It feels like ages...

...since I've blogged.

First, my NZ bloggers, are you all ok?  I'm looking at you Mary Nanna and Miss Smith.  I read about the earthquake this morning and hope you and your families are ok.

I'm on vacation all this week, to try to help my body heal itself.  Thanks for all your warm wishes, I really appreciate them.  My ab is slowly healing, but it's heading in the right direction!   I wake up just once during the night now, and driving over bumps in the road is not a big deal anymore.  I'm still wearing stretchy gym pants all the time; it's just more comfortable.  The pain is intermittent.

So for being on vacation, I've been doing lots of chores...
Day 1: A set of new grippy tires for my car

Tread, I love thee.
Also, the snow has finally melted to the point I can use the passenger side of my car again, first time after 6 weeks! 

Day 2: I did my taxes and got a haircut.  My new bottom freezer fridge arrived. This is such a huge win for my back. It's so easy to see everything in the fridge, and to put things into and get things out of the fridge. My Brita water pitcher is no longer a struggle.


Day 3: Acupuncture, trip to library, and cooking!  Also walked on the treadmill at the gym and talked with my gym friends.

Grilled cheese and ham on wheat with scrambled eggs and broccoli for lunch:


Chicken cordon bleu from Cook This Not That 2011.  I don't have an official meat pounder thing so I used a sturdy glass jar, it worked very well.


Minestrone from Cook This Not That 2011:


"creamed" spinach made with Greek yogurt.  The left side is done properly; the right side I messed up.


I actually cooked after having dinner last night, so tonight I had the chicken--really good, and that sauce is excellent!  I'll try the minestrone tmw night.

Day 4:
Passport photos in the morning. Lunch with Christine. An afternoon at Joann, the big one in Colonia that I prefer:

I really don't need more skirts, but this one I couldn't pass up.  I bought navy blue sweatshirt material to make sleep pants, but wouldn't a sweatshirt skirt be cute? 
I like the saucy little leggings in 6034 with the rouching. Thanks to Vanessa for featuring this pattern on her blog a few weeks back.  I'm a little worried, though.  The hip on the biggest size in the envelope is pretty much my hip size.  They might be too tight?  but that's just the style--look at the model!!

I think I will actually get to sew a little toward the end of this week.
Finally I bought myself a sewing gauge.

I took a big nap late this afternoon.  So nice!    I hope to have more fun and less chores the rest of this week, but we'll see!!
Hope all is well in your worlds!

I chose Ecru: Simplicity 2473 day 2

Day 2 of Simplicity 2473. Not that I spent a whole lot of time on it. I did go to the JoAnn's in Colonia as a treat (yes, treat, because it is larger than the one near Princeton). I also thought the Simplicity $1.99 sale started today. Oops, it starts Thursday.

I finished the armholes and put in a hem (which I put in and ripped out 3 times...) This fabric and hems don't get along very well. I tried a 1.5 inch hem, then chopped 3/4 off and hemmed with extra wide single fold bias tape, then ripped that out and folded the fabric once at about 3/8, hemmed, and folded and hemmed again. Phew! It finally doesn't look too bad. I haven't ironed it yet as I'm not done with the running stitches yet.

Thank you for your suggestions about running stitch color. I chose the DMC color "ecru" which is basically cream, as per Mary Nanna who first suggested it. Here it's showing up as if it were white.



I still need to do the running stitch on the skirt but am running out of energy for tonight.



My hair is definitely becoming more "Jersey". I decided to grow it out for a year and see what happens. It's been 7 months since it was last cut.



After making the trek to Colonia I always treat myself to cupcakes and brownies from LaBon in Woodbridge. However, the location I usually hit up closed this past winter but I didn't know til I drove up and saw the sign on the door. So then I journeyed to their location in Edison which makes more sense anyhow. I was not going to be denied brownies! and cupcakes!


Jostled in transit...

So I want to wear the dress on Tuesday, so hopefully tmw night I can finish up the stitching down the front and cut all threads and iron it.

