**Apologies to my Facebook friends who have already seen these photos ad-nauseum**

My oldest daughter, Cindy, is an amazing photographer. The word “amazing” is often overused these days, in my opinion, as the go-to adjective to describe anyone or anything with slightly more-than-mediocre or impressive skills, talent, or results. In fact, I heard it in abundance the other night to describe the average Joe bachelor, Jake, on this season’s “The Bachelor” reality TV show… but I digress…

Back to my daughter. She really is a talented photographer. It’s in her genes. Her great-uncle (my uncle – my father, Jim Conant’s oldest brother) was Howell Conant, renowned photographer of Princess Grace and Prince Rainier Grimaldi of Monaco. So, it’s not surprising that she picked up the talent. I have been encouraging her for years to start her own business, but it’s hard when you have little ones at home and no seed money to get started. (Benefactors, anyone? hint, hint…)

This last Sunday, my younger daughter Stacy, the preggy one, and I packed up a bunch of my fabrics and together with Cindy and her hubby, Cody, (primarily them) we set up making a makeshift studio and played around with lighting and backdrops so she could take Stacy’s pregnancy photos before baby gets here. Cindy caught some lovely photos, even if we didn’t have the best lighting or professional backdrops. We had a BLAST and laughed a LOT. I’ll do a separate shout-out to Cody once Cindy sends me the fun pictures she took of him.

Here are the pregnancy photos she took of Stacy. We’re really happy with how they turned out, and I think this weekend, if the weather holds, we’re going to try some outdoor shots.

This one is our all-time favorite:

The scar on her belly is from her gastric-bypass surgery she had several years ago.

I love this one. These are the hands of her two nephews and niece. Left to right, clockwise: Cayden, Elise, Evan.

Evan’s hands.

How precious is this? Evan adores his Auntie Stacy.

And the photos wouldn’t be complete without Stacy’s doggie, Trixie in them. She even had on her finest dress in honor of the occasion.

Phew… there’s been so much going on lately that I’ve been a neglectful blogger. Sometimes I don’t blog because the hugely disparate thoughts that go through my mind are hard to congeal into any sort of substance that might make sense to my peeps. So I stay quiet. That, and I’ve been swamped with work and family. I haven’t done any sewing in a couple weeks, haven’t done any activity in over a week, but I’ve stuck to my Weight Watchers program and have maintained my weight. So that area of my life is stable.

(The picture below is of Laila from last week – how adorable is she with that sweet button nose and chubby cheeks? I can’t wait to meet her in person.)

On the baby front – the major focus in my life lately – my daughter’s pregnancy is progressing quickly. Yesterday, the doctors finally verbalized what I suspected for a long time – that she is at high-risk for having a preterm delivery. She’s at 35 weeks as of yesterday, so we really just hope to have her make it a couple more weeks. Right now, she has too much amniotic fluid. This increases her risk of complications such as placenta abruption (where the placenta pulls away from the uterine wall) and her water breaking early. All along they’ve had subtle questions about her placenta so now I am guessing that they’ve been worried about this from the start. I could be reading more into it than is there, but usually my intuition is pretty accurate. She’s had contractions that have been stronger than your typical Braxton Hicks contractions and has been on modified bed rest (not strict, but take it easy and no excessive walking) for a couple weeks or so now. She goes twice a week now to the fetal medicine doctors for a biophysical profile ultrasound and fetal non-stress test where they check the baby’s breathing, swallowing, heart beat, and her contractions. At this point, if she were to start labor, they’d probably just deliver her. I’m very grateful that my daughter chose the hospital and doctors that she chose because they’ve watched her very closely from the beginning due to the extensive medications she’s on and has had to stay on during her pregnancy.

That means, then, that I’ve been a busy bee. Not only am I taking my daughter to her appointments, but my job is extremely busy right now. My team has a deadline of February 12th, so I’m hoping baby waits until after that to arrive. I have a LOT of work to do until then.

On the sewing front, my daughter wants me to make her some maternity delivery gowns, so we have purchased some pretty 100% cotton fabric for that, and I should be sewing those up this Sunday. I’ll do a separate blog post around all that.

