioned to me he might be bored of the Fish now. So I thought for a change of pace we would visit the Gorilla Complex and the Cat House. He was not too interested in the Gorillas. Even when I took him under the bubble so he could look up at one of the baby gorillas banging on the bubble and licking it. He just stared. We wondered around getting different angles on the Gorillas, and they were fairly active. However, Benjamin took more interest in the ball sitting in the cage than the Gorillas. Now the Cat House was a totally different story. Benjamin could hardly wait to go inside. While we were walking past the few in cages on the outside he kept signing cat and saying, "Moew." That's his version of Meow. We had to look at all the different tigers, jaguars, lions, and fishing cats three times. He just couldn't get enough. One of the white Bengali tigers was stalking around its cage because another tiger was in the enclosed room next to it's cage, and it could smell the medical personnel. It was very uneasy, but Benjamin loved watching it wonder around bearing her teeth. On of his favorite stops was the blind in one eye old tiger. It just kept wandering around the cage pushing its ball. Of course Benjamin was all over that and kept saying, "Bah" for the ball. While we were sitting eating lunch the medical people were putting their gear away and the female lion across the way kept leaping on her hind legs and pawing at the glass near one of the female doctors. Benjamin just stared. I'm sure he's seen one of our cats doing that, but a lioness is slightly bigger and her paws make a much louder sound.

Home Coming

Today I finally came home. After almost two weeks of sitting around waiting for the Air National Guard C-5 to decide to show up at Fort Bragg, NC. Dude!! On my flight home on the first leg to Dallas-Fort Worth I talked with a guy who had just graduated from college and had spent the day in Raleigh interviewing with IBM. I got off the plane to stretch my legs, and when I got back on headed back to my seat in the very back. I spoke with a gentleman sitting across the aisle from me and after telling him a little about where I was coming from and what I had been doing; he asked the stewardess if I could be seated in First Class on the way home. When she came back she asked if I would like to move up to First Class for the flight to Omaha. It was kind of awkward walking down the aisle as she was announcing to everyone on the plane that I was coming home from Afghanistan after being gone for over a year. The people clapped for me and a few even shook my hand as I walked down the aisle. They put me in the very front seat so I was the first person off the plane. I have to say the best part of First Class is the bottomless Orange Juice. Not sure if I would be willing to pay that much for just that, but it was nice. As you can see from the picture, Elizabeth missed me. She was there waiting for me at the gate when I got off the plane.