Pinteresting: Growth Chart

So, clearly, I haven't been blogging much lately. In fact, when I just now logged into Blogger, I'm pretty sure my computer laughed at me. Rightly so, really. It's not that I don't want to blog or that I don't have anything to blog about. Quite the contrary really. Molly is at this really cool stage where she is 75% amazing and 25% maddening. And I kind of love it. We're getting a lot done around our house, and I love it. I finally organized our spare bedroom/craft room/game room, and I'm more than a little pleased with my organizational skills. Oh, and I joined a softball team. And our name is Big Racks. And our shirts are camo. And I love it. And I'm turning 30 in two weeks. So there's that. You know, plus my job, which I'm actually kind of feeling in a good place with right now. But all of that getting-doneness leaves me with little time or energy to write about, especially in my traditionally overly-wordy style.

So, I'm going to wade in I think and inundate you with Pinteresting madness. I know that Pinterest can be a major time-suck for people, and it can be that for me, too. But I find it genuinely helpful, too, and have used it in a lot of the smaller things we've done around the house. So I thought I would step back into blogging by showing you some of the things I've done after seeing them on Pinterest.

I actually made this Growth Chart right after we moved into the house after seeing it pinned on Pinterest. The original source was WhipperBerry, who designed it as a DIY baby gift, which it would be great for. I love it for its flexibility. I had been wanting a Growth Chart for while, but I wanted one that was gender neutral so that it could live outside of Molly's room and have a space to mark the growth of future-hyptothetical-children as well. And this can come with us if we ever move out of this house (which is a fairly likely possibility).

The original blogger put the child's name at the top, which is super cute, but since I wanted this to work for multiple (potential) children, I left it off. I suppose you could put your last name there, but I like the simplicity of just having the numbers. I also only put number at the foot mark and then put a short mark on each odd-inch (1, 3, etc) and a longer line at the even inches. Again, I like the cleanness and simplicity of it, but to each their own.

The reason it took me so long to blog about it (other than laziness/procrastination) was because I had a hard time getting mine to lay flat on the wall. It curled up on the end, and nothing I tried would remedy that. [Well, actually, that's not true. I had successfully nailed it to the wall, but Molly would grab at it as she walked by and kept pulling the nails out of the wall. So that was a no-go.] So I eventually put another grommet at the bottom of the growth chart and added an upside-down Command hook (this one) (just like the one I used at the top) at the bottom. It works perfectly.

I love this. It hangs in our hallway, which leads to the office and bedrooms, and I get lots of compliments on it. It doesn't seem too "babyish" or "girly" so it doesn't look out-of-place at all outside of Molly's room. And I love being able to mark Molly's progress. She so small (about the 5th percentile), so sometimes it's easy to forget how much she's grown. This is a nice reminder. And I think she'll love looking at it and adding new markers as she grows up.

Terrific at Two

 
I feel like since I came out of the woodwork to post about the difficulties about Molly at age 2 last week, I owe it to her to likewise post about the awesome parts of Molly at two. Because the truth is that the good parts are so much more frequent and lovely than the frustrating parts, even if the hard parts seem to linger longer.

:::

I have particularly loved how she has really taken to singing lately. She's always been a fan of singing, but she mostly let us do it. She would request certain songs and then let us sing them. Sometimes she would help, such as by doing the hand motions for "Wheels on the Bus" or supplying her animal of choice for "Old MacDonald," but mostly it was us doing the actual singing.

But then one day while she was under the weather at the beginning of January, I sat rocking her in her room.  Suddenly I realized that she was sort of mumbling. When I leaned down and listened closer, I realized that she was singing "Amazing Grace," which is the song I sing to her every night. She knew every lovely little word and sang it so sweetly.

It had never occurred to me that Molly was taking in the words that I sang to her, and I almost melted hearing her sing it.

Now she will sing all kinds of songs all throughout the day, boisterously and enthusiastically. You've never heard a sweeter "Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star."

:::

Her imagination is just exploding. We have tea parties all the time. She climbs into our bed at least once a day and pretends to be asleep (loud snores and all). We pretended to be racing cars with the Wii remotes this morning.

We got her a dress-up trunk for her birthday, and after 6 weeks of ignoring it, she has finally decided it's the coolest thing ever. One day she made me wear a cowboy hat while I drove her to daycare. She accessorized with a princess wand and reindeer antlers.

