Riot and Frolic

Sewing Without Swearing

April 12, 2012

Mission complete: one whole project without cursing at my sewing machine while reading all the directions and following them.

Yes, I'm reading out loud. To myself.

Last week I started the cute pants for The Zoo from this book and went on to finish them in record time. From start to finish, they took two hours (over four days, because I'm busy, yo).

Yes, this is the most convenient way for me to sew.

And they're sooooo cute.

Yes, I want a pair in my size.

They're even reversible and I love how the fabrics coordinate.

The prints are "City Weekend" and "Just Wing It" by Moda. [OMG, did you know you can buy fabric at Amazon.com? And it's cheaper than the stores? I did not know that. And now I do. And now my bank account will suffer. Suffer!]

My one booboo? I measured my fat baby's waist while she was sitting down, being fat. But when that baby lays down, she's all "Hey Ma, look how skinny I am. I haven't eaten in 10 minutes. Where's them Cheerios and sweet potatoes? Get them in mah belly!"

After that, the elastic was like 9 inches too big, so I had to rip open a side seam to take it in.

My lazy, classy fix

Generally, I am well-pleased, with myself, for making these awesome pants. Way to go, me!

Now I have to figure out how to make them in my size. With pockets.

That's for you, kind of, HTHB! 😀
Drop and Give Me 10

April 11, 2012
I recently picked up a Self Magazine (it was between that and OK Magazine , and the cashier looked a little judge-y to me, so the celebrity gossip will have to wait) and was pleased to find it was the Self Challenge issue.

The Self Challenge was this three month program designed to get you in "bikini form" before the summer… and sell more magazines. It's worked on me several times over the years.

This year, it seems the editor Lucy Danzinger threw a monkey in the wrench (thanks Mrs. Gordon, for ruining that phrase for me forever) with her new book launch, The Drop 10 Diet. Being the editor and all, her book's philosophies trumped the ol' 3 month plan and they somehow condensed her seemingly-sound program into a nifty five week booty camp.

5 weeks!

Guess who's in?

Now, I have to tell you, I'm not a big fan of "diets". "Diet" as a verb, totally sucks:

to regulate the food of, especially in order to improve the physical condition

"Diet" as a noun? Not so bad:

the foods eaten, as by a particular person or group

I am a fan of eating healthfully and not limiting what you can or can't consume. Because that makes me crazy, yo.

Back to the whole Drop 10 deal, there's an outline of some "superfoods" you should add to your diet:
1. salmon
2. apples
3. quinoa
4. lentils
5. olive oil
6. eggs
7. yogurt
8. sweet potatoes
9. kiwi
10. edamame
No real surprises, but maybe a few things I wouldn't usually pick up at the grocery store.

On the food front, I'm going to add them into my meals regularly, but I blow at following meal plans.

Then, there's a sweet workout and training plan that has you moving 5 times a week. It includes:
- running intervals (HIIT or High-Intensity Interval Training) that are totally kicking my lungs in half
- long runs up to 10K (it's kind of like a C25K program, but supersized [miniaturized?])
- and some fun "toning moves" led by these beautiful California girls, Katrina Hodgson and Karena Dawn
Here's where I really got hooked. I've wanted to increase my pace lately, and my friend (the former running coach) told me intervals were the way to go. While that's great and all, most intervals are written out like this:

6 x 880s
5K-10K pace

4 x Mile
5K-10K pace

Gah. Too many numbers. And I have no idea what they're talking about.

Self's language is much easier to follow:

Take care of business with this 27-minute quickie. Sprint your patootie off at level 8 for 90 seconds. Then back off for 3 minutes at level 4 while you contemplate your awesomeness. Repeat 6 times total before cooling down. Oh, yeah!

Vector? Anyone? Anyone?

