Sew many dreams, so little talent.

“Blessed is he who expects nothing, for he shall never be disappointed.”
― Alexander Pope


Sewing machines hate me.

It's not that they don't enjoy my company... like the random person who happens to be somewhere in your social circle, but whom you try to avoid actually spending one on one time with, because you can never seem to figure out what to talk about.

No they hate me.

Harm themselves to get out of spending time with me

As in, if you walked into a restaurant and saw your worst enemy sitting next to your best friend, you would throw yourself onto the nearest open flame just to spend time in the burn unit instead of with this person.

At first I thought it was just my mother's machine.

I was convinced it was just old.  And needed my mother's years of experience to understand it's quirks.
 
The bobbin spits back out at me.

The thread snarls up.

Then I snarl up a bit.

 And eventually my mother just comes over and fixes what ever I just screwed up.

 Honestly, the last time I asked her opinion on how to sew something she just took it from me and did it herself.

Her exact words were "No it's faster if I just do it, if I let you touch it, you'll just screw it up"

It was said with love.  And it was the truth.

I decided last year, that now that I'm a real live grown up (with a baby of my own to prove my legit-ness in the grown-up department) it was time to buy my own sewing machine.  One that came out of the factory at least a decade or two after I came out of the womb.

 One that would work magically, would never tangle a thread, or pop a spool, or eat my shorts (or fabric intended to become shorts). It would make all of my crafty dreams come true.

Dreamer that I am, I'm also a skinflint, and could never justify spending $200 on something I didn't really need (because no matter how much I want to blame the machine, I know in my heart of hearts, I don't actually have any sewing skills).
 
 Then like the Fairy Godmother appeared to Cinderella. A beautiful Singer was dropped into my lap. Ready to make all of my sewing dreams come true.

 Well it was given to me... nobody actually dropped it on me. But for all the good I've done with it, maybe they should have just thrown it at my head and knocked some sense into me.

 I spent three months, on my last sewing project. It should have taken a normal person 2 hours.

Now please consider, that all sewing activities, no matter how much I may want to do them, have to come last on my list of priorities.

That list is not short these days.

First and foremost there is a cute little ball of energy that needs constant attention, feedings, diaper changes, and general guidance on the safety of climbing or chewing on anything he can get his hands on.

Then there is the dog... who as you may have noticed from previous posts, requires a fair bit of energy.

Add to that a business to run, a house to keep in some sort of order for fear someone call child services on me for only running my vacuum once a month, and on top of that, society actually expects me to keep up a certain level of personal hygiene.

 Somedays I accomplish most of these things. Others I'm surprised that my Stronger Half finds us all still alive when he comes home from work.

Sewing comes last. (um or maybe blogging comes last, if my lack of new posts haven't made that clear).

 But in the event that every other priority is either taken care of, or deemed reasonably non-life threatening to put off until tomorrow.... I haul out the machine and get cursing.

Tonight was one of those blessed nights.... I started a little project, and needed to sew eight simple lines to complete it. It was barely even worth dragging the machine out of the closet.

But like I said before.. fairy tale dreams of what I can do with this machine. I had come to the conclusion that all of my previous troubles were caused by dollar store materials.

My "out of the regular realm of sewing" type projects and my general lack of control when it comes to speed with a foot peda,l were also contenders in the "How the hell does she screw this up so much" mystery.

What ever the reason, I was willing to meet in the middle and take some of the responsibility for our past altercations. I needed to get on good terms with this machine, so we could go on to bring all of the magical fabric themed fantasies I have to life.

 So armed with Coats and Clark thread. Three different sets of three different name brand needles, and a project with out crazy material like PUL. I decided to rekindle our broken relationship.

 In response, the needle snapped clear off while I was threading the machine.

 Not even while sewing or using the presser foot... simply turning the wheel to pull up the bobbin thread caused this.

 That's the equivalent of a dog gnawing off his own foot when you  say you want to take it for a walk.

So tonight I give up. I will pack away my threads and bobbins and three packages of new brand-name needles, and dreams of being a professional seamstress for another day.  Tonight was a lesson, although I can't quite figure out which one it was.

"Don't quit your day job."

"Great expectations lead to great disappointment?"

