The ALS ice bucket challenge.

So I did it. It took me more than 24 hours, so I think that means I'm supposed to donate, but who's to say I didn't do both. Also, I felt obligated to actually learn something about Lou Gehrig's disease before I absentmindedly passed on the challenge (to Brian, Corinne, and Mom). I love the idea of a grassroots movement creating such widespread awareness (who thought such a thing would take off?), but I didn't want to dump ice water on my head and donate to something that could just be the  misspelled acronym for American Sign Language. To me, implicit in the challenge was the requirement to actually learn about the disease, to become aware of it. So I did a little research.

Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis is a disease that causes the motor neurons in the brain to degenerate. While patients muscles atrophy and they struggle to swallow and breathe, the thinking part of their brains remains unaffected. About 30,000 Americans are diagnosed; median survival time after diagnosis is thirty-nine months. There is no known cause. There is no known cure.

I just spent the last hour or so lost in stories of those suffering with ALS. They are heartbreaking. While I don't know personally know anyone with ALS, I have seen the effects of other chronic diseases on people I love and their families (note my Camp Kesem shirt). They need more love from the world. Here are a two first hand accounts of ALS:
http://www.alsindependence.com/Jerry_Gladman's%20Story_one.htm
http://www.als-testimony.org/story.html

I had been dreading getting nominated. I didn't want to video myself (I don't like hearing myself talk), I didn't want to dump water on my head (I don't like having wet hair), and I knew I'd have to spend a couple hours researching before I felt like I had actually fulfilled the challenge. But I'm glad it happened. Now, at least, I can understand somebody's suffering a little better.

DIY part II.

By what I consider a miracle, ever since getting married I've turned into a self-proclaimed domestic goddess. Okay, not really, but I did go from never cooking or doing any DIY projects to being obsessed with them. I recently turned down a job offer because I'd have to work 12-8:30, and that would have really cut into my dinner preparation time. Can't have that. I remember thinking when I first got married that I wished I had cooked with my mom more because I was super intimidated by recipes I found online. Luckily, as Brian can attest, once I had finished school and actually had time to delve into recipes and experiment, my meals turned out pretty dang delicious. It's very gratifying to turn out a delicious, healthy meal that my husband and I can enjoy together after a long day. Yum. 

My DIY adventures have had a more mixed success rate. Some projects were easy and beautiful, like the fabric-covered bulletin board, the little saying I made for our room, and the burlap wreath. Others have been laborious and much harder than anticipated, like the polka-dot wall and the mason jar storage. Future projects include refinishing a free dresser Brian and I acquired, making tissue-paper pom poms to accent a big empty wall in our bedroom, and making a busy board for Mila's first birthday. But I wanted to pass on some of the knowledge from the few projects I've done so people don't make the same really stupid mistakes that I made. 

Fabric-covered bulletin board

B+ for easiness. Directions from Chelsea are fantastic and straightforward. It doesn't get an A simply because it takes awhile to get all the thumbtacks in, and your dominant thumb gets really sore. Also, I got my thumbtacks from Staples, fyi, and I needed two boxes of 200 for my 3X2 board, although I had probably 75% of the second box leftover. I also got my fabric on sale, so total cost was <$7.

Calligraphy sayings

A for easiness. So I literally found one I liked on Pinterest (similar quotes here) that wasn't too cheesy, made it big on my screen (or the size I wanted) and copied it. I'm sorry, I'm not even close to artsy enough to write that kind of cursive and then bold it in those certain places. I probably tricked some of my instagram followers though, eh? Anyways, I love how it turned out. The frame is from IKEA. Total cost: $0.