She particularly loves her doctor outfit and has taken to giving me periodic shots. Unfortunately she bizarrely thinks shots go in the mouth. Awkward.

:::

And this:



Yup. Two is pretty awesome.

Welcome to Two

As Molly's second birthday approached, numerous parents told me how surprisingly easy the twos were. It's a myth! they said. It's three you have to worry about! And right around when she turned two (a month and three days ago), they were right. She was absolutely delightful in December. Fun and inquisitive and shockingly smart.

Then, just a week after her birthday, January hit. Everyone in the family took turns being sick and, just as we all got well again, Molly chose to embody the definition of the Terrible Twos.

Molly has always been a strong-willed, stubborn child. David and I are both stubborn in our own ways, so this was not terribly surprising. Mostly she didn't like being told no and would often protest, loudly, if she wasn't given what she wanted. (Surprisingly, being that she's such a little thing, the vast majority of these protests revolved around food.) But we could almost always redirect her or distract her. And these tantrums only happened about every other week, so it didn't seem like an especially big deal. She's just testing her limits, we reassured ourselves.

In the past couple of weeks, though, these tantrums have become a daily occurrence. And there is no more bargaining, negotiating, or redirecting. She wants what she wants, when she wants it, and she will scream and cry for - I kid you not - thirty minutes if her demands are not met. (Luckily she hasn't started taking hostages yet.)

Tuesday morning, for instance, she woke up and, as soon as we walked into the kitchen, she demanded a cookie. We had made cookies the previous week and, though she had only had maybe two since then, she knew that there were cookies in the cookie jar and insisted on having one. This had happened a few times over the weekend, so she knew that there was little to no chance that she was getting one, especially at seven o'clock in the morning. So I said no and offered her some more traditional breakfast fare. Molly decided to throw down the gauntlet and commenced with the screaming and crying protests.

The thing with Molly's tantrums, though, is that it starts as one issue but quickly escalates into others. She doesn't get a cookie, so she demands to go outside, but refuses to put on shoes to do so. Then when she can't go outside she wants to jump on the bed. Or play with knives. You know, the usual. So there is no easy answer because she so quickly moves on to something else to be mad about. And it's impossible to make her do something. She wiggles and squirms and only gets madder.

Tuesday morning was awful. The worst yet. I eventually got her settled on some banana bread (which she has been loving lately), got her dressed and into the car. Not five minutes down the road, though, she decided that she wanted cheese crackers instead. (Also not a breakfast food.) Of course there were no cheese crackers in the car even if I did want her to eat them for breakfast, so she began to scream and cry. Then she threw her banana bread in protest. (Throwing things - not at people, just away from herself - is another one of her tricks.) Then she was mad because she wanted cheese crackers and her banana bread, which had disappeared into thin air and was nowhere to be found, especially not while I was driving.

That was the longest car ride of her life (maybe mine). It was awful and I was nearly in tears when I dropped her off at daycare.

The problem with these tantrums is that, though I can handle them individually, the increased volume of them has begun to wear me down.

Which is why this morning, when she got upset because I wouldn't open a box of taco shells (not kidding here) for breakfast, I immediately felt dejected. This would be another Tuesday and just the thought of that had me stressed in anticipation. Her anger over the tacos turned into demands to go outside, which intensified when I tried to get her dressed only to have her pull her shirt back on.

So I sat there, right beside her on the couch, as she reached her little hand towards the backyard. I didn't say anything or touch her (since she had been swatting my hands away). Slowly, very slowly, but surely her crying slowed down and, though still whimpering, she became calm(er).

Potter hadn't had his breakfast yet, so I asked if she'd like to get it for him. (She loves being a helper and being given tasks. It's usually an excellent distraction, but not one she'll give into in the midst of her meltdowns.) She hesitantly agreed, only to smile hugely when I handed her the cup full of dog food. She poured it into Potter's bowl and asked to get him some water. I let her fill up the cup, walk it to his bowl, and pour it in. She, the girl who was auditioning for The Exorcist two minutes prior, beamed with pride.

We settled on some cereal for breakfast and I fixed her hair while she ate. She told me a story about horses and I obligingly neighed for her.

