Small Victories

Phew!

I did not know that being pregnant gives you headaches. Before I was pregnant I never got headaches very often. I’ve never had a migraine and when I did get a headache (which was like, once a year), I would usually just pop an advil (only one!), drink a huge glass of water and within a half an hour, poof! it’s gone! But NOT ANY MORE!!!

Eye Ca-rumba! What is going on with my head? It’s not like I’m getting migraines so I really don’t mean to complain but this headache business is for the birds. I guess it’s because now I have twice as much blood in my body so the baby can grow properly. And I guess all that extra blood means gums bleeding and runny noses and… headaches! Thankfully I’m not having any bloody noses or gums. But headaches on the other hand… yikes. I get two a day!

Yesterday I was sewing! (Ha! Has the nesting syndrome already begun?) I’m finally getting around to sewing those receiving blankets out of flannel. I bought a lot of flannel and most of it is not for me. I’m thinking of giving blankets to a few of my friends who are having babies at the same time. I hear they are very useful.

Well, here’s the story on me sewing. I don’t really know how. I usually just draw pictures and pick out the fabric and notions and then say, “Here Mom.” But as you know my mom is busy playing chief babysitter to my two wild Tasmanian devil nieces so there is no sewing going on this summer with my mom. I’ve sewed receiving blankets before. It’s pretty much a straight seam and with the cool little “beginner’s” sewing machine I have, it goes pretty slow. You can hold the petal to the metal and the machine doesn’t really go any faster than chuga-chuga-chuga. Which is good for morons like me who stare at the needle and end up making a weaving seam like a drunk driving a car. So I can sew straight lines moderately well. I get better with each pass.

What gets me is the corners. I used to just fold them over straight and make my stitches go right off the edge. The blankets are functional but never really a work of art. If they were in a store you’d call them “seconds” or “thirds” or just plain a waste of fabric. But to me, they’re fine. Babies don’t care about a little bunchiness on the corners.

Yesterday I decided I wanted to make sophisticated corners. I tried all kinds of origami folding and cutting and by the second blanket I had it reasonably worked out. But still it wasn’t perfect. By then I had a raging headache too but that didn’t stop me. I called my mom, but she was on the phone (like she always is these days, probably moderating some sort of discipline method with my brother and his kids over the phone) and that left the internet. I LOVE THE INTERNET!!!! You can learn how to sew by typing in “how to sew corners on a blanket” into google and you’ll get results like this and ever better this with pictures!!!!! The internet is wonderful. Now I know the how to make “mitered corners”. I’m so accomplished! I was so proud of myself. After I finished one more blanket with “mitered corners” I let myself go lay down on my bed and tried to mentally wish the pounding to go away.

But the story doesn’t really end there. Really this sewing business isn’t the story at all. But you know me, I gotta work to my subject the most round about way. The main story is Toby got the squeeze from one of his big big big clients. Pretty much a client that makes sure there’s a roof over our heads. This client wanted a big meeting with Toby on Monday at 4pm and that meant Toby had to work like a chicken with his head cut off through the whole weekend. So while I’m cussing and swearing and back tacking and ripping out seams, Toby is sweating bullets in his office getting ready for his big meeting.

When Toby came home from the big powered meeting, I had finally taught myself how to sew mitered corners. I was so proud of myself. I couldn’t wait to show him my new masterpieces. But Toby had a grin from ear to ear and you know what that means, the meeting went well. That meant his big big main client did not fire him like we were worried AND it looks like we have another year’s contract worked out. That means we can keep the roof over our heads and possibly start looking for a real one on a real house that we could actually own sometime this year… or maybe the next. Anyway, it was fantastic news. And my stupid mitered corners seemed like… well nothing.

Thankfully I have a very sweet husband and when he saw that I was trying to show him my nifty new blankets and I was really really proud of them, he pretended to admire them and told me I did a great job. Which is a load of crap because Toby is the king of perfectionism and he won’t even buy a shirt from Banana Republic if the seams aren’t perfect. My seams are far from perfect. So we celebrated our great victories by eating my homemade lasagna (which is perfect by the way) and watching The Closer on television. I love that show. Could it be because the main character’s name is Brenda? Anyway, eventually my headache went away.