Skippy: in memoriam
My dear Skippy passed away 2 weeks ago. A week prior to that, he really started to show some signs. He wasn’t eating much and when he did, he threw it up. He was starting to get thinner. He had trouble walking up the stairs to the point where I started carrying him up and down. He didn’t want to go for walks. He didn’t even pay attention to Neo’s hairballs (which he previously would gobble up!) I knew something was wrong. The day before I took him to the vet, he started to do a sort of howling/yelping noise. The vet said that it was most likely kidney failure and he was dehydrated (he was drinking less and less water.) He gave me choices and I knew the best choice for him was to put him to sleep. He wasn’t in pain but I knew if he kept on, he would surely start to feel some pain. I was a mess at the vet’s office. I probably used a whole box of his tissues. They were going to do 2 injections, the first one puts him to sleep and the 2nd one does the job. I had the option to stay through the end or just to through the 1st injection. I opted for that because I knew I wouldn’t be able to handle staying to the end. He fell asleep in my arms as I held him in my lap for the last time. He has been in the family since he was a puppy and I have been taking care of him since 2005/2006 when he came to live with us. He was close to at least 15 or 16 years old. He’s at the Rainbow Bridge now.
This was sometime in 2000 in Queens, before he lived with us.
Skippy and his daughter Rozie (who also passed) probably in 2007.
On his way to Brooklyn, coming to live with us permantly!
July 2007
March 2007 at my baby shower!
2007, guarding Sienna!
dealing with the snow!
Wearing a Jamaica shirt.
Red Hoodie!
December 2013
Using Sienna’s bean bag chair! January 2014
Sienna reading to Skippy in January 2014
Carrying him downstairs with the laundry. Can you notice him? March 2014
One of the last photos I took of Skippy. April 2014
Comments(3)March, what a month!
What a great month March was for Sienna! Besides turning 7, she found out she made student of the month for February and her science project got into the fair! And that’s not all! After the fair was over, she came in 3rd place for her grade! She was very happy about that. Also in March was the show her class did for assembly (which she very much enjoyed doing, future on stage, perhaps?). It was called “Adventures in the Land of Video Games.” You can guess what it was about. It was really cute. I was able to get a really good copy of a video of the whole play from another parent.
Team Menou working on the science project!
Posing at the fair with her project.
Her 3rd place certificate and ribbon.
Everyone on stage! Her class and a kindergarten class.
With her first grade teacher. I tried to get her other best buddy in (Emily T) but she is shy.
Student of the month!
Grandpa got her a cheesecake per her request.
Vanilla cupcakes for her class party.
Goody Bags for her class party!
An ice cream cake to celebrate (again!) Starr’s birthday is the day before Sienna’s.
The cake, pre-blow.
Here’s a video of the family singing to Sienna. I love the big, huge smile on her face! Password is birthday.
Happy Birthday Sienna Family from Lisa on Vimeo.
January/February 2014
Dumplings at Joe’s Shanghai on New Year’s Day. Oh boy, do I want some now!
Sienna chowing down on one!
Snow day from school in early January! Password is snow
Mini snow hill from Lisa on Vimeo.
Hanging with Grandma on the bean bag chair.
Made some gluten free bagels. They were a bit dense but not bad!
Abalone, one of my favorite dishes that I only get during Chinese New Year. Year of the Horse now!
More favorites! Rice vermicilli with dried shrimp, chicken, baby bok choy and chinese sausage.
Got a little visitor!
He came with my favorite almonds from Seattle! He came with his mommy, Amy, too!
Joy and I had a girl’s day and got messages at Eden Day Spa. So nice! We grabbed lunch at Breakroom Burgers and Tacos. Fish tacos on left and pork belly on right. Yum!
We shared an order of their special fries! Stick fries, tator tots, cheese, bacon, jalapeno and runny egg. MMMM! So getting this again!
I gave Sienna a balloon and special cookie for Valentine’s day. Yves gave each of us a rose.
Sienna made us a card with a story inside and drew us inside. So precious!
We went to visit the Transit Museum during Sienna’s mid-winter break. It was fun!
Iron Craft ’14, Challenge 2
Before I get to the 2nd challenge for Iron Craft 2014, here are one set of earrings I finally finished from the first challenge!
I added some swarovski crystals and they have a nice sparkle. It’s too bad the photo can’t really show the opalescent sheen from the paint. The paint, btw, is Pebeo Fantasy Moon paints in Metal Blue. I really like these paints, especially in combination with other colors. I’ll post some of what I did with them in another post.
Now on to the 2nd challenge! Get It Together! As you can guess, about organizing. I am constantly trying to organize and keep organized. If you know me, you know it is not easy! I tease hubby about his endless lists but now I have started doing lists too and yes, it is very helpful! One of the problems for me is if it is out of sight, it is out of mind. And with all the craft supplies I have, it is hard to keep it organized and know what I have! Sigh…constant battle!
