Pretty Frustrated (possibly part 1)

I need to rant.

Act 1
A little back story

One of my little sister's called me in 2005. The conversation went as following:
Sister: Guess what?

Me: What?
Sister: I'm pregnant.

Me: Go fall down some stairs.

Sister: What?
Me: Really, I'm not excited for you.

She was 17, and I knew she wasn't anywhere close to being ready to have a baby. I was right. Six months after delivering my niece she split. She ran off with a new boyfriend, leaving her baby behind with the father. Thankfully, the father has good sense and is a great dad to my niece.

Three and a half years pass with hardly any visits from my sister because she moved to Texas and then to New Jersey. At one point my mom paid the bus fare for my sister to come back because she said she was ready to grow up, and then in the middle of the night she up and left, back to New Jersey. No one even knew she was gone until a day or so later because she had told everyone she was staying at so and so's house.

Finally, she comes back home last summer, just before her daughter's 4th birthday. I'm glad to say that she stayed this time. She is trying to take care of her daughter, and has finally, just recently, earned the privilege of unsupervised visits. When she has a job she manages to pay portions of back child support, and all seems to be going well. For all of this, I'm really happy for her, and for my niece who didn't know what it was to have a mom before last summer.

Act 2

The Actual Rant

However... just because my sister is back in her daughter's life doesn't make her a mom per se. She only has visitation once, maybe twice, a month. I could be wrong, but I don't feel like this is really enough time to establish oneself as a mother-figure. She is trying though so I'll give her that. My frustration is when she says little remarks like the one she mentioned to me today.

Yesterday, I went over to her place where my niece was quickly visiting with her mom. I bought my niece this pack of bubbles and bubble wands. The wands come in all shapes, sizes, and means of bubble making, including a bubble pipe. When I picked up the pipe I said to my sister, who was distributing bubbles, "Load my pipe." I didn't think it was a big deal because after all, it is a pipe and it needed to be loaded with bubbles!

Oh no, though, I'd be wrong. Apparently, I'm teaching my niece bad values. My sister mentioned today that her boyfriend didn't think it was appropriate, and neither did she. Seriously? There are a couple things wrong with this in my opinion.

1. She and her boyfriend must have a guilty conscious about something because there is nothing wrong with saying "load my pipe" when it really is a pipe and we are loading it with bubbles. Besides a 5-year-old couldn't possibly misconstrue that to mean anything other than loading the bubble pipe unless they were taught something they shouldn't be taught, which wouldn't come from me. It is like saying "cut the cheese". A 10-year-old boy would think that is funny, his mom may think it a bit rude, but a 5-year-old would think it was actually about cutting cheese unless told otherwise.

2. She abandoned her daughter and she is really going to correct me on this? She barely saw her baby's first Christmas. She missed the first steps, she missed the first time she ate real food, she missed seeing the first teeth come in, she missed the first day of preschool etc. I find it really hard to think she really has the right to have an opinion about many things especially since she's been absent for the majority of her daughter's life.

I know I should let it go, and when my sister confronted me about it I did let it go. I apologized , and told her I was glad she didn't let the dissatisfaction turn into anger. The only problem with that is that now I've had time to think about it, and though I'm not completely angry I am pretty upset about it. I'm so frustrated with her, not just about this, but this isn't quite as petty as my complaint about her saying my apartment was dirty (on Sunday, my cleaning day) which is a completely different rant.

Please tell me, does anyone else have a sister like this? What do you about it? I'm over-reacting aren't I? There has got to be a better way of dealing with this besides keeping it to myself because its not nice to upset my sister. (Yeah, I'm not worried about her reading this. She doesn't care to follow the things I do unless it directly benefits her.)

CVS Plan starting 9/10

CVS Plan

These items are on sale with the use of your extra care card. When you use your card you are also qualified to get extra care buck (ecb) specials which are advertised in the sales ad. There is a little trick too that I found out this month… This week’s ad is in effect through 5pm Saturday and next week’s add goes into effect 4pm Saturday. So you have a 1-hour window where you can shop and get all the sales for both weeks, which is sometimes helpful, like when you have to spend so much over time to get gift card specials. You can see both of their ads on their website. Cvs.com

#1 Saturday, October 10^th

2 Izze four-packs = $6

Total = $6

+ $1 ecb for next trip

#2 Sunday, October 11^th

3 Charmin 16-pack = $29.97

- $5 off $25 coupon

- $1 ecb from trans. #1

Total = $23.97

+ $10 ecb for next purchase

#3 Sunday, October 11^th

7 Finish 20-pack (dishwasher detergent) = $20.93

- 5 coupons (.75/1 pack) (total of $5.25 in coupons)

- $10 ecb from trans. #2

Total = $5.68

+ $10 ecb for next purchase

#4 Sometime next week after I get the coupons I ordered

5 Dawn liquid dish soap = $4.95

- 5 coupons (.50/1) ( total of 2.50 in coupons) = $2.45

6 Xtra laundry detergent = $8.94

- $10 ecb from trans. #3

Total = $1.39

Grand Total = $37.04

2 Izze (4-pack)

3 Charmin (16-pack)

7 Finish (20-pack)

5 Dawn dish soap

6 Xtra laundry detergent

If I purchased these items without coupons or sales the total would be $117.67, so this is a 66% savings.

Craft and Heartsy

So I finally received the I-top tool that I was anxious to get after going to market. I was so excited to receive it about two weeks ago that I thought I was going to make all the bobby pins by the end of that first weekend. I was sadly mistaken. Instead I've only finished 4 or 5 sets. I really am starting to hate not having enough time for everything. There is so much I want to get done, but its like I get caught up on one thing then another project falls behind. Its getting really frustrating.

