Stress does funny things to people. Some get skinny, some get fat. Some cut off all their hair.
And by that I mean, I just cut off all my hair.
It's not just stress, though. I'm also incredibly cheap and I discovered that if I agreed to donate my hair to Locks of Love I could get a free haircut from a fancy shmancy salon where it usually costs $70. Using Benjamin Franklin's logic, that's like me getting paid $70 for hair I didn't have time to wash anymore anyway. It's a no brainer.
To me, at least. P's reaction was less enthusiastic.
For the record, now, after cutting off 12 inches of hair, my hair is still a couple inches past my shoulders, which is to say, longer than most people's.
And don't worry, P. It'll grow out.
Saturday, October 6, 2012
Wednesday, September 26, 2012
Oh, Sugar Sugar
Tonight I finally got around to making the diabeedus-inducing brownies of heaven tonight and I might add, they are delicious. They are brownie on the bottom, a Ferrero Rocher candy in the middle and caramel cream cheese frosting on top.
 | ||
| Let's all take a moment of silence to appreciate this dessert in all its glory. |
Shortly thereafter, the mess it created in my kitchen had to be cleaned up and the responsiblity fell to HC. Halfway through, she came and flopped herself down on my bed.
HC:What do you want me to do with the leftover caramel sauce?
Me: We could keep it for apples if you want.
...HC doesn't respond...
Me: Or if you don't want, then just throw it out.
HC, suddenly sitting up: ARE YOU ON DRUGS?!?!
I'm pretty sure she's taking her lunch to school tomorrow.
Friday, September 14, 2012
Lost In Translation
In the week preceding baby K's birth, there was a lot of down time. Everyone just sort of hung around.
Her due date had come and gone with no action. Everyone was afraid of venturing too far away from the house, convinced that as soon as cell phone signal was lost (that happens in a pretty consistent two mile radius from here) I would suddenly go into labor.
HC was in the middle of final exams anyway, so she was distracted, but the other kids noodled around the house and found ways of entertaining themselves with increasing desperation.
One afternoon, my mother spent a good hour watching youtube videos of donkeys braying. Just braying. HeHAWWWW. HeHAWWWWWW.
An hour.
She claimed she was doing it to entertain the toddler, but I saw it as a sign that things were reaching a critical point. I opted for an induction.
My Mom has a hard enough time deciphering anything P says, given his dense accent, and her donkey experience turned out to confuse things even further. Once things were well under way at the hospital, the two of them were having a little chat while we all waited for my contractions to get serious. Conversation meandered around, finally settling on the topic of familial characteristics.
"Well, A is really a lot like my brother, don't you think?" P said.
"How so?" my mom asked.
"Well, they're both basically gentle and burrow loving..."
"What loving?" She looked at me for translation.
"Burrow loving," I said, and when she still looked totally confused, " BURROW LOVING...like, he loves his house and home and doesn't want to be disturbed."
"OHHH!" said my Mom, visibly relieved. "I thought you meant BURRO loving!"
I mean...who isn't?
Her due date had come and gone with no action. Everyone was afraid of venturing too far away from the house, convinced that as soon as cell phone signal was lost (that happens in a pretty consistent two mile radius from here) I would suddenly go into labor.
HC was in the middle of final exams anyway, so she was distracted, but the other kids noodled around the house and found ways of entertaining themselves with increasing desperation.
One afternoon, my mother spent a good hour watching youtube videos of donkeys braying. Just braying. HeHAWWWW. HeHAWWWWWW.
An hour.
She claimed she was doing it to entertain the toddler, but I saw it as a sign that things were reaching a critical point. I opted for an induction.
My Mom has a hard enough time deciphering anything P says, given his dense accent, and her donkey experience turned out to confuse things even further. Once things were well under way at the hospital, the two of them were having a little chat while we all waited for my contractions to get serious. Conversation meandered around, finally settling on the topic of familial characteristics.
