Maintaining the same standards of professionalism you’ve come to expect! This week I talk about mean girls, boogers, pants (or lack thereof), and even some sewing.
My Open Wide Pouch from Noodlehead:
The current layout for my Dresden Garden center:
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I haven’t listened yet, but just had to pop in to say that I love, love, love, the Dresden Garden center!
I’ll be listening to you talk tomorrow, but I wanted to say I really love your Dresden garden! I’m not the biggest Dresden fan (ha, unintentional pun), but your version has me reevaluating my opinion.
OMG. You are the best. My school life was just like yours. I run for some of the commitments because I have learned that I will be stuck with all the work. If you get in too far with the social stuff you start the dread all of the extra work.Pretty soon you have to do it all.
I have to laugh. Run Girl Run HAHAHAHAHAH
Middle school, ugh. I was always the dorky kid who was shunned and/or actively bullied by the cool kids. At the end of 6th grade, one girl in my little cluster of friends announced that she couldn’t be our friend anymore because she wanted to be in “a better class of people.” I wasn’t as hurt by it as some of my friends were because she and I were never close, but I was so angry. I still want to reach back through the years and slap her upside the head for being such a little snot.
I totally feel you on the pants issue. I’ve been working at home for four years, and I’ve gone up two pants sizes in that time. I solved the problem by buying a ton of cute skirts with elastic waistbands at the thrift store — at my current weight I look and feel better in a skirt than in the kind of pants that are acceptable to wear a the office, they’re easier to fit (no crying in the dressing room at Macy’s because nothing fits right, and what is with those 3-way mirrors in the Macy’s dressing rooms anyway? I do not need to see my thighs in triplicate under all that fluorescent light), and they still fit if I go up or down 5 pounds. I like skirts, though, so if you’re not crazy about wearing them that’s not a great solution.
And! My stepdaughter has a degree in plant biology. She’s thinking of going back to school for a master’s degree — I’ll work on convincing her that the world needs a square berry and that it’s her duty to society to get this figured out.
Happy podcastiversary! WIth all you have done you deserve to buy yourself at least one new pair of pants! Just do it!
With regard to your volunteer commitments… It seems you already know that PTA’s will keep asking and asking, and in my experience, if I take on too much, I get overwhelmed and burned out. I have had 3 kids go through public schools, the youngest is a junior in high school. What I found worked for me was to learn to say NO most of the time, but to commit myself to one or two things that I feel I am good at, and let someone else take on the rest (like you are doing in your quilt guild). I mostly helped in the libraries and with reading programs, and now with college application assistance. I try not to get into a situation where I am “in charge” of kids, because they usually just give me the “You are not the boss of me” look, and keep on misbehaving. In your case, almost anyone could do the lunch time supervision, but you might be uniquely equipped for the STEM activity, so if you are drawn to that, you could drop out of one to take on the other. On the other hand, the STEM could really be a time sink outside of the at school hours…..I found it was a matter of learning to set my own boundaries.
I never knew what was going on at work (kind of like I never really knew what was going on at school.) I knew how I was supposed to behave, but I long ago gave up understanding what to expect of other people. Quite frankly, the “mean girls” were never on my radar because I was mostly just interested in studying. I lucked out that I was never on their radar either, though.
Kind of scary how we never seem to really leave High School. Now instead of being immersed in my studies, I freelance. I know what I can do, and I don’t have to rely on other people so much. I’ll never get elected Prom Queen (or whatever the freelance equivalent is) at this rate…
Ok. Couple things:
1 mean girls end up alone and/or are mean because something is wrong with them, and not you/me/us. I wish I had known then how much I didn’t care.
2. You had best not start to think you are becoming too involved with podcasting because I will make those mean girls look nice if you do. Ha!
3. You and mom have an incredible relationship - isn’t that the best?
4. I agree Margaret above you suggested switching out one volunteer shift at school for another if you think that it is more fun than guarding the inmates.
5. goodnight!
I can completely relate to your feeling of needing to break and run. I have that too, but it only takes me about 3 years, not 7. I definitely think it stems from not ever fitting in and that started in 6th grade for me. I jump into any group, whether it’s quilting, choir, or being involved at church, with both feet and quickly become overwhelmed with a feeling of needing to break away.
Hi Pam. I haven’t listened to the whole podcast yet but I wanted to comment about the question on Cosmo floss and the Crab-Apple Hill quilt pattern. I assume the commenter is referring to Callendula. I have made this particular quilt and did use the Cosmo floss. I found it to be just like DMC in terms of weight. The primary reason for using that specific floss is, in my opinion, to get the variegated look that works so perfectly with the creams, tans, browns and orange shades that are suggested for that pattern. But if DMC had a similar variegated floss, I am certain it would work just as well.
Great episode Pam. Love your honesty and keeping it reals… I am also using Cosmo floss for a project right now. It feels and looks exactly the same as DMC to me.
Thanks for the help on the floss. I think I’ll go ahead and order the cosmo because of the specialty threads.
Late to the party because of too many feels in my family which roped me in, but I wanted to say that I read a pretty comprehensive review of a variety of different flosses including Cosmo and DMC. There were other flosses (5-6?) reviewed as well I was pretty impressed with the comprehensiveness of the article and ended up buying some Cosmo as a result when I saw it at PIQF recently. Of course, I don’t remember all of the details, but I seem to recall that bleeding was a factor in the various flosses.
I really really like the Dresden plate layout . Colors are wowie…… Also Jay is right you are worrying way to early about the quilting…. Lol
I think wanting to run away is pretty common. I feel that way, too. I haven’t gotten over it, but because of circumstances beyond my control I haven’t always been able to do it, lately (e.g. change jobs). Not being able to do it has made me deal with a situation I didn’t want to be in. I was miserable a lot of the time, but I also had to find ways to cope until I could cut and run.
One thing I think about volunteer organizations is that they unintentionally force people to cut and run. They get a group of people willing to work and the organization will keep giving them jobs until the willing volunteer burns out. It is easier to ask someone who already knows the drill than to develop new willing suckers. Be careful about taking on too much as school.
To which sorority do you belong?