What's the deal with Craigslist bringing out all the whackjobs?

If you're not a follower of my sewing madness (and who can blame you, really), then maybe you haven't heard that I have just a teensy bit too much fabric, not to mention maybe a few hundred too many vintage patterns and then there's the drawers full of fringe and ribbon that I won't be using....

So yeah. I could be on Hoarders, if they had a Hoarders on a Small Scale. Luckily, they don't. And luckily I've decided to divest myself of all this fibergoods in order to 1) raise a little money, and B) not be on Hoarders anytime soon.

My mom is coming home from Florida soon (DEAR LORD, THANK YOU SO MUCH I HAVE NO IDEA HOW I'LL REPAY YOU OR HER), so I decided that with her help I'll have a Fabric de-Stash Yard Sale.

Sounds innocent enough, right?

The second I posted my teaser ad on Craigslist I started getting emails. The first one was from the nicest lady who wants to sew for her grandkids and is going to be out of town that day, so could she come beforehand to pick stuff out?

At first I thought, sure! Then I got ten more emails asking the same question and suddenly the prospect of organizing two huge fabric/crafts/pattern/ribbons sale was enormous. Plus, I need my mom. So I changed my mind and said I'd stick with one big sale.

Well, today I got the mother of all whacky Craigslist emails. I posted another teaser ad, just in case someone hadn't seen the original one. I got an email from a woman, and I'm going to post it verbatim for your reading pleasure:

Whackjob: You wouldn't happen to have any novelty fabric with pigs on it do you?

Me: No pigs, sorry!

Whackjob: Really out of all that fabric nothing with pigs on it? Oh well what about your sewing machines are they worthy of heavy sewing?

At this point, I've decided not to reply. Seriously, she's indignant that I do not have novelty pig fabric? I know, can you believe it, right? Me without any pig fabrics, and by the way are those crap sewing machines I'm sewing even worthy of her taking a glance at them or are they just total shit?

And here's the one that takes the cake. After all that, I got this email, from someone completely new:

are you there

Creepy. Thank God my mom and dad and the Sheriff are going to be with us when we have this yard sale. God help us all.

- H

My how time flies when all I do is stand in the yard and say "go potty"

Dear friends,

It's been over a week since we last talked. I'd like to say it's been such an eventful week that I've simply not had a moment to stop and write. The truth is, I've had plenty of moments this week, just none of them at my laptop.



There's the part where I stand in the sun, rain, wind, cold or warmth while waiting for miss Ruby to do her business in the grass. We prefer that she toilet in the yard rather than in our home. It's just one of our quirks. So far, she's only had two piddles in the house and no poop-poops so that's an excellent track record for a 10-week-old puppy.


There's also the bits where I'm doing all of the above-mentioned standing and saying "go potty, Ruby" at 2:00 or 3:00 in the morning. It's not so bad, really. She goes right back to bed in her kennel and has stopped crying in the night, so that's a bonus. The first few nights were hell, I'm not going to lie. There was much regret in my mind, much sadness for the sleep I used to know. But, unlike when I brought my two kids home, this time the sleeplessness only lasted two nights and then she quickly figured out we sleep from 11 to 6.

The boys have gone from liking her to completely ignoring her unless she nibbles on their bodies. Which is strictly verboten but I seem to be the only one who is mindful of it.


Binnie hates her guts. And yet, oddly enough, she has reacted to this new trespasser much like she reacted to us bringing home each of the babies. She's retreated to the office and spends her time in there, alone. It's sad. She doesn't know how to play like a dog, she never has. So she gets all verklempt when Ruby adopts the play stance and barks at her to play! And there's the parts where Binnie waits for Ruby to come bounding in the house, only to sneak-attack her with a vicious snarling/growling/nipping thing. It's crazy. I put an end to that wackiness because it doesn't even appear to be healthy dog pack dominance behavior. It just kinda looks like we have a clinically insane elderly half-blind dog on our hands. And Ruby usually ends up hiding under a table from the whackjob resident senior cause you never know when she's going to snap.