Anyway, a lot of my craft supplies is in my studio (the extra bedroom) but it does make it out to other areas of the house, much to Yves’ dismay. He has the closet in the bedroom for his clothes but a few of my (and Sienna’s too!) supplies take up the big shelf. He decided to just give over the whole closet to me (to be fair, it’s not a very big closet considering it’s in the master bedroom!) and get a wardrobe/armoire type thing to put in the corner of the bedroom. We are still waiting for it to arrive and to make room, our 4 drawer metal file cabinet is going to move into the studio (big purging of papers in there!) and 3 of the 4 drawers will hold craft supplies! My jewelry box sat on top of the file cabinet and now that it’s going to move into the closet of my studio, I wanted to rethink how to store my bracelets and pendants. My earrings were already hanging up as seen here. Being able to see all my earrings is so helpful so I thought I would make a hanging jewelry organizer to be able to see the rest of my jewelry! I pinned 2 tutorials to get ideas but really just sort of winged it. I am so proud to say that I made it in ONE day!! I started it in the morning and finished it up after dinner LAST WEEK!! Can you believe it? Me? The procrastinator?! I was really revved up with the idea and knew I had to finish it that day as who knows how long it would have sat, half finished, otherwise? And here is my pride and joy!
Originally, I was thinking of making it double sided but after starting, realized that I would be making it harder on myself to do that. It wasn’t very hard at all but the vinyl definitely proved the most challenging even though I used a teflon foot! Here’s some photos to show my process. The fabric I used is a heavier weight cotton that a friend gave to me when she moved and unloaded all her crafty good intentions on me. It has been in my stash at least 3 years!
Hangar Fail! Realized using a standard shirt hanger was not going to work! Decided on pants hanger instead.
Dealing with the big role of vinyl. I had bought this vinyl online years ago at the beginning stages of my sewing and clearly did not know what I was ordering! I didn’t realize it was going to be so big and come like this! I cut off a big piece for my project and then cut that down.
Laying out each piece of vinyl for placement.
Sewing on the bias tape (also from my friend) to make the vinyl look prettier.
After doing all the vinyl, I thought it would make it easier to sew the rows together at the same time and taped it down. This is paper tape that I thought was low tack. It ended up getting stuck on the vinyl so had to clean it up with goo gone. Some spots took quite a bit of elbow grease. Not sure if taping it down really helped me in the end.
Finished the first row!!
Close up shots. I’m so happy with it and now I can see most of my jewelry (there are a few stragglers that I don’t know if I am going to keep.)
Iron Craft ’14, Challenge 1
I have joined Iron Craft 2014 and the first challenge is leather or crystal. I have chosen to do leather. I have had this noodle bead bracelet tutorial on my Pinterest board for 51 weeks! Who knows when I bought the materials for it but I finally decided to do something about it! It really was easy peasy and the most difficult part about it was waiting for the glue to dry on each end cap and to be safe, I let each end dry overnight. I used black and silver leather cord and also hematite and silver noodle beads. I like it!
While technically, I did not make this next bracelet for this challenge, I did fix it!
I made this last year sometime, maybe even a little over a year ago, and I only got to wear it once or twice before the thread came loose. Thankfully, the whole thing did not fall apart as it was just the end part where I guess I did not tie it tight enough. It sat in my jewelry box waiting to be fixed. It finally saw the light of day when I was working on the noodle bead bracelet. Yves got me these sexy visors for Christmas:
sexy, right? So now I could see and able to fix the thread easily!
Ok, so I was going to call it a day with this challenge but then I remembered my old leather shoes.
My beloved Danskos that I practically wore almost everyday for a year and a half. Supposedly, they are supposed to last longer than that but maybe I have weird feet. I realized that they just couldn’t be fixed and finally let them go. One foot had a split on the side and the other had a crack on the bottom.
Instead of throwing them away, I decided I wanted to make them into something else but they sat for months and months…Until this challenge, well, challenged me!! I decided to cut them up and make earrings out of them. They have been granted an afterlife.
Not sure what to do with the other foot. Maybe a leather flower brooch?
Technically, I am not done with them as I decided to paint some of them to see how they will turn out. I like how the bottom left looks and do not like the top right at all! I left one pair as is and not sure what I will do with the blue/purple one. I can add more layers of paint too.
Christmas 2013
Ready to open presents!
Thanks Grandma and Grandpa in Jamaica!
Ruh-roh! It’s Scooby and the gang! Yves picked this out for her since she’s been watching the cartoons.
From Amy, David and Atlas! Yay! Can’t wait to make some pretty paper!
I made this for Yves. Saw this as a computer wallpaper and recreated it.
Spiffy new swim goggles!
Cutting board I made for Brian, an uber fan!
These are for Starr. She loved them!
The girls got butterfly wings!
Dinner with the Balds. Unfortunately, I did not take many photos! I made the usual pernil (YUM!). Also tostones with garlic sauce, crock pot mac and cheese, rice and peas Jamaican style, asparagus and they brought over broccoli rabe and dessert. YUM! Everything was delish!
Pooped after a long day!
Sienna got a few more gifts but I didn’t want to overdo the post with photos of her and her presents! LOL! As usual, a wonderful day filled with family, friends and great food and wine!
Holiday Festivities!
