Dear Sweet Daughter,

Happy fifth birthday to the sweetest girl I know! Every night I thank God for you, and ask “Please help me to not screw this up”. Thank you for teaching me that you learn best by example, and that means I have to model the person I’d like you to become. I have learned to stand up for myself, and for what I believe in. I’ve learned to ask myself what it really is that I do believe in. I have learned to push past my comfort level in many areas. Besides all the joy you bring into my life, I’m becoming a better person because of you. Thank you, Sweet Girl.

Love, Momma

Thanks

It was about two years ago when I started lurking around the gun blogs, starting with The Lawdog Files. It was the Pink Gorilla Suit that got me hooked. I stuck around because of the interesting writing, and I learned a few things about self defense along the way. I started reading the other bloggers listed on his side bar. I enjoyed their writing, too, and learned more things from them. I found my opinions challenged, and questions I didn’t even know I had answered.

At the time, I didn’t carry a gun, and really had no plans to start. Why, I thought, would I need a gun? Wasn’t that being a little … paranoid? Then one day, somewhere, there was a discussion about how, if you were going to carry, you should ask yourself what exactly it was that you were willing to defend by possibly killing someone. Was it your car? Your home? Yourself? Your kids?

Aha! The bell in my head went off. Of course I was willing to kill to defend my child!! My car they could have (unless Sweet Daughter was in it, and then all bets were off.). Then I got to thinking … why was I willing to defend my daughter, but not myself, unless I though of it as the Bad Guy hurting my daughter’s mother? I had no good, logical answer, because there wasn’t one. I suddenly realized I was worth defending, too.

So, I took a class, got my concealed handgun permit, and bought a pistol. I need to get better about wearing it more often, and practicing more. I get overwhelmed thinking about how I’ll never be as good, or as knowledgeable as most of you, but I realize that doesn’t matter so much as the fact that I now have the determination and the tool to keep my daughter (and myself!) safe. Thanks to all of you who helped me along this path, and helped make me a better parent.

Hint?

Remember my Appleseed post? I believe I first mentioned kyjam and that I was thinking I should do an Appleseed shoot some day to Shorter Half on Monday. Today at dinner, he had his 10/22, a new ghost ring sight, 4x scope, and milsurp sling sitting on the table. Do you think he’s trying to tell me something?

There's one in late October that might be feasible. It’s about 2 ½ hours away. The only problem with that is that there’s no lodging close by. Right now it’s looking like the likeliest area to find reasonable accommodations is 20 miles away.

Smart aleck

Over this past weekend Sweet Daughter and I were discussing something, I don’t remember what, but she did inform me (very respectfully, and in all seriousness) that she was smarter than I was. If you use “smart” as you would “intelligent”, I could see that she might have a point. I simply said that it might be true, but I did know more things than she did. (At least for now.)

Fast forward to Monday afternoon after swim class. I was trying to sign SD up for the next set of swim lessons, and being bored with the interminable wait she was hopping up and down. Under the 48” counter overhang.

Me: “SD, don’t jump near the counter. You’ll hit your head.”

SD: ::: jump hop bounce jump hop bounce jump hop bounce :::

Me: “SD, if you hit your head on the counter, I’m just going to point and laugh.”

SD: ::: jump hop bounce jump hop bounce jump WHUMP! ::: She did not utter so much as a whimper, but she did grab the top of her head.

Me, pointing: “HAHAHAHAH! Is your head okay? You’re not bleeding on the floor, are you? Hahahahah. Ha. Does that need a smoochie?” [hugs]

Peppers?

What kind of peppers are these, and will they hurt if I eat them? And, what shall I do with them all?

Sew, what's with Appleseed?

I lurk on several 18th century-based Yahoo groups. A couple of weeks ago a woman stopped by one of them and said that she volunteered with the Appleseed Project, mentioned that they teach marksmanship and the history of April 19. 1775, and that she was putting together a farmer's wife outfit for telling her history lesson. Hey! I knew about Appleseed! Sort of. A little. I contacted kyjam off-list and offered to help her out. We e-mailed back and forth about what she needed to do, and when we realized there was no way she was going to get everything done in time for her shoot on September 11th, I decided to box up a bunch of clothing I wasn’t using at the moment and send it to her. Because it’s all about me, you see. I don’t want the 2A/gunnie crowd looking like idiots to us living history types, and I don’t want the living history types coming across as snobby to us 2A/gunnie types. See? It’s all about ME not wanting to look bad. Really. So tonight I took an apron I made (takes off shoes count), um, 15? 16? years ago when I didn't know any better, and fixed the too-wide waistband and too-wide pleats. I took off the 1 ¼” linen band and ties, and repleated it using ½” pleats, bound it in linen tape, and added 3/8” apron strings. Now I just need to put ties on a straw hat and get it all out the door.

Too wide wasitband and ties on the left, new wasitband across the top of the pleats, and new apron strings on the right.

Between kyjam and Rattail Bastard, I think I’m being talked into this whole Appleseed thing.

Quilt update

So that “Quilts of Valor” thing? Yeah. I didn’t go subtle for the first one. It’s red, white and blue. It's cliché.  The more artistic one I had planned? I came up with a different design, and I’m reworking it in my head. It’s going to drive me mad. But, as usual, I digress.


I love the concept of a patchwork quilt – you use scraps of fabric that aren’t useful for anything else by cutting them into pieces and stitching them together into something useful, and usually quite beautiful. The process I learned was to make templates for the shapes you need and trace around them onto the back of your fabric, leaving enough room to then add a quarter inch seam allowance. After marking each piece twice (sewing line and cutting line), you cut each piece out, then carefully line up your stitching lines, and start sewing. I never managed to get the hang of machine piecing – I can’t get the corners to match up the way I want them to.

So, getting back to construction of the quilt top. Making a quilt out of scraps is a great idea. I can even wrap my head around why you would want to go out and buy perfectly good fabric so you can cut it up create a specific pattern of color and line. What I can not do, is cut up a square of fabric simply so I can then cut it into 4 triangles and sew them back together into a square. So I’m not doing it. So there. For someone that tries to reproduce original sewing techniques when possible, this alternately causes me to feel like a rebel and a loser. I find I’m getting over it pretty quickly.

See those blue triangles? There are 160 in this quilt. See the white square? If this were being contructed in a traditional manner, they'd be made out of four triangles sewn together. See the red square? There are only 20 of those. I haven't counted the white triangles. I don't think I want to know.

You can see the yellow lines for cutting and sewing. And the penny is there for scale. I like using a small needle. It makes it easier to make small stitches.

I estimate I'm 5% done so far.