If found, please return to owner

Anyone seen my mojo? I've always found it hard to get back into things after a long hiatus, and it's no different this time. Despite being back in the UK for almost a week, my website it still down and all my shops are still shut. I haven't sewn in almost a month and I'm needing kick in the backside to get my momentum going again.

So let's do some navel-gazing. Here are the culprits for my inertia:

1. We brought back Series One on DVD and I'm hooked: But the tide might be turning, we only have a couple left and Steven was more interested in watching football last night than having another marathon. Perfect opportunity to sew, right?
   
   
2. Nope, I started reading this over the weekend: And stayed up to 3AM last night finishing it (thank you, jet lag). Awesome book.
   
   
3. So my nights might be full of vampires and Swedish thrillers, but surely I could still get my shops up and running again during the day, right? Step forward, needy children: After a month of at least one adult giving them their undivided attention all of the time, they've forgotten that they could play nicely independently or with each other for maybe 15 minutes or something. Don't get me wrong, I like Hide and Seek as much as the next woman, but two hours is pretty excessive when they hide in the same freakin' spot every time and Jamie tells me where to hide before counting.
   

I'm confident(ish) I'll get my mojo back, but what's going to be the first thing I make? Something like this is tempting:


But before I can overhaul my wardrobe with a Homesick t-shirt, I absolutely need to do something about my accessories situation. Yes, it is serious enough that it's now deemed a 'situation'. As you might know, I hardly ever sew anything for myself. I don't normally have the time, I don't want to 'waste' my fabric on me, and I completely lack the confidence to try to make what I see in my head. Or even recreate something physical, right in front of me.

No matter what Picked Weasel says, I'm not cool. But even I know the difference between shabby chic:

From Wheatie Bags on Folksy

And just plain shabby:


And the difference between distressed:
And distressing:


That's right, folks. Those specimens are my everyday bag, and my wallet. I've had them for about five years each and it shows. They embarrass me, they embarrass my husband. I tried to buy suitable replacements on Etsy, but in actual fact I want exact replicas. So I'm gonna have to make them myself. And I'm seriously obsessing about it. Any advice from bag or wallet makers? Or does anyone just fancy kicking me in the bum and get me moving again?

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Calling all geeks!

One of my favourite things about my bloggy / cyber life is meeting kindred spirits. One lady that I've found I share a lot in common with is Apryl from Meridian Ariel. We're both American ex-pats living in the UK and missing American family, shopping and sweeties. We're both crafty (as in craft-making, not sneaky). She's been very helpful in my quest to find an inappropriate love interest. We share the same sense of humour and a love of all things geeky (TV shows, books and people). I highly recommend following her on Twitter, she's hilarious and a fount of knowledge of all the funniest sites on the internet. And now another reason to love her: she's organising a swap based on my favourite movies!

I can't even tell you how many times I watched Labyrinth, The Neverending Story, Willow and The Princess Bride. When I was younger, my friend Alex and I could recite all dialogue from The Dark Crystal. So cool. Today's the last day to join the swap over on her blog. I've signed on the dotted line and invite you all to join too!

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Dear Bank Manager, I'm terribly sorry...

Coat fabrics: Greens

Coat fabrics: Blues

Coat fabrics: Raspberries

Coat fabrics: Oranges

The coordinates / sets

My favourite

The Randoms

Boy Fabric

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Holiday Roundup

I don't want to bore you silly with holiday snaps, so instead I'm going to issue some awards, American Yearbook style....

• Biggest Lovefest: Me and Calvin

• Serena Williams Bubble Butt award: Maia And look, it's makes her incredibly buoyant!

• Least Reciprocated friendship: Maia and Mister Bo
• Big Kid Award: Four way tie (Steven, Grandma, Grandpa, me)
• Least observant person: Steven. For a laugh (and, yes, I am hilarious) I moved the car twice while Steven was inside a shop and he never noticed. Or at least he never said anything, probably so as not to encourage me.
• Future Supermodel Award: Calvin
• Silly Sunburn award: Me
• Farmer's Tan award: Steven
• Most Impressed by Creatures Award: Maia, upon meeting a salamander
• Most Eccentric Child: Maia
• Campest Moment: To get up here, Jamie has to tell a tween goth who was brooding on the top tire, 'Excuse me, big boy'
• Biggest control freak about sand castles: me
• The 'Really Loves Swings' Award: Maia
• The 'Really loves Tunnels' Award: Jamie
• Future Architect Award: Maia
• World's Strongest Toddler Award: Maia
• Harry Potter Appreciation Award: Jamie
• Most Redundant Paddling But We Won't Tell Him Because He's Having Fun' Award: Jamie
• The Y Chromosome Bonding Experience Award: Liam, Conor and Jamie playing the Wii
• The Eat your Body Weight in Ice Cream Award: Jamie and Maia

• Buy Your Bodyweight in Fabric Award: Me
• Audry Hepburn Sunglasses Award: Isla

• We All Love Each Other Award: Too close to call

• We Specifically Love Calvin Award: (Just between me and you, I'm the winner)
• Sainthood Award: Despite getting more than 200 bugbites, I didn't scratch a single one. Truly.
  

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Just when you think you're safe....

