family – Something About Stephanie

My Body was Telling Me Something

Every ache and every pain was my body communicating with me. It was saying don’t sleep that way or run like that. My body was saying stretch more and hydrate better.

My sister once advised me that my hair would tell me what it liked when I decided to start my natural hair journey. Like, wear my curls. My hair responded to different products in different ways. Some products made my hair feel soft and my curls pop. Other products made my hair feel dry and brittle. Trial and error was short lived.

I gave up land animals eight years ago. One of the first things I noticed after I stopped eating meat was my body odor. Lol, I can’t believe I’m sharing this but it’s true. I didn’t smell the same. I smelled better. My musk wasn’t musty anymore. It was a mild odor. Barely there.

I stopped eating potato chips. They made my legs swell. My steps felt heavy and I love to walk. The swelling affected that. It was from the salt and processed flavoring. I went to the doctor about the swelling and was prescribed water pills. I never took them.

I felt inclined to lean in more to the cause of the problem. Took inventory on what I ate. I don’t consider myself a terrible eater. I eat plenty of vegetables and drink tons of water. So it didn’t take me long to realize what the causes were. It turns out that anytime I need to figure out what is going on with me, the process of elimination leads me to the culprit.

I gave up candy. The sugar caused my whole body to swell. My face and hands especially. Not having sugar after a day gave me terrible headaches for a couple days. My body went through withdrawal because of sugar. I thought I was overreacting but once I hadn’t had sweets for a few days, the headaches were gone and I noticed that I didn’t wake up swollen.

I ate candy for Halloween this year and I woke up feeling bad. The swelling was back. It only reinforced the fact that I’ll continue to stay away from candy.

Tortilla chips constipate me. I do eat them every now and then. I love chips and salsa so I have to enjoy it sparingly.

Ice cream is another one. Can’t have it. Ice cream causes violent stomach pains and terrible gas. Nice cream is a wonderful replacement. I want to learn how to make it myself. There’s so many chemicals in the none dairy ice creams. I want to cut the chemicals out.

There are other things but I’ve shared enough for now.

So many of our problems can be solved if we stopped and paid attention to ourselves. So, slow down and look within.

Until next time, take care of yourself!

Adult Halloween is the Next Wave

I don’t know about your neighborhood but ours was pretty empty of trick-a-treaters! I mean there’s never been this overwhelming amount of children in my neighborhood but this year was pretty much DEAD!

I propose we turn it PG-Adult! We set up tables with mini appetizers and mocktails. We dress up and parade our streets with music and a good time.

I’m a mom. The kiddos are getting older and what will we do?! Let Halloween go, hell no!

Let’s refocus our efforts to adults! Make it a block party. Maybe some folks do this already maybe not. Something has to change though. The kids are far and few between now a days and the magic of Halloween cannot die.

So who’s with me, let’s keep imagination alive

Until next time. Take care of yourself

SEW, WHATS BEEN GOING ON?!

Happy New Year! I’ve been getting me together. 2024 was a year of growth. Can you guess that I learned to sew!

The completed construction of my 1st pants

Sewing was something I desired to learn for a long time. Initially I thought I needed a special machine for left-handed people. I found out that didn’t matter.

My husband gifted me a sewing machine the Christmas of 2023 and it sat for a few months while I tried to find in-person classes.

YouTube University was not that helpful. I had to watch too many videos from different people to kinda get close to what I needed to learn and no matter how much I tried the bobbin didn’t set right. The frustration could’ve blown my head off.

I found a sewing machine shop online, close enough to me and took my machine there to get a little help. The associate showed me how to do it lickity split. I needed to get instructions from a real person. This shop did not offer classes. Not even Joann’s offered classes anymore. Covid was the culprit. The correction was so simple. I was over thinking it and the resolve opened up a whole new world for me.

Knowing how to set the bobbin, I started playing around with stitches. Seeing how straight I could keep my lines.

Sewing is so practical. A skill that I can use for pleasure and necessity. To practice more sewing without knowing much more, I began mending my kiddo’s bath towels and wash clothes. Some of the ends had unraveled on perfectly good towels. The refresh made them look new again.

The towels inspired me to do another refresh. This time with our dirty laundry thingy. All three bags had molded in the bottoms and along the top where we set the wet clothes. I tried washing them before and to no avail, the mold did not come out. I decided to change the material to something I could wash in the laundry just the same. Walmart sells pre-cut material in various colors and styles, from one yard to four. I picked some up and attempted to make my first bag!

It turned out okay. Definitely gave me confidence to keep going. I wish I had a better picture of how I attached the fold over flap on the laundry thingy. Lol, the Velcro slid off the first time we hung a wet cloth over it. Not to mention, I broke two needles attempting to sew the Velcro down. The amount of safety pins I lined the flap with was ridiculous. By the end of the 2024 I remade them all. I even learned how to add buttons.

Midsummer, I started sewing classes! I’m learning from a well-seasoned dress maker too. She’s sewn for 50 years. Becoming a student again has its own set of challenges and I’m grateful for my growth.

The first project was to make a bag. I made the bag for my son. He carried his cooking club supplies in it. I showed him how to construct an apron too. We used a one-size-fits-all pattern and added some details.