"Well, A is really a lot like my brother, don't you think?" P said.
"How so?" my mom asked.
"Well, they're both basically gentle and burrow loving..."
"What loving?" She looked at me for translation.
"Burrow loving," I said, and when she still looked totally confused, " BURROW LOVING...like, he loves his house and home and doesn't want to be disturbed."
"OHHH!" said my Mom, visibly relieved. "I thought you meant BURRO loving!"
Sunday, September 2, 2012
Humble (Frito) Pie
(NB: This is an entry I wrote a while ago and never published, so it's chronologically askew. Have no fear. I'm not really pregnant again.)
I felt about as friendly as Medusa in a fit of roid rage all day yesterday, and maybe it was my body telling me I had a bug. Who knows. That's P's generous theory. I think I just woke up grumpy and made poor decisions as a result. Anyway, here's what happened.
On a given day, I eat pretty healthy. A cup of tea in the morning, with milk and a half a spoonful of sugar. Maybe some toast. Lunch I have some kind of veggie-heavy home made sandwich or panini with some fruit and a glass of water. Often, there's a cheese and cracker or chips and salsa afternoon snack and then we always have a family dinner that I make.
Yesterday was not this way. The day's tranquility fell apart around 9:43am and never got back on its feet. We were one car and two brains short of a smooth operation. By the time dinner rolled around, P had just finished his seriously delayed lunch meeting, HC didn't want to go run at the track on a full stomach and F was just generally refusing to eat.
So there I was, faced with eating dinner alone. No big deal. Easy cleanup.
About an hour later, P and I took the dog and baby out for a walk. We saw a family of ducks and some beavers swimming around in the lake and F got obsessed with them. The "Beabers" as she calls them, were so cool, in fact, that the whole way home she pouted and dragged her feet and kicked leaves and muttered "beabers an'a beabers in'a watahr and da ducks, beabers...beabers 'n beabers..." in an incoherent, toddler type way.
P tried to distract her with a pine cone, and she inquired doubtfully whether it was a beaber. It wasn't.
By the time F was bathed and toothbrushed and read to and tucked in, I was feeling really sick. I wallowed around on my bed for a while.. Then, when things got dramatically worse, I called P who insisted I call the doctor. It wouldn't have been a big deal, except I thought I was getting contractions, so the doctor told me to go to the hospital and met me up there.
I hate calling the doctor.
I'd much, much rather just wallow in my own self-pity behind closed doors than let on that I'm not feeling very well. I'm like one of those dogs that sits on it's own broken leg so none of the other dogs notice and challenge his top-dog status. Except, I never wanted to be top dog anyway, I just feel guilty if people have to go out of their way for me. It's sick, I know.
Not only did I not want to call the doctor, but I didn't want to go up to the hospital for monitoring, either. I knew everything would be fine (and it was). It was a waste of time. To top it all off, pretty much as soon as I got off the phone with the doctor, I started feeling better.
At any rate, I find myself in a room with P, the doctor and two nurses. One of the nurses is hooking me up to all kinds of machines to make sure I'm ok. There are beeping machines involved. It was totally silly.
One nurse pulls out a clipboard and starts to ask me about my symptoms.
"And when was the last time you ate?"
"Uh...a couple hours ago."
She marked something down with her thick yellow pencil.
"What did you eat?"
This was a nightmare. Here I was, in a room full of people who I am inconveniencing over something totally silly, and they're all listening to me answer this question. I wanted to curl up in a ball and hide under the gurney. I looked at the nurse, wishing she would get distracted by something, anything.
"I'm a healthy person, I promise." I said.
"I know, I can tell by looking at you." She looked right back at me. I was definitely not off the hook.
"...a bag of Fritos and two jelly doughnuts."
The nurse put down her clipboard without writing anything on it. The other nurse stopped fidgeting with the wires they were fastening to little listening devices around my belly. They both looked at me and laughed. LAUGHED.
