S.I.Y: Fixing a wide shoulder blouse (UPDATED)

***Updated with extra notes and new pics for better explanation.

I bought this top from Cotton On online long time ago but I have problem wearing it cos the arm hole was too tight (at the elbow) for me and the shoulder is too wide and it has this ribbon sewn across at the back. I wore this top out and 2 of my friends commented that they have the same blouse but still havent wear it yet cos the shoulder is too huge and they have problem wearing it. (Becareful when you buy clothes from Cotton On. The measurement is slightly bigger than other brands. I thought I will fit nicely in size XS but its still big for me. Not that I am skinny, but the clothes are slightlty bigger)

And I thought that it's ugly wearing the ribbon across like that and if I were to cut it away, the shoulder is definitely gonna keep falling and I will have a tough time adjust the blouse the entire time I wear it.
Because of the front that is too wide, I cannot afford to have my sleeve falling down, not even on one side. Many ppl will have sore eyes if one of the sleeve fall.*lol*

Recently I tried it on again and I lost weight, at the elbow area. *lol of all place ???* and I need to wear this blouse today to attend a full moon party. But I still hate the ribbon at the back. And I thought why not remove the ribbon and sew shirt to my bra? Then I thought of a better idea. So I quickly run to my store/sewing room and gathered the materials needed, 2 buttons, needle, thread, scissors and I cut off the ribbon from the blouse.

1. Sew the button on at the edge of the shoulder sleeve. ( i know... i have ugly nails!)

2. Measure the button and make a knot with the ribbon.

3. Put the ribbon over the button and pull it so that it fits just snugly at the button.
4. Sew the other side of the ribbon like this.

5. Secure the ribbons to the button and you're ready to go.

Okay where exactly do you sew? And how do you secure it? Here's how and where. Dotted line represents ribbon is under the bra strap.

And this is how it looks like when you lock it. Sorry Iphone very blur.

Yay! I don't have to give away another of my clothes bought online (either too small or too big all the time!) and the shoulder stay firmly for the entire time I was wearing this. Now I'm thinking to sew some on blouses which have wide shoulder or tiny straps. :)

And yes it's SEW EASY! You Can Sew It Yourself!

Rocket

Me: ti... If you have a rocket with only 2 seats, who are you going to bring and fly with you?

JT: fly to space?

Me: yeah.

JT: *think think* my rocket got more than 2 seats wan. It got 4 seats...

Me: this rocket only got 2 seat, cos very narrow, no more place to put seats. So who are u gonna bring jek.....?

JT: I'll make the chair upside down so can fit 4 seats.

Me: O_o no no, only 2 seats.

JT: my rocket very special wan. I can put the chairs outside the rocket.

Me: eh.. Put outside the rocket will die la that human. So? Who? Who are you going to bring? Daddy? Me ? Or kor kor?

JT: *think think think* i cannot bring dadi cos he is very heavy. Later my rocket cannot fly how?

Me: so... Only me or kor kor left.

JT: *think think think think think* I bring.... You lor....

