Christmas Present Problems

I know it's been awhile since Christmas Eve (and long while since I've posted), but I want to share this story with you.

Two weeks before Christmas, I was thinking about what present Rhett and I should give to our adorable little primary kids (ages 4-5). I was really worried about this, because I felt in my heart we needed to get them something, but toys for 4 and 5 year olds that they will like and want are kind of expensive and not all appropriate for church. Hmm..... After a lot of brainstorming that week, I made a decision. I was going to find out their favorite animal and color, and then sew them a little plush! How fun!

How stressful! Now go back one blog post, remember my little lamb I wrote about? Well, it was a huge hit in Utah, and everybody wanted one. Monday after I had already asked the kids their favorite colors and animals (and they were all really excited for whatever was coming), my mom called and told me she needed 5 more lambs by Christmas. I had two weeks. Uh-oh.

Those two weeks were spent sewing my little heart out on lambs, and suddenly, on Friday night, I remembered what I had promised my primary kids. With a sigh and a husband saying I always "bite off more than I can chew" (and he's right) I started cutting and sewing fabric.

Many machine jams, mistakes and unpicks later, I had 9 little animals sewn. This is where I recruited help. I taught Rhett to stuff, and as he stuffed the animals I would sew them shut and stitch on button eyes. Adorable. Two pink cats, two blue cats, two pink horses, one white horse, one black cat and one green fish later, I was DONE! YES! Now to add the candy and wrap them Crimin style (which is double bagging everything in Walmart bags). With names added so we knew what belonged to whom, we set off for church. The lesson was taught, toys were given (we told each of the kids they couldn't open their present until their parents said so, and some had to wait until Christmas! Hehe!), and no more thoughts were thought about those stress bringing little monstrosities I called plushies.

After all this madness, I had to finish sewing lambs (also crazy stressful), pack bags, and fly home for Christmas. At home I stuffed and sewed up little lambs and stitched on eyes and finished sewing a few more Christmas presents for friends that didn't quite get done in all the excitement and had a very successful Christmas. After the fun and festivities we flew back home. It had been two whole weeks that we were gone, so right after unpacking I checked the mail. We had the usual bills and credit card offers I was expecting, and them something I never get. An actual letter. From an actual person. It was from one of my primary girls and her father. Her father had written that his daughter loved her pink horse and named it "Pink Sparkle." She took it everywhere with her. And then, in adorable 4 year old handwriting on the other side of the card was written "Thank you for my horse! I love her!" My heart melted. I still have that card.

That next Sunday, as I went to church, I was trying to find my little primary student to thank her for her note and in the process I was approached by each child's parent thanking me for the thoughtful gift and telling me that their children loved their presents and slept with them. One child gave me a letter saying thank you and it had a photo of him standing next to his white horse (he had asked for the white horse) and my heart melted over and over and over. These little things I had thought nothing of had apparently meant so much to these children. I had no idea they would make such an impact or make these children so happy. I was sure they had plenty of stuffed animals to love and these would just get thrown in with the rest, but I was told and reassured over and over how loved those toys I made were, and how they were chosen above all the other toys. I was so touched.

I learned something that day. Never underestimate your worth or the value of what you do. If you work hard for something and put the thought into it, it will be appreciated. I never thought I was anything too special. Yes, I know I am a daughter of God, but I'm just me. I'm not spectacular. But that Sunday, the Lord whispered something to me. Something I didn't hear right away. He told me I AM special. I am something spectacular. I can do good and wonderful things if I work for it. I can bless the lives of others.

It makes me so happy to know I am more than I ever thought I was before. It makes me so happy to know I still have so much more to learn about myself and that my journey is far from over. I have so much to do and discover, and it is all so exciting. And you know what? You do too. We all have much to learn, and we can have fun along the way. I am so grateful for this experience.

Journey of a Little Lamb

I enjoy so, so many things and, as I recently discovered, sewing is one of those things that I just love to do. I feel like I picked it up pretty quickly and fell in love just as fast. I soon found myself with a sewing machine, tons of patterns, and lots of fleece.

