Sew, sew, sew

I've been itching to sew again. Not that I was ever much of a sewer; technically all that I have sewn have been 2 pillow cases and a few aprons (with the help of my mom), and lets not forget all those buttons and sequins to embellish my many dance recital costumes back in the day. I am still very much so a beginner.

For my birthday last month, my friend Lauren bought me "Weekend Sewing" by Heather Ross. It is filled with fun and easy sewing projects that can be completed in a weekend...or longer if you are me. It even comes with all of the pattens, how fun is that?

I've been trying to decide which item I should make first. Which one is simple enough for me to conquer? Lauren said that I should just start at the beginning and make everything in the book...great idea! It worked out perfectly because the first pattern in the book is for the "everything bag," which I really wanted to make. It's just a simple, big tote, and the fabric for it only cost me $6.00, how can you go wrong? We'll see what happens when I embark on my first, totally solo sewing project. Maybe I'll start on it this weekend by cutting out the fabric...I don't have a sewing machine at the moment, so I can't get much further then that.

And since we're on the sewing topic, have you heard of Anna Marie Horner? She is amazing! You should check out her blog and her website. She uses such fun, vibrant colors and looking at her website just makes you happy.

Photo from Anna Marie Horner website

See, aren't you happy?
Ok, so I was happy, but I have two different fonts and blogger will not let me correct it! Technology.....

Cuteness

Can it get any cuter???

I am LOVING this dress! I hadn't been to the Anthropologie website in months, so I decided to torture myself and see what amazing new dresses they had. I haven't even gotten past the first page yet because I was so excited about this dress that I had to post it. I'm sure there are many more tasty items, but this one caught my fancy. Maybe it's because I've been daydreaming about France lately, especially since we had a French exchange student stay with us last weekend and we watched a French movie. Can't you just imagine yourself in this dress at a Parisian cafe sipping esspresso and eating a croissant? I'm day dreaming about it right now...except in my daydream I can actually speak French...now that would be fabulous. Off to go look at the rest of the website...

Life in General

It's an absolutely amazing day outside...summer is finally here! It always takes a bit longer to get to us folks here in Santa Cruz. It's now time for more bikerides, summer dresses, bbq's and iced tea :-) Oh the joys of summer! I would love it if it were perpetually summer...the heat, sun, and the ocean make life just that much better.

I'm always trying to get Brian to move to Hawaii for a while. Wouldn't that be amazing? Wouldn't you love to wake up everyday to perfect weather and that fabulous tropical scent in the air? I don't think it's ever going to happen, but I can keep trying.

Life in general has been busy in a different sort of way. Brian recently hurt his knee and couldn't walk for two weeks. At that point we finally decided he should go see a real doctor (we went to urgent care the day it happened, but that didn't help much). After an MRI and meeting with different surgeons he had surgery two weeks ago. His meniscus had torn and flipped and was a big mess.

With a lot of elevating, icing, and physical therapy he is slowly starting to recover. He still will not be able to put any weight on his leg for another two or three weeks, so he'll have to continue with the crutches. The major bummer is that once his left knee heals enough for him to walk on it well he needs to have surgery on his right knee! This means no surfing, tennis, or anything super active until at least December. Brian is the most active person I know, so that is a looooooooooong time of no activity.

I have to give him props though...he has been doing well with all of his down time. We've been watching Arrested Development and I have him working on some photo books that i've been wanting to make :-) All in all, he's hoping these next 6 months go by fast....

In other news, I'm going back to school in the fall. I'll still be working full time for the Title IX Office at UCSC, but I will be taking two classes (i'm on the waiting list as of now, but I should be able to get into them). And what fun classes they are too...Chemistry and Psychology! Since Brian will be around the house alot more he'll be able to help me with Chemistry (science has never been my best friend), which will be SO helpful. It will be a busy, busy semester, but we'll pull through...i'm excited about this next step!