Native Woman Sews, Crafts, Writes, and More

Settling in CA

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My emotions seem to sway back and forth depending on what I am working on or scheduling. We have arrived in California! I am glad the stress of the move is over, miss my Mom, and can’t wait until my kids make friends.

We took a few days to drive down from Washington, stopping early enough to have a nice dinner and swim at the hotels we stayed at each night. We also stopped at a couple of quilt shops – one really great one when we were visiting Chris’ adopted parents in the Bay Area!

The first week of being here was the normal getting things set up – arranging for our moving truck to be unloaded, getting the gas and electric turned on, getting the internet turned on, finding the library, unpacking a little. Ever since, we’ve been slowly unpacking and getting set up. We all have library cards but haven’t joined the Y. One kid is registered for school but the other has to wait until next month. JW doesn’t have a preschool but he may not because the cost of daycare/preschools down here, wow. I’m working on getting used to the cost of living, but I’m not sure that will ever happen!

We went to Legoland for the 4th of July. I am fairly certain that this year was the first year in my entire life that I didn’t have fireworks to blow up. I really missed it. Funny how you miss things like that when you don’t have them. As you can see, I don’t know how to use my (new! yay!) iphone camera to take pictures of fireworks.

I have fallen in love with instagram! Are you there? Follow me if you are, my user name there is tsoniki.

Strip Quilt

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Here is Alice and a fast strip quilt!

Fast Strip Quilt

I made this back in January, or around there. Rather than sewing the strips to each other and finishing in about 45 minutes (the last video I saw had someone finish in just over thirty minutes!), I added four and seven inch white rectangles. I had no idea how it would turn out, and I wonder if you can plan this? I am guessing not.

I think it looks great! This is a batik jelly roll that I have had for ages and didn’t know what to do with it. I needed something quick and easy, that I could say I was done with. This was the perfect project.

Unfinished Stars

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As I’m sure I’ve said before, I may not have been here, but I have been sewing. I have a lot of finishes chalked up lately, and also have yet to find my camera card! We are packing to move to southern CA so I’m sure I’ll find it. If anyone would enjoy pictures of boxes, just let me know. 🙂

Here are two things I am done with, but the pictures were before I finished. They were made into floor pillows, 27″ square. I pieced the back and also learned a new (to me) way to make pillows. I used this tutorial, that includes measurements for various sizes of pillows, to do an envelope style back. I’m thrilled I found this because my issue with pillows has always been how can they easily be cleaned.

99 Things

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Not 99 bottles of beer though. Just 99 things. Things that my friend Holly posted about – she’s done 45 off of this list!

 1. Started your own blog 
 2. Slept under the stars
3. Played in a band
4. Visited Hawaii
 5. Watched a meteor shower
 6. Given more than you can afford to charity 
 7. Been to Disneyland 

Disneyland, April 2009. Wow my kiddos are tiny! And since this picture, I’ve lost about 35 pounds.

 8. Climbed a mountain 
 9. Held a praying mantis 
10. Sang a solo
11. Bungee jumped
12. Visited Paris
13. Watched a lightening storm 
14. Taught yourself an art from scratch 
15. Adopted a child
16. Had food poisoning
17. Walked to the top of the Statue of Liberty
18. Grown your own vegetables
19. Seen the Mona Lisa in France
20. Slept on an overnight train
21. Had a pillow fight 
22. Hitch hiked
23. Taken a sick day when you’re not ill
24. Built a snow fort 
25. Held a lamb
26. Gone skinny dipping
27. Run a Marathon
28. Ridden in a gondola in Venice
29. Seen a total eclipse 
30. Watched a sunrise or sunset 
31. Hit a home run
32. Been on a cruise 

Porthole on cruise. My friend Holly and I went on the Kenny Chesney cruise in 2006.

33. Seen Niagara Falls in person
34. Visited the birthplace of your ancestors

Backyard view at my Uncle’s house. I’m lucky to have been raised in the place of my ancestors. January 2008.

35. Seen an Amish community
36. Taught yourself a new language 
37. Had enough money to be truly satisfied
38. Seen the Leaning Tower of Pisa in person
39. Gone rock climbing
40. Seen Michelangelo’s David
41. Sung karaoke
42. Seen Old Faithful geyser erupt
43. Bought a stranger a meal at a restaurant 
44. Visited Africa
45. Walked on a beach by moonlight
46. Been transported in an ambulance
47. Had your portrait painted
48. Gone deep sea fishing
49. Seen the Sistine Chapel in person
50. Been to the top of the Eiffel Tower in Paris
51. Gone scuba diving or snorkeling 
52. Kissed in the rain 
53. Played in the mud 
54. Gone to a drive-in theater 
55. Been in a movie
56. Visited the Great Wall of China
57. Started a business 
58. Taken a martial arts class
59. Visited Russia
60. Served at a soup kitchen
61. Sold Girl Scout Cookies
62. Gone whale watching 
63. Got flowers for no reason 
64. Donated blood, platelets or plasma
65. Gone sky diving
66. Visited a Nazi Concentration Camp
67. Bounced a check
68. Flown in a helicopter
69. Saved a favorite childhood toy 
70. Visited the Lincoln Memorial
71. Eaten Caviar
72. Pieced a quilt

Hhmm, I don’t have any quilt pictures on my phone. Here is half of a paper pieced star. I haven’t had any lessons in paper piecing, just jumped in and am trying to figure it out. And man, it is tough! There are two mistakes in this half, which doesn’t sound like a lot, but it feels like it is.

