Hey, it's good to be back home again...

Two of my favorite things on earth, home, and John Denver! I'm not sure why, but going home makes me want to listen to John. It drives my husband nuts because he can't stand John Denver.

I haven't lived in my home town since I was nine years old, but to me, it will always be "Home". It's the place where my soul feels the most as peace. I am a country girl at heart, but married to my city boy who would rather die than live in a small town *Sigh*.

Luckily my sister and I have great plans to move into an old victorian after our husbands die and become crazy old cat ladies =0) I even have a picture of the perfect house in my slide show here, it's just down the street from my grandmother's house and my Great Grandma lived there while she was going to school because her family lived too far out of town for her to be at home and still make it to school during the winter. It's the house of my dreams!

So sit back and enjoy a slide show of the sheer beauty of my home town. I hope it stirs your soul and makes your heart sing the way it does mine.

Adore Pennant Banner

I know Valentine's Day is over, but I had this idea in my head and didn't have time to get it done.

A close up, can you see the irredescent glitter on the edges? It has such a pretty sparkle! The fabric is a thrifted bed sheet.

I think, since this matches my bedroom though, I may put it on my headboard and leave it up all year long.


Oh, I forgot to tell you! After 14 1/2 years of sleeping on the worlds ugliest waterbed, B finally bought me a REAL bed, with a REAL mattress! I can't tell you how heavenly it is to wake up in the morning without a back ache! Although I do really miss rocking myself to sleep at night. We got the mattresses for a killer deal at RC Willey, and the bed frame is from Ikea. We also went from a King to a Queen and now I actually have room for a bed table HORAY!


My only complaint...This bed is so high off the ground! We got the low profile box spring, but the mattress is so thick that I feel like a little kid crawling into bed, I have to throw my leg up and then hoist myself in. B might have to build me a little step stool while he's building my bedside table!

The B Family Goes Green

It’s focus on the environment week in the twins class at school, there was a challenge issued to shut everything electronic off for one day. That got such a negative response from my children that we decided to make it a week. What better way to show our kids that there IS actually life without TV, Game Boys, Computers, and Air Hockey!

Starting today, everything electronic will be turned off and unplugged. I am dreading how hard this is going to be, after all, my computer is my connection to the outside world, it keeps me company during those hours when I am home all alone, but it’s time for a reminder to me too, I have spent too much time online lately and I need to take time out to spend face time with my kids, to play board games and go to the park and all those other things that I am “Too busy” to do when I have access to a computer.

I figure over the next week I am going to hear “But Mooooom, I’m booooooored” every 2.3 seconds and I may even have to join in until I remember what I used to do with my time before I became internet obsessed.

B says other than the few “work” things I have to do; I can’t even turn on my sewing machine. YIPES! What am I going to do with myself? I can still sew by hand so I guess I will have to find a stitchery project to work on. Maybe I will finally make myself the stitched nativity! I have always wanted one, and have made one for everyone else; maybe it’s finally MY turn. We’ll have to see. I am also headed to the library to check out some reading material.

So I will miss you all, see you next week….if I survive this little experiment. It’s looking iffy LOL

Good Morning

I have more to write about this week and my thoughts and experiences, but I need to not be sad for a little while so I am going to bypass that for now and share something cool I stumbled upon this morning.

You may have already seen this, but on the off chance that you haven't, I think it's really cool and I can't wait to try it.

Fusing plastic store bags for craft projects.

I think this is an awesome idea and I want to make some home made recycleable grocery bags. I would like to go green, but building up a large enough supply of grocery bags gets really expensive. This way, I can use the ones already in my closet and save myself the $1.99 a piece for the green bags. Yay!

Sadly this would never be possible with my regular sewing machine, the one I make my quilts on. But at the Thrift store last week I came across this little beauty. Solid metal body, Singer sewing machine. I thought "Hey, if it's metal, it must be heavy duty right?" so I bought it for $8 and took it to the repair shop for it's first check up. The man there sold me a foot pedal/power cord for $40 and then tested the machine out, said it looks brand new and he doesn't think it's ever even been used. It's in perfect shape and needs nothing done with it. I told him what I wanted it for and he said it will be a great little machine for what I need YAY. I bought this because I like to make my own purses but my little sewing machine HATES sewing through several layers of the thicker, home decor weight fabric. So now I have this one, I am so happy.


I also finally got around to taking a picture of my revamped vignette on top of the bird cabinet. It used to be two large silk plants up there (Blech) and I hated them, they were always dusty and it made this space seem so closed in. It looks much more open now and I really like it so much better. And of course it's a great way to show off my little quilt without just hanging it flat on the wall. I need to find something a little larger to put where the blue glass jar is, this cabinet is over 6 feet tall and you can't even see that blue glass jar from the ground (I took this picture standing on the coffee table LOL)

Craziness I tell ya!

