Tag: personal

Shut the French Door!

When it comes to French doors and privacy, there are only so many options. I started researching some of them when we installed our French doors on our house here in Virginia. We have a larger lot (over 2 acres) and are surrounded by woods, but in the winter, the trees take their deciduous steps and distant neighbours have now got much better views into your domain. This bothers me, particularly at night when it is so dark outside and the house is lit up like a small supernova. I definitely like my privacy. What to do on a budget? Well, given I had no clue how to make French Door curtains, I purchased some and they’re fabulous and cost about $30.

We have another set of French doors in our basement and it has always bothered me that my kids could be down there playing (the video gaming is set up down there) and anyone can see into those doors too. I had originally planned to buy another set of the same style of curtains for down there, but then I remembered I actually have a ton of curtains from our various moves – yes, when you move like we do, you acquire so many things – some of which are a metallic Grey and would match the decor down there absolutely perfectly! The curtains I had purchased (pictured) looked very easy to copy the style of, so with a few modifications, I set out to repurpose my existing curtains into practical ones for the French door.

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The first thing I did was measure the window opening in the door to ensure the curtains I had were long enough, they were. Then it was a matter of taking approximate measurements of the existing French door curtains to match up my gray ones. I measured the width of the curtain and realized I had to cut quite a lot off it. This is a little scary mind you as you are ruining, I mean restyling, something perfectly good. I found the best thing to do was to measure all the way down putting a small sharpie mark along the length then getting a ruler and joining these marks together, then it was just a matter of biting the bullet and cutting (if I ruined them, well I did have another back up pair that weren’t so perfect but would do). I made my curtains 26″ (66cm) wide with a half inch hem on the side that needed a new hem. Therefore, my marks were made at 26 1/2 inches (67.3 cm) across ensuring the 4 circles (normally what would go on a rod) became the feature top of my French door curtains and were evenly spaced on both sides.

With the length I cut off, I measured the amount I would need to make the two pieces that velcroed together, holding the entire curtain up when you wanted to allow daylight in. I did screw up a little bit here as I didn’t take into account the fact that the second piece wouldn’t have any hem on either end, don’t do what I did, make that second piece a fraction longer, it will make life easier and save a burnt finger when it comes to ironing that hem on. I made each of these pieces 19 1/4 ” (49cm) by 2 1/2 ” (6.35cm) PLUS hem – important you don’t forget to factor this in.

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I didn’t even tell you that I wanted to do this entire project without sewing! I had lots of iron-on hemming tape and thought it would be perfect for this job.

If you have never used hemming/bonding tape, basically you use an iron to melt it together, ergo bond the fabric together at your given hemline. The iron has to be hot (so the fabric you use has to be capable of withstanding a reasonably hot iron, and you must turn the steam function off. Be careful not to touch the hemming tape with the hot iron, it will melt immediately and leave a sticky residue on your iron – if this happens, turn iron off and wait to get cold before wiping with a clean cloth that has some rubbing alcohol on it (I do not know this from experience ;)). I decided to double hem my edges because I wanted a clean ‘finished’ look, it did mean a lot more work but it looks better in my opinion. One other thing I did was to cut the hemming tape in half lengthwise as it fitted each of my little, narrow hems much better like that.


Once everything was hemmed and ironed, I folded the front of the curtain over so it gave my front a more professional finish, I used more hemming tape at the top to secure these two folds together.

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I then joined the two pieces on to the back of the French door curtain like so (I pinned everything in place after I had measured it and before I permanently attached it so I could be sure it was all going to work and look nice and neat). My strips were attached 6″ in from the edges on each side.
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Then it was a matter of attaching the Velcro. Again, I didn’t particularly want to sew, not that I can’t, I’m just not very good at it and don’t particularly enjoy it, so I had some sticky back Velcro from another project and just used it. This really is a matter of eyeballing and making sure they will align when joined together. Pinning helps with this too.
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Finally, it was time to attach a curtain to the French door:


I love how these turned out. They match the decor down here perfectly, I had everything on hand so didn’t actually have to purchase anything and now I know we will have privacy downstairs too!


Would you try this at your house? What do you think of this project? Please come on over to Aussie Mum’s Adventures on FB and like my page: Aussiemumsadventures. You can find me on Twitter: @ozmumsadventures, on Instagram: Ozmumsadventures, on Pinterest: Aussiemumsadventures And please subscribe to my YouTube channel: Aussie Mum’s Adventures (I’m still working on it, so please have patience with me!).

