I generally don’t make New Year’s resolutions anymore, but I saw somebody say their resolution is to “pet more dogs” and that’s what I’m going to use from now on if anybody asks about my new year’s resolution.
I didn’t post last week which was not great because now I have to try to remember everything that happened Christmas weekend. Work just ended up being super busy the day I would’ve normally posted and I never got around to it. So let’s stretch my brain cells and see if I can remember everything.
So I was off starting Wednesday before Christmas which was FABULOUS. I worked on Leia a little bit – getting the ribbon trim attached to the neckline and to the sleeve lining.
I got it sewn on the neckline the first day:
And struggled with the sleeves the next day.
Originally I sewed it all around the inside edge of the sleeve lining layer. But I didn’t like how that looked in the end, the ribbon made the lining layer too stiff and made it poke out funny. So I took that off and only did it on the bottom curve. But it made me waste a lot of time.
After that I decided t was officially on hiatus on this project until 2023.
Thursday we had to have sleep number come out to do something to our mattress and upon hearing them pull into the driveway Luna turned into a weird otter creature:
Had to run to the grocery that night and found this giant Santa inflatable on clearance so we figured why not.
Luna was weird off and on the entire 2 weeks since I last posted.
She had a couple of hissing episodes which hasn’t happened in a long time at this point, and peed outside her litter box one day. I’ll talk more about that later in the post. But none of them were as bad as last year when she had stones – after she calmed down she was back to normal.
Friday I finally wrapped presents. I used the Bah Humbug wrapping paper with the cat that looks like Luna because that’s how I felt.
Got the handle of my Utena sword painted.
Friday we had a bunch of bad weather. Icing and some snow, but mostly some bone chilling low temps. We ended up with rolling blackouts for 2 days – though thankfully we never lost power. But then we were on a boil water advisory for several days straight. Fun times. Chase still had to go to work Friday, but got off early – we’d special ordered a steak for our Christmas Eve dinner the week before and he went to pick it up – but the grocery store’s power was totally out and they were closed. So he couldn’t pick it up. Christmas Eve day, before we had to go up to Jackson for lunch, he went out and tried again and this time YAY they were open and he was able to get it.
So then off to Christmas Eve lunch.
Catty Bob in Mema’s chair.
Charlie and Charlie
We had a good lunch and then played some games. We’ve never done Dirty Santa/White elephant before but we did this year. I’m not a fan so I didn’t participate – Chase played for both of us. But I am the one who prepared our dirty santa gift. I wish I’d taken a picture of it. But it was a nice gift bag that was very heavy – due to the giant can of nacho cheese inside of it (a mistake from our grocery delivery a while back).
Also inside was a very nicely wrapped gift box. Once unwrapped, inside was a box for a “Pasta Recycler” – a joke gift box we got for Kevin a while back but this side of the family hadn’t seen it before. Once that was opened, inside were 2 cans of soup (to give it some weight) and a baby shark colouring book. Finally inside the colouring book was 2 gift cards taped in the back LOL
Then we played Left Right Center and Chase actually won!
Afterwards we went to Mama Gin’s rehab center to see her for Christmas since she can’t leave. Then home for our Christmas dinner.
Chase got a giant tomahawk steak and I made my fav potatoes au gratin. Yum!
Then presents time. We both knew what we were getting this year and we’d capped it because we wanted to save money for our trip next year for Chase’s bday. He got a homepod mini, a lego set and a shirt, and some chocolates in his stocking.
I got some stickers, some mini-brands and other blind boxes, and the Simplicity knock-off Padme picnic gown pattern from the early 2000s -it’s the only one of the Star Wars-esque patterns I never got back then. Yay!
My main present was the fabric for MoM Scarlet Witch which hasn’t arrived yet.
And we also got each other Star Wars Lego. We’d been looking forward to this game for years and finally got it LOL So we’ve been playing a couple of missions every other night. Currently on ROTJ.
Christmas Day we got up and headed to my parents for our usual Christmas morning breakfast.
Here again we kept presents light because we decided that after the holidays we’d all go out for a really nice dinner somewhere. I got a Dune shirt which I’ve been meaning to take a picture of but still haven’t despite the fact I’ve worn it like 3 times since then LOL Some cute Snoopy dish towels, socks, bath bombs, etc. And Chase got a Star Wars waffle maker!
These made some good waffles. And they also gave us some $$ for Chase’s bday trip.
Then off to Kevin’s for lunch/dinner.
Kevin and I spent most of the afternoon playing with the AI Manga filter on tiktok trying to see what weird stuff we could come up with.
He was totally fascinated by it.
This one was probably the weirdest:
Winston kept trying to eat the fake berries on the coffee table display.
