New Moon

I missed this week's Weekend Wisdom, but I have a very good excuse! Tuesday was my day to just stay at home and not do anything. We were on the run all last weekend, so it was a well deserved rest. Wednesday and Thursday were spent catching up on cleaning and getting ready for my neices and nephew (ages 5, 3, and 1 1/2). My brother and sis-in-law dropped the munchkins off around noon today on their way to Kansas City for the weekend. The kiddos are actually spending the rest of the weekend at my parents' house, but since dad is out of town for 2 weeks, the boys and I will be spending a lot of time there.

***TWILIGHT FANS***

You'll notice there's an addition to my sidebar. I got it off of MTV's site. According to MTV, the trailer will premier on the MTV Movie Awards, airing at 9:00 ET. Then, at 10:45pm, the high-definition video will debut on the internet. When the trailer makes it's debut online, the countdown clock is supposed to turn into a video player! This is great news for Twilighters like me who don't have cable. I have my cell set to remind me to get online at 9:30 Sunday night - can't wait!

I finally finished a patchwork pillow I'd been working on. I'll post a pic later on when I have a chance to actually take one!

Weekend Wisdom

"All I want in life is a dance partner"

~Drew Barrymore as Little Edie Beale~

I've seen the documentary only once, and I'm debating on whether or not I want to see it again. It made me laugh, it made me cry, and it left me a little sad, but in a cheery way. Drew Barrymore and Jessica Lange star as Little Edie and Big Edie in a new HBO movie, also called Grey Gardens. I can not wait until it becomes available on DVD. There are so many questions I have, and I think this new movie will answer them since it goes back to when Little Edie is only 19.

Chalkboarding

Landon's room is almost done. We just have to get the rest of his toys out of Taylor's room, then we'll be done for now. In our house, all walls are covered in paneling, except the kitchen and bathroom. I know you're all probably thinking of the dark wood paneling that was really popular in the 70's. That's what we have...but, the only place you see the wood color is in our closet. Everything else has been painted several times.

I'm getting off the subject. Landon has one wall that is mostly covered in shelving, but there is one big area behind the door where there are no shelves, and the wall is flat and smooth. I decided to paint a chalkboard there, and have unleashed a monster. I gave him a good sized chalkboard, but wanted to do more. The boys had a dresser that has been in the garage for several months because the drawers kept breaking. I found 3 of the 4 top drawers and made 3 more chalkboards. One will go in Taylor's room, I gave one to my mom, and the third is sitting on my kitchen counter:

Now I'm looking for more and more things I can paing with the remaining paint! I bought one of the 1 qt. cans, and there's over 2/3 left. My mom wants to make a chalkboard for the grandkids to write on when they're visiting, and I'd like to paint one on the door for our kitchen closet/pantry.

I even stopped at Goodwill while in town yesterday looking for something I could turn into a chalkboard. I didn't have any luck, but I did find the first Harry Potter book for $1 and bought it for Taylor. As we were walking to the counter, I realized that our GW must have really clean windows. You could see the outline of a bird where it smacked into one of the windows. It hit hard enough to even leave a few feathers!

We also made a trip to the library where I found Pretty Little Patchwork and Pretty Little Potholders. If I can find a little bit of "me" time, I plan adding a few of those projects to my list!

Vintage Thingies Thursday - Feedsack Tablecloth

Yesterday while babbling about my love of feedsack fabric reproductions, I mentioned a tablecloth my great-grandma Alice had made. My great-grandparents, Charlie and Alice, lived on a farm south of Chadron, Nebraska. It was homesteaded in the mid-1800's by Alice's family, the Summers, and is still 25 miles from the nearest town. When the stock markets crashed in 1929, Charlie and Alice had two sons, ages 15 & 13, and Alice was pregnant with my grandma, who was born in January 1930.

My great-uncle Faye has told me that if it hadn't been for his mom, they may not have survived the Depression as well as they did. When she first started her veggie garden, she put it right next to the windmill and horse trough by the barn. Those vegetables provided much needed food for themselves and their neighbors. Alice was also a very frugal and crafty lady. My mom has a hankie she made from a white feedsack with red stripes. With some white ric rac, she made the letter "A". A lady should always have a personalized hankie, no matter what state the economy is in!

She also made this tablecloth that I have fallen in love with. Four feedsacks joined together with some ric rac.

It has a few worn spots in it...

...and a few of the edges are a little frayed...


...and the ric rac has come loose in a few places...


but I think I'll hang onto it for a while! I've never used it, but seeing how good it looks on my kitchen table has me thinking about it.


Every time I look at things like this tablecloth, I feel humbled and realize that things aren't so bad. It also reminds me, especially in today's economy, to be less wasteful and that even the simplest things can bring beauty.

For more vintage treasures, be sure to check out Coloradolady's blog!

