Missed you guys

Well, let me tell you. Don't listen to nurses :) Just kidding. My sister in law is a great nurse. But as it happens one particular nurse told me 4 weeks ago not to take an psuedophed for my head cold. . . which a week later was a sinus infection. . . which also became an ear infection . . . so I called the nurse back and she told me to take psuedophed! It's been a fun 3 weeks of sickness around here and another week of frantically putting the house back together and getting ready for Easter. But I'm back! This is what I was working on all last week:

A little Easter dress for the sweetie. (Who was being very uncooperative for pictures outside . . . I couldn't get her out of that play house!) One of the weeks I was so sick I couldn't get out of my bed (thanks to the lovely vertigo assaulting me) I laid in bed and planned it all out in my mind. It turned out just how I imagined (which doesn't always happen) and that is always happy. And just so you know, if you ever are going to do ruffles on  a dress figure around a 3:1 ratio (3 feet of fabric equals 1 foot of gathered fabric) and a lot of yardage to hem :)

Hope you all had a very happy Easter!

one plus one equals . . .

We are very very excited to be adding a sweet new little lemon to our family, and can't wait to find out what we are having! The buddy is really hoping for a brother . . . I guess we'll see! but here is the reason I have not had one urge to create: yup, I guess I'm just working on creating on the inside instead of the outside. I hope to be back soon though. We're almost through the first trimester and hey spring is almost here right? Maybe that will endow me with more energy and get rid of the creative block! I'm hopeful!

branching out

Today was a day. The sweetie is turning into a little explorer. I think she's getting to the terrible twos a little early. We managed to change her clothes three times today. It probably should have been four after she dumped her entire sippy cup of apple juice on the floor at her feet. (I only changed her socks that time). If she wasn't making a mess or getting into something she shouldn't, she was hanging on my leg trying to be held. I think I held her half the day. She may be teething, but wow, it is good to have it today behind us. She did have her sweet moments though, like putting a donut shaped toy in her mouth that pushed up her top lip and showed her front teeth through the opening in the middle. She looked  like a scary rabid rabbit. That was pretty funny. I'm only sorry I didn't get a picture. She also gave me lots of cuddles which are always priceless. I do love some cuddles! Well, anyway, it was a definitely a day. On to more related topics . . .

I've started playing around with combining design on the computer and handmade cards. I love the look of handmade cards, but sometimes it can be limiting (especially when I'm not willing to spend a fortune on crafting supplies). I thought a card with a branch coming out designed on the computer would be fun to dress up with leaves of any color, or blossoms . . . so many possiblities! If I can fine tune the details I will post it as a freebie. Happy Wednesday!

weekend prep

This may be a little, or a lot, random and completely not on topic, but it is what I did this weekend. We put 1700 lbs of hard white wheat into 6 gallon food grade buckets with lots of oxygen packs to take out all the air. We, being me, my mom, the hunny, and my bro. It only took us about an hour to fill 34 buckets.  

And why, you ask, in the heck were we doing that? Well, for lots of reasons. My mom found a great deal on wheat, say $20 for 50 lbs. And we're both trying to add more whole wheat to our diet. But, these weren't just for my mom and I and that's only part of why we were doing it. We were also doing it to be prepared. Food Storage you know. Not because I'm a conspiracy theorist or because I think 2012 is going to be the end of the world, but because you never know what might happen-not just with the world but with us. What if the hunny lost his job? It sure would be nice to have a little back up food around until we got back on our feet. Anyway, so the buckets got divided out 6 ways and I'm happy to have a little extra wheat on hand :) Random, yes. Reassuring too :)

Starting

I guess my whining last week paid off. After venting a bit on Friday I kicked myself back into gear. First gear. But Saturday I went to Joann's and bought myself some fabric, and this is what I've accomplished so far: All the squares cut out for the buddies quilt. I'm anxious to see the final results! But I dare say venting is therapeutic!

We colored a set of Birthday Masks for fun the other day as well . . . they work great . . . maybe not great enough to hide my lack of make up though, eh?

The Big One

This is what came in the mail today. I am giddy. (And no, I'm not waiting for Christmas. . . we're opening it now) It's a large format printer. I can print up to 13 inches wide :)  It's also a good printer (I hope). Here's to making printed products available in my shop for all of you who would rather just have it all done for ya! Wahoo!

