The English Geek

In Case You Were Curious

this sums up how I'm feeling about everything I have left to do (Namely: baking and wrapping) :

(This photo uploaded on a dare.) 

Notes for the Pajama Sewers

Maybe it's even been left until the wee morning hours of December 24, and you neeeeeeed to have them sewn before Christmas Eve begins. Maybe you're not procrastinating your procrastination and you're getting them done, oh, two or maybe even three days before you need them. At any rate, say that you, like me, find yourself sewing flannel pajamas at 12:37 a.m. You're bleary eyed and would really rather be sleeping, but your perfectionist self (or maybe it's your "frugal" self, or your simply insane self) has set you the task: sew the pajamas!

So you're sewing pajamas well past midnight. And here they are, the tips you need for pajama success.

1. Preshrink the flannel. Trust me: unless your children enjoy wearing floods, or you enjoy seeing your children wear floods, preshrink the flannel. Hot water, hot dryer. Get all the shrinking out of the way! (An added bonus: the flannel will be even softer to work with.)
2. Because you are going to preshrink the flannel, buy at least 1/4 yard more fabric than the pattern says you need. If your frolicking penguins or your sweet little monkeys are directional, buy even more.
3. THE very best pajama pattern is the Simplicity one (2826) because it only has an inner thigh seam. I mean, think about it: say you have four children, and maybe you're completely off your rocker and you think each kid needs three pair of PJs. Not having an outer thigh seam has just saved you 24 long seams! ***
4. When you are cutting the pattern pieces out, remember: if the fabric isn't doubled, you have to turn the pattern piece upside down when you cut the second leg.
5. Speaking of cutting: 1, use the self-healing mat underneath your fabric and you'll be surprised at how much faster your scissors move; you can even use the rotary cutter for straight cuts   2, if your fabric is directional, and you have enough length to cut two pieces out at once (doubled fabric), cut the fabric in half, turn the bottom piece so the pattern is right side up, match them together (backs of fabric together), and then pin your pattern on. Voila: now none of the gamboling jungle animals gambol upside down; and 3 asking yourself 27 times just where it was you set your scissors down is a sign that you are tired. Proceed with caution! Scissors aren't just good at cutting fabric; they're pretty good at flesh, too.
6. It doesn't matter which pattern you buy: they all have this creepy-high waist line. Make a shorter rise by folding the pattern down upon itself by about one inch.
7. Before you start sewing, fill your bobbin. (Or maybe it's just me who gets annoyed at having to stop in the middle of a project to fill the bobbin?) If you are sewing 18 pair of PJs, you might need two bobbins. (You also might need a psychiatrist by the time you are finished, but that is another set of instructions altogether.) Also vacuum the feed dogs. Flannel makes a lot of lint.
8. Music while sewing is essential. Yeah, you have to turn it up a little bit louder to hear it over your machine, and dogs howl when you sing along, but if you've done this enough times your children already know how to sleep through the sewing/singing/music/howling-dog racket. Sure, you might wake the neighbors, but it won't be the last time.
9. When you're sewing the leg seams, don't cut the thread in between legs. Just feed the next piece in right after the first piece. (There is a name for this kind of sewing, but I am too tired to remember it. Tired and bleary-eyed and bloody-fingered.) It is surprising how much time that saves.
10. Speaking of time: pinning the seams is worth the time, especially when you get to the crotch seam.
11. Speaking of the crotch seam: the pattern will tell you to sew over the curved part two or three extra times, since that is a pressure point and tends to unravel easily. Instead, when you get to the curve, switch your machine so you're using the decorative stitch that looks like three lines of stitches sewn next to each other. (It's option #3 on my machine and I am making a large assumption that a---you know what I'm talking about and b---most machines have this stitch.) Way faster! Also: it is easier to sew this seam if you take the little drawer off the front of your machine, so it's only the width of the bobbin case you have to fight with on the curve.
12. Most patterns have you buy 1" wide elastic. 1 1/2" is better because it NEVER rolls or twists.
13. If you are wondering how to adjust the elastic waist while still keeping the pajamas a surprise, you have two options. 1: if your kid is young enough, try them on your little darling while he/she is sleeping. (Yay! A perk for midnight sewing: sleeping children!) 2: use a pair of the kids' jeans as a reference point to compare against. This also works for how big of a hem you put in.
14. Before you turn the PJs right side out, spray the bottom with a little spurt of spray adhesive. Voila: you've just skipped that pesky iron-one-quarter-inch step of hemming. (Do NOT do this with the waistband, though. It's hard to drag the elastic through the casing if it's all gummed up with spray adhesive. Not that *I* have any personal experience with that.)
15. Stringing elastic through the casing is a fabulous! way of getting your dear, sweet husband to help you in your midnight time of need. Really: there's nothing a sleepy husband likes to do more than help with sewing projects.
16. If you want a button on the front of the PJs (just for cuteness, not for, you know, actual buttoning; this also makes it a wee bit easier for the small ones to get their pajamas on by themselves without the dreaded Backward Pajama Phenomenon; you'll have been up late sewing and will be too tired to help the small ones with the pajama putting-on), handstitch it on before you put the elastic in. I'd say you could ask your husband to help you sew on buttons but, well...I know how THAT turns out.
17. Hem the PJs with LOTS of room to grow. Because as much as you love sewing, and freshly-laundered flannel, and anticipating the look on your child's face when he/she sees the results of all your labors (which will likely be a mix of "Yay, pajamas!" and "what can I open next that is NOT clothes?" luckily expressed only in body language as said child throws said PJs into the pile of other already-opened stuff), let's be honest: you won't be making more anytime soon.