73. Stood in Times Square
74. Toured the Everglades
75. Been fired from a job
76. Seen the Changing of the Guards in London
77. Broken a bone
78. Been a passenger on a motorcycle 
79. Seen the Grand Canyon in person
80. Published a book
81. Visited the Vatican
82. Bought a brand new car 
83. Walked in Jerusalem
84. Had your picture in the newspaper 
85. Kissed a stranger at midnight on New Year’s Eve
86. Visited the White House
87. Killed and prepared an animal for eating
88. Had chickenpox 
89. Saved someone’s life
90. Sat on a jury
91. Met someone famous 
92. Joined a book club 
93. Got a tattoo
94. Had a baby 

My three babies, on Ash Wednesday, 2010.

95. Seen the Alamo in person
96. Swam in the Great Salt Lake
97. Been involved in a law suit
98. Owned a cell phone 
99. Been stung by a bee

Well Holly has me beat! I’ve only done 43 of those things. How about I add a few more:

100. Been to the Black Hills
101. Went to the top of the Space Needle
102. Saw Clark’s signature

Clark’s signature, at Pompey’s Pillar, Billings, MT

There, that is 46 and I beat Holly.

Mil Spouse Fun

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A Military Spouse Survey – I haven’t done one of these meme’s in ages, so I figured I’d jump right in. 🙂

One of my best military spouse friends Holly did this the other day, so here are my answers too!

1. How did you and your spouse meet? 
We met at the tribal college in my home area. He worked at the library and I worked at the bookstore. It was the semester after he graduated high school, and I’m a year older. It’s only by chance that I stayed home and we met. I was supposed to go to one of the state university’s. I went to orientation, found a job, found an apartment – and when I went to tell the housing office were I would be living, they said I was required to live on campus because I was a few credits shy of whatever (I’m not sure if it was soph or jr). In response I pouted (I’m old enough now to admit this!) and said I wasn’t even going to go. So I stayed home another year and worked and went to the tribal college. There was no way I would have met Chris otherwise.
2. How old were you when you two met?
I was 19.
3. How long have you been together? 
Counting from when we started our long distance phone relationship, in June it will be 13 years.

Us before Sub Ball (I like to call these ball “prom for the military”), probably 2004?

4. Where are you and your spouse originally from? 
I’m from south central South Dakota, he grew up all over northern California, but I say he’s from south of San Francisco.

5. How did you feel about him joining the military?

He was already in when we got together.

6. Where did your spouse go to ( in the Navy it’s Boot Camp) Basic Training? 
Great Lakes, IL

Alice, Halloween 2004 or so.

7. Has your spouse ever been deployed?

Yes. For the past three years he’s been gone the majority of each year, before that he did a few deployments on a submarine, we had a stretch of shore duty in between subs and officer stuff.

8. Ever been to his promotion ceremony? 

I went to OCS Graduation.

9. How long have you been a military wife? 
 Almost 12 years.

Jacob’s first picture, August 2003

10. Did you marry him before or after he joined? 
After

11. How did your husband propose? 

We were at my Mom’s house and had talked about getting married over the past couple of months before. There was no romantic gesture, no rose petals spelling anything out, he said “so do you want to?” while my oldest nephew (a baby at the time) laid in between us sleeping while we were watching tv. LOL


12. Where did you get married? 

Rapid City, South Dakota – after the championship game of the Lakota Nation Invitational! It’s a great story. And I never knew that my Grandparents eloped until I did.


13. How old were you two when you got married? 
I was 22 and he was 21.

14. Did he wear his uniform on your wedding day? 
No. He didn’t even wear a tux! That’s what happens when you get married at 12:30AM in the middle of a living room, in front of a Christmas tree. (See, told you it was a great story.)

15. Where are you and your spouse currently stationed? 
He’s stationed in San Diego, but the kids and I live in Washington. We live next door to my Mom and will move this summer.

16. Do you live on base? 
No, we live a couple of hours from a base actually.

Chris and JW, January 2010


17. How long were you married when you had to go through your first separation? 
It was about a year until his first deployment. But we were kind of surprised to learn about duty days (staying overnight on the ship every few days) (or maybe I was the one to be surprised about that).

18. What is your favorite base so far? 
Um, probably Bangor, WA. We lived on base for a year of the five that we were stationed in Washington. I liked the Air Force commissary in Charleston, SC though. And I did love Charleston’s downtown, but that’s not really a base.

19. Do you think your spouse looks good in his uniform? 
Yes

20. Do you think military life is more advanced than civilian life? 
Advanced? I don’t think it is advanced, it is just a lot different.

21. Do you like the benefits you receive as a military dependent? 
I do like them and appreciate that like any benefit, there are ups and downs. I also realize that there are things out there that I don’t use – both because I don’t know they exist and because I don’t need them.

22. Do you have a lot of military wife friends? 
I don’t think I have “a lot.” I have a solid handful who I consider very close friends, those I would tell my secrets to. I also have another couple of handfuls of people who I know are there for me when I need them. I don’t need (or want) a lot of friends that I can’t keep track of, I want a few really great ones.

23. What is the hardest part of the military life? 
I grew up literally next door to family members, so not being able to raise my kids around more family is very hard. We try to visit at least once a  year, but it just isn’t the same.

24. Do you own military wife stuff?
No.

25. Do you support your spouse as a member of the military? 
Of course!

I’m snagging Holly’s tag ~If you are a military spouse, tag – you are it!

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