The Bureau of Paranormal Research and Defense

Yesterday was a very big day at the zoo for us, with special guest stars in the shape of my dad, stepmom, and youngest stepbrother, who all joined us there to celebrate Squidling's birthday, followed by a special dinner at Red Robin (his favorite, despite being vegetarian by choice ... mostly he just likes their dirty sodas, I think). So, anyway, especially after not getting as much sleep as usual due to fireworks on the 4th of July, we needed a slow day today so that Squidling could recover, so we instituted a project day. He had a new gundam kit to build from his birthday, and The Boy had one from his birthday a few months back, and... so I had to find something to do (other than laundry, which I also did).

As it happens, my stepmom had given me a couple of new shirts a few months back and, while I'd really liked the look of them, they'd turned out to be too big when I tried them on at home. So I decided to put my sewing skills to use and rework them to fit.

This is always a bit of a dodgy proposition with Squidling around, because he tends to get very upset that I am "destroying" my clothes and "cutting them into shreds," which... no. I am cutting them very deliberately so that I can re-sew them, in order to have garments that I will actually wear. But no amount of explaining this to him has gotten it into his head to this point (although I hope that now that he's seven he can tell by being present for the whole process that this is different... some of it is just a thing he pulls out to be mad at me about, though, so we'll see...).

Anyway, shirt number one (a white and green floral sleeveless blouse) was a pretty easy job: turn inside out, lay a similar shirt that fits me over the top, mark the new side-hems with pins, then cut with pinking shears and sew up the sides again. ...Then undo the underarm and fold it down to create a bit more space. Tada! All finished.

Shirt number two was a bit trickier. The intended design is loose and boxy, so I didn't want to take it in too much, but... I also don't favor designs that are too loose and boxy, and the whole thing was very much a whole size too big for me. The sleeves looked good, though, all the way down to just beneath the underarm, so I left that and just had to deal with everything from about the bust down. Two other complications: this shirt had about two-inches of slit hem at the sides, which I liked and wanted to preserve / recreate in the new version, and the shirt is made of that thick, textured cotton gauze, so I had to be really cautious of unraveling... and did I mention I do all my sewing by hand? Ah, yes. So, again, inside out with the shirt, lay a similarly-styled shirt that fits me over the top to get the proper side hems, but then leave some added space because, again, I wanted to preserve some of the intent of the original. Re-sew the sides down toward the bottom hem, then figure out where I want the bottom hem to fall on me and pin that with the split sides preserved but making sure to carefully hem everything and make sure I'm not leaving any loose edges, even on the inside of the shirt. It took quite a while, but I'm very happy with the result.

And now I have two new summer shirts (both appropriate for wearing at the museum or to other nicer events!) that actually fit me. Hooray!

We bought Squidling an old Sony boom box at Goodwill the other day, and he LOVES it. It has a cassette player (currently broken, but The Boy is confident he can fix it), a CD player, and a radio. It also immediately turned the Squidling into a teenager. He carries it around, blasting it at full volume, playing songs on endless repeat. It's adorable, if also somewhat exasperating because he thinks it's fine to turn it up so loud that it hurts my ears from a whole floor away (granted our house is tiny, but honestly).

The only CD that officially belongs to him at the moment is The Carnival of the Animals (also found at Goodwill, which was a great coincidence because he loves that), but The Boy and I both dug out our old CD collections and offered him limited, parent-guided choice of a few albums. He picked a Barenaked Ladies CD from me, and Shonen Knife and Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars from The Boy.

Sunday evening he played "Moonage Daydream" and "Starman" on constant repeat, excepting only the Carnival of the Animals once and checking in on KEXP a few times.

This morning he played KEXP again, and then the entire Shonen Knife album one and a half times before going to his day camp. I fully expect to hear it again, at least three times, when he gets home.

He has headphones, and has expressed a willingness to use them, so I'm hoping that when I beg him to switch to those at some point (probably as soon as he picks an album I don't like from The Boy's collection) he will accept that as an alternative to filling the whole house with his choice of music.

All around, it's pretty cute.