"Well I think we found the root of the problem, Doc," the first nurse said.
Yeah, I guess so.
The thing is, I don't even like jelly doughnuts.
Especially not the second time around.
I felt about as friendly as Medusa in a fit of roid rage all day yesterday, and maybe it was my body telling me I had a bug. Who knows. That's P's generous theory. I think I just woke up grumpy and made poor decisions as a result. Anyway, here's what happened.
On a given day, I eat pretty healthy. A cup of tea in the morning, with milk and a half a spoonful of sugar. Maybe some toast. Lunch I have some kind of veggie-heavy home made sandwich or panini with some fruit and a glass of water. Often, there's a cheese and cracker or chips and salsa afternoon snack and then we always have a family dinner that I make.
Yesterday was not this way. The day's tranquility fell apart around 9:43am and never got back on its feet. We were one car and two brains short of a smooth operation. By the time dinner rolled around, P had just finished his seriously delayed lunch meeting, HC didn't want to go run at the track on a full stomach and F was just generally refusing to eat.
So there I was, faced with eating dinner alone. No big deal. Easy cleanup.
About an hour later, P and I took the dog and baby out for a walk. We saw a family of ducks and some beavers swimming around in the lake and F got obsessed with them. The "Beabers" as she calls them, were so cool, in fact, that the whole way home she pouted and dragged her feet and kicked leaves and muttered "beabers an'a beabers in'a watahr and da ducks, beabers...beabers 'n beabers..." in an incoherent, toddler type way.
P tried to distract her with a pine cone, and she inquired doubtfully whether it was a beaber. It wasn't.
By the time F was bathed and toothbrushed and read to and tucked in, I was feeling really sick. I wallowed around on my bed for a while.. Then, when things got dramatically worse, I called P who insisted I call the doctor. It wouldn't have been a big deal, except I thought I was getting contractions, so the doctor told me to go to the hospital and met me up there.
I hate calling the doctor.
I'd much, much rather just wallow in my own self-pity behind closed doors than let on that I'm not feeling very well. I'm like one of those dogs that sits on it's own broken leg so none of the other dogs notice and challenge his top-dog status. Except, I never wanted to be top dog anyway, I just feel guilty if people have to go out of their way for me. It's sick, I know.
Not only did I not want to call the doctor, but I didn't want to go up to the hospital for monitoring, either. I knew everything would be fine (and it was). It was a waste of time. To top it all off, pretty much as soon as I got off the phone with the doctor, I started feeling better.
At any rate, I find myself in a room with P, the doctor and two nurses. One of the nurses is hooking me up to all kinds of machines to make sure I'm ok. There are beeping machines involved. It was totally silly.
One nurse pulls out a clipboard and starts to ask me about my symptoms.
"And when was the last time you ate?"
"Uh...a couple hours ago."
She marked something down with her thick yellow pencil.
"What did you eat?"
This was a nightmare. Here I was, in a room full of people who I am inconveniencing over something totally silly, and they're all listening to me answer this question. I wanted to curl up in a ball and hide under the gurney. I looked at the nurse, wishing she would get distracted by something, anything.
"I'm a healthy person, I promise." I said.
"I know, I can tell by looking at you." She looked right back at me. I was definitely not off the hook.
"...a bag of Fritos and two jelly doughnuts."
The nurse put down her clipboard without writing anything on it. The other nurse stopped fidgeting with the wires they were fastening to little listening devices around my belly. They both looked at me and laughed. LAUGHED.
"Well I think we found the root of the problem, Doc," the first nurse said.
Yeah, I guess so.
The thing is, I don't even like jelly doughnuts.
Especially not the second time around.
Thursday, August 30, 2012
Long Summer
It's been a summer of highs and lows.