I have a bit of touching up for some other garments: Adding bra strap holders to 2 of my New Look 6922 dresses; sewing up the Jalie scarf shirt so it's not quite so deep; finding a way to make the Antoinette labeled HOT dress cowl not so deep. The New Look cowl neck also needs some tweaking as I feel it is also too deep...and the turq/brown dress needs additional tweaking as the cross top is just too floppy when sitting down.

Good night!

4 day weekend!

Gingerbread house at Sea Girt--and a warning!

So excited for my 4 day weekend. It started with a 3pm closing at work yesterday, a trip to Joanns with a gift card I got for Christmas, and the gym. I've been doing my cardio classes since Nov and last week I went back to toning. It's been great to do toning again so I can strengthen my back and my knees. I feel a lot of muscle soreness, but it's just that--soreness, not pain, which will go away as I get stronger. I'm still looking forward to the day when I don't feel any back pain at all.

Later I was pairing my patterns to my fabric which was a lot of fun. I'm still not sure yet what I will sew this weekend, but I have a lot of ideas. I even rescued an epic fail shirt last night, all by folding over the collar! But that will wait for another post. I want to do some reading and some house tidying this weekend.

My dad and I went for a walk on Sea Girt Boardwalk on 12/27. At first there was some sand on the boardwalk, but not too bad:


But in some sections the sand was really piled up and there was a path to get through it.




Here are the goof-off shots


Shadows of our former selves


Here I'm a reindeer:


Dad walking away


Me walking away


I haven't looked outside yet but it snowed overnight!!! I can hear the snow plow. And I got email from my parents saying it snowed.

Cute, ugly, or clown? Vote now!

This fabric has been lurking around my stash for a while.



Is it cute, ugly, or clown? Vote now!

I, ahem, went back to Joann's tonight. Even though I said I wouldn't go back for a long, long time, the siren song of this fabric was too strong (and memories of my Columbus Day foray quickly fading). With 50% off coupon in hand, I bought it.


I'm thinking of making Simplicity 2558 with it this weekend, the sleeved version. I have this wild idea that it's going to be easy. Har har har har har. It reminds me of the white winter coat I had when I was 5. As I recall, my parents bought it in Shrewsbury at a children's clothing store. I don't remember why it was white, though. Mom is not a fan of light-colored outerwear. I do recall that the zipper was horrible! My kindergarten teacher thought I was being lazy by not zipping it up, but the reality was adults had difficulty zipping it too.

Thanks (and hello!), Vanessa, for your suggestion for tracking my pain using thecarrot.com. I registered tonight. One drawback is it doesn't distinguish between lower right and lower left back pain in their list of body part choices. So I'll choose some other body part and decide that is the right pain, and the generic back option will be left pain. There's a huge list of stuff that can be tracked with the carrot. I think I might do that and a spreadsheet and then after 2 weeks, decide which method is working better for me.

Guess where I'll be on Dec 15? The (free) Common Causes of Spinal Strain class. Yeah, I know how to party.

I've been working on two work puzzles concurrently. One of them is pretty much done. The other one is still a mystery. I really, really want to solve it, but I'm kind of stuck. What to do? I've gotten some help from my peers at other schools, but none of them are in the same situation I'm tackling. Hmmm..

Sarah and Paul's Wedding

Sarah and Paul's Wedding
Originally uploaded by pwenzel

Gosh that picture is funny. Found it on offbeatbride.com.
Here's my favorite quote from Sarah's profile of her wedding:

My favorite moment was before the wedding at the park as everyone arrived. It wasn't like getting married in a church or something where I was hidden away. I was able to hang out and greet a lot of people.

Their wedding was Sept 2008. Their reception was in their back yard. I love that.

Tonight I went to JoAnn's after work. It was a bit of a zoo. I don't want to go back there for a long long time. But at least I got the buttons for my shirt/jacket. I still need to fix the puckering on that jacket, though. The traffic was bad on the way there and horrible on the way home. Traffic was completely stopped on the way home on Rt 1. Luckily I cut over to Rt 27. Phew.