Siccing the Praying Mantis on the pests...

We have several little baby praying mantises that live on our seedling table (although the plants are desperately in need of planting now, and not really seedlings anymore... we're desperately trying to get them all planted!) but Mom found some odd little bugs on her eggplants... so we transferred a little praying mantis to the eggplant. We wanted to watch, but apparently he was kinda scared of us, and wasn't doing any hunting, so we left for a few seconds, and when we came back, he was holding one of the small green bugs in his... arms? Forelegs? Claws? ... whatever. Yeah. Those. It was really neat.


Also... some sad and slightly embarrassing news for me. The dress that I was so excited about making is not turning out well. It has odd pokes and bumps in very unfortunate places. The material isn't the best for the pattern design... and it's probably something I did wrong too, although I don't know what. It is a pretty easy pattern (maybe they skimped on parts that could have been harder, while looking more classy and smooth, to make it easier) and it went together pretty quickly, so I'm still hoping to fix it... but I don't really need it any more, because I found 2 cute dresses at Goodwill yesterday!! And I'm trying out water-fasting, so hopefully I'll lose enough weight to wear a third cute dress that has been hanging in my closet...

I was going to post pictures of them, but it's amazing how pathetic they look hanging on coat hangers... if anyone actually wants to see them, you may submit your request, and when/if I lose weight/fix a few things for them, then I might post pictures of me wearing them. =D

And this is my first day of just water. Daddy had decided to do a water-fast and on the second day of his preparations, I decided to jump in. All I've ever done before was a one-day water fast, and that was mostly because I didn't have much time to eat. In preparation, Daddy did a day of regular eating, but with no meat. Then we did a day of only raw fruits and vegetables. I had fruit juice for breakfast, a large apple for lunch and a huge salad with celery, bell pepper, tomatoes, black olives and sprouts for supper. The third day of prep was just juice. Strangely, I was more hungry yesterday than I am today.

It has been a very interesting experience so far. I slept better than usual last night, and woke up feeling very refreshed (which is unusual) but I have felt very slightly weak. Nothing to keep me from doing what I usually do, though, except, of course, vigorous exercise, like swimming or running.

~Lizzie

Rainy days and sewing corners...

Today there was no 'making "hay" while the sun shone' because the sun did not shine... instead, I did some creativity indoors and FINALLY got started on my dress! After we went to see Star Trek at the movie theater... but that's a post for the review blog. Once I have time to mull over it a little.

And as I'm sure you all know, I could go on and on... about nothing much in particular. But instead, I'm going to end my little break and get back to my dress.

That's probably the shortest post I've ever done...

~Lizzie

I'm BACK!!

I know, I didn't announce that I was leaving. Nor am I going to oblige you with a lengthy and juicy account of all the busy-ness that has kept me from posting for the last month. Hint: it was mostly baseball... baseball game on top of baseball game... and if there wasn't a game, there was a practice. All that on top of everything else I'm doing was too much. But the tournament was May 7th-9th, and now that I've recovered from the team losing, here I am, with PATTERNS!

I splurged on patterns today. I decided about a month ago that I wanted to make a really nice summer dress, because I have two weddings to go to, and my 18th birthday is coming up, so I thought it'd be nice to have a dress to wear to all 3 occasions. (Shh, don't tell I'm wearing it more than once!)

So you might be wondering why I said "patterns" plural. If you are, congratulations on being observant. And thanks for not assuming that I accidentally added the 's'. I got patterns because I couldn't decide which one I wanted, they were all on sale anyway, and the store was getting ready to close, so I didn't have time to decide.

I got Simplicity 2965:


I like the one in red, only they're all kinda short, so when I ever get around to making it, I'll make it longer.

Simplicity 2917:


Either the short sleeve, or the sleeveless.

New Look 6589:


I like the style of the black one, but I've got a plain soft yellow in mind for it that I borrowed from Mom's stash...



It's between this one and the next dress for the dress I'm going to try to make in 2 and a half weeks!

Vogue 8470:

I really like the white one, but I'll probably make the skirt a little shorter, because otherwise it takes FIVE yards! Which I don't have in the pretty yellow material.

And I really liked the Vogue 8489, but they didn't have it:

I like the green, but if I ever get to make it, I want to make it with the accent trim like the tan and brown.

And you're probably overwhelmed with patterns already, but I also got two apron patterns.

McCall's Retro aprons:




And M5358:



For this one, I'm planning on making view C (the lime green at the bottom) but with the tie and pocket in this green checkered, and the main part in the brown. And I also want to add a ruffle in the checkered material.

