Birthday weekend in Wimberley

PHEW, you guys! Life! It's been nuts! I've got some actual life blogging (versus Princess Dress blogging) to catch up on. Life has been full of stressful and cRaZy things lately, but also, some really fun things. Lets talk about the fun.

For my birthday, this cute lobster shirt wearing boy surprised me with a weekend in Wimberley! Actually, I ruined the surprise, because I am a champion surprise ruiner, but it was still fantastic and Brendon, once again, is the best husband ever. 

We stayed at a little bed and breakfast in the hills and got to do a lot of playing outside, enjoying the FANTASTIC weather. Spring this year in Texas has been a grey one. We've had a few fabulous blue skied days, but we've also had a lot of cloudy, grey, "it has looked like rain for a week but hasn't actually precipitated, sorry about your sinus pressure". This weekend the weather was all about perfection and reminding you why you love Texas. Looking back at these photos has me missing that sunshine!

We checked out a couple watering holes while playing in the sun. Like literally, holes. One is a literal hole in the water, the other in name. First we visited Jacob's Well, because I mean, I've lived in central Texas most of my life and have never been?

It's a literal hole! Really deep apparently, also really dangerous to dive in. Creepy! It's spring fed so the water is seriously, crystal clear. Beeeeeautiful water. Also chilly!

I mean, that water! So clear! Jacob's Well was surprisingly tiny (even though I'd been warned). I can imagine it gets crazy crowded in the summer.

Next up we checked out Blue Hole, which is a park right in the city. It is an amazingly well taken care of and well facilitated park. I think it's rather new. Go Wimberley! It's fed by the same spring from Jacob's Well, so clear water strikes again!

Too early to swim in the park, so it was nice and quiet. Just perfect for the old fart Hogans who run from societal gatherings. But it looks like a killer swimming hole, complete with swings to propel yourself into the water, if you're brave. I am not.

We've explored the town before, so we just made a couple stops into little shops (coffeeeee and food and sweets) and spent most of our time there just soaking in the Vitamin D.

Wimberely is such a cool little town! I guess being from New Braunfels I appreciate towns with water running through them. Which is basically everywhere in the hill country from San Antonio to Austin.

OKAY, so the B&B we stayed at was such a winner. We stayed at Southwind Bed and Breakfast, in the Cats Paw room. OMG YOU GUYS IT IS A CAT THEMED ROOM. Brendon wins, forever.

Cat everything. It was amazing. Also, everything else about this place was amazing! It's outside town so it's nice and quiet, with beeeeautiful views. The folks that run the place are the kindest. They greet you with cookies and if you stay in the inn, you all have breakfast together. And I mean, a good homemade breakfast. They made the best scrambled eggs I think I've ever had, and I don't like eggs! Such a neat place, I highly recommend it!

THIS VIEW THOUGH. Seriously, so good. And at night, you can see all kinds of stars! Heart eyes emoji, y'all.

The hill country is my kryptonite. Feels like home. We've been spending a lot of our free time lately out west in the hills and I am not mad (although my allergies... phew!).

Hurrah for that weekend in Wimberley. It was such a good one. The weather! The relaxation! And Brendon had also officially just gotten home from his six week rotation in Temple so it was just, perfect. We needed an escape!

If you are interested in where we consumed calories, we ate at Inoz (fantastic place to grab a drink and chilllll, the nachos are on point) and the Leaning Pear (which is so very aaaaawesome, please go, sit outside, and swing on their tree swings. This place killed it!). We also got sweets from the Sugar Shack Bakery and Wimberley Pie Company, both of which are delicious and we might now be diabetic.

Until next time Wimberley!

Belle

WHOA, long time no Disney dress making, eh? Life has been busy. Life is always busy, that's no excuse, but that's what I'm using.

The Belle dress. Oh man, this dress has been a looooong time coming. It took a while to make, both because it was challenging, and because life. Also, this is MY princess. Okay, maybe it's a tie with one we'll discuss later in life, but Belle will always be the queen of my Disney Princess heart. I am a Belle. I mean, hellooooo the first Princess who wasn't interested in getting swept of her feet! Belle is a hero, she is brave and adventurous and stands up for herself. And loves to read? AND the first real brunette? I mean, come on. Perfection! This was my favorite movie for most of my childhood, THUS THE STRONG INDEPENDENT WOMAN I AM TODAY. (Kidding, but only slightly.) Y'all, I had Belle and the Beast/Prince Barbies, with multiple outfits. And she was my favorite Barbie, even though I effed her hair up real bad by taking it out of the perfect bun she came with. Beauty and the Beast was my JAM. I would lay in the grass and blow dandelion puffs and dream of more than this provincial life. Seriously, I wanted to be Belle so bad. I think I made my mom draw me as Belle one time. Little known fact, my mom can draw and draw well!

