My Favorite Blogs

I don't think I have ever done a round up of my favorite blogs so I figured I should do one.  I use feedly as a blog reader.  I am not sure how many blogs I am subscribed to but it is at least a couple hundred.  Serves as a good way to feed my desire to know everything about everything.

Education - 

Teacher Tom -  Cooperative preschool teacher in Seattle.  I kind of have some hero worship toward Teacher Tom.  He posts daily and is consistently insightful.

Not Just Cute - Early childhood education.

Education Rethink - Teacher blog with some tech involved.

Blogging in the Fourth Dimension - Teacher blog.

Parenting

Crappy Pictures - Funny parenting cartoons.

Free Range Kids -  Advocate to stop having policy being driven by worst-first thinking.

Hobo Mama - One of the first blogs I subscribed to.  She lives in Seattle.  Mostly parenting topics.

Sewing 

Indietutes -  There have been numerous posts that I feel like came out of my own head.  Sewing, parenting, books and learning.

Ikat bag - Lots of sewing and crafting as well as parenting posts.  Love her posts on drafting.

Fashion Incubator - I don't read this one much anymore, but at one point in time I read almost the entire site and learned a ton about sewing and manufacturing.

Food / Health

Katysays.com - I am completely obsessed with this blog right now.  I downloaded some of her exercises and they have been amazingly effective.

Marks Daily Apple - Primal eating blog.


Tech - 

mathbabe - Former Wall Street quant turned Occupy Wall Street supporter.

Geekwire - Seattle based tech news

Art -

Will Terry - Children's book illustrator.  He has lots of instructional art videos and shares about being a freelance illustrator and children's book app creator.

Carla Sonheim - I love her art books.

Humans of New York - Photographic documentary of people in New York.

Road Trip To California - Part 2

After spending a week in Los Angeles we headed to Monterey.  Monterey is absolutely gorgeous.  I would love to live there.  It was green, and warm, and the beaches were beautiful.

We stayed with Lisa, a college x-country teammate of mine and Floyd's, and her family.  Her kids are the same ages as Selena and Allie and all the kids had a lot of fun together.  They are stationed in Monteray for 18 months.  Every time they move I always want to go visit, but traveling with kids always seems expensive and stressful to me, but this time it seemed like a good way to visit both them and my brother, and save money by driving.

We visited the Monterey Bay Aquarium, which was another really cool aquarium.  The kids especially liked the jellyfish exhibit.   We also got to see the penguins walking from the employee only area, to their exhibit.

Other than that we mostly just hung out at the beaches and ogled the fancy houses.  Lisa took me on a run along the beach which was amazing.  A long run with a good friend is pretty much my favorite thing in the world to do, so I was happy.

Floyd got to run with Dan (Lisa's husband) along the beach, and on the Pebble Beach golf course.  I think he would have rather golfed the course, but running on it was the next best thing.   He did get to play golf too, just not at Pebble Beach.

Road Trip To California - Part 1

For the end of March we took a 2 week road trip to California.  Last time we road tripped to California we went in a motor home, towing our car, and drove through the night.  Which was okay for the girls who were almost 3 and almost 5. But our dog did not like the motor home and was freaking out, which made it quite stressful till we finally put her in the car we were towing.

This time we drove in our Mazda 5.  We did a 9 hour drive to Redding, and stayed in a hotel overnight, and then did another 9 hour drive to Los Angeles.  Culver City to be exact, and stayed with my brother and his family for a week.  Then we drove about 6 hours to Monterey and stayed with our friend from college and her family for four nights, and did a 14 hour drive from Monterey back to Everett.

The trip was surprisingly smooth.  I want to say that mobile devices are awesome for road trips.  We had music, movies, tv shows, books on tape, games, and regular books all available and it made the trip pretty reasonable.

In Los Angeles we stayed with my brother which was so fun.  The kids had fun playing with their cousins.  The only bad part, was our timing, as they had just moved a few days before we arrived so their house was full of boxes, and I am sure it was a bit stressful for them.

We did Disneyland for a day (no California Adventure), the Aquarium of the Pacific, visited the beaches quite a bit, and just hung out and let the cousins play.  My nephews are the cutest boys ever.