:::

Because of the unpredicatableness of Molly's tantrums, David and I have had a hard time discovering what is the best course of action. Being equally stubborn, I tend to be as adamant that she can't have something as she is that she must have it. And while withholding it is generally a sound decision, I sometimes worry that I'm doing so out of "principle" rather than because it is the best thing for this situation.

I worry that giving in to her demands sets a problematic precedence. And I worry that not giving into her demands causes equal unknown damage.

This morning I stopped worrying about that. I just let her work it out herself. It took a long time, probably ten minutes altogether. And I often feel like I shouldn't let her do that because people with "real" jobs wouldn't have that luxury and, what if she did this when we needed to go somewhere? But the reality is that, though it's inconvenient for it to take an hour for us to get out of the house in the morning, I have the kind of flexibility in my job that makes that possible. And clearly, at least for right now, that's what works for Molly. It allows me not to give in to her every demand without having to force her to get over whatever she's feeling.

I don't know if that's the right thing. I'm sure it won't always work. And I think that's the hardest part of parenting, not knowing the long-term effects of your actions.

But I do know that Molly was in a wonderful mood when I dropped her off at daycare, giving me tight squeezes and rubbing noses and proclaiming her love for me. And right now, that happiness is worth the ten minutes when I have it to give.

But please let the people who said three was worse be wrong.

Yearly Recap: 2011

I apparently skipped this in 2010, but I like the idea of closing out each year with Sundry's yearly recap. (Here's my 2009). It's nice way to look back and consider the past briefly before focusing again on the future. So here she goes:

1. What did you do in 2011 that you'd never done before?

Bought a house. Made homemade cinnamon rolls. Threw a birthday party for Molly and her friends. Made Molly a Halloween costume. All kinds of home decorating. Became more comfortable with my camera and, to a lesser extent, Photoshop. Watched my mom get remarried. Was a bridesmaid in my sister-in-law's wedding.

I really like that I can look back and see both major and minor events in this year. That's just how I like it.

2. Did you keep your new year's resolutions, and will you make more for next year?

This is what I wrote last year:


So my goal for 2011 is to reclaim my badassery. The cool thing about this is that, in addition to finding the me I lost in the past year, badassery will unquestionably make me a better mother (and wife - though that's a very different post).

And this:

There's no way to know when I've achieved my goal of reclaiming my badassery, so it would be easy to give up on it and lose sight of it. To avoid being overwhelmed by the enormity of my grand resolution, I'm going to be working on a couple of other things as well:

• Exercise 3 times a week.
• Stop drinking soda.

I actually feel pretty good about the first goal. I don't know if I'd consider myself a "badass" now, but I do feel more like myself and that I have - generally - done a fairly good job of taking care of myself in addition to others.


The other two? Exercise and quitting soda? Laughably no. But I'm surprisingly okay with this.

As for next year, I don't think I'll make any specific resolutions. I do plan to have my own One Little Word again. More on that later.

3. Did anyone close to you give birth?

Nope. Not really.


4. Did anyone close to you die?

Unfortunately, yes. Both David's grandmother and Pat, my friend and teacher, passed away. I miss them both.

5. What countries did you visit?

Only those in my mind.

6. What would you like to have in 2012 that you lacked in 2011?

More balance. More quality time with family. More professional progress.

7. What dates from 2011 will remain etched upon your memory, and why?

 June 18, my mom's wedding day. July 9, my sister-in-law Anna's wedding day. July 15, when we closed on our house. December 3, Molly's birthday party.

8. What was your biggest achievement of the year?


There are two. One is buying our house, which is something we've been looking forward to for so long. I'm glad that we waited until we could afford a house we really love, and I'm glad that we finally live here. It's so perfect for us.

Secondly, I made some major professional progress towards the end of the year that was very validating. I'm looking forward to building on that next year.

9. What was your biggest failure shortcoming?

Despite the pride I mentioned in my professional progress above, my biggest failure (or let's call it shortcoming; I like that better) is still the fact that I didn't get as much done professionally as I would have liked to. Still, it's good to end the year on a strong note.

10. Did you suffer illness or injury?

Other than some minor colds, I've been pretty healthy. The end of the year has brought a series of unfortunate events for Molly, including her first chest x-ray. Though none ended up being majorly serious, I didn't enjoy any of it at all.

