Maybe too much fun?

Holy busy weekend, batman! I'm still trying to recover, but we had fun! Friday, I did the weekly grocery shopping. I hate grocery shopping. The only time I've actually enjoyed it was a couple of weeks ago when I was so hopped up on pain killers that I don't even really remember the trip! (Don't worry, the husband drove!) After I got home, I just vegged for a while and thought about finishing the kitchen curtains before heading over to sis-in-law's house to see B-Nubs (sis-in-law from Denver).

Saturday morning, the boys and I got up early to go to the Home Depot Kids Workshop where I also bought 3 Autumn Joy bushes, picked up some new jeans & Husker apparel at Gordman's, then stopped at Hobby Lobby where I found some super cut $15/yd fabric on sale for $2/yd!  We spent the afternoon and evening with my in-laws where we celebrated the August & September birthdays, met nephew H's new girlfriend, watched the kids fight over ride trikes & bikes,

and listened to nephews C&H jam (sometimes joined by their bandmate, Snazzy Swiss Sweater guy).  Even Awesome and 5-year-old nephew Mad Jimmy got in on the drumming a little!

Sunday, we slept in till 8:00 before heading into town where the boys, after a little bribing, allowed me to take their fall pictures...

...before we headed to the Nebraska State Fair with my parents.

 

There was so much to do and see!  One of my favorite stops is the Quilt Display.  Grandmother's Garden quilts are one of my favorite patterns, and I am in awe of anybody who makes one.  Once you understand how they are traditionally made (completely by hand), you'll understand why.  Read this or this.

Another stop we made, was the Sheep Barn.  In the front, they had an enclosed room that was the Birthing Pavilion.  There were 3 litters of piglets.  One litter was 8 days old, and two litters were only 1 day old - all born at the fair!  There were also 3 baby sheep, and two pregnant cows.  One of the cows looked like she was ready to give birth any minute, but we didn't stick around for that!  When we came out, we saw these amazingly graceful ladies...

After Saturday night's jam session, the boys were mesmerized by the Street Beat Parkour Percussion performance in the Kidz Zone.  These guys were AWESOME!



Unfortunately, I didn't get any video of the super awesome stuff, and I apologize for the bumpiness - Awesome was bouncing on my knee while I was trying to get this video!

After the fair, I had to run by the mother-in-law's house to pick up her Melaleuca order (if you have any questions, just ask me!), and we finally got to meet nephew C's girlfriend.  The blond guy in the above video could be C's twin.  Looks and acts just like him!

We all slept in on Monday, and even took naps in the afternoon.  We mostly vegged out in front of the TV and computers, but I did get my Autumn Joy bushes planted!

How did you spend your extended weekend?

Today

If you are born and raised in Nebraska, there's a good chance that you'll develop a condition that causes you to get chills every Saturday during the fall. It's called Husker Fever.

I'm not a die hard football fan, but I do get chills whenever I hear "Sirius" by Alan Parsons Project. It's the song that accompanies the Husker Tunnel Walk.

As a state employee, my grandpa got a discount on season tickets, and he very graciously shared his tickets with his family. Every year growing up, my dad would take each one of us kids to 1 game. I don't know what it was like for my brothers, but for me, it was almost magical. Dad would toss me onto his shoulders, and we'd head down, underneath the stands to cheer on the players as they were making their way from the locker rooms to the field. Then, we'd head up to our seats, and watch and cheer our hearts out. When Nebraska got a touchdown, I'd let go of my red balloons, and there would be a sea of red in the sky above Memorial Stadium to match the sea of red in the seats.

I think many Nebraska fans were almost devastated when our beloved Coach Tom Osborne retired. I believe that he is at least partly responsible for the wonderful reputation that (most) Nebraska fans have. Fans and players alike looked up to him, and he has made us all want to be the perfect definition of hospitality and good sportsmanship. After a couple of wrong turns, we're thrilled to have Bo Pelini as our new coach, and look forward to the challenges that the Big 10 will provide.

Not the victory but the action;

Not the goal but the game;

In the deed the glory.

GO BIG RED!!!