Disneyland was of course wonderful.  I am kind of regretting not doing more than one day, but on the other hand it was crowded and pretty exhausting.  Allie just met the height requirement, which was great, because it meant we could all go on Splash Mountain and Space Mountain.  I was worried about the kids being scared, but they loved it.  They are kind of crazy.

We spent some time going on rides with the cousins, and we even met up with Lisa and her family (who we were staying with in Monterey), who also happened to be at Disneyland the same day as us.

The Aquarium of the Pacific was cool.  Their deep water exhibit was pretty awesome.  There are some weird creatures way down deep.  They also had some birds to feed, and rays to pet, and even had a penguin named Floyd. :)  

The beaches were fun, and probably the most relaxing, as the kids can spend hours digging in the sand and you don't have to deal with crowds.

We visited muscle beach in Santa Monica where Selena impressed the guys with her rope climbing skills.

Lost Her First Tooth

Selena lost her first tooth!  She is seven and has spent almost two full school years watching all her schoolmates lose teeth, but all her teeth were staying stubbornly in her mouth.  She had even sewn herself a tooth pillow all by herself in anticipation of the event.

She lost it while we were on vacation, staying at my friends house.  It was really loose and I asked if she wanted me to pull it.  I tried, but it was giving me the heeby jeebies so I set Floyd to the task.  He pulled it out, and stuck it in a plastic bag.

I decided I needed to wash it.  My friend stopped me and told me to go to the bathroom and plug the sink. While I headed to the bathroom she was telling us about how she lost her daughter's first tooth by trying to wash it and it went down the drain.  Of course while she is telling the story I am rinsing the tooth.  It slips from my hand.  I panic and attempt to turn off the water, and hit the handle that was clogging the drain, which opens the drain, and the tooth goes down the sink.  It was April 1st so Floyd was hoping me losing it was an April Fool's joke, sadly it was not.

Luckily Selena is handles disappointing situations extremely well and assured me that a nice note to the tooth fairy would be just as good as the actual tooth, and she was right. :)

She also lost her second tooth a few weeks later.  This time she pulled it out herself, and I was not allowed to touch it. It stayed in ziplock so it could be safely put under her pillow.

Allie's Art Factory

Allie wants to create as much artwork as possible so she can sell it to make money.  I am completely biased, but I think she is pretty good.  What impresses me the most is how she creates her image just so, and then moves onto the next one without overworking any one piece. The only downside to her factory, is that she goes through reams of paper, and leaves them scattered all over the house, not to mention when she cuts them up into teeny tiny pieces for her collage works.

Other than her art, Allie enjoys animals.  She likes watching Wild Kratts and can give you all sorts of interesting facts on worms, honey badgers, dolphins and all sorts of other creatures.  Lately we've been collecting worms on our way home from dropping Selena off at school and letting them live in our garden, which is a good place to live because there are no moles or raccoons who are their predators.  Despite claiming that she does not like to play princesses I have witnessed her pretending to be Princess Worm.

Her tummy and other general aches and pains, and reflux still trouble her off and on.  She is gluten free and around August when I finally managed to stop accidentally feeding her gluten she seemed to get a big increase in energy.  Where she usually refused to walk, she went 3 miles without complaining.  But once school started the energy seems to come and go.  She tends to be constipated frequently.  It is really frustrating not knowing what is going on.

The Heartache is Over

My first heartbreak came in 1994.  It was the first time I had really followed a team.  Gary Payton, Shawn Kemp, Kendall Gill, Detlef Schrempf, Nate McMillan, Sam Perkins were all my guys.  The Sonics had the best record in the NBA, most home wins, most road wins.  It was looking like it would be a championship season.  But it wasn't to be, they lost to the Denver Nuggets in the first round.  It was horrible.  I just remember celebrating Mother's Day at the park and being in tears.  How could this happen?

Ninety-five ended in another first round exit for the Sonics, but 95 was the year for the Mariners.  I wasn't really a baseball fan, but the Mariner/Yankee series was truly exciting baseball, and though I wasn't emotionally vested in the team I did enjoy watching them.  But the miracles they pulled off late in the season didn't extend to the next round.

