Drink More Liquor
(you're gonna need it for this post)

This post is dedicated to: Pam, M.S.S., D.G., Lucille, Laurie, Shar, Sid, Cindy, Sue, Nicole, Vespabelle, and Riana- provided the condoms don't break!



The first thing I want to say today, because it is ceaselessly floating around in my head, is:

Jock Itch Is A Bitch.

(But I'm not going to tell you how I know this.) I can't get that sentence out of my head. Maybe now that I've said it out loud (sometimes the pen is much louder than the voice) it will fade into obscurity.

There are a number of things itching at my brain right now. One of them is an intensely personal issue I have that makes me feel like a five year old. I don't like feeling like a five year old, in case you hadn't realized that from all the times I've mentioned how much I hated being a kid. And it isn't jock itch that's making me feel like a five year old, in case you were jumping to conclusions. No no, it's much more of a hot subject than that and one that comes up here just as frequently as beer and food does.

No, I better not talk about it.

How about instead I tell you how I'm tired of being a -

No, it can't be avoided. The unsurprising fact of the matter is that I am a very contrary person. I don't particularly find this a comfortable way to exist but even with medication the edgy lines that ceaselessly rub against each other in a war for space inside my brain spark constantly, igniting little fires that I must put out, or at least contain. One of them is that whenever I find out that a friend is going to have another baby, or try to have another baby, I feel joy for them that they are achieving their family dream.

But I also feel like a five year old whose parents have just announced that they are having triplets and I am going to be elected to take care of them. I feel slightly betrayed.

This childish feeling is one I am extremely uncomfortable having. I try to erase such feelings from my head. It is so selfish and unfair to want everyone in the world to only have one child, as I have chosen to do. It isn't just friends, either. Every time I see a pregnant woman the same thoughts come into my head. "Why is everyone always having babies?!" and "Why is one never enough for anyone?!"

The thing is, it isn't about these other people really. I truly am happy for my friends to fulfill their own family needs. I realize that for most people having kids in the plural is as primal a fulfillment as hunting and killing their own dinner. (Except that very few people do that anymore.)

What it's really about is feeling lonely in my chosen path of the one child family and the defensiveness I have felt in my decision because I can tell you a million times that I made the decision intellectually and for the planet and I know every time that I am lying. The truth is that having another child would ruin mine and my family's life because I find it almost impossible to be a good mom to one child and I don't have the slightest desire to bring more chaos into our lives. I don't have one tiny pang of desire to have another child. In fact, I would rather die than have more kids. I'm not being melodramatic.

And that's how you know I'm crazy.

Even most mothers in the one kid club have more benign reasons for having only one child than I do.


So I feel alone. I feel vulnerable and stupid. Watching other women blissfully rub their growing bellies and pushing new people out of their hoo-has feels like some kind of weird happy family wonderland from which I was excluded. Being pregnant was awful for me and not because I had anything go wrong. I just didn't like it. Labor and childbirth were not beautiful, it was torturous and don't bother thinking that I would have had a different experience if I'd had a peaceful home birth. Nothing on this planet could have made it seem beautiful to push a melon sized human head out of my lady bits.

Why did life not let me experience these things as "beautiful" events? Why was I not allowed to feel joy in the disgusting and painful process of creating another human being to suffer on this earth with me? Why wasn't I issued a pair of rose colored glasses? Don't I deserve to get all soft and fuzzy about the details of labor?

The part that's so funny is that I actually enjoy hanging out with babies. I enjoy seeing them grow up. I have loved getting to be a part of my friend D's baby's life. I get a lot of joy seeing him light up with the discovery that my nose will not come off of my face. She's going to eventually try for more children. (She has mentioned a desire to have five!) Another friend of mine who has one child will be trying for another soon. And when that baby comes I will feel the same excitement for her and I will enjoy watching that baby grow up and learn about the world.

This duality is one that I loathe. Why does part of me wish everyone would just be satisfied with one child? Why does part of me always feel kind of hurt and lonely when I find out that someone who already has one child is going to have another? I'm going to end up loving their babies and being so happy for their happiness, so why do I always have to feel betrayed first? Is there no way to bypass this tricky brain tangle?

Being crazy sucks.