I have to warn you, if this business sounds interesting to you at all, DON'T visit the Self website for it. Although they tout "fun tools", that website is a tool. It's confusing to navigate, slow to load, and the logs are difficult to use. Go buy the magazine and use a pen. I think they still exist.
The Garden of Good

April 10, 2012
I'm a first-time gardener. Oh yeah, there were those tomato plants I grew in fifth grade for a science project and that summer after we bought our house where I had some sunflowers and tomatoes, but I have never Gardened.

I was going to Garden last year, but Minnesota's weather (and my motivation, let's be realistic) were not cooperating.

But I did do a lot of planning in the winter of 2010 and now it's coming to fruition!

Here's what I've been carrying around in my purse for a year and a half…
- My very technical drawing of our backyard and how I want my raised beds to be placed. I like that I drew a compass rose and included the "not to scale" consideration.
- A list of all the plants I needed to buy seeds for. Yes, I'm going from seeds. It's working so far because of this .
- A list of plants and vegetables that grow well together, called companion planting, in case I want to get all hippy and organic up in my gardening.
I got my garden ideas from Better Homes and Gardens Magazine. I'm planning on doing the Children's Vegetable Garden and the All-American Vegetable Garden, more or less.

The Children's Garden has a teepee. A teepee covered in morning glories and adorable miniature pumpkins. A TEEPEE!

My new home

The G built me the first raised bed (of 3) from some treated cedar 4x6s and 4x4s.

There's a lot of choices when it comes to what kind of lumber to use and we liked the treated cedar for its longevity and durability. With the kind of treatment that they do to the wood nowadays, it won't kill the plants (or us) by leaching any chemicals into the soil. Back in the day, they used to treat lumber with asbestos, which I hear might not be the best thing to eat.

here fishy fishy fishy fishy!

There's some construction mumbo-jumbo involved in putting these together, so if you're interested in how he made them, let me know. There was rebar and a drill press and a saw and that's all I heard before I lapsed back into Facebooking or something with pictures.

Fancy-schmancy

We're going to till the area it's sitting in to level out the ground and then I am going to town in my transplanting mode.

All this will translate into some awesome fresh produce in a few months. It should make for good eatin' and cookin' and fun news to tell you about!

Get it? The hot gardener?
List of Last Week’s Labors of Love

April 9, 2012
– so much candy:
- Cadbury Mini Eggs and Creme Eggs (because they're the best)
- Starburst jelly beans (they're also the best, so suck it, Jelly Bellys)
- coconut M&Ms (for The G) and peanut butter ones (for me)
- Whoppers malted milk ball eggs (those are like Kryptonite for my willpower, plus I enjoyed typing "ball eggs")
- solid milk chocolate bunnies
- hollow milk chocolate bunnies
- Peeps of the yellow chick and purple bunny variety…
Where will it end!?

I'll tell you.

In MAH BELLY!

– are you ready for my freak-out? I don't think you are. Turn those hearing aids to "off" because it's about to get loud up in here.

EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!

This little greenhouse , that I planted like 100 seeds in and turned on a desk lamp over, is THE BOMB!

The morning glories were the first to pop up, about four days after being planted. Now I have early-bird tomatoes, Better Boy tomatoes, radishes, Bright Lights Swiss Chard, Buttercrunch lettuce, baby romaine, little pumpkins, sunflowers, asylum (the flowers, I'm not purposely growing crazy), dill, cilantro, oh and bunch more.

Now, I can't even fit the lid on without the snap peas and morning glories doing backbends.

This week: hardening off the happy ones and babying the herbs and newcomers.

– look at the cute baby!

– look at the dancing princesses!

Mae Cake is her own accompanist

– I sewed! I didn't curse at my machine! I finished a project! More on that Thursday!

not swearing!

– the first one out of bed Easter morning gets to eat candy with Mommy and put her new"farkly" shoes on.

– a rainbow fruit salad. Raspberries, mango, pineapple, kiwi, and blueberries.

Taste the rainbow

– sugared up ladies, ready to go to my folks' house.