11. What was the best thing you bought?

My house (as if you hadn't guessed by now) as well as my iPhone 4s. Mock if you may, but I so love having a smartphone, and this one is so much better than my last one. Yesterday when I was sitting at the doctor's office with Molly while she received her first breathing treatment from a nebulizer, it was such a relief to be able to let her watch Backyardigans on my phone to calm her down. Totally worth the money.  

12. Where did most of your money go?

Rent/mortgage, daycare, home improvements, travel


13. What did you get really excited about?

The summer of weddings, Molly's 2nd birthday party, our house, family visiting our house


14. What song will always remind you of 2011?

I'm never very good at this part. It's probably a tie between Florence and the Machine's "Dog Days are Over":




 and the cast of Glee's "Deck the Rooftop," because Molly loved it so much:



15. Compared to this time last year,  are you:

- happier or sadder? happier for sure, though I was plenty happy last year
- thinner or fatter? about the same probably
- richer or poorer?  I think richer. Particularly if you count escrow.

16. What do you wish you done more of?

Taken more "small" excursions with my family. Quick trips to Atlanta. Even to close parks. Picnics. Gone to the beach. (I don't think we went one time this year, which is a crime.) Going to local sporting events. Being silly.


17. What do you wish you'd done less of?

Worrying. Procrastinating. Planning (as opposed to doing).


18. How did you spend Christmas?

At our house. To begin with, just the three of us. But my mom and her husband arrived in time for Christmas dinner, and their visit was followed by one by David's parents. A lovely Christmas week.

19. What was your favorite TV program?

Community, Bones, The Closer, Modern Family

20. What were your favorite books of the year?

Joshua Ferris' The Unnamed, Amy Waldman's The Submission, Marilynne Robinson's Home, Lev Grossman's The Magicians and The Magician King, Tina Fey's Bossypants, Suzanne Collins' Hunger Games series.

This was clearly a very good year for books. And there are so many others that I just haven't gotten around to reading.

21. What was your favorite music from this year?

Grace Potter & the Nocturnals, The Black Keys, Arcade Fire, Adele


22. What were your favorite films of the year?

I didn't see that many, really. Crazy, Stupid, Love was sweet. The Muppets was a sentimental favorite. Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows was fun. As was The Help. Midnight in Paris was beautiful. Bridesmaids made me (and everyone else) laugh.

23. What did you do on your birthday, and how old were you?

I turned 29 in 2011, and I spent the day with my husband and my daughter, which was perfect.


24. What one thing would have made your year immensely more satisfying?

This is becoming an old refrain, but I continue to struggle with finding a work/life balance. I want to be 100% with everything, and I just have too much going to do that. It causes me a lot of stress, which causes my family a lot of stress. I do think it's getting better, but it's still a very long way from balanced.

25. How would you describe your personal fashion concept in 2011?

If it fits, wear it.


26. What kept you sane?

David, as always, and Molly (though, of course, she contributed to the insanity as well). Good books. Good TV. The light at the end of the (PhD) tunnel.

27. Tell us a valuable life lesson your learned in 2011.

 Never put your present life on hold for what you hope will be your future life. (See here.)

Dress-up and Pretend Party: Part Two

With all of the set-up out of the way, it was time for the actual party.

Personalized treat bags and a flag banner lined the mantle:

Chalkboards were party-fied:

[The balloons were much cuter before Molly smeared them. But I had redone them three times and she did the same thing every time, so I called it good enough.]

The food and drinks were laid out:

[inspiration here]

Decorations and party hats were gathered:

[Prop inspiration here, here, and here.]

I wanted the party to have lots of different activities for two-year-olds to do, so that they could spread out and be entertained without walking on top of one another. So, using the "dress-up and pretend" theme, I set up various "stations."

This sign hung above Molly's dress-up trunk, and each station had a matching sign.

Pretend to be an architect and build a tower.

Pretend to be English Royalty and have a spot of tea.

[Train track inspiration here.]

Pretend to be a conductor and drive the train.

Pretend to be a fashion designer and draw a new outfit.

Pretend to be an archaeologist and dig for dinosaurs.

Not pictured: pretend to be a dancer and shake it, and pretend to be a baker and decorate cookies.

Happily, the idea of the stations worked out perfectly. The kids could spread out, going wherever they wanted to, and it never felt too claustrophobic. The only stations that didn't get much action were the dancing station and the cookie station, which made me a little sad. I made sugar cookies and homemade icing in various colors in advance. I set those out with some sprinkles and the kids could decorate them any way they wanted to. Only one little girl, who was a bit older, did that, so it may have just been a bit too old for the rest of the kids. I'm going to keep it in mind for future parties.

