min-myinnersoul

I hope that you all had a lovely Memorial Day Weekend. Ours was very "eventful." Nothing how we planned it:o) Of course things never are;o) I had plans to do all sorts of crafty things on Saturday, but my hip went out, so I spent most of the day laid up in bed while the hubs "watched" the children...let's just say that chocolate milk was involved and I wish that we had had padded walls at the time;o) Anyway, before the ole hip decided to go berserk, I was able to make S.R. a precious little jelly roll dress. The fabric is pictured here in this post. Vintage was the name....and I LOVE IT! I wanted her to have a special dress for her cousin's graduation, so I decided to finally make a dress out of the jelly roll that has been sitting in my craft room ever so patiently awaiting the day it would become something Fan-Tab-U-Lous... I think it turned out so sweet. My little darlin' just loved her new dress. She had to try the dress on several times for me to m...

Answering inane questions is an unfortunate fact of life these days. Especially since security has taken centre stage in life, you are constantly asked useless questions at any place which has a security check. I was subject to a special dose of inane questions recently and hence this post. The occasion was the renewal of my US visa which was expiring. In my line of business, a US visa is one of the necessities of life – like food, water, etc etc. Now the US visa process, for those who only want to visit it,(as opposed to immigrate), is actually a very good process. You apply on line these days, wait for an interview slot, go in person and spend half a day waiting. If you are a regular traveler, you are usually given a long term visa – usually for 10 years. Wasting half a day once in 10 years is perfectly acceptable and nobody should mind. But in typical American fashion, you are asked some inane security questions in the visa form. Here are some gems. - Are you coming to the United St...

Here it is. Remember me telling you the other day that I visited a high end children's clothing store and found the CA-UTEST cherry outfit. Remember I said it was over $70? Well this is my version. It's not exactly the same, but it's close enough. I had a pattern that would have matched perfectly, but S.R. is 2 inches too tall for that pattern...my lil girl is growin' up:o( So I used another pattern I had on hand. I LOVE how it turned out. Since the fabric is so thin, I made pants instead of capris. I think the ruffles are so sweet.   To make the cherries, I ironed on some stabilizer to red fabric, used a circle stencil, cut them out, and appliqued them onto the fabric. I used itty bitty ric rac for the stems. When we were in the store, S.R. loved the bow on the front of the other shirt, so I had to make sure I put it on this one:o) I really wanted cherry buttons, but Walmart didn't have any, and I was too lazy to drive around town looking for some, so I used green ...

Well I survived the weekend. All I can say is WOW! I am sooooo glad that it's Monday. There may be a few of you out there that are saying to yourself, "What is she thinking???" Just trust me:o)This week is so much slower paced than the past 2 weeks have been. So now I will be able to post more for those of you who have nothing better to do at work;o) So here is the super cape for the  sweet little boy across the street. He LOVES Thomas, so I figured I would use Thomas fabric. I will have to say, I think this is the best super cape I have made thus far. Not to brag or anything;o) I finally figured out how wide to make the zig zag stitches to make it look really clean. I think it was 0.3mm x 4.5 mm...something like that. Anywho...it took me a while to get his name on the yellow fabric b/c my machine only embroiders a 4"x4" surface area. Stinks, but I am grateful for my Brother(machine that is...I am grateful for my real bro. too):o) Just your basic red fabric for ...

The right to strike work is one the basic rights of workers and is recognised in law in most countries. But should this right be unfettered – and is the right to strike as valid now as it was when the principle was first enshrined ? The right to strike was first recognised when the balance of power between employers and employees was heavily tilted towards the employer. The company could basically exploit workers as they pleased – a situation which is, alas, all too common even in present day China. Make people work in unsafe conditions, handle poisons, face serious risk of injury, withhold wages, employ children, take away passports / ID cards – these are the conditions that labour often found itself in the past, and still finds itself in , in some parts of the world. The only weapon that workers have to defend themselves is to organise themselves into a union and threaten strikes. But in many other parts of the world, the situation is very different now. Power is much more balanced ...