So we've been in a drought for oh...say ten to fifteen years now here in Utah. I believe this past winter was our first sign that we were starting to come out of it, but then this summer has been so dry. Lots of lightning but no rain.

Until today!

Today was all the rain from all those lightning storms piled into one storm. This enormous black cloud parked itself over our little section of the world and unloaded months worth of rain on us in the space of about an hour.


And when it poured, I mean it POURED! We had to take our van in to be serviced because our AC died. And of course, we had to take it right as this storm started so we were caught in the very worst of it. The boys and I sat in the car while B was in the office, caught there by the sudden burst of the storm, and we watched huge hail pellets hammer our poor little car, I thought for sure we were going to be replacing windows before this was all said and done. This storm and it's fury freaked me out so bad that sitting in my little hail beaten car I called my mom, she had to hear this. It was nuts! I kept waiting for the tornado to come ripping through but luckily, no tornado's this time around. The hail seemed like it was being dumped by the bucket full, it was piling up all over the place. And it totally demolished trees, flowers, and gardens!




Excuse these pictures of the roads, they were taken with B's cell phone. The other pictures are from the local news website KSL.com

This is the street we were driving down...it was up to the bottom of our doors in places. I just knew we were going to be washed away in our itty bitty Escort with the bald tires. Can you see the waves? The water is completely up over the sidewalks and onto the grass at this point.


This is the intersection of 5400 S and Bangerter, on the news they said the water here was anywhere from 2" to 24" deep. I would say where we were at when this picture was taken it was in the 2"-3" range but it was flowing very fast, it literally looked like a river across all eight lanes. On the edges where it curved down it was much deeper.


Kitty corner from where we were sitting when the above picture was taken there is a steep drop off with some apartments down at the bottom. The water was just sluicing over that hill and down that drop. B and I were talking about how they were sure to have flooding if this rain continued much longer.
Little did we know what they were really in store for...




And then, when the saturated hillside could no longer stand up to the deluge of water...



Our neighborhood, being on the side of the mountain, fared much better than my MIL who is downhill from us. She got tons of hail, and the streets were all flooded in her neighborhood. We had lots of water, and I don't think anyone will be harvesting anything from their demolished gardens this year, but we have no water damage to structures. The worst our neighborhood got was a pooling of water at the bottom of the hill and it only made it midway up the driveways so no house damage. And some dirt run off so our streets are a big muddy mess. Unlike these poor people...





So snuggle up in your nice cozy home tonight and say a little prayer for all those families who can't go home. Keep your fingers crossed that the damage to their homes is minimal.

And I will go upstairs once again to comfort my poor little traumatized kiddos. Nothing happened to us today, but the storm has them so freaked out that the current thunder, lightning, and rain going on outside their window is making them nervous and unable to sleep.

I am very thankful to live on a hill, I am very thankful to live on a hill, I will not count in dollars and cents how much gas my little car burns climbing this huge hill every day LOL

Blue Friday

Do you ever have one of those days where you just feel mopey and sad and you just sit in your PJ's all day and can't motivate yourself to do anything.

I had one of those days yesterday. I think there are several factors that were working against me.

#1- the fact that I am not working right now with school being out for the summer, I have no compelling reason to get up and get moving.

#2- My recent lack of sleep. I am not in an insomnia cycle right now, just staying up later than I should and therefore depriving myself of needed sleep.

#3- My apparent inability to break into any of the "Cliques" in this neighborhood. I feel so lonely here. They all get together to do things, but I am never invited. Well, unless it's to one of their craft days and they want me to teach them something. I have helped them learn to quilt, embroider, crochet, and applique. But if they aren't doing something they need help with they "Forget" to invite me.

I keep writing these big long paragraphs but they come out sounding so whiney that I am just going to delete and figure you all probably know how I am feeling right now. And if you don't, look around for that girl that looks sickeningly lonely, and invite her to hang out with you and your friends.

So anyway, yesterday sucked. I pretty much cried all day long and then I watched Steel Magnolias, it's always good for an emotional cleansing LOL. Today I am feeling much better thank heavens and ready to be part of the human race again.

I am trying to think of what I want to work on. B is on graveyards this week so I need to be able to keep the kids quiet, which usually means leaving the house, but I really really want to make something. I have the fabric for a 4th of July table runner, maybe I will get started on that. It's from the recent Quilts and More magazine, right on the cover.


