when you feel like you have no words....

We don't have cable anymore, so Heath and I spent the afternoon on our respective i-devices keeping up with the Boston bombing news on Twitter.  After spending an afternoon in disbelief, I sit here full of emotions and thoughts, and no idea how exactly I feel.  I wasn't looking at pictures of a city I'd never been to, or a city I've only seen in movies or visited as a tourist.  I was seeing pictures of sidewalks I've walked on many times, stores we shop in regularly, and a city I've come to love.  We Christmas shopped in the 'marathon sports' store.  Boston has always been Heath's favorite city, and I have fallen in love with it more and more each time we visit, which is quite frequently.  We had a friend with her family there today supporting a sibling in the race, and we thankfully heard of their safety early on.  The pictures and videos were eery and all too familiar, the first time a tragedy like this has felt very close to home, and the first time I know that I will eventually walk on those same sidewalks, buy wine glasses at that Crate and Barrel, and I know the memories of today will linger there.

It's days like this that make me hug my husband extra long, call my parents twice, and cherish every snuggle my cat gives me.  Many have been posting on social media sites about how watching the reaction of the crowd gives them hope, and I share that sentiment.  It's amazing to see that in the face of tragedy so many are willing to run towards the danger with hopes of saving others.  Hug your loved ones tight tonight, and remember that you don't need to wait for a tragedy to care for and lend a hand to strangers.

holiday craft time.

Christmas this year gave me a chance to dust off the ol' sewing machine and get my craft on.  I learned to sew back in the days of 4-H, and while I've never been one for perfection or exact technique, I can find my way around a sewing project.  After a couple of brainstorming sessions, and one evening of arguing over the proportion of a stick figure's head to his arm, our homemade Christmas gift ideas were born.

Portal is a video game which allows the player to solve puzzles by using two portals.  What goes in one portal comes out the other, wherever it is placed.  I'm not sure where the idea came from, but we decided the iconic (to the nerdier population at least) orange and blue circles would make for a pretty mean set of couch pillows.  I guess a sign of a good sewing project is when you want to keep the finished product for yourself, but alas, these got wrapped up and given to Heath's sister.

The next big holiday craft project on the list came in the form of my first ever quilted blanket.  My brother is a huge NY Giants fan, and lives in a small apartment with his wife so finding gifts can be a challenge.  I decided that a Giants themed couch blanket wouldn't take up an obnoxious amount of space in the already full apartment, as well as add a little cheer to the room during the game.  You know you have officially moved to New England when finding NY themed fabric takes you to 4 different fabric stores.  

Now it seemed like a great idea, you just follow the easy online tutorial that you found which claimed a total project time of 10 hours.  Sounds easy, right?  I neglected to read that most quilt bindings are hand sewn and machine sewing them can be difficult, so instead of risking the chance of destroying my first blanket, I decided to take the adventure of hand stitching the binding.  A long 8-10 hours of hand sewing later, the blanket was completed, and I'm proud of it!  Although I have no pictures of the finished product (I blame that on the sheer excitement of finishing it hours before we left for NY), there's a few pictures of it midway with my little helper.

It was great to get back into doing some sewing, and I hope to one day have a room that I can spread my craft supplies out and not have to pick them up right away!  One can dream, right?