Things I Want to Tell *that* Customer

Around six months ago, the restaurant I work for lost a lot of business somewhere between my boss pissed off the wrong person, and in the hick county we live in sloppy, careless, sensationalist journalism is apparently super profitable. You already knew this though... I'm also sure you saw somewhere that cooperate decided to give out free food in order to coax a nervous public back into the restaurant. Based off of your behavior the other night, I'm guessing you also realized that, if you are a complete piece of scum, there is a lot of opportunity to exploit this for personal gain.

You probably couldn't tell based off of my visibly stained apron, messy pony tail, and tired, makeupless face, but I actually take some pride in my work. You knew when you came in, that it was kids eat free night; that was part of why you came in. I wish you understood how impossible it is to maneuver around sticky little hands reaching for the exciting pens and straws in my apron, carry stacks of dirty plates, clean the grime they inevitably leave behind on the tables, all while not staining those stupid light puke green aprons corporate insist that we wear. You had no way to know that my apron was clean when I pulled it out of the dryer when I left for work that morning. I also understand that you had no way to know about my second job, or that in order to keep my bills paid, I have to work both jobs back to back on a fairly regular basis, and that I had been working for more than 10 hours when you came in. I feel like you wouldn't care if I could tell you all of those things though, which is why I kept my mouth shut when you told me I look disgusting. I didn't know you before that night, but I'm not the first server you've given a hard time too, and we live in a small enough area that the servers from around here know that you are not employed and that you just don't get it.

The male server, who told you off before you finally left, had told you a week before our encounter that we are not allowed to give your teenagers kids meals and that he had gotten in trouble with management for giving them to you anyway. Obviously, we were all very disgusted that you decided to play like you didn't know any better to try to get out of paying the adult price for your teenagers, and this brought your dining experience to a rough start. We know you eventually got your way, and I really wish that was the end of my problems with  you. I recognize that you had legitimate problems with your order (which we entirely re-did and packaged for you to take with you), and that we gave you fuel to continue to harass me and the manager on duty is almost as infuriating as your behavior, but I think we both know that you weren't there to "give us the benefit of the doubt and support a local business" like you so righteously proclaimed, but to exploit corporate's desperation to keep business to score a deal on your food. Congratulations on all that free food you walked out with.

I'm sure you'll be pleased to know that your complaint to corporate didn't fall on deaf ears, and that my coworker lost his job for sticking up for me and our manager. Part of me wishes he hadn't, but at least he hopefully insured that you won't be back, pulling the same stunt next week. I hope your free food was worth it.

Itsy Bitsy Yellow Polka-dot Bikini

Have you guys seen this evolution of the swimsuit video yet? It's been bombarding my facebook news feed for a while, mostly by people I know/knew from church. I understand why this would be a huge hit in the LDS community; we love when "science" catches up to things we have been teaching in the church, like when scientists figured out in the 60's (at least I think it was the 60's) that tobacco is really bad for you after the Word of Wisdom (the part of LDS doctrine that tells us tobacco, alchohol, coffee, etc. is bad for us)  had been a thing for more than 100 years. This time, instead of confirming the Word of Wisdom, "science" has apparently confirmed the importance of "modesty."

For those of you who have not seen the video yet, Jessica Rey, who is an investor (I think) for a "modest" line of  swimsuits, describes the history of the bikini and her "repentance story" as a former bikini wearer. She, then, explains a study in which men were shown pictures of women wearing bikinis while hooked up to equipment that would measure their brain activity. Alarmingly, after seeing these pictures, the part of the brain that utilizes tools lit up, but the part of the brain that deals with figuring out motivation, etc. of other people, like the women in the bikinis, in some of the men did not. This means that the men were thinking of the women as tools for pleasure (ooh she is so hot! I wonder what it would be like to do x,y, or z  thing to her. I bet it would feel soo good) instead of as humans with motivations and feelings (hmm..she's apparently been working out and is proud of her ab muscles). This proves that wearing bikini's dehumanizes you, and if you continue to wear them, than you can't hold that one man responsible for thinking dirty things about you, or sexually harassing (or full-on assaulting) you.

What does this say about a LDS missionary serving abroad in an area where women do not normally dress "modestly"? Does that make him entitled to seeing the woman he should be serving as tools? How about to touch them inappropriately? Absolutely not. We expect our missionaries (and all of the priesthood holders within the church) to see these women as precious daughters of our Heavenly Father and to treat them with respect!

