Crafts: made with love

aka..."you crafts are bad."

So my internet ban is over now that I have seen the final Lost episode. With all my sudden free time (HA HA HA HA cough HA HA) I decided I needed to do some craft projects.

There are 2 projects from actual books (not me making yet another pillow case or eyeballing out some sort of horrific sewing project). Actual projects.

The first one was pretty easy and I am very pleased. Ladies and Gentlemen, I present the laptop cover:

Ta daaaaaa

Two fabrics:

 Impressive.  A computer goes inside of it...meaning I made it the right size. Watch out Etsy.

 Nice, no? Guess what everyone is getting for Christmas? Amazon gift certificates. 

Next on the crafting agenda...an elephant.

"Biz, there is no way you are sewing an elephant."

Strangers, you are right...sort of. I mean, I made an elephant but he isn't all right.

The book image is so cute! Which I can't find online but imagine a cute elephant doll like this:

Now take a look at this:

AHHHHHH! Don't make it angry! It might charge you! 

Ok, so this is pre-ears, but it definately is the place where you say to yourself "even with a pattern to follow, some of us just are not that good."

Which is ok....made with love people.

Wait for it...I was about to take another picture of my sad, deaf, elephant when my baby decided to go after her favorite thing:

CORDS!

Yeah, yeah, I know. We have the whole room pretty much baby proofed except these two cords. A whole room of magical things to touch and explore and this baby comes straight to the cords. Obviously a genius. 

Anyway, back to...

...the elephant. Now with ears! Which admittedly makes the elephant look more like an elephant. It may even detract from its legs.

What is up with the legs? I stuffed. I tugged and pulled and measured and cut and all those things and I got me a gimpy elephant. 

(Insert adorable picture of Katy Belle asking in a sitcomy way) "What's Uuuuuuuppppp?"

So, does made with love pass the test?

No. No It doesn't.

Let's hear it for not so great crafts and the children who don't like them! 

Love, Biz

My Baby Wants to Play...

...with everything BUT her toys.

We just returned from a week in California. It was lovely and there will be a wrap up post this weekend. That said, before we left, you could plop Katy Belle (8 months and 3 weeks) down in front of a basket full of toys and she would be amused for hours. Ok, not hours, but long enough for me to clean the kitchen or eat a sandwich or blink. Now it has been a week and Katy Belle (now nine months officially, ew la la) is totally board with her toys and only wants to drag a belly in any direction that results with a plugged in cable at the end...or a cat.

Yes, yes...don't freak out, we are in the process of bundling and hiding cables and lets face it, our apartment isn't big enough to allow us to be anywhere that we CAN'T see her. In terms of cats...well, cats and babies gotta learn.

Cardboard boxes, once a thing of endless wonder...boring.

Cabinet full of tupperware....boring.

Even the old reliable set of house keys is out of the picture. Hey, don't judge me. You can't swallow house keys and if it hurt her mouth she wouldn't chew on them.

"Hi Katy Belle! Where are you going? Oh? Out of 6 different, closed cabinets, you are choosing the one the garbage can is behind? Yeah, that one, where the inside of the door is sticky and a little pink? Good choice."

"Hello Katy Belle! On the move again? Wonderful! How about you drag a belly over here to see...what? You'd rather remove the grating at the bottom of the fridge? Genius!"

When I was on my own for the first time, I got a cat. I was about 20 years old at the time. Sometime during the first year or so, I had the realization that I was going to have this cat for a long time...10 years?   Possibly longer than I had lived at that point. I actually had Louise for 13 years, moved at least 8 times, through 4 different states, winding up here in NYC.

I guess my point is, I just had that realization with Katy Belle, except it's going to be a lot longer than 10 years and she isn't going to poop in a box...regularly.

Yikes.

I wonder what I will realize tomorrow?

Biz

POSSUM!