Anyways, so this dress was important. I wanted to LOVE this dress. And as much as I loooove her ball gown in the film, because it's hers, it is not my favorite Disney Princess dress. Iconic and wonderful, but very big and very yellow (because gold was hard to pull off in animation?). So I to make something that would represent her dress, but still be something I would love (and wear).

At my sewing job, we just so happened to have scraps left of two rather fantastic pale gold fabrics that just so happened to match perfectly. THANK YOU to my boss and to the clients who have such lovely taste in drapery fabric YES THIS DRESS IS MADE OF DRAPES. Channeling Maria Von Trapp, at all times. The bodice is made of the loveliest platinum-gold silk (!!!) and the skirt and sleeves are made of embroidered linen in the prettiest shade of butter. This dress is fancy. But basically free because life is so good sometimes?! This dress was meant to be.

Why yes, I did make myself a little silk bow to match. To pay homage to Belle's gold hair piece. And also because bows. For this dress I was going for a sort of french provincial (HAAA) feel, a lot more casual than Belle's cray cray ballgown. Because honestly, they were out in the country. I wanted something someone would wear while frolicking through the grass, miffed about Gaston.

At first I couldn't find a pattern that made all my Belle dreams come true. And it took me a while to settle on an idea. In fact I had an entirely different dress completely planned out that I scrapped at the last moment. I ended up using the top of one pattern and the bottom of the other. I used Butterick 5814 for the bodice and sleeves and the simple but rather full skirt from Butterick 5708. The bodice was very complicated. It is asymmetrical, pleated, boned, fully lined, and every seam inside is encased. So much hand sewing. Slip stitching for years. The only exposed seam allowances on the whole dress are the center, sides, and back of the skirt, and the zipper. And the zipper is an invisible zipper, which thanks to YouTube, I am no longer scared of! SO much easier than regular zips, I have been converted.

This dress was a big time learning experience. Very challenging, very fun, and I am very happy with it. It fits me perfectly (after a few adjustments, the sleeves were way too big!) and oh my gosh silk. Yes please. Sewing with silk is fantastic. It is so pretty.

And yes, this had to happen. Because the skirt is so full and fun and Belle twirls all over the ballroom in her dress so:

I am a huge nerd.

HURRAH, the Belle dress! How I slaved over you! Thank goodness I am happy with it. And thanks to Belle for being such a bad ass. I feel like a bad ass in this dress. (Insert sunglasses emoji.)

The rest of the Disney Princess are here! On to the next one! Can you guess where we're headed next? Off to another continent!

Ariel

WOOO first Disney Princess that I was alive for! Barely alive. Like 1 year old. The first Princess with a tail, Ariel! She was the first angsty princess too. "But daddy, I LOVE HIM!" Girl was 16 and in love with a prince she saw, like saw as in zero interaction, for like under half an hour. But love at first sight I guess. And hey, first redhead! I loved the Little Mermaid. Mostly because of the songs. I think this is the first Disney film Alan Menken wrote the songs to. Under the Sea? Kiss the girl? Such a riot. Also, y'all all know you were instantly Ariel as soon as you got into the pool. Flippin' yo fins. I remember going to the river when I was little and busting up onto a rock Ariel style. Chest out. Maybe even tossing my hair around? Don't lie, you all did it too.

Ariel has quite a few outfits to chose from. Unlike the previous Princesses who have a very set "Princess" outfit, Ariel has a bunch. Her promo outfit as a Disney Princess is a sea foam green concoction that doesn't even exist in the film. Not sure how that happened. Google it, it's odd. So I just went with what she wears most often and is most easily recognizable, the seashell bra and tail combo. Classic Ariel.

So I guess this isn't really a dress. It's a pencil skirt and bustier. I wasn't trying to go full on Selena bra top, I needed a little more coverage. So it's a long bustier and a high waisted skirt. I also went with separates because the Little Mermaid came out in 1989, so I feel like the style and these bright colors kind of fit that time. It's like a power suit. But cuter.