In 1996 the Sonics finally made it to the NBA finals, but it was also the year Michael Jordan decided to unretire and dominate the league again.  The Sonics just weren't as good as Michael Jordan and the Bulls (and Dennis Rodman was so frustrating).

By 2001 I had been dating Floyd for a while, and we frequently watched Sportscenter over and over and I had become more of a baseball fan.  2001 was a great year for the Mariners.  They won a record setting 116 games in the regular season.  Ichiro, Boone, Buhner, Freddy Garica, Carlos Guillen, Jamie Moyer were unbeatable and fun to watch, but they didn't make it to the World Series. That was a real tough one.

2005 was the year for the Seahawks.  The Seahawks had never been good in my memory, but that year they were.  Hasselbeck, and Shaun Alexander led the team to the Super Bowl. It was the worst officiated game ever.  There were so many game impacting bad calls that still make me sick to my stomach.  It was horrible, and left me feeling like there was no way a major Seattle sports team would ever win a championship--we were cursed.

Then I had kids and it was harder to watch sports.  Seahawks made the playoffs some years and some they didn't.  The Sonics were stolen and moved to Oklahoma.  The Mariners were terrible.  Floyd and I did make it to the playoff game versus the Saints where we were a part of the Beast Quake in 2011 when Marshawn Lynch made his epic run (that video gives me chills), but I still missed a lot of games that year and only followed them loosely.

Toward the end of last year I felt like I had more time to watch football, and Russell Wilson was amazing. He was a rookie quarterback, surprise draft pick that everyone thought was horrible, he was short, and he was amazing.  They won the Wild Card game and the NFC championship game was one of the craziest up-and-down games I had ever watched.  They were so close to pulling off the come back of a life time, but didn't quite manage.  When that game ended I knew that the next year would be our year (and re-watching those highlights I can see how much better the Seahawks were this year).  I could just feel that this Russell Wilson and Pete Carroll had the champion mentality, and this was the year that Seattle could have a world championship.

We were so excited for football to start.  For the first time ever I watched preseason games (which they won).  The 12th Man is the perfect marketing strategy because it makes you feel like you are an important part of the team.  We went to a couple games and really felt like we influenced the game and that we had a job to do (and it was exhausting).  The whole season was a perfectly written story.  There were games with amazing comebacks.  We smashed our biggest rival the 49ers at home, but then barely lost to them when we were away.  Commentators claimed that the Seahawks defense just hadn't played a good offense and thought the Saints would prove that, and we throttled them.

Then it was the NFC championships, Seahawks versus the 49ers.  It had to be that way as a huge rivaly had developed between the two teams and fans from each team played it out.  I was worried about the game.
The 49ers were on a roll and were looking good.  The teams matched up well against each other and I knew it would be a tough game. It was one of the most exciting games ever, and a bit stressful too.  The last play of the game decided who won, and it was truly awesome.


Whereas I was worried about the NFC championship game I wasn't as concerned about the Super Bowl. The commentators once again tried to say that our defense probably couldn't handle a truly great offense, but I didn't believe them--and I was right.  It was the most dominating performance of the year.  It was euphoric.

The great thing is I can live the moments over and over.  I have watched the NFC championship game 4 times.  I have watched the Super Bowl game twice.  We dragged the kids to downtown Seattle to the parade despite hating crowds and knowing we probably wouldn't be able to see much.  I have listened to way too many commercials on sports radio for just the chance to hear something about the Seahawks.

I wonder why do I like this so much?  Why does this victory feel like a great life moment.  Why did I feel so much heartache when other teams lost?

I was listening to the TEDRadio hour podcast the other day and there was a segment on Mark Pagel's Ted talk about humans, language, and whether it brings us together or drives us apart.  He said that we developed language because we are social and needed a way to communicate with each other, but if that is so, then why did we develop so many different languages?  He pointed out that language is used as a clear way to delineate who is in your tribe and who is not.  Your language helps you communicate with those in your tribe and it prevents you from communicating with those not in your tribe. Humans are tribal.  This is why I get really attached to my sports teams.  It is a way for tribalism to manifest itself in my life. It is why watching my sports team win magnifies feelings of euphoria so much more than watching an individual athlete I like.  It is why the 12th Man has been so huge in Seattle.  I feel like there were so many more Seahawk fans this year then there were in 2005.  I think it is the 12th Man combined with the internet.  Facebook and Twitter has allowed our tribe to be bigger and unite more thickly.  It has been such an awesome experience and I am so thankful I have finally got to experience it, that I got to experience it with so many more people, and to be able to relive it over and over because I can easily record my TV, watch Sportscenter, listen to the radio, read it on the internet, and talk about it on Facebook.

