Spooky Luminaries

Here they are...my pickle jar creations. A little tissue paper, a little gauze and a lot of Modge Podge. Saw something like this in Martha Stewart Living, but it was done with paint. I think Southern Living may have done ones with tissue paper in their October issue, but they don't have a spoooooky mummy. Hope you like them.

The Bod Pod

Last night I met my friend Betsy at her gym so we could visit the Bod Pod. It's a Body Composition Tracking System Analysis that looks like a big egg with a window in front. A pod. Your DOB, height, and gender are put into the computer and then you are weighed on a scale attached to the computer. After that you sit in the pod for two 50-second intervals. When you're done, the computer gives you a read out of your fat %, fat free%, both those numbers in pounds and it tells you your resting metabolic rate (RMR). This is the minimum energy your body needs to support its basic physiological functions (i.e., heartbeat, breathing, maintaining body temp, etc.). You also find out additional enegy expenditures for sedentary, low active, active and very active days. I was a little nervous to find out my body fat % since the last time I had it done was before I had JD and I used to spend 3 weeknights in the gym. It was not as bad as I thought and as Matt (the guy who ran the test) said, right now it's all about your RMR and how you can use that to change the numbers for your body composition. The Bod Pod will be back on January 24, 2012 - fantastic, right after three eating/party holidays, four including halloween! My goal is to try and change those body comp numbers with this info I now have. We'll see. If you want to find out more about the Bod Pod, check out the link:

http://www.befittest.com/

Cool nails...

I just had to share this cool find. If you haven't tried Sally Hanson Salon Effects yet, I think they are fabulous. I got them for the first time when I went to Vegas in April. They were the blue glitter nail strips and they went on easily and lasted a long time. I found some Halloween ones and had to have them. I used the skull and crossbones this weekend and I also got ones with black and orange ghosts.

Today I walked down to CVS and what to my wondering eyes should appear...Christmas Nail Effects!!! Of course I had to get some because I didn't want to take a chance and have them be sold out when I needed them for the holidays. LOL They had white ones with red snowflakes, red candy striped ones, black and white argyle, black with blue and silver sparkles and the ones I got. Ready for the holidays! Well, at least my nails will be. :-)

Arrrrgh!

After having this pattern for a few years, I finally set out to make Reece's pirate coat for rennfest. I started in August, knowing that rennfest opening weekend is the weekend before Labor day. Luckily, rennfest runs for 13 weeks. Sitll, it was probably poor timing considering the fact that the last thing I'd sewn (other than pillow cases or things with straight seams) was about 7 years ago and I did that at my mother in-law's house, with her guidance. Luckily she was just a phone call away when I had a question about instructions or fabric...but I was determined to do this on my own. Once I got started, it came back to me how much I dislike having to do all the little tedious things that make everything turn out just right, such as ironing the pattern piece before pinning and marking dots and notches (on like every side of the fabric). But again, doing these little things, especially when you don't sew alot, helps in the end. I was doing really well until I got to the facing, which stopped me for a little while. Then I had to clean off my dining room table (aka, the craft table) for a few days because we had company over. Not long after that Reece asked if he was going to have his coat to wear this year, so I pulled everything back out and got to work again. I put together the cuffs and of course I put the interfacing on the wrong fabric (we wanted the silver part out and I put it on the black linen), but mom figured out how to turn them around. I was really nervous about easing in the sleeves, because mom did that for me last time, but it went very easily. Pinning the hem, another one of my favorite things (HA!) took forever and then I decided to hand sew it so you wouldn't see a seam on the outside. Reece said he didn't care, but I did. If I'm gonna do it, I'm gonna do it so it looks good. I worked right up until we got ready to go to rennfest this past Sunday...the last day of the season...sewing on buttons and then giving it a final press. I have to say, I'm really proud of how it turned out and when Reece added the pins he's collected from faire, it looked even better. I was also pretty happy that he made it a point to tell everyone at faire yesterday that I made the coat for him. :-) I think I'll start looking at some other patterns for next year, maybe a few new skirts for me, some pirate pants for JD and Reece. Whatever it is, I plan to start working on them early next year...like January or February. LOL I posted some pictures below of the coat just after I put the sleeves in and then 2 of it after it was finished.

Finished coat

Close up of sleeve and pocket flap

Fall fun...

A few weeks ago we went to Sharps at Waterford Farm with our neighbors, the Brooks family. JD and Connor are great buddys and we wanted to try and get their picture again this year while pumpkin picking. Unfortunately, JD wasn't so cooperative. Here's the classic family photo we got from that weekend. Great, right?! LOL

Last weekend we decided to head out to Cunningham Falls State Park in Thurmont, MD to see some of the changes leaves and hit the orchard for apples. We got much better photos this time, although, not a family one. We picked up a half bushel of apples at Proctor's Orchard and we've already made applesauce. JD insisted on doing this right away...he likes using the apple peeler/corer/sliser we have. I pulled 12 apples from the bag and he did all of them except one, when he wanted to watch how the peeling part worked. Next up will be some apple pie filling and more apple sauce to pack away in the freezer.

Frustration

As some of you know, JD attends the early childhood special needs program in Carroll County. We had him tested in November of 2009 at the suggestion of his pediatrician. He wasn't talking and had virtually no communication skills. The testing showed his communication and verbal skill were at an 18 month level, but his understanding/cognitive (I think that's what it was called) were at a 48 month level. Since he started school in March of 2010, he's made great strides. In fact his speech teacher started off the her part of the last IEP meeting with "Wow! Just wow!" A few goals were changed and one of the things JD is working on in his IEP now is to follow through on difficult tasks. He gets extremely frustrated when he can't do something the first time or he doesn't like how he's done something. In the last few weeks, this frustration has come out as crying and I mean CRYING! He gets all worked up and starts coughing and it's hard to calm him down, so it goes on for 10, 15, 20 minutes. I have a feeling it may be due in part to the schedule change now that Reece is back to work. I now drop him off at grand mom's everyday on my way to work and she takes him to school. Another possibility is that he's really tired after he comes home from school and that makes things worse.