The argument that men's thoughts and actions are completely dependent on what women wear also contradicts the doctrine of free agency. All children of Heavenly Father, including the male ones, are designed to be very capable of making their own choices, independently of what other people around them have chosen, and all of us including men will be held accountable for their choices. I strongly believe that this includes the choice of a man to lust after, harass, or assault one of His daughters, regardless of what she is wearing.

In a facebook comment feed on a former teachers post (yes, I am friends on facebook with a few of my teachers from college and I think even one from high school), she referred to an old definition of modesty, "freedom from vanity." In this perspective, modesty is no longer limited to scantily dress, or even really to sexual attention seeking behaviors in general. By this definition, gossiping about the woman who showed up to church with tattoos and a mini-skirt is immodest, because it suggests that the gossiper has excessive pride in his/her attire.

Instead of teaching our youth (boys too) that modesty is about protecting men from a woman's scant dress, we should teach them that modesty is about respect. Girls who have respect for themselves don't feel the need to inflate their pride, to put others down to make themselves feel better, or to dress or behave in a way to get lustful attention from men; Women who respect men will treat them like men, not like animals who are incapable of self-control. Men who respect themselves will not need to assert their power and sexual prowl to prove their manliness, and men who respect women will behave like a gentlemen regardless of attire or appearance.

Good Men

Happy Father's Day everyone!

but most especially to my daddy. Isn't he so handsome? He's also insanely intelligent, and handy, and I love him

Once on the internet, I happened upon a comic which featured an LDS man looking bewildered and describing his experience at an LDS broadcast (for my non LDS readers, the prophet/apostles/other general leaders of the church put on broadcasts for various occasions.) I really wish that  I could find this comic again, because it's much funnier than my attempts to explain it, but I can't. Not even google could help. The man was amazed to hear the speaker tell the congregation how pleased the Lord was with their work, and how much the Lord loved them, etc. He then realized that he had accidentally ended up in the Relief Society (women's) broadcast.

I keep running into the "women are more righteous, compassionate, responsible, or other wise generally better" stereotype. I'm not sure if it's just a Mormon culture thing; it shows up in sitcoms featuring bumbling idiots who would probably be in a ditch somewhere without their smoking hot, intelligent wives constantly bailing them out from their stupidity. After several conversations with my other married friends, I have determined a list of things that our good men are much better at than we are. 

1. Good men forgive much quicker than we do. 
2. Good men are much more willing to drop everything to serve or comfort us
3. Good men are better at looking at the big picture and putting everything in the proper prospective 
4. Good men don't panic nearly as much
5. Good men are not nearly as judgmental, and are never catty 
6. Good men are often more genuinely kind 

Mr. Bacon specifically is much better at gardening, philosophizing, fixing things (not just car things but most things), not complaining, and being a good worker, and I could go on for a while. I'm very grateful to have such a wonderful man by my side and that my children are going to have such a wonderful father.   

Also Mr. Bacon is incredibly handsome, funny, and keeps my life very entertaining

Denim Crafts: Baby Skirt

Babies change everything (except their own diapers- Mr. Bacon).

Now, before you people get all excited, I am still not pregnant. Yes, my pinterest will sometimes flood with baby/parenting related things, but that is because I am obsessed with babies, and has nothing to do with the vacancy status of my uterus. Please stop telling other people that you heard from someone that I am pregnant, or asking me when I'm going to start popping out children, or hinting that I should start popping them out now that I am done with school. Frankly, not only is it none of your business and annoying, but it also makes the part of me that is insane enough to want to have a baby right now want to cry. 

On a happier note, one of my best friends was recently blessed with a little baby girl. Aren't they beautiful?

Learning how to share her mother has been difficult, but this little princess being here is so worth it. One of my favorite perks is that I now have an excuse to make adorable baby things like this little skirt 

I started off with an old pair of jeans that I've had since high school. I liked the overall fit, but didn't wear them very much. Normally, denim and sewing machines do not get along well, but this denim was really thin and stretchy, so it happened to work okay.

I already knew that I wanted to make capris out of the jeans for summer wear, since my only non-work capris had an unfortunate mishap with bleach a week or so before this. I measured out what I wanted for the capris and chopped the bottoms off, and made my capris. I was going to make these adorable denim baby bibs from the bottom flairs, but having spent my allotted "fun money" for the month and not having adequate fabric to use for the project, I decided to try to make a variation of a circle skirt using the flair as a circle. 

