Now

Fall Fun

October Small Sketch Drawing

(Or what I did in October, 2022)

Fall is my very favorite. Just a little cold, a lot of color, and the days start counting down to my two favorite holidays – the start of the NHL season (that already happened!) and Thanksgiving.

This month I:

  1. Made English Muffins. Really. It’s way easier than you think, and the part where all the recipes say you can’t use 100% whole flour? WRONG. Yes, they are dense. And delicious.
  2. Made Wheat Thins. “Susan, why are you baking all these things?” you may ask. Well, it started out by necessity (forgot to add them to the weekly grocery delivery) but now that I’ve tried making my own, I’m never going back. This particular recipe calls for vanilla and butter, but I skip the vanilla, use light olive oil and add salt-free seasoning blends to make my own spicy versions.
  3. Cleaned my sewing machine. Do you sew? Then stop right now, watch this video and go clean your sewing machine. Even if you don’t have oil (but get some), you’ll be stunned and grossed out by what all the fuzz, and your machine will sound so much better for it.
  4. Continued my every day drawing practice. That cutie up at the top is my quick colored pencil sketch of one of my favorite Halloween decorations for the house. Instead of just using small squares of watercolor paper, I’ve
    *graduated* to using scrap paper from the recycle bin at work that I had a friendly co-worker punch and bind into a little notebook for me.

Hope your Fall has been Fabulous!

October 30, 2022 by Now

It’s the Little Things

How was your weekend?

Since the Pandemic Started, I’ve been trying to focus on restoration and relaxing on the weekends. The weekdays have too much extra stress on them already, and I didn’t want to become a slave to my To Do list just because we weren’t going anywhere.

Along the way, I’ve been noticing a lot of little things that can make life better.

Here are three:

  1. The Pinterest Gods dropped this pin about adding corner ties to duvets into my feed, and at the time I was scrolling Pinterest in bed, kicking around the covers because they had become all lumpy at the bottom again. As soon as I finished my coffee, I took our Ikea duvet and cover downstairs, rummaged around and found some ribbon and in less than fifteen minutes had solved an irritation I didn’t realize I had. It’s also now even easier to make the bed in the morning because I don’t have to keep fluffing the covers.

2.  Did you know there’s a difference between purple and golden raisins, and it’s not the color of the grapes they come from? For many, many, many years I’ve been not eating raisins because I didn’t think I liked them. Recently I used golden raisins in a recipe, and it was a game changer. In my opinion, much better flavor and texture, which makes sense, because the difference is in how they are dried.  

3. I’ve posted earlier about my light therapy lamp and I’m happy to report it brought me a lot of ease this winter. This week I added a sunrise alarm to my arsenal of morning systems, and I’m only two days in, but it’s already a big hit. The concept is the light starts up as a low orange and gradually changes to a bright yellow white, simulating sunrise. I have mine set up to start up 20 minutes before my actual wake up time, with a beeping back up alarm set to go off if the light doesn’t do the trick. So far I’ve been up 10 minutes earlier than usual, and not as cranky. I bought mine at Amazon, and they have quite a range – I opted for a low end one so if it wasn’t what I hoped for I’d only be out 35 dollars, but you can go in for over $200.00 if want more bells and whistles.

March 15, 2021 by Links and Things Now To Remember

Marching on

SuzerSpace is mostly a craft blog where I share my projects and tips and tricks.

But the last year has been a tough one for just about everyone, and I’ve found myself with less enthusiasm for crafting. 

When the safety protocols started for COVID-19 and I was under a stay-at-home order, I found myself filling my time reading all I could about the science behind the virus, plus a lot of long form journalism that was extremely well written but gut wrenchingly accurate about the cost of the pandemic in turns of economic and human tragedies. 

I soon realized this wasn’t really a good coping mechanism – normally I like to learn everything I can about a topic, but having a jillion tabs open with each one bringing sad news, bad news or politically charged opinions was definitely NOT what I craved.

So I searched for something more uplifting. Not syrupy feel good postivity that didn’t take into account what was going on around me. That would have made me equally miserable.

Below are links to some of the places I found for reading and viewing that would fill my brain and heart with skills to weather this storm in particular, and probably all sorts of other difficult times.