The ‘Wall’

Mexico-U.S. border wall prototypes/photo by CBP Photography/Flickr

I understand immigration is a big issue, particularly illegal immigration. I went through hell to get into this country legally, all because I just happened to fall in love with a US citizen!

This isn’t the solution though; a wall that is. The proverbial ladders are already being funded and built. The real costs will be incredible! You’re talking about taking land from farmers, stopping their seasonal workers from doing the laborious jobs no one else will do because the pay isn’t worthy of the labor-intensive nature involved. Fresh produce will increase in price – for all of us, as will law suits because the government is taking private land and there are very few private land owners willingly ready to give up their hard-worked land. Not to mention the incredible environmental impact – the actual production of cement/concrete, creates immensely harmful greenhouse gasses. The Rio Grande is often a scarce water region so locals, neighbours, on both sides of the river, have for years worked together to come up with solutions to share the water resources. They have built dams together, they have, for the most part, been extremely amicable, my daughter literally read a passage out of her fifth grade social studies/geography text book about just this thing last night.

Then there’s the devastating impact on wildlife. The National Butterfly Center located in Mission, TX has had a portion of its property sectioned off to build a part of the wall that was already funded under Congress last year (2018) when it approved the funding of approximately 33 acres of ‘barrier’ costing an estimated $600 million. The Butterfly Center is going to try to fight it, but “Under laws passed since the 9/11 terrorist attacks, the Department of Homeland Security has said it can override federal environmental regulations to build barriers at the U.S.-Mexico border.” (Texas butterfly center fighting border wall construction).

But, here’s the thing & it’s big! The hatred for fellow Americans has to cease, as does the great big line that has been invisibly drawn between us. You are representatives of a great country, a great multi-cultural country. A country that has developed in diversity because of all the immigrants that have contributed to it. You have the opportunity to show what great people you are! And just how great the UNITED States of America is! We have to work together to find a solution for illegal immigration. We have to stop the hatred between fellow man. We have to be reasonable when looking for solutions to problems such as illegal immigration. We cannot join in with the BS currently circulating throughout this great country. The division, the name calling, the hatred, it has to cease. I don’t have the answers, but I’m certainly willing to keep an open mind if reasonable ideas are put forward for how to eliminate illegal immigration at the US/Mexico border and take care of both our fellow human beings and the animals who populate the world with us. Just not a wall.

References

Retrieved from: https://www.dallasnews.com/news/news/2019/02/04/texas-butterfly-center-fighting-border-wall-construction

What the ?

Hey fellow Mum/Mom, what the …..?

So, my daughter had her 12th birthday party a few months ago, she invited 8 of her friends. She didn’t invite one girl that she’s had this on again/off again relationship with. She asked me if I thought she was doing the right thing, I asked her how she was being treated lately by said girl and what their relationship was like. She responded with: said girl had been treating her like crap (after having a play date at our house the week before) and she had an invite for her but rescinded at the last minute because said girl was being a little hellion (according to my daughter).
Here’s my thing; my kid and your kid are both not going to paint themselves in the ‘worst’ picture when it comes to situations involving their friends. I’m going to believe my kid, you’re going to believe your kid.
Sometimes our kids aren’t telling the entire truth; sometimes they blatantly lie.
I can’t tell you who is being more honest, what I can tell you is there are always two sides to a story and why the hell are you unfriending me as your Facebook friend because our kids no longer talk?
Seriously, this happened! I have been a parent for over 12 years now and I’ve only just realised that it is a big mistake to get involved with any of your kid’s friend’s Mums! Well okay, maybe not. Maybe you’ll walk away with a friend for life, but maybe you’ll also both get drawn into the shit that happens when your kids have falling outs! Do not get involved!
Well, hang on, if it’s serious, get involved, but most of the time it’s just the frigging drama that goes along with a bean/tween/teen! It’s seriously not something you need to take a stand on and that’s where the grey comes into it: New Mum/mom, only child Mum/Mom, old hat Mum/Mom, your kid is going to go through drama, it doesn’t necessarily mean they’re being bullied, but it’s a whole lot of drama nonetheless! (Oh and keep a very keen eye out for the bullying because that’s a whole different ball game!)
The drama is going to involve your kid’s best friend/girlfriend/boyfriend or a complete stranger. You are going to have no clue from which direction the drama will unfold. Here’s the big picture though, don’t frigging unfriend the mother you friended a few months ago when your kid’s were best friends because there’s a damn good chance they’ll be best friends again before you know it! Don’t bring the other parent into the drama! I’ve learnt this the hard way, and I say this in all seriousness, don’t frigging friend someone either just because they are the parent of your kid’s friend! Just because your kid’s are friends doesn’t mean you need to be, and you know what? On a grown up level, just because you’re friends, doesn’t mean your kids need to be!
We seem to go through this notion where we think we have to Facebook befriend the parent of every kid our kids love and sometimes they’re not necessarily people we want to know and other times they’re the best friends we never knew we had. It’s a tough game that whole friendship as an adult thing but when our kids come into play, from now on my new motto is, hey, I really like you but you need to understand our kids may have differences and I don’t particularly give a crap because I really like you and the kids can work their own shit out or move on! Do not get overly involved! Advise your kid. Do the parental thing. Call the other kid out. But has the parent done anything to you? Is the kid old enough to have started developing their independence? Then shit, stop holding grudges against the parents; sometimes great parents have shitty kids and sometimes shitty parents have great kids! That’s just the way it rolls.
This woman’s juvenile behaviour has now made me think everything my daughter has told me about her daughter is true, whereas before, I wasn’t so sure. How can we set the example for our children, particularly our daughters (I’m a firm believer in women believing in other women rather than putting them down) when we start judging other women by the actions our juvenile children narrate to us when they are still learning what is right and wrong in the world? Disappointed doesn’t even begin to describe my feelings about this seemingly smart, well educated woman! And no, there were no other posts made by myself between Saturday night (the night of the party) and Monday afternoon (when she came up on my Facebook feed as someone I might know).
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Lady, you are doing nothing for your child by being like this. You are not setting a great example to resolve conflict and nor are you ensuring your child has the confidence to make the right decisions- be they right or wrong. I am glad in a way that we are no longer friends because you’ve helped me explain to my daughter the kind of woman ‘not to be’ (but I actually liked a couple of parts of your personality, so in another sense it saddens me that this is where we’ve come).
I wish you and yours all the best and hope your kid can walk away from this a strong woman who knows what it’s like to both fail and succeed and to know the important role other women play in this thing we call life.

