Resolution

This year has been off to a slow start for us…once again, illness hit our household hard during the holiday season.  I had started to feel a little puny on the morning of Christmas Eve, but managed to enjoy celebrating with our little family despite the sniffles.  (There’s emphasis on little family; since Alan landed a winter contract at Yellowstone, he was not able to be home for the holidays.  This was the first Christmas ever that we didn’t have everyone here – and I hated that!)  The Lackeys spent Christmas Day with Jeromy’s family, which was probably a good thing since I was going downhill fast.  One by one everyone in the house came down sick.  The doctor said mine was the old sinus/ear/throat infection, but during the time that I was on antibiotics I developed a cough that felt like my chest was being ripped apart.  This lasted over a week.

Two days ago was truly the first day that I have felt like doing anything since December 24^th….truly!  Although I like having the television on in the background, I normally don’t sit and watch television.  However, there was a one-week period that watching television was about all I felt like doing.  Thank goodness for Netflix and for the 23 episodes of a wonderful little show called “Rosemary and Thyme” .  I found it to be purely delightful, bringing together two of my favorite things:  gardening and mystery.   If you enjoy watching “Murder She Wrote”, it’s a little like that…except that it takes place in Europe…and instead of Jessica Fletcher you get Rosemary Boxer and Laura Thyme.  These two ladies own a landscaping business, and hiring them to landscape your garden is a lot like inviting Jessica Fletcher for the weekend…someone is going to end up dead and it’s up to the heroines to figure it out.  It made being sick almost fun.  I was sad that there weren’t more episodes.

Of course, I’m not surprised that the whole metroplex is sick; our weather here is crazy!  We not only have summer and winter in the same week; we can have summer and winter in the same day.  Opal chicken might have a wonderful afternoon scratching and tearing up our yard, but with the overnight temperatures well below freezing, she spends the night inside with us:

With our illnesses seemingly at least somewhat resolved, it is now finally time to give some thought to things that I want to work on this year.  The garden is a never-ending project, but I am going to conquer it, if it’s the last thing I do!  The thing that chaps my hide is that Robert doesn’t work at it even one-fourth as hard as I do, yet he has great success.  I know that I’ve mentioned before that he was involved in establishing a community garden in the city in which he works, and he has his own little plot:

Well, you can’t believe the stuff he has been bringing home from there!  Looking at the picture below, you might think that he is holding carrots and beets (he does grow beets).  Nope!  Those are carrots and radishes:

Another radish:

The only success I seem to have is that I have pretty good luck in propagating plants from the few surviving things that we have in our yard.  I have started some blackberry bushes and a few herbs from cuttings from our yard.  I have enjoyed using these little tents that I bought from Greenland Gardener that fit over the raised bed kits we purchased from them.  When it’s really cold, I cover the tents with some blankets or rig up one of our extra heat lamps.

I also have increased the efficiency of our compost bin by making a little tube to stick in the middle of it. The thought was that by allowing air and water to move more freely through the center of the pile, it might just cook faster.   I bought some mesh “fabric” at Tractor Supply Company and cut a piece that was just large enough to make a tube with that was about 3”-4” across the top.  I bent the loose ends in on themselves with some pliers to secure them. 

Since we lost the lid to our main compost bin some time ago, I didn’t worry about making the tube level with the top and allowed it to stick out a bit:

We have another compost bin that we made out of a trash can, and I cut the core for that one down so that the lid would fit back on securely:

I have to say, this little core that I made has really helped the compost do its thing a lot faster.  This is good because our horrid little yard needs all the compost that I can get my hands on!

I am finally learning to give myself permission to work on more arts and crafts.  As always, I am still struggling with the little voice that whispers, “If you have time to do that, you might want to clean the __________ (fill in the blank).”  But I am going to shush those voices, at least every now and then, and learn some new skills, as well as trot out some old friends. 

A couple of days ago, I joined The Society of Decorative Painters.  Later this month I will join the local chapter which meets once a month.  I’m hoping to learn a lot from watching those ladies in action.  Since I can’t draw at all, I’m pretty sure that I will never be able to paint on canvas or anything like that, but if it involves tracing a pattern and throwing on some color, I’m excited to give it a try.  I’m hoping to find old furniture and things for the garden and breathe new life into them.

