Today

Lowlights of today

1. The two very messy blow-out diapers from Catie
2. the projectile vomit that coated her later in the day 
3. The two loads of laundry that needed to be done to clean up the above
4. The two baths Catie needed

Highlights of today

1. Her hands reaching up to my hair as I leaned over playing with her
2. This song.  It's one of those songs that sticks for years (pay no attention to the random youtube video that accompanies the video.

About Poop (sorry)

A couple weeks ago my brother gave me a stain remover from a company he works for.  I'm pretty sure this stain remover is just peroxide and water and when I took it I kind of thought it was silly and didn't give it much thought.  He raved about it but I sort of only took it just to be nice.

Skip forward to the present... Catie has some sort of stomach thing going on and every single poop results in a blowout even worse than the last (we're lucky and there's usually only 1-2 poops a day).  There's no catching it in time because even if you jump up when it happens and rush to change her it's too late.  One more important element to this story.  When I dress Catie I always put a nice white onesie on her first.  I hated when I would pick her up and her shirt would slide to her armpits and she'd be flashing her belly so to solve this problem I started the layering.  I have a bunch of white Carter's onesies that she wears every day and I love them.

You can imagine what a crisp white onesie looks like after a really horrible blowout.  I take them off and rinse them well and then I take them and spray them with this peroxide stuff thinking in my head, "Well this one's a goner", and then I toss them in the next load of laundry.   I've repeated this process at least 6 or 7 times now and to my surprise not a single one of them has so much as a spot on them.  I just triple checked to make sure I had the right onesie because there was no way it wasn't stained but somehow it's still sparkly white.

Thank you peroxide, thank you Rob.
L

Response from Old Navy

Dear Laura,

Thank you for your email and for sharing your concerns regarding the
quality of your Old Navy Sweetheart Jeans.  At Old Navy, we strive to
offer our customers merchandise of superior style and quality, while
providing exceptional service. We regret having disappointed you.
Customer feedback is an important part of our business and we will be
sure to share your remarks with our design and merchandising teams.

Please take the item to your local Old Navy store for a manager's
evaluation or, if it was an online purchase, send it to us at
oldnavy.com and we'll be happy to offer you a return or replacement if
the merchandise has been deemed defective by a member of our online
returns team.  Please note that a decision either way can only be made
by those individuals and that we can not guarantee in advance the
outcome of an evaluation. In addition, merchandise deemed defective
generally does not include normal wear and tear.

Thank you for taking the time out of your day to email us. We apologize
for any inconvenience and look forward to you shopping with us again
soon.

If you have further questions or concerns, please feel free to call us
at 1-800-OLD-NAVY, and follow the prompts to share your store
experience. We are available Monday through Friday from 9:00 a.m. to
9:00 p.m. and Saturday, 11 a.m. to 9 p.m. Please note all hours are
indicated in Eastern Time.

Sincerely,

I'm not satisfied with this response.  The jeans won't be refunded because they're not defective, just a stupid design.  I expected a little more.

Before and After

 

I've been growing this hair for a very long time, almost two years now.  Growing it not because I love long hair but because I didn't want to pay for a hair cut.  I've have my Mom trim the ends here and there but that was it.  I often longed for an actual style but was content to keep it going for a while longer. 

There have been many times that I've raved about my Mom here and today is no exception, she facilitated a brand new hair cut from a fancy salon.  I was thrilled and new exactly what I wanted.  Allow me to describe to you, as described to my hair cutter, I think his name was Jon.

I said I wanted to cut off about 5 inches, (I indicated with my finger a spot that was just below my shoulders

I told him I wanted the ends to be really textured and choppy.  He said he recommended that we taper the back so it wasn't a blunt cut and I agreed saying that was fine as long as the back wasn't crazy short.  I also told him I wanted some really long layers around my face.  

You probably have a picture in your mind that is nothing like what I came out with.  I'm not sure how he got from my description to where he ended.

