The Sewing Mom

From the time my daughter was in kindergarten, she has always had some sort of PE class at least a few times each week. She’s always been active outside of school too, with softball and swimming. But, this 2nd semester of 7th grade, for the first time, she has not had a PE class. We’ve actually had to discuss ways to stay active in the winter to stay physically fit, whether it’s using the Wii Fit walking on the treadmill. It’s important to stay fit during the off season.

So, my daughter spent all day yesterday with the junior high Honor band. They had a contest performance and then, to celebrate the hard work they’ve done all year, they went to Medieval Times for dinner and all had a blast. After coming home last night, we got to talking about her future with band and what she wants to do when she gets to high school. She’s not sure she wants to do marching band, but then she informed me that marching band counts for PE credits in high school! Who knew?!

She’s only in 7th grade, but it’s never too early to start thinking about your future. She has a very good chance of receiving a college scholarship for band and, if marching counts for physical education, that’s something to seriously consider. If you’ve ever watched a marching band practice, or even perform, you know how hard it is and how many steps they take. It’s definitely a physical activity.

I wish I could tell anyone in a marching band to put on a pedometer and measure the distance that they’re walking each and every time they take to the field. They could then take that information, register at BeeWell Miles , log their miles marched and learn how many calories they’re burning! If they’re interested, they can even the meals they’re eating and get the caloric value. It really is a great way to living a healthy lifestyle.

I participate in BeeWell Miles by logging my walking and my Wii Fit time. To make it even more inviting, From 4/1/09-10/31/09, Bumble Bee Foods will donate $0.15/mile for every mile logged at BeeWellMiles.com (up to $200,000) to help Breast Cancer Network of Strength provide emotional support to those who can’t wait for tomorrow’s cure. And, as if that wasn’t enough, for any day that I log in (or you) and register my miles walked, I am automatically entered to win one of 15,000 prizes! I would love to win something, wouldn’t you?

Anyway, time will tell what my daughter decides about the future. I have no doubt she’ll stay with band, it’s just whether or not she’ll be marching that remains in question.

This is exactly what we would like to be doing all day today!  I don’t know if it’s because of the rain, or what, but it just feels like a super lazy day!  The rain has actually moved out of the area, finally, though and I’m thinking I really should get motivated and get outside and maybe do some yard work!

What are you doing today?

So, a couple of months ago, we had out of town guests visiting and we were all sitting in our family room after dinner, watching a movie. My husband had gone upstairs to watch a movie on his own, but the rest of us remained in the family room, including our dog. All of a sudden, out of the blue, our dog Plinko just started barking like crazy and headed for the back door. I let her out and she took off into the dark night as fast as she could go, barking all the way. At the time, I thought it was unusual, but I didn’t feel a need to go see what she was barking at. If she reacts that way again, I’ll go check it out.

Turns out there were people, probably kids, in our driveway smearing food goods all over our van which was parked out there. We didn’t discover the mess until the next day when we went out to get in the van to take our friends on a local tour. The outside of the van was a mess. I actually had to wash all of the windows before we could leave. If you’ve ever had your vehicle egged or your house toilet papered, you probably know how I felt. We don’t really know any of our neighbors too well, other then the occasional hello or friendly wave, and the only teenagers near us live right next door and I’ve never even met the boy. Needless to say, it’s sort of bothered me ever since to think that someone was being malicious to our personal property while it sat a mere 30 feet away from me and I didn’t have a clue. I guess I should’ve listened to the dog!

This isn’t the first time something has happened to our van since we’ve moved here, but I’d sure like it to be the last. It really bothers me that someone feels confident enough to come onto our property and mess with our stuff! I am looking into getting a wireless security system for our home. Our house is all ready wired for an alarm system, but I don’t have a land line, so never had it connected to a service. With GE Security I can get the Platinum Package that not only includes 15 entry points and a garage door detector, but also a motion sensor. If someone feels that confident to be in my driveway, right next to my garage door, while I’m home, what’s to say they wouldn’t be confident to try entering my home the next time. I really just want to feel safe. If I call 877-470-2751, I can even get 2 keychain remotes with my order.

The other day, my husband ran into our other next door neighbor and was telling him about the van incident. Turns out, on the same night, food had been smeared all over their front door and left to dry. That’s pretty dang bold of someone if you ask me. Next time, I’m going to be prepared and hopefully, the police will be able to respond and put a stop to it.

Isn’t this the cutest purse? It’s created from “charm” squares, 5″x5″ squares of fabric and has a zipper top closure. I love the pattern for this bag and how it all comes together. It’s all quilted with a nice thick batting in between the layers for an extra soft feel. This really is one of my favorite purses to make.

As Be Kind to Animals Week comes to an end, I am reminded of a couple of an incident that happened to our Siberian Huskey several years ago, something I will never forget.

My husband and I purchased our Siberian Huskey puppy when he was only 6 months old and we loved him from the first time we laid eyes on him. He was a beautiful dog, with blue eyes and he was so intelligent. He was very easilty trained and so lovable, he was so happy just being with us. Well, that is, unless he was given the opportunity to run. I had never really thought about Huskies as being a running dog, but let me tell you, if he was given the chance, he would run at break neck speeds, for miles. We learned early on that we could not let him off the leash when we were out at a park or beach because he would immediately take off running and, no matter what we did, he wouldn’t come back.

Not to long after we had moved to Houston, something terrible happened. By this time, our dog Dakota was about 2 years old. He’d been in the kitchen with me keeping me company when he decided he needed to go outside. So, I let him out in the fenced back yard. What I didn’t realize was that the phone company had been out and had left the back gate open. Of course, Dakota took the opportunity to escape without me even realizing it. After several minutes, I opened the back door to see where he was and realized he was gone. I was devastated. It was pouring rain and I took off on foot looking for him, unsuccessfully. I spent the next few days calling and visiting shelters, vet offices and clinics and didn’t find him. Finally, after just about giving up, a vet called me to let me know that a huskey, matching the description of Dakota, had been brought in several days earlier after being hit by a small truck and he would have the guy that brought him in give me a call. To my amazement, the guy did call and it was indeed Dakota. I was so thankful that the guy driving the truck had stopped, picked him up and taken him to the vet. Dakota had a broken leg, but he was back home.

Back then, I had never heard of microchipping an animal. This is a method of tagging a pet with a permanent chip that can’t fall off or become illegible. It gives the pet an amazing chance of being returned to its owner if it should become lost. I really think it could have helped me find Dakota more quickly and saved me so much worry. Visit the Home Again Web Site to learn more about microchipping and their national pet-recovery services. I can tell you from personal experience, it’s a terrible, gut wrenching feeling when your beloved pet goes missing.

Because this is Be Kind to Animals Week, you may also want to visit www.bringpetshome.com a fundraising Web site specifically created to help shelter animals. A portion of every purchase made through their website goes directly to help shelters around the country provide food and medical care to the hundreds of thousands of pets brought into shelters every year. Plus, for each pet registered, HomeAgain will make the donation through www.bringpetshome.com.

I wish I had a photo on this computer of Dakota, he passed away about 4 years ago, in his sleep, as a result of old age. We miss him every day and we were always thankful that he was returned to us.