Weekend recap

Did everyone have a good weekend? I did, even though it was a bit stressful.  I don't have many pics from this weekend, but here is a bullet list of my highlights:

• Babysitting Little Sister on Sunday night, which included playing dolls yet her and I being boys, reading books about dogs and watching videos of funny cats on youtube.
• Waking up to Little Sister telling me she loves me and could she watch Netflix now please.
• Hanging out with my Gram on Monday
• Portillos lunch with Gram
• Fabric shopping for the backing of my first quilt - we found something that seems perfect and snatched it up.
• I took Gram to go see the Help and was surprised by how much I liked it
• My mom gave me some clothes that I had forgotten about

As far as the Help goes, I was apprehensive about it because of the whole idea that a white girl needs to save these black women from the situation they were in. But, I found the best parts of the movie had nothing to do with Eugenia, Emma Stone. There is some powerful acting and great scenes and I think it was worth a watch. It also had two perfectly cast characters from True Blood in it that made me happy. My Gram loved it, and the theatre was packed for a third week out movie showing in the afternoon. And afterwards almost everyone clapped, which I have not seen outside of Lord of the Rings or Star Wars.

I am back home now and getting set to go back to work today. The weather is beautiful and I'm ready to tackle another week. I'm hoping to make a little progress with my quilt this week so hopefully I will have some pictures for you.

Recharge

I have had a blissful mini-vacation which consisted of my normal 2 days off and a bonus mental health day I used. I took some time to myself when the guys went to work and just chilled. I put my favorite music on, which consisted mostly of Neko Case, light some candles, poured some wine and curled up with some books.

Strange Tales is a wonderful anthology of bizarre tales of Marvel characters in crazy situations. If you are intrigued by the thought of Iron Man fighting Bologna Face, this is for you. Plus look at how cute Spidey is.

The other day I checked out a book from the library on Feminism and was baffled by random post-it notes scattered throughout it. I peeled each one away and kept them in a pile, unsure why they were there and what I should do with them. As I was ding something, I had a light bulb moment and new. Operation Beautiful is an on-going project to promote loving your body one sticky note at a time. So I wrote some simple and hopefully uplifting things on them and plan on posting them at every public bathroom I go to.

When I was in college I was studying in the library and I went to pick up a crap piece of paper and realized that it was already written on. It read "To whoever finds this: You are good enough just the way you are." I can't put into words how much I needed to hear something like this at that point in my life. I have carried that scrap of paper around since then and wish I could thank whoever wrote it.

Anyway, back to my mini-vacation. I think the best part of it was taking a bath with just a bunch of candles and a glass of wine, with Neko singing in the other room. I'm trying to radically amp up my self-love and just being comfortable in my own skin, even for the length of a bath is great. I feel re-energized and ready to go back to work tomorrow and tackle new challenges.

My biggest challenge for myself is the story book I am doing for my sister. I really want her to have a book that shows kids with Down Syndrome without focusing on their difference from other kids. And I just love drawing her. I did learn the hard way today that I need to spellcheck before I ink things. little

Rachel hits the town

Yesterday a big chunk of my family came up to visit us and we took Rachel to the Madison Children's Museum. It was such an amazing place, way cooler than the educational kid museums in Rockford. Everything was beautiful, artsy, light, and just fun.

This cute little bench was just hanging out in the elevator. Rachel had a blast. She is very sensitive to sounds and got a little overwhelmed when babies were crying, but she loved it. She set up house in a little hut with fabric foods and a fake fire, she really loved this water exhibit they had and painted on windows in the art room.

She seemed to have just as much fun scraping the paint off of the windows too. My favorite was the rooftop exhibit, even though it was 95 degrees out. They had so many plants and a great view of the Capitol and there were critters up there. And I got to see Geoff hula-hoop.

Ryan looks impressed. We met a chicken named Roberta and Rachel and I got to pet her! She was so sweet and then there were also baby chickens which made me pout at Geoff that I wanted a big flock of them someday.

Basically this place is amazing and if you have kids of any age and are around Madison, you should go. My 14 year old brother had just as much fun as my 8 year old sister and I will admit that I even climbed up on some things and went down a slide that I am probably too big for. But it was great.My mom was super impressed and I can safely say that we will be going here a lot in the future.

The heat was super gross, but we walked down State Street afterwards and had a little dinner somewhere (I forgot the name and the food was iffy anyway). After a mishap with someone running back to get the car and pick everyone up, we trucked off to Trader Joes so my mom could stock up on some gluten free items and I could stock up on two-buck-chuck.

