A Vintage Sewing Pattern Give-Away

So, I have these vintage sewing patterns. I posted a mention over at Leahpeah's blog, and Leah said she's interested in a couple of the Vogue patterns. Then Andrea emailed me and said she was interested... so I took pictures of the rest of them and offered them to her. And she's claimed a couple. The rest are up for grabs.

They will be mailed to you at no charge. I do not want payment. I think they are only worth a couple of dollars and mostly I want to make sure they go to someone who will use them.
I would ask that in return, you send a photo of the finished product you create....

This one is one of my favorites.
I imagined myself wearing this dress dashing around the streets of Paris....
on my way to an important meeting.
To meet an important man.
And I look stunning.
In reality, I wandered Paris with my sister.
I mostly wore jeans.
And instead of a sassy scarf,
I wore a backpack
slung over my shoulder.
Tres chic. Quelle fromage!




This one gal in the gray pantsuit her leg kicked,
flicked. Out to the side,
displays a certain joi d'vivre.
I picture myself wearing the
white fringed pantsuit. (far right)
It MUST
be
polyester.

Where's the party?


So I'm offering them here to you, dear readers. If you'd like to claim one or more, Contact Me. First come, first served.

You can see all the vintage sewing pattern photos at Flickr. I've noted "Claimed by..." in the photo description.

Did I choose purple or did purple choose me?

I just discovered this purple women group, and realized I am in fact purple myself, evidenced by my last post. The work is one I created in 2001.

And now I have a definition for what purple is... and it appears I fit the bill, having no children.

Growing up I always assumed that I would marry and have children. Afterall, isn't this what little girls do? grow up, get married, and have children.

I've always believed that having children, raising children, is a huge responsibility. One that should not be taken lightly. It's a responsibility I believe is better to undertake with a partner.
So, at this point, even if I am fortunate enough to find a nice boy to settle down with, I'm thinking bio-babies are out of the question.

And I'm ok with that. I never had a yearning for babies. And lord knows there's plenty of other people out there who have the emotional tools to become great parents.

I am Purple

Sometimes a little red
full of passion
Sometimes a little blue
sad and serious
The color of the early night sky
or fresh and fun like posies and plums
A symbol of royalty
of ceremony
I am sometimes powerful
I am Purple.

How to Cut a Perfect Heart

Valentine's Day, like every holiday, was a big deal in my house growing up. I have fond memories of my Mom, decorating the house with paper hearts and flowers, and making a special meal (which somehow involved red food dye?)

I even remember very clearly Mom teaching me how to cut out a perfect heart, folding in half diagonally a square of red or pink construction paper, and cutting the outside edge in a swoop, then unfolding to reveal a perfectly symetrical heart.

Now, especially since I am single, Valentine's Day is not quite so much fun. It's the one day of the year when you (I) feel particularly pathetic without a mate. But don't feel too sorry for me. I did get two Valentines so far. From my aunt and uncle-- they send silly ones every year and this year was no exception, plastic cupids included. And I got a Valentine from my roommate, who is of course going out on a hot date tonight. Oh, and my sister wants to take me out for dinner. But not tonight because she'll be in L.A. for a gyrotonic training session.

And if I get totally desparate, there's always Neil's Emergency Valentine Day Hotline over at Citizen of the Month.

And if I start to feel really sorry for myself, there is always V-Day, a global movement to stop violence against women and girls.

And finally, I can thank god (or would that be gods?) that I don't live in ancient Rome and am neither a goat nor a dog on February 15 for the festival of Lupercalia, which is the origin of the conveniently calendared christian St. Valentine's Day

[Lupercalia ] began with the sacrifice by the Luperci (or the flamen dialis) of two male goats and a dog. Next two patrician young Luperci were led to the altar, to be anointed on their foreheads with the sacrificial blood, which was wiped off the bloody knife with wool soaked in milk, after which they were expected to smile and laugh [NOT SURE I'D BE LAUGHING WITH BLOOD DRIPPING DOWN MY FACE] ; the smearing of the forehead with blood probably refers to human sacrifice originally practised at the festival.

The sacrificial feast followed, after which the Luperci cut thongs from the skins of the victims, which were called Februa, dressed themselves in the skins of the sacrificed goats, in imitation of Lupercus, and ran round the walls of the old Palatine city, the line of which was marked with stones, with the thongs in their hands in two bands, striking the people who crowded near. Girls and young women would line up on their route to receive lashes from these whips. This was supposed to ensure fertility, prevent sterility in women and ease the pains of childbirth. This tradition itself may survive (Christianised, and shifted to Spring) in certain ritual Easter Monday
whippings.