I made a rule for myself when I started this blog never to write about being unhappy, at least, not if I couldn't give it a positive spin. The trouble with this summer has been that for every unhappy moment that has stayed my hand as it hovered above the keyboard, there have been overwhelmingly wonderful ones to match. They're so overwhelming, in fact, that they're a challenge to write about, even when they were quiet enough to give me time.
Baby K is a most beautiful and perfect baby, and it was she, arriving after a short and simple delivery in the middle of June, who gave sweet relief to my long and uncomfortable pregnancy.
K looks nothing like her big sisters, with huge eyes and a head of dark brown hair.
But, God, is she beautiful.
Handling two little ones has been the challenge everyone warned me it would be. It also came with a dose of guilt more significant than even my Catholic upbringing had prepared me for. A lot of my lows stem from realizing that I'm just not enough to go around -- the babies, the big kids, the house and gardens, the work, the husband, the extra house we're trying to sell -- everything needs full and undivided attention that I can't provide.
I hope in the coming months to work out a system for organizing my life, and I'll try to keep you posted on my progress. In the meantime, I'm going to keep looking at this beautiful baby in my arms and trying to think it's all just sort of amusing.
I made a rule for myself when I started this blog never to write about being unhappy, at least, not if I couldn't give it a positive spin. The trouble with this summer has been that for every unhappy moment that has stayed my hand as it hovered above the keyboard, there have been overwhelmingly wonderful ones to match. They're so overwhelming, in fact, that they're a challenge to write about, even when they were quiet enough to give me time.
Baby K is a most beautiful and perfect baby, and it was she, arriving after a short and simple delivery in the middle of June, who gave sweet relief to my long and uncomfortable pregnancy.
K looks nothing like her big sisters, with huge eyes and a head of dark brown hair.
But, God, is she beautiful.
Handling two little ones has been the challenge everyone warned me it would be. It also came with a dose of guilt more significant than even my Catholic upbringing had prepared me for. A lot of my lows stem from realizing that I'm just not enough to go around -- the babies, the big kids, the house and gardens, the work, the husband, the extra house we're trying to sell -- everything needs full and undivided attention that I can't provide.
I hope in the coming months to work out a system for organizing my life, and I'll try to keep you posted on my progress. In the meantime, I'm going to keep looking at this beautiful baby in my arms and trying to think it's all just sort of amusing.
Wednesday, May 30, 2012
Bumbling Through Domesticity (and Domestic Help?)
I made the mistake a couple nights ago of visiting a self-help website about how to make and achieve goals, forgetting that it is intended for normal people who aren't full of hormones, inarticulable fears, feeling like a blimp full of monkeys with an inability to bend over to even reach my knees.
Somewhere between the "write out your goals for the next 90 days" and "what one word pops into your mind to describe yourself?" I found myself in tears. (Bedraggled? Terrified? Irrational?)
I talked to my Mom on the phone later and she attempted to reassure me. "It's the second baby that hits you," she said."The first one is like 'I got a pet baby!!' and the second one really makes you a parent."
Good to know.
The problems are several-fold. I constantly contradict and reprimand myself. I go from feeling like I don't have any help to feeling like there are too many people around getting in my business. I go from panicking about my lack of planning for next several months to the realization that there are too many unknowns to plan for. I go from waking up ready to accomplish great things to needing a nap after just walking to the kitchen for my breakfast.
The main issue that bothers me is this: MEN.
Let me explain. Generally speaking, I like men. Prefer them, even. However, in this situation they've doomed me.