Mom and I have been yapping about Pinterest for quite some time.  Mom has over 16,000 pins on her boards.  I have been telling her that we need to actually try some of those recipes and crafts that we both have found so intriguing.  I call it “The Pinterest Project”, and I really, really want to spend this year making and doing some of the amazing things that are out there.  Mom has done a better job so far than I have…awhile back she made a cute little baby afghan:

Hopefully, there will be much more to come, as well as posts with links to where we found the “how-to” for the things we do.

I have recently returned to an old love.   Years ago I was heavily into counted cross-stitch, but work and kids and life and church and, well, just everything made me feel like I just plain didn’t have time for things like that.  I recently came across a pattern that made my toes tingle, and I just had to have it:

I started working on it in the first few days of illness, but stopped when my head hurt too much to concentrate.  Now that I can see again, I am looking forward to making this beautiful ode to nature for my house!

I’m not the only one in pursuit of new interests.  The World’s Most Beautiful Child had her first dance lesson last week.  In the days before her lesson she kept telling her mother, “Dance class…so bad!”, which, translated, means, “I want to go to dance class so bad!”.  There was a little crying when they first arrived (separation anxiety), but before long she was right in there, doing her exercises and learning whatever it is that little dancers learn.  (Her mother says that Paisley especially likes tap.)  In fact, Paisley is one of my biggest inspirations.  I’m thinking that if a two-year old is willing and able to develop talents and learn new things, maybe her old Lolee should give it a try.

So here’s to learning, growing…and staying well?

Retreat!

It seems like forever since I have been able to blog (or read any of the wonderful blogs that I like to stalk), but I have been involved in a pattern of being sick, going somewhere, being sick, then going somewhere else.  Now that I am finally home for a while (I hope) and finally well for a while (hope some more), I have to tell you about one of the wonderful places I went.

I love to scrapbook, but I hate the hassle of dragging everything out, only to put it all away a couple of hours later.  Also, whenever I am home, there is always a little voice that whispers, “You know, if you have time to play with this stuff, maybe you should consider using that time to clean the bathroom.”  Between the hassle and the voices, I really don’t spend much time on hobbies – at least, not as much as I would like.  That’s why a little something called “Scrapbook Retreat” is one of the most exciting things in my life.  I haven’t gone for the last couple of years, and when I told my husband that I thought I would just go crazy if I didn’t get to go this year he was kind enough to help make it happen.

My friend, Julia, who is also my Creative Memories consultant,  is the person who arranges the retreat for her customers.  There are a couple of other consultants who join us with their groups, so it makes for a lot of women armed with tape runners and paper trimmers!

My Friend, Julia:

The facility that we use is called “The Compass Centre” .  It is a wonderful place that was built by a woman who loves quilting and decided to build a business by providing a facility that is a place for quilters to get away from it all and just spend the weekend on their craft (although we scrapbookers are grateful that she allows our kind to use it).  Each of the rooms is decorated in a different color scheme with handmade quilts that are each made from the same material, just in different quilt patterns.  You can’t see it from this excellent photography of mine, but there are four beds to each room:

One really exciting thing is that there is plenty of workspace for a girl to spread her pictures and supplies everywhere:

Even better is the fact that when you are done for the night (whatever time you CHOOSE to quit), you just walk away from the table, leaving your mess strewn about your work area.

Even more exciting than that is the fact that we have the most wonderful meals and we don’t have to do anything except stand in line in the wonderful kitchen once dinner is ready:

Since we never seem to be able to pull off full-fledged vacations, and especially since our house has turned into “critterville”, Robert and I have agreed to support each other in our desire to indulge in individual pursuits.  He goes on a hunting trip each year with some friends from one of his previous jobs and I go to scrapbooking retreat.  It really is about the most exciting thing that I get to do all year.  Once a year (if I’m lucky), from Thursday afternoon until Sunday afternoon, I “retreat” from the whole world, don’t cook or do dishes, sit up until one-o’clock in the morning if I want to, and just work on scrapbook pages.  For me, this is just heaven.