In other news, I know I've mentioned my new found obsession with Heartsy, but I'm not sure people are understanding how awesome it is. It is like the Groupon of Etsy! The necklace, pictured above, was one of the latest deals. I was able to get this one and one for my mom (with all of her kid's names on it) for the awesomely reasonable price of $8. So it makes me feel a bit cheap, but I took care of my mom's birthday gift without breaking a sweat or the bank! Yeah, I've already given it to her because there are only a couple people I know who appreciate a deal almost as much as I do, and she is one of them.

P.S. This is a draft that I made on July 9th! I forgot to finish it! However, nothing much has changed about it except now I've made about 3 more sets of bobby pins and the rest of the backings I ordered for the i-top tool came in. They are resting nicely in a bag next to my desk at work!

New Cooking

In the realm of the kitchen I've made a couple new dishes.

The first one was completely new to me because I've never cooked tilapia before. It was so easy. I just put this garlic lemon spice baked it until until the fish was nice and flaky. The squash was really interesting with that lemon combination on it, in a good way of course!

The second new to me recipe was the Chicken Parmesan from the Betty Crocker cook book. It was super easy to make. I was missing a couple key ingredients; the tomato sauce and the "proper" pasta. No sweat though, just make due with what you have so I used pizza sauce and lasagna pasta broken up into pieces. It was really good, and it only took about 35 minutes including prep time. I did learn that I should probably start cooking 3 or 4 chicken breast instead of just 2 because Josh ate his and half of mine.

I'm going to add these two new entrees to our menu list for sure, and now I'm even more inspired to use my cookbook. Do you have a favorite recipe or cookbook?

Striped Strips!

New Fabric? Um yes! The two print fabrics are Alexander Henry, and the solid is a Free Spirit piece. Aren't they delicious? In case you haven't had the chance to see the Free Spirit solid colors yourself let me tell you that they are absolutely wonderful. They are a great quality, an affordable price, and they come in the most interesting colors. It is kind of difficult to explain the colors that are available. Of course they are normal colors like pink, green, blue, etc. its just the hues are slightly "off" compared to the average solids so they are really fun and original.

Anyway, I was making a baby blanket sample that required 2 different yards of fabric and then about 3 yards in different sized trims. Instead of going through the hassle of picking out different ribbons I decided to use the Alexander Henry stripe fabric and just cut it up into different sizes (folding the raw edges to the underneath inside).

I really like how it turned out. I think it was a lot easier, less time consuming, and it worked just as well because the stripes are different enough.

There is a baby bag that goes with this, but I still don't have a good picture of it. I will post it along with pattern information as soon as I have it all put together at SewFlakes. The pattern is super easy, cute, and all together it only took about 2 hours to make, and about an hour to run to the store, 10 minutes away, to get what I forgot. *laughs*

B.A.zaar!!!

I've finally decided on a name for Broken Arrow's Main Street craft fair on October 22nd. We will call it the B.A.zaar!!

I'm pretty excited about it. The vendor applications have been sent to those who attended the craft party on June 10th (that I have email addresses for), and some other local Etsy shop owners who also expressed interest. If you are interested in booth space during the craft fair please let me know by emailing talesofanewhousewife (at) gmail (dot) com. Right now booth spaces will be $35-$45 depending on the placement, but the prices will go up after July 31st.

I'm also very excited that Renee with GreenerMe is designing the graphic/logo for the event! She is a local artist, and she has done the logos for Make Tulsa and IndieEmporium. How cool is that?!

The goal is to have a flyer finished and ready for PDF and paper distribution by the beginning of next week. Also I will be publicly announcing the B.A.zaar as an event on Facebook so we can all start inviting our friends to vend and/or shop at the event.

Also, if anyone knows of any non-profit crafting groups/organizations that might want to be present during the fair please contact me because I'm hoping to have spaces reserved for community groups.

Own worst enemy sometimes.....

I've been thinking about doing a pattern for my tote bag for a while now. I started working on it tonight. I was half way through the assembly and picture taking when I realized that I messed up the dimensions. I'm almost to the point of giving up on this because I've made around 5 tote bags and none of them are the same size and all of them start with the same amount of fabric. *face palm*

I'm not really worried about it though. I think I will be able to get it together the next time because I finally visualized the math formula involved. The trick now will be to articulate it so other people can make their own adjustments.

In other news, I was going to clean up the craft closet a little bit this evening, but I was immediately distracted. ("Squirrel!") Look at this Nicey Jane fabric! I've been wanting this fabric for so long and while at market I was able to get two kits made up of fat sixths pieces. I'm not sure that it is the entire line, but it is still a good portion! Isn't it beautiful? I don't care if it isn't the newest line because I still love it. Now I just have to decide what to do with it.

This is how I'm my own worst enemy. I have about a billion things to do, and here I am looking at fabric, dreaming up the perfect use for it. If I was independently wealthy I would spend my days making pretty things. Sometimes it is frustrating how much I divide my time up. There is so much I want to accomplish, but not enough time. I suppose that sometimes ideas are the burden of a genius. *hahaha* Really though, how irritating it is to have so much ambitious without enough time to do everything...stupid responsibilities like work get in my way.

Tonight I'm going to step back from it all, and make a list per suggestion of a great friend of mine. I'll order it, and then start knocking things out tomorrow evening.