Pakistan seems to have caught the China disease. It has banned Facebook, YouTube, et al. Because some idiot somewhere in the world launched a Facebook campaign “Everybody draw Muhammad day”. As is well known, any depiction of the Prophet Muhammad is considered blasphemy in Islam. People who volubly deny the holocaust, draw cartoons of the Prophet, etc must be quartered – they are deliberately inciting religious hatred and violence. Freedom of speech is a precious freedom, but does not extend to shouting Fire in a crowded theatre. The reaction from Pakistan has been to ban Facebook. Facebook is not doing this – somebody is using Facebook to create mischief. But then, as said in the immortal lines from Casablanca – “Round up the usual suspects”. Ban them all. There's a furious debate going on in Pakistan on the sense, or senselessness, of this move. Almost certainly, proxies will see a sudden surge of business from Pakistan. Pakistan has a vibrant social networking community – espec...

What a week! I have hardly had time to think straight let alone post anything. Things around here have been super busy, and I am so ready for Monday to be here. This weekend we will continue the nut-so insanity:o) So to ease my mind with the upcoming weekend, I purchased MORE things for me to do...I have no sense! But I am so excited about these projects. In fact, I finished one last night. Last night's project involved the top 3 fabrics in the above picture. I made another super cape for a special little guy across the street who is celebrating his 3rd birthday tomorrow. I am really happy with how it turned out, and will share the finished product on Monday. Don't want to completely spoil the surprise;o) The bottom fabric is for S.R. I saw the CA-UTEST outfit on Wednesday in this little boutique shop with red and white gingham. They wanted 70-something bucks for it. I am going to try to duplicate it...can't wait for that one either! Thinking I will work on it today. I also...

 I told you about a week or so ago that I wanted to make a few wallets with the left over fabric for the grad gifts. I also said that I wanted to sell them and send the proceeds to the Red Cross. Well here they are. I decided to name them after the grads that I initially made them for. The Carley: Sold. Here is the inside: The Jessica: With Bow or with Flower The Ashley: With ruffles The Samantha: with bow or ruffle All wallets come with a cash pocket and 6 slots for credit/debit/store cards. I am selling them for $20 each, with FREE shipping. What is pictured is what I have to offer. If there is enough interest, then I will consider taking special orders. I accept paypal, and have the  "Buy It Now" Buttons on the top left of this page ready for purchase. I have also included a "Donate" Button if you don't want a wallet, and are only interested in helping the flood victims.(Hopefully I did it right:o)) If you have any questions, just click the Email button, and...

There is a time and place for everything. Many of the players in the oil spill drama in the Gulf of Mexico need to consider this truism. If you haven’t been following the events, here’s a quick synopsis of what happened. An explosion happened in the Deepwater Horizon offshore oil platform, in the Gulf of Mexico, some 40 miles off the Louisiana coast. 11 workers are feared dead. Oil is now gushing out of the well , some 1 mile beneath the waters on the ocean floor. Stemming this oil flow is presenting a massive engineering problem – how do you try and do damage control one mile below on the ocean floor where the pressure is massive. The oil is gushing out every day. By any account this is a big environmental problem and could become a disaster if the oil slick reaches the Louisiana coast. The oil field’s principal developer is British Petroleum (BP). The drilling rig was however run by another company Transocean. Everybody loves to hate the big oil companies – so its very easy to vilify...

I want to say a special thank you to CSNStores.com for considering Fussy Monkey Business to host the gift card give away. We had good participation, and even got a few new followers out of it. Welcome new readers!!! So I used Random.org , and it generated #10, which is Carolsue! Congratulations!!! A CSNStores.com rep. will be contacting you soon! I hope that you all had a great weekend. I surely did! I got to spend some time with my family. This is the first time in 6 months that we have all been within a 10 mile radius of one another:o) We got to take the kids to the zoo and to a baseball game. They had a FAB time!  ***** This time of year is crazy wild when it comes to social gatherings. And those social gatherings usually involve bringing a gift. Graduations and birthdays hit us hard this time of year. So I have been working hard at getting gifts together. Today I am sharing with you another one of my drawings. Alabama fans...avert your precious little eyes;o) My friend Amy just...

The earth shook yesterday. If you are a sports fan, you would have felt it. And if you are a badminton fan, it measured 10 on the Richter scale. The Thomas Cup and Uber Cup tournaments are going on in Kuala Lumpur. These are the Men's and Women's badminton world team championships. The Uber Cup , for women, is the private property of China. For the last 12 years they have been invincible. They usually complete the entire tournament without dropping a single match. Everybody else fights for the second place. The same was expected this year – in the world rankings in singles, the top five are Chinese. In the doubles, the top two are Chinese. Each tie in the Uber Cup consists of three singles and two doubles. What hope had anybody else got when China fields World No 1,2,3 in singles and Nos 1 and 2 in doubles. China took its appointed place in the finals without losing a single match. In fact in all the matches, it dropped only a single game – thanks to Saina Nehwal of India. Faci...

