Lace details on jean shorts, sneaky DIY leg alteration

Summer is upon me and my fellow south-germans, and I can tell because we get 1 clear, sunny day per week midst a blanket of wet, cloudy weather with a hint of thunderstorms. Add this to an average of 90% humidity, and the traditional wind-less atmosphere of the valley in which Baden-Wurttemburg sits, surrounded by a thick, dense forest. Every morning I bike to work in sunshine, sometimes for the second day in a row, which brings me a glimmer of hope. Will we have sun and warmth all this week? Could it be? Consistent sunshine? Only to return home sticky and stuffy 9 hours later, dreams of non-bipolar weather crushed. During the day I gaze out of my office window staring longingly into the tiny patch of blue sky that moves further and further towards Switzerland, bringing a familiar and inevitable haze of disappointment among me, and leaving me to the black and white water color painting that I live in. Those sunny Swiss bastards. Ah, summer.

One thing that is okay about this weather is that its definitely not cold anymore, which is why I start to sweat just looking at all the O-burg civilians still dressed in wool coats and scarves. Even though the hot weather is not consistent, it still exists, and though i never now when, because god forbid the forecast be accurate, I still decided to be prepared, and this meant shorts shopping.

My weight really tends to fluctuate and yet, along with my purse strings, my patience does not. I have shopping for pants, and shorts, because the only places I can really shop around here are giant chain stores like H&M that make clothing for mannequins, and children. I'm not going to gripe about their sizes too much, dresses and shirts I never really have much problems with, it's just pants, but it doesn't help that bottom fashion seem to not have any flexibility in structure. So while their sizes might range from a 00 to a 14, they still only fit one body type in each size.

My problem? The part of my thighs just under my ass are wider than my hips, and then the rest of my thighs below the thickest part are slimmer. What the fuck, nature.

Whenever I shop for pants I either get a giant gaping slack fabric above my ass that I could use as a basket for groceries or I get the 'sausage link' effect on my thighs, where they are so tight that they either A: make my leg look like a tube of toothpaste with an elastic band around it or B: ride up into my crotch and under my buttcheeks, never to be seen again.

I always have to take dress pants to tailors to get them altered, and I know that regular shorts just don't fit me properly so I first thought of finding some old mom jeans at the thrift store and cutting them into shorts. Perfect right? High waisted is in, they'd be 'vintage' or whatever, totally cute. Pinterest had me so damn confident, it looked so simple, so I ventured off to the second hand store on my lunch break.

How in the fuck did adult women find jeans that fit before stretch denim was invented, oh my fucking god.

 So LITERALLY 19 pairs of jeans later, I give up, I'm discouraged. Maybe it's because of the selection in my one trusty second hand store, and maybe I could have found some in Value Village back home, but for now I'm discouraged, and I look at the 'easy mom-jean DIY' pin with anger and dispair.

When it got hot again and I was stuck with pants, I started looking for other options for shorts, again on Pinterest. Like a boyfriend I think has changed, I keep going back to you Pinterest. While I was skimming pinterest for DIY projects I stumbled across the lace-detail technique, where you rip the seam on the size of the shorts and extend the width of the leg, covering the cut with lace. It was so simple, how could I not have thought that? This time I'm wary, I have to leave this up to my own imagination so I can make it work this time, because GOD it's hot.

I go to H&M, find some cheap shorts that fit around my ass and are cutting off the circulation in my legs, perfect. I grin wildly at my un-proportioned legs, suffocating in these jokes of size 10's, you think you're so fucking perfect don't you shorts, it's my fault that I can't fit in you isn't it? I should be discouraged and hit the gym more shouldn't I? WELL NOT TODAY.

After that I go to Karstadt (German version of Hudson's Bay Company) to find some lace. So I go to the giant fabric selection looking for sheets of lace or crochet type things, can't find any. I ask the lady if there are any sheets of lace or lace-type things, of course there aren't any, because that's the only thing I actually need and there are 7000 types of fabric in this section. There's even sheets of fucking latex. Are you kidding me Karstadt? So I leave with a seam ripper and some white thread which I needed also, and head to the thrift store. My husband thinks I won't find any lace there, no, but I know for a fact I'll find old doilies and tableclothy things that could work. He's skeptical, but I assure him that there is some kind of unwritten rule that a thrift store can't open unless it has a surplus of doilies. When we get there, I'm right. I stock up on doilies.

Step By Step

The specimen

The cut. I actually had a pair of skinny jeans on and put the jeans on while I was wearing them to judge the cut, so that regardless of if I made a mistake or not there'd be extra wiggle room. I cut these a few times before I settled on a 16 cm extension. The cut itself is not that wide, but when I put the shorts on with the cut made, the amount the bottom points of the triangle stretch equals to about 16 inches, which is how far apart each ends of the lace should be to fit comfortable. 