I have possibly made a couple of new friends* from my Master Gardening class. The two women I've met that I really enjoy talking with happen to be mothers of one like me. When I found out I instantly thought (but don't think I shared with them) "We're all in the one-kid club!" and I felt ridiculously happy. I felt instantly more comfortable and safe.

Yes, SAFE.

I can't help but wonder if some of the problem is that I don't want things to change. I make friendships and I don't want them changing. They change with more kids. The more kids you have the less time you have for friends, or when hanging out with friends the more your brain is multi-tasking on caring for your kids. It also becomes exponentially more difficult to make plans, to go places, to do things. I don't know how to be friends with someone who has five children. What would we have left in common? What could we possibly do together that wouldn't be child-centered?

I tend to adjust to change quite well once it's under way but I generally approach it with deep trepidation.

Now that I have finally alienated absolutely everyone I know- I am going to really nail the lid of my coffin on tight with something else that's on my mind:

If any parent of a truly picky eater has actually tried the method of forcing their kid to eat what they want their kid to eat based on the theory that "Kids will never starve themselves", please speak up now. Tell me how long your kid held out before eating what you wanted them to. Tell me how often you've done this and if it transformed your child into a non-picky eater?

I am absolutely tired of people saying that a child will never choose to starve. Because, so far, not a single parent who's trumpeted this line out for my benefit is the mother of a picky eater and has not apparently had to employ this strategy of force to their own children.

My child would absolutely starve himself if he could in such a battle but he would actually bleed to death first since he would be so upset at the battle over food that he would force open his capillaries and gush until he passed out. I don't know, but I suspect, that every parent who has glibly suggested I just make him eat regular food, would not be able to deal with my kid in such a situation.

My grandmother tried to force me to eat a pork chop once. I was (as you all know by now) raised as a vegetarian by my mother. I can tell you that we sat at the dinner table for hours and I would not eat that pork chop. Had she tried to get me to eat meat the next morning? After going to bed with no dinner? I would have held out. I would have rather starved than subject myself to the vomit-fest that trying to swallow meat would have provoked.

So if anyone has had a child like me or Max and managed to win the war of food through forcing the issue meal after meal, I want you to tell me all about it. Because I resent my dead grandmother to this day for trying to make me eat food that made me gag. I don't relish such a relationship with my one and only lambini. How did you do it and not have your child hate you for life? How did you apply this fabulous method of feeding your child? How many hours, days, weeks did it take?

I define picky eating as the number of items a kid will eat being ten or less.

Parents of kids who eat everything are often so smug about it. As though it's through their great parenting that their kids eat well. I say it's luck and it's the kid. (Well, in cases where good wholesome food has always been on offer. It could be a parent's fault that their kids are picky if they don't eat well themselves.)

Anyway. The next person who says a "kid won't ever starve themselves" may try working their magic on my kid for one week. Let's see their excellent good sense and strong parenting skills transform my child. We'll switch. Let me experience what it's like to feed a kid who eats like a normal kid.

Any takers?

Well, it's been nice knowing you all. So long. I understand that you can't be friends with me anymore. I'm going to miss you.

*Of course, if either of them are reading this, they may be rethinking being friends with me!

Crafty Wonderland Super Colossal Sale

Beautiful old building used by Norse people in Portland. I'm part Norwegian. Somehow I think I'm just not Norse enough to hang out there socially.

This line of people looks innocuous enough until you walk around the corner of the building and observe that the line extends all the way down one whole city block. There was a perpetual line of people waiting to get in for over five hours. As though it was some crazy hip night club and not a craft show.

Four feet is kind of short for a person, it's breathlessly inadequate for a booth size for two crafters (Lisa E. and I shared a booth) let alone one. The lone crafter next to us was feeling claustrophobic too.

A non stop sea of people all day long. I have never been to a craft fair, as a vendor or as a shopper, that was this packed. The word sardines comes to mind. Luckily, most of the people at the show were not stinky.

Some highlights of our craft show experience:

• It was insanely packed in Norse Hall all day long. Next year, either the venue needs to be twice the size it was this year (but not with twice the vendors), or there need to be half the vendors so that the vendors can actually breath. It was unhealthy packed in there. Which is great for business to a certain degree except that when I took a break to look around, I gave up trying to look at crafts after about ten minutes because being jostled by way-too-cool citizens is not my idea of a nice shopping experience.

