Sterling plays the drums...ummm pots and pans

Video of Sterling playing the pots and pans. He is really good at it...at least I think so. He has never had any lesson or even seen anybody else play the drums so all of this is just what comes to him. It amazes me how he set these pots and pans up in a certain way and how he knows to hit on different parts of each pan to make a different sound.
He played on and on for hours a day. I know some people would cringe at the thought of a kid banging on pots and pans for hours a day. I welcomed it and actually encouraged it. I think it is great that he enjoys this.
I plan to get him a drum set. I promised him one for his birthday, a few months ago, and he knows as soon as we find a used set on craigslist or somewhere else that we can find for a good deal.
Sterling has liked drumming on stuff since he was little. He would tap on stuff and bang on things. The oddest thing was that about a year ago all of a sudden he just stopped banging and tapping on things. I asked him about it and he just did not want to do it anymore. This lasted about 6 months and then all of a sudden he woke up one morning and starting tapping and drumming on stuff again as if he had never stopped.
He seems to like all sorts of musical instruments and switches around from one to the other. His current favorite besides the drums is a harmonica for now.

Another purse

I have been in the mood to sew purses...I have one cut out now and will sew it and take pics of it tomorrow. 2 days ago I made this purse from the switch it up pattern from THAT DARN KAT. I liked the looks of it from the pattern but after it was sewn up I did not really care for how flat it was. I generally make the bottom of my purses squared so I cut the bottom of the purse and squared the corners and sewed them up. It gave it a bit of a better look to me. I think the reason it looks off to me is that the proportion of length to width is different then what I usually sew. I do love the shape of the way it curves though and the way I can adjust the handle. This was one of the easiest patterns to sew. It went together different then any purse I have ever sewn but the directions were good and it ended up being really easy and I could probably sew another one in an hour or so.
I love the way the purse crosses along the top and I think that next time I will add some sort of embellishment to that part of the purse, maybe a cute ribbon closure or something similar.
Oh, the purse also is reversible.

3 months...

3 months...that is how long I wait until my next appt with my psych dr. This may not seem like a big deal but for me it is a pretty big step. For almost 5 years that I have been seeing the psychiatrist I have never made it to the point that I was well enough to go 3 months without seeing him. When I first started seeing him I saw him 1 time a week until I got on a regular dose of a medication. Then I saw him every 2 weeks and then every month. Once the medicine would stop working and I had to change meds or if I had a set back I would go back to seeing him every week and then every 2 weeks etc. So far in all 5 years I have not made it to where I could go for 3 months. The furthest I made it to was seeing him every 8 weeks and that only lasted for 2 or 3 appts and then I had to change meds and start over. So....to see him every 3 months means that the medication is working and that I am doing good. Of course I worry that I will have a set back or that my medicine will stop working like it has in the past. So far though my medicine combo is working well for me and not terrible with side effects. One of the worst side effects I have ( besides weight gain) is strange dreams. I never realized that could be a side effect from these meds but according to my doctor is can be. The best way to describe the dreams I have is that they are anxiety dreams. They are dreams about stuff that I would normally become anxious over. Things that I worry about or that I fear could happen. I wake up and am usually pretty good at being able to just tell myself it was a dream and that it is ok but there are times that it takes me awhile to calm back down.
Fathers day is coming up...it will be my first fathers day without having a father. It is still hard to believe that he is not here....the one thing that makes it seem better is to know that my dad is not in pain anymore and that he is not being held back by a body that does not work.

Made another purse

Ok..this one did not turn out exactly how I would like it. This style is not my kind of style but I made it for my daughter. I love this fabric and this is the perfect size to just carry a few things. I need a much larger sized bag though. I like to carry lots of junk with me lol.
I found this pattern here http://sewmamasew.com/blog2/?p=794 It is easy and quick to sew up. The one thing I messed up on is the interfacing for the handles. It calls for lightweight but I did not think that it would matter much if I used something stiffer so I used fusible fleece( I like fusible fleece much better then interfacing because it is so much easier to get ironed onto the fabric without making wrinkles and stuff) the fusible fleece made the handles really way to stiff. I would for sure make sure to use a lightweight interfacing next time. I also would put a magnetic style snap on the top and would probably sew up the sides a bit higher.
I still think it turned out cute and not bad for my first time trying this pattern.

fruit salad...

Sterling and I decided to make some fruit salad ( well, actually just cut up fruit because we did not add anything other then fresh fruit). We put mangos, nectarines, cantelope, red grapes, and strawberries. Turned out very yummy and we have enough of the fruit left to cut up more and make another bag of fruit salad tomorrow.

A few crochet washcloths

Here are a few crochet washcloths I have made over the past few days. I made some more but they have already been used. I made the pink one for kim and made her a few others. The green one is for Sterling but he informed me he wants the next one green and blue striped. The varigated yellow and white are for my bathroom and I already have a few in my bathroom that I made the other day. I love these to wash my face with. I am going to make some for the kitchen also. I have a big laundry basket full of cotton yarn that I would love to use up and this sounds like the perfect way to do so.