Last Sunday, we went up to my oldest daughter’s house (the amazing photographer, Cindy) and she took Stacy’s pregnancy photos. Separate post coming up about that as well.

And finally, there’s all the normal stuff of taking care of a home and our three little Chihuahuas and two cats. Somewhere in all this, I’m trying to sleep as well. But that’s not happening much and the lack of sleep was evidenced Monday when I fell down the stairs! I slipped off the last three stairs and ended up on the hardwoods on my knees, complete with my doggie Lily in my arms. I laughed at first cuz I’m weird like that, but within a few hours my back had stiffened up considerably, and now a trip to the chiropractor is warranted. At least it was me who slipped, and not my daughter. My oldest fell down those stairs when she was pregnant though but the stairs were carpeted then, so it’s not a carpet vs. hardwood issue.

I’ll leave you now with a sneak peek of the pregnancy photos:

More in the next blog post!

Really. I did. Not that I was on any sort of self-imposed restriction or anything like that. But when I saw this in my inbox from Lucy’s Fabrics, I couldn’t resist.

What I love about this is that it’s chocolate brown and pink and has a border print. This fabric is also 58-60” wide, so you get even more for your money. Gotta love that. I bought 2 yards. I’ve been dying to try out a border print and I’m in the mood to sew up some yummy things for myself for this summer.

While I was there, I also found this. Same width as the one above. I love me some pink. I bought one yard of this one. I haven’t been sewing since last weekend but I decided that I need to insert some sewing for myself amidst all this sewing for everyone else. Plus, since I’m almost to my goal weight and size, I’m ready to try sewing clothes for me again. I can’t wait for UPS to get here next week.

Update on baby Laila: My daughter had to go to the maternity ER a couple days ago. (This is a special triage area of the hospital for their maternity patients.) It was determined that my daughter had some signs of preterm labor and they gave her a special shot to stop the contractions and prescribed modified bed rest. Essentially that means that she needs to take it easy, no extensive walking. We’re not too worried at this point if baby comes early as she’s being monitored for her breathing and heartbeat twice a week and baby is doing great. She’s already practicing how to breathe! And they estimate her weight to be currently about 4lbs 9 oz. We just want her to get more chubbiness on her little body before she joins us on this side of the womb.

…To quote a friend of mine.

I’ve been burning up the sewing machine trying to get rid of the stacks of projects (aka fabric) in my sewing loft. It’s been driving me nuts. In addition, baby Laila will be here in about 7 weeks and she needs receiving blankets. Lots of them. And burp cloths, and crib sheets. I also have projects pending for my other three grandkids from so long ago, it’s embarrassing. Not to mention a bunch of stuff I want to sew up for myself for this spring and summer. So, I have been focused and seem to have regained my sewing mojo.

Way back when… ok, well only about 10 days ago or so… I showed you the fabric my daughter picked out for her baby crib bedding. I wasn’t so sure about using the high loft batting, but as I mulled it over, I decided to go for it, even though I’d already purchased some other quilt batting. It took me 10 days of mulling this over to figure out how to actually quilt this stuff.

Totally flying by the seat of my pants (read: didn’t have a clue what I was doing, really) I sandwiched the batting between the top and the bottom of the quilt, pinned it in place, and then managed to get it into my sewing machine and I stitched along some of the design lines of the quilt. That was a total pain in the patootie as I just don’t have the kind of machine that supports stuffing large quantities of fabric and batting in between the needle and the main part of the machine. It was quite an adventure, but the effect is one my daughter doesn’t just like, she loves! (To quote her.)

Finally, after all that, I stitched on the ribbon blanket binding, and called it good. My perfectionist personality sees so much of this that could be improved, but my baby granddaughter won’t know the difference.

Next, after that, I stitched up two more crib sheets, and five receiving blankets, plus a fleece blanket for my littlest grandson that I meant to make him for Christmas.

Guess which receiving blanket is my favorite? 

Finally, I ended my day by cutting out the panels and bias strips to make the coordinating crib bumpers for Laila’s crib. Once this is done, I can move on to finishing the doggie beds for my brother (sorry, Chris!), which I think I’ve totally hosed up and have no idea how to stuff, but that’s another post. I also have to make some curtains for Cayden before he outgrows Lightening McQueen – if he hasn’t already.

