Random Thoughts

I just spent some time going over my older blogs and the statistics Blogger provides. Evidently there are 3 people in Belgium who have found my blog. I thought that was interesting.

Sometimes I get pretty overwhelmed with my job, and it seems to sap my creative energy. Last year, I made a pact with myself that I would work at maintaining that creative flow. Last summer I started working on my garden - trying to reclaim its beauty. I've continued this year (when it isn't raining or a bazillion and 4 degrees outside) to work toward that goal. Last year Terry and the boys built a deck on the front of our house. This year, I pulled plants I want to save from another area of my garden to plant around the deck. It's so pretty!!

 This clematis I planted last year. It's made it to the top of the deck and is getting a lot bushier. I love its color!  The coreopsis daisy that is behind is one of the plants that I reclaimed. My good friend Donna gave me a couple of starts from her garden years ago. I divided it up and planted some around my deck. Lovely.

This is a beautiful lily that I planted last year. I think it was on a clearance shelf a the end of the year! It's it beautiful!! The varigated sedum behind it is one of the plants that was here when we bought the place. You don't often see this variety. I've divided it and shared it so many times!! 

This is Ben's Tonka truck. About 25 years old and has lived outside all of its life! I plant flowers in it ever year. This year I put in some rocks and then some moss rose. It's a nice reminder that he lives on.

Coral Bells, hosta, sedum from my friend Donna, more hosta, creeping geranium and creeping phlox. Oh...and the angel guiding the little boy? Precious.

 More of the clematis in completely full bloom. Such beauty. And, of course, what garden isn't complete without a random stuffed animal thrown in for good measure?

My co-worker Denise gave me this hibiscus last year. She actually gave me two, but the white one didn't make it. Might have been the chickens pecking at it. This is actually about a foot and a half. I'm anxious to see how this grows this year. It had the most beautiful hot pink blossoms!

More to follow, I'm sure. My goals this year in my garden: 1) to get the water flowing right; 2) to finish the pathway 3) to add a little 'patio on the lower part of the garden. 

We'll see how that goes. I'm less than ambitious most days. ;-)

Homemade Chenille Blanket

I have been having fun on StumbleUpon.com, that's for sure! It's given me some great resources for crafting. I'm becoming quite a Blog Junkie!!

One day in my happy stupor, I ran across this great site that gave a great tutorial on making an heirloom chenille blanket. Well, I had to make one! I do, after all have a pseudo grandbaby coming any day now! http://www.stumbleupon.com/su/2kPxsp/homemade.tipjunkie.com/go%3Fid%3D421

Here's how my turned out. I love it. A lot.

Sock Monkey Hat and New Years

I really love StumbleUpon.com. I've enjoyed a lot of the creativity I see from folks out there. Recently, I stumbled upon a Sock Monkey HAT!! Well, I had to try it. I found a pattern off of Etsy.com from Shelley Tudor. (http://www.etsy.com/shop/sockmonkeykook?ref=pr_shop)She does a great job explaining, and quite frankly, she is about as friendly as could be, so it was even better to buy the pattern from her!

I found some wool yarn at Joann's, and it was even better because they were having a great sale on it. I think it took about 1/2 a skein to make this little lady. I had fun making this one, and turns out that I'll be needing to figure out how to make BIG sock monkey hats, because my adult children want one. This should be interesting! 

I plan to give this to an adorable little girl whom I cherish. Her parents may object to her wearing such a thing, but I will never know. ;-)

I am not making any New Years Resolutions this year. I plan on keeping my Post Cancer Surgery Resolutions, though. I will keep crafting and sewing and crocheting. It just makes my heart light. 

Happy New Year!


Addendum to my blog post: I figured out how to make an adult sock monkey hat! I used Catie's pattern as a model for my adult hat (http://doahdiddy.blogspot.com/
2010/03/sock-monkey-hat-pattern.html ) although I still needed to add to it. Maybe people in Iowa have bigger heads than everyone else. ;-) Abe is happy with it. There are some things that I will need to change, though...like the way I place the ear flaps...I made it weird so he is actually wearing his hat backwards. He doesn't know, but  I would feel better if the next wearers of my hats were able to wear them normally. 

I wish my gramma was still here. She could be a GREAT resource. 

Crafting is just about the best thing ever. At least today.

Crafting on a Weekend

One of the things that I was reminded of when I was recuperating from surgery last summer was that in the recent past, I have neglected my creative side. It's easy to do, really. By the time a mom chases after her family and puts in a full day of work, it's easy to get bogged down. I realized that I need those creative outlets, or I get kind of dry on the inside, so I made a resolution to make sure I spend time on the weekends creating. You've seen some of the ideas I've had with my house. (and no, I'm not done) But I thought I would share what I did this weekend.

Project #1

I saw some Coffee Cozies (or sleeves) when I was using StumbleUpon.com, so I decided to try my hand at it. You probably can't tell by the photo, but this little sleeve has the most adorable pleats ever. Just sayin. Here it is dressing up a disposable cup. I need to tweak the pattern just a bit, but I like my first one. Too bad I don't generally drink coffee out of disposable cups. :-) It's supposed to save the planet or something by re-using these sleeves instead of using the disposable cardboard sleeves from the stores. Personally I think you should bring your own cup, if you're worried about the environment, but that's another discussion.

