Zippers 101

Use it up, wear it out;

Make do or do without.





Tonight, I had to make do. Mck's winter coat's zipper broke last week and the weather is turning cold. The same thing happened last year so we had to get a new coat for this year. The slider broke in half. (Typically, I try to get the coats to last 2 years, if possible.) So I went to Joanns and bought a zipper replacement kit...that didn't work.



So, 20 minutes before the store closed, I zipped back over there...bought a 2 foot zipper and returned the replacement kit.



Came home...and started the long process of ripping out the old zipper and sewing in the new. Actually, the ripping out was easy. The putting in tricky. On the second side, I ended up sewing the back facing to the zipper and then the front. The back had about an 1/8 of an inch selvage...much too hard to pick up all the layers with that small margin to work with. Esp. since one of the layer is thick fluff/insulation.



I'm glad I could fix it even though it took a few hours and a broken needle, ripping out the resewn parts many times and a few stomping fits. I suppose if I had done that late lastspring, her other coat would have lasted 2 years.

Sluggish...

I'm supposed to be leaving for Brownies in the next few minutes. E is sleeping and I'm just not motivated to go. AND...the kicker is that I am running the meeting.

Luckily for us, I have a delicious beef vegetable soup simmering away in the crock pot. This afternoon I made 2 batches of carmel corn for my dear friend who picks up my boys after school so that do not have to sit around with 15 Brownies until 5pm! haha.

Hmmmmmm...maybe I'll snap a pix and add it to the blog. Or add it later b/c I am going to be late. E is a bear to wake up.

A Christmas Tradition

For the last several Christmas seasons, I have taken the time to get stacks of Christmas books out of the library and then read them with relish. Growing up I was an avid reader. After I got married, there was just never enough time to lose myself in books.



I guess I started early this year. A few weeks ago, I was perusing the children's section for novels for C* when I came across "The Legend of Holly Claus" by Brittney Ryan. (Illustrations by Laurel Long)




What a book!



It had parts of Sleeping Beauty in the setting of Narnia with the moral dichotomy of Les Miserables. Think of Characters like Mr. Darcy and Pollyanna. Mix together the magic of Hogwarts and the timeless thrill of Christmas and you have a superb story filled with adventure, amusement, choices and love.



At first reading, it seemed to start off slow. But perhaps that was just me or my mood on that particular day. But after getting into the book, I read and read...b/c I wanted to hear the ending.



The writing was wonderfully descriptive... not only of the lovely and good but of the spectacular and rotten. There were a good number of illustrations rendered in the style of the period that kept your imagination going.



I'm so glad that I stumbled upon this book.