We're back! Twenty one hours after leaving my folks, we're safely ensconced in our home in Edinburgh. I'd be lying if I said it was a walk in the park... Heck, I'd even be lying if I said it was a poo in the park. The first leg of our journey from Boston to Frankfurt wasn't too bad, we left at ten at night when the kids were good and demented so they slept most of the flight. I had barf bags at the ready in case Maia decided to projectile vomit in my face like last time. Unfortunately I was so focused on the threat of vomit from below that I took my eye off the ball and didn't realise the true danger was vomit across the aisle, courtesy of a fully-grown stranger. She hurled and hurled into the aisle between our seats to the extent that a doctor was summoned and she was put on oxygen, probably just to plug up her mouth and make her stop. The flight crew dumped about four kilos of coffee grounds onto the spill, I'm not entirely sure why but it was probably just the shock of the whole thing. I was largely delirious with fatigue during the excitement, and could have probably put it down to a bad dream had my shoes not been vomitted on. Which I found out in the morning when I put them back on. Nice.

Once at Frankfurt, we had a layover of almost six hours. Let me repeat that: we had a layover of almost six hours. Thankfully, Frankfurt is probably the biggest airport in the world, so we spent a lot of those six hours going from our arrival to departure terminals. Maia also helpfully refused to walk at all, so it took even longer for me to carry her, her backpack, and my backpack across the expanse. So we really only had four hours to kill, which is totally not a big deal when you've had three hours of sleep.

The real trouble started when we were descending from our Frankfurt flight into Edinburgh. Maia had spent the whole flight on my lap, arms wrapped around me like a little koala. When the flight attendant came around to say she needed to be buckled into her own seat I pretended I couldn't hear him. When he repeated that she needed to be moved, I pleaded with my eyes, 'Don't make me do this'. Those of you who know a bit about koalas will know that despite being cute, they're also crazy and nasty. And sure enough, when they insisted she be prised from my lap, Maia went feral. She became a yowling, thrashing mess of teeth and claws. It took supernatural strength for me to hold her down in the seat as she continuously locked her legs in a standing position, bit any appendage that got within range, pulled out clumps of my hair and scratched my face. On the plus side, there was far too much going on for me to make eye contact with any of the horrified passengers, who surely would have been phoning Social Services or Rabies Control had mobiles been allowed. This continued for the full thirty minute decent, when she promptly turned into Sweetness and Light, clapped and pretended nothing happened. After sheepishly kissing my arm and saying 'Sorry'.

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Things not to tell Jamie

The other day we were all sitting around reminiscing about our childhoods and someone fondly remembered the time that my brother Brady dressed up in a bear costume, hid in my closet, waited until I fell asleep and then jumped out and scared the bejesus out of me. We were speculating if this event scarred me to the extent that my DNA was altered to include 'scared of bears' to my genetic makeup, and this is what has been passed down to Jamie.

Fear of The Bear has not abated despite our change of location, and Jamie is still very nervous of the concept, to the extent that it's discussed at bedtime every night with soothing platitudes from us that there are only pretend bears at Grandma's house. Like this one in the rafters of the solarium:

One night Jamie even woke me up in the wee small hours to complain that The Bear had gotten into bed with him.

Then a couple of days ago Mister Bo, the Tibetan terrier with an acute sense of smell and an overdeveloped 'Must Protect House' syndrome started barking like a dog possessed. My brother and I went outside to investigate and we saw gigantic black bear at the top of the driveaway. I didn't take any pictures but it was much like this one:
So we can file that right at the top of the list of Things Not to Tell Jamie, right next to 'Honestly, just ask me a couple more times, I'll give in then'.

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Photo diaries and exhibitionists: Part Three

Courtesy of Steven, I have a lot of photographic proof of what the children got up to from Sunday to Wednesday. They went boating with Grandma and Grandpa:

They devoted themselves to Isla:


They went to more playgrounds and pooed:


They posed at monuments without knowing why:


They hung out with baby animals:


There is no photographic record of what I got up to from Sunday to Wednesday. If I was to wager a guess as to what picture best represented my activities, especially on Sunday and Monday, it would probably look something like this:



Although definitely less religious in nature, and hopefully more benign. Raging with a fever in excess of 102deg, I was speaking in tongues and sermonising to my mother my theories onto why my skeleton hurt. The kids made frequent visits with their doctor's kits asking if I 'felt better yet', but in the end the entire family skeddaddled for most of the daylight hours and left me to writhe and cough in peace. Sunday became Monday and Monday became Tuesday. On Tuesday I felt brave enough to move my camp from the bedroom to the living room couch. Awoke from a daytime slumber by a knock on the door, I met a neighbour who quite alarmingly said, 'Sorry to wake you again.' Again, as in he awoke me another time. That I don't remember. On one of the days I only writhed around in my underwear. I can only imagine what type of conversation we had the first time, with me in my wild-eyed, unkempt, nonsensical and guttural glory.

Come Wednesday, it was time to return to Connecticut. Luckily for Steven, my condition had improved enough that I was able to travel in the car with the kids for the epic journey. Unluckily for Mom and and kids, my temperament had not improved and although I was a fairly capable Snackmaster, I was a lackluster and irritable Entertainment Executive.

The End. I appreciate that this is a rather abrupt ending, but I didn't want to drag my illness onto yet another installment. I am mostly better, I'm not sure what it was, but thankfully no one else seems to have caught it despite my Ebola-esque symptoms.

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