Market Season

This is our booth setup for farmer's markets and outdoor craft shows.  We are doing a bunch of local shows this summer and so far loving meeting other handmade businesses and new customers!  What do you think of our setup?  It is pretty simple, but I think that makes us stand out sometimes!

What to Do When Your Loved One is Hospitalized, AKA: How Not to Go Crazy In the Hospital

Well, it's been a full month since Solomon was in the hospital for Rotavirus.  He is mostly back to normal, and getting better all the time.  Poor little guy.  This is a list of things that kept us sane through those 4 days of little sleep, projectile vomiting, and high fevers.

1. Hydrate.  No, seriously.  You know those great big cups with lids and straws for patients?  The nurses will give you an extra.  Use it.  A lot.

2. Eat.  Don't forget that you need a lot of energy to take care of a sick kid!  Buy some protein bars to eat when a trip to the cafeteria isn't convenient.

3. Reach out.  Take the time to text or call or e-mail loved ones with updates and prayer requests.  They prayer and conversation will lift your spirits.

4. Be thankful.  Even when things are bleak or the future is unclear or the imminent hospital bills are making you sweat.  Be thankful that you live near a hospital.  Be thankful for the nurse who remembers your kid's name.  Be thankful for an hour with no vomiting.  Whatever.  Gratitude will help keep you centered and calm.

5.  Leave.  Get your spouse or your sister or your Dad to come chill with the sickie and go home for an hour or two.  Put a load of laundry through.  Take a shower.  Listen to some music you love.  You will feel energized and refreshed.

6. Accept help.  If someone offers to bring you lunch, say yes.  If someone asks what they can do, tell them!

7. Ask questions.  Understand what's going on with your kid or loved one.  Ask what the plan is going forward.  Ask for medicine if your baby is uncomfortable.  Ask about the medicine and the tests.  The more you know the less there is to guess (and worry) about.

8. Sleep when you can.  The nurses won't care.  Trust me.

Wedding!

One of my best friends is getting married in LESS THAN THREE WEEKS and I am getting really excited to travel to Ohio and be a part of her special day.  I picked up my dress on Saturday:

I of course have a little more arm chub that this model... but I still think it looks great. *wink*

I think I am going to give her this print to celebrate her big day. 

Now I just need to figure out shoes, a cute outfit for Solomon to wear, and how Levi and I are going to survive with a 22 month old ball of energy on our laps for a 3 hour flight. (:

5 Years: The First of Many

 (What do you guys think about this little illustration I made to celebrate our anniversary?!?!)

Today is our FIVE year anniversary! How crazy is that?! Time just flies and flies.  Here's to 5 years, babe! The first of many!

You can read our love story here.

Craftosaurus Rex: Personalized Gift Art for Someone You Love

 

This little gift is easy and inexpensive, and packs a whole lot of personal lovey-dovey punch!  Aren't thoughtful and meaningful gifts the best kind?  This would be great for a Mother's Day gift, an anniversary gift, or a birthday gift! I made this for Levi for Christmas 2010.

Step One: Make a long list of memories, inside jokes, locations, moments, or quotes you share with the recipient.

Step Two: Cut a piece of heavy paper (like from a sketchbook) to the right size for your (vintage, thrifted, or repurposed) frame. Use pencil and write in the memories from step one until you fill up the page!  Try to have equal spacing between words and use a dot or other symbol to separate memories.

Step Three: Draw shapes or letters in colored pen or pencil.  Make all the letters and words inside the shapes that color.  I drew the word love and a heart.

Step Four: Shade in the shapes/words a little to make them pop, and go over all the "outside" letters and words with black pen.

My LOVE art hanging up next to a January Jones print in upcycled frames in our dining room.

Step Five: Assemble and give!

How to Help Someone in the Hospital

We recently spent 4 days in the hospital because Solomon had Rotavirus.  You can read about our experience, here.  While I was thankful that we were able to be in the hospital to get Sol the care he needed, there's no way to deny that being admitted to the hospital for any reason is stressful.  The longer you're there the worse it is.  Things get neglected at home, at work, and eventually you end up neglecting yourself.  We had a few wonderful people supporting us and asking "What can we do?" and that really made a huge difference for us.  So I've compiled this little list of things you can do if someone you love has to be in the hospital.  Whether they are there because they are sick, or because they're injured, or because their spouse or child is sick or injured, these little ideas can make a really meaningful difference.

1.  Help at home.  Imagine yourself in their shoes and think about what you'd worry about.  Do they have pets?  Other children?  A yard that needs mowed?  Offer to walk the dog.  Offer to pick the kids up from school and keep them for the afternoon.  Mow their yard.  Go put a couple loads of laundry through.  Take the trash out.

2.  Ask before you visit.  If they are hesitant or say no send flowers or chocolate or a card instead.

3.  Offer to bring by some home comforts for them.  The kid's favorite lovey, mom's slippers, a cell phone charger they forgot.

4.  Bring dinner the first couple nights after they're discharged.  If you're really close, just put a few premade meals (like lasagne) in the freezer and leave a note.

5.  Offer to come sit with the patient for a couple hours so mom and dad or whoever is usually there can go home and take a nap or whatever.

6.  Text or e-mail every once in awhile to let them know you're thinking of them.

Being in the hospital can drain you really fast.  You're tired and worried and haven't been eating well.  Then you finally get discharged and you come home to a messy house with rotten food and stinky trash and nothing to eat.  It is really disheartening.  So these small things that other people did for us made our lives a lot easier and allowed us to focus on Solomon rather than three loads of vomity laundry.

[Please take a second to 'follow' A New History with Google Friend Connect... just click the Follow button over there on the right below my Denver Handmade Alliance Button and above the About Me section.  When we get to 100 Followers we'll have a big ole Three Leaves Toys giveaway for followers only! XOXO]

5 Years: Wrap Up

Levi and my FIVE year anniversary is coming up on May 10! It feels like it has been a lot longer than that and a lot shorter than that at the same time.  To celebrate I thought it would be fun to share our love story and some highlights of the last five years.

Our first year was a pretty crazy one.  We went from strangers to engaged in 8 months, eloped 3 months later, and promptly moved across the country!

The next year (our first year as a married couple) was also crazy in some ways.  We both started new jobs in a new city in our very first apartment together.  We fought and made up and grew in many ways.  We got another cat.  We slept on a mattress on the floor and had no furniture for a couple months.  We spent more on groceries and eating out in a week back then than we spend on groceries for a whole month now.

Our house the first time we looked at it.

The first year of being married is a huge transition.  Moving across the country is also a huge transition.  We bought a house a year later, and got pregnant a year after that.  Our lives have been "in transition" for 5 years now!  I love change, I really do.  I try to embrace it, but I starting to feel weary of it.  I want to slow down and have a couple years of same old, same old.  We are thinking about trying for baby #2, Levi is thinking of finishing college, I'm thinking of changing jobs for a year or so and then staying home, we started a small business in January.

Levi and I shortly after we moved to Denver.

Change is just a part of life I guess.  But I am constantly amazed that we can go through all this change and stress and growth and tranitioning and still be more in love with each other every day.  Thanks for reading along through our love story.  We are adding chapters all the time. *wink*

[If you just read through that whole thing, please take a second to 'follow' A New History with Google Friend Connect... just click the Follow button over there on the right below my Denver Handmade Alliance Button and above the About Me section.  When we get to 100 Followers we'll have a big ole Three Leaves Toys giveaway for followers only! XOXO]