First, there's the inevitable father tangle. My Dad was both a present and an active part of my childhood and beyond. One could say he loomed large (and not only because he's tall enough to play professional basketball). He was a...let's say...toughening influence on my life. There was no prissiness tolerated in our house, and while I was raised in a decidedly conservative environment, there was little distinction made for gender differences when it came to personal interaction, manual labor and discipline. During particularly difficult phases of my life, I have vivid memories of my father taking me aside, clearing his throat, and giving me speech along the following lines:
"Remember L, that you are very smart and very capable, and you come from a long line of tough, smart, capable women. Your female ancestors didn't need feminism to liberate them. Your great grandmother studied math in college before women went to college, and she earned a reputation as a glutton from her dates who didn't realize that she was so poor that when they took her out it was sometimes the only food she'd eaten that day. Another of your great grandmothers raised four children and ran a rice farm, including care of a large number of dependent laborers, by herself after her husband died. Women you are descended from were on the frontier of this country, working side by side with the men to establish homesteads, birthing children in the wilderness and chasing down smoke-house thieves on horseback, so that they could reclaim their stolen food (and use the horsewhip on the thief to boot). With that kind of blood in your veins, and with your talents you can accomplish anything."
No pressure.
Secondly, there's my darling husband, P. He's a horse of a different color.
I get morning tea in bed on a regular basis. It upsets him that I don't get more pedicures, massages and spa days. I get asked, "Baby are you ok?" about eleventy thousand times a day, because he really wants to know how I'm feeling. His answer to my overwhelmth is a speech along the following lines:
"Why don't you hire a nanny housekeeper?"
Because, P. Because.
1. I'm cheap.
2. The idea of having a new person (female) in my house and in my business who looks to me as their boss is stress inducing, on top of all the stress I have about how I need more help. (Nobody said these reasons have to be rational).
3. What about the long line of tough, capable women? What about the labor pains in the back of a Conestoga wagon that can't stop because there are Indians circling and we have to make it to the mountains because the snow hits!? WHAT ABOUT THE FRONTIER!?
Then again...
I was talking to my brother, and he gave me a slightly different perspective. One most accurately categorized as "don't be retarded".
"Look," he said. "Do you think those women did that because they wanted to? Like, they woke up one day and said 'I know! Honey! Let's go west. I think it would be FUN to risk my life for a measly piece of grassy plain.' No. They're up in heaven now, clapping and cheering every time P tells you to hire someone. That's what they did it for -- so you could have a better life. Plus, who knows, you might find Mary Poppins and she's not annoying and doesn't need anyone to boss her around."
But, I'm still cheap.
Somewhere between the "write out your goals for the next 90 days" and "what one word pops into your mind to describe yourself?" I found myself in tears. (Bedraggled? Terrified? Irrational?)
I talked to my Mom on the phone later and she attempted to reassure me. "It's the second baby that hits you," she said."The first one is like 'I got a pet baby!!' and the second one really makes you a parent."
Good to know.
The problems are several-fold. I constantly contradict and reprimand myself. I go from feeling like I don't have any help to feeling like there are too many people around getting in my business. I go from panicking about my lack of planning for next several months to the realization that there are too many unknowns to plan for. I go from waking up ready to accomplish great things to needing a nap after just walking to the kitchen for my breakfast.
The main issue that bothers me is this: MEN.
Let me explain. Generally speaking, I like men. Prefer them, even. However, in this situation they've doomed me.
First, there's the inevitable father tangle. My Dad was both a present and an active part of my childhood and beyond. One could say he loomed large (and not only because he's tall enough to play professional basketball). He was a...let's say...toughening influence on my life. There was no prissiness tolerated in our house, and while I was raised in a decidedly conservative environment, there was little distinction made for gender differences when it came to personal interaction, manual labor and discipline. During particularly difficult phases of my life, I have vivid memories of my father taking me aside, clearing his throat, and giving me speech along the following lines:
"Remember L, that you are very smart and very capable, and you come from a long line of tough, smart, capable women. Your female ancestors didn't need feminism to liberate them. Your great grandmother studied math in college before women went to college, and she earned a reputation as a glutton from her dates who didn't realize that she was so poor that when they took her out it was sometimes the only food she'd eaten that day. Another of your great grandmothers raised four children and ran a rice farm, including care of a large number of dependent laborers, by herself after her husband died. Women you are descended from were on the frontier of this country, working side by side with the men to establish homesteads, birthing children in the wilderness and chasing down smoke-house thieves on horseback, so that they could reclaim their stolen food (and use the horsewhip on the thief to boot). With that kind of blood in your veins, and with your talents you can accomplish anything."
