Why I Don’t Sew (a homemade cloth wipe project gone bad)

Remember when I talked about using cloth diapers?  Well…part two of a post on bums…we are also planning to attempt cloth wipes.  Hey, if we’re doing the diapers, why not? Unlike the diapers, cloth wipes don’t have a ton of technology to them, they just need to be soft.  But they are pretty expensive, which is baffling.  So I asked, if I made them myself, would the effort be worth the cost savings?  I concluded that, yes, it would be worth it, plus, “it would be fun!”

Now, I don’t sew, so I’m not sure what I was thinking.  But, before I could realize this, I went to Hobby Lobby and bought two yards of flannel material (the suggested fabric for those venturing into the homemade wipe world) and cut it into 6×8 pieces.  Well, they were all supposed to be 6×8, but somehow I ended up with about 4 different sizes. I measured everything, so I’m not sure how that happened.  Probably because I don’t sew and I thought, “that’s good enough” when I was measuring.

“Good enough” doesn’t work for sewing.  Which is why the doll dresses I attempted to make at my grandma’s house as a little girl never fit my American Girl doll quite right.

Anyhow, one Saturday, my friends Martha & Sarah hosted a sewing day at their house.  Several girls from my church, plus my mom, my sister, and I all gathered to work on various sewing projects.  OK, fine, we gathered to get thread caught in their machines and compete for their attention to our problems.  Even though I’m pretty sure they ended up finishing most peoples’ projects for them, we had a good time.  I started my wipes that February day, but did not even come close to finishing them.  So I packed them up, intending to work on them at my mom’s house “whenever I could.”

Which wasn’t until a few weeks ago.  I went over to her house and got out the one-billion-year-old machine (just kidding, we all know the world isn’t that old, right?).  I threaded the bobbin and the needle with the right color of thread and began sewing.

Just kidding.  First of all, we had to find the bobbin, which was a different color thread that was nowhere to be found in the basket of threads.  So we settled for a color that was “close enough.”  Once we got everything threaded and ready to go, we had to try to pick a stitch on my dad’s machine that was similar to the one on Martha’s machine.  We didn’t even know how to move the little indicator to a different stitch.  While we struggled to fix the blessed machine, Brandon happened to stop by on his way home after a meeting.  He, like my dad, can and has done every activity known to man, including sewing and icing cakes, and he does them with excellence.  I love this about him.  In no time, he found the correct stitch, tension, speed, and whatever else was required to hem these squares of flannel.  He whipped out several wipes within a few minutes and turned it over to me.  I grabbed a square, positioned it under the needle, flipped the foot down, and starting sewing away.

For about ½ a wipe.  Then….clunk.  Something got jammed.  I tried to figure it out for approximately 1.2 seconds, then, “Brandon! What happened?”  He came over, figured out the problem, and gave the chair back to me.  Repeat this scene about 17 times over the next hour, and I was able to complete about 2 wipes.  Finally we tricked the machine into thinking I was Brandon, so it would cooperate.  I’m convinced this is the only way it worked.

My mom and I probably got about 10 wipes sewn within the 3 hours we messed with the machine.  We repeated this scenario one day a week for several weeks before I finally gave up on the cloth wipes.  We got half of them finished, the other half will have to wait to be used as scrap material.  And I’m looking online to find the cheapest cloth wipes/fine terry washcloths to use as wipes.

And that’s why I don’t sew.  Because there is a scientific theory that, for every 10 minutes you spend producing quality craftsmanship (if that’s what you want to call what we cranked out), you spend approximately 90 minutes making said machine do what it’s supposed to.  Why did we create these dang machines, anyway?  It was probably easier and more efficient when everyone knew how to sew expert works by hand, like this gorgeous baby blanket my cousin Sarah made for Adler:

This is combination machine and hand sewn, but the point is that she knows what she’s doing and she’s not just fumbling around with the machine.  And the parts that are hand stitched are straight, even stitches.  A brilliant work of art.

As for my wipes… you can judge their brilliance for yourself.

In my mom’s words, they don’t have to be pretty for what they’re going to be used for.  True that.