I used Burda 6970 for the top and Simplicity 2154 for the skirt. The top is made out of fairly simple purple poplin.The skirt is made out of outerwear fabric I found on clearance. I added a lining because I wasn't sure how jacket fabric would work as a skirt, but it's actually super great! Really comfy. Both these things fit me like a glove and were sewn with much more precision than Aurora's (yay stable fabric!), so that was refreshing. And forgive the photos for lying to you, both the purple and green are much brighter in real life. The dusky light didn't do me any favors.

Too bad my hair isn't still bright red, eh? Overall I'm pretty dang happy with how this came out. It was fun and easy to put together. And comfy. I love comfy. I think I'll get a lot of use out of both pieces, together and/or apart. The top will be super fun this summer! Or, you know, in February. Because it's Texas and I was definitely not cold taking these photos.

And now for the usual weirdness, me acting like a fish? Because that makes sense?

????? After taking these Brendon was like, "yeah, Ariel wasn't a fish." Shut up. Speaking of Brendon, he is finally home from his first of six workweeks away and I'm thrilled. The Hogans don't do well apart.

I'm sorry, I just had to. Missed that creep.

Next up, we break into the nineties! Check out the rest of the gang here!

Thirteen months of running

So at the beginning of 2014, I made four resolutions. I've never made resolutions before ever (and didn't make any this year) and I did okay with three of them. But I knocked one of them out of the park. Run more. Y'all, I ran more.

Freckle face from the summer sun. After our first ten miler.

I can't remember the exact reason why I decided to start running seriously. I know I wanted be a runner, I blame you Austin. You and all your healthy people. Since moving here I would "run" occasionally. We ran a couple 5k's, but by ran I mean walk/run. I couldn't run a 5k. I could run like a mile and a half before stopping. At the beginning of the year I had just wrapped up my first few months as a vegetarian and solved my chronic stomach pain issue, so I was feeling pretty good. I think this was a big part of deciding to run. Before that, standing for a long period of time meant pain, so running was pretty much out of the question. Once I felt normal, I felt like I could take on anything. Like truly, feeling normal I felt like one million bucks. And I was 25. Young, but not real young. And not really unhealthy, but not healthy either. I wanted to start a good fitness habit before it got too late and it got harder. So crazy obsessive project style, I guess I decided to really run.

The original goal was to run a full 5k, 3.1 miles without stopping. I started running 3-4 days a week. (Brendon tagged along through all of this of course, in far better shape than me. He is a champ, and always carries our water. Love that boy.) And we kept that average for the entire year. Except December. That was a weird month, we'll talk about it later. So at first I ran and walked and ran and walked and it sucked and it was hard. I remember after giving up halfway through a run, telling Brendon there was no way I'd ever make it three miles. And then seriously, that week, on February 4, 2014 I went for a run alone after work one day (this whole running thing has been made exponentially easier because I live and work so close to the trail. God bless the trail!) and I ran a full 5k, in under 30 minutes. I did it! I felt like two million bucks and I was addicted. Once I knew I could do what I thought I couldn't, running got easier. No, that's wrong, not easier. Running is never easy. It got... obtainable. Adding distance wasn't so crazy. We slowly added miles all spring. I accumulated more sports bras than regular bras. That 5k goal was long gone and I set my sights on a half marathon. My toes got used to having constant blisters on them. We bought a watch just for running. And a running water bottle. On some random run in May we ran the whole trail, which is the tiniest bit over 10 miles.

And then summer came. Oh god running in the heat. It sucks so bad. It knocks you down and humbles you and makes you feel like you've never run in your life. Adding distance was out of the question. My goal for the summer was just to keep running, to not stop. Forget the mile times and forget the distance, just keep running. And I did. I didn't give up. I learned how to run in the heat and just focused on that first cold front, which eventually came. Once it cooled off we officially started half marathon training. Like using an actual plan. We finished the program at the end of November with a 12 miler. This is the training plan we used and I highly recommend it. If you stick to it, you will have no choice but to become a better runner. It whoops your butt, but it works.

Anyway, December. So December was weird. We took pretty much the whole month off. I think I ran 4 or 5 days? The whole month. December is always crazy anyway, but we also went out of town on two different trips, we both got sick on separate occasions, and Christmas happened. It was a nutzo month. So training continued in January and we did the last few weeks of the training plan again. The other night we knocked out 13 miles, our longest run ever. The half is this Sunday. The Austin Half Marathon is notoriously hilly and I'm a little nervous. We haven't done many hill runs since we started really training for the half, but I'm hoping that we'll conquer it nonetheless. My goal is just to run the whole thing. I have no time to beat, I just want to do it. Taking December off set us back a bit, so if I can just finish the dang thing I'll be thrilled.