This year, I was still fighting a sinus and throat infection for the first couple of days that I was at retreat so I didn’t get as much done as I normally do, but I did get more done that I would have if I had stayed home.  For the first time I was using a lot of papers from a company called “Die Cuts with a View” .  I usually buy them at Joann’s because they are on sale quite often, or I can use my 40% off coupon.  Anyway, DCWV sells pads of papers that are coordinated and I absolutely love the colors.  I like using their striped papers by cutting them apart and using the stripes as borders on solid paper or card stock.

I didn’t work on any one specific project this year – I was all over the place as far as time line.  However, here are pictures I took of just a few of the spreads that I did (the spreads are better than my awful pictures, but you get the idea):

So there you go – I had retreated from life for a while (and recovered), so I am back!  I’m looking forward to catching up on the blogs that I love reading so much and doing a little picture taking and blogging of my own!

Have a great week!

Silly Little Things

I have had more than one person tell me that they have never seen anyone get as tickled as I do over little things.  I explained to all those people that due to the financial struggles that we had for the early part of our marriage, I HAD to learn to get tickled over little things or there would have been nothing to get tickled about!  Although life is a little easier now, my ability to get tickled over silly, little things has continued.  I also seem to have the need to decorate common items and to find beauty in places where you would least expect to find it.

I have recently become a fan of the galvanized trash can.  I bought one in which to store chicken feed, another in which to store wood shaving for the chickens’ bedding, and a much smaller one in which to store my bird/squirrel feed.  They are practical and sturdy and fairly cheap, but a little ordinary for my taste.

I had hoped to perk them up by doing a little decorative painting on them.  I have always wanted to sit down and learn the “one stroke” painting method created by Donna Dewberry.   However, I have yet to really take the time to work on it.  Therefore, I just did not feel comfortable enough with my proficiency level to commit to painting something permanent.  One day the can with chicken feed will have a checkerboard design with some baby chicks, and the “bedding” can will have some painted quilt blocks on it.  One day.

However, I lucked out with my can for the bird feed.  A few years ago, Home Shopping Network carried a product called “tatouage”.  A decorative artist painted all sorts of cute things, and then her designs were used to create a dry-rub transfer that you can use to create your own mural on your wall (to learn more, click here).  I had decorated our foyer with some vines and yellow flowers, and I remembered that I actually had some of that stuff left.  Would it work on my bird feed trash can?

I cleaned the trash can first with rubbing alcohol and then with vinegar, just for good measure.  I then rinsed it with water.  I was delighted with just how easily and quickly the tatouage went on.  Before I knew it, my little can was fully decorated.  The only snag I hit was when I sprayed it with a sealant designed for acrylic paint.  This caused a little bubbling in a couple of spots, and the old, perfectionist me would have “trashed” the whole project.  However, the new, tired me just said, “Aaah, this makes it look vintage”, and called it a day.

Is it perfect?  NO!  But I still get a little chuckle over this silly, little trash can every time I see it in the yard:

Getting Crafty! Feeble First Steps in Quilting (by Lori)

I have to confess that when it comes to doing arts and crafts, I tend to go in cycles. There was a period in my life when I was heavily into counted cross stitch and spent many hours stitching away, making pictures and what-not for all of my friends and relatives. Then life caught up with me, and with having a full-time job outside the home, plus trying to be a wife and mother inside the home, there just always seemed to be things that were more pressing than making some cute wall hanging that would ultimately collect dust. For many years now there has always been a little voice in my ear that would whisper, "You know, if you have time to spend on that, then you really should spend that time cleaning your dirty bathroom...you know...the one that looks like it's in some God-forsaken gas station in the middle of nowhere..."

Needless to say, arts and crafts have been on the back burner for a long time. Well, except for scrapbooking, which I don't consider to be a craft. Trust me, there is nothing "crafty" about the simple pages that I turn out (graphics artists everywhere are safe from me stealing their jobs!). The way that I scrapbook is really more "family history with pictures". However, even such a noble endeavor has been relegated to a once-a-year scrapbooking retreat that I attend with Mandy and my friends, Maria and Julia. During that three and one-half days in September I do most of my scrapbooks for the whole year. It's hard to be tempted to clean the bathroom when you're away from home!