Haha it's so obvious that he wanna bring his brother but he didn't wanna hurt my feeling.

~~~~~~~~~~~~

That night I asked JD,

Me: kor... If you have a rocket that can fit 2 ppl only, who are you gonna bring?

JD: titi! (wow that was Fast???)

Very glad that they really adore each other, I hope for a very very long time.

2 of them monkey-ing around during JD's 7th Birthday dinner.

Which One Do You Love More?

People asked me "do you love your JD more or JT more?"

I said equally and no one believe me. So I did a test and I asked JD while JT was in sch 

Me: do you think I love you more or titi more? ( Risky question I know... )

JD: I think you love ME more

Me:  why?

JD: cos I always help you and titi is always tired.

^_^

And I did the same when JD was in sch

Me: titi do you think I love u more or kor kor more

JT: (He misunderstood and said ) I love you and kor kor same

Me: no, I mean, do you think I love you more than kor kor? Or love kor kor more than you?

JT : (And he replied very quickly) I think you love me more ^__________^

Happy that they both think I love them more than the other party. As long as they feel they are so loved, What other ppl think is not very important isn't it? ;)

Blok space

My kids been bugging us to buy Lego sets and my hub is against it cos:
1. It's too expensive
2. They still don't know how to keep toys properly. We will have a tough time dealing with missing parts and also have you ever step on a piece of Lego? Pain like kanasai u know? Haha

So when we found out from JD therapist that there is a place where you can rent Lego sets, we're like "alright!!!" So we went last last Sunday and the kid were thrilled!

Located opposite Popular Bookstore at IPC.

Immediately they know what they wanted to build. The cars that they've been longing to have from the show Lightning McQueen.

And then we're asked to leave. We're like "What???" They say "you can come back later. The girls will be here to help them".

We're like "Okay hor? Safe wan right?"

So both hub and I looked at each other and said "then.. what shall we do now?"

Pak tor lor. Hold hands lor. Just the two of us lor. 

And it feels so so so weird!

And guess what? We end up going to TOYS R US.

Haiyoh.....For the first time we're alone, and we chose to go TOYS R US! *lol*

Rm12 for an hour is pretty okay for us. I mean.. we also paid rm 10 for 15 mins  car ride. And this is one whole hour and the kids can choose any Lego set they want. And also I use this as encouragement for my kids to do their homework. I said "when you collect 10 stars, you can go to Blok Space".

See lah how many months can use this tactic. :P

Asperger: Dealing with bullies

Ah.... yes. One of the most common issue when you have an Aspie kid with you.  It's either they are the bully (cos many of them don't know what they are doing it wrong, and they don't know that the other party is pain or sad) or they are the victim and most of the time they will do whatever the bully asked them to do cos they want to be accepted as a friend.

So I went to JD's sch on Friday and found out that JD was upset the day before. His teacher told me that he got bullied by this boy and the classmate told her that it's not the first time he bullied JD. This time was because the bully tried to poke JD's face with pencil and when JD snatched away the pencil, he got angry and took JD's book and threw it to the floor. Surprisingly, JD didn't burst into meltdown. He went over to pick the book up but his face turned red after that. His class teacher who saw the whole commotion , who also knew about JD is an Aspie, quickly go over and told him to calm down and tell her what happened (although she saw she just wanted JD to learn how to express himself). JD manage to calm down and told her about it. So all of them went to the principal's office and the boy, got a good smack on his palm.

The teacher told me that she can see that JD has improved and he is able to control his emotions which is very good and it's another milestone for him and her cos she learnt how to help him. Probably that's also another reason why she refused to give him the "special card" ( for kids with special case) after his old one went missing.

But the bullying didn't start or stop from there. That friday night, as usual before sleep the kids will ask for bedtime story. That night, I made up a story about a bully in school and suddenly he said "You know.. he always bully me". I said "who?" and he said "nothing". So I continued the story and finally he told me everything. It's sad, to know that he has been going through that without me knowing, but I'm glad at last he told me (after much talking and making up stories :P )  and I told him "you need to tell me so that I can teach you how to handle bullies in school".

Initially I just told him to say "NO!" and then tell the teacher if he didn't stop. But when I went to take out books from his bag , I saw a piece of paper crumpled really badly in his bag and he told me "Oh... he did it!" That is after the boy got punished by the principal and he dare to do it again. So that's it. I asked him to write a letter of all the thing that kid did to him cos he has problem expressing himself (he can but he need a long time thinking) and pass it to the teacher.

I told him "JD, I know you want to have friends. But then good friends love us, not hurt us and likes to see us sad. What he did is wrong, did you know? So don't ever let him take advantage of you. If he does it again, tell him that you will tell teacher or you tell him My-Mother-Will-Come-And-Look-For-You-Later". I forgot to tell Jayden to tell him that "MY MOTHER IS A MONSTER!" *LOL* Joking!

This is one of the most important thing that we must teach our kid whether they are Aspie or not. This is one of the life skill that they must acquire, cos there are too many evil people out there who likes to take advantage and use other people to the max.

Did You Know: Swan School Bag

Did you know that you can send your kid's Swan School Bag, back for repair if it breaks during the 3 months warranty? I forgot about it until my sis in law told me about it. Jayden's sch bag broke not even after 1 month of using it. So I quickly send it back to the outlet where I bought it from (yes, you can only send it back to where you buy it from and not any other stores). They told me they need 2 weeks to repair it.

This was the price list for the repairs, if you send in after the warranty period. Wah..... If i were to pay for the damage, it will be rm50. And the new bag is rm79.90. @_@

And within a few days, they called me up and told me that the bag is ready for pick up. As soon as I got into the car , Jayden said "WAH!! My bag handle is so Yellow!"

Good as new, for the handle but the rest of the bag is already very cacat especially the wheels. Anyway just let him use till max before we buy another one for him.

Growing tomatoes

One of the plant that I really want to grow is tomato. Why? Cos Jayden eat tomato for fun and also cos when it's ripe, it turns red and it's so pretty ^_^

Anyway, I started growing tomato by just throwing some seeds from locally bought store into the soil. And all of them grew. And it was accidental cos the tomatoes rot and i just threw them to the soil for compost.

Taken on 31st October 2012.

Then I selected a few and grow them in pots and the rest i just throw them into my compost soil.

To my surprise, 3 plants grow so well in the compost soil and the one I planted in pots was stunted cos I kept moving them in and out of the rain and sun.

But I just let them grow and grow and it became so tall.

Then I noticed that i have 2 kinda of tomatoes in my harden. The one above is the fat tomato. And the one on my raised beds are cherry tomato. All came from the same box of "cherry tomato".

Is it hard to plant a tomato plant?

Need alot of time?

Alot of space?

That's people's FAQ to me about tomatoes.

I will answer, depends on whether you have the passion or not.

And also I don't spend much time in my garden cos I need to tend to my kids.

But one tip is , you gotto watch out for "suckers"

Suckers grow in between the main branch and the stem. You can just simply pluck it off when its tender or you can leave it grow bigger and then cut it off and just poke into the soil to get another tomato plant. Cool right?

I started to hand pollinate the tomato flowers using brush. I only manage to get ONE tomato.

Then a fellow Green Nook member said that she used electric toothbrush to vibrate her tomato flowers and her whole plant was filled with tomatoes. So I did the same to mine.

We're not crazy okay. The reason why people use electric toothbrush is because the vibration mimics the movement of bee's wings. And so that when its vibrated the pollen from the male will drop to the female's flower and voila! It's pollinated.

Surprisingly after the vibration session, more and more fruits appear on my tree.

And the ones on my raised bed grew even taller, than me!

Oh i got so excited I started to water my tomato kau kau and this was what happened.

KABOOM!

Too much watering in a day can cause yr tomato to get too much water and explode.

And I harvested this too late. *sigh*

And then these are the cherry tomatoes. I think JD is enjoying his cherry tomatoes in school recess now.

With more to come! Here's a video of cherry tomato plant.

If you want to start planting something, tomatoes might be the right plant for you.

Cos its easy and anyone can do it.

Remember, it's all about whether you have the passion or not ;)