Denim frays so I created a "hem" around the top part of the skirt. I then folded over the hem again and sewed a casing for the elastic, threaded the elastic through, tied it off, and sewed the casing closed. (Sorry, these steps don't have pictures. I don't remember if my camera was not cooperating or just M.I.A. There are  plenty of tutorials on how to make an elastic casing, like here). 

As you can see in the picture, the bottom of my jeans were frayed from when I actually wore them. I didn't want the bottom of my skirt to be already damaged, so I trimmed those off and re-hemmed them. I found the precious white lace on the bottom of the skirt at Wal-Mart and I stitched that on after the new hem was on, mostly because the lace is adorable, but also partially because I wanted to hide the stitching from making the new hem. 

The new skirt was given to dad at church because mom and baby were out of town, so I don't have any pictures of the princess wearing her skirt yet, but I will be sure to update as soon as I do! 

Why I Will Never Be a Celebrity

So, Mr. Bacon and I stopped by a Wal Mart on our way home from a temple trip last night. I saw this at the checkout line

Seriously Star Magazine? 

I have enough faith in humanity to be confident enough to believe that I am not the only person who finds this disgusting, so I have to ask, how does this even get published?

or all of these magazines that are literally fat shaming a pregnant woman,  even if it is annoying Kim Kardashian. Also, I think Kim looks pretty good in the picture on the right and decent in the one in the middle, so they're fat shaming a pregnant woman who doesn't really look that fat. 

This gets published because enough people are interested in bashing famous people so they  can feel better about themselves that this is profitable.

 While, I am not a mom, I know a lot of wonderful mothers who have shown me that motherhood is really hard and that no mother will ever be perfect. Yes, motherhood is fattening. Motherhood is exhausting. Good mothers will lose patience with their children, or not get their child to bed timely, or feed their children junk food sometimes, and the list goes on. Do you love your children? Are you exploiting your children for money? Do you abuse or neglect them? Do you let your husband/boyfriend abuse or neglect them? Would you put the needs of your child above yours? Would you do everything in your power to ensure that they are happy successful adults? These celebrities probably have the same fears and hopes that you do as mothers themselves, and frankly, even if they are scum the only people who need to know are Child Protective Services and the other appropriate law enforcement, not anyone who ever shops at a grocery store. 

Adventures in Sewing: Dress to Skirt with Shirred Waist

So, I happened upon a shirring/smocking tutorial while messing around on pinterest, and while browsing the blog, I happened upon a tutorial to turn a maxi-dress into a maxi skirt with a shirred waistband. It looked easy enough and I have a few dresses that have a cute print, but don't fit well up top. I was feeling particularly brave this morning and pulled out this dress

Pardon my un-made bed

I found this dress at a Ross back in high school and bought it one year for Easter. I have a lot of good memories in this dress (including wearing it to my high school and college graduations), and some sad feelings about the potential of ruining it, but the 15ish pounds I gained during college (a fair amount of which went into my chest) were having a hard time fitting into the bodice, and the skirt is just a smidge too short. I hoped that by taking the top off, I could keep this fun springy pattern and the adorable lace on the bottom for a few more years. First thing I did was remove the zipper with my seam ripper

I then used the seam ripper to take the bodice off. Just cutting it off would have been quite a bit quicker, but I wanted to keep as much of the length on the skirt as possible. I then pinned the opening from the zipper shut made a quick seam to close it off.

Now that I had a tube of fabric I pinned down the top at half an inch (like the tutorial said) and sewed it down to make a casing for elastic. This took a while because I haven't mastered sewing in a strait line yet. If you are new to sewing and trying this out, I would recommend a slightly larger casing. I will explain later.

I then shirred a waist band starting right below the casing. I'd show you a picture, but my camera spazzed out, and I couldn't get a clear one. The link with the tutorial has some pretty good pictures of this step. 

A quick note with shirring, after longer than I would like to admit of my sewing machine not cooperating with the elastic thread, I ran some google searches and found that only the bobbin should have elastic thread on it. Use regular thread for the top part of the stitch. I somehow missed that in the shirring tutorial.

