Staycation Wahoo!!!

Right off the bat, you need to know that Levi is sitting on the desk next to the keyboard, so I'm blaming any wonkiness on him.

I just talked to Sarah on the phone and told her about all of the fun I'm having during my week of week off of work staycation: rearranging the craft room and buying a cutting table; putting together bookshelves for my sleeping room; spray painting garage sale frames; going to movies at noon and taking a nap every day! She wanted to see evidence and accused me of always saying I'll take pictures then I never to. Here's proof she's wrong and I'm right!


The new cutting table on bed risers to be easier on my back . . . It's 36" x 36" with really cool extensions that make it 36" by 72". Erin keeps upping the amount she'd pay me for it, but I'm holding firm.

And from another angle . . .

We moved over the central desk to make room for the table . . .


Dang, it always looks so messy.

My old bookshelf, but I like the combo of frames, etc. and the hooters picture from the salt lake city indie craft fair. . .. .

The latest bookcases with painted frames . . . and the garage sale duvet cover and the kiwi kiss side tables . . . I simply adore Kiwi Kiss.

Bed and tables again

Frames again . . . and yes, I do know the books aren't stacked the usual way. I have so many books and buy so many from the library that I really need to pack them into the shelves.

One more for the frames.

Now Levi and I are going to costco to buy wheat tortillas (thanks for the heads up, Amy) to eat with the savory pork (thanks for the recipe, Joellyn) we made in the crock pot. Yum yum.

Quarterly seems pretty good to me.

It's only been three months since that last post so that means I'm on a pretty good quarterly schedule. It won't win me any prizes, but it's certainly doable and won't keep me awake at nights fretting about my blog. Now that would truly be a disaster!

I've kind of been stuck on trying to make the blog itself look better, so I stitched up a header with the blog title, then I realized it is way too square and should be much skinnier (hmmm--maybe that's a virtual reflection of my physical self . . .). Thanks to the magic of Photoshop, and thanks to the fabulous Dirk for photographing and editing the photo, I just plucked out the offending parts and ended up with a banner than works. At least it works enough to go with for now.

So there you have it--a fancy, schmancy header for a poor, ignored blog!

Summer Reading

Wahoo!! The Salt Lake County Library System has an ADULT summer reading program including prizes, a reading record, and a recycled art contest! I'm soooo doing it! My first book is Homefront by Chuck Logan, just because it is the one I found under my bed yesterday when I needed a new read. :) So far it's pretty good--nothing spectacular but not so bad that I have to skip right to the end. I finished our book club book while in Moldova and thoroughly enjoyed it, but for the life of me I can't remember the name of it right now. I left it there for Taunya to read (I'm pretty sure I mispelled her name, but I know for sure her last name is Lasar--sorry).

Now I'm thinking about what I could recycle into art for the art contest . . . hmmm. I'm thinking something with fabric . . . Maybe inspiration will strike this morning while I'm cleaning out my clothes closet. I've come home from Moldova with a well-developed sense of guilt at the obscene amount of clothing I have in my closet. If I was wearing them regularly that would be one thing, but I don't, so there they sit, in messy piles or filling the hangers when they could be used by someone else. By the end of the day I anticipate 1/3 to 1/2 the clothing will be on its way to DI and I'll have a tidy closet and quiet mind. :)

New Etsy Listings!

Finally! Finally! Finally! I just finished posting two bulletin boards on Etsy and I'm quite pleased with myself. I keep making stuff and never posting it and then wonder why I never sell anything. :)

I found these fabrics at Ikea this week and they absolutely called out to be made into bulletin boards. I think the photos even turned out pretty good . . . for me, that is. Here--take a look:

How Fast Can You Type?

I followed the link on Lauren's blog to the type test. Here are my results. I thought it was hard to type random words instead of typing sentences. Did anyone else have that experience?

82 words

Typing Test

Something Fabulous for the Five

Yay! Thanks for playing! I made something for each of you and will bring most of them to work tomorrow. Holly and Emily, I'll give yours to Justin. Sarah, can you stand to wait until I come to Houston in April?

I'm not going to post a picture so you'll be surprised. I hope you'll enjoy what I made and have fun using it. :)

In other crafting today, I finished the big, ol' Christmas stocking and put it in the washer to full (felt) it. I just can't get over how cool felted knitting is. Every time I take a shrunk wool item out of the washer I get a little frisson of excitement! Now I'm wondering if I want to embellish this stocking or leave as is to enjoy it's simplicity. FYI, the stocking as you see it is about 15" long--it shrunk to about half it's original size.


I'm listening to David McCullough's 1776 right now and loving a deeper look and understanding of the America revolution than I've ever had. It's also been fun to hear about the places in Boston I've been able to see while visiting Suzie and Matt. I could picture it in my mind.

And finally, Levi and I had our first grandma date last night. At the advanced age of 7 months, Levi got to stay and play at my house alone last night for the first time. It was Erin and Nate's second anniversary and they celebrated with dinner and a movie. Levi and I played piggies and had nakey time on the floor (okay, he had nakey time and I patted his soft fanny) and ate dinner (grilled cheese sandwich for me and applesauce, olives, and toast for Levi) and watched Pride and Prejudice and looked at and tasted Goodnight Moon. He is a delight, as ever. Here's a self-portrait of us on our first official date:

Something Just for You

Lucky you! The first five people to respond to this post will get something made by me! My choice. For you. This offer does have some restrictions and limitations:

1- I make no guarantees that you will like what I make!

2- What I create will be just for you.

3- It'll be done this year. (might be a little while)

4- You have no clue what it's going to be. It may be a story. It may be poetry or an article on properly cleaning your face before a masque. I may draw or paint something. I may bake you something and mail it to you. Who knows? Not you, that's for sure!

5- I reserve the right to do something extremely strange.The catch? Oh, the catch is that you must repost this on your blog and offer the same to the first 5 people who do the same on your blog.

The first 5 people to do so and leave a comment telling me they did win a FAB-U-LOUS homemade gift by me! Oh, and be sure to post a picture of what you win when you get it!