At least I feel like I’m making progress and accomplishing things. Oh, and I did get a 2.5 mile run in yesterday, got my hair done, and went shopping for some pretty unmentionables.

Phew.

You’d think that after all the work and prep for my daughter’s baby shower, I’d be spending all of Sunday resting and sleeping, and doing absolutely nothing. Well, if you thought that, then you probably don’t know me that well. It’s nearly impossible for me to sit still for very long. I slept in, however, and had a good 10 hours of sleep, so I felt pretty rested. I did take my time cleaning up the house and the post-party clutter, getting trash taken out, oh, and popping balloons with the neighbor kids. That was too fun – actually, they did all the popping of about 15 balloons or so and asked when I’d have more for them to pop!

Next, my daughter and I hit Target to spend some of her gift cards. We came home with these two things:

I told my daughter it’s very considerate of her to choose things that coordinate with my decor! LOL.

When I finally settled down at the sewing machine, I whipped out three burp rags and two washcloths. I didn’t sew for long, but enough to feel like I accomplished something. I’m getting really good at trueing up the crookedly cut pieces of fabric. I really wish the cutting counters knew how to cut straight. I always lose about 1/8-1/4 yard of fabric because of that.

There’s a short story to the terry fabric. They are made with vintage terry cloth that is about circa 1968 or so. My mother made me a swimsuit cover-up with it. She doesn’t remember it, but I do. I had just a little bit of a remnant of it, probably half a yard or so, that I’ve carted everywhere with me wondering what to make with it, and finally I had a solution. I backed them with pale yellow baby flannel, serged the edges and turned them right side out, so that if the terry sheds some at the cut edge – which it was slightly – it will be hidden.

I have been on the hunt for this flannel (below). I bought it a couple years ago when my daughter’s dog, Trixie, was a puppy. I only bought a yard of it, and now I’m sorry I didn’t buy more. I can’t find it anywhere. I had just enough leftover to make a 13”x18” burp cloth. If anyone knows where to find this, please let me know!

If anyone knows where to find this, please let me know!

Next up on the agenda: finishing up all the quick sewing projects so I can start sewing for myself. I have a couple milestone birthday parties coming up this spring and a couple vacations this summer, not to mention needing some new work clothes (for on-site meetings) so time for ME!

We started by posting signs wrapped in plastic wrap (it’s called the low budget version) anticipating rain and wind all day, but the Baby Shower Gods smiled on my daughter and the clouds parted and sun poured forth. We still had some wind, but we’re not complaining.

We had a great turnout. I think there were about 22 people or so, not counting me, my daughters and my mother. Not sure if you can tell from the picture, but the four of us had these pins that said “Mommy to be”, “Future Grandma” (there were two of those and I altered one to say Great Grandma) and “Sister”, which we altered to also say “& Auntie”. And of course, the preggy one had a tiara perfectly suited for her.

We had some helium balloons, but we wanted more balloons everywhere, so we bought plain pink ones, plus these that said Baby Girl. I didn’t think ahead about the fact that the wording would be upside down when they were blown up and hanging everywhere. Oh well. That’s just me being a perfectionist – no one noticed or commented.

Even Lily (below), Trixie and Daisy got dressed up for the day, but we took them to a doggie sitter so they wouldn’t freak out and bark with all the visitors. It was a good decision.

Things staged for the Saturday morning prep time.

Two of my daughters friends came early to help my other daughter and I get ready on time. One quietly prepped all the veggies and did a superb job. The other put up all the signs and balloons for me, and by the time people started rolling in, we were ready! My oldest daughter did so much work getting the games ready, planning them, and getting all the party favors and shower gifts ready. I’ve come to believe that between the two of us, we throw a pretty great party.

Cake and drinks table:

Party favors table:

You might ask what all the pens are for. We had made up some scrapbook paper cards where we asked people to write down either how they know my daughter, a favorite memory of her, or some words of wisdom for the mommy-to-be. These will go in her baby book.

Some photos of the mommy to be.

And the baby cake.

And yes, I had a few bites of this, but I counted the points!

Some of the loot:

These are the cutest!

My favorites are the pink ones, my oldest loves the brown ones.

Baby Laila will look too darn cute in all of her new wardrobe.