When Interruptions Happen

This week, I had a few interruptions.  They were no big deal, but they were little things that upset my “plan.”  Thursday, I went to pick up a prescription when I got a text from the pharmacy that it was ready.  It was, in fact, not ready-somehow they sent it to the wrong Walmart and ended up having to put it on hold, re-transfer it, and fill it in the right store.  A task I had planned on spending 1/2 an hour accomplishing ended up taking two hours.  On Friday, I was making my sister’s birthday cake (Italian Cream Cake-recipe compliments of the Pioneer Woman) when I realized I was missing an essential item-a third 8″ cake pan.  I ran down to the grocery store to get it, but all they had were 9″ pans.  5 stores and an hour and a half later, I ended up giving up and buying three new pans.  Not only was I not making the size cake I had planned on, I was starting way later than I thought and was afraid I wouldn’t finish in time for the party.

These two small interruptions were no big deal, but they caused me a great deal of exhaustion and frustration.  Both of them made me run around and exert energy and time I had not planned on, and put what seemed to me to be a major kink in my day.  I had a bad attitude about it both days, and on Friday, Brandon was home to bear the brunt of my attitude.  Poor guy, he does such an awesome job putting up with my tantrums.

The truth is, neither of these interruptions were that big of a deal.  As a matter of fact, Thursday I got to go to Sonic during Happy Hour while I was waiting for my prescription.  That strawberry lemon limeade was pretty delicious on a hot afternoon!  But I still had a pretty crappy attitude about the whole thing. Why is that?  Why do I feel entitled to always having my plan go right?  I think it boils down to the fact that I feel that my plans are important and I am important enough to have things go my way.  But really, that’s not true.  I don’t even own my own life, and I don’t have a clue what will happen from one moment to the next.  Instead of huffing and puffing and snapping when things don’t go my way, a correct response would be to look for the good in the situation or look for what the Lord is trying to teach me or how He is trying to use me.  What if I missed an opportunity to show Christ to someone because I was too mad about my “bad day?”  A dear friend was just telling me a story Monday and said, “Most of Jesus’ miracles were done when someone interrupted Him.  So I’m trying to look for what miracle He wants to do when He interrupts me.”  What a great way to look at it!

The next time I have an interruption, I’m sure I’ll still put on an ugly attitude, because it’s my habit.  But maybe I will also remember to look for what the Lord wants to teach me or accomplish through me, and slowly be able to break that habit.  Maybe He will even use me in the process.

By the way, I got my prescription filled and the cake got baked and decorated on time.  Silly me for worrying.

The ability to be relaxed

One thing I’ve found since I left my job is my ability to relax. When I was working, even my days off were very planned.  I needed to clean the bathrooms, mop the floor, catch up on laundry before we ran out of underwear, go grocery shopping, and oh, yeah, relax at some point. Even my planned times to relax were forced-it was like that was my only chance to relax, so it was not really true rest.  I have only realized this in the past few days, because lately I have been able to experience true rest and relaxation.

For instance, yesterday I “slept in” until 7:30 (I have been waking up at ridiculously early hours, no doubt due to prego hormones).  I was still exhausted, so I let myself go back to sleep.  When I got up at 8:30, excited that I had been able to sleep so long, I went through my morning routine of  breakfast and walking the dog.  I had already planned the rest of my day, which included cleaning the house after we hosted our extended family for lunch Sunday.  However, I was still dragging and sleepy, plus I was having a bit of back pain.  I decided to just sit on the couch for a bit and do some reading before I started cleaning.

Brandon would tell you this is NOT like me-if I have a to-do list, I obsess over it until everything is checked off.  If I have a plan, I make sure he does his part and I do mine, and we get everything completed.  That’s why my days off when I was working were sometimes more stressful than workdays.  But it’s because we had no time to keep up with our jobs and keep our house to the standards we wanted (cleaning, gardening, general maintenance, etc).

But today, I felt completely relaxed, and realized it’s because…I can do it later.  Not in the lazy way of “I don’t feel like doing this work so I’m going to put it off,” but in the way that says, “I can tell I need to take a minute to regain my energy, and then I will begin my work.”  I did not realize I was not practicing this thought pattern.  But the truth is, the housework will get done.  The grocery shopping will happen.  If it’s not before noon, it’s OK.  I have the rest of the day to do it.  It’s really a liberating revelation!

