Just a real f*ckin hodgepodge, all human-made

 Listen, I know I have had like 45 different blogs, I'm sick of me, too. I just decided I'm going to go - metaphorically - horny on main here and just put all of my brain barf in one place. So this will be where I talk about everything, from mental health to politics and capitalism to crafting. I'll use the labelling system to give it some semblance of order. 

So, hi. I'm a married millennial mom of 2. I'm a writer who's been a journalist, a copywriter, a marketer, and a few other things in between. I've got a lot to say and I have not been saying it at all recently. I'm constantly at odds with myself, because I'm driven to express myself through writing, but I also think we need to know less about each other online. So my goal is to find that happy place of putting my thoughts into words without oversharing. We'll see how it goes. 

Recently, I've been dabbling in visible mending, which is in theory, a whimsical way to stand up to the grind of capitalism, but in practice, a bit more humbling. My youngest just turned 7 and had a pair of jeans with both knees busted out and the back pockets tearing slightly. I sewed patches on two of the holes and wove embroidery thread through the smallest hole, strengthening the knee with the thread colors of my (short but exacting) art director. 

Darn it if he didn't come home from school with every single patch of repair ripped worse than it was before I 'fixed' it. 

Some of it is things that I've learned in the interim, such as that it's good to do some iron-on interfacing or a patch on the wrong side of the garment. On the other hand, some of it is, I think, the universe saying "don't get too smug with it there, miss thing." Was I maybe imagining myself as some sort of woke alternative to a trad wife? I'll never admit it. 

At the same time I started attempting to mend the youngest's britches, I noticed my favorite pair of thrifted Universal Standard jeans were getting threadbare in the thunder thigh region. While I was mending that, I learned the curious puckering happening along a few spots on said favorite pair of jeans was, in fact, the elastane in them giving up. 

This is called denim stretch marks by some folks, and unfortunately it appears to not be fixable. I have stubbornly decided not to let that stop me from mending these jeans, even if they should have been relegated to the scrap pile. (Sunk cost fallacy who?!)

I have learned a lot while attempting to keep my jeans from falling apart. I learned how to embroider a rose. Also, I learned you're not supposed to wash stretch jeans in hot water or put them in the dryer. 

Lest you think ALL of my mending attempts have been in vain, here's one that actually seems to have worked as intended. My spouse has a safety yellow jacket for work purposes that had a tear in it. I stuck an iron-on patch inside of the lining and then sewed the hole and the edges of the patch with matching neon yellow thread. It seems to have done the trick. 

Is my visible mending journey a thinly veiled metaphor for trying to hold everything together in late-stage capitalism without losing all sense of whimsy? Shhhhhhhhhh. 

Anyway, let's find out if I ever post here again. I don’t know if this turns into anything. But it counts as building something.