I was going to go ahead and cut the apron, but I got distracted and did this blog post instead... and now it's late, so I should just go to bed. Hopefully I'll have some "finished apron" pictures eventually!

Oh, and I made the cinnamon rolls Abigail mentioned here for Mother's Day. My icing didn't turn out right, (probably because I didn't want to use our entire bag of powdered sugar... and I didn't have any coffee) but the funny little clumps of sugar didn't dissuade my family. And I thought they turned out okay... next time they'll be better, though.



~Lizzie

Spring break again!

And I was having an amazingly productive day cleaning the kitchen/dining room, but then, I was replacing floor protectors on our dining room chairs (which, for some reason, require hammering) and hit my thumb. I hit it from the top (don't ask how, I'm just excessively talented at injuring myself) bruised my thumb AND bent the fingernail backwards. So I immediately put an herbal salve on it and then tried to think of something I could do without using my left thumb. Typing was the only thing I could think of, so here is this more boring than usual blog post. And now I have nothing more to say... all my brain waves are in my thumb...

~Lizzie

Fragile dreams

All my life so far, I've looked forward to when I would finally get married and have children. It has always been my goal. Ever since I was around 10, I have planned nearly every aspect of my the life I want to have once I'm married: the kind of house I want (a cute little farm house with space for a vegetable garden and extreme amounts of flowers), the way my days will go, how many children we'll have and how we'll train our children. So far I think the only thing I left entirely up to God was the man.

It was only recently that it hit me: perhaps I am naively imagining an impossible dream. I'm just a silly girl, gazing starry-eyed into a romantic fantasy that's unmarred by reality. Eventually, my shiny, happy future will shatter like a delicate glass into 10 million pieces. The disillusionment will cast a gray hue over all my broken plans and my former hopes will be a bright mockery of the cold, hard truth.

Or maybe not. Isn't there a chance that God has planned a Godly man of character to marry me? Is it impossible for me to be a firm, but gentle, loving and disciplining mother? Am I not capable of making a lovely home for my family? Is it too much to ask that my girls have a meek and quiet spirit, with gentle feminity? That my boys be strong leaders, kind and loving to their sisters and show honesty, diligence and intelligence in everything they do? Should I not hope to one day have a joyful, loving family with obedient and thankful children, led by a hard-working spiritual man?

Could there be a lovely, simple life in my future?

~Lizzie

My latest obsession is finally settled...

So, just in case you didn't know, I had braces for 2 years and 5 months. I had REALLY crooked teeth. And just as an interesting trivia fact, I have no adult lower front first incisors. (Crazy long name, right?) The doctors were all VERY interested in my teeth. (They actually took pictures. That is never comforting...) When I finally got my braces off, the doctors told me, "Have a nice life... oh, and get your wisdom teeth out next summer." Well, "next" summer is now last summer, and I still haven't followed their orders. Fortunately, I only have 3 wisdom teeth. But they have decided to come in. I was hoping they'd just be a memory as little white blobs way down in my jaw on x-rays, but no such luck.

But then I happened to be looking over one of our herb remedy books (yeah, we're health nuts...) and noticed a calcium remedy. "Children with crowded teeth who must get wisdom teeth removed are deficient in Calcium." What?!? I'm deficient in Calcium? It's THAT easy? I went through 2 years and 5 months of braces for $5000 when all I needed was Calcium? *major sigh*

Now I'm taking Calcium. And hoping that at almost 18, I'm not too old for my jaw to get just a little bigger. But whatever happens, I'm NOT getting my wisdom teeth removed... *shudder*

~Lizzie

I survived April Fools...

I had a rubber spider placed on my shoulder (twice... I only screamed the first time) and a rubber snake (after the rubber spider, so I was not disturbed). Then when I got home, Sarah did the tape measure trick on me. Background: we once had a tape measure (you know, the yellow kind that roll up into a tape-measure-holder) that came out of its tape-measure-holder. If you roll it up, and place it under something heavy, it will stay in place until some unsuspecting victim picks up whatever is holding it in place. And then it will explode with a very startling noise. Sarah pinched it in the crack of the door (an amazing feat) leading to my room so that when Victoria and I got back, and pushed the door open to go into my room, it jumped at us. We screamed at exactly the same time.

And David tried a bunch of silly jokes ("Hey, Lizzie, it's raining! April Fools!" "Hey, Lizzie, Daddy's here! April Fools!")

I only participated in one joke, and it basically failed... tried to convince Allie that Jess was courting a guy (that Jess made up). No luck.

Oh, and here's an interesting quiz.



~Lizzie