This also shows the dresser we want to refinish

Burlap wreath

B- for easiness. Everyone on Pinterest said this was so easy! I had to try maybe seven times before I got it, and that was while watching a video. A lot of places say use wire or hot glue to hold the initial burlap weave in place; I never bothered because I knew I was going to mess up my first few tries, and then by the time I got it, it wasn't unraveling, so I left it as it was. I used extra pieces of fabric I had around, which were irregular lengths and widths, so that made it a little tricky. Even now it isn't perfect, but it's on top of a bookshelf, so I'm not too picky. I think it adds a lot of height to the room., especially with the mirror behind it. I just needed the wire wreath, which I got from JoAnn's. Total cost: >$4.

Polka-dot wall

C for easiness. The idea is super simple: use liquid starch to make fabric stay on a wall. (Lifehacker's site with directions gives a really ugly example.) However, cutting a shape or design you want out of fabric, especially if you want a repeating pattern of that shape and your wall is huge, can take FOREVER. I went super simple and traced a duct tape roll circle onto some thick paper (like an ad on cardstock I got in the mail). Then I cut the fabric in small squares roughly the size of the circle. Then, attaching the cutout circle to the fabric using sewing pins, I cut out the circle. None of them were perfect, so if you wanted something more complex, I hope you have a friend with a laser cutter. Spacing was a nightmare, and while I initially had started marking where each circle went, it would have taken forever to plan it all out, so I eventually eyeballed the majority of it, and it worked pretty well. I made my liquid starch out of water and corn starch (directions on site above), and my first batch was perfect, but my second batch was really bad, so all I can say is make sure you mix it a lot. And all of this is after my original problems determining how much fabric I would need, which I, of course, ended up grossly overestimating (by about 200%). Anyways, three months after starting, I'm nearing completion. Thank goodness it looks fantastic. Total cost: fabric was about $12 (considering I only used half of the $24 I bought).

Mason jar storage

C for easiness. Again, easy idea. Get a board, attach pipe clamps, attach mason jars to pipe clamps. Alas, as I suspected, attaching pipe clamps to the board was not easy. Brian's drill couldn't drill through the metal. We couldn't start the hole by hammering a nail through. So we took it to a friend's house where he used a wood clamp to hold the pipe clamp down and then used a bigger, sharper nail to hammer through it. I would suggest using a thicker piece of wood than the quarter-inch thickness we used; we had to use tiny screws and it means the mason jars are a little wobbly. It doesn't look nearly as great as I wanted it to, but maybe that's because the stuff in mason jars is ugly. Oh well, it's functional.

So many failed attempts...

So there you have it. Slowly but surely, my DIY repertoire grows. Oh, and here are some cards I made for people I love. 

 

Inspired.

I've been thinking a lot about how to write this experience, but maybe that's the problem. So here goes.

I'm a runner. My knee-jerk reaction after writing that is to qualify it. While I can run and I do it regularly, I consider myself slow--a plodder, if you will. I can plod along for miles, but anything with speed doesn't really work with me. My large thighs reflect both my endurance and slow pace. I'm a ten-minute-mile girl, and I've accepted that about myself. 

A couple weeks ago my family gathered for a reunion. My sister Camille is training to qualify for the Boston Marathon and asked me to go on a run with her. She was running two 7.5 mile loops, and I agreed to go the first half with her with the qualification that we wouldn't go "too fast," and Camille assured me that I'd be fine. 

So we ran. It was a cool morning and a flat course. Camille read out our mile times from her phone as we went. 9:14, 8:48, 8:43, 8:38... was this happening? I, Olivia Swenson, stuck in my ten-minute-mile ways since sixth grade cross country, finished a 7 miler with an average of 8:45-minute miles.

Maybe it's silly to admit, but that run made me realize something very fundamental and incredibly important: I can do so much more than I think I can. This glimpse at my potential has made me realize areas in my life where I am selling myself short. Poo poo, you may say, running caused such an epiphany? Yes, and I am so grateful for it. My incredible (for me) long run and being with my amazing family for a week really helped me see how I can  be better, try harder, serve more. And instead of feeling intimidated, I feel empowered and inspired. 

happy as a clam with Julia at Bug Light