Peaches

Okay, so canning peaches takes a lot longer than I thought. My first time ever, by myself that is. Here's what I learned:

plan on 20 quarts taking several hours (read: 6-8 hours)
a half bushel (one of those boxes without lids) makes about 12 bottles
when blanching the peaches, it doesn't work very well with unripe peaches. . .  make sure they're ripe, but not over ripe.
don't need an $80 pressure cooker to can peaches, just a $20 water bath canner
put the same temperature of water in the canner that the peaches are (I cold packed them)
even though it only takes 35 minutes (at 4000 feet) to water bathe them, it takes another 25 minutes to get them boiling
only 7 cans fit in the water bath canner, not 12 :)

All in all a great experience and I can't stop staring at those pretty peaches!!

on a side note, I had a lot of peaches so I also froze a bunch. Cut them up, and freeze them on trays before putting them in freezer bags. . . yummy smoothies later :)

Inspiring Weekend

 

Full weekend. Completely inspiring. If you read any mormon mommy blogs you already probably know it was General Conference for my church, the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints this weekend. But wow was it was inspiring! It filled me up with renewed determination to live and love the best I can! We drove up the canyon between sessions for lunch. (Two 2 hour sessions on both Friday and Saturday with a 2 hour break in between). That was also inspiring!!  My favorite talks? President Dieter F. Uchtdorf, and Sister Elaine S. Dalton. . . Favorite part about the canyon? The amazing contrast of yellow aspens with tall dark pine trees. Completely inspiring!!

Old Stuff

Surprise! I do exist! Sorry it's taken me so long to get back to blogging. The actually moving part was crazy, but unpacking wasn't nearly as bad as I was dreading it to be (last time we moved I felt so overwhelmed I got a dizzy migraine and laid on the couch while my hunny unpacked most of the important stuff. . . I still feel guilty about it). But this time was much much better. Partly because we have a bigger house so we could move the boxes to more rooms. A small pile of boxes in each room is much more doable eh? Anyway, I'm sure you wanted to hear all about that. The real reason I haven't been blogging is that I haven't been doing anything crafty to blog about. Between summer and living close to family again, I really haven't had any time.

BUT, even if when not crafting I'm always up for some old stuff. I've always liked old stuff, but two weeks ago I went to a Relief Society Meeting, our churches women's group, and they were talking about family history and knowing who your ancestors were as people. I've heard it before but it really inspired me to get to know my ancestors as individuals with lives and feelings. One of  the girls talked about how she owns the dining room set that her great grandmother scrimped and saved for over a year to get. I thought it was so cool that it had been handed down to her! SO cool. But alas, I come from a long line of big families and I doubt I'll get anything like that.

 

So fast forward to this weekend we went out to visit my husbands parents and his grandmother. We were sitting there in the assisted living home talking to her and she mentioned this large painting on the wall that a local had painted of the family farm with her husband on his horse. She mentioned she was going to give the painting back to the lady who had painted it because none of her children wanted it (including my husband's mother). I just about jumped out of my seat shouting I wanted it!! Not really, but I was probably a little too eager. I probably came off greedy. Either way she seemed delighted that someone wanted it and I do!

Second cool old thing. I convinced the hunny to stop at the small town thrift store while we were out visiting his grandmother. We were behind schedule and it was exceedingly generous of him to drive around town with the two kids sleeping in the back seat while I ran in to peruse the goods. Not too many, but I did run in to a great stack of old patterns. I don't even usually look for patterns but they practically jumped out at me! So I bought them, and little framed mirror, a ceramic owl (I plan to spray paint black for Halloween) and a vintage sheet. But really I was excited about the patterns. How fun are these?

creating: some deep [and maybe a little weird} thoughts

It all started when I found this painting when doing some cleaning out. I painted it 3 years ago. It awakened a desire to paint that has been laying dormant all winter long. It got me thinking a lot about creating. One of the things I love the most about creating is the problem solving. It is rewarding and fulfilling to find a solution to a problem. It might be needing a solution to the mess that is called your fabric stash that needs organizing, or it might be figuring out the exact color when painting a painting. Maybe for you there is another aspect of creating that you love. But it seems that creating is inherent in being human. I think on some level everyone not only has a desire, but perhaps even a need to create. Part of my beliefs involve knowing that one reason we are on earth is to get a body. Creating wouldn't be possible without a body, and having a body gives us an opportunity to take part in the process of creation. I love to create. I think the most important creating process I can be a part of is in my children's lives. I am responsible for creating the life and environment that shapes and molds their lives. Obviously each of my children is also a part of creating their own life, but it is a challenging, and problem solving process that involves a lot of imagination and a lot of work. Sometimes I don't love it. Sometimes, like a couple weeks ago when they were sick and not sleeping and I was running on 4 hours of sleep gathered up throughout the night, I wanted to run away. But I knew it would eventually run it's course and we would be back the normal. And we are back to the fun and the regular. It may not be all the time, but there are moments, sometimes even days, when motherhood it is the most fulfilling of creative processes. Nothing is better than those moments.

