Enjoying LA

I've got a backlog of things I should have posted on here ages ago (mostly "extra mom" stuff like St. Patty's day gifts and choo-choo party supplies) ...

But rather than play catch up, I'm going to hint at my latest active vacation post:

Yep, I just got back from a long weekend in the LA area.

While Hollywood isn't as glamorous as many might think (there seems to be an extended homeless issue not only in San Francisco, but in all of California as a whole), I did manage to find some fun things to do there for a day with my sister.

Like ... dinner at the Pig & Whistle (she had the Caramel Elektra while I enjoyed a local IPA):

And of course a self guided walking tour of Hollywood Blvd:

But the real purpose of the trip will take me a bit of time to recap.  So just consider today a teaser.  I'll be back ASAP.

Polar Vortex Insanity

Given the current Minnesota weather forecast (let's hope it's false), it seems appropriate for me to post this series today.  Enjoy!

Creatin' 2 Avoid Crazies

Some of you may have heard that in the last few months, Minnesota's weather has been ... interesting.

Yeah, interesting ... if that's what you want to call an extended, week+ long, record setting sub zero temperature blitz ... followed by 3-10"+ blizzards pretty much every other day for a month and a half.

Yep, that gif right there sums up everyone I knew in Minnesota after that stretch.  Cold, snowy and angry.

Like most others in my area, after the first week of "Polar Vortex", I had enough.  So you can imagine how much fun I was having come week 6 of blizzard conditions.  And in case you think I'm exaggerating the constant snow bombardment, to quote my husband: "I tried to go get something in the backyard by going down the deck, but when I realized the snow was past my balls, I gave up real quick."

My husband is 6' 2", just for reference.

Anyway, being house bound for almost two months straight was really starting to wear on me come February, and since I felt like I had already gone to the end of the internet and back twice, I needed to find something else to do in my (limited) down time ... and QUICK!

Thankfully, for some reason, I fell back into cross stitching.  Thank god for hobbies that can suck up hours on end in what feels like two minutes flat!!

As you saw in my Reddit post a week or two ago, one of my first projects back into cross stitching was this guy (which I think took about 12 hours to complete):

I do have to say, it turned out pretty cute once framed, as you already saw in that post:

When I was Googling around looking for that Shamrock pattern, I had started my search by simply typing "green cross stitch", and thus I stumbled across this guy ... which I decided I just HAD to make as well.

Because I was surprise gifting this to an old friend, I kept his sister updated with status alerts; so that project left me with a fun collection of progressive pics:

If you're wondering, Frank was about 20 hours of work.

In addition to using green thread, I did take on a few other adventures, including Pusheen cat in a donut (about 20 hours), and a somewhat "unconventional" commission for a friend's bathroom (a mere 4-5 hours on that one):

And like any good cross stitcher with ADD, I have three other works in progress right now -

An outer space rocket ship (20-30 hours):

A snake ala Garden of Eden (15ish+/- hours):

And ... bringing us back to the start of this story, a celebratory plaque commemorating a friend from St. Louis's trip here during the Polar Vortex (15ish +/- hours):

So there you go.  That's what I've been doing late at night when I've been literally snowed in.  Thank god the snow has melted and I can finally get outside again!

Just ... let me be OCD for a second and finish those three projects above first.

Reddit St. Patrick's Day - Giftee Received! :-)

Hooray!  My Reddit St. Patrick's Day giftee received their gift!

Here's a close up of that text for ease of reading:

I love it!  Feeling validated for my hard cross stitch work.

Even more fun, whatever I'm getting is in the mail and due to my house today.  Exciting!!  More to come ...

Reddit St. Patrick's Day

At the end of November, I posted about joining Reddit Gifts to do the yearly Secret Santa Christmas exchange.  Then in early December, I followed up with a post talking about what I sent to my giftee.

You'll notice, there was no follow up regarding what I got.

Whomp, whomp.

Best I can tell, my package got stuck in US customs during the government shutdown, and hasn't moved an inch since.  While I haven't lost all hope of getting my gift, the stark reality is that if the package has a tracking number and hasn't moved since January 13th ... well, I'd assume a month and a half later it's likely gone for good.

Sad.

Of course, this didn't prevent me from having more fun in the Christmas exchange, as I volunteered to be a rematcher for someone who got similarly shafted ... be it because their package was lost in shipping, or there was just nothing sent to begin with ... either way, I was rematched with a parter in California the second time around.  He wrote a very nice thank you note, including a mention that his family kind of skipped Christmas this year, and how my gift made him feel like he wasn't left out.

Oh the feels.

In my participation of these exchanges, what I've come to learn about most of the people who do Reddit Gifts (who I've been matched to or read about, anyway) is this - usually, participants have a reason why they're in these exchanges.  And more often than not, it boils down to them either being (A) lonely / having no one in their life who cares enough to give them gifts, or (B) going through some trouble in life that they need a diversion from and random gifting gives them a new venue of happiness to pursue while they work through their situation.

Given that I participate just for the fun of gifting, and feeling good about being able to make a difference in someone else's life ... well, I'm not too upset that I didn't get my exchange gift for Christmas.  Let's just leave it at that.

So, knowing that I had fun regardless of the outcome, I decided to sign up for a new Reddit Gifts exchange a little over a week ago.

Here were my options:

Knowing my ... proclivities ... can you guess which one I signed up for?

