Great new etsy store!

My sister-in-law (and fellow craft show vendor) has opened her own etsy shop. Krista makes really cute hair clips, and she has been known to make the odd tutu as well! Check out her offerings on etsy here.

She's been a busy girl today - she set up a Facebook page for us to show off our crafty wares and to announce what is new. We are planning on some craft shows this year, so watch for some upcoming announcements!

Of Chicken Pox and ETD....

It's been a tough couple of weeks around here in the MacKenzie household. A week ago yesterday I woke up quite dizzy, and it brought back terrible memories of having vertigo during my pregnancy with Sweetie. I didn't have too bad of a day, and continued on with life. The next day, the dizziness was still there, and added to it was a monster headache. GREAT. I LOVE headaches (cha right, and monkeys might fly out of my butt!) Anyways, I started to get a little more concerned. Was I having an aneurism? A stroke? What could it be? On with life...... The next day, the left ear started to hurt. Aaaaah, easy explanation - I have an ear infection! Call the doctor, can't get in for a week and a half. I decided to wait it out and see if I could find an opportune time to go to the walk in clinic. (as if that would happen!) Next day, the other ear is sore. For sure I have an ear infection, right? Sounds like a logical explanation. Call the medical clinic and plead my case - husband is a shift worker, and I can't get away to visit the walk in clinic or emerg... can you PLEASE fit me in!?! They snuck me in for the next day (Funny how they just all the sudden find a time slot for you, when they were full before!)WAIT AND WAIT AND WAIT AND WAIT AND WAIT in the waiting room (hence the name!). Get called into the examination room and WAIT AND WAIT AND WAIT.... Tell the nurse what's wrong, wait some more. Then tell the Doctor what's wrong (didn't I just tell the nurse!?!). He checks my ears and has the gall to ask if I'm sure they are hurting.... are ya kidding me? They're KILLING me!!! He wonders because apparently they look fine. He scratches is head, looks something up on the computer and gives me a diagnosis. Eustachian Tube Dysfunction. HUH???? So, there is a tube running from the back of the throat that goes to the inner ear. Air is meant to flow freely through this tube, which regulates the air pressure in the ear. Swallowing or chewing gum while at high altitudes moves the throat to open the tube and regulate the pressure (to pop your ears). My Eustachian tube is supposedly blocked up (with mucous, phlegm, snot, whatever you like to call it), and the pressure is crazy insane in there and can't regulate. Sounds legit to me! So, off I go with my prescription for a nasal steroid that is supposed to help clear my ear/nose/throat area. Well, it is being faithfully administered with little relief. It's disappointing that it doesn't seem to be helping, but I at least have some light at the end of the tunnel: I have a follow up appointment next Monday to see him again if I have not been able to find relief. ONLY 6 MORE DAYS..... YAY.... (can you sense the sarcasm!?!)

In the midst of my issues, Monkey woke up on Friday morning with SPOTS... spots everywhere. I saw a couple on his face, pretty much all congregating around his right eye. I wondered to myself if the poor kid had a hungry spider in his bed or something.... but then a lightbulb went off in my head. About 1.5 weeks prior, one of Monkey's friends from school (and our neighbour in the cul-de-sac) came down with a case of chicken pox. He had a pretty good dose of it, but his little brother got it even worse. So, Monkey had been around him when he was contagious (before the spots appeared) at school. Then I, being the nice mother I am, said, sure the kids can play with him outside, they've both had the vaccination! The kids had a grand time playing outside on the big snow hill in the cul-de-sac. Monkey even had a little Saturday afternoon playdate over at their house. He was fine.... he was protected.... right?!? NOPE. So when I saw the spots on his face Friday morning, I thought of the recent bout of chicken pox in the neighbourhood. "Buddy, show me your belly..." yep. "OK, now your back." YEP. The kid had chicken pox. I'd heard of kids getting it even though they had been vaccinated. Clearly we had a case of it on our hands. I thought to myself, "perhaps I should check his vaccination record". Wouldn't you know, Monkey has fallen victim of the poor, ignored second child syndrome. He was not, in fact, vaccinated. Oh well, we have a normal, run-of-the-mill childhood illness to deal with.
It's not a bad case, and luckily, he has dealt with the itchiness far better than I would have expected. He normally has dry skin and itchiness on his back during the winter, and I don't think he's itching any more than he would have with the dry skin anyways, he's a trooper!






Funny spot to have it though, on the bottom of his foot. That would drive me INSANE!!!








And on top of the same foot - the other foot doesn't have any on it. What a funny sickness, picking and choosing where it attacks!









Pretty much the worst area on his body is the lower back. He itches it from time to time, but I'm so proud of how well he's been dealing with it!!!



Luckily, with a mild case, he's been getting through it relatively quickly. He came down with it on Friday, and I think he'll be back to school tomorrow (Wednesday). Once he's all crusted over, he's allowed to return. It won't look pretty, but he's out of the woods as far as being contagious, and for getting his spots infected.
In the meantime, he's having a great time playing with Papa, our interim babysitter. We're very fortunate to have him available on short notice, and greatly appreciate all he's done for us whenever our kids get sick.


So, that's the saga of the 2 sickies. Hopefully I can re-post in a little while with a success story of how I beat ETD. Perhaps some antibiotics will be the right ammunition of choice when I revisit the doctor.