At home and in school, the message we're trying to get across is:
1) No one knows all the answers, so we do things like got to school and read books to learn.
2) It's okay to ask for help; everyone needs help now and then.
3) You need to try things more than once.

We've also been working on getting back to using the house rules that we came up with when Reece and I were taking the parenting workshop through Carrol County schools. We were doing really well, but have really fallen away from it. In addition to this, we've put a limit on the amount of time he can play on the Wii.

These are the rules:
1) Listen and answer
2) When you are done playing but your toys or books back where they came from.
3) When you are finished eating, plates and cups go on the kitchen counter and trash goes in the trashcan.
4) Use "excuse me" (i.e., if we're on the phone and he wants our attention)
5) Be a good friend to Bobo kitty

We've been telling him that if you break rules or misbehave, there are consequences. He got to see an example of breaking rules/consequences in the adult world on Monday...which provides me with another JD Gem to share. I got home and he says "Daddy broke a rule today!" I was thinking he was referring to the rules at school (they call them the cardinal rules, after the school mascot and his teacher said the kids might bust us parents for not following them at home). So I asked what rule and he says "The speeding one. That's what the policeman said." Reece walks in and JD goes "I toooold her. I told mommy." I laughed so hard. Luckily Reece only got a warning, but it sure provided a huge laugh for the day.

Photos

I have a Flickr account, but haven't added photos in a VERY long time. I need to sign up for a Pro account soon so I can display more photos. I'll be uploading photos from our trip to Lackawana State Park today and maybe some more. Here are a few links:

The House of Herrick Flickr Photostream

JD's Flickr Photo Set

Lackawanna Trip (MAC) 2011

An object in motion...

It seems like we're always on the go, trying to fit things in wherever we can. I feel like I don't know what a weekend is anymore, not to mention I can't believe it's October. There are Christmas decoration in the stores and I'm working on putting up Halloween ones. We were going to try and get out camping one more time this month, but all the campgrounds in Gettysburg are booked up. It kind of worked out though, since this is the last month for the MD Renaissance Festival; I have a scrapbooking crop I want attend; and we got a Groupon to go to a corn maze with our neighbors.

My current project: A Pirate Coat
In August I started working on this for Reece for rennfest this year. Now, I'm not the best seamstress, but I was doing really well until I ran into a problem putting in the facing. That got put to the side and then I had to move the sewing machine off the table for something else and the other day Reece asked if he'd have it for this year. Yikes! I have about 2 full weeks to finish this up and luckily my mother in-law sews very well and we're going to look at the problem tonight. Keep your fingers crossed...maybe this will get done. All I can say is I'm going to be so proud of myself when I finish this, because this is the first garment I've done mostly by myself.

My ongoing (read as, rarely worked on) project: Scrapbooks
My friend Karen is a Creative Memories consultant and hosts crops at her house every month. So far I've made it to one. I planned to go last moth, but was sidelined by a respiratory infection. No fun! It's great to go there with other people doing the same thing becasue we share ideas and I can't get this done at home. There's always something to be done or someone needs something. At the one I did make it to, I finished 6 pages of JD's baby book. That felt good! Yeah, I know, he's almost 5. I hope to have it done before he hits high school. At some point I also intend to do our wedding/honeymoon photos and our family vacations. On a side note, I could just kick myself for missing the penny prints at Snapfish. That was when I was sick...couldn't get up to get on the computer. I was going to have all the wedding and a bunch of vacation photos printed. Guess I'll just keep an eye out for next time.

So, the coming weeks will be busy and I'm sure that will carry over to November and December. Hopefully we'll have a visit over Halloween weekend from my parents to help out while Carolyn and Dean are on vacation. It's time for me to start making lists - I'm a list maker, it makes me feel better to cross things off. Let's see...a Halloween costume for JD; start thinking about Thanksgiving at our house this year; come up with a date for an open house to invite friends over; and last but not least...start buying Christmas gifts. It will be here before you know it.

And so it begins...

I've been thinking about doing this for some time now...starting a blog so that friends and family can keep up with us. It's also kind of a record/calendar of events for me, being able to write down thoughts on places we've been, things that have happened and thing to come. At some point (with all the free time I have...not!), I'll get my calendar off the wall in the kitchen and write a blog for all the past months and try to get a few of the important things from the past year.

I used to keep a blog on Windows LiveSpaces and photo albums also. I was so good about the albums and keeping them updated until mid-summer last year when things got crazy at work. If I can somehow transfer them here or to Flickr and post a link, I will. From the day JD was born, through mid-summer last year I was taking and posting a weekly photo of him. There are 3 and a half albums of weekly photos documenting how he changed from week to week. I felt so bad about not keeping up with the weekly photos and the at least monthly blogs on our family, but there was just no time with the hours I was working.

I've been reading some craft and cooking blogs lately and will probably add a few projects to my blogs here and there. The first will probably be my glass jar jack-o-lanterns made with orange tissue paper and modge podge (the best stuff ever!). I've also been reading the blogs of a few friends and they seem so witty and funny. I'm definitely not promising that here folks. I'm sure they might be with time, but right now my goal is to get on here and write the blogs. And so it begins...