My family knows I enjoy sewing stuffed animals, and I've even made them a few creations. Well, at the beginning of October, my mother asked me to sew a lamb for her. Now this isn't just any plush lamb, noooo. I was asked to make this lamb for a play my mother has been asked to direct. A play for the church. This lamb that she asked me to make was to be the sacrificial lamb representing Christ in "Savior of the World." My mom was called to direct this play and couldn't find a realistic looking lamb anywhere in stores or online, so she asked if I would take on the task of creating a life-like lamb. 

I agreed. Oops.

Now, I thought this would be a simple process: Find the pattern, grab my fleece, good to go. Nope. First of all, my mother wanted more textured, realistic fabric. So, not fleece. All I have is fleece. Awesome. Second, there are also no realistic lamb patterns either. There are lots of cutesy patterns, vintage patterns, and 2-D patterns, but none that looked real. So now I had a huge project on my hands. I had to either make my own or modify a pattern, something I've never done before. Not only that, but it needed to be good. Realistic even. 

Well, the way things turned out, I saw a 3-in-1 pattern for an Elephant, Horse, and Lamb. The lamb's head looked pretty good and the horse's body looked right for a realistic lamb, so I thought, hey, I'll get this pattern and just stick the lamb head on the horse body! Cake, right? Right.

Well, I decided before I went all crazy and bought some nice (not to mention SUPER expensive) fabric for this project, I would work with my fleece and have some "rough draft" lambs, ya know, just in case the patterns didn't work out right away.

Rough draft fleece lambs were a good idea, because things did not go well right away. I present to you...FRANKENLAMB! 

I only have this one photo of frankenlamb because after this came out from under the sewing machine needle I was rather upset. Frustrated. Confused. That lamb/horse combo was supposed to work perfectly! Why wouldn't it?! Well, for lots of reasons actually.

After frankenlamb came out, I did a lot of thinking, drawing, modifying, and worrying. I was afraid I would get another frankenlamb, and this first fail already took up a good amount of fleece. Okay not really, but I did feel a little like it was a waste and I was afraid to screw up more. It was very disheartening and I really wanted to quit, but I knew I couldn't. My mom was counting on me and I'd made a commitment, so I tried again. The 2nd rough draft lamb turned out much, much better. 

As you can see, I got the head right! And figured out how to properly attach it! Little did I know that that was the EASY part. Now, the lamb had to be enlarged to a realistic size. And I'm talking life-sized baby lamb. About two feet tall. This little guy? He was 7 inches. Uh oh...

I read online that one can easily make a pattern bigger by graphing the pattern pieces on say, a 1/4 inch scale, then redraw it on the desired size. Well, I figured it needed to be twice the size it was, so I'd redraw the pattern on a 2 inch grid. I started and it was working out pretty good! Until I realized I was making the exact same size of pattern. I was looking at things wrong. I don't know quite how to explain with text how I was doing things wrong, but all that's important is that I was doing it wrong. So after figuring out how to enlarge it properly, I began doing so. And it turned out WAY TO BIG!!! Like, ridiculously big. So, now I was frustrated. Again. Even more than before. This was the 2nd time I screwed up the enlargement. Taking a deep breathe, I thought to myself "You just need to give it one more try. Two inches was waaay to big, so we'll try one inch!"  Nope. Nope nope nope. One inch was also WAY TO BIG! I was so done. That was the last straw. I could handle no more sheepy frustration. Thank goodness for Staples. They saved the lamb. 

Staples, unbeknownst to me, does copying and enlargement of pretty much whatever you need. So I took them my pattern, they blew it up to the perfect size, and I swallowed my frustration and tried again. These next few photos are the results for the rough draft, full sized lamb. 

Cut out pattern! (I did design the hoofs myself. Those worked out great!)

I worked! This little guy stands exactly the same height as a real little lamb!

The hooves worked out great too!

Looks good, eh?!

So, now that I have the fleece draft looking like I wanted it and got my mother's approval, it was time to use the real deal, fancy shmancy fabric. I picked a minky roset fabric for the body and a double-sided minky for the head and feet and used fleece for the hooves. I think the finished product looks pretty good! I'm super happy with the final product, especially with all the frustrating and hard work it took. In the end, however, it was all worth it. I could not be happier.