Cheesin'

– an Easter egg hunt where the ladies actually kind of hunted for the eggs.

"Another one!"

– a chilly, but awesome walk across the Stone Arch Bridge in NE Mpls.

– the Latin translation for my favorite sign-off ("go forth and conquer") is "Vado et Vinco". I'll have to add that to our family crest… which we actually have.

– I found a bio that I don't hate! I have no idea why or when I wrote it.

How 'bout you guys? Did ya have a good Easter? What's your favorite spring candy? Any big garden plans this year? Do you know who these kids are?

I have no idea. This is for you, Valerie!
About Me… Or “How I Started Dancing”

April 9, 2012

About eight years ago, I was heading towards a degree in Art History and a career as a museum curator. On my way to study one Sunday, I heard some Afro-Cuban music on the radio and thought, “I think you can dance to this.” I called up the nearest dance studio and scheduled an introductory lesson. I had no idea what to expect.

My first lesson was fantastic. I had no idea what I was doing, and I loved it. It seemed so easy; we were moving in harmony with each other and in rhythm with great music. Plus, I learned I could compete, be in shows, and wear rhinestones and fancy shoes. I was sold.

I began dancing a lot, but never planned on doing it as more than a hobby. Then as I was packing boxes to move one fall, I found a Dr. Seuss book called My Book About Me. It had all sorts of questions a kid could write in the answers for, like how old are you and how many stairs are in your house and how tall are you and what do you want to be when you grow up. Well, I was six, had 14 stairs in my house, was 3’10”, and wanted to be a teacher and a dancer. It’s a sign!

I got offered a job teaching shortly after that. Despite the foreshadowing from a younger me, I was tentative. I had always been shy in school and especially hated public speaking. I didn’t like telling people what to do or how to tell them that they were doing something wrong. After a several months, I was no longer hesitant. I discovered I had quite a loud voice and rather liked using it in front of large groups. And I did like telling people what to do and had no problem telling them if they were doing it wrong. But mostly, I liked showing my students how fun dancing can be, whether it’s for an hour, a month, or the rest of their lives.

Okay, so the novelty of rhinestones wore off as soon as they started appearing at competitions at 8am, and after a couple hours, the fancy shoes make me want to plunge my feet into a bucket of ice, but when I get home and see that page from a children’s book framed on my wall, I know I’m making my six- year- old self really proud.
Open(er) Choreography?

April 6, 2012
My darling dancers, I've tried and tried to get this point across to MANY dancers and I'm here to try again (I'm stubborn AND persistent, isn't that charming?):

Keep it simple.

You are a ballroom dancer. You are not competing in jazz, modern, tap, or ballet. (Yes, yes, you can have glimpses of those genres, but only with winks and nods, not bodyslams and punches in the face.)

Your choreography should be mostly identifiable ballroom dance patterns. Otherwise, you will have Sam Sodano shaking his head at you from the judges' table saying

This is bullsh*t. What am I supposed to mark?

No lie, people. Sam f*ing Sodano will roll his eyes at your choreography.

Here's my Professional Open Waltz routine-

8 measures of introductory, schmoopy stretchy bullsh*t.

4 measures of grapevine in shadow position with a throwout

2 measures of emoting and a bending thing

4 measure Standardy piece- open telemark, syncopated open telly, chasse, and turn

4 measures consisting of a trace turn and standing spins

6 measures of rondé, bendy thing, pretty apart work to a big ol' developpé

2 measures of side by side grapevine and fallaway

2 measures of spin turn and turning lock

4 measures of flip-flops (flip-flops for God's sake!)

2 measures of pivots

2-3 measures of runaround thing with my leg all up in the air

Total: 18 measures of things, 22 measures of patterns with names.

Silver patterns. Bronze patterns.

And the routine? It's the same one that we started with. Five years ago.

