The counterpart....

And here they are, finally finished.  I hope they go over well for the cute little boy on the orange chair (pictured in the previous post).  I have discovered that it is harder to blog when you don't do it every day----same with going to the gym, although I have to admit that right now I am blogging to delay going to the gym.  In other, non-plushed news, I am going to start working full-time on Monday at my day job.  All the economy craziness started making me nervous, plus I really do adore my job.  I work at a day program for adults with developmental disabilities---so my days involve lots of hugs, high-fives, sign language, coloring, Candy Land and bingo.  I love it, so I don't mind moving up to full-time, I am just a little nervous about the time that will be squeezed out of Pink Cheeks.  However, I think I am better at time-management when I am a bit busier which is strange, but I've heard other people make the same observation.  

Are you guys on Facebook?  Has the "25 Random Things" epidemic reached you yet?  It's where you post 25 random things about yourself and then you tag people and they have to write 25 random things.  It's fun to read others and I even had a good time thinking of my own, so I'm going to share a bit of myself with you and post it here and cyber-tag all of you that read it because I would love to read about you and your inner-quirks as well:

1. I am writing my 25 random things instead of watching the Super Bowl, though I may tune in for the half-time show.

2. I have a dog named Albert who I love so much. He is such a good boy. He is obsessed with being a good boy and starts to get very nervous when he is in a gray area and unsure how to behave in the best possible way. When he is outside though, on his walks, he is not a good boy---he is a very bad boy who barks at all dogs, joggers and senior citizens.

3. Joseph and I have a "voice" for Albert. Imagining what he must be thinking and then impersonating him takes up about 50% of our days. Albert for some reason has a lisp and a Balkan accent.

4. When I was younger I played the trumpet. I used to get very nervous before solo contests which at the time seemed like very important life events (you could win ribbons and everything). My neighbor at the time was a social worker and she would do relaxation hypnotism on me before the contests.

5. The things that gross me out the most are eyeballs. I don't like that they aren't really solid and that they are just sitting there in your head protected by a thin eyelid which may or may not close in time to protect you. I am grossed out right now just writing about this.

6. Both of my parents passed away from brain tumors. This may be a bit too serious for this "Facebook 25 things" list, but it is the biggest part of my life and more than anything else, has shaped the person I am today. Watching my mom get diagnosed with cancer that took her husband's life and then suffer through it with grace and humor had a profound effect on me. I miss her every day.

7. Sometimes I forget that Joseph Holsapple (my husband) wasn't always a part of my life. I don't know how I ever lived without him. Sometimes he even sneaks into my childhood memories on accident.

8. I take my coffee black. I used to take it with cream and sugar and then one day I decided that I should have it black. I hated coffee for about a week, but now I love it and I think it is disgusting with sugar. I am really proud of myself for giving up sugar in my coffee and sometimes I enjoy making other people feel like sissies if they sweeten their coffee.

9. Trains are my preferred method of transportation.

10. One day someone in a gorilla suit came to my door and gave me enough money to pay for my wedding. It was totally awesome.

11. I love knee-high striped socks.

12. I want babies so bad right now. When I was younger I dreamed of having a family just like Bill Cosby's Jello commercials---chubby cheeks and multi-cultural.

13. I hate my "keeping in touch" skills. They are very poor. I don't like talking on the phone---it makes me completely self-conscious, but I adore my friends, which really puts me in a pickle.

14. When I was younger I loved pushing the limits of the US Postal Service. I once sent Molly Oesterle a high-top Converse sneaker by stapling the stamps directly onto it. Molly sent me bizarre things too---it was completely great.

15. I believe natural peanut butter is so much better than the other (unnatural?) peanut butter.

16. I have a ukulele that I don't know how to play. I feel guilty and lazy every time I look at it. I really wanted one after reading Stargirl by Jerry Spinelli. But Stargirl I am not, just lazy Nichol.

17. I taught astronomy at summer camp. I learned that our sun is just a medium-sized star about a week before I started educating children on the cosmos. My favorite thing to tell the kids was "there are more stars in the sky than grains of sand on all the earth". Is your mind blown yet?

18. My brother and sister-in-law wanted me to run a marathon this year with them. I thought I could do it until I tried running on the treadmill and realized I could only run for 1 minute before I needed to rest. Now I can run for 12 minutes! However I demoted my marathon ambitions to a 5K race.

19. I think I am really good at Foosball (Foozball?). I beat Joseph EVERY TIME we play. He could be very bad at it though, I suppose.

20. My hero is my friend, Alice Cihon, who lives in Santa Fe. I LOVE her and think she is the most amazing woman there is. I wish everyone knew her.

21. My favorite movie is Amelie. My face hurt after watching it in the theater because I was smiling so much. I love the montage in the beginning. I also loved Triplets of Belleville---the French animated film about a tour de France bicyclist who gets kidnapped by an American mob. Also, regarding movies, I make a lot of enemies when I say this, but I didn't care for Monty Python. I couldn't handle all that silliness, which is odd because I used to think I had a high tolerance for silly.

22. Every now and again I try olives to see if I aquired a taste for them yet.

23. I think about my weight too much.

24. At summer camp once some sort of animal ate up the engine of my car and built a nest inside there. I thought it was in such poor form because I'm a vegetarian, so I thought that animal was not really following karmic law.

25. #25 has pressure to be very important because it is the last one! I'll just use it to say thank you for reading, and I can't wait to read yours. Love, Nichol

Special Request for a cute little curly headed boy...