Maybe it's because I'm finally home full-time now; maybe it's because I'm officially a white-haired middle-aged lady now; or maybe my whole composting, get-back-to-nature, become-an earth-mother metamorphosis is to blame -- regardless, I'm not only wanting to return to my older hobbies, I'm also wanting to learn some new things.

My sister has been quilting for some time now, and although I admired her beautiful quilts, I could not imagine spending so much time on a "blanket" when I could go buy one. I'm going to blame my new fascination with quilting on all of those "Little House" books by Laura Ingalls Wilder and on my desire to move into a log cabin in the mountains or some misty-meadowed farm. I can just picture my little cabin, complete with a loft lined with three little beds all covered with quilts made by ME! There's just one little catch: Until I started this journey in quilting, I didn't even know how to sew! But, there's no time like the present, so I have started two baby quilts (I'm dreaming about LOTS of things -- grand-babies being part of it. After all, someone has to sleep in those loft beds!) Besides, baby quilts are small, and I can practice my skills on a small scale before moving on to something that might be too overwhelming.

The first material that I found is most certainly for a little boy. Ever since my "earth mother" transformation I have been crazy about all things John Deere. I loved the fact that the blocks were already printed on the material for me, so I must confess that I am not piecing this first quilt. But I did get to fire up my long-neglected sewing machine in order to sew on the borders (just learning how to thread the machine and pull up the bobbin thread was an adventure for this domestically challenged girl!), and I learned how to stretch it across the quilting frames and secure the three layers with pins. Since I don't really have a place to leave a sewing machine out (thanks to Chewka, the dogs, and other factors), I am actually going to try hand quilting this quilt. This is more portable for me, and I can work on it here a little and there a little. I wish you could feel the back; it is the softest thing I've ever felt (next to Chewka). I think the little tractors are so cute!

I also found some material for a little girl. Neither one of my kids are very traditional, so bunnies and butterflies would not do for my future granddaughter. I thought the print on this material was cute, and it was also great that the blocks were already printed on this material, too! Mandy has always loved paisley, so I love that the backing is paisley. This was the second quilt that I "cut", and it was much easier than the John Deere quilt. I made all of my mistakes on the John Deere quilt and realized that you really do use that math that you learned in school. I also learned that if you cut the back piece too small, you end up having to put borders on it, whether you wanted to or not. I am so glad that the prep work on the girlie quilt was easier than the first; I learned from my mistakes.

My Mom has jumped on the band-wagon, too. My niece, Kristina, is having a baby soon, and when we attended her baby shower this past weekend, Mom was so excited to present Kristina with a baby afghan that she had crocheted. Mom has severe rheumatoid arthritis and had not done any needle work for years. However, she also felt the desire to create a family heirloom, and even though it was quite an endeavor, she worked at the afghan a little each day, for as long as her hands would hold out. This was a new pattern for her, and initially there was a little cussing as she had to unravel rows, and even start all over again, but she finally got it down. She is now going to crochet three more baby afghans for her remaining grandchildren so that they can put them aside for the time that they are ready to have kids. Mandy has chosen green for her afghan, and Mom is going to do the other two afghans in white (that will be beautiful!). I think it is so great that every great-grandchild will have a little piece of "Dee Dee" wrapping them in love.

I guess that's the draw. Yes, I could buy some blankets. But the hand-made quilt is about giving someone you love a one-of-a-kind item, as unique as they are. It's also about giving a little piece of yourself. It's about telling that little grandchild that they are more important than the dirty bathroom. It's about creating, not just consuming.

After those first quilts are made, I want to continue. There is a wonderful organization called Project Linus that distributes hand-made blankets to children who need them. How fun would that be? I also saw an article that talked about the Knit One, Save One program. The article that I read talked about how they collected hand-knit caps for children in third-world countries. Now they are collecting hand-knit squares that they can sew together to make afghans for children in those countries.

"How fun would that be?" I thought, getting more excited by the minute. Just one problem: I don't know how to knit or crochet. I guess there will be a future blog entitled, "Getting Crafty! Feeble First Steps in Knitting".