26.2.08

finished! (with the first one anyway)




So here's my cutesy bag. I made it from the book Bend the Rules Sewing by Amy Karol author of the craft blog Angry Chicken. It was a blast. Her projects generally require little fabric, they're quick, and simple, and ubercute. So this is my first project from the book. A simple lined bag with darts on the bottom to make it a little flat. The handle is threaded through casings, enabling the bag to slightly gather when it's held. Pick up the book, seriously. It has something for everyone. Accessories, Home Decor, Baby stuffs. I especially love her philosophy on crafting, which is in a nutshell: Craft because you love to craft and you want something unique. You can buy nearly anything for cheaper than you can make it these days, so crafting to save money is obsolete. I needed to hear that.

Happy Crafting!

25.2.08

i bought myself a present

startin' a new project

24.2.08


I have cabin fever. And burnout. I'm living in a burned-out cabin.

23.2.08

brief conversations with myself

having one was a piece of fucking cake. that is all.


do other people really have clean houses? how does this work exactly?



if your house is a fucking wreck (i'm feeling like some f-bombs today) do people see fit to bring it to your husband's attention?

21.2.08

Ricky Gervais on Creation

Thursday's Breakin' 2 Electric Boogaloo Trivia

Today's topic is Science & Technology

20.2.08

Rather Timely

If ever I needed to read this, it is now. I've declared my new job title "psychiatric orderly". I am, on occasion, losing sight of the bigger picture.


THE DAILY GROOVE ~ by Scott Noelle
www.enjoyparenting.com/dailygroove

:: A Human Becoming ::

In a product-oriented culture, there's a tendency to"productize" and "package" people. We often forget that a human being is a living process -- a "human becoming."
Children are especially dynamic -- often visibly different from one day to the next -- and no two children develop precisely the same way. This can be a challenge for us when we've been conditioned to "need"the predictability (read: controllability) of static products.
Many parent-child struggles can be avoided simply by allowing children to be different than they were the previous day, or even the previous minute! A toddler may "hate" peas at the beginning of the meal and"love" them by the end of the meal, provided the parent doesn't pronounce the child a pea-hater in the interim.
Today, be mindful of the way you talk about your child. Note that *labels* tend to productize. You can avoid labels by focusing on the process. For example,"he's a fussy eater" becomes "he's figuring out his tastes."
Especially avoid "always" and "never" statements like "she *never* brushes her teeth willingly. "Someday she will. :-)

http://dailygroove.net/human-becoming
Feel free to forward this message to your friends!(Please include this paragraph and everything above.)Copyright (c) 2008 by Scott Noelle

19.2.08

Belated Valentines

Conor, I wrote you this love poem:


Your skin glows like the guava, blossoms resplendant as the geranium in the purest hope of spring.
My heart follows your sitar voice and leaps like a panther at the whisper of your name.
The evening floats in on a great finch wing.
I am comforted by your earmuffs that I carry into the twilight of blossombeams and hold next to my ear lobe.
I am filled with hope that I may dry your tears of ink.
As my elbow falls from my long johns, it reminds me of your french horn.
In the quiet, I listen for the last rustling of the day.
My heated knuckle leaps to my cape.
I wait in the moonlight for your secret statue so that we may wrap as one, knuckle to knuckle, in search of the magnificient crimson and mystical dictionary of love.
---------------------------------------
Seriously, now people. I got it from here: Love poem generator Post your poems in the comments!

18.2.08

Oh my aching sides....

brief conversations with myself

  1. Why can't people let kids be in charge of their own hair? If Violet wants to shave her head and dye it purple with kool-aid, fine with me. If Finn wants to grow his hair out and pincurl it every night, I'd be curious, but fine with me.
  2. Why am I biased against Sketchers? They have shoes that I like just fine, but I refuse to get them because they are Sketchers. But I don't know why.
  3. Why must Finn climb on top of the TV and watch it hanging upside down over the screen?

... to be updated as my day progresses...

President's Day Trivia

Today's topic is HISTORY, what else?

17.2.08

Sunday's Trivia

Today's topic is "Celebrities"

16.2.08

Saturday's Trivia

Today's topic is Religion. Click the link on the scoreboard that I can't seem to fix so it fits in the sidebar.

Feel like cringing?

Now I realize, if you're looking for dumb people you're going to edit it to appear worse than it may be. I also realize, if you're looking for dumb people, you're not going to have to go far.
Another interesting read Are Americans Hostile to Knowledge?

15.2.08

Another insightful Scott Noelle creation

THE DAILY GROOVE ~ by Scott Noelle
www.enjoyparenting.com/dailygroove

:: FEEL Your Way to Find Your Way ::

Once you understand that the primary purpose of your emotions is to guide your thinking, you no longer need to over-rely on cold rationality to make good parenting decisions.
Your decisions can be "emotional" without being irrational. (They may, however, transcend conventional rationality.)


The key is to be willing to *wait*. Take no action until your emotions give you the green light, because your culturally pre-programmed answers come up immediately, while your creative process takes sometime to ripen.

Often a particular choice seems very reasonable, but you feel *something* isn't quite right. Connecting with the feeling and waiting for more clarity usually reveal another aspect that, when considered, leads to a better course of action.