I was asked by a super nice auntie to make a plush version of her nephew in the style of this duo.  I think her nephew looks adorable, I love his curly locks.  I also love that orange chair.

I haven't made his little friend yet, but I am really happy with how the plushized nephew looks. I also like that he likes his green, washcloth dog with bizarre eyes so much.  There are really wonderful cartoon characters out there.  It makes me sad though, when kids prefer to play with only Whinnie the Pooh or Elmo dolls.  I feel more encouraged when kids like random dolls who don't come with a pre-existent personality, which is not to say that Whinnie the Pooh isn't a nice fellow, I'd have tea with him any day of the week.  I just like it when kids have to be more inventive with their play-things.  But anyway, the plushized nephew has some good squish to him and the dog part is made out of fleece, so hopefully the real nephew will give me a thumbs-up for texture!  I hope you all are enjoying your weekend!  

Snow Day

Snow days are the happiest days in the world.  Bloomington looks as if some sugar-obsessed giant slathered us in vanilla icing.  Joseph and I took a walk today in the park and on our way there we saw at least 5 unprepared college students trying to shovel out their cars with lids from large tupperware containers.  As long as no one gets seriously injured, I love a good natural disaster.  It makes everyone a little friendlier and more excited.  Everyone smiled at us on our walk and we exchanged a sort of giggle at how silly and fun it is to have all this white stuff around.  Also, I have definitely been having baby fever lately (ever since the birth of my nephew) but this snow day multiplied that feeling by 10 because I think that toddlers in snow suits are the cutest thing ever.

Plushie Love

Kitty PinkStars was happy as a lark and constantly dancing to the music the birds would chirp.  It wasn't until Kitty's waitress at a diner accidentally dropped 2 straws into her strawberry milkshake that Kitty realized that her heart would explode into teeny, tiny bits if she didn't find someone to share it with.  Without coincidence, at the exact moment Kitty PinkStars had this realization, a boy named Jacob, who was coloring in the woods discovered that the exact color he needed to fill in the drawing of cotton candy was missing from his crayon box.   Being a particularly devoted colorer, Jacob rushed off of his toadstool on the hunt for something pink to use as a coloring medium.  He ran through the streets desperately, when out of the corner of his eye, through a diner glass window, he spotted the precise color he needed---it was Kitty PinkStars aura.  He was mesmerized by it.  His feet moved him into the diner before his heart even knew what was happening, and when their eyes met, they found that their vocal chords didn't work.  So, Kitty PinkStars offered Jacob the rest of her milkshake via her spare straw and the rest is history.

Mobiles!

Meg from Elsie Marley is hosting a mobile swap.  I'm joining in, partly because I think it will be fun and partly because I find trading arts with people to be really exhilarating but mostly because her mobile swap icons are so cute.  You can find the details out on her blog.

She's Pink... She's Fabulous... She's Kitty Pink Stars

Here she is!  I just adore this woman---she transfers so well into plushie form because she really is a magical, happy, beautiful person who was plucked straight out of Candy Land.  I still need to write a love story for Jacob and her which I will post soon.  Her shoes are little cats which actually exist in full-human size.  Now that I am done with her, the sun actually came out of hiding.  My dog, Albert, is also aware of this, and he keeps trying to hypnotize me with his sad, brown eyes into taking him out for a walk.  

Meet Jacob

Jacob is the boyfriend of the pinkest of the pink, Ms. Kitty Pink Stars whose pinkness puts me in awe.  I think that if I ever had a fan club, Kitty Pink Stars would be the president.  She snatches up my mustached men almost as soon as I finish them and then she takes them on amazing adventures, including photographic documentation (much to my delight!).   Kitty Pink Stars has a boyfriend who Kitty wanted Pink Cheeked, and here he is below.  The part that was the most fun for me was the stubble.  

Kitty also wanted another of herself to give to Jacob for Valentine's Day (shhh, don't tell Jacob).  I am not finished with her yet, I am still trying to figure out the shoes.  Here is a photo of her that I used as inspiration.  Isn't she lovely?  I think so.

Sewing after such a long break was nice.  It took me awhile to motivate myself which could maybe be due to the many gray days we have been having, which I find to be really debilitating, or it could be the fear of getting back to my old obsessive ways.  I know other bloggers and Etsy sellers will be able to relate, but the Nichol of 2008 was slightly obsessive about her blog and shop.  The stat-checking feature that allows you to see who comes to your blog, from where, and when, for how long was like my version of crack-cocaine!  I would check and be thrilled with one thing one day (i.e. "Wow, look at all my readers from Turkey") and then suffer disappointments the next day (i.e. "Where did all my readers from Turkey go?")  There are various versions of the same stat-checking tool for Flickr and Etsy, and for 2009 I have sworn all of them off----they are no good for me, they just turn me into a crazy lady and give me mind-rot. 

 My pain is not doing much better, but at least I know that it must not be due to the sewing, since I didn't get much relief with my break.  I went to see an orthopedic surgeon who basically told me there was nothing wrong with me, which I was a little frustrated about.  But, I actually feel better immediately after exercising, so I am just not going to stress about it because I actually truly believe the pain is related to stress and anxiety more than anything else, but I don't want to open that can of worms on my happy blog which I am really excited to be back at.  I have missed you all!  Thanks for reading and see you soon!  Happy 2009!