Feedsack Fabric Love

I love fabrics from and inspired by the 1920's - 50's, so whenever I come across feedsack fabric reproductions I really have to take a deep breath and try to control myself! There's just something about these fabrics that make me happy. I've come to the conclusion that the reason for the prints used is that they must have been meant for bringing a little bit of happiness during the Depression. I love how frugal women were, making clothes, table cloths, and other items from empty feedsacks. I still have a table cloth my great-grandmother made. She took 4 white feedsacks and attached them together with ric rac. I'll have to remember to show you all a picture sometime!

Anyway...Landon and I made a trip into town yesterday and made a stop at one of the fabric stores downtown. Look what I found!



I already had the blue fabric, but it's too great not to share with you! I have 3 yards of it, some will be used for an apron, and some for a sewing basket. I'll still have plenty left over, but I'm sure I'll find a use for it! The green and floral fabrics are the two I picked up yesterday. I'm thinking they'll be used for sun hats. There's a great pattern in the newest Mary Jane's Farm magazine that I want to try out.

Speaking of Mary Jane's Farm...I signed up for a spring clothespin swap. There are 14 of us in the swap. We each made 24 pins, then sent them in to our swap host. Once she receives them all, we'll all get a variety of 24 pins back. These are the ones I made:



I like simple things, so I went simple with my clothespins, too. I painted them "Celery Green" (Americana brand acrylic paint I found at Hobby Lobby). I always water down my acrylics a little for 2 reasons - it makes the paint last longer, and it goes on a little smoother. Once the paint was dry, I roughed up the edges and top using #60 sandpaper, then smoothing it with #220 sandpaper. I went over it with a brown tinted sealer and added a rose. I found a box of 2 dozen bouquets (12 roses in each bouquet) for 10 cents at a clearance sale a while back. I wasn't sure what I'd do with them when I bought them, but I think they added just enough to my clothespins.

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This is the fabric I bought at Hobby Lobby a week or so ago. This will soon be turned into a laptop sleeve and a laptop bag. I just have to decide what fabric will be used where. There's 2 yards of each, so I'll have plenty!

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And last, but not least, here's the bench that was repainted last weekend. I love the color, but the bench needs something else to "ground" it a little more.

Look at all my Lilies of the Valley! There are sooo many bloomig this year. In the spring of 2006, I transplanted these from my grandpa's* house. They turned brown and wilted within a month, and I thought I had killed them. In 2007, a few came up, but no blooms. Last year, we had a few more come up and only 2 bloomed. This year, the bed is almost FULL, and there are soooo many blooms that I won't feel at all bad about cutting some for inside the house!

*The spring before my grandpa passed away, there was a hail storm (I think a tornado may have hit just outside of town, too) and the area around Hastings College got hit pretty hard. Grandpa's house was right across the street and had several windows broken out and a flooded basement. I went over to help him clean up all the glass and dry out the basement. As we were walking around the house, I found a patch of Lilies of the Valley that I had never known was there. Grandpa said to me, "Those are flowers? Huh. I thought they were weeds, but they're pretty so I left them. I always wondered why your grandma never yelled at me for not pulling them!"

Mother's Day Birthday

Yesterday was a nice day to celebrate both Mother's Day and my 31st Birthday. We didn't do much, but it was quite relaxing. I didn't even have to cook! On Saturday my parents had told me they wanted to take me out for my birthday on Sunday, so we met them at the restaurant at 11:00am for lunch. Before we had even made it out of the house, both of my brothers had called to wish me a happy birthday, and my mother-in-law had called to invite us over for supper!

After eating lunch with my mom & dad, my mom and I went to Menard's to look at more flowers. I ended up with two more Columbines and a roll of chicken wire to finish off my veggie garden. We also bought some chalkboard paint for Landon's room and for the playroom at mom & dad's house.

Then we went to mom & dad's house to drop mom off and pick up the boys. Before we left, everybody sang Happy Birthday to me and we had some delicious cupcakes!

Supper at my mother-in-laws house was yummy and entertaining as always. My in-laws are slightly insane, so it's always fun there!

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Saturday was quite productive. I had picked up the two sets of drawers that used to be part of my grandma's vanity. They're just the right size for night tables for the boys, and I got one painted to match Taylor's dresser.

Do you remember my bench that dad made? I repainted it. I found the color I wanted (a vintage green), but didn't feel like paying for a whole gallon of paint. One quart wouldn't have been enough, and two quarts would have cost the same as a gallon. Lucky for me, I found some spray paint that was the exact shade I wanted! For $15, I was able to buy 1 can of spray primer, and 3 cans of spray paint in the color I wanted, which is about $5 cheaper than the gallon! Now I just need to get a couple of pillows, and maybe a throw blanket made for the bench, and get some flowers to plant in my buckets, and we'll be good to go!

I gave up my sewing room so that Landon could have a room of his own, and I started painting that on Saturday, too. I don't know what this shade of blue is called, but I really like it. I found it on the rejected paint shelf at Wal-Mart when I was looking for my spray paint. I'm hoping to finish his room today so I can finish moving his stuff in.