SEA - HAWKS!!!!

2013 In Review

2013 has come and gone.  As always there is so much to do and so little time.

I have continued making apps. I came out with one app this year, a popular card game among poker players called Open Face Chinese Poker.  Even though it has poker in the name, there is no betting.  It is just a regular card game that you play to score points. When I started making apps I told myself I would not make a server based app because the maintenance would be too much work, but I didn't listen to myself.  I missed coming first to market on Android by just a week or two which kind hurt.

The good thing is that I made money this year.  For a SAHM working very part time, with completely flexible hours it was decent money.  For a freelance software developer it wasn't much.  My two free apps (Learn to Read Lite, and Kids Christmas Patttern Game) have been downloaded quite a lot.  I don't feel like conglomerating the exact data at the moment, but there have been around 200,000 downloads between the two of them on all the platforms they are on.

For next year I will be taking on some contract work from my dad for his consulting business.  I would love to release another app or two as well as get my pattern game apps on the Windows app store, but between that work, and updating the OFC app it will be difficult to find the time.

Running wasn't much of a focus this year and I did a horrible job keeping track of my mileage.  I've been logging onto Everymove this year, which is a fun site that gives you gift cards and coupons for exercising.  I even won an Xbox Kinect from my insurance company and them.  It says I ran 354 miles, but that was only starting in April, and if you don't record your exercise within three days then it doesn't count towards your rewards, so I know there are lots of runs I forgot to enter.  I feel like I was pretty consistent at about 15 - 20 miles a week.  So probably between 700 - 800 miles for the year, but who knows?

My sister and I got out for two hikes this year.  We did Mt. Si, since that is a classic around here, but neither of us had done it.  Then we did Lake Bl
anca, which was absolutely gorgeous--never had I seen a lake so blue.  It is a popular, but tough hike. There were more than a few people who we came across who were really struggling physically and it was worrisome if they were going to make it.

I did a little bit of sewing, but not as much as I would like.  I made a soft structured baby carrier for Selena's kindergarten teacher who had a baby at the end of the school year, bibs for my nephew, Halloween costumes, and helped Selena sew herself some clothes.

Selena finished kindergarten and has started first grade.  She is doing well in school and learning a lot, but finds waking up in the morning and being quiet all day kind of hard.  She has been taking gymnastics and played a couple sessions of soccer.  It has been fun to see how much she has improved.  She loves to draw and write, and is constantly making picture books.

Allie finished her first year of preschool and is onto her second.  She also has been doing gymnastics and soccer and is awesome at both.  Allie loves to draw and create and makes around 30 masterpieces a day, and cuts up about 5000 pieces of paper a day.  Allie also enjoys playing on the computer, phones, and tablets and is very tech savvy.

Floyd continues to play poker and do well.  He has mixed it up this year and has played some Pot-Limit Omaha in addition to No Limit Holdem.  He took two trips to Vegas this year (and one of them I joined him for a couple days), but did not do the WSOP Main Event. The highlight for the year was placing 3rd in a pretty big tournament.  He continues to run.  We got to go to a couple Sehawks and Sounders games this year and we always enjoy that, even when they are wet.

2013 was a good year and I am sure 2014 will be as well.

Broken Arm

Maybe it was inevitable with all the climbing Selena does, but it finally resulted in a broken bone.  Her and Allie were climbing on top of the dresser and jumping onto the bed.  Selena slipped and fell and hurt her arm. It was almost bed time and she was in pain, but there was no visible signs of injury so we went to bed.  

The next day I kept her home from school and was trying to decide if it was broken or not and I made her a homemade sling to keep it propped. I called the nurse line towards the end of the day and she said it was probably okay to monitor it for another day.  The problem is, we only have catastrophic health insurance so every doctor visit we pay out of pocket.  While we do get the insurance adjusted rates, they are still unreasonably high.  We really didn't want to pay $500 to be told it was a sprain and to ice and elevate.  

