Oversharing

I am attempting to sew a t-shirt. 

That sounds fairly straightforward, but I bet you don't have to make quite the full bust adjustment onto a pattern that I have to make, and the complexity of that operation is somewhat paralyzing. 

Little did I know, back when I was a B-cup with a perfect hourglass figure, that I accidentally fit the standard measurements that pattern companies use to create their patterns, so most of those patterns worked really well for me without me having to do anything other than cut out the cloth and follow the sewing directions. When I was 17, I sewed a cute little dress for a dance, among other things, and I thought sewing my own clothes was easy. 

Nowadays, not only is pattern fitting very daunting, but buying material for your own clothing is definitely no longer a money saver over buying off-the-rack. Yet I persist in my attempts to learn how to do this because I eventually want to get to the point where I don't throw material and patterns into a pile in the corner and weep with frustration. If I can successfully make a well-fitted t-shirt once, I can use that pattern over and over and make alterations to hem length, sleeves, and necklines as I desire. I'm just really ignorant at the moment, and getting past that ignorance is a process. Who would think you could be so afraid of a pattern? It helps that I'm using cloth I didn't pay much money for, so I can experiment without making a really expensive mistake.

Will I show you the completed t-shirt? Absolutely not. I hate pictures of myself, ok? 

What I will show you is this cool little notepad I made out of scrap paper at work. 

At work, we had a lot of old letterhead after we updated our stationary, but I thought it was a shame to toss stacks of perfectly good, quality paper into the recycle bin. Instead, I have been cutting it up into quarters, stacking it together, and then running some hot glue across the top edge. Once the glue is dry, I have scrap paper notepads. As I work through some of my other store-bought notepads, I'll save the cardboard backboards from those pads and repurpose them for my scrap notepads. For now, my scrap paper notepads are just stacks of paper, but they work very well for what I need them for.

Two finished pads on my desk at work. I made sure that the blank sides of the paper scraps were all facing the same direction so I never have to write notes around any print.

I stacked the scrap papers flat against one short edge and used bulldog clips to keep the papers compressed while I spread plenty of hot glue along the edge. 

While the glue was drying, I added two more clips to the top to further compress the paper stack together.

Of course, I don't always spend my time at work making notepads out of scrap paper. Those two notepads took approximately three minutes each to make. What I do spend a lot of time doing, however, is creating spreadsheets. I had no idea before I took this job how much I enjoy using Excel to corral information. Thanks to the good people of YouTube, I have learned a ton of tricks for making very usable spreadsheets, and I'm a little too excited about it. My co-workers laugh at me when I geek out over new Excel tricks I've learned, but it pays off for them, as well, when they want information. Yesterday, for instance, Tanner wanted a paper method for students to record their daily scripture reading. "I have three options," I told him, "because I've made them for three other teachers, and they each wanted something different." When I showed him the options, and he got all excited about one of them. Who's laughing now?

I also spend a lot of time at work interacting with the students. They're delightful. Plenty of them call greetings to me as they pass by, some of them stop and chat with me at my window every day, and a few of them come right on into my office and make themselves at home. Most of the kids who come and plop themselves down into my office chairs are sophomore boys (15-16 years old). For some reason, at this age more than any other, they feel very comfortable hanging out with me. I probably remind them of their mothers, and they're probably still young enough to miss their mothers a little while they're at school. We chat about their lives, joke around, and sometimes the more rambunctious ones--each of whom argues with the others that that he is my favorite--redecorate my office until I firmly kick them all out so I can unstring the paperclip chains and untape my pens from the ceiling. Punks. 

One student in particular--and yes, he's a sophomore boy--has become especially attached. I'll call him Jay. I was initially very surprised and alarmed at things Jay would occasionally throw in during our otherwise non-controversial conversations, and I confided in Tanner and Skyler, who are usually the last two teachers to leave the building, that I thought this kid might have some sort of inexplicable crush on me. He's a normal kid. He's not creepy or weird. He's very intelligent, but he's not overly nerdy. He loves vintage (60s and 70s) muscle cars and 80s music, so some of our conversations revolve around cars (I know just enough to barely know what he's talking about) and 80s music (which I do know a lot about). He has plenty of friends of both sexes, though he's certainly not a ladies man. So when he throws in stuff like, "The first time I met you last year [when he was a much shorter freshman], I felt like I knew you," or "If I was born 35 years ago, I could have married you," or "Do you think we knew each other in the pre-mortal world?" it's enough to deeply unnerve this overweight, middle-aged woman. Every time he said something like that (and blushed hotly under his very fair skin), I immediately jumped up and kicked all the kids out of the building, him included. Gosh, look at the time! We're locking up the building! Everyone out! And then I would tell Tanner and Skyler what Jay said to keep everything aboveboard and get their take on it.  