The details. Butterfly doily is the cutest and most efficient. I am going to be sewing this bitch by hand so it won't look perfect, so having a perfect triangle of fabric will end up looking messier when the inevitable happens.

Pin the lace over the cut as desired.

Closer look. Then start sewing.

At the one hour mark I am naturally, interrupted by a cat, cue break time.

The finished result. I added more lace to the front of the shorts because it looked a little weird with it just on the sides, and I added a bit of another doily on the hip. Also, now I want a sewing machine more than ever. This whole think took about 4 hours to complete, and now I have leather fingertips.

I can't believe how well it turned out, actually. The shorts are really comfy now and they sit on my legs where I like them to sit. Added tip: When doing this, having shorts that were pre-rolled helped a lot. When I ripped the seam I actually only sewed the fold on the front, and ironed the fold on the back and left it alone. That way, the back of the shorts actually stretch lower than the front, so they don't ride up and disappear.

Cat Intuition

Lately I've been experiencing a down-point. Every once in a while I go through periods between 2-10 days of feeling pretty low, today is one of them. These periods are matched by a few weeks of feeling normal and comfortable, and then short periods of extreme productivity and happiness. It makes it difficult to tell what I want to do in the short-term future, and decide on a correct path to take in my life/job/hobbies, and therefore commit to anything, because it changes based on my mood. It can get pretty self-loathing and chaotic up there in that brain of mine, but I know that it will eventually go away, which is reassuring. Today my dear american friend helped me out with some socializing therapy, which really helped me out. I find that my down points are amplified by my unfamiliarity with where I live, and the fact that I'm not very close to anyone here except my husband who has very little experience with depression, and doesn't experience mood swings. I'm really glad though that I've been able to break the socially-awkward shell of mine at least with one person where a coffee date can actually help me out and not add to my chaos. When I got home, I figured it was time for blog therapy.

It amazes me still how my cats are always in tune with how I am feeling. On my up days and down days, no matter what they always seem to respond in a way that matches with how I'm feeling. They both have extremely different personalities, so it is really interesting how one of them usually compliments my mood while the other reflects it in himself.

For example, this is Cole.

He's a big lummox. Super chill, super cuddly, likes to be all over you and doesn't understand how heavy he is when he flops on your chest. He's a fairly social boy, will literally eat anything including string and wasabi cheese, and at the age of 7 still has the potential to play and get excited, but only for a few minutes at a time.  Cole is excellent at helping me calm down, and helping me fix my emotional problems. If I'm feeling down, like today and yesterday, he will provide me with whatever he thinks I need to fix the problem. Yesterday, it was suffocating face-smothering cuddles and kneading his paws so hard into my stomach that it was starting to make me nauseous. Today, it was the same amount of cuddles, but also, he was acting very chaotic and kitten-like. He was distracting me from my mood by getting into everything he possibly could that would make me have to get up and remove him, so I wasn't thinking about feeling down. After about a half an hour or so of trying to open my dresser drawers with his paws and knocking over my hair products on my vanity, chewing on the corner of my laptop and crawling behind my headboard and getting stuck, he felt that my brain had been exercised enough and is now taking a break by sleeping on my feet.

 

 This is James. He knows he is extremely handsome, as you can see in this picture. He likes having his picture taken, he walks slowly across the apartment, never rushes anywhere, and the only time he ever gets excited is at a laser pointer or when he is running away from the terrifying sound of a plastic bag being rustled. James has anxiety just like me, except I don't pee on couches when I'm stressed out. When I am stressed out, he is usually stressed out. He isn't very social, and it takes him a long time to build trust in new people, and will act out by peeing or pulling out his fur when he is feeling anxious or uncomfortable. He is very delicate, and cautious, takes very light steps and takes a long time to decide if he's going to socialize with a person or not, even me.  I can tell that it is going to be a down day, or that a down day is coming up soon when James is having a down day, and when I am feeling up and comfortable, so is he. The interesting part though, is sometimes when I am feeling blue, especially lately since he has finally become comfortable in this house, he will act like this in the picture. Overly sweet, overly cute, rolling around begging for belly rubs, and headbutting me in the back on the leg. His way of telling me that everything is going to be okay is my smashing his face into  my face when I am laying in bed.

Both my boys are really great at helping me out during mood swings, like seriously, this is what I am dealing with right now as I type this:

mum srsly, wut u need?

 However something I also noticed that is different now than before when I lived in Canada is that I'm not constantly surrounded by animals all the time. I used to volunteer for a shelter back home, and fostered cats and puppies, helping train and rehabilitate them in order to be adoptable. Then I would take them through the adoption process and help match them to families wanting dogs that applied. Seeing these puppies go from near-bait dogs (since many of them were imported from Northern BC or even Southern California, where pit mixes and small breeds were very commonly used for dog-fighting) to well-socialized, behaved and in loving families, really gave me all the fuzzies plus a sense of purpose.  These days, I have my boys, but they more or less take care of themselves  so I have a very stagnant routine day in and day out, that isn't difficult and doesn't exactly make me feel like I am contributing to society. So the other day I looked into volunteering at the animal shelter here, which I was terrified to do before because obviously it meant I'd have to interact with other humans. Now though, I really feel like it would help, and at least one of the shelter workers speaks english really well, so we've been corresponding via e-mail and I'm going in on Saturday.