All-in-all, the party went marvelously. Everyone had a great time, Molly included. More than once during the preparations I was worried that I was putting too much effort into a two-year-old's birthday party, but as soon as the party started, all of those thoughts disappeared. Seeing Molly and her friends so enjoy themselves made it all worth it. Every bit of it.

And because this is my blog, some more gratuitous pictures:

Itai has a tea party.

Molly and her party hat. I had no expectations of anyone wearing these, but they were cute and I decided I could use them for a future party. But Molly demanded one as soon as she saw it and left it on for almost the entire party. Adorable.

Isaac and Avery get in on the tea party fun.

Happy birthday, Molly! She did not enjoy people singing to her, but she loved the cupcake. Unlike last year, though, she ate it quite daintily, picking at it one sprinkle at a time.

Renee and I get in on the dress-up fun.

Celebrating two years as a family of three.

And that was Molly's 2nd birthday party. So much fun. I know she probably won't remember it, but I will. And I can't wait to tell her all about it.

By the way, here's my Pinterest board for this party. The ideas linked here as well as some I didn't use are there. I hope you enjoy it as much as I did.

Dress-up and Pretend Party: Part One

I started planning Molly's birthday party this summer. There's just so much going on around her birthday - being that it's Christmas Eve - that I find that if I don't work on it little by little, I will be terribly overwhelmed when it actually arrives. [Or at least that was the case last year, which is the only experience I have had until now.] I knew that we would have her party substantially early - it ended up being three weeks early - so that fewer people would be gone due to traveling. But aside from that, I had a few goals for the party:

1) Have it at our house. (Just because we can.)
2) Find a a way to ensure that the kids (and parents) wouldn't be too cramped in our house.
3) Make the party developmentally and age-appropriate.
4) Make it fun.
5) Avoid spending too much money and try to make a lot of things myself.

With those goals in mind, I decided to throw a Dress-up and Pretend Party. The basis of the idea was that David and I would get Molly a dress-up trunk and a few items for it for her birthday. The original plan was to then ask guests to bring an item to contribute to her dress-up collection. Though I ended up scrapping that idea (I didn't like the idea of telling people what to buy, or to buy anything at all), but I stuck with the dress-up theme.

When the only invitations I could find were more about tea parties than imagination, my (new!) brother-in-law was kind enough to whip  up some adorable invites, with very little input from me other than that I didn't want them to be too "girly."

With the invitations in hand, it was time to work on the rest of the party. For three or four months before the party, I was always on the look out for inexpensive items to add to Molly's dress-up trunk. I added items from the dollar bin at Target, a local consignment sale, and Halloween costumes that were deeply discounted on November 1. I also used the superhero cape Molly wore for Halloween. Then I found an adorable and cheap trunk on Craigslist, which I'm just realizing I don't have a picture of. Luckily, I still plan to paint it, so I'll show it to you when I get around to that.

With the dress-up trunk firmly in hand, I went to work on the treat bags. I didn't want to spend a lot, but I wanted to stick to the dress-up/pretend theme. That's when I went back to the superhero costume idea. I didn't have the time (or money) to make one like Molly's for everybody (we invited 16 kids - luckily only 8 came; it was a perfect number), but I remembered an easier cape I saw on Pinterest.

The Southern Institute made this easy and cute cape out of used t-shirts:

Then Naturally Chic Mama used the same kind of cape (though, actually, she was much more precise with hers) and added Superman letters to it:

I was very imprecise with these. I didn't worry about the sides being even or the bottom being straight. I knew the two-year-old recipients wouldn't notice, so I tried not to, too. I combined the cape with a few other things I picked up at the dollar bins of Party City and Michael's, to make a Dress-up Kit:

The treat bags are just simple craft bags from Michael's with a Post-It label I made adhered to it. The label also allowed me to leave a note to the parents, letting them know that they can/should trim the capes so that they're not too long for their kiddo. I didn't know how long each cape should be, so I just left them long, knowing the parents could trim them.

Oh, and boys got dinosaur finger puppets while girls got woven farm animal puppets, mostly because the dinosaurs were cheaper. Both were cute, though.

