Crappity Crap Tax Stimulus Rebates

Apparently, in order to get a direct deposit stimulus rebate, you must balance on the head of an circus elephant wearing a tutu (the elephant not you), while you do high kicks while holding a top hat, as it prances around the room. Now remember if filing jointly, you and your husband and if you have children -- ALL of you must do this on the same elephant at the same time. Otherwise, you're getting a paper check. Yep, I just read it over in the "am I getting a stimulus rebate" at the IRS. It's a new rule they just added.

Sheesh, it is amazing the US government can even function. So I went to TurboTax after checking the bank only to learn on TurboTax that if you had your tax refund direct deposited --- BUT it was split into more than 1 account...you get the freakin' check this summer. That's what I get for putting most of it into savings.

Not that I was depending on it because I had an odd suspicion that the government would f*ck something up. I was planning to use it for homeschooling books and supplies, so this summer is ok too, but I would really like to just give the government a big kick in the butt for their complete ineptness. According to the SS#'s we get ours on June 20 -- though I'm not holding my breath.

If you filed with TurboTax and would like to view their long list of questions to see if yours is screwed - here is the link

On a great note though - I just got off the phone with Lowe's and my carpet is IN! Yay!! That's almost 2 weeks early, so next week I get some lovely plushy carpet installed. All thanks to my wonderful mother. Oh boy, I think I need to get an awesome mother's day present for her. Hmmm....

A nursing apron top coming soon and all you ever wanted to know about nipples

So I've had a sudden ton of requests for the nursing version of an apron top. I'll create the tutorial this weekend and have it ready next week. It's very easy to make in an afternoon.

This is the same style of apron top that is backless just to warn you. I personally have been blessed with boobage that requires wearing an over the shoulder boulder holder at all waking hours but those of you who can get away with backless, braless this is a fun quick little top -- and I am envious of you. I never dreamed a day would come I would want a smaller chest, but breastfeeding makes you want weird things -- like little boobs yet with giant nipples for instance, for easy latch on.

It wasn't til I had nursing problems with my first baby that I learned I had flat nipples which meant she was essentially trying to latch onto a wet balloon. Not fun for either one of us - we both cried. Thankfully her successful years of nursing lead to me getting regular ol' nipples and not a single nursing problem with baby #2. Nursing babies can cure flat nipples because they are flat from adhesions under the nipple holding it flat, once the nursing baby sucks frequently, it breaks those adhesions so it becomes a normal nipple. (yeah I know TMI...but to educate the masses on flat nipples and breastfeeding is my mission in life).

Ok...so back to the nursing apron top....You'll need 2 1/2 yds of fabric or 1 yd for lining and piece the top from scraps, and 2 buttons or snaps. I prefer snaps, but I have a heavy duty industrial snap press from my cloth diaper biz days still in my garage on my hubby's workbench. If you have a serger that will make it go faster, but just a sewing machine is fine too.

Howdy peoples!

So...I know long time since I updated. But I've busted by rear and I'm almost done with school. Yippee!! I've been really busy finishing that and it has been dance competition season so we've been out of town going to dance competitions for weekends and now this weekend is the dance recital.

Oh and I redid my pink hair with even more hightlights. I love, love, love it! My hairstylist got a permanent pink dye and it looks great, it's been a week now and no fading. yay! I think I'm brave enough to post a pic tonight.

I'm working on my big 200th post goodies. I have them, just need to make them cute and presentable and photographed for a contest or 2 to win them. So look for the contests next week as this week with rehearsals and recital is too busy.

And to add some sewing fun...here is an adorable little tutorial for sock monkeys. Really cute and you can make them out of just about any kind of sock, not just a red heeled one.

As soon as this stupid school stuff is ovah, I'm going to be a mad sewing woman. I'm changing our lives. I've been listening to Dave Ramsey way too much and we are getting out of debt. I'm not a christian so I kinda throw that stuff out the window, but the rest of it sounds pretty good.

Oh yeah....our debt had an additional $5000 added to it and it is the reason why life is mostly upside down lately. About 3 weeks ago, sewage water...yes SEWAGE started seeping into the carpet along one wall of our family room and along the same wall in Miss Em's room. So the plumber comes and the main drain pipe under the house has collapsed and is seeping through the foundation. So they have to create a totally new drain and the choice is to go around the house instead of through it jackhammering up the foundation. Our yard still has a giant tunnel from one side to the other and they are still not finished because of all the rain we've had lately. And part of this new drain involves our washing machine, so we've had no washing machine for weeks now. So twice a week I get to drive across town to the scary laundromat...the fun part is homeless drug addicts come in and want to fold your clothes for money. It's like those window washing guys that just come up to your car and start doing it, yep, I have these crazy homeless people that pick up clothes and start folding. Not to mention that worker lady that locked my 4 yr old son IN the store when my husband was loading laundry baskets in the car. LOCKED HIM IN!! My husband had to bang on the door to get her to unlock it.