No pressure.
Secondly, there's my darling husband, P. He's a horse of a different color.
I get morning tea in bed on a regular basis. It upsets him that I don't get more pedicures, massages and spa days. I get asked, "Baby are you ok?" about eleventy thousand times a day, because he really wants to know how I'm feeling. His answer to my overwhelmth is a speech along the following lines:
"Why don't you hire a nanny housekeeper?"
Because, P. Because.
1. I'm cheap.
2. The idea of having a new person (female) in my house and in my business who looks to me as their boss is stress inducing, on top of all the stress I have about how I need more help. (Nobody said these reasons have to be rational).
3. What about the long line of tough, capable women? What about the labor pains in the back of a Conestoga wagon that can't stop because there are Indians circling and we have to make it to the mountains because the snow hits!? WHAT ABOUT THE FRONTIER!?
Then again...
I was talking to my brother, and he gave me a slightly different perspective. One most accurately categorized as "don't be retarded".
"Look," he said. "Do you think those women did that because they wanted to? Like, they woke up one day and said 'I know! Honey! Let's go west. I think it would be FUN to risk my life for a measly piece of grassy plain.' No. They're up in heaven now, clapping and cheering every time P tells you to hire someone. That's what they did it for -- so you could have a better life. Plus, who knows, you might find Mary Poppins and she's not annoying and doesn't need anyone to boss her around."
But, I'm still cheap.
Wednesday, May 16, 2012
A Little Advice, or, How to Make a Round Crib Sheet
Greetings Bloglings,
It's been a while, but today I'm offering a throwback to the original intent of my blog, which is to offer some advice on how to bumble through domesticity. The first rule of bumbling is: be cheap. To that end, I present:
I realize this is a rather specific thing to be showing, but I couldn't find any special instructions online so perhaps I've found a niche.
So step one, obviously, is to locate the necessity of a round crib sheet. I found mine by way of a) getting pregnant and b)finding an awesome round crib at a local flea market for $125, thereby fulfilling the first rule of bumbling.
Step 2: Gather materials.
Step 4: Trace around the mattress with a pencil, making sure you leave about an inch of space extra for seam allowance.
Step 5: Move the mattress and cut out your circle of fabric.
Step 6: Measure the circumference of your mattress. This is easier said than done in my house, as my helpful toddler squirreled away all the measuring tapes sometime last week and they've yet to resurface. I just McGyvered it and used a long piece of ribbon.
Step 7: You're going to cut strips of fabric from that, when sewn together, will total the circumference of your mattress. So, in my case, (a 42" mattress), that meant three strips. Again, I had problems measuring, so I just divided my remaining fabric into thirds (hot dog style) and cut along those lines. They ended up being about 10" wide, I'm guessing. That's more than enough to encase a 4" deep mattress and allow for the elastic casing.
Step 8: Sew the strips together to make one long strip. Make sure the cute ("right", top or outside) sides of the fabric are touching (facing) each other so that when you open the fabric after sewing it you have matching patterns.
Step 9: Pin the long strip to the circle you cut out earlier, again, making sure cute sides are together.
Step 10: Starting about an inch or two away from the beginning of the strip, sew around the edge to attach the long strip. Stop an inch or two away from the end. This will leave the two ends of the strip unattached. That way, when you reach the end, you can attach them to each other and then finish up attaching it to the circle.
*dislaimer* I know Step 10 is a little wonky, but I have my reasons: because I'm not great at measuring, sometimes the strip comes out a bit long or a bit short, in which case giving yourself leeway is essential. When you reach the end of your strip you can determine for yourself if you need to trim off excess length or add on additional.
Step 11: Turn the sheet right side out and double check it fits your mattress. It's pretty much done at this point, you just need to put in the elastic to keep in it place.