I also took this party as an opportunity to start traditions for Molly's future parties. One way I did that was by making a birthday wreath, seen here on Pinterest.

There's a good chance that, before next year, I will redo this in order to wrap the wreath with some simple white ribbon before pinning the balloons to it. Though it looks great from the front, you can see the back of the straw wreath through the other side of the door's window. It's not a big deal, but I'm a bit anal, so it'll probably get fixed.

I love this balloon wreath because, in the coming years, Molly will come to anticipate its arrival, knowing it means her birthday (or party, as the case may be). I paired it with a hastily-scrawled welcome note on a $2 chalkboard sign I got at Michael's.

Last but not least I made two flag banners. Because Molly's party was more about the theme than any specific colors, I used a general rainbow theme, with red as the focus. Basically, if it was striped with red in it, it was good to go.

Like the capes, I was willing to be sloppy with these. I got a yard of the fabric for $2 at Jo-Ann's and had more than enough. Basically, I just cut out a bunch of triangles, eyeballing the first one and then using it as a template for the rest. I then sewed two triangles together, right-sides facing, leaving the top open. I trimmed the edges, turned them right-side out, and ironed them flat. I then used red bias tape (hem tape would work even better, but I couldn't find it in this color), ironed flat and then ironed again, this time doubling it over. I basically just inserted the triangle "into" the bias tape, pinned it down, and then sewed a straight line down the bias tape. Super simple.

Like the wreath, I have plans to use these again and again. I love that they are measured to fit specific places in our house. It's thing like this that make me appreciate even more that this is our house.

I feel like this is already overly-wordy and I have a lot more to say, so I'm going to wrap up for now. Tomorrow I'll show you what everything looked like and how the party "worked." Spoiler alert: I was overwhelmingly pleased with it.

(No Longer) Blank Wall

I know you're disappointed that I haven't been sharing house updates recently. I can sense your pain. But the truth is, after two months of full-on new home fervor, I kind of...got sick of it. I was tired of putting my house together and ready to just start living in my home. So that's what I did.

Then, a couple of weeks ago, my inspiration was renewed. And, shock of all shocks, I actually decided to make some of the things I had pinned on Pinterest. [By the way, if you're interested, find my Pinterest boards here.]

The first problem I tackled was this wall:

This is the wall of our living room that boarders the hallway that leads to the rest of the house. But because we split our living room in half with our loveseat placement, it has always felt a bit awkward. Eventually I'd like to put a hutch there (for added kitchen storage), but that's not in the budget right now. So I needed a temporary solution.

Then I remembered Lizzy Writes' new living room:

image from lizzy writes

I absolutely love the sunburst mirror. And I liked the idea of doing an asymmetrical frame wall with just a few frames, so that it didn't feel so overwhelming.

So I looked for a similar mirror, everywhere. There were some cute ones, but they were all way more than I was willing to pay.

Then I saw this on Pinterest:

image from T, Myself, and I

A DIY Sunburst mirror! Perfect!

I followed Tamara's directions exactly, though I spray-painted mine gold instead of white. About $20 and 80 dowel rods later, I had this:

I love it so much!

Then came the arduous task of hanging it and the rest of the frame wall. Once again I turned to Pinterest, this time for a framing tip, found here. Basically, I just used craft paper, cut out pieces the same size as my frames and mirror, and then used those to arrange the wall.

Then I remembered another tip I'd seen all over the place, to use toothpaste to mark the location the nail would go. Unfortunately, there were two problems with this. For one, all of our toothpaste was clear - doesn't show up well. But the style of the hangers on the back of my frames made it difficult to mark that way. So I improvised:

I used some of Molly's washable paint and a round sponge. I dabbed some of the paint on each hook, then pressed the frame onto the paper. You can see the pink marks in the photo of the paper on the wall. It worked wonderfully!

Once I finally got done positioning everything, I had this:

I absolutely love it. It's eye-catching without being overpowering. It reflects the light from the windows on the other side of the room. And it gives me a good place to show off my adorable daughter!

The only problem is that it forced me to redo my mantle arrangement, which felt too full next to this. But considering I'll Christmasify the mantle in a couple of weeks, it doesn't really matter to me anyway.

I couldn't be happier with the way it turned out. And I'm pretty proud of myself for actually making something I pinned. Wonders will never cease.