Just a little sad that the holidays are over. Sometimes I do stress to get everything done but in the end, I always enjoy this time of year as everyone and everything is so festive. We ended up not doing the house lights this year OR seeing the Rockefeller Tree but that is ok. I am happy just being able to be with our friends and family.
Being silly while rolling cookies!
Decorating cookies with her BFF Emma
Atlas came over with David and Amy for Christmas Eve lunch! Sienna enjoyed holding Atlas!
We celebrate with my parents by going out to dinner on the Eve.
Our usuals; some sort of greens, fried rice, Hong Kong style steak, Walnut shrimp and chicken. YUM!
Dad opens the candy before we do presents.
Guess what she got?
She asked Grandpa for walkie talkies for Christmas and he buys her real ones (as opposed to toy ones!) He also got her a remote control car (which I really think he just wanted to play!)
Uncle Kenny got her Legos!
I let her open Emma’s present, a pair of Stompeez!
We also do stockings and Yves gets chocolate in his.
The furry ones get something too! Skippy has treats and Neo gets hairball treats (no photo!)
Creating part 1
I’ve been doing a lot of posts of family events and not much posting of my creations. I have been creating! Here are some of the things I’ve done. More to come!
Yves bought me a heat press for my birthday back in July. A complete surprise! I love to make t-shirts for friends and have sort of complained that using an iron is not practical when you want to make a bunch. Opening up an Etsy shop has been on my list of things to do for ages. While I am still not there yet, I am getting closer. More on that further down! Some of the fun things I’ve made using the heat press. Once I got over the initial fear of it’s heat inducing powers, it is super easy and fun!
For Sienna’s friend, Sylvie, who turned 5 in September.
This is an inkjet transfer that I printed out and had the cameo cut it to shape. I made this back in September. The transfer is all cracked now, which is disappointing!
I made these 2 pencil pouches for Sienna. I printed the images on fabric and used my heat press to add iron on vinyl to it. This is the front (the bottom one Sienna colored). Of course I didn’t take into account the seam allowance so some of the images get cut off.
The backs
Made this shirt for Yves for Christmas. Found this image as a wallpaper online and loved it so recreated it with vinyl.
Made this baby stats frame for Amy and David. Really happy with how it came out!
So, while I mentioned above that I was getting closer to opening an Etsy shop, I actually posted some items for sale on my Facebook page. Small baby steps! I offered these personalized shirts for kids.
Sienna modeling the snowman shirt
The tree design
The Santa design
Unfortunately, I did not make any sales via Facebook but there were a couple of friends that bought some! I’m just happy that I finally put myself out there and even though sales were not what I wanted, I survived that and am ready to move on to the next designs to create!
I also offered these floating frames. They look so pretty in real life. It’s hard to take a decent photo!
I made this one for Sienna’s teacher and also included a GC for Dunkin Donuts.
Made this envelope a long time ago and trying to work through my stash. Sienna’s school has a movie night so I put the money in here for it. The woman that heads the PA tells me she kept it and it’s hanging on her bulletin board! It’s so nice to hear!
This was a commissioned wristlet made for a BR mom whom I don’t get to see much. I had made her a wristlet years ago that she loves and used everyday. It finally saw it’s last day so she reached out to me to make her a new one. And I got paid for it! Woohoo!
More creations to come!
Santaland
So on Black Friday, we went to a puppet show at Macy’s Santaland. Brian’s mom organized the whole thing as I didn’t even know they had a puppet show! We met them as well as Masayo and her kids, Julian and Maya, at Macy’s. The puppet show was Yes, Virginia and it was barely half full! (Probably because nobody knows about it! Or also because it was the 10:30 am showing!) It was only about 30 minutes long. It was cute!
After the show, we headed over toward Santaland. The wait said 1 hour. That didn’t seem so bad! Plus we were a bunch together so that should make the time go fast. We went through the arch and we walked through what seems like a very long and winding hallway that seemed endless. When we finally got to the end of the line, it was like the employees only behind the scenes area. And the line seemed really long. And we totally didn’t think it was going to be an hour. The men folk were almost whining about it but kept each other company. The kids seemed fine although Nico was mimicking Brian a little bit about the wait. Us woman stayed strong! We were waiting! And I was glad we did because when else would we have this opportunity with the kids together? And it really was an hour! The walk through Santaland was very cool and pretty (my very first time there!)
Lots of elves greeted us on line.
Loved the trains going around the tree!
Hard to get a nice shot of all the kids together!
If you are family or on my FB, you got to see the good shot.
This was right after we came out from seeing Santa. I was still in awe while Sienna stated that she didn’t think that was the real Santa because she saw another little girl come out from a different area! LOL! Too smart for her own good! Apparently, there are a bunch of Santas, which is why the line went pretty smoothly!
We got separated into 3 different groups trying to get out of Macy’s! Once we finally got together again, it was off to lunch in Koreatown! Yay! I believe we went to Seoul Garden. Half the table got BBQ, which is what Sienna ended up liking! I got bibimbop and Yves got a pork dish that was tasty but a little spicy for Sienna.
The girls with full bellies afterward.