Challenge Accepted Day 57/ Day 15

Today has been a bit of a rubbish day. The weather has been crappy, I had very little sleep as our Vonage phone rang five different times between midnight and 0350! It was terrible! On top of that, my throat started hurting around 2am and has gotten progressively worse. So this blog shall be short and sweet so I can get to bed sooner rather than later. 

It’s a strange place, South Korea, there are so many wonderful things here but when you arrive in the dead of Winter and the place is both freezing cold and extremely barren and you find yourself and your family getting sick over and over again because of the polluted air, it makes it hard to fall in love with. I feel like we have all been sick here more times than anywhere else in our lives! Ally has this perpetual cough that will not leave her, hubby also has it, but not quite as bad, and I am constantly getting sick. Madison and Hunter are both doing fairly well since we brought in the air purifiers but even they complain of headaches and a variety of other ailments on a weekly basis. 
Anyway, enough of that, the day has been rush, rush, rush. Children off to school, including the small boy, followed by a super quick trip to get the Lipolysis shots -in teeming rain, where I had to run about a kilometer from where I had parked to get to the place, all after having done half of my workout. Then it was off to the bake sale, where we did really well, over US$500 raised!! But it was after that the medication started to wear off and I went downhill rapidly. I went and paid the rent, in the pouring rain once again and realized when I got home that I hadn’t eaten all day. I came home to a messy house with stuff everywhere. So the only thing to do was clean, wash, vacuum, you name it, then it was time to ensure Maddy had an event free ride on the bus and this young lady knew she should never bully her or anyone for that matter, again. All good there I think. I guess it didn’t happen on the music bus but on the actual school bus, so I spoke to the bus monitor about it and she is going to watch for anything further and report it if something else happens. 


I spoke to my other sis and caught up on all of her happenings and her drama, picked Hunter up and came back to continue cleaning/folding laundry (best job ever, said no one). We met with Ally and Maddy and had them do their regular chores and homework, shower etc. then I finally did the other half of my workout, with a quick warm up again. It was Plyometric Cardio. It was after that, I again realized that I hadn’t eaten today, so I whipped up some spaghetti, went and picked hubby up from work and we ate and now I am about to go to bed after having a shower and cleaning my face. I may take the phone off the hook tonight and try to rest peacefully after having a honey, lemon tea I bought at the local supermarket. It is amazing tasting stuff! 
I hope you have a wonderful day and/or night, wherever you are!
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And if you are interested in Taking your own Rodan + Fields 60 day challenge, then let me know. At the above mentioned email and we’ll get you sorted out with the right regimen for you.