Old & Rusty Bed Redo

I've talked about this bed a little before. I found it, half way buried under a fallen down 100+ year old 1 room house that was surrounded by locust trees on my grandpa's farm. Never heard of a locust tree? They're nasty. Unlike most trees, these suckers have thorns, and not just little thorns. We're talking 2-4 inch thorns.

The original plan was to put it in my flower bed, and plant a bunch of daisies around it.  Then, a couple of months ago, I got to looking at my bedroom.  I decided that we needed a darker headboard & footboard - the one we were using were was a plain, antique metal one from the house my grandma grew up in.  I was going to paint it, when I thought of the rusted old scrolly frame sitting in the backyard.

With my mom's helped, we used wire brushes and sandpaper to get off as much rust as we possibly could.  Dad helped get the little medallions off, and cut off the screws that were sticking out from where the knobs and a couple of medallions were missing.  I used some spray primer and some spray pain in Krylon's Rubbed Oiled Bronze (satin finish) on the whole frame.  The medallions were spray painted with Krylon's Celery green (glossy finish), then I used some charcoal colored glaze from this kit, that I had found on sale at Wal-Mart years ago, to dull the color and make them look kind of old.

I had to unmake my bed so you could see all the goodness - my gorgeous pillows cover up pretty much everything except the top medallion.  My dad is going to get busy and make me some risers so the prettiness can be seen when the bed is made.

I love our "new" bed.  It's not perfect - we bent some of the iron back as best as we could, but couldn't get it perfect.  The headboard and footboard don't really fit our queen size bed (they're too big for a full bed, but just a couple of inches too small for a queen), but they work.  It has my blood (locust thorns) and sweat (it was over 100 degrees out when we decided to de-rust it), and it's a piece of my family history.  And, it only cost me about $6 for the Rubbed Oiled Bronze spray paint, since I already had the primer and green spray paint on hand!

Oh!  If you're wondering about the canopy behind the bed, it's the cathedral length veil I wore the the hubs and I got hitched!

Linking up to some of these parties, and here, and here.

Puppet Theatre

When I was growing up, I had two wonderfully huge windows in my bedroom. My mom, being the awesome woman she is, saved three sets of window treatments that she and my grandma had made (she also saved the bedding grandma made). These window treatments have been sitting in storage, with the hopes that someday I might be able to use them for my daughter's room.

Since it appears that I will not be having a daughter, I decided it was time to think of a way to share my girly treatments with my boys. This is what I came up with:

A puppet theatre!

I used one set of the least girly treatments, which happened to come in 3 sections. The two side sections, I just put on a tension rod together.  Then I dug out some ticking that I had bought on sale years ago when the local Wal-Mart stupidly decided to get rid of their fabric department, cut it to the size I wanted/needed, and attached it to the middle section of the window treatment.  I put that on another tension rod, hung them in the hallway, and we have a puppet theatre!

The boys loved it, and have started writing scripts, and making lists of puppets they need to make.  To start with, though, we just grabbed a couple of the yarn octopi we made a while back, and stuck a stick in them.  I'll get a quick tutorial for those (and yarn dolls) up soon, too.

It's a great way to reuse old window treatments, fabric you don't know what to do with, and it keeps the kids busy using their imaginations!

Linking up to some of these parties!

So Long, Summer

Yesterday, the boys began their 2nd & 5th grade years of school.

I spent the day doing absolutely NOTHING.  Well, not nothing.  I read, without being interrupted.  I blogged without being interrupted.  I chatted on the phone without being interrupted.  I took a shower, without having somebody pound on the door as soon as I got the shampoo in my hair because they "have to PEEEEEE!"  I was a little lost, so I even took a little nap, and nobody woke me up!

At 4:00, they bounded in the door, tossing papers at me to sign and telling me (simultaneously) about how their first day went.  The 1st grade teacher retired at the end of last year and the 5th grade teacher took over 1st, so Bug has a brand new teacher.  And it's a GUY!  And he's really cool!  Awesome has 2 new kids in his class, and one of them is actually a BOY!  He was too shy to ask the new kid to play at recess yesterday, but said he's going to ask him today before the girls get to him.  Those boys need to stick together - there's only 3 of them and 12 girls! 