• The music was mostly good with some Clash, some Johnny Cash, and some music I'm not nearly hip enough to have recognized. But the Christmas music that was played periodically was obnoxious. Most notably queasy making was the awful rendition of "All I want for Christmas" which I always loath in the best of circumstances...this version went on forever with more missing tooth noises than any other version I've ever been forced to endure. Why anyone thinks it's cute is a mystery to me.

• The quality of the vendors present was really high, from what little I was actually able to observe. The ladies that put on the show really know how to pick interesting and different work.

• Portlanders have an endless amount of money to spend on really bad haircuts and jewelry, but not so much money to spend on other things. I'm glad my friends have repeatedly talked me out of cutting myself some short bangs. There were so many super short bangs present and 99% of the people sporting them looked dreadful with them. If you have a really long narrow face it is an especially unfortunate look. It was either uber-short bangs or the crazy shag cut that predominated the floor.

• There were some gorgeous coats there. Also, there were some of the most gorgeous and stylish plus-size ladies I've ever seen and they shamed me, yes they did. I am a fat old hag with a frumpy wardrobe while these specimens of gorgeousness were like amazonian queens who refuse to be put down by the barbies in the world. I am humbled. I now know that there is no reason why I should not wear a cape or a fabulous classic tweed coat, so long as I wear some make up with it and carry myself like I am dynamite.

• There was one lady present who was so glaringly out of place I couldn't stop staring at her. She looked like Donatella Versace with less collagen in her lips (Donatella's lips may have no collagen in them, but they look like they do), she looked so completely Southern California. I knew, in a vague way, that there is a huge difference between Portland style and LA style, but never was it made so clear. I vastly prefer the Portland style, short bangs and all. (The lady in question didn't deserve to be stared at by me, by the way, she flashed me a very sweet smile on more than one occasion which I returned in kind.)

• People LOVED the bath bombs. I brought forty eight of them and sold at least 36 of them. The grapefruit-ginger were completely sold out. One particularly nice (very bearded) man returned to our booth to smell them a couple of times, bought one, then returned a half an hour later to buy another one.

• People also LOVED the pot holders. I almost immediately sold out of the pin-up ones. I sold a lot of pot holders. No one bought any aprons. No one bought any of Lisa's gorgeous felted purses. But apparently Portland has been short of pot holders until I came along.

• My humor just might be too edgy for everyone besides prison inmates. Philip finally printed my "needle junkie" knitting needle t-shirts and I sold only one. One lady commented that she thought it was too real looking, too "real life" for Portland. This reminds me of the fact that when I was a teenager living in Ashland (southern Oregon) I only knew Portland as the great big heroine capital of the state. Other teens would visit and tell tales of all the drug using going on up there, especially the heroine. I have been thinking that Portland would be the perfect place for my t-shirts, but now I'm not sure if any place is the best place for them. Now I'm wondering if me and my humor should be canned.

• Everyone, everywhere are having babies. Babies are EVERYWHERE. I can see how overpopulating the earth may just be a real issue. It isn't just the Catholics. It isn't just the poor uneducated people in third world countries- in Oregon it's EVERYONE. No judgments here people, just an observation. I've never seen so many kids and babies at a single craft fair.*

I cannot count on my fingers how many people have told me that Portland is the best place for my products. That on 23rd street I would sell out! That on Mississippi street I would totally ROCK! That anywhere in Portland my stuff would sell like crazy. All the time I had my store people would tell me that. (not just you, Angela, LOTS of people). I have been thinking that that must be true. People will get me in Portland...in my mind I kept thinking that if only I could do a craft fair in Portland I would do really well. Dustpan Alley would just take off... I no longer believe that. I had the edgiest crowd of what I thought would be my target customers, hundreds of them, and I didn't sell a single apron and only one edgy knitting shirt. There is only one place my aprons have ever sold so well that it was uncomfortable keeping up with the demand: my own store in my own little uncool town. You know what's weird? People would visit from Portland and buy them, but when I take them to the people in Portland, they don't buy them. ?????

But it doesn't matter anyway. None of that matters. Because I am not going to pursue a life of crafting for a living. I will make some stuff, I will hopefully sell some stuff but it is so amazingly clear that the life of a professional crafter is not for me. I hate doing craft fairs. I hate staying up until two am to sew things that people don't actually want to buy. Hell, I don't like staying up until two am to sew things that people do want to buy.