It's all sewn! But stuffing it will show if it really worked out!

I had a few holes that needed some ladder stitching, but other than that it worked out great!

Since this lamb is to be a sacrificial lamb representing Christ, it needed to be perfect so I had to make it white and with a tail (yes, sheep DO have tails!).

Added the eyes, nose and mouth! (The mouth kinda blends in, but that's how I wanted it!)

Isn't he cute?!

Greatest project ever. :)

Obsessed

Its been a little while since I've posted, and oddly enough my lack of posting is due to...blog obsession. As most of my friends know, I was challenged by my husband to draw the original 151 pokemon (for those who don't know what pokemon are you have yet to live. For your information though, pikachu, the little yellow mouse thing is a pokemon).

Well, the other day, as I was finishing my 24th drawing, I had a brilliant idea: I should blog about my pokemon! So, thus, a new blog was created! My blog, poke-draw and pokemondrawing.blogspot.com kind of took over things for awhile. I got so excited to share my drawings and give my opinions of the pokemon they depicted that I got a little obsessed.

Right away my blog gained momentum, and by the end of my third post I had had over 50 viewers! Thus, my total obsession started. I became engulfed in drawing and blogging about each pokemon, editing and re-editing each blog to make it perfect and get it just they way I wanted. I kept adding to each and remembering that I forgot to add something else and now that I'm all caught up with my drawings, I have nothing to blog there anymore! (for the time being.) So, now that my obsession has come to a slight halt until I get more drawing done, I figured I should post something here! Haha!

I must admit, I'm still pretty excited (or obsessed if you will) about the views for my other blog, because I never thought in a million years people loved pokemon so much! Or my drawings! Its all rather exciting, but don't worry! I haven't (nor will I) forgotten about this blog! So here's a long-awaited post (at least by me), and if you would like to feel free to check out my blog Poke-Draw at pokemondrawing.blogspot.com!

Life Near a Military Base

Since my husband is in the Marine Corps, obviously, we are stationed near a military base. There are many things that come with that, and so I thought I'd describe to you what life near the base is like.

First, I'd like to explain to you why we live off base rather than on base. See, with the rank my husband has, we would simply be given base housing, not on base housing. The difference is base housing is near the base, not on it and base housing is on the base. Only higher ranks get to live on base (I'm not sure what rank exactly one would have to be to live on base, but we are an "E4" which would place us at the "nicer" base housing than if we were an E2). Since we live off base, Rhett gets his paycheck plus a little to help cover housing costs. Our paycheck is enough to cover housing, but just barely, so the additional goes towards bills and food. If we were to live on base we would not get that extra paycheck addition (because the housing would be free) but after doing some math we'd have to cut out cable and internet as well as cut down on groceries without the additional housing pay. So long story short, living off base is cheaper and easier on the budget than living on base-at least for us and our situation.

Now, how close to we live to the base? Very close. The back gate leading onto the base is right on our same road, about 5 minutes or less away. This has its pros and cons. It helps us get on base because few people live out the back gate (since most are living on base housing or on the base itself) so traffic is much, MUCH nicer going to and from work. (Just to give you an idea, rush hour in SLC has nothing on rush hour on base and in Jacksonville near the base housing.) We do hit the occasional traffic jam and we have convoys driving past going to field ops, but compared to the rest of the base and where most people live we've got it easy.

The cons of living close to base-especially the back gate? We are also that close to the heavy artillery. The back gate is just a lot of long roads and trees, and beyond the trees are large clearings where they go to practice and train the big guns. They don't do this every day, but when they do it rattles the windows! At least when they practice with their biggest. Most of the time we only listen to the machine guns. Today is what I would call a "mid-sized gun" day, where you can hear the loud booms, but they aren't window rattling loud and usually easy to block out, as are the guns. It's always interesting to find out which one we get to wake up to!