Other than that, things are hunky dory. Time passes quickly with puppies, so I know all the nuttiness will be over sooner than we know it. Of course, my kids will be leaving for college soon, too.

** I wrote that post on Saturday morning. Somehow, I failed to post it and oooooh how things changed shortly afterwards. Updated post on Roo-Boobie coming soon.**

- H

Saltwater sandals rock

This is a shameless plug. I have no financial interest in Saltwater Sandals or the people who make them. I just want to tell you all how much I like them, and show off my new shiny purple pair.

I'd never heard of Saltwater sandals a few weeks ago. I know, I know, I live in a box. But I don't have girls, you see. I have boys. Boys don't wear Saltwater sandals. They wear Keens. At least mine do.

I was reading some blog post by the talented ladies behind Sugar City patterns, and came across some mention of the author's new Saltwater sandals - for herself. My interested piqued, I started a-Googlin, and found the adult version in snappy new colors.

I picked shiny purple. They came today.

I luuuuuurrrrv them.

This is a blurry photo of my new shiny purple sandals reflected in my dirty kitchen porch door. The puppy is not included in sandal purchase.

And here's a top-down view. They look just as good with pants as sans pants.

The best part is they're really super comfy, and this is coming from someone with a painful distortion of one of her feet with the ugly name - bunion. Yes, friends, I have a bunion and it hurts. And these sandals fit me and my bunion, and they do not hurt.

I know, I need a pedicure.

Now, be forewarned. They are flat. I wish they came with a little wedge, maybe something made out of cork for sponginess? Just a suggestion.

Otherwise, they're a total hit.

- H

I always wanted a baby girl

What do you do when you decide not to list your house for sale in the next few weeks?

You move on to Plan B.

Meet Ruby. Our Plan B. My new baby girl. Our insanity. All of it, wrapped into one beautiful, calm, mellow, chocolate package.

Baby Huey loves her. Loves her. I wish I'd had the camera when I found him hauling her down the driveway, his hands firmly under her belly, her arms and legs dangling happily. What can I say, she likes to be carried. She'll fit in just fine around here.

Even Blind Binnie likes her. Go figure.

- H

The Russians aren't coming and various other updates like the fact that we will not be on Hoarders anytime soon

Yeegads, has it been seven years since I've updated all in the drama that wasn't, previously named Russians 0, USA 1? Well, there's been some movement on a few different fronts around here so I thought I'd better get you all caught up.

Number One. We will not be buying the Russians' home. No, friends, we sadly walked away from that bit of crazy (ok, I was sad my husband was ecstatic) in March because vibes coming from the Russian real estate agent were bad. Hey, try this - try getting your earnest money back from someone who's not on the up-and-up to begin with, when there is no law in place requiring anyone to give you said earnest money by any specific time. That's fun. If you like needles in the eyes. It's that kind of fun.

We did finally get our earnest money back, thank you very much.

Then what happened? I don't know. Not much. Someone else put a contract on the house and I was v. sad (and also, a little British). Then, a month later the crazed Russian real estate agent was emailing promotion for the property again, reducing the price and hawking it. Weird. Well, as it turns out the deal after ours fell through, too.

And now the house's listing has been cancelled. So maybe it's being foreclosed on? Who knows.

What I do know is that we will be putting our charming whitewashed brick home on the market in the next week or so. I've been working my fingers to the bone to get it ready. This helps in the Quest to Be Not as Heavy. At least once a day I panic and think there is no way we'll be ready to show this house anytime in the next sixteen months and go lay down on the couch in a fetal position. Luckily, I manage to drag myself upright again and carry on and I've not even resorted to alcohol. Yet.

I've been de-stashing my sewing paraphernalia like a mad woman. I've painted the kitchen deck (twice) and various other bits and pieces, like all the walls that Griffin decorated with a Sharpie marker this winter. I found the top of my desk! Yes, that's right, folks, I managed to clean up my office which is like an Olympic feat and only happens once a leap year.

