My niece is finally here!

We've been awaiting her arrival for quite some time and she kept us waiting an extra week, but Zoey Jane is finally here! She arrived this morning and is beautiful. I have so much more to post about her and many other things to share with you all but just wanted to give everyone a quick update about her.

I'm sure we will have much better pictures soon but I just had to share!

Zoey and me:

Any volunteers?

Maybe I will get some cleaning done tomorrow. Maybe.

We Have a New Look!

I've been toying around with changing the look of this place for awhile now and I finally found something that is totally me.

Hope you all love the facelift too!

Random Musings: Lost Phone

I swear at least 5 times a day I utter the phrase, "I can't find my phone!" I can hear my mother now saying, "It's not nice to swear." But it's true. The phone plays some sort of crazy disappearing act on me all throughout the day.

The other day, I was wandering everywhere in the house looking for it and about to give up. When I get to this point, I usually have two routes to take. If I am home alone, the house phone usually comes to my rescue. I'm pretty sure it's the only reason we have a house phone anymore. If someone else is home, they are the lucky one who gets to call my phone in search of it.

Unfortunately, this doesn't always workout the way I would like it to. My phone has this great little switch, which makes it so easy to turn the volume off and turn vibrate mode on. Problem is that I almost always forget to turn the volume back on. Doesn't work out so well when trying to call my phone to find it!

My husband keeps telling me that he's going to get me a leash for my phone. Something like this might do:

Source: amazon.com via Andi on Pinterest

Although, I can't imagine carrying that around all day! Can you just imagine the looks I would get if I answered a call on that phone while out running errands?

Lucky for me this time, I didn't have to go through all these lengthy measures. After searching high and low for the crazy phone, I found it on the couch I had just gotten up from. I swear it wasn't there when I left. (Sorry, mother!)

Some Things Just Don't Turn Out as Planned...

There are some things that I've made that I absolutely love. They go exactly as planned while making them and the end result is usually better than what I had pictured in my head.

And then there are others... Boy are there others!

These are some of my mishaps from recent projects:

At first glance this skirt may look perfectly fine, but it's not at all. I actually cried when I first tried it on. The trouble is that it's much wider than it is long. The dang thing is only 14 inches long! I have no idea what went wrong in making it but something sure did. My curvy butt hangs way out of this thing! There is NO WAY I was even going to try it on to show you all how horrible of a skirt it is!

Boot socks have been all over Pinterest and I have been in love with them since I first laid eyes on them. I got a great pair of boots right before Christmas and headed straight to Goodwill to gather up a bunch of sweaters to make some myself. They couldn't be too hard right? Wrong! I had no trouble making them at all but never once thought to actually try out the sleeves and see if they would fit my legs. Big mistake! Such cute socks and I'll never be able to wear them because they don't even fit my arms. How in the world did I ever think they would fit my legs?! Lesson learned there!

My sister has been asking me to help her out with a project for her dog. He has been marking the walls, furniture and well... just about everything in her house and she's been having trouble getting him to stop. I made him a belly band but since he is a dachshund, it had trouble staying put. My next idea was to make a harness but lengthen it so that he could wear it while in the house and not mark everywhere. Good thought but didn't go according to plan.

I am not sure if it was the pattern or user error but it just didn't go well. My old stuffed dog is my lovely model (Max, the dachshund wouldn't sit still for pics). The neck strap was supposed to be the same size as the dog's neck and attached to the body piece. That made for a HUGE head hole. Then the other problem was that I more than doubled the body length and it still barely came past the chest. This was the point I got to and finally threw in the towel. Yep, gave up!

My next idea was to make my own style belly band but use fleece and a bit of elastic to help it stay. It seemed brilliant to me. I took precise measurements and sewed very carefully. Then came time to try it on. Crap! I measured around his waist and cut the fabric to that length. I didn't account for the need for extra fabric to actually wrap it around to secure it. Back to the machine for try THREE!

I know there will probably be many more days like these. The goal is trying to learn to laugh a little more about it.