I may have made enough money this month to avoid having to get a job next month, which is great since no one is hiring in January anyway. So I'm amazingly thankful for the money people have spent on my stuff this month. I'm not at all ungrateful. But I've also never been so damn tired in my life. Except for when Max was eighteen months old and doing the dishes felt like running a marathon.

Which leads me to the other realization I've had this week which I've mentioned in passing: I am in the middle of a low level persistent depression and I can now tell for sure that my medication isn't working how it should be. Every minute I haven't been sewing this month I have spent lying on my bed willing myself to get up and go to the craft room to make something, or to do the dishes, or some laundry, or SOMETHING other than laying on the bed looking at the ceiling feeling listless and bone tired. Returning phone calls requires a half an hour pep talk first, then another half an hour to recover my energy after it has been sapped by talking to another human being. I can't bring myself to sit down and sort through the bills which means that everything will be late this month.

I am not feeling sad though. Depression does not always mean feeling sad. One of the hallmarks of depression is listlessness and a lack of energy. Sometimes when depressed people talk about not being able to get out of bed in the morning, they don't mean "because I am so sad" but "because my body feels like a carcass full of lead."

Anyway, I promise myself to address this just as soon as this week is over and I'm looking at Christmas and the Holiday Market from behind me. To my friends and family: there will probably be a great shortage of cards and packages this year. So sorry. I will let them know by e-mail just as soon as I can work up the energy to do it...



*In California it isn't nearly so unusual to have just one kid, but now that I think about it, I don't know a single other family here in Oregon with just one kid who isn't planning on having more. In fact, here in Oregon, it's even kind of weird to just have two kids. In this state it seems that most people have, or are planning to have, or would have if they could have, at least three children or more. I have met more people here who have three or more children than I've met in all my years in California. I'm not saying it's better or worse or bad or good, just interesting how different it is here. In California, the people who had more than two kids were kind of viewed as freaks. Here in Oregon, I'm the freak.**

**Let's be honest, I'm the freak everywhere I go.

Linking Emetophobia With Mother Love
(it could only happen here)

This post is full of disgusting discussions of vomit and things that a woman is never supposed to say. Consider yourself duly warned. You read at your own risk.

(I promise I tried to hold it all in. At least I was successful with the vomit. As it turns out, I am a master at not hurling the contents of my stomach, however, apparently I have no control over the words that come out of my mouth and endlessly get me in trouble. Ahhh, isn't self discovery a beautiful thing?)


Whether or not Max and I had gastroenteritis or the influenza will probably remain a mystery since we can't afford to go to the doctor for such paltry complaints as upset stomachs, but if I had to give it my best bet, I'm going to bet on gastroenteritis since neither of us had fever, body aches, chills, sore throats (well, Max did, but that was strictly because of the constant vomit that traveled up his throat), or that heaviness of body that almost always accompanies influenza. Max, between bouts of hurling, felt fine. He would perk up and think it was all over...until the next wave of nausea hit him like a hammer.

I was luckier, or more stubborn, or...I'm not actually sure how to describe myself. I've said before that I will do almost anything to avoid throwing up. This is true. I have had an uneasy tummy for days. For most of the week as a matter of fact but I powered through it for two days until the night before last I found myself on the bathroom floor trying to explain to an inquisitive Max why I like to lay on the floor when I feel like throwing up. I never did hurl. I used intense powers of concentration to keep it down. I have heard many people extol the virtues of simply letting it all out and getting it over with- how much better you will feel just letting nature take it's course.

I prefer my method, which is to fight nature 100% of the way.

Nothing that goes down my throat should ever, EVER come back the way it went down. I have what I might describe as emetophobia, though I should say that my phobia is much less severe, apparently, than some other emetophobic's. (Read the link about it. It had me laughing so hard because it all sounds so ridiculous and yet is describing me and my relationship with vomit. Although I don't have any issues around food because of my phobia. Uh, though I do stay as far away from whiskey as possible. And cold butter. And surprise chunks of meat. And fish. And the smell of fish. And green peppers. And questionable food. And other people who might be sick with something that makes them vomit.)

(Don't say I didn't warn you!)

