Christmas Miracle

I am not making any of this up.

This past September, my sister Laura had her wallet stolen at a party. Obviously, she was a wreck. Everything was in that wallet. And it was a Coach wallet, so the wallet itself was actually worth more than its contents.

Last week, Laura stayed up all night working on final projects for school. While taking a break, she started creeping around facebook. She found a folder that holds messages from people she's not friends with. She'd never seen this folder before and she didn't get notifications for the messages, so there were a handful of old messages. One of them, from September: "Hi, I don't know if this is the right Laura, but have you lost a wallet recently?"

Laura messaged the girl back: "Hey, sorry I just found this message. But, yes, I did lose a wallet back in September."

Wallet Girl: "No problem! I think I still have the wallet around here somewhere."

Seriously. This happened.

Wallet Girl then flaked out for a few days, not returning messages or texts, but my sister did eventually get a chance to meet up with her and get her wallet back. It still had everything in it (minus $20 cash), including old receipts. For real.

Laura thinks this is good karma from giving money to the charity Santas in front of stores.

Such a talented family.

This morning my sister decided it was about time Zazu became a circus bird. So she taught him how to spin. That may not sound very impressive, but considering this is the result of one day of training, I'd say there's definitely potential for Zaz to learn some fun tricks.

Hott Pads

I'm making quilted potholders (and, depending on my ambition level, larger matching hot pads) for my mom and grandma for Christmas this year*. I decided to whip up one out of random fabrics I had lying around before I tackled the real ones. And, actually, I kind of dig it. The binding is a little wonky, and the quilting-lines aren't straight because I just eye-balled it instead of measuring/marking, but overall I think it turned out alright. I used it to get my pizza out of the oven today and my hands are burn-free. What more could you ask for?

(Apologies for the blurry cellphone pics)

Here's the back. The binding actually looks wonkier from the back, and you can better see how the lines aren't straight. But still, not bad for being whipped up in just a couple hours after work.

Once I get the hang of these potholders, I may try to clear out my fabric closet by selling some on etsy.

*I tried to make potholders for mom & gma for christmas two years ago.... It may have been a little ambitious for my skill level at the time, because I bent my needle and screwed up my machine for a while. That's why I felt I had to try a test-potholder before I went right into making the ones I'm actually going to give out. I managed to complete this one without ruining anything, so I'd say all's good.

This is what happens when I can't sleep

I start watching old Daily Show clips, and while the video is taking a million years to buffer I notice that the picture of Jon Stewart in the banner has to be at least 10 years old. It looks like they took a Big Daddy era picture of him and just photoshopped some grey into his hair. For real.

And in case you were wondering, this is the etsy page you can see in my tabs. Steotch makes me want to learn cross stitch.