In his defence I do think it's a really beautiful cut it's just not anything that I was looking for and I don't think it suits me.  I guess the growing out starts now.  It is possible that given some time and my own styling it'll grow on me but for now I'm unsatisfied.

I realize it's a dark picture but it's the best you get.

And a back view

Dear Old Navy:

At Christmas, as is tradition in our family I was given some clothing money.  This clothing money is important as my husband and I are in a tight financial situation, I don't purchase clothing lightly these days as it's not in our budget.  I was in desperate need of some jeans so I headed over to Old Navy and bought a pair of your Sweetheart style jeans.  I was thrilled with my purchase.  Sadly I enjoyed them for a mere couple of days before the jeans became saggy, loose, baggy and unflattering.  Not to be deterred I washed them and they returned to their former shape.  I was pleased and again wore them only this time the sagging started in much sooner.  It's now only February and these jeans are unwearable.  Their original shape lasts for about 10 minutes before the stretch of the jeans makes them far too big.  I understand that jeans with stretch are going to loosen up a bit but the amount these jeans has stretched is unbelievable.  I recently went to a different store and bought a replacement pair of jeans but I remain angry and disappointed in the poor quality of my former pair.  A simple note on the jeans explaining the amount of stretch could have solved this problem, I would have bought a smaller size.

I have since heard this complain from others and I thought you should be aware of my discontent and also informed that I won't buy jeans from Old Navy anymore.

Thank you for your time
Laura Wiebe

Limitations

It seems that there is a limit to the greatness of the dollar store. I
learned today that clear plastic hair elastics are something that
should not be cheaped out on. I took 3 to the swimming pool with me
and all 3 of them broke. At least it was only $1 wasted.

Two Things

1. I've decided to put off the button hole project.  I was frustrated.  Michelle has a fancy digital sewing machine so my new plan is to go to her house and use her machine to make beautiful button holes.  I suppose I should clear that with her first hey?
2. I have this problem with pajama pants and without fail they are always too short for me.  Even when I think I found a long enough pair in a couple months they end up being too short.  After all my successful sewing lately I feel like I can do anything so I went and bought some fabric and a pattern to make my own pants (did you know you can buy $17.99 patterns for pajama pants?  I went with the $1.99 option instead).  I cut the fabric out and was all ready to sew, step one... sew a button hole.  So now I have two projects on hold.

Headband Accessory

While out shopping with Michelle yesterday I found this really cute headband.

 
I was excited about it and when I got home I pulled it out of the packaging only to discover that apparently I have a huge head.  The headband portion is just an elastic and there's no way it was going to stay on my head.

After being inspired by all the crafty blogs I've started to read I knew just what to do.  I headed over to my trusty dollar store, picked up a plain black headband.  I snipped off the elastic of the headband and glued it on to my new dollar store one.  It worked perfectly and I now have this cute accessory.

Button Hole

As I work on these craft projects it's been interesting to see just exactly where my sewing experience starts and stops.  I haven't sewed a lot, my skills come from Home Economics and some projects with my Mom.  I've made pajama pants, some decorative table squares and even a skirt once (with lots of help).  I can follow a basic pattern and it turns out I'm pretty decent at sewing on little intricate pieces.  My biggest weakness so far seems to have come in the form of a button hole.  My first attempt was laughable and even my 8th attempt wasn't great but at least it's starting to look like a button hole.  I'll practice a bit more before I attempt on the real fabric and hopefully I'll eventually end up with something I can be proud of.

Raspberries

Catie's favorite pastime these days is making this awesome noise.  I love it and it makes me chuckle every time.  (Sorry the video is so shaky at the start, it gets better.  It's also not the greatest quality but it's the noise that's important.)



I've also been struck with just how HUGE she's gotten lately.  I look at her everyday and think where did that huge belly come from.  She's sure packing on the pounds in preparation for her next growth spurt.
L