sewing accomplishment!

today i finished a project i'd been working on for a little while... a homemade skirt! brendan and i had been at walmart a while back, and i'd stumbled across their fabric and sewing section - i was like a kid in a candy store! - i was fawning over the buttons, the ribbons, the fabrics... it was bad. so my sweet husband, knowing my love of crafts and how i love making my own accessories (headbands and bracelets and such) offered to spend $10 on me for whatever i wanted. then once he started looking around with me, he encouraged me to broaden my horizons and try making an actual piece of clothing. since the pattern was only 99 cents, i agreed to making a skirt. it had pleats, pockets, an elastic waist, would fit my body, and looked adorable. then i found gorgeous fabric. the only problem was it was that sheer fabric that is insanely difficult to work with, so we got a plain white cloth to go underneath. basically that meant instead of making the simple skirt, my first attempt at a skirt would be a double layered skirt with the fabric that likes to move around and not sit still (anyone who's worked with fabric before knows what i'm talking about). but i dove in. fortunately, momma kyle has sewing machines and that made it way easier, since before i'd just been stitching everything up by hand. there were a couple mishaps but everything was fixable and it all got easier as i went along. so as it goes... TA DA! my skirt is completed!

A. it has an elastic waist
B. pockets on either side of the skirt
C. is two-layered: a plain white underneath, then a sheer, silky, patterned fabric on the outside
D. it is pleated around the top underneath the waistband

first attempt, success. next time though i want to try something a little simpler. no double layering - it made it way to complicated with all the extra pinning and extra sewing.

baking joys

my hubby was on tv today! around 7:40 and 8:40 this morning channel 3 (good morning arizona) was talking about his dodgeball team and showed them practicing for the world championships coming up. it was so fun to get to see him this morning on there.

on another topic, i'm beginning to discover that i love to bake. i'm not crazy about cooking so much, but i'm enjoying baking quite a bit. last night i made snickerdoodles for family home evening with our neighbors. then today i took some bananas that were QUITE overripe and instead of making banana bread, i made a banana cake with a cream cheese frosting. i just had a slice and it was DELICIOUS!

tricks and interesting details i learned baking my cake today:
A. it took an hour+ in the oven (at 275 degrees which i thought was surprisingly low, but it is cooked so delicately. it was only slightly browned, but cooked all the way through since you cook it for so long but on such a low temp. not a bad idea.)
B. then the recipe said to take it from the oven and stick it straight into the freezer for 45 min in order to make it extra moist - and it worked, i was surprised because i'd never have thought to stick a hot cake into a cold freezer... but it worked.
C. whenever i make cream cheese frosting, i always put in some lemon juice. i think it adds a little zing and brings out the flavors even more. but then again i love citrus, and cream cheese frosting is my favorite, so the two together is just perfection.
D. use a MIXER whenever you are making cream cheese frosting. i can whip regular icing (ex: powdered sugar + milk, etc) with a whisk easy, but this frosting is just too thick to make it completely smooth when you try to do this one by hand. still tastes incredibly delicious though :)
E. i only had 3 bananas, which turned out to be slightly over a cup of mashed banana. i needed 1 & 1/2 cups of mashed banana. my solution? i blended in a half cup of applesauce with the cup of mashed banana. - it had similar texture, and would give another good flavor. apples & bananas together = yummy cake!

television

tv wasn't something that we watched much of in my house. in fact, we practically NEVER watched tv. we'd watch movies or tv shows we recorded. then in college i started watching more tv. i watched the competition cooking shows and the america's next top model and law and order. here i've discovered what a huge part of culture tv is. we have the tv on like 24-7. even if no one is watching it. it's just background noise and something to watch, if there is nothing else to do. at first i loved it. being able to watch tv whenever i wanted. it was like a surge of power! power i'd never truly experienced. the power to control the remote and channel flip through show after show after show... but over the past week-ish, i've started to truly understand why my parents didn't let us watch tv - ok, ok so they had different reasons. they were concerned about the commercials and content and messages being portrayed through the tv to us. which they have every right to be, oh wow. i would NOT want my little siblings watching a lot of the stuff on there. i don't want ME watching a lot of the stuff on there, and i'm an adult! - but it's mind-numbing. it sucks you in. you end up watching things you don't care to watch. just to watch something... i've started avoiding the tv room/living room to avoid the temptation to just flip it on. because half that stuff i don't actually care to watch. a few of the shows i really enjoy and am intrigued by. but most of the other shows? not worth my time.

i started a book yesterday. it feels so good to read again. i've taken it to our community pool with me yesterday and today. it's hot outside, but the pool is refreshing, and it feels so good to get in some reading and some vitamin d.