In-person classes made following YouTube University much easier. The apron was a way to familiarize myself with working with a pattern and also introduce sewing to my children. Again, sewing is a necessity if you ask me and they will learn it early.

I made bathing suit bottoms! I needed a silver suit for a coordinated event and the bottoms that came with the suit did not fit my Big Ol booty. I decided to try my hand at crafting some and they turned out pretty good. I lined the inside and used non-roll elastic to keep the bottoms in place. Look at the match-up. Can’t tell the difference.

My pink pants are the finished second project from class. I chose a simple enough pattern with some detailing like the pinched line down the front of the legs. I’m so proud of this accomplishment.

The pattern was not my size. Sizing can be tricky because you don’t go by the size you wear from a store. You have to take your own measurements and pick be sure to pick the proper size in your pattern. This was pattern number two for me. I returned 5 patterns from this mishap; they were all too small. From this, I made holiday pants for my family! Look at those pockets.

I added the drawstrings and did the pinched line. Used different pattered fabric to achieve this look. Snowmen and mittens go together like peanut butter and jelly. The girls got that and the guys’ combination was gingerbread men and plaid.

Lol the pants were so big on the kids. I did mismatch panels on their pants and went with mismatch legs on the parents. Christmas was good. I love my family, and I can’t wait to share my next project with you!

Thanks for reading.

Take Care of Yourself

Cow That Bench.

I sometimes have visual ideas. I have so many ideas popping into my head all day long, I wish I could just record my internal thoughts like a DVR in real time and come back to them when I need to. Some of my ideas stick and most of them just leave my big, beautiful brain and I miss them, lol. So, for the ones that stick, I’ve begun to recreate them in a physical way.

One of my great ideas was to create a bench for my bedroom. We have a king-sized bed and there was a time when all four of us, myself, husband and two children, could fit in the bed comfortably. We evolved into a time when the kiddos had to go to the foot of the bed as a way to spread out and now, we’ve moved into a space where the kids are just too big to even be on the bed at the same time.

The bench needed to be a good size, stylish and cozy. I got inspired by an image of loafers. They just looked so good. What caught my eye were the fine hairs and splotchy spots. Beautiful browns and creamy cream. The soles of the loafers were the cherry on top of that Sunday, super structured, hard bottoms. I also peruse Etsy, often and I stumbled upon these really cool furniture legs. They made me thing, bubbles. We have a lot of clean lines throughout our home and it’s just time to switch things up. Its giving texture, its giving standalone piece that looks good in its place. I love it so much.

I took a trip to a leather goods store and found a spectacular cow hide similar to my muse. I ordered my legs and got down to business. I reached out to a local upholsterer and expressed my vision because I had never worked with leather and was a bit intimidated by the material. Side note, I mentioned making a tote bag in another post. I took the leftover material from the hide and made the tote out of that. I actually love working with leather more than any other material I’ve worked with and I plan to do more with it. I had a great experience with Jose but future projects I’ll be doing myself, for now. Jose did make my custom piece exactly the way I wanted it and I’m truly grateful for his expertise. The cushion came out perfect.

In my drawing the border had these lines and I needed to make it make sense in real life. So, to the hardware store I went. I found these thin, square, two ft long wooden sticks and I cut them down to just about in inch and a half, pieces that I then glued to the face of my precut plywood base of the bench. I eyeballed the spacing to give my hand crafted piece the imperfect look I’m always going for because what is perfect!? I then sanded, attached the legs and stained the base added the cushion and vwala, isn’t she pretty!?

I’m working on my picture taking skills. Believe me this is an improvement. I executed my vision superbly.

Stay tuned for more 🙂

You’re a Good Mother… Yikes

I don’t take compliments well. Being told I was a good mother has to be one I’ve heard a lot, and it would make me cringe. What was a good mother? I’ve accumulated parenting styles from all the mothers in my life from childhood through adulthood and became a compilation of them. Mostly the best parts, :). I must say that I have pretty incredible children. Both of them are kind, funny, smart and uniquely themselves. I am proud of the people they are becoming but I didn’t know what made me such a good mother. What measured those acts?

Some people said it because of how neat they looked or how well-mannered they were. Some people said it because my children were in a lot of extracurricular activities and made good grades. I hated to hear it. I just set out to make my children whole and the qualifications of a “Good Mother” seemed mediocre at best.

I want/wanted my children to do, well, everything! I didn’t get to do much of anything as a child. No sports. Not much hanging out with friends or even going outside. I also had no real grasp on parenting. I struggled with emotional intelligence, fifteen-year-old me is alive and well at times. I struggled with what I set out to do or the idea of a thing verses the reality of being in the trenches of everyday life, not knowing what the heck I was doing. All while trying to become a whole person myself.

I’ve apologized to my kiddos so much for the countless mistakes I’ve made as the person responsible for keeping them alive until they can do it themselves. I advocate for them. I love on them. I give constructive criticism. I celebrate them and their achievements. I listen. I inform.

I don’t photograph everything we do but what physical evidence I do have of them, is seemingly happy. Only time will tell if the most impactful job I’ll ever have will pay off in one form or another. Until then, I’ll continue to parent them to the best of my ability. I still don’t know about the good mother compliment, I do try to be a good human every day though.

Regular Steph

Daily writing prompt

What was the best compliment you’ve received?

View all responses