LOL!  Here's a hint:

Obviously if there's a holiday with costuming and festive decor involved, you know I've got to be a part of it ... right?!

So on February 19th, I was assigned my partner.  And she seemed like a very nice person:

Bahahaha.  Well, I'm sure she is a nice person ... just don't try to Google her Reddit user name at work ... on an office computer ... using the company's internet filters.

Damn it that I try to be such a thoughtful and through gift giver, because turns out I was matched to someone who uses her assets in a very unique way that I'm way too modest to ever do myself.

That's a nice way of saying my partner is a BBW porn star.

Me, closing my internet browser at work:

Hahahahah - whoops!!

Since I like to try to find the similarities between myself and my giftee in these exchanges, rather than focus on our obviously vast differences ... I was happy to find that my partner for this exchange surprisingly enjoys crafting and creating things much like I do.  Building off that, I decided to invest an ungodly amount of time into a mini cross stitch (I think I was about 12 hours in when all was said and done).

And then I paired it with a smattering of St. Pat's items that she could wear ... well, doing whatever it is she does.

Since I feel like I can never send one of these gifts without including a personal note, I wrote a letter telling a little about myself and a little about why I chose what I did ... and then I packed it up with a cute label and shipped it off:

And now ... I wait for it to arrive later this week.

Fingers crossed they like it!

Valentines Day 2019

Ahhh ... Valentine's Day.  A holiday meant for love and chocolate and cheesy puns that somehow relate to the holiday at hand.

Psh, like I can talk ... since that banana pun was my son's Valentine giveaway last year.  Haha!

Well, given that opening, I suppose you know what time it is!!

Let's get right into what my son brought to "school" this year as his Valentine's Day giveaway item:

Yep, another fruit pun.  I guess I can't really help it, though.

First of all, you know I hate gifting candy at holidays like this.  It's already bad enough that everyone ends up with the crappy sugary stuff like candy hearts, tiny boxes of Nerds, bad chocolate poured in the shape of hearts and lips, or those weird red suckers that try to pretend they're Jolly Ranchers when they're not.

But second of all, I hate to waste money on some plastic novelty toy that will just end up broken and in a landfill before the day is done.

So ... an apple.  Makes 100% sense at Valentine's Day, right?  Not really, I suppose.  Which means I'm sure you're asking: how did this all come to be?

Well, right around Christmas, I started working with Shelly at Shell's Creations to whip up a bushel or so of apples.  (Is 15 apples enough to make a bushel?  I don't even know!)  Being that my son so loved bananas last year, I figured the natural progression from a banana would be an apple.

And much like last year, I figured that this pretend food item would fit well into any child's existing play kitchen and actually become a usable toy worthy of escaping the landfill a day or two after Valentine's Day has passed (or if said child didn't have a play kitchen, I figured they could still have imaginative play with just a single piece of fruit.  Why not?!)

After a little back and forth with Shelly, who was ever so sweet and friendly, I had a prototype approved ... complete with a gift tag.  Then, much to my amazement ... within a matter of a few weeks later, I had these photos in my inbox:

Bing - bang - boom!  Shelly shipped, the apples are already pre-tagged ... I'm done, right?!

Well ... if you read my previous post about Lunar New Year, you'll already know that there were some communication errors between my son's daycare staff and me regarding class headcount.  On February 1st, I found out - SURPRISE - my son's age group class segment was 14 kids, but the entire preschool room comes together for parties, and that's 25 kids.

Knowing that there was no way Shelly could crochet another 10 apples and get them shipped from Illinois to me within one week's time, I called my sister's etsy shop on speed dial for some help ASAP.  (I had avoided bothering her with this project up to this point, as I knew she was busy transitioning to a new job and various family things over the holidays).

Since I had found the original apple crochet pattern for Shelly, I showed my sister that same pattern, and within 3-4 days I had the apples I was short.  Phew!  Thanks seester!!

With the apple crisis averted, it was time to refocus on organizing the last half of my son's Valentine's Day gifting - teacher presents!!  Since he enjoyed helping me wrap his teacher's gifts for Lunar New Year, I recruited his help stuffing glittery heart purses with lip balms, face masks, and fuzzy key chains (which he was quite mad about giving up, btw):

Then he helped me hold ribbons while I wrapped the bags in tissues, and it all came together to look a little something like this:

With everything packed up the night before, my son seemed excited for his upcoming party.  But I can't help to admit: for several days previous, I was feeling very guilty.

You see, my son is at a tipping point where he is transitioning from a baby (where adults made all his decisions for him) to a child (where he should have some flexibility to make some decisions for himself).  In beginning to plan his apple Valentine, it never occurred to me that I should take him shopping and let him pick his Valentine himself.

It wasn't until about a week or so ago that I was talking to a friend of mine who's son was born the week after mine.  She mentioned that he wanted to pick out a Lightening McQueen cake for his birthday ... and then I was like:

But at that point, the apples were already a done deal, and I didn't want to let all that handiwork go to waste.

Thankfully, my son still loves his play kitchen, so he was pretty excited when he saw the apples the night before.  And I knew he was very excited to give them out the next day ... as evidence to him singing "apples, apples, apples" the entire time he got dressed to go in the morning, and the ENTIRE ride in as well.

Lucky for me, my husband was on driving duty that morning.  Heh!

Hope you had a great Valentine's Day!!