***please note: this post is in no way attempting to convince you that I have, in fact, sewn 12 pair of pajamas at one sitting, specifically not tonight. I have, in truth, sewn 20 pair at one sitting, but that did not happen tonight. Due to the fact that my older children A---sleep in running shorts and a T or B---sleep in their skivvies or C---find ONE pair of PJs that is the. absolute. favorite and refuse to sleep in anything else, only my youngest will be receiving the made-by-mom pajamas. He is getting eight pair not because I am materialistic in the sense of spending extraneously, or even materialistic in the sense of I LOVE FABRIC (ooooh, someone should totally compliment me on that pun right there! Whew! I am GOOD!), but because the child is obsessed with pajamas. Seriously: if I would allow it, he would wear them 24/7. Preschool, church, swimming pool, whatev: any time is pajama time in Kaleb's head, and getting dressed in actual clothes is TORTURE. Now that I have managed to convince him that wearing clothes when we leave for the day is a necessity, I have stopped getting bugged about him wearing PJs at all other times. But when that is ALL he wants to wear, and he tends to freak out if he spills anything on his 'jammies and must put on a new pair at the least little drop or splash: yeah, he needs eight pair.

Poem for All You (Us!) Busy Santas:

Santa's Workshop
~ William Stafford

The doll bodies glide past on little
wires that glide through their eyes.
They never meet—the boys and girls
turn a corner side by side and
enter a distant room to be boxed
separately. One at a time they are
released from the wires. Their eyes
rest. WIth folded arms they
take their place, lie down,
go out to save the world.

I Miss Blogging.

I have a half-written blog post saved and awaiting, well, a finish. And I have all these blog posts written in my head. Unfortunately they are staying in my head because hello: December? I cannot even get to the stuff I MUST get to, let alone the extraneous stuff like extracting blog entries from the crowded spaces in my brain.

Throw into the usual December stress (shopping, and money, and spending money while shopping; traffic and having to drive in it; all the customary family issues) one wedding (which really took up two entire days, and entire days are precious), one 11-year-old whose answer to "Jake, what do you want for Christmas?" is "I don't know, Mom, you decide," the same 11-year-old who suddenly desperately needs new shoes but whose father is genetically incapable of shopping for shoes the easy way but must compare prices and features and coolness factor, a husband who still can't really do much because of weight restrictions from that time his chest was ripped open, plus there's just the everyday chicken-without-head feel my life has even when it is not December, and yeah: I am sort of scatterbrained.

Not enough time for blogging.