My parents came out about 1/2 an hour after I started painting Landon's room (which would be why I didn't finish), and we got my garden planted! Next year, I'm definitely going bigger.

I promise to get some photos posted this week once I get Landon's room done and Taylor's room rearranged!

Guess what I'm doing?!

I'm posting from my new laptop!

Taylor has his Track & Field Day tomorrow morning, but with any luck, I'll be able to post a picture or two of things I've been working on lately. If I'm not back tomorrow, expect to see me Monday at the latest!

Oh! It just hit me that tomorrow is supposed to be my day for Weekend Wisdom, but I doubt it if I'll have a chance to get to it. I'll try for Saturday morning, but won't guarantee anything.

See you soon!

It's coming Today!

I hate ordering stuff off the internet because it seems to take FOREVER for it to get here. I'm an instant gratification kinda gal with my purchases! We ordered my new laptop what seems like a month ago, but it was really only 8 days. I checked this morning, and it's in GI, so it should be here sometime today - YAY! This is what my new friend looks like:

When we ordered it, it was on sale, and very few colors were available. There was the blue that I got, or for $40 more I could have gone with black or cherry red. Now that the Inspiron 15's are no longer on sale, they are offering a wide variety of colors including this one that I would have insisted on had it been available:

Oh, well! The pretty spring green would have ended up costing almost $200 more than my blue one, so I can't complain. I think I'll call her Betty Blue, although I think Scarlett would prefer Bonnie Blue. I have an aunt named Bonnie, so that would be weird.

Oh, for the love of Hugh!

Jeremy, the boys, our 15- and 16-year-old nephews and I went to a movie last night.

Yeah, right! Taylor is in love with Jennifer Garner, so I might be able to get him to go, but the rest? No way. We saw this:

I usually wait for these kinds of movies to come out on DVD, then watch them when Jeremy rents them. But, I wanted to get out of the house, and I figured that if everybody else was going, I may as well tag along! I enjoyed the movie better than I thought I would. Jeremy seems to think that I only liked it because I got to see Hugh Jackman's tushie. I won't deny that was a perk, but I also liked the rest of the movie!

Yesterday morning, Landon and I planted a few flowers. Just a couple of Columbines, Violas, and Portulacas. I need to pick up some more potting soil and annuals. I picked up a Sunflower Playhouse Kit from Menards that we're hoping to get "planted" by this weekend. I had picked up some sunflower seeds last year to make one, but we had bad luck. When I tried putting it inside our fence, the dogs destroyed the flowers before they even came up. When I put it outside the fence, it got run over with the lawn mower. This year, we're going to get some cheap garden fencing to put around it, and maybe it'll acutally work!

Counting Down

We've started counting down the days till school is out for the summer. There are 16 days left of school. During those 16 days, there will be:
1 Cub Scout Den Meeting
1 Cub Scout Pack Meeting
1 Field Trip
1 Track & Field Day
1 Doctor's appointment
2 Dentist's appointments
6-8 Baseball Practices
2 Baseball Games
1 Graduation

And that doesn't include my niece's softball games or my nephews' baseball games! This past school year has flown by, and I think the summer will do the same. Landon starts school in the fall, so I'll have to remind myself to take a few moments every once in a while to just pause and take in all that's going on.

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On Saturday, my dad wanted to take the boys to the Kids Workshop at Home Depot. While he did that, my mom and I did a little bit of shopping at a couple of our favorite stores. We found some great sales at Hobby Lobby including some fabric that I'm going to use for a laptop sleeve and bag (if they ever get my laptop built and sent!). We also spent some time in Gordman's. We found a lot of things we wanted, but I left with only some new jeans and a gnome. I miss the Gordman's in Hastings!

It's that time of year again...

Once again, I've been reflecting on my life, something I do about twice a year. Turning 30 didn't bother me...well, it didn't bother me until Kelsey (my 6-years-younger brother) turned 24! Even then, it was just a quick thought realizing that I was no longer a 20-something.

This year is different, though. I can't figure out why I'm dreading Sunday. It's a double holiday for me, so I should be thrilled at the idea of not having to do anything that I really don't want to do, I don't even have to cook (Hunan's, here we come)! The one thing that I've been terrified of hasn't happened - I haven't lost my hair. And as far as I know, I'm healthy. I could stand to lose several pounds, but other than that I'm golden, Ponyboy.

I've decided that instead of trying to figure out why I'm in a little bit of a funk about my age this year, I'm going to concentrate on the good things in life:

My marriage is better than it has ever been,
I have two boys that make me proud every day,
I have all my own hair (alopecia runs in my family),
My life is simple but fulfilling like I've always wanted,
Jeremy still has a job, and we still have a house,
I'm happy, and I feel at peace with my life.

I just wonder, how old do you have to be before you can act like a crazy old lady?

Weekend Wisdom

"We don’t know where it goes. We don’t really care."

~Bob Ross~

He usually said this, or something similar, after painting a little river or pathway.