Source : Line of Dance

Before changing your routine to be more "open", ask yourself if you're doing everything you can to make your current one look amazing.
- Are you standing up through your center always?
- Are you doing all the footwork correctly?
- Maintaining a great frame throughout the entire routine?
- Do you have seamless transitions from open to closed position?
- Playing with the timing to show your musicality? (ex.: holding that 2 out to show a fast 3-1 in Waltz))
- Looking up, smiling, "acting out" the dance?
Man, there's a million other things that would make your current routine shine. Do you have the guts to work on what really counts?

Fred- relentless perfectionist
Got To Be Startin’ Something

April 5, 2012

1-14 Wanna Be Startin’ Somethin’

*moonwalkin’ and pop ‘n’ locking like a white girl*

Oh! Hello!

Please excuse my awesome jammin’ to MJ.

I’m celebrating the fact that I finally started the adorable pants from Handmade Beginnings: 24 Sewing Projects to Welcome Baby
that I bought 17 years ago.

Okay, so maybe it was only 3 months ago, but it was high time to bust out some sweet fabric and remember how to follow directions.

Anne Marie Horner is a fantastic technical writer. She explains everything succinctly without making you want to fall asleep while giving yourself paper cuts between your toes.

I generally hate reading directions, can you tell? This could be why sewing will be a stretch for me.

But it’s all about grapefruits and making pants right now, isn’t it?

What?

Anyhoo, everyone and their blogging mother has made the Quick Change Trousers and before the ladies out grow the pattern, I’ve started the process, too.

The first job was getting the pattern from the book. There’s some overlapping, overwhelming-looking pieces of paper I had to come to terms with.

The pants, the pattern, and an anxiety attack

But once I got out my trusty tracing table (AKA window, ’cause I’m classy like that), my stress leveled off and I got into a Zen tracing zone.

Ommmmmm

Thank God I got the artsy-fartsy kind of small children that come equipped with huge rolls of paper.

muslin in the background to make it look like I know what I’m doing

While I cut the fabric from my official-looking templates, V studied her jumbo coloring book.

Yes, the walls are filthy. We’re on the 3 season porch that’s about to be demolished. So I’m not cleaning them.

Tonight, I’m pulling out the sewing machine. And the iron. *gasp* And Vampire Diaries. Because sewing and trashy television go together like… sewing and trashy television.

proving a good haircut makes a huge difference
I Love Spring

April 4, 2012

I love spring, but I also have some wicked short attention span prob… ROBIN!

Yeah, so here's all the things that are cookin' in my casserole of a brain:

– listening to Gotye (pronounce it "Go- T- A" or be mocked) and Mary Lucia talking on The Current. It's blowing my mind. Gotye. Mary Lucia. (Maybe Bob Collins could come in and then I could die happy because of the ensuing dialogues.) They're discussing Prince and what the band is going to wear when they play Saturday Night Live this weekend. You know, the important issues.

03 Somebody That I Used to Know (feat. Kimbra)

I believe he made it rain for dramatic effect. Because he's PRINCE.

– can there ever be too much garlic? Discuss amongst yourselves.

– I might need to focus on finishing one book, instead of trying to read four different ones depending on what room I'm sitting in. I've gathered them into one pile, so maybe that's a start.

A few pages read from each

– why would a company ever make a food prep product that has impossible-to-clean crevices that will inevitably get food stuck in them? My food processor has a couple nooks that I can't get any cleaning utensils into. I've soaked the offending article, but then there's just softened foodstuff stuck in there. And then it dries, so… vicious cycle.

Does anyone else have this problem? What do you do about it?

– could I be any more excited about the possibility of these planted seeds?

condensation!

I haven't taken care of something this much since… well, maybe since that last baby came around. And she's doing okay, so I figure this garden thing should work out at least as well.

