The Sewing Mom

I don’t have a picture this week because I’m back to tackling paper work and to-do lists.

I managed to get quite a bit of filing done over the weekend and have really been concentrating on a few major items on my to-do list. The item I am currently working on is getting my Texas driver’s license. I spent some time this morning gathering all of the necessary documentation and identification together so that when I go to apply for my driver’s license, I’ll have everything I need. Now, I just have to hope I can pass the written test.

The good news is that the Texas Department of Public Safety has a copy of the driver’s handbook online. The bad news is, it’s 104 pages long. There is no way I am printing all of that, so this morning, I spent about an hour just reading through it. When I got to the end, I found a practice test, 84 questions! I printed the 3 pages of questions and then spent the next three hours researching the answers.

Many of the questions are common sense, what shape is a stop sign, etc. Others, are more obscure. When can bicyclists ride two abreast? Some are somewhat difficult. When a driver’s vehicle is traveling at 50 mph, how many feet does it travel before he reacts to an obstruction. How many more feet does it travel after the driver reacts?

My plan is to go to the DPS office tomorrow morning after dropping my daughter off at school. I will have to fill out the application for the license and take the test. I’ve been told to plan on being there for several hours. I will be surrendering my Illinois driver’s license, so I shouldn’t have to take the driving portion of the test.

Wish me luck!

If you have something you’ve tackled and would like to participate, head on over to 5 Minutes for Mom and grab the code.

Tags: tackle it Tuesday, texas department of public safety

I’ve been spending so much time on the computer lately that I’m not getting some of my other things done. So, I decided to use the giant whiteboard that is next to my desk and created my “to do list”. These were all fairly easy and basic things, but things that I tend to put off or simply forget to do.I spent most of yesterday researching orthodontists and dentists, trying to find the ones that accept our insurance proved to be quite a challenge. I’m still in search of a dentist, but I did manage to find an orthodontist and was even able to get my daughter an appointment for an initial consultation tomorrow. This is excellent because I am planning to sign up for the Health Savings account and need to know how much money to put in. It’s the account that if you don’t use the money in the plan year, you lose it, so my calculation needs to be pretty accurate. I was also pleased that when I explained what I was doing to the lady on the phone, she completely understood and was able to get us an appt. so quickly.

So, with the exception of calling a dentist and getting my mother-in-laws birthday box to the post office, I managed to get everything else checked off of the list and managed to start today’s list which is much smaller.

If you’d like to see what others are doing for today’s tackle, head over to 5 Minutes for Mom.

Tags: orthodontists, tackle it Tuesday

I spent the last week gearing up to not only clean up my blog, but also to begin selling my fabric bags. My Tackle It Tuesday is exactly that, a cleaned up blog and my first bag is up for sale.I week or so ago I upgraded this site to WP2.3.2. This was definitely not what I would call a smooth process. If it hadn’t been for the fact that I had a wonderful support team to help me, I probably would’ve walked away from my computer, never to return! The upgrade was finally completed though, but some very strange things happened along the way.

The site itself seemed to be working properly, but there were things in places that they shouldn’t be. Search boxes on top of feed buttons, text trailing across my calendar and a blogroll that has all but disappeared. I have to send a huge shoutout and thanks to my sister Karen at The Pond for diligently sticking with me yesterday and helping me get things back where they belonged. Somehow, code had been shifted all throughout my WP php, it was as if a tornado had gone through and just moved everything arbitrarily. She managed to get things put back where they belong.

Just when we thought everything was good, my comments all disappeared, plus, there was a period of time last night, when my readers couldn’t leave a comment. Very frustrating. After more persistence on my sister’s part, it was fixed. I must apologize to anyone who was here during that time, I’m sorry I missed you.

While all of that was going on yesterday, I was busy adding items to this site. One thing is the Sticky Plugin that allows me to have an announcement remain at the top of my page. Of course, I wanted that in order to be able to announce the other major item I added yesterday, and that is my WP Auctions Plugin that has allowed me to begin selling my fabric bags, right here on my own site.

I am very excited about the Auction plug in. Afterall, my only New Year’s Resolution this year was to get my sewing business up and running and begin selling my bags. I feel that after yesterday, I have begun the process. I am continuing to consider selling via Etsy.com. I have registered, but have not yet set up my shop, it’s a bit intimidating and I haven’t had a lot of time to spend on it yet.

