Today, October 23, 2012

Today’s project:  How many projects can I do in one day?

Today, I found myself with an unusual amount of energy.  Unusual in particular because the past few days have been rough and I haven’t had much energy at all. Frankly, I’ve felt like a lump of useless goo…a great big pile of lazy tiredness.

Obviously, I haven’t had much inclination to do projects, much less write about it.  Ok, that’s not totally true – I did have the project of ‘getting out of bed’ the other day.  It was quite the endeavor, and I’m proud to say that I succeeded… eventually. ;)

So I guess my body and my psyche have been listening to me complain, moan and whine about not being able to do much…and responded with a big dose of ‘whoo hoo!’  Well, I’m not one to look a gift horse in the mouth, and I took full advantage of it.

I decided to see how many projects I could do today…

YAY LIST!

#1.  Breakfast

Ok, I know it doesn’t seem like that should be on my list of ‘projects’, but it really was an effort – mostly because I decided to treat myself to the wonderfully horrible-for-you McGriddle.  Well, since I was the only one in the house, who was going to fetch it?  Oh yeah, that would be me.  But I decided I should probably put on pants first.

#2.  Clean my car

Thanks to my sweetie for starting this project for me on Sunday.  It felt very satisfying to grab a bottle of cleaner and a roll of paper towels, and spend an hour scrubbing all the nooks and crannies.  I have to admit, there is nothing more lovely than a clean windshield when you are driving on a rainy day.  Special thanks to my military-clean Daddy and my neat-freak Mommy for giving me a mild case of OCD…and a clean car. ;)

#3.  Halloween costumes for the babies

It’s that time of year where I know lots of parents are scrambling to thrift stores, Halloween superstores and clicking away online trying to get all the pieces and parts of the wished for costume of their children, like it’s the night before Christmas.  My girls are very creative and tend to come up with really great costume ideas.  For example, last year, my Boo-Boo decided she wanted to be an Easter basket. Really.  We took a cardboard box, made a hole for her body and filled it with ‘eggs’ and Easter grass.  She wore a brown rabbit headpiece and completed the look being the chocolate bunny in the basket.  And it was her idea. I swear.

This year, one girl wanted to be ‘Moaning Myrtle’ from Harry Potter and the other wanted to be Poison Ivy from Batman.  Others are still deciding…

I blame both of these on their father and his obsession with comic books.  Sigh…

So, with a combo of a couple of great scores from thrift stores and some plastic ivy, I completed their outfits today.

Here they are (I’ll post pics of them wearing the stuff later):

#4.  Laundry

In between projects and steps of projects, I did three loads of laundry.  YAY clean underwear.  I had a dream the other night that my husband was yelling at me to ‘just do some frickin’ laundry’. Hopefully, this will appease my guilt…and my subconscious husband (he’s so demanding).

#5.  Mommy Halloween costume

I got invited to a Halloween open-house/party tomorrow and was spending today trying to figure out what to wear.  At first, I thought I would just finish the Steampunk piece I’ve been working on and wear that.  Then I thought, ‘Sheesh, that will be a lot of work since the outfit is in the early stages and not near done.’  Ok, well, I’ll just wear one of my already completed Steampunk outfits.  Oh come on, where’s the fun in that?  Next thought: ‘I should do something that will go with my short hair…20s!  That will work!’  I have a stash of ‘evening’ and other special occasion dresses and I decided to pull something out of there that would be the right shape and style.  I found this piece that I bought a long time ago at a thrift store:

It is a great shape for late 20s early 30s.

Warning: Side Note Arriving in 3..2…1….

Authentic 1920’s wear is not what most people think it is – fringe and short.  The truth is, fringe was just as expensive then as it is now, so it was not very common at all.  Also, the length was much longer than most people assume.  Remember that historically, as close as the decade before, it was scandalous to show just your ankle, so they didn’t have to go much higher than mid-calf to make every one gasp.  And evening wear was full length and slinky…just as it is now.

Now, since it is me and I can’t just let things be, I decided that this dress needed some help.  It is very pretty and has some interesting beading (that doesn’t show in the pic, unfortunately), but didn’t feel very… well, theatrical.  I thought that I would add some ribbon and beads to give the impression of fringe, which implies the era faster than anything else.

Here is the result:

Close-up of beading/ribbon

By the way, this ended up taking me several hours.  So much for choosing an outfit that was ‘less’ work than the non-completed Steampunk thing. I’m an idiot.  But I’m a sparkly, fringy idiot!

#6 Blog

Well, not much more to say for this one, right? ;)  Except for: CHECK!

So there we are, dear reader.  Six in one day.  I’m sure that I’ll be exhausted tomorrow and barely able to drag myself out of the bed to take a shower, but today I was a project MACHINE!  YEAH!