Hey Guys! I have been working on some projects for the past few days, and I am going to have a lot to share with you next week. So to hold you over until then....we have another AWESOME give away! CSNstores.com has graciously offered a $40 gift certificate to use in one of their 200 + websites!! You have gotta check this site out...Tis da bomb! You won't believe what all they have to offer!! They have THOUSANDS of items to choose from. Items for all your needs: Home Improvement, Housewares, Home Decor, Furniture, which include some fab  entertainment centers , outdoor furniture, and so much more. You could spend all day at csn.stores.com . They have some great prices on great merchandise. Here are a few of my favorites:o) Loving this little girl's bed! Isn't it precious??  I really like this one too! Def. a princess bed:o) And check out this fan-tab-u-lous entertainment center ! Isn't this cute? I L.O.V.E. Melissa & Doug toys!! I'm telling you, they have it all...

Last Thursday, something peculiar happened in the US stock markets. The markets were jittery due to the unfolding crisis in Greece. The market was down by some 1.5% or so , but nothing extraordinary. Then at 2.32 PM something happened. It started falling steeply. By 2.42 PM it had fallen by 3.9%. By 2.47 the bottom had fallen out; in 5 minutes the index fell another 5.5%.By 2.49 it went back up by 5%. Nobody knows what happened. Multiple theories abound. Hacking or terrorist activity have been ruled out. The rumour that a trader keyed in a trade in P&G shares for billions instead of millions by mistake has also not been borne out. The SEC is still investigating. What triggered the fall is not clear, but what happened next is certain. A lot of trading is computer driven these days. When something happens there are automatic triggers to buy or sell. When the first fall happened, it triggered an avalanche of computer generated trades. Hence the free fall. These days competitive advan...

I hope that you all had a wonderful Mother's Day. Mine was spent with my mother, and we had a very pleasant weekend:o) Before I went to visit her, I went with my friend Amy to one of the local Winery stores for Bottle and Brush. Bottle and Brush is a really fun experience. Mind you, I didn't "experience" the bottle part, just the brush part;o) A local artist instructs you on how to paint one of her creations, while you are turning back a few. We brought our own non-alcoholic drinks, of course. You could definitely tell that some of the women had had one too many. Some of the dragon flies looked more like dragons:o)  I think Amy's turned out better than mine:o) I wish I had a picture of hers to share with you.  We had a really good time, and I hope to do it again soon:o) My master piece is now hanging in S.R.'s room, and it's starting to grow on me:o). **I have lots of laundry to catch up on, so I better get to it. I hope you have a FAB day!!!

An atom bomb was set off yesterday. Only nobody noticed it. Because it was high economics that nobody but the geeks understand. But an atom bomb, it surely was. I am referring to the nearly € 1 trillion “bailout” package for the Euro zone members that was announced yesterday. Even if you have only a passing interest in economics, you would have heard of the travails of Greece over the last few months. This was snowballing into a crisis that was threatening to spread to the other vulnerable members of the Euro zone - the so called PIGS – Portugal, Italy, Greece and Spain. Hence the shock and awe tactics of detonating an atom bomb. € 1 trillion rescue package. Wow ! Greece started it all. For a long time it was fudging figures that, if done in the corporate world, would have surely sent the Chairman to jail. But it is, of course, perfectly acceptable to do so in politics. Truth will always out, and when tougher financial markets laid bare who was naked and who was not, Greece got caugh...

I am confused. You may be forgiven for the retort of “what’s new? ” but tell me, should I aspire to be “cool” ? Or “warm”. Or else “hot” ; Or what ? Over the last few weeks, I was given to understand that I wasn’t “cool”. It all started with a stupid question I asked – Who is Tamannaah ? Then I compounded the problem by asking a series of questions – Who is Asin ? Who is Vijay ? And so on … I was made to realise that I was not cool. So to be cool, I thought I should read up on the said ladies and gentlemen. I was told that, with diligent study, I could even aspire to be “uber cool”. But then I was made to realise that at work, I was not supposed to be “cool”. Apparently a “cool” guy is one who is losing deal after deal. So you should at least be “warm”. Preferably “hot”. Like on a hot streak – winning deal after deal. At the same time you could also be “cold” actually ice cold – I believe you are good if you can remain "ice cold", while you are "hot". Doesn’t th...

