And so it goes…

I know I have been slow in writing. Life has dealt me many different challenges the past few weeks so I have been neglecting writing on my blog. But maybe I will become more motivated.

First, a little bit about what is going on. I am an English/Writing teacher and teach a Culinary Skills class as well. I love teaching Culinary. It is such a departure from English and it helps me be a more complete teacher. It’s hard to explain, but the two are such different skills, and such a different way of teaching, that it makes my life as a teacher so complete. I really enjoy it. Anyway, this year, since we are “distant learning,” I agreed to teach using cooking videos. This has become a group project for my fiance and me. He is the executive producer/director, etc. And, my friend Skylar, a colleague of mine at school, is an editor/creative force behind my cooking videos. The idea is for Mike and I to film a video using my webcam and his iPhone and then we take all the video to Skylar and he puts it all together into a really great video. I have to say that because if it was just up to Mike and I, we wouldn’t have anything! Skylar is the force behind all the creative stuff that comes out of our kitchen.

I’ve made three videos so far. Buttermilk Biscuits, which took 6 sessions to film, due to the ineptitude of us and just screwing it up over and over; Chocolate Cake with Whipped Cream Frosting, which I feel was my best work, aside from an over-zealous mixer that has a faulty off-switch; and finally, potato soup, which we had about 13 minutes of video that Skylar turned into about 9 minutes of a final product. We will be doing one in the next couple weeks of a yeast-bread product, and a few other ideas. Mike and I had a “production meeting” slash dinner last night, but didn’t come up with much. We will work on it this week after my Tuesday class where students are supposed to come up with some ideas.

Back to the dress. I had made the “slip” and I think there may be a picture of it on this blog. The problem with it was that I thought it was too short. It is too short. I don’t have it hemmed yet and it is above my “shoes” so that is too short. I decided this weekend that it was a “practice dress,” so I headed off to the fabric store to pick up more fabric to remake the slip. That is frustrating because I feel like I don’t really know what the heck I’m doing. I mean, it has been a while since I sewed a dress, let alone a dress of such magnitude. I do want it to be perfect. I found the fabric right away and it is the same as before. There goes another $30, but it is worth it in the long run. Today is 9 months until the wedding. Nine months to make a dress and nine months to make a baby. I guess this is, in essence, my baby. I also looked at the fabric I have for the outer dress and it is ivory with gold flecks and tiny “pearls” all over it. It is also very “flowy” and a bit stretchy. I looked at the pattern with the idea that I would begin cutting it out and sewing it, which will not be easy. The material is tulle-like and will require double seams with an inside-out seam so you cannot see the unfinished edge. So basically I’ll be sewing each seam twice and then make sure it looks finished. So, I’ll have to make sure no stray pearls get in the way of the seam, because that would be stupid-looking. At any rate, the pattern says I need 7 1/8 yards of said material. WHAT??? Are you kidding me? I think I have about 3.5 yards. When I went to the fabric store, of course they didn’t have another 3 5/8 yards of the fabric. So I went to another and another, three in all. None had the fabric. I had seen some of it after I bought it (2 months ago), but it wasn’t quite the same. I’m going back there tomorrow after work. Mom said it wasn’t really wedding season so maybe it won’t be available for a while. I don’t know when wedding season is exactly. I know June and September, but people do get married any other months, so I’m not sure what to say about that.

I’m not panicking yet. I just wanted to get back on the horse, so to speak. I had put it away for so long, but now I’m ready to get going and what happens? Well, at least I have the slip material, so there’s that. I also thought I should make sure to “extend” the pattern so it will be long enough. In order to do that I decided to not try to reuse the pattern I had before, so I bought a new pattern — well, it’s the same one, but a new envelope with new tissue paper patterns in it. I can tell that by the time I’m done sewing this dang thing, I will be good and tired of the tissue paper pattern pieces. They are already giving me major anxiety. They are just so hard to handle. And one thing Burda does with their patterns, which is really off-putting, is they put the layout of the pattern onto the material on tissue pieces instead of into the directions like every other pattern maker. What the heck are they thinking? So, you have to look for it all over the pages of pieces. This is ridiculous because there are at least half a dozen pages of pieces and they are giant pieces of tissue — like about 6-8 feet long and I-don’t-know-how wide. I’m trying to not stress over tissue pattern pieces, but I am thinking of taking the whole thing to Desert Hot Springs when I go to visit my mom over Thanksgiving. Then we could both stress over tissue pattern pieces with pattern layouts on them! Only in a COVID year could this be possible! HA!

I mentioned an idea I had about our wedding cake to my best friend who I’ve known since first grade. Linda and I have probably been friends even before that, but who remembers? I told her about how I thought a macaron cake would be cool. I sent her a picture of it. One thing about Linda is that she always tells me like it is. She said it would probably be prettier than tasty! She’s right. It is beautiful. I’ll add a picture.

I also sent Linda some pictures of hairstyles. Now my hair is getting to the point where I could possibly have my hair into some interesting hair styles, instead of my usual short hair. The gal that does my hair said we would work on it! Jessi Zimmerman is one of the best for my hair. It always looks amazing. I’m trying to make sure she is available on August 1, 2021! Not just for me, but for my mom and my daughter!

We also had a mini-meeting with someone about music. A high-school friend said he could put together a band, something Mike is really wanting. But our yard is a little cramped for space, so we’ll see how that works out. That is out of my line of responsibility. I have a few things I’m responsible for and music is not one of those things!

Also, I had said I would post a photo of my first wedding dress. I dug it out of the closet a few weeks ago and all I can say is “oh my!” It is in a big plastic bag with two bridesmaid dresses I wore back in the day. The funny thing was I was in three weddings when I was young and all three were pink. Two of those dresses are in that bag. Not just pink, but PINK!!! It makes me laugh. I don’t know what happened to the third. They were a sign of the times back in the day.

Anyway, I’m back to work and I’ll write more in the days, weeks, months to come. Welcome to the new readers. I really appreciate that someone is out there reading this! It reminds me of the movie Julie and Julia!