Good bye chaos, hello New Year!

So, it's done - and I am exhausted but happy. My living room now looks like a living room, the dining room actually exists, the small bedroom on the second floor is houses our chokhang and the third floor now is a family room where T can watch tv or tool around on the laptop, r can play with his toys and bounce in his Jumperoo and I can sew all in the same space at the same time - amazing, I tell you! The only question remaining is why the hell did we wait so long?





It's hard to believe but it's almost a year since r was born. I barely remember life without him and by this I mean the good (in his semi-awake state at 11 pm, r looked up at me with a sleep-drunken smile, said "ma-ma" dissolved into a fit of giggles and fell back to sleep), the bad (on a Monday night, r wakes up and wants to play from 11 pm till 1:30 am - oh, mama was SO not happy about this!) and the ugly. Let's stop for a second to acknowledge that pre-baby if anyone had told me that I would be this interested in poop, yes, my friends POOP - how the mighty have fallen - I would have laughed them out of town and called the loony bin to let them know that another candidate was own their way over. How often, what colour, shape, consistency, odour and which direction - all of this has been observed discussed and fretted over. For the record, when I ate spinach, r pooped green. When he "ate" edamame, guess what? Poop polka-dotted with edamame, and let me not even get into what MetroDad - see blog list- eloquently calls TAE (total ass explosion). There was a stage when r shot poop up his back all the time. Infact it would shoot so far up his back that hair at the nape of his neck would be poop-stained! Now it just sits there in his diaper, smelly as all hell and ready to drop onto the floor if not wrapped up and diaper genie'd right away. Anyway, where was I? Oh, yeah, a year has passed and my boy is coming up on his first birthday! After a million discussions about should this be just the 4 of us (grandma is in town) or who should make the invitation list, what kind of food we should have, what kind of cake, etc. etc. We finally have a day and time, we're getting the food catered (hallelujah!) and the cake after much thought is going to be a 9" carrot cake with cream cheese icing accompanied by cupcakes made with love by yours truly. Which means I am going to put in a full day of baking - the house is going to smell so yummy! More to come!

Spring is in the air

Without fail, every time I have the urge to do two things - organize and craft - I know that Spring must be around the corner!

After a fair bit of thought and consideration, T and I decided that we need to adjust the layout of our furniture and reorganize the rooms in our house to maximize the use out of every room. So yesterday, while I was at work, T and his uncle did the back-breaking work of moving a couch, huge television plus stand and a queen size mattress set to the 3rd Floor, moved a set of bookshelves (which had to be taken apart!) to the ground floor and our chokhang (altar) to the second floor. Even typing this makes my back hurt. As a result, the house is in total and utter chaos. I am talking did-a-bomb-go-off-in-here, tornado-central style mess. The upside is that it gives us a firm push to purge (VHS tapes of old hindi movies anyone?) and organize with many rewards at the end. It may also give us the incentive to tackle that dungeon also known as our basement, which once upon a time, was an organized storage space.

The dream is a third floor we actually use together - a family room that houses the tv, my crafts corner that doubles as a bit of a home office, a play space for r that - a living and dining room where we eat as a family, away from the lure of the tv, a roomier kitchen and a proper mudroom/pantry. Let's see how it shakes out.

In the meanwhile, crafty thoughts are everywhere. Knitting and sewing projects abound! I am especially inspired by the crafty denizens of the blogosphere. I have discovered all kinds of free goodies (tutorials, wallpaper calendars, recipes) and I can't get enough! And now, I have discovered the Cynthia Rowley patterns from Simplicity. love, Love, LOVE!







I intend to order and try them. Even though it is so expensive to sew your own clothes (how crazy is that for a thought?), I love the idea and the process of it. Choosing the design, picking the fabric and the trim and then waiting for the final garment. This time in Nepal, I was able to do that for my chubas and honjus but to be able to do that for myself is the ultimate goal. Also, when I got home of Friday this was waiting for me.



A pattern that I ordered from Etsy for a wrap dress. This will be my next project after I am done with r's pj sets and I have just the mill-end bargain fabric in my stash for it! Speaking of the pj set, which consists of a pair of pajamas and a little kimono top, I should acknowledge that I got them both from tutorials off the web, so many thanks to habitual.wordpress.com and rookiemoms.com. So, the sooner I get organized, the sooner I can craft. On that note, I better get going.

What a difference a year makes!

So over the last weekend, I turned 33. Since it fell on a Saturday, r and I were able to enjoy the deliciousness of having a lie-in and just playing in bed.. peek-a-boo and sucking in air between his four relative new teeth and then blowing air being the games of choice. After a leisurely morning at home, T,r and I decided to go for a walk as it was so lovely outside, crisp and sunny.



At our local library, my book had arrived! The Little Black Dress: How to Make the Perfect One for You. Now, by no means do I have any delusions of grandeur with regards to my sewing skills but this book makes me believe that if I take the time and do the exercises, I too will be able to make a fabulous new LBD! Isn't that every true fashionista's dream after all? Another wonderful book to add to my wishlist of crafty books.



On the way back, we stopped off at Starbucks where T & I had some coffee and shared a red velvet cupcake in lieu of birthday cake - r had a small piece and was facinated... a new discovery for his palate. Yum!



After hitting Designer Fabrics for some bias tape for r's pj sets, dinner was an adults only affair. r was happy being looked after by my mother-in-law. The moon was huge as we walked towards Korea House. We enjoyed delicious Soondobu, Bulgogi and Soon Dae but suffered really poor service. First, they took over 20 mins to get our order. Then no refills on the tea and the water we asked for never surfaced. Then they brought our food but ran out of rice so we had to wait...again! Then they brought rice and 1 glass of water. They were having a really off day. The patrons at the next table over were really letting them have it! T and I did our best to be accomodating and high-tailed out of there.

The thing that struck me most about this birthday is how different it felt. For the first time, I felt like a true "grown-up". I realize now that in my mind, the word "grown-up" always equated parent, probably because they had the final say in decisions. What of course I didn't realize was that it also equated sacrifice. Even in making dinner plans, we went back and forth between take-out and actually having an evening out and all through dinner, we were talking about r. Not that this was a huge sacrifice but lets face it - life as we know it has changed. As we follow our bliss, we acknowledge how grateful we are for the blessings in our life, for those that love us and do our best to work out the tangles and navigate pot holes.

Happy February!