First off, I want to congratulate Cayce again for being the winner of the ruffle wallet give away. Speaking of which, I have a few fabrics I purchased yesterday, and if you are interested in any of these prints, I will be making wallets and selling them for $20. All proceeds will be given to the American Red Cross for the Nashville, TN flood victims. Just shoot me an email if you are interested. If not, I'll sell them on Etsy. Also, here's an interesting tidbit I read in the Lowes mag. the other day. Flies hate the smell of Basil. We live out in the country with the cows. And where there's cows, there are a ton of flies. So I purchased some basil and I'm looking forward to it growing big, and hopefully warding off those little pests. I'll let you know if it works:o) Now for the actual post. I have been very interested in getting a sand table for the kids to play with. They aren't exactly cheap, though. I was ready to purchase one, got to Walmart, and they said I...

Congrats to Cayce for being the winner of the ruffle wallet!!! Thanks to all of you who entered. Cayce, shoot me an email with your address so I can get it to you!!

“This house believes that making trade fairer is more important than making it freer” – this is the current live debate hosted by The Economist here . This blogger is a complete and unabashed fan of The Economist and subscribes to the view that it is the best publication in the world. The Economist debates are a fascinating discussion of very relevant issues and it would be difficult to find as interesting a debate on economics as between fair trade and free trade. The context must be clearly understood. Despite all the tall claims made, the world is nowhere close to free trade of an acceptable sort. The bastions of free trade are all fiercely protectionists in their own areas – agriculture in both Europe and the US, and pretty much everywhere else in the developing world. Everybody wants free trade in other’s homes, but not in their own backyard. Tariff and non tariff barriers abound. The crawling pace of the WTO talks, which go on for decades is testimony to this, although it has to ...

I want to say thank you so much for being interested in what I have been doing these past 4 months. I am so excited to have 50 followers...makes my heart swell with pride:o) Hopefully you have been inspired to create some crafty stuff after viewing Fussy Monkey Business. So here's the giveaway. A wallet made by me. Here are a few pictures of the goods: The Front View The Back View The Inside View ...and no, the cards stay with me;o)  The wallet has 6 different slots for credit/debit/whatever cards. There is also a place for cash. I'm thinking I'll be making some more of these as grad gifts, maybe with a little cash inside:o) Here's how to enter...Just leave a comment. Leave as many as you would like. This give away is limited to followers of Fussy Monkey Business, but it's so easy to become a "follower." All it takes is a click of the mouse;o) This giveaway will be closed Thursday 5/6 at 7 p.m CST. Good luck to all!!! This Give Away is now closed.

We've finally reached 50 followers!!! Can you believe it? I will be announcing the give away tomorrow (5/5)! See you then!!

By now there is every chance that you have heard of credit default swaps, the instruments at the heart of the financial crisis of a year and a bit ago. Unless you are like me and the Tamil movie scene, that is – surely I must be the only Tamil in the world who hadn’t heard of Asin (for non Indian readers, this lady seems to be the Tamil equivalent of Zhang Ziyi/ J Lo (?) ). So I can’t say that there you cannot, but, have heard of that silly acronym CDS. All derivatives, like credit default swaps, spread risk around; they don’t reduce or eliminate it. Most derivatives are fiendishly complicated, so much so that the most simple and basic derivative, which would surely tax the intellectual powers of the aforementioned Asin, is called “plain vanilla” by the geeks. But all they do, for their incredible complexity is play pass the parcel – they simply pass the risk to somebody else. Or chop it into individual bits and toss the bits around. Or find all sorts of devilish ways to spread it. B...

Auburn and Tennessee fans avert your eyes:o) The hubs is a HUGE BAMA fan! So I felt that it was fitting to make over his office in an Alabama theme without going over the top of course. It all started with this stained glass lamp that he got after we moved in, and I took it from there. This post will be more pictures and less talk. Here are a few BEFORE pics: A mess, I know. Well the hubs has been working extra hard here lately...at work and at home. So I decided that while he was away on a business trip, I would give the office an over-haul:o) Here's the AFTER: He was totally surprised when he got home, and he LOVES it!!! Every time he walks into the office he says, "This is so cool." Mission accomplished!