The term "emetophobia" is a real one and comes to me courtesy of my good friend Lisa B. It never occurred to me to see if a fear of vomit was something recorded in the annals of psychological disorders, and I honestly didn't realize that other people suffered from the same feelings I had about throwing up.

I think it's all so clear now why being pregnant was, for me, a nightmare. I was nauseous for six out of the nine months of my pregnancy. I spent a tremendous amount of time cramming myself with saltine crackers and other soothing carbohydrate rich foods while laying prostrate on the couch watching terrifying episodes of that program on TLC where women give birth and other fun programs where the topic of "what can go wrong" genetically during human incubation is thrown around happily like rice after a wedding party. I never once threw up. Six months of feeling like hurling and I managed to power through without once losing my lunch.

Which, honestly? I probably would have been better off losing occasionally.

(It's about to get much worse so now would be a good time to stop reading)

In the FAQ on emetophobia, they mention that many emetophobics say that they would rather die than vomit. I'm afraid that I've certainly thought that in my head, though I'm not sure if I've ever said it out loud.

Whenever the question comes up of having more than one kid (which doesn't come up nearly as often as it used to when Max was still a baby and everyone used to ask me when the next one was coming...in fact, it usually only comes up now because I stupidly bring it up myself out of curiosity about other people's intentions) people like to say that having two is just as easy as having one. Whether or not that's true (and it doesn't matter, because having a second one would make me go over the edge emotionally regardless of how easy going the child might turn out to be) I can't even get beyond the idea of having to be pregnant again.

Every time I think about the possibility of finding out I'm pregnant again I fly into instant panic.

When I was feeling not so great earlier this week and said something out loud about feeling a little nauseous, someone teasingly suggested that maybe I am pregnant...which froze me in my tracks.

I must have looked like I was staring down a sem-truck speeding toward me because instantly the person who suggested this backpedaled as fast as words could take her away from what she'd just said.

What instantly ran through my mind was "I would rather die than be pregnant and give birth a second time."*

Which I instantly realized is one of those things you are never allowed to say. Ever. Ever. Ever.

However true it may be, (and I just told you one of my deepest darkest secrets just now), you are always supposed to view pregnancy and childbirth as a beautiful experience. And enriching. And wonderful. And rewarding. Because of the baby. Because of the prize at the end of it all. Because there is nothing more wonderful than procreation. Because it is sacred. Because if you hate being pregnant and being ripped wide open to spit that little sucker out- it might also infer that you hate your baby. That's why we aren't supposed to ever say such a thing.

Well I can tell you right now that I have never hated Max because I hated being pregnant. I have never resented him for the work and unpleasantness I went through to get him here. Not once have I viewed him as the thing that made me want to vomit for six months straight.

Another lady I was working with that day had a surprise baby many years after her first three because of a little malfunction with her husband's vasectomy. Which freaks me out because Philip has been trying to convince me that vasectomies really do work, for two years now since he got his, and I keep telling him that sometimes they don't. I was finally beginning to believe him. This woman says to me "My surprise baby was a gift from God."

And I said "Well, I hope God has a gift return policy because I don't need a gift like that."

All because of emetophobia?

Yeah, well...yeah. That and the whole thing about having to raise a whole other different person from scratch and being tired all the time and having my hoo-ha** in pain for six months and the extra depression, the sleeplessness, the cracked nipples, the crying, the excessive bleeding, the impossible to lose weight gain, the incessant chaos, the 24 hour a day parenting...

What's beautiful about having one child is that as we go through these stages of childhood enjoying the wonderful aspects as they come (and there are lots of wonderful aspects to parenting) and say goodbye to the challenges as they pass and know that while we have a hundred new challenges waiting to make us cry, at least we don't have to go through the same ones again and again with other babies.

You know what I would like to do? I would like the powers that be to gift any possible fertility I may have to the people I know who have no children yet because they haven't been able to conceive, because they will probably love being pregnant and giving birth and I have had my turn already, I want others to take any future turns I could have. I want to give them away. Can I do that? I have had my turn and love my child and want no others.

So, is it really so awful to say those things out loud? Even if I am the only woman on earth who feels the way I do, is it so wrong to say what I have said out loud? Will it really harm my child to someday know that pregnancy and child birth were hell for me, that parenting is like a test I will never be able to pass- won't it be enough for him to know that all along, from the moment I could feel him moving in my belly I knew that I was going to love him no matter what kind of genetic mutations he was going to be born with? He could have been born a hermaphrodite dwarf and I would have loved the bones of him more than any other being on earth. Isn't that what really matters?