Other cons of living near the base? We live in a military town. It may sound awesome; it sounded awesome to me when we were headed out here, but it is anything but. The reason being? Military men and women come from everywhere. We have people from every state here. Why is that bad? Each state has its own way of driving. Everything from California stops and cutoffs to grandpa drivers from small states. This causes a huge problem. Since I have lived out here, in my town alone I have seen/driven past 5 different wrecks. My husband has seen/driven past about 3-5 on base. Military people are not good drivers, so it makes for an unnerving drive everywhere I go.

Now even though the cons seem pretty heavy, I do love living here and enjoy most every minute of it! If you still have some question feel free to ask in the comments and I'll try to write more about what life out here near base is like!

The Controversy Over Declaw

When we got our first indoor cat, Fuzzy, declawed I didn't think much of it. I thought it was a simple nail removal and some bandages so he didn't bite at his possibly sore toes for a little while. That was that.

Now that I have my own strictly indoor cat living with me in my apartment, I thought he's probably old enough and he needs to be declawed. With this thought, I started researching. And I could not believe what I found.

When it comes to this subject, people are very passionate. There are those who are oblivious, those who are curious, and those who are FURIOUS. As I researched what declawing really intales, I read rant after rave and angry comment after furious post. I saw some "If you declaw your cat you should go to hell" posts. I cannot believe how awful people think declawing is and how absolutely rude they are to those who do it without even knowing why they did.

A lot of people believe that declawing ruins a cats life. It's not simply trimming the nails; a better name for declawing would be de-knuckling because the first knuckle of the cat is removed in order to keep the claw from growing back. They can't defend themselves like normal, and many say this leads to biting, behavioral issues, and many say that because the little hurts their feet, they stop using the litter box. All of these were brought up in my research.

However, I also found lots of helpful advice and some people who don't think its so horrible awful. I researched the behavioral issues and despite many, many studies only about 5% of cats develop issues after declaw, and most even still use the litter box. Also not very many cases of biting. And all the sad stories of cats dying outside because of declaw...um DUH! You're not supposed to let your declawed cat outside!

Anyway, after reading all the controversy, articles, research, vet tips, and everything, my mom told me if we declawed our cat tony, she would pay for him to be neutered and declawed. Well, he has to be neutered for my apartment complex anyway, so after some good thought we decided to go through with it.

Now, what's my take on declawing? I don't think its fine or okay to do, even though I decided to. I do think that it is not a horrible awful thing that destroys the cat's life either. If my cat were an indoor/outdoor cat he would have his claws. If he were an outdoor cat, he would have his claws. However, he is an indoor cat. I didn't remove his claws simply so he doesn't destroy furniture, although that was a big part of it since we live in an apartment building. It was either declaw the cat and save the carpet or find Tony a new home which was not an option. Or pay thousands of dollars for carpet we couldn't afford. And yes, we bought him scratchers and toys and everything, but the carpet is still his favorite.

If we would have gotten Tony at a younger age we would have done the proper training so that declaw was not necessary, but since he was an older cat and a rescue, he was too old to wholly and completely reverse what he had learned and now came naturally.

Now all that being said, Tony is home now! He had to stay overnight at the vet, but is home now and doing well. He currently does not have as much energy as he did before, but that is due more to the neutering. Other than sleeping more, he's totally fine and we are so glad to have him home! He still loves us, still uses his litter, and actually is sweeter and nicer to me than before. We wish we could have trained him instead, but Tony is on his way to recovery and is doing very well!

Also, he looks very silly in his cone and when he walks.

When we first brought him home, I felt awful that we had declawed him, and I felt as though we had taken a huge part of his life away, but now that I see him still doing all the things he enjoyed before like normal, I don't feel so bad. I still wish I maybe would have known about soft paws earlier, or that we had the time and money to do it, and I wish we could have properly trained him, but sometimes it is necessary to declaw cats, whether for medical, personal, or other reasons.

My final take on declawing...if you can avoid it, yay! Avoid it! If it comes down to declaw or boot/euthanize the cat (whether for medical, financial, or personal reasons), then declawing is the lesser of the two evils. I do still feel bad Tony is declawed, but I don't think his life is ruined or that he'll go crazy and bite and be mean as long as we treat him normally and still care for him.

