Deer in Princeton

Here's a deer in Palmer Square. I thought it was cute.


It's hard to tell it's a deer from the front, though.

It's in front of a store called Spruce. Ha! On Monday Nov 30, I came home from work instead of going to the gym because my cold was in full force. On Rt 27 a deer was standing in the oncoming lane. I hit the brakes because I didn't know if it was going to run into my lane. Thankfully it stayed put as I sort of slid past it in the rain. That's the closest I've ever been to an alive deer on the road.

So I want to go on the record as saying that when I told my acupuncturist about my jaw issues, she put a bunch of needles in me in some new places, including one on each side of my jaw. Then when I was lying on the table, I realized that I was salivating as if warm, cooked food was in the room. That continued during the entire treatment. Wild.

I made an appt to see my acupuncturist's primary care physician for Jan 12. I'm excited to have a physical and find out if I am overdosing or deficient in any vitamins, and just what the general state of my blood chemistry is. He's a DO so I take that to be a plus. A friend of mine has also been to this same doc, and said he is great.

Last night I went to the freebie spine class. It was a bit too long and I already knew most of it, but my coworker volunteered me to serve as the "model" for the exercises. That was great because my back was flaring and it felt good to lie down. The therapist had me do a pelvic tilt and a bridge for the demo, and then she showed me how to do a pelvic tilt where you start to go into the bridge vertebra by vertebra, and that felt really really good. I have incorporated that into my routine. She also showed me how to do a standing pelvic tilt. Oh, and I when I got onto the table, she said I did a perfect "log roll". I had no idea that the way I get into bed is called a log roll--I use my arms to get down onto my side while getting my legs up onto the bed, then roll onto my back, and the reverse to get out of bed.

Oh, and I abandoned thecarrot.com and have been keeping a spreadsheet of 55 different items for about 6 weeks now to see if I can find any patterns for my pain. I really don't see patterns. My back is not flaring like it had been. It flared yesterday because I walked with my marathon-runner coworker to Nassau St. I should have asked her to slow down. I went to the gym tonight and it's feeling better. Keeping it moving is a good thing. My knees didn't hurt at all during gym class, not once. But when I came home, the right knee hurt for the first time in ages walking down stairs. I'm icing both of them now.

Update on LED solar lights: They stay lit til at least 10:30pm and who knows how much longer than that, if there was full sun that day. On rainy days, they don't last as long (definitely out by 9pm, and who knows when they actually went out...) Anyway, they make me smile when I come home! Mom bought me more LED solar lights which arrived today, so in a few days both trees in front of my house will be dually covered. :)
Good night!

Let there be light

Lighting totally does make a difference!

Here's yesterday's shirt in yellow light:

Here's yesterday's shirt in white light:


I didn't make any adjustments to my camera; that's just the Reveal light bulbs. Woo!



I learned on the Selfish Seamstress blog about ironing hems...
Wonky hem last weekend that I wasn't thrilled about (yellow light too):

Then I ironed the hem today (and most of the shirt), and it's totally fine now. What a great tip! I was going to wash and dry it--but ironing had the same effect.


I made McCall's 5511 for myself today:

The sleeves were too long for me, plus realized I hadn't piped for a while, so out came the piping (yeah, I haven't cut the threads off this one yet):

You can see the detail of the fabric; it's basically up and down. So the "sweet dreams" is sometimes up, sometimes down. As are the sheep. Which sometimes look like dogs.

I bought a real tree today--it's a small little tabletop tree from the supermarket. It came already mounted in the stand, it's small and I could easily carry it. I have it in my bedroom right now...isn't it cute? It's the first time I've ever bought a real tree. I've always used my little 4 foot fake tree but when I saw this one I had to have it...


Good night!!

Butterick 5101 & LED solar lights: What do you think?

So today I cut out and sewed up Butterick 5101. (oops, originally in this post I said it was McCall's)
Here's the Batman shot:


Here's so you can see the detail of the rouching and the knot. It's purple double knit fabric I've had in stash for 8 months or so.


Let's just say that cutting this out was a squeaker. I had 2 yards and an inch or two of fabric; the pattern calls for 2 and an eighth. The eighth is for the length of the ties. The ties were way too long anyway so I shortened them by about 3 inches. I had to take about an inch and a half off the length of the sleeves, so if I ever make this again, laying out the pattern on the fabric should be easier just with that edit.

Here's the back and a view of those dolman sleeves:


So, I'm not sure if I like this one or not. What do you think? Can I wear it to work? Is it too much like pajamas? Too much like yoga wear?

In other news, my solar LED Christmas lights arrived! Here's what it looked like when there were 50 lights on each tree:


It was too skimpy, so I put both sets on one tree:

Much better! The lights aren't really that bright in real life. In fact, they are much dimmer than regular Christmas lights. They're white but have a bluish tinge. But it is really thrilling for me to have outdoor lights for the first time ever in front of my very own house! It's awesome to not worry about where they will plug in, or timers, or anything like that. It was a beautiful sunny day today so the charger had plenty of sunlight. They came on automatically as it got dark out. I just checked now, almost 5 hours later, and they are still going strong (while my neighbor's solar powered walkway lights are all out)!

I wrapped some presents last night. The red and white ornament wrapping paper was rescued from a trash bin outside a Princetonian's house during the summer of 2008. I would have bought paper like that!


I've given up on curling ribbon and am using some leftover florist ribbon. I'm just knotting it instead of doing bows and I think it looks ok. Easier to transport, too, won't get flattened and no time spent curling!


And how could I not include some cupcakes??? Survey says that one in four cupcakes is in a festive holiday mood.



Good night!