Last night Katy Belle woke me up. She was hungry and upset, so I crawled out of bed, walked through the dark bedroom, up the stairs to Katy Belle's room, fed her, rocked her, put her back to bed, walked back down to my bedroom, and crawled into bed. I poked Stefan and said, "god it's hot, do you mind getting the fan set up down here?"

So through the dark room he went, grabbed the fan, crossed the room to the window (which was open for the cats to come and go) turned on the light by the window, stood in the chair to reach behind the chair to reach the plug and he says in a tight and surprised voice, "Oh my god."

Me - What? (I am thinking dead bird or pile of cat puke)

Stefan - There is a possum back here.

Pause

Me - What?

Stefan - A possum.

Me - (still frozen in bed, trying to remain calm) Is it dead?

Stefan (still standing in the chair) No.

Me - How big is it?

Stefan - This big.

Please note - We did not take pictures. All images are reenactments based on images found online.

(reenactment)



Pause


Me - EVERYBODY OUT OF THE ROOM NOW! Get the cats, get out.


(shut door to bedroom)


Stefan, Bee, Casper and I, all staring at the door.


TO THE INTERNET!


Now, let me say that at this point, I have not seen the possum. I don't want to see the possum. All I know is that we have been walking around in the dark with a mother fraking possum in the room and that  is combined with Stefan's size description and this image in my head:

Of course the internet insists that possums are not rats, that they are related to the kangaroo and koala family. How sweet.

Ummmm...so....ummmm...

AHHHHHHH!!!!


That is behind my chair in my room. IN MY ROOM WHERE I SLEEP! If I had not woken up for my baby, this big ass rat monster could have been skulking about...in my bed...or burrowed itself somewhere for me to find much later.


AHHHHHHHHH!!!!


Now there are a number of suggestions on line for trapping a possum in your house. Most involve garbage cans and cat food and peanut butter. They repeat over and over that possums are timid creatures who don't attack and freeze when scared. Uh huh. Ok. 


They emphasize that one should not use a broom as that will frighten the big ass rat monster, which I can only interpret as sending the awful thing into a rage.


It's 1:30am, I have this...

...in my room and no matter what any internet site tells me I can only imagine that if I step back into that bedroom and even breathe I am going to send it into a manic fit and it will hurl itself at 90 miles an hour across the room, squealing, claws extended, limbs frantically clawing, urine and feces streaming from its possum nether parts, latching itself onto my face.


Me - how big was it again?


Stefan - 



Me - ummm hmmmm. Ok. I am going to throw up. 


Stefan - I am going to go downstairs and see if it left. 


Me - (shudder)


Stefan (upon returning) - Its gone.


HOLD ON - I'd like to take a minute to flashback to my childhood. I am in bed. I see a roach or spider. I call for my Papa. He comes in, I go out. He closes the door. Lot's of banging noise. Papa opens door and says "it's dead." I go happily back to sleep. Fast forward 8 years and I am a camp counselor. Kids cry about bugs, I make them leave, I pretend to kill a bug and then tell them it is saf....AH HA!!!!


Back to present. 


Me - are you sure it is gone?


Stefan -  I checked everywhere, under the bed, behind the cabinets, in the closet. It is gone.


Me (to self) Liar


So we go downstairs and even after a scuffle in the window between Bee the cat and the possum of doom...which confirmed that the possum was indeed outside...I was still unconvinced.


Do you remember a little ghost story about a group of coeds that spend the night in the same bed, one brings her dog, who throughout the night, whenever she needs reassurance that the noises she hears in the room aren't bad, licks her fingers...and when she wakes up she find all her friends dead along with the dog and a note that says "a human can lick as well as a dog." 


AHHHHHHHH!!!


Well this is how I imagine the rest of my night. I will go to sleep with my cat curled up next to me and wake up nose to nose with a freaking possum who has a note that says "a possum can cuddle as well as a cat."


Like getting a goodnight sleep wasn't already a problem.


Oh, and I am convinced that the chair the possum was hiding behind is now a nest for it's babies and the next time I sit in it, thousands of possum babies will spill out.


(shudder)


The End?