But as nervous as I am, I'm mostly excited. I've worked really hard for this. I altered my life for this. Devoted hours and days. Went on runs after working for twelve hours and never regretted it. Ran when I was tired, sick, grumpy, crampy, and no regrets. My Saturdays became about long runs, and recovering from those long runs. The idea of running a half seemed ludicrous in January of last year, but by March I was already scheming and dreaming of 13.1 miles. Running, running, running. And no more "running". No training just for a race, running for a week or two and then giving up, no more walk-running. Real running. Painful, wonderful, running all year long. 3-4 days, every week. Except those few in cursed December. Sunny, dark, cold, hot, dry, humid, windy, rainy, you name it. I ran in it. Because I don't believe in treadmills, not in Texas anyway. I stayed up late to run and I got up early (on my days off) to run. I had good runs and bad runs and all sorts of mental and physical battles with myself. I ran hundreds of miles and went through two pairs of shoes. I watched (and felt, always sore, reminding me that I am not as young as I think) my body change and get stronger. Oh man you guys, when my legs got tight instead of soft, so much awesome. I learned that calories are your friend, and you need them. It made me look at food in a new light (food is fuel!), and I definitely learned what NOT to eat before running. And that water is your best friend. Seriously. Drink all the water. But most importantly I learned that you are always capable of more than you think. Your mind is your worst enemy and your best ally. You can do it, you just don't know it yet.

Wish me luck Sunday. I can do this.

Aurora

Round three, y'all. Aurora, from Sleeping Beauty. Did you know that she's got the shortest screen time of any Disney Princess? That movie is more about those fairies and Maleficent. And Prince Phillip. This is the first Disney Prince with a name. And personality. I had such a crush on him when I was a kid. Aurora is a stunner though, she's got fabulous hair. I've been watching each movie as I'm making the dresses and the first thing Dr. Hogan said when he saw her was, "she's got really nice hair." I mean, right?? Fabulous hair.

Sleeping Beauty came out in 1959. She's got the first slinky style dress, no big ball gown skirt for her. Her dress alternates from blue to pink via dueling fairies, and honestly I think during the film it spends more time blue, but she's always seen in the pink dress outside of the film. So I made a pink version! Because it's almost Valentine's Day, and I just did blue with Cinderella. I kind of wanted a mod style feel to her dress since the film was made at the end of the fifties. I'm so interested in how current fashion of the time effects costume design, especially when they're replicating a certain era. NERD ALERT. So for a modish vibe I picked a (very slight) drop waist pattern, Simplicity 1715, and free handed a pattern for a little collar (I love collars). I used some sort of mock-linen for the sleeves. I wanted the dress to be kind of rustic... even though it's pink... I mean, Aurora grew up barefoot in the woods! She and I have that in common.

The fabric for this dress was kind of crazy. It's a shimmery, spongy poly blend from the clearance section, and I used the wrong side of it. The face side is a metallic silvery pink. The back of it is a rich dark pink, with just the teensiest bit of shimmer from the face side. It's definitely not the softest thing in the world and it has a lot of stretch to it, but the color is fantastic and it drapes and pleats well. It just seems to pull every which way, especially when you're sewing. Straight, even seams... nah.

Goofball photo number one... but I love the waistline! And that fabric moves so well! And it totally matches my hair, which is now a fun shade of magenta.

Real quick, we've got to discuss this pattern. It's an "Amazing Fit" pattern, which I've never used before. Turns out, they're kind of silly. I eventually completely disregarded the instructions because they are full of all kinds of extra steps (putting the dress together with a one inch basted seam allowance, marking your adjustments, taking it apart, and putting it back together? WHAT?). I guess it's good if you're learning to adjust patterns to your size, but ain't nobody got time for that. I'm the world's most impatient sewer. I'm all about doing things the quick way. And cutting corners. And paying for it later. As you do. But anyways, I will probably be staying away from "Amazing Fit" patterns from here on out. Or just disregarding the instructions.

I'm pretty happy with it. I think I'll wear it on Valentine's Day while I consume all the carbs for the Half Marathon. And smooch on my husband.

Aaaaand I leave you with this:

Disney Princess of Awkardness. Brendon told me to dance with an imaginary prince like Aurora does while singing Once Upon a Dream. Why are my hands so big? And where my owl, birdies, and bunnies at?

Until next time, y'all. Who do you think is next? Hmmm??? See the other Princesses of Disney here!