Oh the other fun thing lately is my diarrhea dog. My sweet little black labrador ate a 2 lb uncooked roast I was defrosting on the counter and then 1/2 of a gourmet dark chocolate bar. I freaked, we called the vet and made her throw up with hydrogen peroxide and then she had diarrhea all over the house for days. She's been on a diarrhea diet -- she loves it with baked potatoes and eggs and yogurt, lol - for a few days and is finally better. The highlight of my days has been running outside in the rain to check her poop consistency - fun.

Needless to say between the sewage and diarrhea dog, we are getting new carpet in 2 weeks. It's been ordered and we're just waiting for delivery and installation. My wonderful dear sweet mother is paying for it after we spent everything on the plumber. Someone needs to canonize her. And she got me the top of the line stuff! How cool is that? I can't wait to get it. But I'm covering it with rugs to prevent diarrhea dog and my children from destroying it.

Well gotta finish working, i'll be back later to post a pic of my pink hair.

Heroes and Jason Mraz

Back from the dance competition. Em had fun, no solos this time, so she was relaxed. Next week is the big state competition.

I have to catch up on some work tonight, and then tomorrow I'm planning on doing some crafting and writing up a new tutorial. I can't wait!

I just love Jason Mraz's music. I can't really put into words, it's very mellow, silly, and cute, I guess. Em loves Geek in the Pink, and we've been listening to him since The Remedy off of My Rocket to Come, but I just got his new EP off iTunes a couple weeks ago, it's all live and has 4 songs. It's called We Sing. Apparently he's releasing this album in parts. The final one will be in May called We Sing We Dance We Steal Things.

This is -- I think -- my favorite song off of it. Wouldn't you love this song to be about you?


This is my 2nd fave called I'm Yours. It's the actual video for the song.


And I'm adding this video because I wanna watch it again later. I love Heroes and it's my favorite song too!

And this is super attack dog

Meet Roxy. She's my "little" shadow, follows me everywhere I go. She's the extra large version of a large black lab (as in way, way, way, way over 100 pounds of love in this puppy). She's 7 yrs old this year. She is the biggest baby when it comes to thunderstorms. She has a serious addiction to Spaghetti O's -- like will climb the walls to steal an open can out off the stove or out of the trash addiction. And she thinks she's my super attack dog. A few weeks ago, the kids and I were in the backyard playing, and a lady down the street who has a black lab (who can impressively walk down the street without a leash unlike my run away dog ) came by our house and walked over to the fence to ask me about Roxy and how old she was, etc. Well my sweet old doggie decided she wasn't going to allow that woman anywhere near me. She started growling and barking and foaming at the mouth at this lady. But she loved the lady's black lab. I'm not sure why, but she only does this me, not with my husband, not with my kids. Crazy dog, but I love her.

So I'm slowly putting up costumes on eBay from my daughter's massive collection of dance/skate costumes. So...I have some scheduled to go live late tonight. Here is the direct link - though nothing will show up til late tonight because they are scheduled to start around 10 PM CST tonight - Click Here

I'm super busy and will probably be a slacker in the coming weeks with my blog. My goal is to graduate from my at home school program by the end of May and I think I can do it if I do nothing but work, sleep and school work. Plus, Em has 2 dance competitions and recital in the next 4 weeks. So...I have a lot on my plate.

But...I'm only 2 posts away from the big #200, and I'm getting some goodies ready to giveaway for the celebration. Stay tuned next week for the big give! Yippee!!

Odds and Ends

This is a quickie little post mainly for me so I can find these tutorials again.

Very Cool Flower Pin Tutorial - I gotta come back to that later.

Binding the top of a purse Tutorial

I've got 3 projects going on at once right now. One is a new bag pattern for my pattern collection and 2 will be tutorials. Sit tight and they'll be up soon.

I finally found my camera cord so I can upload pics to this computer, so I will be putting more pics up soon. But finally Fry's called and my other computer is ready. It has been missing since January, and it has all the cool bells and whistles and the memory stick slot on it. I figured they lost it and I was going to join that woman suing Best Buy for $3 million for losing her computer, but alas, they returned it to me. Yippee!! It had all my drawings for my patterns and my artwork. I was starting to worrying I was going to have to redo them all.

And to update on my YMCA debacle with the wrong swimming class as I know everyone has been waiting on the edge of their seat. I went there after I dropped the kids off yesterday and amazingly the same clerk was working and recognized me and told me she had just called my house to let me know everything was fixed and he is now in the right class. So Yay for the YMCA!! Everybody now...."it's fun to stay at the Y-M-C-A" Sigh....fun times at the skating rink in 1988 dancing to that song.

I just finished another book. It's called The Abstinence Teacher by Tom Perrotta. It's about a small town sex ed teacher who is forced to teach abstinence. Mainly it is about the bullying by a church in the community who wants to force their christian ways on everyone, and one member of the church's struggle with this and how it involves this sex ed teacher. I looked long and hard for a used copy of this book, but could never find one so I ended up paying $25 bucks for it because I wanted to read it badly. It was strangely compelling to read, but after I read it, I was disappointed and I was like "huh". The book is called The Abstinence Teacher yet she is only in about half the book. It was a good book with suspense, but in the end I was disappointed because it just didn't climax very well. It could also be because I live in the Bible Belt and hate when christians frequently force their religion on everyone and was rooting for the abstience teacher to tell them to screw off but in the end she just didn't care anymore.