I also plan to make a simple striped Christmas table runner, and a Happy Hour "Snapshots" quilt, a red and white churn dash quilt, a yellow and white baby blossoms quilt, and and and and

I buy all this fabric for specific projects, but never get around to actually MAKING them. I am bound and determined to do my happy hour quilt though because I love the pattern, and my fabrics so much!

What are you working on?

Procrastination, can I just do it later?

Why do I procrastinate? I mean really...why? It is so annoying, I am perturbed with myself.

I spent a huge part of today trying to get something done that would have taken me a minute here and there if I had done it when I was supposed to.

But no, that 2 minutes I could have been doing something else, so I put it off 'til later, and instead spent a couple of hours playing catch up today.

But yay, all my photo's are now journaled. I keep a word doc in each months' folder talking about the pictures we have taken, the meaning behind them, what we were feeling, thinking, or doing at the time and any funny anecdotes to go along with them.

I haven't done any journaling for this year until today. It's a lot of typing because I am not known for being short winded LOL

I also cleaned my kitchen, which could probably have been declared a toxic waste dump. Being depressed and sick all week, I wasn't exactly motivated to keep up with my housework.

I walked into my kitchen today and was disgusted, I thought "I am going to clean this up right now" Then I thought....hmmm I need to blog about all my thrifty finds. So I came down here and blogged instead and I was punished by the powers that be.

My friend called, she was two minutes away, she was going to drop in. UUUUGH. I love my friend, but she is a tough act to follow, her house is ALWAYS clean. I don't think she has ever been to my house when it was clean (isn't that the way it works, people only stop by when your house looks like a war zone). She probably thinks I am just a pig who makes excuses every time she stops by.

I promise though, today was NOT normal. Ok, it was normal for this week, but not normal for the average state of my house. No really. And my kitchen is clean now, and just thinking about having someone see my house like that makes my face burn with shame.

How come no one ever drops in when my house is clean? Is there a bat signal that goes out when my house is messy so my friends come over? LOL I don't think anyone believes me when I tell them my house is usually looking much better than this.

Maybe I should just give up, if they all believe I'm a slob, then I don't have to do nearly as much housework...right?

Ramdom Scenes from around my house today

I hope everyone has a Happy Easter!

Living in Squallor

Sorry, nothing crafty to show you today. I forced myself today to tackle my scrapbook room. It is scary, it gives me nightmares!

When I am in a crafting frenzy I get a ton of stuff out, but sadly I am not so great at putting it away. I am good when I am actually using that area, like if I am scrapbooking, I will completely clean off my desk between layouts.

But, I haven't scrapped in YEARS, which is really quite sad because I used to not be able to imagine a day when I wouldn't scrapbook and now, it seems to be the last thing I want to do. I don't know what happened or when it happened but one day, I just stopped.

And since that room (really the end of the unfinished basement area that I use as my studio) rarely gets used, it seems to be the collection zone for all my junk. If I have something that doesn't really have a home, it gets tossed in there.

Last week while I was trying to make Valentines for the boys, I had to crawl over piles to get to papers and tools. And now, it is such a pigsty that I can't really get in there to put it all back away, so I still have a pile of Valentine making stuff on my kitchen table. I couldn't even make them in my scrap room because my desk is piled so high with miscellaneous crap.

So that is my chore today, and sadly I forgot to take before pictures but maybe I will take "mid-stage" pictures and you can just imagine it twice as bad LOL.

Please tell me I am not the only one who lives this way.

Next is the kitchen, it isn't looking so hot these days either *sigh* I have spent way too much time on the computer lately and have been ignoring my house. We did finally get the rest of the Christmas crap put away yesterday so my living room is cleaned out again YAY. I have NO idea why we didn't do it sooner, but we had a bag of snowflakes and two boxes of Christmas lights in the living room for the last two months. I just had to convince DH to haul all the Christmas boxes back out to put them away.

Ok, off to finish my scrap room. See you next year....I hope. If you don't hear from me in three days send in a search and rescue team!

Good News!

I have Great news! Our landlord has decided to take our house off the market, we go today to sign a new lease. Yay, that big ugly for sale sign is coming down.

Now that I am not worried about finding somewhere to live, I can get back to sewing.

I have started my 1930's quilt and hope to have something to show you soon.

I have missed my trusty little sewing machine and can't wait to get reacquainted, but first, I have to clean my house, it is SCARY!

For the three weeks grandpa was in the hospital I was spending most of my time there and then just coming home to sleep. Plus I had people staying with me. And between that and never being here, the house just got wildly out of control. I hope to do some rapid spiffing today, get the mess under control then get back to sewing.

So hang tight, I will have something to show soon.

And now that we actually have time again, maybe we can finally get the outdoor Christmas decor taken down. The red door is definately ready to go. I need to get my green St. Patty's one put up! Speaking of St. Patty's, I need to start figuring out the boys birthdays yikes!