Thursday night, my youngest (the mommy to be) and I went up to my oldest daughter’s house and we got the party favors ready for the baby shower. What a fun time that was. When my first grandson was born, we spent time at my house making candles. I remember my son-in-law and daughter working hard in the kitchen actually melting the wax, adding the scents and coloring, and pouring into something like 4o little candle jars with lids. My house smelled great for days.

Since that was such a hit, we did something similar for this daughter’s shower. I was looking everywhere for pink candles and even with all the Valentine’s stuff out, I couldn’t find what I wanted at a cheap price. We found these boxes of vanilla-ish candles in packs of 12 for $7.99. Gotta love that. Cheaper than the $1.00 ones I was hoping to find at Wally World (aka WalMart). Then my oldest and I decided that we’d tie tulle and ribbon around them. She tested it out of Friday. Fail. We also didn’t have a hot glue gun, so we tried crafter glue – fail. We tried puffy paint – fail. Everything we had on hand, nothing worked.

So, my sweet son-in-law headed out to Fred Meyer and picked us up a hot glue gun. Now we were in biz. Sweet!

All the ribbon and charms prepped, waiting for the glue gun.

A close-up of the candle and charms.

The mommy-to-be stamping cards for the party.

Some of the party favors all wrapped up.

And the final favors all set out at the shower.

(More shower info to come in my next post.) 

And just some fun family pics. Me and my oldest grandson.

The boys eating their dinner at the “kids table” because we took over the main dining table with our craftiness.

What a cute little impish look. His newest thing is sticking his tongue halfway out at me. Stinker!

I’m declaring this National Hug Your Scale Month. Who’s in with me? If there isn’t already such a thing, then there should be. So many people are starting – or restarting – their weight loss program this month after a month or six weeks of food binging from Thanksgiving to New Year’s. And for many of us – me included – we have, or have had, a love/hate relationship with the scale.

There are the camps of “I won’t be a slave to the scale” and those that say, “There are other indicators of weight loss rather than the scale”. There are those that say all you need to do is lift weights, eat only vegetables, cut out all sugars, fats, and caffeine, or any number of variations on self-limitation and restrictions.

I say that many of these are valid when done in moderation but not exclusivity and will lead to positive results. However, the one main tool of my weight loss and ultimate maintenance of a healthy body and lifestyle – the one that never lies to me and the one that I can’t manipulate – is the scale.

I used to hate the scale. I doubt I’ve ever loved it in the past. In fact, I righteously refused to have a scale in my house citing many of the same reasons as above. Truth was, I really didn’t want to know what I weighed. And when my pants got tighter, it was obviously because my dryer was shrinking them. Didn’t matter that they never stretched out during the day. And I had a million lies I told myself as to why the size of my clothes kept increasing, why my health was getting worse.

One such example was when I saw pictures of my mother, who is now nearly 90, and me. I kept remarking how my mother kept looking smaller and smaller. She was shrinking! It never occurred to me that I was expanding and she was staying the same.

I still don’t have a scale in my house. Instead, I go once a week and weigh in. I may not literally hug my scale, but I embrace stepping on it. As for manipulating the scale – believe me, I try. I wear the lightest clothes possible, even in the dead of winter and freezing temperatures. I eat the same menu on weigh in day and  weigh in at the same time every week. I try to be as consistent in everything as possible so when I do step on the scale, the only variable is my weight. Why? Because then I can get honest feedback about how I did the prior week, up or down. And I can get honest with myself.

How my clothes fit, how I feel health-wise, my body measurements, and my esteem are all equally good indicators of my progress but they aren’t as objective as the scale. I can stretch that tape measure to have it say what I want it to say. I can buy clothes that are sized for vanity. I can lie to myself in a number of ways that hides the fact that ultimately what goes in my mouth counts. Cause and effect.

Today, I no longer have hate or animosity toward the scale, nor does it wield any power over my emotions. It’s feedback. Pure and honest.

It’s looking like this year is going to be a very busy year. That’s fine by me, but I’m exhausted already and we’re only on day three.