Don't freak out at someone when you don't know the whole story!

Sorry to my readers who read to know about my life and ended up reading about a controversial topic! Also, sorry if I bored you. TTFN! :)

Gone Missing

This story is a little late...but I want to tell it anyway. Rhett is home from his 3 week field op (which was a huge success) and we are not getting back into our normal routines slowly, now that he is home, his vacation time is up, and he's back to work like normal and I am no longer home alone all day. But all was not always well at home during his absence.

While Rhett was gone, I tried to find lots of things to occupy my time. I played piano, drew, played games, took care of our sweet little kitty Tony, and occasionally did something I don't normally do. I set aside an entire day for cleaning.

This is abnormal because, since I have no job, I usually spread my cleaning out over a week so that I have more things to do each day. But that particular week, I thought I felt that it would be a good idea to get the whole apartment clean in one day so that I could just relax and not worry about dishes or laundry or dirty toilets; so on my Thursday to do list went "Clean Apartment."

Thursday rolled around and I woke up early and oddly excited that I was going to have a clean apartment. As I do when I always clean, I took my wedding ring off and set it on my nicely made bed so that it had no chance of falling down drains, being swept away or accidentally knocked into garbage cans, sinks, or on floors. Thus, the bed was the go-to spot for time when I was cleaning bathrooms, scrubbing walls, mopping on hands and knees, etc.. 

With my ring safely in its "spot" I started with the kitchen. Dishes done. Counters cleared. Everything put away. Good. Next, the living room, then the spare room, bedroom and last, the bathrooms. I started with the main bathroom, since it's bigger and used much, much more frequently. Shower, sink, toilet...check! Then I moved on to the smaller bathroom in the spare room, and once that was done I pulled out the vacuum. I waited to vacuum because I knew I'd be running around and sweeping and it just made sense to vacuum once everything was done. Although, my vacuum is more of a dust expelling machine....

Anyway, I pulled out the vacuum and walked into the room to grab my wedding ring since I was done and felt safe putting it back on. I walked in the room and looked on the bed and my heart stopped. 

Now, I'm sure you were all expecting this, but I was not. How does a ring get off of a bed when no one has touched it? I was the only one home, and I've always placed my ring there when cleaning, so why was it gone now?

I panicked. I panicked and cried and ran around like a headless chicken. I have not been more terrified for a lost item before in my life. Yes, it was just a ring, and no I did not need it, but that ring is more precious to me than anything save my family and religion.

What could possibly have happened to my ring? Again, I was the only one home!! Then it hit me. The cat. He always gets really playful, antsy, and crazy when I clean; since I was cleaning the whole house that day he was pretty riled up. That had to be it. The cat jumped on the bed, saw my ring, and either picked it up and took it somewhere or he ate it.

I thought and hoped the ring was to big for the cat to eat, so I started looking where all the cat's hiding spots were.

I began to panic more and more and I searched and searched the house and tore apart every little thing I could. I searched every room in my entire home. I lifted everything. I made a mess out of my freshly cleaned apartment. I cried some more. I panicked some more. I had a hard time breathing.

Being a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, I have been taught to pray always, when happy, sad, in trouble or...not breathing due to a panic attack. The thing was..I had been praying. I prayed in every single room and every two seconds and I could barely get any words out for prayers because I was so nervous, scared, and panicky. I wanted that ring. I needed it.

Then, some simple advice from a friend came via text: "Pray until you can think straight. Once you can think straight, keep praying. Don't stop." So that's what I did. I prayed and prayed until I calmed down. My breathing returned to normal, the tears stopped, and I could think. In my cleared state of mind, I turned to some other personal and very precious things for advice and, as I did so, I remember something else I'd learned at church that came with prayer. You don't just pray, you listen. You wait and you listen for an answer. So that's what I did. I got down on my knees for like, the thousandth time, and I prayed once more. Then I stopped, and I listened. 