Project #2

My husband gifted me with an early Christmas present last week: a Cricut Expression. I have been having a blast getting to know my way around the thing. I put it to good use with this project! I cut out letters, and circles of cute paper and then "Mod Podged" the paper to the wooden disks. I think the finished project turned out really cute!

Project #3

It was only a matter of minutes after making these alphabet disks that I realized if I was going to gift them, I should really make a bag to put them in to. So, looking through my piles of fabric, I found cute little girls stuff. I wish my sewing machine would have worked well...sometimes it decides to get fussy...Fussy machine and all, I think this turned out okay. 

Too bad Christmas is this week. I'm in the mood to get more stuff done! (And Darin, the vacuum cleaner cover is a moot point.)

ciabatta bread

I like Stumble Upon.com. I not only waste a ton of time going from website to website, but I have stumbled upon some pretty great finds. A few weeks ago, I found a recipe for "One Minute Ciabatta Bread" from LifeHack.org.

It's simple. You put 1 tsp. salt, 1/4 tsp. yeast, 2 cups of water and 4 cups of flour in a bowl. Stir until everything is mixed up and then cover. Set it aside for 8 to 12 hours or so. When I'm ready to bake, I dump the dough onto my stone pizza pan, and put in a hot over until it's done. (25 minutes...but I make sure the top is a nice golden brown.)

I LOVE this recipe. I'll often mix up the recipe early in the morning, and then bake it when I come home. It's great with soups! The bread is very similar to a sour dough recipe, without the constant worry of feeding just one more thing in my house!

Try it...you might like it!

And So It Continues (This Old House Part IV)

Boy, I think somebody should call OSHA. Seriously. Since we started working on the house in earnest, Terry about sliced his thumb off, a box of flooring fell on my big toe and today and whacked my index finger unbelievably hard.

With our appendages throbbing, we do press on, though. We're actually making pretty good progress!

A good start!

Shortly after I got this part done, my big toe got smashed by a box of flooring. Ouch!!

It still throbs!! 

The flooring is in the kitchen!!! 

Then I snockered my finger. 

My Version of This Old House Part Tres

Yes, I'm still working on my house. It's still not done. But, what has been done is exciting! Terry and I decided to divide and conquer today. His task was the school room/storage-room-soon-to-be-Aly's-room. That room has never been utilized well. When we first bought our house, we converted the kitchen to our school room. I was homeschooling then and thought it would be a great idea to have this wonderful school room full of bulletin boards, library, and desks. I painted it Big Bird yellow on the top 2/3s of the walls and then a bright blue on the bottom. I found a bulletin board border that looked absolutely adorable (it was a bunch of crayons), so I pasted it as a border between the two colors. There was a little alcove off the room that served as my office for many years. It was big enough for a twin bed and a dresser, too, so Jordan ended up landing there for a short time. :-) Anyway, it was a room to top all rooms. But, it didn't work.

Our homeschooling style changed, and the room ended up being a storage room. We kept the bulk of our books, toys and games in there, and the extra TV for XBox as well. Each of the kids had their bedrooms in there while we finished their bedrooms upstairs, but pretty soon anything we didn't know what to do with ended up finding its way to the school room.

Yuck.

A couple of weeks ago, I built a closet in that little alcove. It's really pretty awesome. It had to be disassembled today so that Terry could get in there and close up the window. But it is a to-die-for walk in closet, if I say so myself.

Alyssa has been working at tearing down all the bulletin board border turned wallpaper border for the last couple of days, and has been pretty successful. So, today, Terry was going to finish closing off this window by putting in 2x4s and sheet rock. Then he was going to frame out the door which is next to it. A header was needed.

Then came the blood. I do have a flair for the dramatic, don't I? So, while cutting the drywall, the knife accidentally found its way to Terry's thumb. Lucky for Terry he had just changed the blade so it was really really sharp. The sharpness of the blade created such a clean cut that no stitches were required...just a few drops of super glue! So, a tetanus shot, super glue and a bandage later, Terry finished closing in the window.

A few weeks ago, we were trying to decide how we wanted to change the look of the living room, and we decided that we wanted to kind of go retro with the living room. When we first moved here, there was beautiful wainscot and a chair rail all around the living room. We tried to save it, but it just splintered as we tried to remove it from the walls. Sad day. But anyway, we decided to put a wainscot up again, and Terry did just that. I tried my hand at carpentry today as well, only, I'm glad to say my appendages stayed away from anything sharp. I finished it by putting up the trim around the top.





Now all I have to do is figure out how I will finish it. Sadly, finishing always seems to be a problem with me. I'm trying to decide whether to stain the wood, or whether I should do something fancy with paint and glaze. I have all these ideas running through my head!! I should have never stumbled upon stumbleupon.com.







I may just wait until I get the flooring laid before I decide how I finish the wainscot. I had really intended to start the floor tonight, but it started raining, and I didn't want to saw inside.

That's as good of an excuse as any, I suppose.