If you have a history of indecisiveness, don't go for"perfect" decisions. When your creative process leads to any feeling of *relief*, consider it a green light for a *good enough* decision. You can always amend your decision later.

http://dailygroove.net/feel-your-way
Feel free to forward this message to your friends!
(Please include this paragraph and everything above.)
Copyright (c) 2008 by Scott Noelle

....Discuss....

Friday's Breakin' 2 Electric Boogaloo Trivia

14.2.08

Thursday's Breakin' 2 Electric Boogaloo Trivia

Come play!

13.2.08

my tv refrigerator


This is what my fridge should always look like. Doesn't it look fake? I love it. See all my delicious healthful options? See how I pre-washed all my produce? There are parsnips in there, people. PARSNIPS. Do I sound desperate for praise? Where's my cookie? Er...organic mango slice...



Introducing: Breakin' 2 Electric Boogaloo Trivia !

Come on down and test your skillz. Your mad skillz.

You'll have to set up an username and password so you can come play everyday.

So, come play play with me.

11.2.08

They can milk me for a donation any day of the week.

I got so excited over this I started twitching. Infant and young child nutrition is not only so complex and fascinating, but is also near and dear to my heart.

ARTICLE TAKEN IN IT'S ENTIRETY FROM HERE:

BOLDING MINE!

Breast milk contains stem cells

Monday, 11 February 2008
By Catherine Madden

The Perth scientist who made the world-first discovery that human breast milk contains stem cells is confident that within five years scientists will be harvesting them to research treatment for conditions as far-reaching as spinal injuries, diabetes and Parkinson’s disease.
But what Dr Mark Cregan is excited about right now is the promise that his discovery could be the start of many more exciting revelations about the potency of breast milk.
He believes that it not only meets all the nutritional needs of a growing infant but contains key markers that guide his or her development into adulthood.
“We already know how breast milk provides for the baby’s nutritional needs, but we are only just beginning to understand that it probably performs many other functions,” says Dr Cregan, a molecular biologist at The University of Western Australia.
He says that, in essence, a new mother’s mammary glands take over from the placenta to provide the development guidance to ensure a baby’s genetic destiny is fulfilled.
“It is setting the baby up for the perfect development,” he says. “We already know that babies who are breast fed have an IQ advantage and that there’s a raft of other health benefits. Researchers also believe that the protective effects of being breast fed continue well into adult life.
“The point is that many mothers see milks as identical – formula milk and breast milk look the same so they must be the same. But we know now that they are quite different and a lot of the effects of breast milk versus formula don’t become apparent for decades. Formula companies have focussed on matching breast milk’s nutritional qualities but formula can never provide the developmental guidance.”
It was Dr Cregan’s interest in infant health that led him to investigate the complex cellular components of human milk. “I was looking at this vast complexity of cells and I thought, ‘No one knows anything about them’.”
His hunch was that if breast milk contains all these cells, surely it has their precursors, too?
His team cultured cells from human breast milk and found a population that tested positive for the stem cell marker, nestin. Further analysis showed that a side population of the stem cells were of multiple lineages with the potential to differentiate into multiple cell types. This means the cells could potentially be “reprogrammed” to form many types of human tissue.
He presented his research at the end of January to 200 of the world’s leading experts in the field at the International Conference of the Society for Research on Human Milk and Lactation in Perth.
“We have shown these cells have all the physical characteristics of stem cells. What we will do next is to see if they behave like stem cells,” he says.
If so, they promise to provide researchers with an entirely ethical means of harvesting stem cells for research without the debate that has dogged the harvesting of cells from embryos.
Further research on immune cells, which have also been found in breast milk and have already been shown to survive the baby’s digestive process, could provide a pathway to developing targets to beat certain viruses or bacteria.

10.2.08

Today I paid off 3 credit cards to the tune of $5200. Nothin' like paying for stuff you already bought. But I feel good.

6.2.08

I get daily parenting emails from Scott Noelle. He has an incredible knack for helping me really "get" a child's perspective. I really enjoyed today's, so I'm sharing it:

THE DAILY GROOVE ~ by Scott Noelle
www.enjoyparenting.com/dailygroove

:: Nothing but Roses ::

The age-old advice to "stop and smell the roses"is more poignant than ever in these times of over-scheduled, task-driven lifestyles. As adults, that could mean taking a few minutes a day to appreciate the little things that add sweetness to our lives. But for children, especially the very young, virtually *everything* is a rose!

Imagine stepping outside and witnessing a total eclipse of the sun that reveals a glorious meteor shower, accompanied by a choir of dogs howling in three-part harmony! Everything is that extraordinary to a child because s/he hasn't been around long enough for very many things to seem "ordinary."

So the next time you're in a hurry and your child is"dawdling," remember that s/he is simply smelling the roses.

Let your child inspire you to don your own "beginner's mind" and experience the fresh uniqueness of this"ordinary" moment.

http://dailygroove.net/roses
Feel free to forward this message to your friends! (Please include this paragraph and everything above.) Copyright (c) 2008 by Scott Noelle

5.2.08

Postage paid

Yesterday I received a survey in the mail from "The Research Institute of Mother and Child Care". It was a survey on infant and toddler feeding. What appeared at first to be a little non-profit's survey, was soon clearly a front for a major formula company. The questions were essentially geared to find out where I got certain types of formula (like the kind I gave back to the nurse at the hospital), which checks or coupons I'd received, and how those affected my future purchasing choices. They even go so far as to ask how I liked the packaging. Not being one to sit on my hands in these situations, I'm sending them this:




 

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