Not enough time for almost anything. That's why this is my letter to Santa Claus:

Dear Santa:

OK, I probably haven't been very good this year. The best I can get to "good" is "good enough," and let's face it: even my "good enough" isn't anywhere close to good enough.

Can we just go with "it's the thought that counts"?

At any rate, if I have been good enough to warrant a gift, all I want for Christmas is two or three extra hours in a day. Just until I get caught up?

love, Amy

PS: thanks for doing all the magical stuff you do. No one tells you thank you enough!

What's in your letter to Santa?

Making Happy, Music Edition

My parents didn't set an awesome musical example for my sisters and me. Kenny Rogers, Roger Whittaker, Barbara Mandrell. Actually, when I stop to think about it, I'm not sure my mom cared about music at all. My dad did, though; he was a stereophile before they invented the term. At Christmas he'd play the Christmas records of all his favorites, and even then, even at eight or nine, I'd roll my eyes and yearn for something a little more cool. It's a miracle I didn't grow up to be a country-music fan (although two of my sisters did; I do still love them but have been known to gently tease them, too).

Thank goodness some of my favorite musicians have at least one Christmas song for me to track down.

I'll confess: I've bought an entire Christmas CD just to get one song by a musician I love. (Like the nearly-completely horrid Kevin & Bean KROQ CD I bought---used, at least---just so I could have Tori Amos singing "Little Drummer Boy" on my Christmas playlist.) Of course, downloadable MP3s have made this process easier. As has the fact that Sarah M. has a Christmas CD, and then there are the bits and pieces I've found on the Very Special Christmas anthologies, and there's the Barenaked Ladies CD, and I also love the Celtic Women (who don't really fit, but whatever: It's MY Christmas playlist!)

So when I discovered, completely by accident in Walmart, that Tori Amos has a Christmas CD, I purchased it without delay. Without even doing any sort of price comparison! It's been getting fairly heavy rotation since I bought it. I don't love every song on the CD (the song "Pink and Glitter" could not be more annoying to me; when Haley heard it---playing on the stereo in the kitchen---she said "what kind of a weird song is this?), but that's OK, because most of the songs are perfect. What draws me most to Tori Amos's music is her lyrics; she has a knack for an elegant metaphor, a skill at dropping obtuse references that makes me shiver a little bit (in a good way, as in, for example, "Don't Make Me Come to Vegas"---not, obviously, on the Christmas CD---which has this lyric: don't make me pull him out of your head/Athena will attest/that it could be done and yeah: happy shiver), and a way of stringing words together that makes me think we could be friends.

So I didn't really expect her Christmas CD to just be singing the same songs everyone else sings, and I was right. Most of the traditional carols she sings are reinterpreted. In "Star of Wonder," for example, the wisemen speak: "some say we have been in exile/What we need is solar fire." Or "Coventry Carol" (a carol I both love and detest, because it puts you right into the Herod's raging) which has a sort of pre-song introduction thing. What works with the songs is that they sound like a Christmas carol should sound. Except also with the Tori-Amos sound. The new songs (written by her) do, too. "Winter's Carol" is my favorite.

It is, like the rest of my Christmas music, happy making.

Just for fun, the rest of my listen-to-all-December list:

Wintersong by Sarah McLachlan (I love, love her version of "What Child is This?" and "River" and "First Noel" and...well, the entire CD)

Celtic Women (Especially The Carol of the Bells, which is my favorite carol ever)

Joy by Jewel (I think her version of "Joy to the World" is perfect)

and these individual, long-sought-for songs:
Winter Wonderland, Jason Mraz
New York Christmas, Rob Thomas
Little Drummer Boy, Tori Amos (NOT on the new CD...this was the hardest one to find, but worth it as it gives me chills)
Winter Wonderland, Eurythmics
The Coventry Carol, Allison Moyet (Again: chills, even more than the Tori version)
Christmas Day, Dido
I Saw Three Ships, Sting (although I wonder every time I sing along: didn't the writers of Olde English ballads know that Bethlehem is, ummm, landlocked?)
Children Go Where I Send Thee, Natalie Merchant
O Holy Night, Traci Chapman
Oi to the World, No Doubt (This is Kaleb's favorite Christmas song, which never fails to crack me up)
I Heard the Bells on Christmas Day, Sarah McLachlan (not on Wintersong)
God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen, Barenaked Ladies & Sarah M.
The Night Before Christmas, Carly Simon
Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas, The Pretenders

One of the perks of being a grown up is that I have forgiven my parents for their musical sins. Haley, I'm pretty certain, thinks that most of my music comes straight from the musical garbage heap, which I think is my bad juju for mocking Dad over his Country Christmas Allstars record. It's a good thing, listening to Christmas music your own way.