I've also started to track my mood. I'd seen it used by other people before but didn't really think I needed it. In fact, I am in this constant battle with myself about the fear of being diagnosed with something vs the desire to be told that there is a reason for my rollercoaster mood swings, vs this little nagging voice that tells me "pfft you're just overreacting." I am going to see a therapist soon, after a doctor's appointment on Friday, and hopefully this mood tracking chart I found online will actually help them, and help me. Here is what i'm using, i've already tracked the last two days:

We'll see how it goes, until then, I am at least taking the time today to work at bringing down my anxiety levels. Unfortunatley I do have to make another stressful phone call today, but until then I am enjoying being suffocated by this giant lump of a cat sitting on my stomach.

Tell me something

What are we supposed to do with our lives? That's an easy question to answer, because we aren't supposed to know, right?

"It's okay to not have a direction", "You're young, you've got so much time to decide," "Enjoy this time in your life, where it's okay to be flaky." Again and again, highschool graduates and 20-somethings are told the same thing in the western world, that not knowing what your purpose is, or rather, what you want your purpose to be, is acceptable. That it's the proper pattern of things. First, you don't know what you want, then you study something that might interest you, and while your major may be useless and the piece of paper you get at the end of your 4-year Kraft Dinner-and-ramen-noodles-no-sleep-fest even more so, it doesn't matter, because somewhere along the line you've discovered what you really want to do. Then off you go, into the real world, pursuing your dreams, stepping into adulthood, paying your dues on an endless pursuit of happiness. The natural order of things, normal, simple.

Well guess what motherfuckers, it isn't so SIMPLE.

Sure, telling your kids or your spouses or your boyfriends/girlfriends, or your friends that you'll eventually find out what you want to do in life and that it's just dandy that they don't know what that is yet is totally peachy, but let me be the first to honestly tell you that it won't do shit about the internal clusterfuck a-brewin'. I would say the only thing worse than not knowing what you want to do with your life, is being told that it's okay, it's like telling a first-time bungee jumper: "There is a really small chance you could die, and right after you jump, you might actually shit yourself, but that's normal." Thanks. Clearly there is some festering demon located in their solar plexus that grabs hold of their nerve endings and yanks on them over and over again like they're experiencing empathy-embarrassment while watching x-factor auditions, except this particular audition full of cringe is their own judging reflection, and it's saying things like, "You indecisive cynical fuck, choose a career like the rest of the world."

This is why I created this blog, while it might be socially acceptable to be a 20-something and not know what you are doing with your life, I need an outlet to save me from myself. To distract me from not only my anxiety over being out on my own with no idea what job I'll be happiest working at, but also to distract me from the fact that I have a career, that I spent 3 years and $40,000 to achieve, only to discover that it isn't what I want to do, and being the cynical dick I am, can't seem to find anything related to it that I would be interested pursuing. This, met with the inner-struggle of, "I'm young, I could switch careers!" vs "If you switch careers, you'll waste 4 more years that you could have spent furthering your original career!" Thanks brain, you asshole.

There are a lot of things that interest me, so many that I can't slow down for a second to focus on one, and actually become proficient at it. I've always been prone to severe anxiety, and organizational compulsions that come with it. As a result of my anxiety over what to do with my life, I have a very detailed list of things I think I'd be good at, yet the fear of wasting time and/or discovering I don't like it holds me back. GREAT.
Today, I say fuck it, to my socially and professionally awkward brain, and to my lack of direction. I've noticed over the years that I exhibit more than just a typical 'young person flakiness', but a straight-up life-sized version of ADD. I couldn't figure out what skills I could bring to my field, or any other field, what interests I have that I could excel in, what other things might I want to do with my life, so in the end I decided to use my indecisiveness to my advantage. I could either spend days sitting at my desk thinking and worrying about what to do, or I could just pursue and document everything I like and enjoy all at once, without deciding, without giving a fuck.

Here in this blog I will try new things, document what goes on in my life, interesting things that I discover, classes I may take, trips I might take, anything at all that I find exciting, interesting, and worth sharing, I will put here. I don't like the idea of finding a focus with this blog, because that way, I'd have to commit to one topic the entire time. That would get boring, stale, and I'd eventually change focus anyway. This way, I am always enjoying what I write. I see this as a free form of therapy, an outlet for my brain that is cluttered with ideas, paths to take, things to pursue, and maybe somewhere down the road it'll help me decide.