And speaking of St. Valentine... did you know there really is not a St. Valentine, but rather that St. Valentine may refer to one or all of three martys that showed up in the history books around the same time that the Pope outlawed public pagan rituals. Hmm.

So, Happy Valentine's Day, V-Day or Lupercalia, or whatever you may be celebrating.

San Diego Blogger Awards

Doing my duty here as a responsible citizen of the blogosphere, and a little shameless plug for myself and my own little blog:

SanDiegoBloggers.com is requesting nominees for the San Diego
Blogger Awards - Blogs to Watch in 2007.....

..... [Email] ..... blogs [at] sandiegobloggers.com with the category and URL of the blog you nominate. Any additional notes or insight into why you nominate each blog
would be greatly appreciated.

The site says on February 28th, 2007 the nominees will be posted and finalists chosen, so I'm not sure what the deadline is for nominations....

Anyway, if you want to nominate me, go ahead. And if it will persuade at all, you might be interested to know that the only thing I've ever won is a kite flying contest in the second grade. I had the most beautiful kite. It was made of pink gift wrapping paper and my mom helped me cut out flowers made of yellow, white and blue tissue paper to glue to the front of it. Unfortunately it only flew for just one moment. One glorious moment before it came crashing down to earth, suffering structural damage that could not be repaired in the field... sigh...

Complete info the San Diego Blogger awards can be found on the SanDiegoBloggers website. I'm thinkng my category would be Personal Blogs and Writing. I wish it were Travel and Adventure, but I have not been doing much of that lately... maybe next year.

Gyro Debby

My sister got her Gyrotonic tower purchased, and set up at The Pilates Place in Encintas. It looks like some sort of ancient torture device, with all those straps and weights, but its actually pretty gentle, and a nice workout. I got my first Gyrotonic session last night.

I'm a little sore today... and I feel like you feel after a good yoga class or a massage, where the lactic acid and toxins that were trapped in your joints are released, which is good, but I should have been drinking water to flush them out of my system.... next time. And a lot of the little muscles in my sides and abdomen are, well, lets just say I can feel them. I know they are there. Like they jumped out and said, "hello! you have some muscles here!"

BY the way, this is neither the studio where my sister is teaching nor the exact machine she uses for teaching (though it is my sister as the gyro model in the picture here)

Cough Cough Gasp Gasp

I still want a cigarette. I quit last Friday. Mostly. I've had a couple since I quit. Oh well. I'm doing fairly well all things considered. Is there ever a good time to quit?

Last month we (my sister and I) finally got my Dad's condo on the market... it took a long time to clean it out, and then we fixed it up a little, which of course cost more and took longer than we had planned... but we got it on the market. Our first offer after a week on the market was for 30K under the asking price. AND they wanted us to pay closing costs. What the buyer didn't know is that we were not desparate. Yet. So we waited. And yes, gone are the days of homes on the market for 2 days and bidding wars, and such, but a month later we got another offer.

Today we accepted the offer for our Dad's condo. For the asking price, except they want us to pay 5K towards closing costs. So, instead of waiting longer, paying another real estate tax bill, and more HOA fees that are outrageous ($540 / month) we accepted the offer. So keep your fingers crossed for us. We need to be done with this. Get the IRS off our backs, settle my Dad's estate and be done. And yes, it feels good, but also, it made us sad today. So we cried.

And I wanted to go smoke. Even though many of my Dad's health problems were directly related to his smoking, I wanted to smoke. How sick is that?

Very Zen Amanda

OK, I know some of my readers (one of the three of you out there-- Hi Uncle Bill!) probably think I am all hip and savvy about this blog thing, like I'm in the know, but the truth, I am pretty clueless. Well at least oblivious to the behind the scenes emailing and cyberstalking and ugly commenting that goes on. Those people don't read my blog. Thank god. I suppose if my blog were more popular I might get some of that. Or not. Who knows why people do the things they do.

I met Amanda, Just Amanda, of Very Zen last July at Blogher. I didn't really know she was one of those quazi-popular bloggers... she just seemed like a nice gal, and I checked out her blog and she has a quick wit and a heck of singing voice, so I dropped in on occassion. Well, apparently she's had enough.

So... So long Just Amanda. Wishing you well....