Or, since I know I will forget the frustration of this evening, and like a herion addict returns to their dealer, I will haul the stupid machine out and try again someday.

"It is easier to forgive your enemy than your friend."

I thought I lost a baby... oh no wait, it was just my mind.

I love sleep. My life has the tendency to fall apart when I'm awake, you know? Ernest Hemingway


People always say the same thing about having a newborn.... that you will never have a full nights sleep again in your life.

And then their next comment about parenting is usually "You'll be amazed how you can survive on such little sleep".

 Well I seem to be testing that theory. And "surviving" is just about all we're doing.

 You see on top of having a 3 month old -Who does not sleep 12 hrs at a time, and if one more person asks me if he does (and then looks at me like I'm doing something wrong when I say he doesn't)I'm going to stab them in the throat and then claim sleep deprivation as my defense- I also decided to go lobstering again this year.

 So take normal new parent exhaustion, and add it to lobstering exhaustion and you get a story like this one.

 The other night, I woke up to the sound of little Fussbucket crying. Like the dutiful mother that I am, I carefully got out of bed, so as not to disturb the baby lying next to me.

(I should mention that I co-sleep sometimes...this is not a political statement for pro-attachment parenting, or even a choice to cut down on laundry by not letting him sleep on the sheets in his crib. It is merely an act of survivalism while breastfeeding. Those who want to tsk tsk and say I'm spoiling my child by letting him in bed with me so he can feed while I continue to sleep can see the paragraph above, detailing how I feel about people who have opinions on sleep habits in my house.)

So I carefully get out of bed so as not to disturb the baby that sleeps next to me.

 And then I lean over the cradle and pick the crying baby up.

In the dark, I latch Baby #1 on, and then feel around in the bed, because I want to lie back down without rolling on top of Baby #2.

If some of you are starting to scratch your head and say "Wait a minute, I thought she only had one baby" well then you are way further ahead on the reality train than I was.

I feel for the right side of the bed. Nothing.

I feel for the left side. Still nothing.

I check under my pillow, in case my baby has suddenly developed the ability to silently crawl 2 feet and hide under things. Nothing

I start to panic.

How did I lose the baby that fast?

Did the Stronger Half take him?

I start to wake SH up...but I can see in the shadows there is no baby on his chest. We haven't slept with him on our chest in two months. He's not a newborn anymore, he doesn't like it and he wiggles off.

Oh Gawd.... now I'm really in a panic. I'm imagining SH picked the baby up in some sort of sleepfathering trance and put him on his chest, then didn't notice as the baby squirmed off and probably fell to the floor.

No probably hit his head on the bedside table and THEN fell to the floor.

Knocking him unconscious of course, which is why his screams didn't wake us up.

And then the dog probably snuck in the room and ate him. Or at least laid down on top of him and smothered him.

Cat's do that don't they?? Not dogs, but dammit, my dog never behaves anyway... so yea the dog probably sat on top of the poor baby... now I'm the mother of that smothered baby that rolled off Daddy, just like the stupid meatball that rolled out the door that I'm always singing about.

As SH starts to wake to my panicked cries of "Where's the baby?"  I realize I'm only searching with one hand.

Because my other hand is supporting the head of my baby who is calmly feeding as his mother has a nervous breakdown.

My only baby.

Because I only have one.

And he's safe and sound in my arms. Not rolling around like a rogue meatball waiting for a dog to confuse him for a soft place to lie down.

Every day is a new opportunity for failure.

"Behind every successful woman is a substantial amount of coffee" Stephanie Piro

I am a magnet for things just plain old not working out.

Other people can go through day to day life without really doing anything spectacular, and still not having anything disastrous go on either.

I can usually only manage to accomplish the former.

Take this past Sunday for example.

All I really wanted was a simple cup of coffee.

I couldn't make it at home, as the last time I bought coffee I mistakenly got some French Vanilla crap.

Instant coffee is pretty bad on it's own, but flavoured instant coffee tastes like liquified rubber.

Old rubber.

Like the kind that is on a boot that you let your dog chew.

And then the dog buries it in the back yard and you grow old and get put in a home, and a new family moves in and THEIR dog digs up the old boot that has been rotting underground for thirty years and starts chewing on it.

Take that taste and liquify it.

You will have a gold mine if you happen to be in the dog treat flavour business.