Now if I could just get over feeling guilty for failing to provide a constant stream of MoTab all December, all would be peaceful and bright.

What's on your Christmas playlist?

PS: writing about music is HARD. Unless you, the reader, has heard the song I am writing about, none of this matters. Must learn more about writing about music!
 

Fear of Writing

On the message board for my Gift of Words class, we've been having an interesting discussion about writing, and about how being afraid makes writing hard. I'd written a long post, and then my computer decided to do the wonky thing it's been doing lately (just randomly, at unpredictable moments when I'm online, popping up with that spinning blue O which usually means "just a second" but in this instant means "hope what you were working on wasn't important because it is LONG GONE. Have fun with the Task Manager") and yeah: I lost it all. Which, in a weird way, is good because it prompted this blog post, which I am writing it in WordPerfect (yes, of course: I still use it) and, you know, saving along the way. A post that doesn't answer any of my students' questions, really, but just expounds upon my writing opinions.

 

A good friend of mine, who recently discovered my blog (as I am not in the habit of just spurting out "hey, did you read my blog today?" because, well, I don't want to seem bloggily desperate), asked me how long it takes me to write my entries. Some things I am able to get down fairly quickly, but most of my entries take quite a while. The writing goes something like this: I write a sentence, and then my internal editor (IE: you know, the voice that criticizes whatever creative endeavor you're attempting) pipes up. That's the dumbest thing I've ever heard, he says, or could you be more obvious/redundant/boring/mawkish/inelegant? So I backspace, and rewrite the sentence, and get a few words into the next, and IE pipes up again. Wow. All those years of education have really paid off for you, because I'm certain that idea couldn't be less obvious. On it goes, backspacing and rewriting and trying to ignore the IE, who is just as insistent: that might offend someone, you can't say that because what if your mom reads it!, what a dumb idea, no wonder you've got a pile of rejection letters.

 

Probably your IE says something completely different than mine. The specifics aren't important. (Like, right now my IE is saying Amy! Why are you writing this? You are a writing nobody. Why would YOU try to write about writing? Who would want to read what you have to say?) The important thing is trying to get past the IE to write the thing you want to write. Only, how do you do that? Here is what I know: All that the IE does is mimic back your own creative fears. When we do creative stuff, it is a mixed blessing. That happiness of finishing something, of having written, spiked through with the hard work of the task and the fulfilled fear: not quite good enough. Fear of failure gives your IE sarcasm and venom and piercing comments, because they are your comments, built on your fears. Fear of the Grammar Police. Fear of failing. Fear that this time, there won't be any words. Fear that whatever iota of talent you think you might posses isn't really talent but empty conceit. Fear that you'll say the wrong thing in the wrong way: offend someone, hurt someone, or, maybe the worst: sound cheesy.

 

How you grapple with your IE is to write anyway. It is just, it is just like doing a back flip on the balance beam. You stand there with only leather and wood as your support—4 inches of width 4 feet from the ground, and hello: you're in a leotard! practically naked! And you take a deep breath, you wiggle a bit until your toes and your heels are in the exactly correct position, and then despite the voice screaming don't do this, are you crazy, you're going to break your neck, you can't do it, you're not strong enough, you throw yourself backward. You flip. Sometimes you miss the beam completely. Sometimes you hit it with your shin or your elbow or your cheekbone; sometimes it's only your ponytail that keeps you from breaking your neck.

 

But sometimes you stick it.