During our decision-making process on whether I would be staying home or not, Brandon and I discussed the fact that so many families have two parents that work full-time and they are able to take care of their kids, get them to their various activities, etc.  But we also acknowledged that no one can “do it all” without something falling through the cracks.  I just assumed that something was a tangible thing like caring for the home.  However, I now realize that, for us, it was true rest and relaxation that was falling through the cracks.

How do you balance your responsibilities at work and at home?  How do you find time to relax when you know you need to?

Becoming a Homeworker

Today marks not only the beginning of my blogging adventures, but also 19 days since I left my job to become a homeworker and prepare for the birth of my son in August.  I can’t believe it has already been that long-it turns out time flies no matter if you are crazy busy or relatively relaxed!  I say “relatively relaxed” because, even though I am no longer working 50 hours a week, strangely enough, I have plenty to do.  Plus, we still have multiple activities outside the home.

In my 3-week experience of being home, I have come to think that boredom is among the biggest misconceptions of people when it comes to “homemakers.”  I know it was a concern of mine.  As my last day at work neared, I found myself wondering, “what am I going to do all day?”  I combatted this fear by making a very long to-do list for myself, which I thought I would knock out in the first few days, and which is still not complete.  My concern was powered by my own conceptions, but also by the questions I got from others when I told them I would be leaving a whole three months before my baby is due.  “Why are you leaving so soon?” “So what are you going to do when you’re not working anymore?” These questions, along with the awkward looks I got, sent a message to me: “this is not normal and it’s not going to work for you.”  Although this did instill some fear in me, I also knew that my husband Brandon and I had made this choice because we feel like it is best for our family.

I did not hate my job, in fact, I really liked it.  We do not have a ridiculous amount of money.  We are still paying off my student loans.  Yet despite these things, we felt that me being home was the most peaceful decision for our family.  From the moment I found out I was pregnant, my whole focus shifted.  I no longer wanted to build my career-I wanted to be the best mom I can be.  My husband and I talked and prayed about what we wanted to do.  He is self-employed, so we have always enjoyed the security of my steady income.  At first, he was hesitant and wanted me to think about continuing to work once the baby was born.  Since he handles most of our finances (OK, fine-all of our finances), I told him I would be willing to consider working if he thought it was best.  We began praying about it, and around Christmas, realized that, with the demanding nature of my 6-day work week, working full-time would put too much of a strain on our family.  So we decided I would go part-time.  I told my boss, and we set a tentative last day for full-time of June 30, giving me a few weeks before Baby arrived.

Around the middle of March, my husband went on the road with work.  When he came back, we were discussing the future and our plans for when I went part-time.  Suddenly he said, “you know, I think it would be best if you just quit altogether.” I looked at him, trying not to leap out of my skin, and said, “really? Like, just completely stop working?” “Yeah,” he said, “it just seems like it would be best for us.” We discussed it some more, and came to the conclusion that I would leave work. Excited, I said, “Great, so I’ll tell my boss that instead of going part time on June 30, I’m going to be leaving.” To which he responded, “Why June 30? Why not quit earlier?” What?!  Who was this person and where was my husband, who had previously said he wanted me to keep working? “Like…when?” I asked. “Now,” he responded.  I was not prepared for that.  I thought about my job that I love, and the fact that they were expecting to have me through June.  I wanted to give them some heads up.  I decided 6 weeks would be a very fair amount of time to give them.  So we decided on April 30 as my last date.  I asked my husband why he had this sudden change of heart.  He responded, “God has really just been showing me that He will provide for us, and I need to trust Him to do that.  It’s best for our family if you stay home, and I know He will take care of us.  I want you to have some time of relaxation before the baby gets here so you can get used to being home before you have a baby to take care of.”

So Saturday, April 30, I finished packing my desk and left my office for good.  Since then I have been busy at home and loving it.  I feel more at peace, I know Brandon does, and even our dog Lily has calmed down since I’m home.  We are in the beginning stages of our new adventure, and I know that everything about our life will change when our son comes into the world.  But until then, we have been blessed with 3 amazing months to work on our marriage and our home and prepare to become parents.  I am excited for what the next few months hold, and excited for what comes after that.  In this blog, I intend to chronicle the things I learn and deal with as I move away from a working career and into a home career.  I want to tell (shorter) stories and post pictures, but also provide resources and tips.  So with that, I kick off this blog with what is hopefully the longest post I will ever write! Here’s to family, new experiences, and a life of non-boredom!