I started off my year with some sewing – my favorite hobby – next to bicycling and running. I had a choice to go to a New Year’s dance by myself and I might possibly have known more than one person there, but no guarantee, and that’s not a fun scenario for me. I chose instead to stay home and get moving on some creative projects that have been hanging over my head making me feel guilty every time I walk past my sewing loft on my way to get coffee.

My youngest daughter, Stacy, just got her crib and changing table – thanks to her grandma (baby’s great grandma) – and so she needed sheets and a dust ruffle and other fun stuff. She’s so lucky her mama can sew! I plan to do another post on just how much she’s saving by me sewing this stuff.

Stacy picked out some fabric from Joann’s and it’s too darn cute. We searched all over for some pink Tinkerbell fabric suitable for a baby and no success. I think I’m going to write to Disney and Springs Industries (who seems to be the main manufacturer of Tink fabric) and ask what’s up with no pink Tink. Tink IS a girl, after all. Possibly they’re aiming for 8 year old girls with all the blue, lime green, and purple, but they need pink!

Here’s my baby sewing status report:

• Prewashed all the fabrics we’ll be using
• Completed a flannel sheet, a second one almost done – needs elastic and I’ll finish that this morning.
• Made a dust ruffle. For the landing piece (the part that goes under the mattress) I reused a queen-sized dust ruffle that I hated and stitched on the cute baby border print. I have enough of the landing part for another dust ruffle in different fabric.
• Cut out and am prepping the quilt to go with the set but I need some less lofty batting, but not as thin as the Warm & Natural kind. Off to Joann’s today.
• On deck: remaining print from the border print to create bumper pads for around the crib, and additional sheets and receiving blankets.

I hope to have these done in time for her baby shower on Saturday, because you know those girls will all be traipsing upstairs to see the nursery set!

Here’s a closeup of the dust ruffle & the crib sheet:

The quilt top (the flip side is a matching flannel print with the little pink flowers like you see on the border):

You can see in this next photo how high the loft is of the batting I had in my stash. I don’t think my sewing machine will maneuver through that very well.

A shot of the border print – what you see there is what was left in the center of the three yards and the borders already cut off and sewn into the dust ruffle. Perfect for crib bumpers.  Look at the cute faces on that bug!

Oops! My cat, Marie, at the top there vying for attention – she thinks her face is the cutest. Look at this pose! Showoff!

Okay, more later, peeps. I gotta keep busy! 

Anyone who knows me knows I really don’t do New Year’s resolutions. I really think they’re silly for the most part. Being the editor and writer that I am, I also like to play with words. If you think about the word “resolution” it has two parts: re and solution. “Re” implies doing something over and over again, and to me that also implies failure. Alternatively, it could mean doing something over and over again because it works, so you keep at it. I really like the second part of the word, “solution”, because I try to live my life by “living in the solution” – a phrase I learned many years ago. Somewhere along the line I learned that to every problem there is a solution so when problems emerge, I look hard for the solution. Sometimes I have to wait a while to find it, but it always appears.

Thinking about my weight loss and new healthy lifestyle, I’ve certainly found the solution in Weight Watchers. This works for me. It might not be the solution for everyone, and there are tons of alternatives out there, many of which work just as well if you follow the basic calories in/calories out/stay accountable philosophy.

I also am stubborn.  I hear women say things like, gee, when you hit 50 – or middle age, and I refuse to call myself middle aged – you lose your waist and you can’t get it off. I don’t like the mentality of fatalistically giving up on the shape of my body and attributing it to age without even trying – although admittedly I did do just that for many years. I figure if there are women like Demi Moore or Christie Brinkley who can still have a rockin’ body and health, then there’s no reason I can’t also.

So, I guess for me, I’m going to just keep doing what I’m doing because it’s working for me. There will always be the short term goals and things that come up that I decide I want to change – truly change – but no change in calendar date is going to force me into it, that’s certain. I’ve proven that to myself time and time again, so I’m not going to set myself up for failure and reasons to feel bad later in the year when I don’t accomplish some lofty goal I set for myself in this moment. (In fact, I noted in my post this time last year that I hoped to hit goal before 2009 was out – I didn’t, but I’m close, so to me that’s a success.)

On to a new year. I have a new granddaughter arriving sometime in the next ten to twelve weeks, so I better get busy with the sewing! Starting now.

Stay tuned for progress pics!