Step 12: Hem the raw edge of the sheet, I did mine about a 1/4"
Step 13: Pin the hemmed edge under again to create the casing. I did mine about 1" because I wasn't sure what elastic I was going to use and I wanted plenty of room. Sew the casing, remembering to leave a little bit open so you can get your elastic in there.
Step 14: Figure out how much elastic you need by getting hold of some elastic and seeing how short it can be while still comfortably fitting around the circumference of your mattress. This will vary with different elastics. Just hold on to one end of the elastic and pretend your putting on a fitted sheet with the rest. You want it snug but not impossible.
Step 15: Use one safety pin to anchor one end of the elastic to the casing opening. Use another attached to the free end of the elastic to make it easier to thread through the casing. After you've threaded the elastic all the way through, sew the elastic ends together and close the casing.
It's been a while, but today I'm offering a throwback to the original intent of my blog, which is to offer some advice on how to bumble through domesticity. The first rule of bumbling is: be cheap. To that end, I present:
HOW TO MAKE A CIRCULAR CRIB SHEET FOR $8
INSTEAD OF BUYING ONE FOR $30.
I realize this is a rather specific thing to be showing, but I couldn't find any special instructions online so perhaps I've found a niche.
So step one, obviously, is to locate the necessity of a round crib sheet. I found mine by way of a) getting pregnant and b)finding an awesome round crib at a local flea market for $125, thereby fulfilling the first rule of bumbling.
Step 2: Gather materials.
- mattress that needs sheeting
- 2 yards of cute, soft fabric for sheet
- thread of appropriate color
- pencil
- about a yard of elastic
Step 4: Trace around the mattress with a pencil, making sure you leave about an inch of space extra for seam allowance.
Step 5: Move the mattress and cut out your circle of fabric.
Step 6: Measure the circumference of your mattress. This is easier said than done in my house, as my helpful toddler squirreled away all the measuring tapes sometime last week and they've yet to resurface. I just McGyvered it and used a long piece of ribbon.
Step 7: You're going to cut strips of fabric from that, when sewn together, will total the circumference of your mattress. So, in my case, (a 42" mattress), that meant three strips. Again, I had problems measuring, so I just divided my remaining fabric into thirds (hot dog style) and cut along those lines. They ended up being about 10" wide, I'm guessing. That's more than enough to encase a 4" deep mattress and allow for the elastic casing.
Step 8: Sew the strips together to make one long strip. Make sure the cute ("right", top or outside) sides of the fabric are touching (facing) each other so that when you open the fabric after sewing it you have matching patterns.
Step 9: Pin the long strip to the circle you cut out earlier, again, making sure cute sides are together.
Step 10: Starting about an inch or two away from the beginning of the strip, sew around the edge to attach the long strip. Stop an inch or two away from the end. This will leave the two ends of the strip unattached. That way, when you reach the end, you can attach them to each other and then finish up attaching it to the circle.
Step 11: Turn the sheet right side out and double check it fits your mattress. It's pretty much done at this point, you just need to put in the elastic to keep in it place.
Step 12: Hem the raw edge of the sheet, I did mine about a 1/4"
Step 13: Pin the hemmed edge under again to create the casing. I did mine about 1" because I wasn't sure what elastic I was going to use and I wanted plenty of room. Sew the casing, remembering to leave a little bit open so you can get your elastic in there.
Step 14: Figure out how much elastic you need by getting hold of some elastic and seeing how short it can be while still comfortably fitting around the circumference of your mattress. This will vary with different elastics. Just hold on to one end of the elastic and pretend your putting on a fitted sheet with the rest. You want it snug but not impossible.
Step 15: Use one safety pin to anchor one end of the elastic to the casing opening. Use another attached to the free end of the elastic to make it easier to thread through the casing. After you've threaded the elastic all the way through, sew the elastic ends together and close the casing.
DONE!
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