While all of the above was going on yesterday, I also managed to finish this bag and it is the very first item that I listed on the auction. I love this bag and have started a second one. So, here is the photo before with all of the supplies I needed to make the bag, and then of course, the finished product. I am feeling somewhat proud of myself! I do however still have the issue of my missing blogroll. The links are all still in my WP dashboard, they just don’t seem to be appearing on my right sidebar where it says “Blogroll”. Not sure what’s going on there, I’m still working on it!

Have a great Tuesday!

Tags: sewing, tackle it Tuesday, wordpress, WP Auction

My daughter has never had a proper dresser. In our previous home, I rebuilt the inside of her closet with double rods and a ton of shelving. This allowed her to hang up most of her clothing and all her pajamas and under garments were folded on shelves. I also, someplace in time, had purchased a cardboard, 4 drawer, storage box that she used for her socks and things.

Since moving, I haven’t done anything with her new closet and she still doesn’t have a dresser. Her current closet has the typical one rod and one shelf with a few hooks along one wall. All of her pajamas and sweatshirts are on the floor and her little cardboard storage box has seen better days. She informed me that she didn’t want a dresser in her room as it would take up valuable space, she wanted one to go inside of her closet. Okay, that meant I could look for anything, as long as it would fit, and it didn’t have to match her bedroom furniture.S

I’ve been on the dresser hunt since this past April. I didn’t want to spend a lot of money on something that was going to be put inside her closet, but everything I was finding that was decent was $175 and up. I really didn’t want to spend that much. Then, it happened, I got lucky.

Last week, I was wondering through an antique store that I’ve been in several times before, while my daughter was at her guitar lesson. The first thing I saw was a tall, narrow, 6 drawer, upright lingerie chest of drawers. It was priced at $125. The hardware on it was a bit more decorative than I would’ve liked, but considering it would be going inside her closet, I didn’t think it mattered so much. Besides, we could always change the hardware.

While still considering that dresser, I continued browsing the store and couldn’t believe it when I ran across a simple, very basic, 5 drawer chest of drawers that was perfect for our purpose. It was priced at $79 and to my amazement, had a sale sign on it and was marked down to $59! I knew right away that I had to have it, unfortunately, I was driving our small car, there was no way I could get it home.

The next day I traded vehicles with my husband and drove our van back to the antique store, where I quickly paid and loaded that dresser up to bring home. My daughter saw it and was not impressed, mainly because it was green. That’s right, it had been painted green. I told her not to worry, that was an easy fix. I found the remains of the paint I had painted my sewing room with and gave it 3 coats of an off white. I have to say, it looks so much better!

Last night, I lined the drawers and it is now ready to be moved into her closet and put to use. The next thing to do will be to redo her closet, giving her double rods and at least one more shelf. It will be nice for my daughter to not have to have her clothes on the floor.

I had all ready started painting when I realized I hadn’t taken a “before” shot, so my daughter snapped this for me and I snapped the after shot.

Tags: storage, tackle it Tuesday

I have no pictures for this weeks Tackle It Tuesday, it was a technology tackle. I have this site and my new site It’s My Imagination on WordPress and needed to upgrade both sites to WP2.3.2. Unfortunately, I’m not very tech savvy, to say the least. I spent the last few weeks procrastinating and asking various tech savvy bloggers for guidance. I did get input and directions.Yesterday, I spent the morning backing up all my databases and files. I even went so far as to download software to open the compressed files that were the new backup files located on my desktop. My desktop is becoming more and more cluttered, now I need to figure out when I can delete all that stuff, a task for a different Tackle.

So, this morning, I tackled it head on. I deactivated all my plug-ins, I downloaded the updated version of WordPress and I opened up my FTP. With my directions laid out in front of me, I set out copying new files over the old files and everything went very smoothly. That is, until I went back to my site and tried to get into it. It had died a painful death and I couldn’t get into it.

While all of this was going on, I was on IM with my sister Karen and she was helping me out. The biggest assist she gave me was when she sent an IM to Techie to ask for help. Within 30 minutes, he had fixed whatever the problem was on this site AND had upgraded my other blog as well. I am forever grateful and am so happy to be able to say that my blogs are updated and my Tackle is complete.

THANK YOU TECHIE!

Tags: tackle it Tuesday, wordpress