Native Woman Sews, Crafts, Writes, and More

Crafty Goals for 2009

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Though I haven’t posted any new picture of what I’ve been crafting – December has been a very fun, craft filled month! I almost finished two quilts, started a third, made several cards, started a calendar project and did some embroidering. I’ll have pictures of everything coming up, I’m very excited about it all! I have a few projects started that are in various stages of complete (then again, isn’t that what crafting is all about?) and so many more ideas of what I want to do.

I wanted to set a few crafty goals for 2009. I don’t usually like to set resolutions and found that setting goals works out better. Plus more fun!

My Craft Goals for 2009

  • Start a new project each month – I may not finish a quilt if I get it started, but at least it is started!
  • Refresh my crocheting skills – I tried making a round washcloth and realize I never learned how to do round! I can make a baby blanket like a pro, but round? Nope! This is needed because Alice got the Creepy Cute Crochet book for Christmas and she can make a chain but that’s it. Someone needs to remember their skills before giving a gift, Santa.

    • Ninja
    Creative Commons License photo credit: wolf0230

  • Take lots of pictures and print them out – photography is a craft right?
  • Start the time travel scrapbook – I’ve been wanting to start this for ages – we’ve moved so many times I just need to do it already!
  • Make new stockings for my family – Mom and I had talked about this in the past and I’ve been meaning to remind her. If we do a couple a month we will have them all done by Christmas! Maybe I should get rid of my stockings to motivate myself?

There will probably be more projects I am interested in or techniques I want to try – but these ones are very important to me and I want to be sure I get them started and finished.

My Grandma’s Memorial service will be this fall and I have several projects I need to work on for that. My Mom and I are making I think a dozen blankets/quilts and of course those have to be finished. I may also be making shawls, I’ll have to talk to Mom about that plan. I’ve been cutting material for the blankets but haven’t sewn anything yet.

  • For Grandma’s Memorial – figure out how large the quilt will be and sew at a minimum one row a week. I’m sure I’ll sew more once I get going.

Do you have crafty goals? I’d also like to get organized but that’s an ongoing thing and sometimes can cause stress, I’m not interested in that! We will be moving again in 2009 so the organization is inevitable.

A New Do

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Today I got my hair cut like this ~

mariskah

Mariska Hartigay, Olivia on Law & Order SVU

picture copyright by someone else, not me.

I love having short hair. LOVE it. I cut my hair when I was around 18 and didn’t look back. Except that time when I was pregnant with Alice, my hair was past my shoulders then, and then now. Now it’s touching my shoulders and at the point where I can’t fix it at all and it’s really annoying me.

And it’s been a few years since I’ve had highlights. I blame the military. We have to move so often, I can’t find a hair stylist, or I find one I love and then they move. Or I move and then wait months to find a new one. I finally stopped someone in a store the other day and asked where she got hers cut so I could do something with mine.

And here are the results.

Close to Mariska’s? Close’ish.

Looking back on it I wonder how I’ll feel about the highlights being *so* blond? I was thinking more of a caramel color, which is what I’ll do next time! I do love the cut, it’s short but not super short. And the wings I can see in this pic are odd, but looked so good in person! Overall I’m very happy with the cut.

Oh and the salon! The haircut was $12. You read that right. I haven’t paid $12 for a cut in, geez I can’t even remember when! The highlights were more of course but not nearly what they would have been if we lived in South Carolina or Washington still. The stylist was so great too – I definitely look forward to going back to her again!

Learning About Native Heritage

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My friend Lisa over at Educational Toy Factory asked me to submit a few articles for her site regarding learning about native heritage. I love being able to share my culture and traditions with people. I wrote four articles for her that also have activities you can do with your child. One of them is to make a miniature tipi out of dowels, cardboard or a small board and canvas or heavy cloth. I actually haven’t made this with my kids yet so I need to get that done! Lisa also found great images to go with each article.

Check out her site and activites. She also has other theme based activities such as for Laura Ingalls Wilder, Beatrix Potter, Earth Day, On The Farm and more. Alice has the Laura Ingalls Wilder set of books and we started reading them recently. Kids reading to you will explode their vocabulary and reading skill level. I’ve tested my kids reading level online before, as well as tested my nephews, and I stand by that even if you don’t do some kind of homeschool thing that day – ie you feel like you haven’t really homeschooled – make sure your kids read something.

Kids Sleeping

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I wake up every day thinking of my Grandma. The time change has messed me up so I wake up anywhere between 5:30AM and 7AM. I wake up and have two thoughts running through my head at the same time “I should call Grandma, she’s the only one awake now” and “I can’t believe she won’t answer if I did call” ~ funny how you can think two things at once. It’s strange to have the overlap in my head.

On the way up to South Dakota for her funeral it rained most of the trip. The kids sat in the back of the mini van and played, read, and of course took naps. Alice has a small’ish teddy bear that she’s had since Chris’ first deployment and I’m not sure how (or why) it was with us in the car, but it was. I heard them talking about wearing the bear like you wear babies when they are little and heard Alice say something about her sweater having a zip so it was easy to turn it around. Jake was upset for a minute that his sweater didn’t have a zipper, but you can see it didn’t hold him back from anything.

They fell asleep with the bear in Alice’s hood. Jake got the bear once they woke up though.

NKOTB

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The concert was a few weeks ago but – hands down these guys put on such an awesome show!!!

Let’s see – so I had tickets to the Houston concert which was on a Thursday – but no one to watch my son. A friend said she would, then it turned out there was a wives dinner that night as well, and I felt bad leaving Jake with just whoever I could. After not having anyone to watch him, and Chris working late that night, I didn’t go to the concert. I did go to the dinner, which was fun so at least that.

Friday Alice and I left for the San Antonio concert early’ish – I figured we would grab something to eat in San Antonio, plus I wasn’t sure how traffic would be heading that way. Except the car decided to take that moment and have a heart attack – the engine light started blinking right when we left town and after pulling over to read that this is a bad thing, turn around and go home. Jake was with a friend and Chris was to be off work about an hour from then. So Alice and I get Jake and come home, waiting for Chris so we can get out of town!

Chris gets home and we leave – from hearing about other concerts I figured they would be on stage about 8:30. The AT&T Center was really easy to find, thank goodness, and we got there about 8:40. I said okay we just missed maybe one song and them coming on stage. But I was wrong!

Natasha Bedingfield opened for them and she was still on when we got there. We found our seats, listened to the song she was doing and then walked out to get tshirts. I got one for each of us and also a charm bracelet – I know, I know. But hey, I never got to see them in concert back in the day so I treated myself.

After we sat back down, they came onstage in about a minute – perfect timing! They were so awesome! We had great seats, second row up from the floor and Alice stood on her seat which made her as tall as me. Toward the end they moved to a circular stage at the back of the floor – so directly in front of us. It spun around and had a piano on it, they did two or three songs from there and then when they ran back to the stage they ran right in front of us. When I realized they were coming our way, I grabbed Alice and put her in front of us to put her hand out, but I didn’t tell her what I was doing so she didn’t put her hand out, she was just confused. LOL Jon was the last to run by though.

When I got home I told Chris, I don’t have any regrets in life (and I don’t, I wouldn’t be who I am today without doing or seeing or saying or whatever everything I’ve done) – but I regret not going to NKOTB in Houston.  LOL

So great, loved it, awesome show! My camera is not good at all and I only tried taking a dozen pictures or so. The ones in the post are the only two that came out decent, and even they aren’t that great! I did get a video though so I’m happy about that. 🙂

This just means I need to buy a new camera.

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