But if you are me, all you have is a rubber boot tasting coffee.

So I dump it out and head to town for groceries.

Last week I convinced my Stronger Half to go for ice-cream after shopping.

This week we were too damn early and the Dairy Treat wasn't open.

( Why??!! Why don't they open until 1pm??!! Am I the only person in the world that craves a Reses Pieces Flurry at 10 am??)

On the way out of town I have a brilliant idea to get SH to stop for Circle K Coffee.

I'm addicted to their Cafe Mochas.

Nobody else that I know actually likes Circle K Coffee.

I generally either have to trick people into going by asking them out for coffee, sort of insinuating I mean for Tim's or perhaps The Beandock, and then just pulling into Circle K.

Or I have to bribe them.

Since "SH" could also usually stand for "Smarter Half" I knew trickery was out of the question.

Thankfully I had a stock pile of Irving Gas coupons with me.

And my coffee deprived mind decided they were worth sacrificing for such a bribe.

I had to work quickly as our town is only twice the size of a postage stamp and we were already halfway to the gas stations.

It took almost three blocks to convince him to use the coupons.

I am generally the beneficiary of this Sobeys/Irving marketing scam because I make next to nothing, and drive two hours a day to do so. Therefor it is deemed that I deserve 3 cents off my gas purchases.

It's true, I do need them. But in the heat of the moment, like a genuine crack addict, I decided I needed my Cafe Mocha more.

So knowing the the quickest way to SH's heart is through his wallet, I explained how the coupons were more valuable the more liters you pump. His tank is bigger, so he should be using them.

Even as the words were coming out of my mouth I knew I was potentially giving up every future gas coupon that came into our possession.

Just to ensure he understood that this offer was a one time only deal, I managed to coyly slip in the real reason for going to Irving

" ...plus maybe I could like get a coffee or something"

Slick I know.

He's not generally easily persuaded, so he must just really love me.

Or perhaps he was just didn't like the way I was white knuckling it as we neared closer and closer.

At any rate, he pulled into Irving and I made a bee-line for the coffee machines.

Here I found the other four people in the world that like Circle K coffee. They all took their sweet time getting theirs.

When It was my turn I pressed my magic sequence of buttons

"Columbian" "CafeMocha" "16oz" "Start"

and waited for my caffeinated chalky goodness to fill my cup.

And it almost did.

Except the Chocolate was empty in the machine. Which meant I had to find someone to change it.

I corner a lost looking blonde girl with a Circle K Shirt on and tell her I need more chocolate.

She looks at me like I have three heads.

I explain to her that the cup didn't fill up and the usually means that the machine is out of chocolate.

SH at this point has finished filling both his truck with gas, and his own coffee cup and is waiting for me to go.

Blondie is trying to explain to me that there are different cup sizes and I must have pressed the 12 oz.

I've already thrown my bad coffee out, so I can't make her taste it, so I run it through the machine again.

She walks away, apparently thinking that she has satisfied a customer.

I wrangle her back over, and explain again that the machine is out of chocolate, as SH pays for the gas and coffees.

She thinks I'm a new customer, and yet again tells me that I've pressed 12oz, and put in a 16oz cup.

At which point I inform her in my best "get your stoner ass in gear" voice, that I purchase a coffee every single day and press the same buttons every single time, which makes me infinitely more qualified than her in the goings on of the coffee machine.

And this machine is most definitely out of Chocolate.

She then admits that she can't find the key. As she admits this she walks over to the storage counter and finds the key right where it probably always is.

She then turns around and says "I think we're out of Chocolate for the machines"

What I should have done was taken the key from her, opened the stupid cupboard door, found the new chocolate and replaced it in the machine.

Instead, I drop kicked her.

Well no I didn't. I wanted to, but without my caffeine/crack-cociane-chocolate high, I really didn't have the energy.

So I just gave up, and I walked out after twenty minutes of trying without my coffee.

Like I said, I seem to excel at getting into situations where things screw up. Nobody dies, nothing is destroyed, yet still my day is slightly crappier than if I hadn't of tried to do anything at all.

Not only did I give up my gas coupons and not get a coffee for it, but I then had to drive home to the sound of SH contentedly sipping HIS coffee, that he never wanted in the first place.