And Izzi stayed out of the way under the tree.
I brought both kitties some yogurt squeeze things. (Oh – and Luna got new treats and some spring toys. She was originally completely uninterested in the springs until the other day I caught her chasing one in the kitchen.)
Back home and exhausted but got a few things ready for photoshoot Monday.
My Utena sword finally done!!
And of course Monday I got up, got my makeup done, got the backdrop set up.
We shot Dapper Day Leia
Padme’s packing gown – I forgot to take a mirror selfie in it before I changed, so here I am still with the hair on and the petticoat LOL And using some fabric as a shawl.
Utena
Jessica
Aaaand we shot both Starfires but I didn’t take pics of those because by then I had orange paint everywhere. Comic Starfire was a comedy of errors, I could not get my feet into the shoes, the legs of the bodysuit kept getting in the way, so I had to cut the boots off the bodysuit and then just pinned them back on for the photos. The chest plate didn’t want to stay in place because I’m probably about 2-3 inches bigger in the waist now than when I wore it originally. Fun times. Cartoon Starfire I could not get the upper armband on – my arm is too big for it now and I had to wear the belt at a different angle. But I got them shot and now I can mark them off my “to-do” list for photoshoots finally.
I’ll post the photoshoot results in another post, this post is already going to be way too long. I’ve got 4 out of the 6 costumes we shot uploaded so far so I’ll probably wait til I have everything finished. But I’ve been posting them on IG so you can see the sneak peeks over there.
Tuesday-Thursday last week I have nothing to talk about. It was work craziness after being out for 4 days (our customers literally do not understand the concept of a ‘holiday closure’) and not much else.
I was off Friday and this was the day Luna randomly hissed at me.
So I called Chase and we decided we needed to get her in for her overdue check-up. The one incident of peeing on the floor outside of her litter box the week before (and hissing at us afterwards), and now this made us worried she could have stones again, but she wasn’t acting quite to that level. (Like last summer with stones was a 10, this was like a 2 on that scale)
Saturday, New Year’s Eve, we had waffles for breakfast, ran some errands.
Spent the evening eating leftovers for dinner, playing Lego Star Wars, and then struggling to find a countdown that was for our timezone. Finally found a livestream on youtube of Dallas with no sound, LOL.
Sunday we got out and did some yardwork – after the below freezing temps over Christmas weekend, it was 70 degrees and beautiful Sunday. We got our leaves up and bagged. Yay, we hadn’t been able to with all the bad weather the last few weeks.
And yesterday was Luna’s appointment. We were both off work so that worked out well. We took her to a location that was kinda far away, but that’s where the vet we like works now.
I stayed in the car while Chase took her in, I still have a lot of anxietys about it after Indy. About a half hour later Chase came out without her. She was apparently so “feisty” they couldn’t do anything with her. They offered to put her in the sedation box and work her in throughout the afternoon. So we agreed to that and went to have lunch.
Tried to go get pizza but they were closed, so we went to Red Robin. I was excited because the Red Robin closest to us closed a while back so I haven’t had in a long time – I’m a total sucker for their fries with the Garlic Aioli dipping sauce. Well they brought out the wrong dipping sauce. Let the waiter know it was the wrong one. And he never brought out a new one until we were almost done eating – and when he did, it the same WRONG one. So disappointing.
We ran a few more errands including the secondhand store so I could look for some boots for Leia. No luck on boots but I did find…
An entire bolt of faux suede for $10. I don’t usually buy fabric without a project for it but for $10? Heck yeah I’m buying that. Pretty sure it’s an upholstery fabric – it’s a little heavy, but still pretty thin. I’ll probably just hang onto it to use for mock-ups when I need a heavier/stiffer fabric for the mock-up. But I did get some great suggestions on costumes over on IG.
Anyway at that point the vet called to let us know she was ready for pick-up. And all looked good, ultrasound was clean, no stones! Yay! Vet said she looks great for her age. Whew. Though with the sedation her check-up was way more $$ than expected… but worth it to know all is ok with her. Vet agreed with us that the hissing and occasionally peeing outside the litter box is her still experiencing some ptsd from her stones issue last year.
Got her home and set up a heating pad for her on the couch and she stayed there all night. Chase and I had leftovers for dinner again and played Lego and also we’ve binged the first season of “Only Murders in the Building” over the weekend so we started the first episode of season 2 last night.
And now back to real life. It’s so hard to come back to work after the holidays, especially since we don’t have another holiday built in to our work schedule until MEMORIAL DAY. But at least we have Chase’s birthday trip to look forward to.
Anyway, photoshoot post should be up in the next couple of days.