Have a happy, HEALTHY day!!! :)


UPDATE.... It is now 12:43am on Tuesday night (Wednesday morning?), and Sweetie has finally calmed down and gone to sleep after getting sick for the last 2.5 hours. Ugh, when will we all be healthy again? My boss just won't believe me if I can't go into work tomorrow...... :(

Win a juicer worth $170!!!

Wanna win one of THESE?!? I do! That's why I'm posting this great giveaway! Head on over to That's So Cuegly. There are 3 ways to enter, (including visiting allbarstools.com) and a possibility of 5 entries in your name! I follow this blog (one of the MANY craft blogs I read every day!), and love it! Good luck!!!

How to tie a scarf

Just a little note for those of you who like to wear scarves as an accessory. I found a little tute on various ways to tie your scarf! Find it here.

Enjoy your enhanced accessorizing! :)

Challenging myself

In the big wide ocean of sewing/crafting blogs in which I have recently immersed myself, I came across a challenge. I should say, I've come across many challenges, some that require you to pledge not to buy new clothing, only allowing you to repurpose, refashion, sew from scratch and/or buy used.

Someday I hope to be able to do something like that, but I'm not necessarily at that point just yet. I've yet to tackle buttonholes and zippers, which tend to be somewhat essential in wearable garments (especially pants - although I wish it was acceptable, I don't think I could wear elastic-wasted pants every day!)
So, when I came across this challenge, I thought it's worth a try!


2010 List of Challenges:
Janurary- somthing for me
Feburary- Something in Knit fabric
March- a softie! (means a stuffed animal, etc)
April- something lined (eeek! that scares me!)
May- enclosed zip (hope to have learned this by May!)
June- something self designed or drafted
July- somthing with pleats
August- hand embroidery/ smocking
September- bag
October- refashioned (visit an op shop and create something new)
November- Christmas tree (??? don't quite understand this... a real tree?!? :)
December- sharpen your skills (my choice of what I feel I need to practice on)

The beauty of the challenge is that you sign up each month if you are able to participate. So, if you're anticipating a very busy month, or don't feel the need to, say, make a softie in March, you don't have to! I'm excited about this month, to make something for me! Will it be a shirt, a skirt.... it's a mystery! I'll keep you posted..... :)

questions.....

I've got some questions for you.... (it's going to be a very strange post, jumping from subject to subject)

1. What time of the day should I excercise?
Ok, so I've always had a great reason NOT to excercise, be it no time, no energy, kids will bug me, etc etc etc.... but I really need to get going!!! I have a perfectly good (read: really great) treadmill in the basement. It was bought for me shortly after my ectopic pregnancy surgery in 2005. I felt the need to finally, really get in shape before we started trying to get pregnant again. So, I used it... um, like maybe 3 times in the following weeks. We moved it to our new house (3 years ago), and Brad mentioned that it was a BEAST to move!!! Again, I've used it like, maybe 4 times in the last 3 years (pretty sad, eh?). Brad has been trying to sell it, but luckily the guy who wanted it no longer wants or needs it, so the hope is still there for me to use it. So here I go again, full intentions of using it.... but WHEN???? Here are my options, and why they don't work for me:
Morning - ummmm, do you know me? I am NOT a morning person. I wake up JUST in time to do the absolute basics and get us out the door! (I usually shower at night for that reason!)
After work - we get home, and I get started right away on supper. If I do a workout first, we won't eat until 6:30pm.... the reason why I love getting home at 4pm is because we get a good, homecooked meal on the table, usually around 5:30, and then the kids have time after dinner to play, homework, bath, etc. I don't want to get into the crazy rush we had when I worked later and got home at 5:30!
After supper - I've just eaten!!!
Later in the evening - (kids are in bed by 8pm, but can't be trusted not to play/sing/read books/cry for water/etc until about 9 or 9:30pm) It's a proven fact that if you want to get any sleep at all, you shouldn't excercise before bed (and boy don't I know it - those 10pm baseball games in the summer get me all riled up, and I'm up until at least 1pm before I consider sleep!)
So there you have it, another list of reasons why I can't excercise. What do you think? Can you find a pocket of time I haven't considered that would work? Or just tell me to suck it up and do it!!! Comments please!!! :)

2. What is a good boy's valentine gift?
So, I'm hoping to be the "crafty mom" and make little valentine gifts for each of Sweetie's classmates (maybe Monkey's too, if I get going on it soon!), and I'm stumped for boys. For the girls, I'm planning on making some cute little barrettes covered in felt and fun stuff (you'll have to wait for that post to see them), so just something small, you know? But what to do for the boys? Out in crafty blogland, there are so many cute things for girls, but the choices for boys are so limited! If you have some ideas, I'd love to hear them!

3. What cake should I make for Deawna's birthday?
My little niece on the Bos side is turning one in February (yay for Deawna!!!), and I'm honoured (and very nervous) to be able to make her birthday cake! My sister in law asked me to make something for her birthday party, and a cupcake specially made for Deawna to tear apart on her own! I found some great cake pans at the second hand store a while ago, and I've been dying to use them! It's a set of 3 square cake pans, perfect for a mini wedding cake style cake. But now I'm stumped (and did I mention nervous!?!) to pick out the type of cake, decoration, style, etc!!! What do you think I should do?

So, these are my dilemmas of the day. Sorry I had no pictures in this post, but I'd rather not show pictures of me to prove why I need to excercise (and as if there are any pictures of me - I take all the pictures, so I'm never in them!), and I don't have pictures of boy valentines gifts because that's what I'm looking for, and, of course, no cake pictures because that's also what I'm looking for....

Please help!!!!