Leaving my sister is always difficult, and she wanted to move right in with Geoff, Taft, and I. But luckily we are coming down tomorrow so we'll see he soon. I love living so close to her and being able to see her twice in one week as opposed to twice in six months when we lived in Ohio. I am super pumped about going down tomorrow because my brother Mikey and I (and Geoff) are finally going to see Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows part II. My dad called me yesterday and asked if I would go with Mikey if my dad paid for me because he doesn't think he can sit through it. I think I will be able to handle it.

wedding what-nots

I have been having a rough couple of days, mentally. I am prone to stressing out about everything under the sun and recently I have been so tense that I cannot even think. My neck and shoulders feel like cement. And to tell the truth, I don't really have that much to stress about right now. But I have been told that with anxiety issues, it isn't about the outside circumstances that stress me out, it is just something off with my body that puts me into panic mode while watching and episode of Project Runway in bed with a cup of hot tea. It is all just very frustrating.

In other news, Geoff and I are seriously looking into a few places for our upcoming wedding and I am getting very excited. This seems like it would be a HUGE thing to stress about, but really I am just looking forward to it. While I want the day to be wonderful and beautiful and us, what I am excited for is not having a wedding but being married. I have found the person I want to tie my life to and the details aren't the important part. They are pretty fun, but I'm not freaking out over my wedding colors or anything. In fact I don't think I will have wedding colors per say, as my hair will probably clash.

One of the things I am super excited wedding-wise for is that my brother, Ryan, is going to perform the ceremony. We thought about having a wedding in a church for about half a second, but realized that it would just be to please family members and since neither of us is drawn to any religion, we wanted a more custom ceremony. Ryan and I have gotten a lot closer as we have grown and I think he will do a great job of making the event serious and fun at the same time. He has been trying to figure out if he will wear a Darth Vader costume or this number:

Crazy outfits aside, I am pumped to have my brother do this for me. My other three siblings will be a big part of the day as well. With the boys I'm not one hundred percent sure in what capacity, reading something? playing guitar?, but I know they will be great. As for Rachel, if you think I am missing out on a chance to put her in a flower girl dress you are out of your head. She's going to steal the show.

Weekend in Photos

This weekend has been nice and relaxing. Yesterday Geoff and I went down to my family's and visited with my Gram and my siblings.  I got to show my Gram my quilt top and we had a good chat about the next steps and brainstormed what color should be the border and backing.  My dad (and Rachel) made us homemade pizza and we were able to grab more of our things from the garage.

My dad got a box of old wines at a garage sale for a few bucks and gave it to us. The labels are very cool and most are from the 80s and 70s. We tried to open a few and they had gone bad as expected, but the rest are just making the empty wine rack look classy. He also got me a box set of the Laura Ingalls Wilder books which I am super excited about. I adored those books as a kid and can't wait to re-read them.

My sister, the chef. She loves helping in the kitchen and made delish pizza dough!

Board games are a huge part of how my dad, brothers and I connect so of course we had to play one this weekend. Settlers of Cattan is known for driving my brothers from the room, but we talked Ryan into playing and he even won. If you like nerdy games that focus on dice and trading sheep for bricks, this game is for you. Also this set-up might be inspiring me for a new quilt design, possibly for my brother's Christmas present.

I've been doing a lot of work on my new Matryoshka doll quilt and have been brainstorming so many crafty things I want to do. Out new apartment has so much more space than I am used to, and I want to fill it with pieces that are handmade. 

And finally, a childhood photo of me with my peers.

Blog rehaul

I have been unsure about what to do with this space (again) but rather than let it die I am just going to try to have a blog without an over-arching theme per say, but just blog about whatever happens to come my way. So, if you are reading still or reading for the first time - or even if you aren't reading, here are a few things you will likely find in the foreseeable future

My sister - Rachel - who is basically my favorite thing. She is 18 years younger than I am and has Down Syndrome and is the best sister I could ever ask for. She has made me think about things I might not have otherwise, most notably the concept of whale underpants.

I love to draw/doodle/cartoon and I am trying to focus my energy on getting these drawings into a cohesive story line. Also I have a very large (18 pounds) cat named Taft. He is hilarious.

I sew things! Right now specifically I am working on a couple of quilts under the guidance of my awesome gram. When she was younger she had to quilt something like thirteen quilts before she was allowed to get married to my grandpa. Thankfully I don't have the same restrictions. I also have been know to knit and do other craft things.

Taft - the handsome devil.

Other than that expect to find silly photos of my adventures running around the mid-west and trying to figure out what direction my 20-something life is going. If you are out there let me know!