Halloween 2013 (noun): A year of overestimating my abilities to sew

Happy Halloween gals and ghouls!

It's a rainy day in Toronto, le boo, but the spirit is alive and strong.  This year, I decided to bring out my new-ish sewing machine and sew my costume.  I use to sew a lot in high school with the help of my mom and grandmother, both experts in the craft.  But that was over *cough* 10 years ago, and suffice to say, I had definitely misgauged my abilities to pick it up again after so long.

My goal: to sew from scratch the dress that Sally wore in The Nightmare Before Christmas.

Rag doll type dress - how hard could it be?

Riiiiight.

Without a pattern, I decided to make my own with some used brown wrapping paper (thanks to a local fabric store on St.Clair).  I used a simple dress as my outline and then drew in the different cuts of her dress. My thought process - I just had to cut out the different pieces twice, sew each side and then connect the front and back together.  Easy peasy.

But I forgot to keep two things in mind: (1) I have boobs (2) I was using a stretchy cotton dress as my guideline and my fabric was non-stretchy cotton.  Thank goodness for buying extra fabric and extra pair of hands (my husband) to help me figure out what I needed to fill the wide gap that revealed my tush.

Once the sewing was complete the rest was pretty easy.  I used black yarn to hand sew big stitches where the different fabrics met and I drew in the pattern using a permanent marker.

Finding a long red wig proved to be a bit of a challenge so I ended up getting a long white wig and a can of red hairspray.  One can turned into 3 cans to cover the whole damn wig.

The end result - a pretty sweet Sally costume made with love, tears, and a few f-words.

Unagi Travel (noun): Travel agency for your teddy bear

When I was a kid, my whole family went on a two month trip through Europe in the summer (both of my parents  were teachers at the time).  And by my side always was Patchy, my brown yarn haired, dimple faced Cabbage Patch kid.  Patchy slept in hotels in Paris, ate on a train dining car en route to Germany, and walked (aka dragged along) the streets of Prague.  The doll was well traveled compared to most living beings.

Fast forward to present day.  While cleaning out our guest room closet, I found Patchy stuffed in a cloth bag, still wearing the dress my mom bought her from that trip.  To think of all the places this doll had been, only to end up in the back of an Ikea wardrobe.  While I've had many adventures of my own since that family trip, it made me a little sad that Patchy's adventures had ended as soon as I hit puberty.  Don't get me wrong - I'm glad that was the case, otherwise I'd be that weird woman who carried a Cabbage Patch doll with her everywhere.  That would have been particularly awkward on my honeymoon 3 years ago.

BUT - there's still hope for my childhood companion, thanks to Unagi Travel - a one of kind travel agency that lets stuffed toys travel the world on behalf of their owners.  Weird and unusual, yes, but also a really cute idea!  The agency will send you pics and updates of your dolls travels and at the end of it all, you are returned your doll, more worldly and relaxed than before.

Looks like I'm going to have to update Patchy's passport :)

Pumpking Carving (Verb): A good way to spend a lazy Sunday with family

3 MORE SLEEPS UNTIL HALLOWEEN!!!!!!!!!

Can you tell I'm excited?

I love holidays (and yes, I consider Halloween a holiday).  Any chance I get to decorate the house, get a new outfit/costume and plan a party - I'm in!  This year we kicked off our Halloween season with a house party with a Mad Scientist theme.  More pics and stories on that later this week.

But for now, I just wanted to show off the awesome pumpkin we carved yesterday with the help of our 2 year old nephew ("help" came in the form of picking out pumpkin seeds one at a time - the kid's meticulous, what can I say?).  Admittedly, while I appreciate a well carved pumpkin, I don't actually enjoy the doing of it.  Which is why I usually take care of drawing on the template and my husband takes care of the hacking...I mean, carving.

This year, because of my costume (waaaait for it), I decided on a Jack Skellington face template.  Those were easy enough to find online, and we decided to use this one.

Easy enough and it didn't take very long to create...except for the seed handling as mentioned earlier.

And the end result - one kick ass pumpkin, ready to be displayed proudly on our porch this Thursday!

"This is Halloween, this is Halloween...Pumpkins scream in the dead of night..."

Moving On (Verb): Leaving behind an old job for new adventures

Ingalish has been quiet for the last few weeks but for good reason.  Last week I started a new job for a big player in film distribution.  Although it's still in entertainment (an industry I've worked in for over a decade), it's a far cry from the kids' promos I was producing for the last 7 years.

Funny that when I started my old job, I never imagine that I'd be there longer than a couple of years, a sentiment shared by many who work in television and film.  But also like so many others - I got comfortable.  And the problem with comfortable is that while it's safe and reassuring, eventually it evolves into boring and stale.

I needed change.

I don't want to discredit all of the awesome experiences I had at my old job.  I really enjoyed what I did and I did it well.  But there was no real next-step-up for me.  So a few months ago I started scouring the internet job sites looking for jobs, the first time in 7 years.  And it wasn't easy.  Partially because there were slim pickings,  partially because the competition was so high and partially because admittedly, I wasn't sure what I wanted to do.

I had a few job interviews, some for places I could really see myself excelling and other places where my gut feeling was telling me it wasn't the right move - but hey - at least I got to practice my interview skills. But no bite.  And trust me, after a while I started to feel discouraged in looking anymore.  If not for the gnawing feeling inside telling me that I had to move on, I probably would have given up and stayed with comfortable.

And then *poof* suddenly all the pieces came together.  I landed an interview for a very cool job and it went well.  And then the following week they called me in for a second interview, and it went even better.  And then before I knew it I was negotiating salary, vacation days, and start dates.  Weird how it can go from nothing happening to everything happening at once.

And the minute I signed my agreement, I felt this sudden wave of calm and I knew I had made the right decision.  My last two weeks went by and surprisingly without any tears.  And the following week (last week) I was the "new girl."  It was weird not taking the same route in the morning, walking down different halls, and sitting in my own office (I had a kinda-cubicle before).

I'm on week two and I'm getting use to the change.  I'm learning a lot of new things in general which I think my brain is grateful for.  If there's any advice I give to those starting a new job - ask questions.  The worse thing you can do is pretend you know what people are talking about and admit 3 years down the line that you had no f'n clue what P & A stood for (Prints & Advertising, as I learned).  There's still a lot yet to be learned and practiced but I'm ready for it.

Goodbye comfortable.