Because I don’t have enough to do with my time lately, I decided to take on a sewing project today. I was inspired by this blog and this skirt at work today. Since I am headed to Midlothian tomorrow night for a King Pin Wii Bowling Tournament, and since I had a pair of pants to mend for the Brother-in-Law, I thought I’d get creative and make a fun skirt for the nieces. The ladies at Hobby Lobby complimented me on what an awesome Aunt I clearly am. I know, I told them. I am totally going for Aunt of the Year. (It’s an easy win. I’m the only one currently. They’ll be gaining an Aunt Jenn in August, so she’ll be eligible for Best Aunt 2010, and will likely win if I’m waist-deep in Nursing School.) (Gawd, I hope I’m waist deep in Nursing School.)
I was inspired by Wood’s first paragraph, “For years I sewed infrequently, occasionally making a purse for a friend or a little something for Juniper once in a blue moon. And what I made was pretty awful. I never used patterns. My finished projects were best viewed from at least 10 feet away, and that’s just not a great feeling to have about something you spent so many hours creating.” ME TOO, I thought. My work is ALSO viewed best from 10 feet (yards?) away. I also never use patterns! I also sew infrequently at best! But she has a blog, and she posts things that she makes, and they are cute, so me too, right?
Maybe not. I’m not sure why nothing that I make is ever satisfactory to me. I took engagement pictures for Jared and Jenn recently (*side note: this fact is one of the main reasons why I should NOT have been making skirts tonight. I should have been editing photos. Alas, I am worse at editing photos than I am at sewing straight lines, so sewing won.) and I honestly thought I was going to become Ansel Adams for the 2 hour shoot. When the pictures came out looking like normal, pretty engagement pictures, I was wholeheartedly disappointed. NOT PERFECT, I moaned to Zack. He was like, hey, these are good. Get over it. I didn’t get over it until I showed the pictures to some ladies at work. I just showed them to my work friends as if they were engagement pictures, failing to mention that I had taken them. When one of the ladies in my office asked me who their photographer was, so that she could see about hiring her, THAT was when I finally believed that they were, in fact, good pictures.
Same story with the skirts tonight. The fabric wasn’t perfect, I’m not very good at cutting straight lines, I didn’t have any safety pins for pulling through the elastic. Abbie’s waist was too tight (just right?), Kate’s waist was a little loose (she’ll grow into it?) and Abbie’s ribbon hem wasn’t perfect, either, and the skirt was longer than I had intended for it to be. I was feeling pretty bummed about the skirts overall. Then Matt (the girls’s dad) called, and asked if we could baby-sit. I said sure, bring over those buckets of deliciousness. And it wasn’t until I slid the finished product over Abbie’s head that I felt better about the finished product of the imperfect skirt. She smiled big, ran to the middle of the living room, grabbed the fabric in her little 2 year-old hands, and she started to spin.
I guess Abbie doesn’t care if the elastic in her waistband is twisted. She just cares what that skirt looks like when she’s twirling around the living room. And I gotta tell you, while in motion from about 10 feet away, that skirt looked pretty dang good.
P90X update – Day #5:
The legs are slightly better today.
Last night was the P90X Yoga X night. I was only able to do about 20 minutes of it (sans any of the lunge stances, opting for triangle poses instead) before I had to bail out. I think the stretching helped, though, as this morning I was able to lower myself into my office chair without using the arm rests. I could have done that yesterday, I guess, but I would have cried while doing it. That hardly counts.
Tonight was the Back and Legs day. The cruelty of P90X has been unrelenting. I’m still visibly grimacing while walking up and down stairs, but I hung out for the workout video today and did what I could. For the most part, I forewent weights when they chose to use them. My lunges were shallow, and my wall-sits were non-existent. But I moved for an hour. I warmed up, worked out, ran in place or did jumping jacks when I couldn’t do the exercises, and I cooled down.
After the Back and Legs video, we did the Ab Ripper X video. I’m proud to say that today, the third time we’ve done this particular 16:00 minutes of hell, I was able to track improvements. I probably only missed about 10 of the 350ish reps in the whole video. The first video, I probably missed at least 50. I have to say, even though my performance for the Back and Legs was dismal, I’m proud of my improvement with the Ab Ripper. Perhaps I’ll feel this way about everything in 3 weeks. I’m just not there yet.