As it turned out he wasn't born with any interesting genetic permutations. That we know of.

It is a testament of my love for my child that I spent days nestling close to him between his bouts of vomiting in spite of the fact that all that time I was panicking about getting the same illness he had. I breathed his air and hugged that sad little body, covered his face with mama kisses** and sat with him in the bathroom feeling waves of pity for my baby who isn't a baby anymore but a seven year old teenager...while simultaneously strategizing about how I was going to avoid vomiting myself. I pounded down the Wellness vitamins. I tried getting to sleep before midnight. I constantly made myself breath deeply to prevent hyperventilating myself into passing out or getting sick.

Hopefully my son will know how much I love him in spite of all my anxieties and phobias, hopefully he can feel the mother love powering through his mama's crazy brain. Because every day I look at him and I want to hand him the world. I want to smooth his path. I weep for the pain he will inevitably have to experience in life. I worry about his path. I feel the tiger love for him. And most importantly? I sit with him next to the toilet while he vomits and smooth his brow while choking down my wild animal fear. Hopefully he will just know I love him because when you really love a child it hangs between you in the air like stars on the clearest winter night.






*"Tocophobia" is the official word for a phobia of getting pregnant and giving birth. You know it has ceased to be a regular old concern and turned into a phobia when you find yourself worrying about it all the time. And having frequent nasty nightmares in which you find you are suddenly pregnant. You also know it's a phobia when you hear about others getting pregnant and worry that it might be catching. (I'm so happy for you, though, Karmyn, because I know you have wanted this gift of a third baby so much and I was praying in my secular way that it would happen for you.) As I have been reading about it just now I am seeing all these suggestions for "curing" tocophobia and I just keep thinking in my head: I know how to cure it and it's called a HYSTERECTOMY. And I want one. Not being able to get pregnant for certain would undoubtedly instantly cure my phobia of getting pregnant. Duh.

**"Vagina" for those of you who prefer to use the clinical word for your tu-tu. Which I don't. This may be the only word for which I prefer the euphemisms. My favorite euphemism for vagina comes from Mom-O- Matic who refers to her hoo-ha as her "lady bits". I want to use that euphemism too but feel somehow that it would be stealing from her brilliance.

***Something he will only allow me to do when he's ill now. Otherwise I am allowed to kiss him only once a day, at bedtime.

Buttons, babies, and business

Can you believe that M. Sinclair Stevens of Zanthan Gardens sent me her collection of vintage buttons? This is now more special than the ones I bought at the antique store! Getting this package yesterday was like being in one of the good dreams I have where I have just happened upon a forgotten box of old hats and clothes that all fit me!! Thank you so much M.S.S.!

Now I feel rich in buttons and can play with them. (Not in a dirty way you nutty people!) My mind is whirling around the possibilities. I think a household project that showcases some pretty buttons would be great. I was just thinking I don't want to put them on anything I might make to wear (though that is what I'd like best) until I'm not so large, but here's the wonderful thing about buttons: you can remove them from garments you can't wear any longer and recycle them!

Truitt was a very thoughtful baby and made his entrance into this dark world two weeks early. This allowed him to travel the birth canal at a reasonable size (under seven pounds) which spared his mother the kind of hoo-ha ripping trauma that eleven pound babies can't help but cause. It also means that he is smaller than the average newborn and fits best into preemie clothes and hats. Dominique was unhappy with the hats the hospital gave her for his downy head and was going to go on a search for hats that would fit Truitt and also stay on. This is not something you want to do with a four day old baby in tow.

I cannot be the kind of help to parents of newborns that I would like to be right now. I can barely keep enough food in our own fridge so I can't make meals for these guys, I can, however, make a couple of hats. So I did. I used a very soft cotton/lycra fabric with good stretch. I measured Truitt's head and made him two hats. This is one of them. It makes me want to gobble him up.

It fit perfectly and stayed put. Plus, it had the cutest little pom poms sewn on the top! I'd wear one myself if it wouldn't make me look completely infantile. Here is Dominique with her husband Stephen (and the father of the baby, in case you weren't sure) and their ultimate collaboration.