Weds 6/03/09

Well, it is still the 3rd of june technically but it is about 10 minutes before midnight so nearly the next day already.
I had a better day today then yesterday. I slept better last night and so felt better. Ray had to work and so it was just the boys and me. Heather came over this afternoon and stayed for a few hours. She brought a few books for the boys that they just love. They had the 1st book in the diary of a wimpy kid but she got them book 2 and book 3. She also got them each a drawing book and she got Curtis the 2009 world records of video games and Sterling a really cute explorer guide.
This morning Sterling wanted to study sun dials online so we looked at a few. He really wanted to make one but he wanted to make a big one outside with rocks and stuff so that will have to wait for Ray to be home to do that with him. BUT, we made a small one, more or less a replica. It turned out really cute and Sterling had so much fun just playing around with it. He understands that it is not really the way one would work and he is looking forward to making a real one tomorrow with Ray. I think it is so awesome the way Sterling just wants to learn all different things. I love that we do not have to follow a schools schedule and adhere to what all the other kids are doing and we can just do our own thing.
Curtis played with his Gromitis today( some sort of action figure) and he played some video games online against some friends. BOth of the boys went swimming. After they swam they came in the house and lounged on the bed for awhile reading their new books. I am so happy that they both love books.
Here is some pictures of Sterlings sun dial





It is hard to tell by the pictures but there are small drawings and marks on the sun dial that Sterling made.

June 2, 2009

I had plans to get some sewing done and some organizing done. I had wanted to try to take the boys to a bowling and movie get together with some others from the homeschool group. What did I end up doing instead??? NOTHING. Yep, NOTHING. I have felt icky all day. My pain level is bad and I have been way tired. I think maybe I just have not rested enough the past few days. Last night I went to bed about 1am. I tossed and turned until I finally got out of bed at 2am. I got up and sat on the couch for a bit with the dogs and watched a bit of tv and then finally felt tired enough to go back to bed. I climbed back in bed about 3am and fell asleep right away...woke up at 7am because Sterling woke up and I could hear him in the kitchen trying to get a bowl of cereal but the milk was new and he could not get the sealed lid off of it. SO, part of why I am so tired is because I did not actually really sleep last night. I did take a nap today from about 10am until 1PM or so...which of course the Kids and Ray think that I got a huge long nap and should be wide awake but I still am tired. I could probably sleep a few more hours. I also have not had an appetite today. I had some coke and am now drinking a cherry limeade that Ray picked up from Sonic.
I have gotten NOTHING done today. I can not believe it is almost 5pm and I have not even gotten dressed or done one thing.
Hopefully I will get a good night sleep tonight so I feel better tomorrow.

A Year of CrockPotting: CrockPot Cowboy Stew Recipe

A Year of CrockPotting: CrockPot Cowboy Stew Recipe
This is my favorite recipe from the entire year of crockpotting site. We all love it and there is plenty for dinner and then lunch and dinner the next night. I put the potatoes in whole from the can but then when I serve it I cut them up a bit with a fork so we can get a bit in each bite. We do not use the hot peppers because I am not a fan of something so spicy but this still has a fair amount of spice to it from the ro-tel tomatoes. We have varied the type of beans we use, we have used chili beans, pinto beans, kidney beans and use more then what the recipe calls for. I have passed the recipe on to a few people and they all have loved this also.
I love how easy it is, basically just dumping cans. I also love how I can change it up a bit by adding a few things differently.

crockpot chicken and dumplings

I have been trying to use my crockpot at least 2 times a week. It has been great to have a plan of what to make and then have it all ready to eat by dinner time. 99% of the time there is some sort of leftovers. When we make a roast in the crockpot I love to make soup the following day with the leftovers. Sterling calls the leftover soup fridge soup because we look through the fridge to find what sort of veggies are in there. A week or so ago him and I came up with our best batch of fridge soup ever. We used left over beef roast and we added carrots, onion, a variety of canned tomatos, can of corn, beef boullion, a can of beans and then Sterling's secret ingrediant 2 cans of V-8 juice. We added a few other seasonings. It turned out really good. Basically we just add stuff as we feel like it and it is NEVER the same once.
One of my favorite crock pot recipe sites is a year of crockpotting. The blogger decided to cook something in her crockpot every single day for a full year.
We have tried probably 10 or so of her recipes and have loved them all....all except for the crockpot chicken and dumplings.
Here is the recipe http://crockpot365.blogspot.com/2008/12/crockpot-chicken-and-dumplings-soup.html
I followed the recipe and used canned cream of mushroom soup and canned biscuits ( instead of the alternate recipe for homemade cream soup and homemade biscuits). It smelled so good while cooking. I had high hopes for this. It tasted pretty good as I sampled a bit or two. I added the biscuits the last hour or so of cooking. They did get a bit brown and looked done. When I served it into bowls it looked great. It did not taste good. I think it was the biscuits or something that ruined it. I think they just added to strong of a taste and not only were they on top but the flavor of them soaked into the entire pot of food so we could not just take the biscuits off. This was actually quite a bit soupier then any other chicken and dumplings I have ever had.
I may try again making this again but instead of putting the biscuits on top I may even put the chicken stuff into a pie pan and put a pie crust on it because this reminded me a lot of the filling of a pot pie.
I will post some of the other recipes that we have tried and loved from this site. ( Our favorite is the cowboy stew...we have made it 4 or 5 times)
I know this picture looks icky...it was taken before I added the biscuits