Frankly, Tanner and Skyler were as skeptical as I was that Jay could possibly be crushing on me, which was faintly insulting (LOL). We all agreed that it's most likely misplaced feelings for the mother figure that I represent (he has some issues with his parents, as all teens do to some extent), and he's harmless and navigating being a teenage boy with all the incumbent emotions that go along with that. He's certainly never made me feel like he's planning on locking me up in a basement or anything. Most of our conversations revolve around his very astute questions about what he reads in the scriptures or how he feels about gospel topics. I think the fact that I listen to him and treat him as an intelligent person is what he enjoys. And since those early conversations, something has shifted; I don't feel like he's crushing on me anymore, which makes me feel far more comfortable. I mean, ugh! he's the same age as my sons, for goodness' sake! I'm older than his mother! Jay is an old soul, and I very much enjoy our conversations while also making sure all the rules governing interactions with students are being followed to a "t". 

Finally, in other news, Husband's older brother, Thomas, came to visit from England.

Husband has had a very rocky relationship with Thomas. Thomas is the oldest of the seven siblings (Husband is second oldest), and Thomas and Husband really could not be more different. Thomas is Gaston from Beauty and the Beast: drinker, smoker, overly confident extrovert, popular with the ladies, and ready to brawl at the drop of a hat. He can be very charming when he wants to be, but he was quite cruel to Husband all throughout childhood, casually causing both physical and deep emotional pain. He never takes personal responsibility for his actions, which has put him at odds with everyone in his family for most of his life. His parents had to kick him out of the house when he was a young adult because of his drinking and drug use, and he has managed to blame everyone else but himself for the constant problems his actions produce. 

He has had several come-to-Jesus moments in his life, but they have been sadly short-lived.

Now, in his 50s, Thomas is trying again to make some positive changes, though it's somewhat of a case of "too little, too late" as far as Husband is concerned. While Thomas was always very scared of flying, he recently managed to fly to the States to visit his parents and two brothers in Indianapolis and then to Utah to meet his online girlfriend. We did not invite him to stay with us, but Husband met up with him one day and gave him a tour of the Big City, and we arranged to have a picnic at a park in the Big City with almost all our kids and their spouses (Siân and Nathan were sick and couldn't come) and Thomas's girlfriend and her two young daughters, ages 10 and 12. For our kids, it was meeting this larger-than-life cartoon they'd only heard about from stories of their dad's childhood. 

It went well. Thomas was very charming and made a huge effort with my children. I tried to make his girlfriend feel welcome and comfortable (she is honestly a lovely person, and I felt a little sorry for her), and I was so proud of my kids, who immediately swept up the girlfriend's daughters and played all kinds of games with them. 

Thomas decided to go back to Indiana earlier than originally planned (he likes it better than Utah), and then he'll fly back to England to HIS WIFE AND TWO KIDS. That's right. He's still married. They've been estranged for years, but he still lives in the same house with her, like roommates. Why she has not divorced him, none of us knows. Even my in-laws have asked her why she hasn't divorced him and encouraged her to divorce him so she can maybe find someone who loves her like she deserves. She's also a little crazy, so that might explain it. The two boys, though, are great kids. The oldest one (in his early 20s) is ashamed and angry with his dad, though the younger one (late teens) does have a pretty good relationship with him. 

Do you remember a few years back when I told you about that woman who showed up on our doorstep with a tale of woe about Thomas basically catfishing her? Yeah, that's the Thomas we know. Charming in small doses, very problematic in all other ways. 

The current girlfriend, the woman we met at the park, is getting dropped according to a text today from Thomas, who was on the flight back to Indianapolis. I wonder if she's aware? Thomas's plan is to come back to the States in June, get a green card, and start living and working here. He has absolutely no idea how hard that will be if he doesn't marry an American citizen. Good luck, man. 

Thomas on the left, Husband on the right.

This was a long post. I probably kept writing just to put off finishing that pattern adjustment and start making dinner. Husband would say that I overshared, but he is British and very reserved about what he shares about his personal life, and I am American and share way too much. 

To quote my favorite sailor man, "I yam what I yam."