Now, this was when I learned that listening is hard, especially when you don't quite know what you are listening for, and you don't quite know any longer what thoughts are your own and what thoughts are sent to you or divinely inspired. As I waited and listened, I kept having a repeated thought "lift what you haven't yet."

What? Lift what I haven't? I'd searched the whole house! I moved the couch even! What haven't I lifted? Then I found myself in the kitchen/dining area and looked at the litter box, sitting inside its larger cardboard box to contain the mess and next to another large cardboard box holding a litter broom, scooper, and extra litter. Now, this may be gross, but I had already scooped the little and dumpster dived through my entire garbage, so I knew it wasn't there.

As I began to walk away from the litter box the thought came again. "Lift what you haven't yet." Again...what?! What haven't I lifted? So I turned back and looked at the boxes in disbelief. All I could think was "There's no way..." as I reached down to pick up the cardboard box holding the broom, scooper, and extra litter. This was the only thing I hadn't moved in the apartment yet so....

Breathe held and muscles tense, I slowly raised the box and peeked underneath. 

I can not possibly put into words the joy and tears that left me once I saw that ring under there. I have never said so many thank you's and prayers than that day, and I am still saying thank you to my Heavenly Father for that little voice that gave me just the right clue.

Finding My Happiness

It took me a long time. Too long. As long as it took though, what I have learned has stuck with me. I will never forget what I have learned. I will never forget what I went through to get to this point. And I will always be grateful that I have come this far with the help of my Heavenly Father and my wonderful friends.

What took so long? Loving myself. Forgiving myself. Learning that it's all okay. I remember so long ago...clear back to high school. I thought I wasn't worth anything. I thought I was worthless, actually. I thought I had to act a specific way for my friends to like me, and that way wasn't me. I knew it wasn't but I wanted friends, and I thought that was the only way to keep hold of them. I dressed, acted, and even made some decisions with only my friends in mind. I thought, "Would they like this? How would they want this to be done? How would they dress, look, act, think? Etc." I let people influence me way to much.

I stopped being myself. I started to hide the real me. The nerdy me. The silly me. The shy me. Me. I hid me from everyone, because the people I was around weren't nerdy, silly, or shy. Hiding me came with a price though. A very high price. Hiding me cost me happiness. I was depressed most of my time in high school. I self-harmed, cried a lot, and told myself I was worthless. I was stupid.

People told me otherwise, but there was always something in my mind telling me they were lying. It wasn't true. I couldn't be beautiful. I'm just a silly, nerdy, shy girl. People were just being nice to me because they were supposed to. That's what that voice in the back of my mind told me. And I believed it.

Why am I telling you this? Because I'm over it. I grew up. I stopped hiding. I got my happiness back. It took too long, but then again, I think that it took just long enough.

So what was different? What makes old me different from new me? That voice. That little thing in my mind telling me I wasn't good, I wasn't pretty, people didn't like me. As I began to learn that I am a daughter of God, born of goodly parents and heir to a divine throne, I started to recognize that voice. Or I realized I didn't recognize it. It didn't sound like me. That thing back there sounded...wrong. And it was. It wasn't me. Not my voice. Not my thoughts. They belonged to someone else. Someone who didn't want me to be happy.

He's gone now. That something back there. He didn't move out though. He didn't just leave. No. I kicked him out. I made him leave. I made the choice to be happy. The devil no longer has a place in my mind, because I see my beauty. I see my worth. I see that people can, and do like me for me. For the silly, nerdy, shy, crazy me.

I have found my worth. I have found my happiness. I have found my light, my life, and my joy. And I found it all through and in my Redeemer. Through my Savior. Through Jesus Christ. Through Repentance. And I am happier than ever.

I enjoy my life every day now. Yes, I still have bad days, but do I remember them? No. I remember the happy. I remember the joy, the love, and the beauty. I know who I am. I know why I am here, what I am to do, and I know where I'm going. I know all of this through the Lord, and through his perfect gospel and his perfect example.

I hope everyone can find their happiness. I hope you can find it faster than I did, but if not, if you have not found your happiness, then what are you doing that needs to be changed? Because if you want to find your happiness because you don't have it already, then something needs changing.

I wish you all happiness.