The last step of the skirt is to thread 1/8 inch elastic through the casing and then stitch it shut. Remember that whole not mastered sewing in a strait line thing? I sewed the casing too narrow and was not able to thread the elastic through it. This could have been avoided if I had made the casing a little wider than 1/2 inch, which is what I will probably do next time. This is probably a sewing no-no of sorts, but I ended up zig zag stitching over the stretched out elastic on the inside of my skirt. The gathering effect on the outside is still the same, but the inside is not as pretty. Here are some pictures of the finished skirt. 

This is what the shirring looked like on the inside of the skirt

What the waistband looks like from the outside of the skirt

the skirt not tucked in 

 I know the shirt doesn't look so good tucked in, but I wanted to show you how the waistband looked on. Also, please ignore the messy bedroom in the background. 

Overall, I am happy about how my skirt turned out. Because I can wear the skirt down lower, I get a little bit more length at the bottom, and the shirred waistband is comfortable around my stomach at it's current size. The elastic has enough give that I will probably be able to continue wearing this skirt for a little while, but the skirt is too small to pull up over my hips, so I have to put it on over my head, and if my chest gets any bigger, I won't be able to get it on that way either. This would be preventable by making sure that the unshirred waist will fit over your hips before shirring it. I'm not sure how much shirring will take the waistband in (like if I started with a size medium dress if it would fit better or if it would be too big), but this is definitely something I would like to continue in the future

The Dirt on Laundry Soap Round 2: Soapnuts

 My very dear (and insanely wise, and talented, and I could go on forever) friend, Mandy from the Wandering Interrobang left a comment on my last post about Zote Soap about soap nuts. I was not aware that this was even a thing. My homemade laundry detergent started off as a quest to save money, but I know many of you are interested in eliminating toxic products from your homes and using more environmentally friendly alternatives, and soap nuts may be the way to go for you. The vast amount of information about them is very confusing, so Mandy has graciously agreed to explain them for us (and be my first guest post!). 

My wonderful (beautiful, kind, wicked smart) friend Mrs. Bacon has asked me to elaborate on a comment I made on her most recent posting about home made laundry detergent. Basically, I said “I don't use detergent, I use the much cheaper and non-animal-fat-containing soapnuts.” I have been using them for years, and I sometimes forget not everyone knows that they are a thing.
Soapnuts (or soap berries) are a type of fruit that grows on a tree. They are kind of like a cherry in that they are fleshy fruit around a small hard pit.

Where they differ from cherries is that they are not an eating fruit. Their juice is almost pure saponin (the part of soap that does the cleaning). They have been used for centuries as a natural cleanser for clothing and bodies. They mainly come in two different species, Sapundus mukorossi and Sapundus trifoliatus. I've used both and had both work well.

When purchased, they will be dry. This is okay, even though I said it was the juice that has the soap. Like a dried cherry has concentrated sugars, a dried soapnut has concentrated saponin. Some places put value on selling whole berries, but pieces works simply fine. They will have a vinegar smell in the box or bag, but will not transfer this smell to your clothing.

One word of warning here, however. Try not to put a soapnut seed through the wash. They are intensely black in color and may mark your clothing. Fortunately, reputable sellers will have removed them before packaging. Soapnuts are sold by weight, and since the seeds don't help in the washing, they would only serve to beef up the shipping weight. Some may remain here or there, but I've never had more than two in a large bag.
Using them is simple. Place about 4-5 berries in a permeable bag, and toss it in with your laundry. Wash as usual. That's it. Most ship with a small muslin bag, though I use a bigger mesh one as it is easier to locate and remove from the washer.

4 berries should do up to five loads. After each load, pull the bag and rub one of the berries. If it is slippery/soapy feeling, or produces small amounts of suds, they are good for another load. When spent, you can compost them, or just throw them away.

I have been using these for years now, and I would NEVER go back to chemical-y detergent. I have a pretty severe skin allergy to most perfumes and dyes, and soapnuts are great for people with sensitive skin, in particular infants.
If purchased in bulk, the cost is only about 12 cents per load. Putting all those things together, I really never recommend anything else. I love them and use them every time I do laundry. My experiments on using them for dish detergent are not going so well, but I digress.
I kind of hate to recommend a place to buy them, but there are a lot of scammers out there. I personally buy from NaturOli, as they have proven to be consistently less expensive, and yet higher in quality than anywhere else we have found.
Wherever you get your soapnuts, I hope that you will find them as hassle free and inexpensive as I have.