– went to the MN Zoo again (because it's awesome) with Ms. Nicey-Nice. We're all checking out the "holes" (these freaky concave windows hidden around the backside of the main aquarium that only third-grade teacher's kids would know about because it looks like you're going out the emergency exit to get to them) and I'm sitting in one with V when all of a sudden the seaweed directly below us starts blinking and breathing.

Eeeeeee!

I nearly hit my head on the top of the window.

Plus, it only was green in the light; in the shadows of the tank, it was this creepy, breathing darkness.

A little freaky.

– I forgot to mention about the awesome photo-a-day thing I joined on Instagram (hey, Maladroit, maybe you can figure out your damn camera and join in!). A lot of the pictures you see in my swanky new sidebar are from that idea. With my new camera and the ye olde iPhone, it's fun to have something to practice with my budding photography skillz.

Thanks, Fat Mum Slim!

– I'm going to make a concerted effort to start (or finish) some craft projects. I really want to get into sewing. I have this book that has a pattern for adorable little pants. I will start tonight! Sewing tips and advice are encouraged. Hell, encouragement is encouraged.

– eating healthfully is a be-ach.

– running is also a be-ach.

– don't you love figuring out lyrics to a song you've been singing forever?

Sing something for me, mister
The Sarlacc and… Alcoholic Beverages

April 3, 2012

I made the magic bread with buckwheat flour this week.

Besides the dough looking like a key player in Return of the Jedi, it turned out pretty well.

Buckwheat bread dough…

Or the Sarlacc…

Source: starwars.wikia.com AKA nerds

It also made pretty smashing pizza crust (because you can also use no-knead bread as pizza dough). Like, you could barely taste the buckwheatiness.

And, really, when I make more healthful food substitutions, it's about making me think I'm eating the awesome, artery-clogging stuff. Right? Anybody? Anybody?

Top it off with some adult beverages and we're partying like an Ewok after the Empire collapses!

Talk about nerds

If you haven't tried the no-knead bread route, the Dark Side compels you. Then tell me, so I can add you to my list of cult members, er, converts.
List of Last Week’s Labors of Love

April 2, 2012

– new blog design, yo.

Do you like it? I love it. I love that it kind of hurts my eyes because it's so bright.

There's the fun new feature of my Instagram (another app for the ye olde iPhone) photos. If you click on the mini-pictures, it'll take you a nifty window where you can see my super-clever [not] description and a bigger version to gawk in amazement at.

Plus, a funner bio and WHITE SPACE.

– multitudes of awards for my ballroom buddies at the USA Dance Amateur Nationals! Congrats to Lee and Leslie, Tom and Anne, C.J and Lori, Larry and Jessica, Jeremy and Yuko, and all you nerds who proved you could come back to MN with your heads held high. Represent[ed]!

– a new app that I downloaded purely for the fantastic description.

No, I have not used this to slow down my eating. Yes, I have played this game more than most of the other actual games on my phone. Eat. Chew. Rest. It's free and sooo worth the price.

– [cue national anthem]

random nationalistic propaganda

– guess who wants a goat? This girl.

You'd never guess it from the six inch platform shoes, but after visiting the MN Zoo farm with the fam this weekend I WANT A GOAT!

If only to watch Mae Cake chase a short, fat one around with a brush saying, "Come 'ere, GOAT!"

The MN Zoo farm, by the way, is awesome. Pretty. Idyllic.

– planting seeds with the ladies, who love playing in the dirt as much as they love being princesses. Nice juxtaposition, I think.

I reeeeeally hope any of our seeds make it in the ground and become, like, plants. I have 22 varieties of flowers, herbs, and vegetables started. I'll share the plan with ya later this week. If it works out, it'll be AMAZING. And I'll also have to start canning… Hey, Gramma! [Maybe I can get her to tell me her secrets from back in the day. If only she read this blog…*cough cough*]

– cute photo fail.

The matching dresses are adorable. The children in them? Meh.

Only he and Holly can get away with this look, or making Drive awesome

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