I don't know if you can see the blood shot "whites" of Stephen's eyes, but like all new Daddies, he's finding out just how tired he can be. Stephen is a very surprising person. Don't be fooled by his Wisconsin-bred wholesome appearance- because he is a total smart ass. Which is one of the things I enjoy the most about hanging out with him. I also enjoy the fact that he's a Capricorn, like me, and was born the day after me (though he's three years older than me). The way I figure it is that if Stephen is so cool and so funny, maybe I can be too. Because we're practically twins. (I have milk-fed Wisconsin cousins, see, yet another connection.)

Yesterday was a great day. I love having those. I am working on a project that I'm not going to talk about yet. (Every crafty blog person has some secret project they're working on. I just hope mine results in riches. I decided to work on a secret project so that I could feel as cool as everyone else. How unoriginal could I possibly get?)

Speaking of riches...we aren't rolling in them. If you are, tell me how you did it please. We have exactly two months to find more of an income so that we can keep the store going. Actually, I guess we have three because if I have to, I will sell my Vespa to pay the bills. It isn't my first choice. I love my trusty Vespa. What I'm wondering is, does anyone actually make a living with their Etsy shop? Spill the info duderinos!! I'm seriously considering opening one to sell my hand made items in. Our website gets very little action (although, thanks to all the wonderful supportive bloggers who've shopped there recently-it's starting to feel like a happening place-thanks ladies!!) and there seems to be so much going on in the Etsy world. I'm just wondering if anyone is actually making any money at all?

Philip has been doing some free-lance work which helps. But he's still looking for a full time job. The nice thing about that is that if he got a full time good paying job I could stop worrying about money for the first time in two years. We have been in a non-stop worry about income since Philip was laid off of his job two years ago. We have been living off of money from the house we sold in California and the equity in the house we're living in right now. Although we have more equity, because we're almost as smart as Donald Trumpette, we would have to sell this house to access it. More loans are out of the question. Thanks to the forces at work, interest rates are awful right now. Especially for those of us without a steady reportable income.

Thanks Government!

The one thing that really bums me out about the idea of having to sell this house is that I love my garden. If you've been hanging around here lately that is no surprise. Now that it's really shaping up I'm starting to get attached. Something I told myself I wouldn't do because our situation is precarious. I'm kind of looking for work too but there doesn't seem to be much out there for me. Especially since I don't drive which means I am limited to getting a job here in town which pretty much means working at JoAnne's Fabrics. To fit in there I'm going to need to let my teeth go.

I feeling the need to go back to therapy but what with our money being almost gone, I don't think I can afford going because I'd have to meet my deductible first.

Thanks American health care system!

Here's the thing: the store is starting to take off. That's the thing. Right there in a nutshell. I keep thinking that maybe I should start begging my relatives to loan us money. But even if any of them had any money to loan, a loan is not what we need right now. We are in deep enough already. What we really need is for a fairy godmother to come along with her benevolent wand and sprinkle some miracle cash down on our heads.

I have a book in mind to submit to a few publishers, and while there may be a teeny tiny chance that someone will get excited (I said teeny tiny, you don't need to get all caustic on me, I know how much competition is out there. Shit, some of the people reading this right now are competition!) writing books is notorious for not making people rich. I'd probably get offered an advance big enough to buy next month's beer supply. Then I'd spend the next six months writing the thing while working the evening shift at JoAnne's and then it would be another eighteen months before the book was published and I started getting my share of the sales which would maybe buy us a dinner out.

Because, let's face it, I'm not Elizabeth George.

And that's where all my problems began. By not being Elizabeth George. Or Laurie Notaro. Or Anne Lamott.

What's in a name? A lot if you're not Elizabeth George. Let me ask you, is Angelina Williamson the name of a mogul? Is Angelina Williamson the name of a famous writer? Now, if my name was Sosie Philips, or Madison Powell*... you'd be thinking to yourself "where have I heard that name before?" because those are the kind of names that sound like you should already know who they are.

This is the part in our story when some amazing twist of fate happens to change our luck. It's unlikely we'll find oil in our back yard, so maybe we'll meet an editor who will read my stuff and make me into a star. Or maybe Philip will get the dream job of his life? Maybe I should start posing naked for dirty magazines and websites where fat is the fetish? (Does that pay well?)