 

And it's so awesome to stick it, awesome in the literal sense, full of awe—to stand there, toes gripping the beam, and know: I just did this amazing thing with my body, and I want to do it again. Right now. Jubilation and exuberance and euphoria make you take a step forward, find the magic spot for your feet, but before you throw yourself backward into the air, you are consumed with fear again, the fear very nearly overpowers your previous glee. Almost. But there is a second, right before you flip, when you are filled with knowledge: the falling wide, the bruised hipbones, even the times you land it, none of that is the point. The trying—no, the doing—is the point, and it's that knowledge that pushes you off the beam into a flip.

 

Writing is a back flip. It's scary mostly because it exposes you: inner thoughts, inner feelings, inner fears. And because sometimes it hurts. And because maybe someone---your team mates, the coach, your mom who sacrificed everything to get you that coach—is watching, and what if they laugh? It's crazy, throwing yourself out there in words, letting the world in on your ideas. In a sense, your IE is only trying to protect you by reminding you of how terrifying what you're doing really is. The only cure is to write anyway. Write despite the voice telling you you can't.

 

And, of course, learn everything you can. (It's much easier to land that back flip if you do it knowing some technique: don't twist your hips at all, and the trajectory isn't straight up or straight back but a sort of angle, and swing your arms down then fling them back up again as you jump.) Take the fear-of-sounding-cheesy fear. How it plagues me! I don't want to sound like a Hallmark card. (Much as I love receiving Hallmark cards in the mail, mind you.) That is one thing I love about my favorite writer (Atwood, of course!): she does this thing where her writing is spare and lean, without any emotive words—no "love," no "sooooo much," no "very,"—but the words she does use, and the way she uses them, evoke an emotive response. So, to avoid writing cheesy, I read other writers with an eye to see how they do it. I read poems because I love them but also because they are concentrated bits of language, miniworks in evocation. I practice: I try to write about, say, being sad without ever using the word. Or any of its synonyms. I read about avoiding sentimentality in writing (avoid cliches and worn-out language, strive for figurative language, use concrete details—the shoveled pathway—instead of vague generalities—love him so much—evoke sensory connection). I try to be honest, because sentimentality is based on nothing but vaporous emotion, not truth. I try to feel things in my life partly so that people can feel things in my writing. Most of the time, of course, I fail; I land on the mat instead of the beam, or I get just close enough to crack my toes on the wood. Maybe (probably) this metaphor is one of those times. But sometimes I manage to stick it: write something that conveys an emotion without dripping cheese.

 

Study, and work; also thought, concentration, dedication (which I abundantly lack). Writing well takes all of that, even though we want it to be easy. Maybe everyone wishes they could do a back flip, but only a few people will get up early to train, and practice even with bruises, and sacrifice their social lives. The rest of us sit on the couch eating almond M&Ms while watching the Olympics. In my experience, there's no getting rid of the fear, no getting that annoying IE to just shut the hell up. There isn't an easy way. There is only doing it, or not doing it.

 

There's writing, and there's not writing.

 

And I hope you'll flip. I hope you'll take the deep breath and then fling yourself backward into the unknown with only a ponytail and some hope to keep you in the air. Because when you are flipping, when you are writing and you've kept writing even though it's not perfect or maybe even not good or really, even, bad, and you're writing anyway, you eventually get to this place, with both feet in the air: a sort of creative flying. When you get there, the IE is silent, everything is silent, everything but what you are writing. Keep writing! That is how you best the fear. Write anyway.

Making Happy #2: List-Style

A continuation of the things I am thinking about, the things that make me happy:

 

 

1. This ad for Levi Strauss. So much that it's the second time I've mentioned in on my blog. We debauch upon a new and mightier world, O Pioneers! I love it.

2. Snow, snow, and snow! Even though I had to drive in it this morning in my little car, which is like driving a soda can in the snow...spins at the tiniest provocation. Still, the peaceful, the-world-won't-end-this-year feeling that snow brings: I love it.

3. New haircut and color, and I got my eyebrows waxed. WHY do I wait so long between haircuts? (Not between the waxing though. What kind of a slacker do you think I am???) Haley got a haircut today, too.