A quick, but important note: 

None of these links are ads or affiliate, and I’m not endorsing any particular platform.

Your mental health is a serious topic, and I’m not a doctor, so this is not advice to be used in place of professional help.

Calm, a developer of a Mediation and Mindfulness app (which I don’t use) has a variety of free resources that do not require you to download their app or provide any contact information (not even an email). 

Of the above, I have really enjoyed this online generator of intention cards (kind of like and affirmation magic eight ball).

In addition, Calm has have added a page of resources specifically designed for Covid 19 stress – meditations, lectures and stories to listen to lull yourself (or someone else in your house) to sleep: 

Instead of binge watching bad TV, I signed up for this Science of Happiness Course ,  which is online, free and self paced class taught by Professor Laurie Santos of Yale. It “reveals misconceptions about happiness, annoying features of the mind that lead us to think the way we do, and the research that can help us change.”

Have you watched EVERYTHING on Netflix, Prime, Hulu and Disney? TED has a neat searching tool for their talks which let you search by content, speaker or time.

If the above is all too serious for consideration, here are two more links that are pure diversion:

A nice assortment of Live Webcams featuring beautiful views, adorable puppies and aquariums (there are also bats, alligators and cats if that is more your thing).

A free download of a coloring book that you can print out for yourself or others in your household, or import into a drawing or painting program so you can color with whatever medium you prefer.

Again – these links are just things I’ve found online that I personally enjoy and they help me not spend my time doom scrolling (endlessly reading bad news about the virus or politics).

If you have any good bookmarks you’d like to share, please leave them in the comments below!

March 1, 2021 by Links and Things Now To Remember

The real meaning of a seam ripper

a seam ripper has taught me more about life

So I’ve been absent for a bit from here.

With the state of the world, especially the United States, I haven’t really felt like crafting much.

When things get tough, I often sink to a low spot, where I become sure I’m not good enough. I’ve grown enough over the years to realize that isn’t true, and I’ve become aware that I do it, and those are two good starting spots for digging out.

Today, while sewing another face mask so as to have plenty for work, I had a bit of an epiphany. It was suddenly quite obvious to me that no one has perfect sewing skills. Everyone struggles from time to time getting the pieces matched up, or the inside out lined up with the right side in.

I’m 100% positive this is true, and I’ll tell you why – because if it wasn’t, then why was the seam ripper invented?

July 3, 2020 by I made this In the Craft Room In the Sewing Room Now

Things I Learned In April

Usually for the start of the month I write a quick look back and plan ahead post. This year I had the idea of working on three areas each month – learning a new skill, reading more (instead of scrolling more) and diving deep on a Skillshare topic. That worked well for the first beginning months of the year, but for late March and all of April, that wasn’t a good fit.

I’m lucky – I was able to work from home, not lose my paycheck and Mr. SuzerSpace and I were able to really follow the guidance of staying at home to minimize our exposure to the Coronavirus.

It wasn’t a month of normal crafting and learning. Instead, it was a time of really new challenges.

In April I:

Sewed facemasks .

And more facemasks.

And even more facemasks . Actually, this one doesn’t involve any sewing!

Had groceries delivered. As a picky eater this was harder than it should be. But I am forever appreciative of essential workers like those at the grocery and liquor stores and the delivery gig workers who kept us safe.

Cut my own hair. I have really short hair and while it grows fast and is pretty forgiving I found it hard to find a good video since most seem to show long hair which would be much easier to reach and see what you were doing. I found this one helpful, even though I don’t own a clipper or thinning shears.

Took a class on reading medical studies.

Learned how to jump start a hybrid car. Turns out if you don’t drive it for 6 weeks the 12 volt battery discharges and it won’t start. It’s slightly trickier than jumping a standard car.

Worried a lot. And then began to worry about my worrying. I found this helpful and reassuring.

So what does May hold? We will have to see. I bet it’s interesting😉.

May 10, 2020 by Now
I'm a Pre-Press Super Hero by Day. A mild-mannered nerd at night. The SuzerSpace is my place to showcase all that I enjoy and want to share.

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