Now all that is left is...oh wow, I can feel the fetal couch calling....I still need to organize the basement, paint two closet doors, organize my back bedroom and pack away the weird things like the headless glass clown and the dusty stuffed fish my husband has had since childhood. Nobody wants to see a stuffed fish mouth-first. Nobody.

Oh, remember how I mentioned Hoarders in my comprehensive post title? Yeah. We've been DVRing Hoarders on TLC. My husband said to me last night "that show saved my life. Thank God I've seen that." Huh.

And they told me I'm supposed to make the house look like no children live here, because people buying houses don't like children or something like that. Now, how am I going to do that?! Isn't the Sharpie marker on the walls going to be a dead giveaway?

So yeah. It's all boring but somehow it keeps me busy on top of the two hooligans who live here and don't pay rent and the job and the hubs and all the other fun stuff.

Oh, and I have not opened a fabric store. Yet. I hear people say things like "do one thing at a time, take it easy" and I'm sure they're speaking English only it sounds so foreign to me. And we didn't get a puppy. Yet. That one was easier. Do you want to show a house when there's a chance the viewers may walk in and find a nice warm pile of doggy love on the floor?

Me neither. So on that front, we're waiting.

- H

My weekend

We had a lovely weekend. The weather was perfect - 75 to 80 and sunny all the time. The pollen turned our cars green and our heads swollen and we didn't even care.

Check it out, I finally won something on a blog giveaway! From this post, I won a copy of Snappy Fashions, a book full of ideas on bedazzling onesies. And when the prize package arrived in the mail, lo and behold the lovely author, Cathie Filian, had included this entire stash of loot! I have added "embellish onesies" to my to-do list.


I took the boys to six estate sales yesterday, in search of the perfect storage hutch/cabinet/armoire/dresser/container for all of my sewing paraphernalia on Saturday morning. The serious salers were ticked that I'd brought two anklebiters with me. Hah! I scoff at their indignance. We bought various trinkets and trudged home at noon, exhausted and without a large storage hutch/cabinet/armoire/dresser/container. Oh, well. Maybe next week.

Then this morning my hubs took the boys to the car races and a swap meet in Illinois, which meant I got an entirely free morning. This is largely unheard of, and very well appreciated. I celebrated by cleaning my sweatshop from top to close to the bottom but not quite. Didn't want to get ahead of myself or anything, that would be unlike me.

When the males returned, they were full of new skills.

Like how to set up a swap meet in their own driveway.


And hawk their wares to the general public.


And dance in celebration when their mom paid them a shiny quarter and still get to keep the toys.


Oh, and I made my kids some short-man-pants for the summer. I'm not allowed to call them cropped pants or capris or even jams. Hah! I scoff at the male rules. They're awesome, as soon as I get my act together I'll post the pattern on the sewing side.

Griffin's are in a stretch poplin camo. Cause he's cool like that.

I asked him to show me his belly. Which he calls his body.

We're supposed to have ten more days of high 70s, sunny weather! It'll be hell on my new baby green flowers, but lovely for us humans.

-H

PayPal has some really great customer service

I've been doing a little online retailing recently. You know, buying stuff. Selling stuff. Thank God PayPal has been there for me, making it super easy to accept money from other people, and vice versa.

They sent me this awesome email yesterday to alert me that my account could have been compromised! So scary with all this online predatory stuff and identity theft and the thing where people pretend to be you and then buy a car and wreck it and it ruins your credit.

Here's their email to me:

Dear PayPal Customer,

We have recently determined that various computers connect to your PayPal account, password, and the present of chess more taient before the connection. Now we need to confirm the new information from your PayPal account. If not completed within 48 hours, we will be forced to suspend your account indefinitely, because it can be used in a fraudulent intent. Thank you for your compréhention in this way. To confirm your online account:

...and they wanted me to click a link that would take me their official site where I could enter all my personal information and they could fix the, um, chess taient? I'm not sure what that is, but I bet it's super bad. I'm sure they didn't mean to leave off the ed on the word connected. And I bet whoever wrote the email, some copywriter somewhere, is a foreign national who's used to using the word compréhention . Cause it's a little unused here in the states these days.