I miss not having Bug and Awesome home with me all day, but I'm also realizing how much I missed having some alone time.

Today I'm catching up on some of the cleaning I ignored yesterday, and trying to keep myself busy enough to not notice that I am starving.  Why is it that I'm always hungriest when I'm not allowed to eat?  My back molar has to come out (I'm so lucky to have inherited bad teeth from my dad's & grandma's sides of the family).  It has a very long root, that is actually curving under the tooth in front of it.  My dentist did some measuring and found that if the root was straight, it would go all the way to the bottom of my jaw.  She won't take it out, so I'm going in for dental surgery.  I'm scared.  he surgeon assures me I won't remember a thing, though.

Faux Chenille Blanket - A Tutorial

In my rush to get this blanket done for my wonderful new baby niece, I forgot to take pictures. Luckily, it's really easy to put together.

Supplies:
Main fabric - 1 yard
Flannel - 3-4 yards (if doing different colors, you'll need 1 yard of each)
1/2 yard fabric to make binding (use double fold bias tape tutorial here)
Coordinating thread
Scissors
Dinner plate
Chalk
Ruler

Here are the fabrics I used:

1. Pale Lime quatrefoil cotton - Binding
2. Brown with vines & pink flowers cotton - Main fabric
3. Dark pink flannel
4. Light pink flannel
5. White flannel
6. Green plaid flannel

When picking out your flannel, don't pick one with a pattern you want to see on the blanket.  I used the plaid because the shades of green worked with my fabric, and the shade of solid green flannel didn't.

Instructions:
1. Pre-wash (and dry) ALL fabrics.
2. Take your main fabric, and cut so it measures about 35" x 35". (I just folded over a corner, and cut along the edge to make a square.)
3. With your chalk (regular chalkboard chalk works fine) and ruler or straight edge, draw a line on the right side of your fabric from the lower left corner to the upper right corner (or lower right to upper left, whatever you prefer!), and set aside.
4. Layer your flannel.

Look at the picture above to decide how you want to layer yours.  Mine went like this: Green plaid with the patterned side up (this is important with printed flannel), white, light pink, dark pink.
5. With the wrong side of your main fabric facing the flannel, center it over the flannel, and add to the layers of fabric.
6. Going through ALL layers, pin your fabrics together along your diagonal chalk line.
7. This next part is super easy, but this is where it becomes VERY time consuming!  First, sew along your chalk line.  Then, set your needle so that it is as far left as it can go.  On my sewing machine, this is done by setting the stitch width to the widest it can go.  Line up the sewn chalk line with the right edge of your presser foot, and sew another line.  The two lines should be about 1/2 inch apart.  Continue sewing lines like that until you have covered the entire blanket with 1/2 inch spaced lines.
8. Cut off all the excess flannel around the edges, then flip the blanket so the flannel is facing you.
9. Here is where you have to be extra careful.  Between two of your lines, insert your scissors between the main fabric and the bottom layer of flannel and cut the whole length.  Be sure you are only cutting through the layers of flannel and NOT the main fabric!
10. Using your plate as a template, round off your corners.
11. Bind your blanket, and you're done!  I'll try to get a binding tutorial up soon, but feel free to contact me with any questions!

Backyard Funeral

Yesterday, when the husband got home, he decided it was time to put Fatty McFatterson in a new environment. About an hour later, Bug informed us that Fatty wasn't looking so good. He was still alive, but not moving much. Shortly after moving Fatty back to his old environment, he finally died.

Hubs got the shovel, and he and the boys went out behind the garage to dig the grave. Bug said a couple of words about what a good pet Fatty was, and we filled in the hole, dug through the metal stashed by our garage, and laid a hydrangea down.

Did I mention Fatty was a goldfish? Yup. We buried a goldfish who died from an apparent heart attack (according to the husband).



In all fairness, I should point out that Fatty couldn't be flushed because he would have undoubtedly clogged the toilet.