The Fog of War, or Rather, We Had a Baby!

From Wikipedia:
“The fog of war is the uncertainty in situational awareness experienced by participants in military operations. The term seeks to capture the uncertainty regarding own capability, adversary capability, and adversary intent during an engagement, operation, or campaign.”

If that hasn’t been our life since September 14th, 2012, I’m not sure what has. What was the 14th you ask? Well, the most intense day of my life thus far: I finally met my little Baby S. Her name is Anne (for her Nana) Elektra (for my Nuna). She is both insanely adorable and insanely hungry. Which, well, is of course a good thing for her growth, my confidence in my ability to actually nurse her, my calorie burning, my wallet, etc. But not so much for that whole sleep thing. They tell you that you’ll never sleep again – they being people who must secretly want you to be as worn out as they were – and they’re right.

Holy shitballs, man.

I have never been so excited to see my bed at the end of the day, but take note that the end of the day is now 2am, and my respite is short before Annie starts all over again, usually at 5am. It’s like my boobs turn on the ugly lights at last call, and Annie stumbles to a friend’s dorm room, passing out for a few hours before waking up to rally bright and early before the big homecoming game. Every day. You don’t have to go home but you can’t stay here.

I can’t tell you how my brain has basically melted in the past two weeks. Let’s leave out for minute (or for a few posts, maybe someday, maybe not) the actual “birth story” and all the physical effects of the whole shebang and stick with what I like to call “baby-onset Alzheimer’s”. BOA has led me to put the butter in the pantry, try to recycle a poopy diaper, spend too much time talking about a poopy diaper, and to think “Here Comes Honey Boo Boo” is a good idea, amongst other transgressions.

But then, you look at that little face and you can’t not “awwwwwwww” in endless pride. Especially when she poops all over her daddy. Way to go, champ!

 

Annie at one week old

 

Annie at two weeks old, at Linvilla Orchards. I’m stoked she was born at the height of Pumpkinland time :). Clearly she was enamored….

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Presents for Peepers First Birthday (Thank You, Silhouette Cameo)

My adorable little niece Penelope (heretofore known as Peepers) turned 1 in July, and for some reason, I am just getting around to posting about her gifts. What does one get for a 1 year old? They really don’t understand opening presents just yet; they’re often more entertained by crinkling the wrapping… banging the empty boxes together… banging the empty boxes on the dog. They will quickly grow out of expensive (read: anything pricier than Target) clothing, toys are mostly only useful for a 3-month span until developmentally they are onto something else, and just money or a savings bond – while very smart and appreciated – seems so anticlimactic, even though, yes, the kid doesn’t really understand present opening.

On another note, I just got a new Silhouette Cameo machine. I am not being paid or anything to pimp out the Cameo. Just mentioning it because at the time I was trying to figure out what to do for Peepers, I had JUST gotten the Cameo, and I wanted to play. This thing will cut paper, interfaced fabric, heat transfer vinyl, paper, templates for screen printing-esque fabric paint templates and I am sure more. I got a starter kit for the fabric printing and happen to have a bin full of scrapbooking paper (though I don’t really know why as I am not a scrapbooker). Bingo! Let’s kill two birds with one stone and make Peepers some gifts, seen below.

 

Shadowbox name decoration for nursery/bedroom and “screen print” tee shirt.

I really wanted to try out the screen print fabric paint, since I have some other ideas to work on for the Jennysold Etsy shop that would benefit from such a small-run production option. Yes, I know I said clothes are grown out of too quickly, but this was handmade, and the shirt was from Target, so I think that gives it a pass. I haven’t played with/perfected the use of the process yet, so I don’t want to post on it until I do, but suffice it to say that it’s pretty easy. However, I think if you plan on doing multiple runs of a same design, you’ll want to make sure it’s on the simpler side, as the more intricate designs take a decent amount of time to transfer. As far as the design, the nesting doll and the flower came from the free $10 artwork purchase starter card that comes with the Cameo. They’re on average $1/personal use; some have staged pricing for commercial use, and some aren’t available for commercial use at all.

Luckily, with the Cameo, you can upgrade from the free software to the $50 Designer Edition, which allows you to use any artwork you’ve created in Illustrator saved as an SVG file. This, to be totally honest, is what sold me on the machine immediately. That and the fabric arts options. Anyway, I used Illustrator to create Peeps’ name for the shadowbox and save as outlines so that when I imported the artwork, it was good to go. I believe you can also use all your own fonts in the standard edition of the software as well, but since I am way more comfy rendering art in Illustrator, and I wanted to try that out, I went there. Like above with the fabric paint, I haven’t done tons of work in it thus far so I don’t want to write about the process, but will at some point later. All said and done, it was pretty easy; I just should have picked a slightly thicker paper as the one I used was a little thin for the delicacy of the letters. Regardless, the shadowbox turned out beautifully for as simple as the design is, and I think she will really like having something “hers” like this that her Aunt Jenny made for her when she was a wee one. At least I hope so :)