Caroline In Grad School

On Tuesday, while I was in AZ, I received an email from the coordinator of the program I applied to.  It began:

I’m writing with good news to let you know that you have been recommended for admission to the University of Iowa Higher Education & Student Affairs M.A. program (Administration-Policy track). 

My college GPA is half of what my high school GPA is.  I am nervous and I have no idea how I am going to handle working full-time, being a mom, and going to school part-time.  Am I crazy?  Will I lose my mind?  Do I really need to sleep?  Will I be neglecting Lucy?

I don't know the answers to these questions, but I do know that I am going to kick grad school's ass and {finally} make myself proud of me.

Caroline in Arizona (T minus 8 hours)

Packing is stressful, which is why I put it off to the last minute. Putting it off amplifies the stressfulness of packing. Vicious cycle.

Time to get the heck outta Dodge!

Three people, two bags. I hate baggage rules. 

Caroline in Arizona (T Minus 1 Day)

No words needed.

Caroline in Arizona (T-minus 3 Days)

As a massive winter storm rolls in, I begin my countdown to Arizona.  I don't know which excites me more - to see my family and friends whom I haven't seen in two years, or to get the hell out of the frigid, miserable Midwest.

This is the radar as of about 1 pm today.  The "s" on the end of Des Moines is where we are at and we are expecting 3-5 inches of snow.

Here is the radar for Phoenix.

I. Can't. Wait. For. The. Sun.

Quotable: Queen Lucy

Lu:  I'm a princess.  And a queen.  Daddy's a king.

Daddy:  What is Mommy?

Lu:  A kitty cat.

I Take Zoloft (and that is okay)

I recently read an article a friend had posted on Facebook about depression and the academic world.

You can read the article here:  On Depression, and the Toll Academia Exacts

I am not in graduate school (though I will hopefully be starting sometime in the next year). But this isn't what hit home to me. The girl who wrote the article shared so many feelings that I relate to. And it got me thinking- how many other people feel the way I do?

You see, I'm not the sort of depressed where I can't get out of bed in the morning.
And I'm not the sort of depressed where I have to take crazy mood altering medication just to function at a reasonable level.
Nor am I the sort of depressed where I've ever considered taking my own life or needed a trip to the psych ward.

No, I'm just the sort of depressed where sometimes I have to choke back the unexpected sobs before they break free. Sobs whose origins I don't always understand and that go as quickly as they come. The type of depressed where I have to bury the things that bother me deep inside a vault so that I don't act like an irrational woman on a daily basis.  The type of depressed where I can tell when I haven't taken my anti-depressant that day because relatively benign things start bothering me.  The type of depressed that stress exacerbates.

And a Midwest winter doesn't help one bit.

Despite the times, people still don't seem to want to talk about depression.  Anti-depressants are the main stream, yet no one wants to admit they need them.  I can't tell you the exact reason I need them, because I don't think there is one.  I do think genetics plays a major part in whether or not someone will be depressed at some point.  And there is no shame in it.

Truthfully, I am not ashamed of who or what I am.  I try to make light of my depression, but I don't hide it.  I take my "happy pills" on a daily basis and, whenever someone I know brings up depression and/or anti-depressants, I am very frank and open about how these things have affected me.  I am not pro "putting everyone on drugs because they are sad", but if someone can truly benefit from medical intervention, I don't see the harm or shame.

I can't help but feel that so many men and women have to feel similarly.  I am not unique or special - just your average woman who is trying to be the best wife/mother/employee/person she can.  Maybe people feel that talking about depression will just come off as whining or complaining.  Maybe people who aren't depressed do feel this way when someone brings it up.

But I don't feel that way.  And you can always come talk to me.

Three Year Check-Up

I took Lulu in for her three year check-up yesterday.  Her current stats:

Height:  3'1" (45th percentile)
Weight:  29 pounds (50th percentile)

Just your ordinary little girl with an extraordinary personality.  We were also instructed to start talking about stranger danger and appropriate vs. inappropriate touching.  I am pretty sure I just stared at the doctor with a deer-in-the-headlights gaze for a minute.  Then the nausea set in.

Being a parent is the most frightening thing I've ever done; I just didn't fully realize it until yesterday.

I Painted a Dresser

It has been awhile.  Nothing much to report on the family front.  We made it through the frigid spring and it is finally HOT outside.  I love it.  I feel so much more motivated when I don't have to bundle up and be miserable outside.  Not that I ever go outside unless I have to.

I made something pretty and thought I would share.  We have these ugly old dressers in our bedroom that I bought at UI Surplus when I first moved here.  They lived through many years of dorm room torture and, needless to say, are not in the best shape, aesthetically anyway.  They are decent as far as dressers go.  Not falling apart.  Hold clothes.

But they are ugly.  Here is one of them (ignore the massive pile of laundry):

The tops are scratched to hell.

We've been using these for, oh... seven plus years.  Since beautiful matching bedroom furniture will not be in our budget until Lucy is a rich, successful doctor who buys it for us, I thought it was time to finally do something about them.  Staining was out of the question.  I was not going to put in the effort to completely strip the dressers to their bare wood.  Besides, paint is so much more fun.  So I sanded it down just to smooth it out.

Sanding with a palm sander makes life so much easier.  It's kind of fun until you have to clean it up.  Speaking of which, mine is still sitting out on the back porch waiting for me to clean it up.