Spring awakens my creative hunger, and to me sometimes it is a real hunger. It needs feeding, and when I do something I feel fulfilled. Sometimes mothering doesn't quite hit the button and I need to do something else. Although perhaps not quite as fulfilling on a long term scale, painting is the next best thing for me. It is difficult, demanding, and requires a lot of patience and problem solving--just like being motherhood in many ways. I love it. And when spring comes around I just get this hunger to paint. I think it first really started showing up after I went painting "on location" with my dad 3 years ago. Because of his work schedule we were only able to get 3 paintings in before I moved away to Cleveland. The one above is one of them. It's a farming area not too far away from my childhood home. It makes me miss home, but it also really makes me miss painting. It is exhilarating to paint on location. You only have an hour or two to paint because the sun changes the shadows on everything so quickly that it's a whole new landscape in a couple hours. So we paint small and thin (as in not thick paint-easier to move around, etc . . .) You have to just get the "gist" of the painting because you don't have time for all the details, but the colors, oh the colors are divine! Seriously, of all the creative processes I enjoy, excluding mothering of course, painting is, the most fulfilling and exhilarating. I'm really having the itch . . .

This article was also on my mind a lot while contemplating creating. It is excellent--better than my own musings.

yellow makes me happy

 

Cabin fever is definitely setting in. We are finally on the tail end of two weeks of sickness at our house. But this is making me happy. Yellow makes me happy. I tease my husband that I married him simply because his last name was Lemon :) Anyway, other things that are making me happy? The little buddy can't say his "L's" so he says a "Y" or "W" sound instead. My favorite is "yiddle" for "little." But he's not yiddle anymore. He reminds me daily that he's a big boy now.

Merry Christmas!

I hope you all have had a wonderful and Merry Christmas. Ours has been really really good. I'm sorry I've been kind of MIA lately, but right now family is really where I'm spending my time. I will be back, but probably not much before the New Year. I hope you are all enjoying your families this special time of year!


* I will possibly post a freebie sometime this week though . . . 

my sad star

I don't have a real star topper on my tree. (or a tree skirt) Can you tell? But the tree is up! Check. (Don't you love the little sweetie on the couch-yep she's real :) Now on to the rest of the house. We usually put the tree up the day after Thanksgiving, but we weren't home to do it this year! So we did it a few days later than normal. This may be the last year I have an uncontested pretty tree. Once the little buddy starts bringing home cute little ornaments from preschool and the likes I'm sure I'll love them so much I'll have to put them up somewhere! That's okay. I'm still debating buying a little tree for his room. . . and for his ornaments. Is that snotty? I hope not. I really like my pretty tree. Now I just need to figure out a way to make my star ornament into a tree topper. . . . maybe a wire wrapped into a coil like this will work-

I'm still around

Yeah, I'm still here, running around like a crazy woman and trying to recover from a Thanksgiving trip and Christmas decorating . . . I'll post something real soon . . . in the mean time, some scary outtake pictures of me. (The hunny doesn't get home when there's still day light so when I needed a last minute picture for this We got some scary pixilated lighting, alas).

Sneak Peek: sealing the deal

This, my friends, is the answer to your ink jet running dilemma. When I have something home printed that I'm worried might get wet and then run or bleed, I spray a light coat of this cheap aqua net hairspray on it and it seals in the ink so it doesn't run if it gets wet-I mean, a little wet. Obviously if it gets soaked it's going to ruin your paper AND run. But anyway, it works well. Just make sure you hold the hairspray about 12 inches away when spraying and then only do a light coat. If you're worried, do a couple light coats.

what are little boys made of?

This is what I found when doing laundry . . . I knew he had a few holey socks. But I didn't realize how many! oh I love the little buddy!

the beginning

I picked up this awesome chair on the side of the road today. There were actually two of them, but the other one was so beat up I didn't think it was repairable (is that a word?). Too bad, it would have been more fun to have a pair of them. But I'm still excited to get this one in working condition. I think I may keep the green top, but I'd like to paint the wood white. We'll see when I get to it. I love old chairs!

what we've been up to . . .

This little sweetie has been keeping me pretty busy . . . but I'm still here!

nesting or ADHD?

Yes, this is me, and yes, I am ready to have this baby. I can't decide if I'm nesting or just have ADHD (which honestly, I might-I'm not trying to be insensitive to those who struggle with it). I've started 3 or 4 projects in the last day or two. I keep coming up with something else, and put aside the current project. It's getting out of control. Yesterday one of the projects I started was designing and printing out the pages for a little memory book I can take to the hospital with me. The plan is to bind it some time today, or tonight . . . a nap doesn't look like it's in the works today for the little buddy. I'll post it if I get it done before I get distracted with something else :)




On a side note I was happy to be included in a list of organizing and learning printables over at ABC and 123. They have a lot of great things over there. Go check it out!

buttons!

I'm so excited about these awesome buttons I just picked up at Joanns for a whopping $2.50. What a steal of a deal, eh? I really needed some color in my button collection, and this is perfect! I love them, especially these green ones. Aren't they so stinkin cute? I think I might have to cut off the backs and make them into earrings . . .