4. Wearing my hiking boots to shovel snow in. Why didn't I think of that before? They don't slip at all, and they're warm.  Toss in a brand-new snow shovel (wheeeeee! We are big spenders at my house!) and I almost don't mind the fact that most of the shoveling this year will be done by moi. (Because of his surgery, Kendell can't lift more than five pounds for six more weeks.) (Boychildren, however, are being encouraged to help.) Honestly, once I am out shoveling I really like it. It's just those first, few, very cold moments.

5. Going through the bag of new Christmas decorations I forgot I bought last January at a 90%-off sale. Do you see that? 90% off! I got some cute things. Lucky I found them before Christmas is over, yes?

6. These little beauties:

I'm not Martha Stewart when it comes to frosting cookies (obviously!) but I do make a mean sugar cookie. The secret: almond extract in addition to vanilla. Gives them just a little edge in the yummy factor.

Plus, know what else I love about sugar cookies? I am usually so exhausted after staying up late to finish decorating them, I don't want to eat one until the next day. I have cookies, but I don't have a compulsion to eat them.

I will tomorrow. First, though, I am going to sleep while my counters look like this:

mostly because I think the mess looks so pretty!

Not a Snow Picnic,

but further proof of my general housewifery lameness:

Why does my back porch look like a snow picnic?

Well.

See that cute tin with the angels on it? I've owned that for about 15 years. It's good for a lot of things: a place to set the golden stuffed-bear angel on, a platform to pile gifts on under the tree on Christmas Eve, a storage for things during the rest of the year. Last year, as the previous year, I stored my Christmas plates and cups in it. I unloaded them from the dishwasher, and then dried them with a clean towel. Then I wrapped each item in a freshly-laundered Christmas dishtowel, and topped it all with a floppy reindeer for extra padding. Put the lid on, set the angel tin on the shelf, thought all was well.

But slowly, all year long, havoc was being wrecked inside the angel tin. For who-knows-what reason, mold was quietly growing on the contents. MOLD! I cannot figure out why. The dishes were clean. The towels were clean. Even the tin was clean.

Still, when I lifted the lid of the tin yesterday morning---the last Christmas stuff I had left to get out---I breathed in a lungful of mold. The towels---my favorite holiday towels---were coated with a layer of fluffy, delicate fuzz. And the dishes---the ones I could see after removing the only-slightly-moldy reindeer---had a dust of mold, too.

I put the lid back on very quickly.

Then I carried it out to the porch, set out the dishes so the wind could blow away the mold dust, piled the fuzzy towels and reindeer back into the fur-lined tin, and shut the door. Then it started snowing.

Of course, the tin and the towels and the reindeer will be thrown away. But I'm thinking the dishes are OK. I soaked them in bleach, and then I washed them with hot water, and I rinsed them again in boiling water. And then I ran them through the dishwasher.

But I'm still perplexed: how did all that mold grow? Dishes, tin, and towels were all dry and clean. I can't figure it out. So I'm chalking it up to yet-another Amy failure and moving on. This might, however, delay that housefrau-of-the-year award just a little bit.

You Know You're Overdue...

in washing socks when:

A. it takes 45 minutes to gather them all up (searching under beds and inside covers and in the back seats of cars)

and

B. there is room in your gynormous, extra-extra-extra large washing machine for socks and one bathroom towel.

Or maybe it's just a sign that we own too many socks? Of course, there are six of us, and all of my boys have fairly large feet.

At any rate, I am expecting my Housefrau of the Year award any. day. now.

Because It is Cold,

and dry, and cold, and the inversion is making everything grey, and the snow won't fall, and I'd like to revisit warm and humid and peaceful, a poem and a photo to go along with it:

I go down to the edge of the sea.

How everything shines in the morning light!

The cusp of the whelk,

the broken cupboard of the clam,

the opened, blue mussels,

moon snails, pale pink and barnacle scarred---

and nothing at all whole or shut, but tattered, split,

dropped by the gulls onto the gray rocks and all the moisture gone.

It's like a schoolhouse

of little words,

thousands of words.

First you figure out what each on means by itself,

the jingle, the periwinkle, the scallop full of moonlight.

 

Then you begin, slowly, to read the whole story.

 

~Mary Oliver ("Breakage")