The came time for a trip to the home improvement store.  We needed to buy some replacement wood for our front porch steps (that is Cory's project) and Lowe's is much more "needing to get stuff cut" friendly, so we headed north instead of going up the street to Menard's.  Of course, choosing paint color is the worst thing ever.  Hundreds of shades of every color imaginable.  I had to narrow it down before we got there.  My bedroom walls are a blue gray color.  The color is pretty enough, but also pretty limiting on color coordination - I didn't want a boring brown, black or gray.

So I needed inspiration.  And what is better for inspiration then the holy grail of DIY - Pinterest!  Those of you who are my Pinterest friends know that I pin way too much.  All of the time.  And one pin that I really loved was this one:

The color is perfect.  It is happy, and cheerful, not remotely boring, but it also isn't too overwhelming.  I had to recreate it.

I should have taken a photo of the 700 different shades of yellow Lowe's had to offer.  After staring at them for about 20 minutes, Cory and I managed to narrow it down to this chip:

It is on the National Historic Register of approved colors to paint your house if you live in a historical neighborhood, so I thought I couldn't go wrong.  As I found out when we went through the check-out, apparently choosing a color on the National Historic Register of approved colors to paint your house if you live in a historical neighborhood means the chip is special.  And special paint chips can only be made with special bases.  Special bases that cost $35 a gallon.  Shit, I wish I had asked how much that paint was going to cost before getting it mixed.  Well, on the plus side, my ghetto dressers are going to shine, damnit!

So I primed (Josie helped).

I used one coat of primer on the base of the dresser and ended up needing two coats of paint, so I used two coats on primer on the drawers, thinking I would only need one coat of paint.  Nope, still needed two.

Once the primer dried, it was time for the fun part - color!  I love opening a brand new can of paint.  I am nuts and absolutely love painting walls.  The fumes over the years have probably warped my brain.

I was a little worried at first about the color after the first coat.  Did I like it?  I wasn't sure.  Also, I learned that painting outside sucks when it is hot.  The paint was drying too quickly and my second coat wasn't going on smoothly at all.  I moved inside to paint the drawers.  Temperature control is the best.

So after some more painting, drying, and re-installation of hardware (I kept the original hardware because I sort of liked it and it didn't cost me more to reuse it), I had my finished dresser:

And you know what?  I LOVE IT!  The color looks great with the blue walls, and it just has this brand new shininess to it.  A million times better than what it was for the last 7+ years.  Lucy even likes it.  In fact, she likes it so much that she kissed it.  She was probably just happy that I was finished and she got her mommy back.

I still have to paint the other dresser, but it shouldn't take too long.  After both are painted, I am going to have about 9/10ths of a gallon of yellow semi-gloss left.  At $35, this stuff isn't going to be wasted.  I have the feeling yellow is going to be popping up a lot in my house over the next few months.

Progress

I stumbled across a website with cute patterns for beginning sewing, and I fell in love with this pattern:

Really Cute Pattern

For $6.00, I thought - heck, I will give it a try.  So I gave it a try.  And I'm sort of proud of it.  I'm afraid that Lucy was not as willing a model as the little girl in the photo.  I asked her to pose for me, and this is what I got:

Apparently asking Lucy to take a photo is a HUGE punishment.  

It turned out amazingly well.  The pattern was so easy to follow - so much better than buying those flimsy tissue paper patterns at JoAnn's.  You know, the one's where you accidentally cut on the wrong line and end up with a really cute skirt that really doesn't fit?  Yeah, those.

I'm not crazy about the pink fabric, but it was the only fabric I had on hand that I had enough of.  I didn't want to buy something until I knew I would end up with a decent finished product.  I love the little ruffle sleeves.

The back is really cute too - no zipper (thank goodness!).  Just some loops and buttons.

It's a little big on her right now, but by summer it should fit great and look cute with little sandals.  I bought some blue fabric that I like so much more today for Round #2.  We will see how that goes!

Sew Tired

I decided to give sewing from a pattern another try - but this time I was determined I would be a good girl and actually do what the pattern told me to do instead of taking short cuts.  Two evenings later, I have completed a skirt.

First, let's recap all of the mistakes I made:

1.  Using chevron stripes.  How the hell are you supposed to match up chevron stripes??  If anyone out there knows how to do this, you are a wizard.

2.  Cutting the fabric in a size that is too small to fit yo' lard ass.  In my defense, I did what was proper - I measured around myself in all the places the pattern told me to.  I looked at the incredibly tiny and confusing chart and determined the correct size.  I pinned all of the pattern pieces to the fabric in the proper way.  And then I started cutting.  The biggest, most visible piece.  The piece that consumed approximately 50% of my fabric.  And I started cutting it a size smaller than I needed.

At that point, I decided I could either start crying or just go with it and hope I measured wrong.  (I didn't measure wrong.)

3.  Zipper installation.  I tried going by the directions in the pattern, but I could not figure out what the heck they were trying to get me to do.  After ripping out a bunch of thread, I decided to go with the technique I use for pillows.  It never looks good on the pillows (and it doesn't look good on my skirt).

4.  Stretching the fabric too much while sewing the waistband.  Yeah, when you do that you end up with too much fabric.  And then you have to figure out what to do with that fabric.  In the above photo, to the left of the zipper, you can see where I just said screw it and sewed over the extra fabric, creating an ugly bubbly mess.


However, I did make my first item with pockets, and it is just adorable with them.  I also made a yoke for the first time, and learned a way to finish my edges without a serger.  I also successfully gathered for the first time.  So the experience wasn't a total loss.

So there you have it.  I am now the proud owner of a decently cute gray and white chevron striped skirt that I am too fat to wear.