(Hairiness would also have to be a fetish because I don't go in for making my pubes look hairlessly adolescent. Sorry if you love your Brazilian-it just weirds me out that any man would prefer a prepubescent hoo-ha to a grown up one. But that's not the real reason I don't go in for all that waxing of my privates, it's more about the excruciating pain of the hair removal and also having to expose my lady bits to another human being who isn't my husband.)

Oops, I just killed the dream. I can't bare my privates to other people, so true. Darn, and that's the only thing I can think of that might rake in a lot of cash

Well, speaking of jobs...it's time for me to get myself down to the store.


*Let's be clear about something right now: you are not allowed to steal either of those two names for yourself because I may need them for pen names for the romance novel I'll start writing when we're living in a trailer on the outskirts of civilization and it turns out that the only thing I'm good for is writing soft porn. You don't even know what an irony that would be and I'm not going to fill you in.

Nothin' But Eye Candy

At one point in time I had a tin that was full of antique, vintage, and random buttons that my mom gave to me. I think her mom must have given it to her. In that tin were some gorgeous jet buttons from my great grandmother. One day they all melted in 1200 degree flames in my attic. All those buttons saved by me, my mom, my grandma, and my great grandma melted away, probably leaving toxic fumes all over my neighborhood too. I used to love looking through that tin in a kind of ritual treasure hunt.

Since then I have found it inconvenient to be without my wonderful tin of buttons for practical reasons. Whenever I needed a random button I could find the perfect one in my collection. Whenever I needed a pretty button for a special craft or sewing project, I always found something pretty in that tin. Now when I need a button I kind of hang around all my craft drawers and boxes like a mourner at grave side. I know I'm not going to find a secret stash of buttons. I know my old tin is gone and will never materialize again. But I miss it.

When my mom and I went to Schoolhouse Antiques in Lafayette a month ago, the place where I got all the vintage hankies, I found a jar full of buttons for sale. It was not cheap. But I just couldn't stand not having a collection of buttons any longer. So I paid $20.00 for a jar full of buttons. Some of them are gorgeous, some are vintage, some are so worn out you wouldn't put them on anything or use them unless you absolutely had to, like if you had to live through the dust bowl depression of the thirties again. One button in there is jet, or fake jet, and looks like some of the buttons I've lost.

I love my jar of buttons. I want more. Buttons are like food in the pantry, having extras on hand makes me feel more secure.

Another sachet. These are all lavender, by the way. But I would like to do some rose scented ones and also lemon verbena. As much as I love lavender, not everyone wants it. Some people are tired of it. The reason why lavender is so widely used in sachets is because it is one of those flowers whose scent actually drives moths away. Rose oil is much too warm and sweet to do that, but I want to smell roses in my own drawers. I just bought a few very expensive scents to add to our bath section. These scents will cost more than the other ones because I couldn't even afford to get more than .5 oz at a time. Yes, they are that expensive.

Rose absolut is one of them. I can't wait to smell it, but am also a little afraid of being disappointed. I also got ylang ylang, sandalwood, and I think I also got vetiver. For those who want to do a very fancy bath I want to make their wishes come true. I could have just bought synthetic fragrances, which would have been very inexpensive, but I just don't want to do synthetics. Not all synthetics are bad for the environment, or for people, but I just feel like that's not what Dustpan Alley is about.

What do you think of the mushroom detail? Pretty good, huh? I love this one!

Here's the last one I made yesterday. I do love making these sachets. I hope people will buy them. I wish I could carry everything a woman should have in her trousseau. Obviously I'm not going to carry lingerie, but what about heirloom quality linens and these gorgeous sachets?

It's time for me to take a shower and go to work. I wanted to finish this post before I leave so I can knuckle down and get lots done at work. So much to do! Then I'm really hoping to can some rhubarb jam today.

Oh yeah, and my friend Dominique is in the middle of having a baby right now. Right now. Ouch. Actually, her water broke last night so it's conceivable that she'll turn out to be one of those ultra lucky women who dilates, like, in two seconds, and then pushes that kid out with almost no effort and so has already had the baby. I will call her when I get to work. How exciting for her and her husband Stephen. So here's a shout to Dominique-if you haven't already got little Truitt out: keep it up, you can do it!

Note: Dominique had Truitt at around 7:50am. The whole labor was around 9 hours. Congratulations Dominique and Stephen!!