The next day she said it felt better so I sent her off to school in her homemade sling.  Oops, talk about bad parenting. :S  When she got home it was noticeably swollen so we took her to an urgent care clinic in which they x-rayed and confirmed that it was indeed broken.  They said it was a buckle fracture.  

She got a purple cast that she wore for 4 weeks, and she just got it off and so she seems to be good as new. Though she didn't really stop monkeying around.  I'd still catch her climbing on top of stuff and swinging from her one good arm. 

When my mom asked if she learned anything from the experience, she couldn't think of one thing.  When the nurse asked her how she broke it and Selena said she fell off her dresser.  

The nurse said, "Dresser?".

Allie piped up and said, "It is really fun to climb on top of the dresser and jump on to the bed."

The nurse said, "So you probably won't be doing that any more?"

They both looked at her like she was crazy, and did she not hear the part about it being really fun.  

So hopefully we won't have to deal with any more broken bones, now that we got this one out of the way.  

Puyallup Fair

Every year we go to the Puyallup Fair in September.  It isn't as convenient to go, as it was when we lived in Puyallup, but it is bigger and more fun than the Evergreen State Fair and thus we make the trek.

The one highlight of the trip is the Mutton Bustin.  Floyd and I watched it, slightly horrified, every year before we had kids, so when we had kids of our own it seemed like they should be a part of it, even if it is absolutely insane.  Selena wanted to do it when she was three, but they said she didn't weigh enough and only let her be on the sheep in the corral, and then pulled her off when they opened the gate.  When she was four, she fell off immediately, last year she made it about half way but got stepped on and there were some tears and bruises.  This year she was ready and had been planning the perfect technique.

Allie on the other hand seemed unenthused.  They upped the age limit and it wasn't an option when she was three.  This year when asked if she was going to do it, she wouldn't answer, but when it came time to sign up she said she was ready.

Both of them did absolutely awesome.  Selena made it all the way to the end and then some.  She ended up getting second place because one other girls also made it to the end, and apparently she had a more difficult sheep.  Allie made it half way across and popped right up when she fell off.  It was fun watching.

Face painting, the Cutest Show on Earth, and of course the rides are the other main highlights.  Usually food is also a positive, but as I get older fair food just seems gross to me, and Allie is gluten free so that also limits.

Plants Vs Zombies Halloween Costumes

I find it so crazy that every year I make the girls costumes that surprise me in how cool they are.  I impress myself.  I find it so bizarre that I am that mom who makes cool Halloween costumes because over-the-top costumes doesn't really match my personality.  But the girls get so excited planning what they want, and they have such faith in my abilities that I don't really have a choice. :)

This year the girls decided to go as Plants Vs Zombies characters.  My brother has been playing the game for years, but I hadn't gotten around to trying it.  My sister was playing it with the girls and Allie started asking if we could get it, and Selena, Allie and I all became addicted for a short while later.  Thankfully the obsession only lasted a few weeks.

Selena wanted to be Chomper, and Allie wanted to be a Marigold, the little flower that gives you coins.

For both costumes I used this post from the Memory Nest as a guide.  The main differences were for the Chomper costume:
- I used tacky glue versus a hot glue gun.
- I used fleece instead of felt.
- For the leaves I used really thick interfacing sandwiched between the fabric and sewn around. I probably should have made them bigger than I did.
- I also used the interfacing for the teeth.

For the Marigold costume I also used the interface and sandwiched it between some white fleece and sewed it onto some elastic.

Once again I used the Heidi and Finn Urban Unisex Hoodie.  Using two layers of fleece make it really warm and thus the kids do not need a jacket when trick-or-treating.  Fortunately the lovely creator of the pattern had graded the pattern up to 6 - 12 years and I was able to buy that and get a good size for Selena. She probably could have fit in a 5T, but since she had broken her arm and had a cast I needed something a bit bigger to fit over it.

And of course my other go-to pattern, the Willow Wayfarer Hipster for Slimster, was what I used for the pants.  I am sad that Selena is just about getting too big for the biggest size for that one.  I'm not sure what I am going to do next year.  I used fleece for this which also is warm and cozy.