Yeah. So I guess I better get my PayPal mojo fixed because I'm selling two of my sewing machines on eBay right now.

- H

That's what you think, loser.

Have y'all seen this new trend, so you think you're really something, huh?

Well, that's not really what they call it. They call it So You Think You're Crafty, or So You Think You Can Decorate, or whatever.

Recently, a very crafty (in the best sense of that word, not the kind that stencils apples on their kitchen cabinets) artista named Katie who has this awesome blog called Blue Eyed Freckle was entered into the latest round of So You Think You're Crafty. It was the round where you pick the things you think are coolest and then those crafters are entered as entrants or whatever. I'm getting tired just writing about the process, I can't imagine being a contestant!

Anyhoodle, I looked through all the entries and voted for the one and only thing I had any interest in making or learning to make or paying someone else to make for me - the beautiful bib necklace.

Ironically, one of the editors on Etsy wears a necklace like that one in her picture and when I emailed her to ask her where she got it, she wouldn't tell me! Can you believe that?! She said it came from Portugal or something. Whatever.

Well, the bib necklace belonged to Katie who doesn't live in Portugal (I don't think). And she didn't win. So boo hoo to them.

It just makes me kind of cringe, really, the whole so you think you're some hot shit, huh? phenomenamena. I mean, I get it. So you think you can dance. Great. Let's kill the spirit of some youngsters, nip it in the bud while we can so they'll decide to go to college instead of auditioning for countless off off off Memorial Parkway productions and live on someone's couch until they're forty. Fine. But this internet thing, I don't know.

I'm not feeling it. I like all the crafters. I don't want to stack one up against another. I think there is room for everyone; they're all crafty. They can all decorate. This isn't HGTV people, you know what I'm saying? Not that it can't be big money, I'm sure PW is doing alright with her gig.

Well, anyway, I found V and Co's blog, and she did exactly what I think we should be doing on the nets. She let anyone and everyone who had a tute or link or project or whatever, link it up. Beautiful. I found quite a few new ideas on that one.

Oh, and if you get a chance, check out Blue Eyed Freckle. Really, she's pretty crafty.

- H

Candy is the Devil

Whew. I'm alive. I have officially survived Sugar Week 2010.

Last weekend we had an action-packed birthday party for my oldest son, who turned 4.

Photo highlights for your viewing pleasure.

Then two days later his actual birthday fell on a weekday, so I was obligated to bring treats to school. Then Easter, and I swear there must have been three or four different baskets and candy-collecting stations around here?



By last night I barely recognized the wild-eyed, sleep deprived monsters that used to resemble my children.

Why is it that every single major holiday is somehow celebrated with candy? I think it's a conspiracy.

I also decided last week to take a few days off work and paint the kitchen porch. Maybe I'd lost all of my faculties when I made that decision, because the kitchen porch consists of thousands and thousands of white spindles. All that time and pain (pain, I tell you, I can barely walk today), and I've only just primed it all once! I still have to actually paint it.

Yesterday I was such a genius I left on my MBT rocker-walker shoes when I started painting. I'm going to give you a heads up, in case you own those shoes or you're considering painting or you're just curious - do NOT, I repeat, do NOT wear MBTs while painting that requires any sort of up and down motion with your legs. The added effort required to walk around in them will cause your back to break and your buns to become steel and all of this includes a lot of pain.

By the time I was done priming yesterday I was having back spasms.

Yeah, I know. I could have taken the shoes off, right?

I guess I was too caught up in what I was doing. Cause priming spindles is some seriously zen-type fun.

But the good news is my butt is firmer, my legs are firmer, my kitchen porch is white (even if it is just primer, it's white primer), and my kids are back to school today without any candy or sugar packets stashed in their pockets. I think. I didn't check them, I was so tired when I sent them off.

P.S. So far I've lost 7 pounds on Jenny Craig. Not bad. Mostly water weight, but I'll take it.

- H