It Is What It Is

You know how life throws you a curveball? Here I had all these amazing plans to clean house and make everything shiny new for the New Year. Guess I'll be putting that off until Chinese New Year because of "the arm".

I'm not sure if I've blogged about my right arm before. Maybe so. I know I posted it on facebook. To recap, I've got this weird bone issue stemming from an unresolved case of nursemaid's elbow when I was 4 or 5 years old. Basically, the radial head on my right arm was dislocated and never got popped back where it belonged, so Hey!, now it's grown really misshapen and out of joint.

As my ortho has said, I'm a survivor. I've made do with what I've got and adapted to the situation as best as I can. However, I'm inching closer to 40 every year and the older I get, the worse the pain gets. The pain I had as a kid was NOTHING compared to what it has been like the last 24 hours or so. The surgeon has had me on a ten pound weight limit for almost a year and I'm relapsing.

To give you an idea of why the arm is the way it is, here's a picture:

Right Radial Head Dislocation, 2009, ~32 years post trauma

Basically, there's no elbow joint. There's just skin/muscle holding the joint in place. FUN! Except when it isn't. Now, I'm not crying in my beer. Or milk or whatever beverage of choice. To quote Johnny Magic, "it is what it is". But when the pain gets severe, the only thing that helps is high doses of narcotics and complete rest. Which would be fine and dandy if I weren't 75% right-handed and the kids are home on vacation until January 10th. not that I'm counting. How many days is that anyway?

The LAST time this happened, I fractured my left thumb overcompensating for not being able to use my right arm because it was in a sling. And that left thumb? It STILL hasn't healed completely. I've been to see the ortho so many times in the last 9 months that I've got a "frequent shopper" card.So here I am propped up in bed with the laptop while the kids make themselves Nutella sandwiches and watch Dinosaur Train, Fairly Odd Parents and National Geographic documentaries on Netflix. I better order them another pizza for lunch. At least that has vegetables on it.

They Don't Make 'Em Like They Used To

Or a rant on Why I Hate Modern Patterns.

Let me preface this posting by saying that I am NOT a n00b. I'm actually a decent seamstress and would call myself intermediate/advanced. Now that I've established my creds, here goes:

Modern patterns (a veritable snore of the devil) are NOT made with the same attention to detail, quality and general re-usability of patterns a mere 20 years old. Yep. Whoda thunk I was praising the 80s?

Going back further, patterns from the 1970s - especially childrens' patterns - are superb. If not for fashion sensibility, at LEAST for the fact that once a pattern was cut, you could use it again and again. Why? Because the paper was a MUCH better grade of paper. Thicker and easier to refold. Has anyone tried to refold what passes for patterns these days? Trust me, you don't want to try. All you will get is M.A.D. Or be left with little shreds of paper where it refused to cooperate. Or both.

My favorite patterns are those that range from the early 1940s (how I love printed patterns) to the 70s. Why? Because they came in ONE SIZE. Not FIVE. Multi-size patterns are yet another snore of the devil and the bane of my existence <--- which I've spelled three times and figure "e" in the middle looks better. Especially CHILDRENS' multi-size patterns. Help me boab! When you have five sizes ranging from 1/2 (yes ONE HALF) to 4, it's quite obvious that the cutting lines are going to be ridiculously close together. And don't try actually cutting out the notches. So HERE is the offender:

It looks deceptively simple. There's a mere 21 pieces to the pattern. Yes, you read that correctly TWENTY ONE pieces for standard pajamas.

You could scoff and say "just transfer the pattern to paper and THEN cut it out". And I'd tell you BTDT ThankYouVeryMuch. That was just as much a PITA as doing it the "normal" way. So now, I'm back to the cutting table to finish New Year's Resolution 7.128: DO SOMETHING ABOUT ALL THAT FABRIC THAT IS SITTING IDLE IN YOUR STASH. AKA: Just make the darn outfits before your kids outgrow them.