The Sad Demise of the Fancy Camera

Remember the Fancy Camera? The one we got shortly after Hannah turned 1? The one that takes awesome pictures with almost no effort? It's blinking "ERR" which means... call Nikon and see how much it would take to fix it. But.... I can get the same camera body on Amazon for less than $150 (yes, it's an old model, but I really don't care because I'm not a "photographer" by any means), and it will likely cost at least that much to tinker with the one I have, if not. So I want a new camera but I'm not getting one right now because it's just not happening right now. And the lack of nice pictures has put a damper on my blogging aspirations. I'm just not inspired, haha!

Now I have my phone- still much better than the point and click we replaced with the fancy camera. Plus, it takes video, so that is a plus.

One of the reasons I am not getting a replacement camera body right now is because I have a new sewing machine. This story of the new sewing machine comes with the rest of the story of what we've been up to the last few weeks.

It goes like this:

The girls started preschool at a Montessori school a few weeks ago, which allows me to pick up some extra home health visits for a while. They go 3 days a week, and Ellie takes a nap while she's there. She needed a nap mat. All the affordable ones had Disney princesses or Dora plastered across them, and all the ones I liked were not what I would consider affordable. So I decided to make one from some old sheets, because... it shouldn't be that hard, really.

Now, I like to sew, but my machine is decades old, basic, and quirky. It got progressively worse as I tried to sew these few simple seams, and I was in tears by the third night of what should have been a 3 hour job. So my neighbor gave me her second-hand machine that she didn't want anymore, which was rusty but sewed a seam... but the bobbin winder didn't work. I therefore had to keep 2 machines out, one to wind bobbins and the other to sew seams, and I kept fantasizing in my head about all of the things I've always wanted in a machine and isn't it high time to get a new one?

I finally churned out this (please don't zoom in and examine the seams- it's painful):

Passable, but it could have been much, much better. Then I started researching machines. I checked out Craigslist, but nothing available fit the bill. I looked at Berninas (My mother has one that I learned on), but they are soooooo expensive. I looked at Brothers, but have always been unimpressed with their quality track record and didn't want to sort through which machine might be worth it it and which models were probably junky. I finally visited a local sewing store and found the Babylock. Yes, similar to Brother structurally (but not, I found out, the same company- despite some claims that it is). 

I bit the bullet, and bought the one I wanted new, and I rarely buy things new, but this one was worth it. I sat down the next evening and made Ellie a skirt for her uniform. Do you know nobody makes Khaki skirts or scooters in any size smaller than 3T? Why don't they think 1 year olds want school uniforms too? Really now. So, to sum up, it took me 3 days to sew a silly nap mat with the old machine(s) and 1 evening to tailor a scooter skirt with the new one (and I even modified the pattern to suit my needs). 

Well, Hannah is absolutely loving preschool. Ellie adapted quickly, but Hannah can't wait. Every day she asks me if it's preschool day, and she has been picking "pre-school hair" for me to do on her from my new favorite website Babes in Hairland. Ellie has only had 1 accident for them in the last 2 weeks, so I'd say she's good and potty trained even with a change in location and routine, and that makes me happy too.

Preschool babies!!