Day: October 16, 2009

Thursday Stuff

Girl Talk Thursday (GTT): Crafts

Karen

Yes, this is late. Hush. Balloon boy distracted me, the little stinker.

You say crafts, and I actually shudder.

It’s not that I hate crafts, I don’t, in fact, I enjoy looking at them quite a bit, but to actually get in there and DO crafts?

Um, no.

And I’ve tried. There was a time period when I worked on crafts and put my work in my mother’s craft booths. My mom used to participate in Wal-Mart’s craft fair every year (they’ve since discontinued it), and I would put some of my piddly/pathetic stuff in to try and sell something.

I did worked mainly in plastic canvas – which, no offense to those of you out there that like plastic canvas, but I think is totally cheesy.

I really enjoy cross-stitching and it’s really relaxing to me, but I haven’t actually picked up any sort of cross-stitching project oh wow, five/six years?

The only reason I got into crafts at all was because of my mother. I was hoping to use that common ground to get closer to my mom and we certainly had some fun times. In fact, I remember making some Y2K bugs in 1999 when everyone was convinced that our digital age as we knew it was going to come crashing down around our ankles. (Remember the panic?!) They were made out of clay and the bugs hugged small pieces of old, smashed up motherboards within their wire arms and legs.

They sold like hot cakes in our craft booth that year. I wish I had a picture of those bugs. I probably do somewhere, but I haven’t been able to find it.

No, I’m afraid my mother is the real crafter in our family, though my sister is also really talented, especially in paints.

gingerbread

But that particular craft gene passed me by – I’m all thumbs when it comes to working with my hands.

The only thing I can do with my hands is type and even that is questionable at times.

I think it’s fascinating that people can create something out of nothing – that they can take random elements and somehow tie them together and make something beautiful and memorable.

MVC-014S

Me? I’m not that literal. I prefer to string a bunch of words together and weave an imaginary world.

I wish I were crafty in the literal sense. I’m afraid my level of craftiness comes in other forms.

And that’s not necessarily a good thing. 😐

Photo Story Friday

Photo Flashback: I Was Once a Whale

Karen

photo-flashback

Oh yes, yes I was.

I’m posting a picture of me, very pregnant, with my first son.

As you can CLEARLY see, I gained a lot of weight with my first born. When I got pregnant, it was like I was set free. I was running, arms outstretched, an euphoric expression on my face, down every grocery store aisle just WAITING to stuff every edible thing into my enormous maw.

And I did. I gained a WHOPPING 60 pounds with Dude. I had watched what I ate, and sacrificed so many goodies all throughout my life at that point that I’m afraid I went a little insane when suddenly, I was being told I had to eat.

And eat, I did.

(Look how FAT my hands were! Ugh!)

I was a whale. No, it’s okay, we can all admit that out loud. You won’t hurt my feelings because it’s the God’s-honest truth.

That is by far the biggest I’ve ever been in my life. I don’t think I even got that big with Jazz, and he was born on time!

I was about 32 weeks pregnant in this picture – Dude was born shortly after this picture was taken (Dude was 8 weeks early) so JUST THINK how big I would have ended up IF Dude had been full term!

I’m pretty sure I would have cracked the walls of our rental house just walking across the floors.

It took me forever to lose that weight. In fact, I never really lost all of it before I got pregnant with Jazz.

Ugh. My eyes bleed just looking at this picture.