Sunday, September 21, 2008

Home Inventory

Inspired by a new (to me) blog SmallNotebook, I finished our home inventory today. Yippee. I had started this project months ago, but the house was never clean enough, or things were not organized enough to finish it.

Who cares, I finally said, and finished taking the pics of all the rooms in the house. I used the Home Inventory software that came with Quicken. You set up rooms, and then add information about all of the items in each room. Now I just have to get a copy to the safe deposit box......

Monday, September 15, 2008

Crashing

Do you ever feel like everything around you is crashing in...pressing on your mind and shoulders, and weighing heavily on your chest? Like there is no way to get everything done that has to be done without making yourself sick or those around you crazy (or both).

A bit melodramatic, I suppose but close to reality this evening.

Sunday, September 14, 2008

Bricks and Petals

Taken on the side of our house.....

Kids, lots and lots of kids

I watched my sister's kids Friday and Saturday this weekend. With my one and her four, there were five very active kids under the age of five to keep busy. Granny was also there to help; all in all we had a good time.

This is what we did to keep busy:
  • made sugar cookies from scratch
  • this experiment with milk, food coloring, and dish soap
  • played outside
  • colored
  • made a paper chain
  • made puppets
  • went to the park
  • watched a movie
  • ate Bomb Pops
  • did a lot of dishes, and one load of laundry
  • mended stubbed toes with many bandaids
  • had a scavenger hunt


Wednesday, September 10, 2008

Things I Love

  • Making waffles with LM and eating them with sausage and syrup for dinner
  • Taking a shower at night in an outdoor shower at the beach
  • The little puffing sound my husband makes when he is sound asleep
  • Homemade bread
  • My mother-in-law's homemade applesauce
  • Warm homemade bread with homemade apple butter
  • How cute our dog is when she has just gotten groomed
  • Really cold milk with a warm homemade chocolate chip cookie
  • Fall
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I changed the template for the blog again tonight. And I got the Quiet Book Kit in the mail today. Can't wait to get started on that.

Monday, September 8, 2008

Random Thoughts

I do love the taste of a good margarita.

I just purchased this pattern for a quiet book from SW designs on Etsy. May be a bit ambitious for my sewing skill level, but I want to try at least a couple of the letters for my good friend's daughter's christmas present. I am also excited about this Color Book Kit from the same shop.

I have been checking out preschools for LM since he will be going next year, and I want to make it to a couple of open houses this year. There is a Montessori school in our town, so I looked into that as well. There are six areas covered in Montessori: Practical Life, Sensorial, Cultural, Science, Language, and Math.

We do a fair amount with the Practical Life, Sensorial, and Language already. I had not really thought much about teaching the cultural though. I looked tonight for a world map, and I have some ideas like cutting pictures from my travel magazines and putting them on the right places on the map. I have tons of those magazines and should put them to good use because goodness knows we are not traveling any far in the near future.

Money--I read a fair amount of blogs written by women with families, and none of them discuss money. Maybe I am reading the wrong blogs, or all of the same type, but I find it interesting that out of all of these women who write the most intimate thoughts about their children, spouses, and sex lives do not write anything about money. I find this very intriguing. Something to think about....

I love my son very much and love spending time with him, but honestly when I get home from work most days all I want to do is decompress and rest. All he wants to do is play with me. Chanting "time to play" "time to play" and tugging on my hand. How can one resist. I think I would enjoy being a stay at home mom. I wish there was some way that I could take a sabbatical from work and just try it out before actually quitting.

I waste too much time surfing around Flickr. Less time at the computer and more time doing my projects is what I should do.

I wish we did not have a TV. I find myself watching too much of it when I am tired. I don't even really like very many shows. I would be better served just going to bed.

Clutter--I have written about this before. I was looking at pictures from a thousand words. I really like her decorating style and photographs, but I had to chuckle when she posted photographs of her "messy" house. I should post some of my house for comparison sake and a good laugh. My sisters give me the hardest time. No matter what I do; no matter how disciplined I am, there is always a stack of something on the kitchen countertop. I just cannot seem to get rid of it. At least in this house, the dining room table remains clean. I don't know, maybe I am giving myself too hard of a time. Afterall, my child is fed, loved, and clean (at least before bedtime); my husband and I have a strong commitment and love to each other; we usually have groceries, and the level of actual dirt and grime in the house is relatively low. (we live in the country, so it is virtually impossible to keep all dirt and mud out all of the time.) The dog has food and water, and I even manage to get some sewing and other projects done.

Keep things in perspective. We are so blessed to have this wonderful house and all of our family nearby and healthy. Have you read this about the woman and her husband from the Nie Nie Dialgoues?

It doesn't seem possible, but I already feel the press of Thanksgiving and Christmas upon me. ugh. I really like both of those holidays. I just need to find a way to do the things that really need to be done and that I enjoy and let go of the rest. I really do not like buying presents for people who do not need anything just for the sake of buying them something.

Had no intention of writing so much tonight. It is good to get these random thoughts out of my head; maybe I will get some rest this evening.

If there is anybody out there reading this, have a good night and upcoming week.

Just for kicks, here is a funny picture of me from the eighth grade. That hair required a special technique of blow drying and hair spray :)

Saturday, September 6, 2008

Reversible Vest

Today, I made this reversible fleece vest for my nephew whose birthday is next weekend. One side is camouflage, and the other is blaze orange. He loves being outside, so I think this is something that he will definitely wear.


I used McCall's pattern 3416, and then these instructions for making it reversible. I wish I had taken some photographs to add to the written directions. Maybe it was me, but the steps would have been much clearer with illustrations. There was some seam ripping and cursing, but I was able to figure it out. Of course, having LM walk away with my seam ripper and dump over the shredded trash bin in the middle of the process did not help much.

Success on my first piece of clothing made from a pattern. Yippeee.

Tuesday, September 2, 2008

Craft Time




Fun with the puff balls, googley eyes, glitter, and yarn tonight.

Monday, September 1, 2008

Sun, Good Food, and the Biggest Grasshopper

We had an awesome weekend at the Outer Banks, NC. Here are a few of my favorite photos.

Beautiful sunset


The biggest grasshopper I have ever seen


Fun catching crabs in the sound


Boat ride around the canal