An Open Letter to Mother Nature...

Dear Mother Nature,
The song goes "I'm dreaming of a white CHRISTMAS!" With all due respect, Christmas is over, enough with this winter wonderland crap! I can't take it anymore. I know this is all because I was telling my kids that they had never seen a "Real" winter, that the miniscule bits of snow that fall and melt the same day do not really count, and that when I was a kid we had snowbanks, in the front yard, that were so tall that if you were stupid enough, and had a death wish, you could actually touch the power lines.




And don't get me wrong, I do appreciate the beauty of an all white world. The graceful lines made by the blowing snow. Not to mention the MUCH needed water supply come spring. But there are many downsides to snow as well. Such as my husband sending the boys in at un-happy hours of the morning to tell me I have to get out of bed and go shovel the driveway.

And I was a good wife, I got up immediately and went out to shovel, and I shoveled that whole driveway by myself, while B just sat and watched and made fun of my technique, and no, my wonderful awesome dad, couldn't be bothered to bring his big hulking snow blower over in his 4W drive truck to help. No, I slaved away for hours and hours and didn't get one little bit of help.




Ok, so you know that isn't true, but really, B and I did get a large portion of the driveway shoveled before Dad showed up with the snowblower (The snow was taller than the snowblower in some places). And we are sure glad he did because we were both about dead by that point.




And after they both left for work, I did shovel the entire front walk by myself. Which wasn't such a fun time, but an accomplishment none the less. And I still have the entire sidewalk left to do.




I wish they had closed the schools today, but no, we live in Utah, unless the snow is taller than your house, school WILL be open, don't even ask if it will be closed.

K cried and begged me to let him stay home today. He was a bit traumatized by the bus crash yesterday, and by the news last night that there were schools with students trapped that couldn't go home and they were spending the night. He was terrified that he would have to spend the night at school.

I explained to him that while the two of the three roads to his school are closed right now, it is no longer snowing, and by the time school is out, they will have the roads cleared and he will be able to get home just fine. And if for some reason he can't get home, Uncle J lives by his school and I will send Uncle J in his great big strong truck to get him and he can sleep over at his house. Poor kid, I think this has all upset him more than I thought. The other two thought it would be cool to sleep over at the school *eyeroll*

Anyway, all this to say... I was so excited when I looked out my window the last day or two and could see grass, it gave me hope that spring was right around the corner. That soon I would see little tulip, and crocus, heads pushing through the last remnants of snow but alas, it wasn't meant to be.




So in closing dear Mother Nature, can we please be done now? I am getting shoveler's hump. *Sigh*

The end.

PS, here is a picture of K in front of the snowbank this morning. All of this snow seen here was physically picked up and moved by human beings and piled here. It's too much I tell ya.

My Heart Hurts Today

You know... I LOVE this house.

#1 I love the things I have learned here. Who knew I could grow flowers? Who knew I could grow a garden and most of all, who knew I would actually enjoy planting flowers and vegetables???

#2 Who knew that the lack of a dishwasher really was the reason my kitchen was always messy? Having a dishwasher for the first time in my adult life has changed me. I can never again live my life without a dishwasher, I just can't.

I also love this house for the neighbors. For the first time, I actually have friends in my own neighborhood. I have loved getting to know the women who live around me. We share hobbies and crafts and flower starts and cups of sugar and eggs and milk and freindship. We are there for each other if one of us doesn't make it home in time to meet the bus, we are confident that our children have somewhere to go, that is safe and they will be taken care of until we make it home. I am dearly going to miss these friends I have made. I am not naive enough to believe that our relationship will last beyond us moving away. We will start calling less often, stop meeting at the pool, stop meeting at the gym and before you know it you will think "Oh, I had this really great neighbor once, I wonder what happened to her, I haven't seen her in about ten years."

I love this house because I feel safe here. I can go outside after dark and not be afraid. I have never had that in all of my married life, I have always been afraid outside after dark, even just running out to turn the hose off was a terrifying experience for me. Here I feel safe, not just because it is a newer/nicer neighborhood, but because I know I have neighbors who are watching out for me. I am going to miss that because our next neighborhood won't be like this, we lucked into this house and won't be able to afford a house like this again.

I love this house because it isn't ancient. I am not afraid of the electrical wiring. The first house we lived in after we were married... we lived there for eight years. It was in a SCARY neighborhood but oh I loved that little house as well. But the wiring was very very scary. Everytime I came home (yes, literally every time) I would kind of crane my neck and peek around the corner to see if the house was still there. I always expected that ancient wiring to give out and burn my house down. My mom had other worries, she always worried that we would die from carbon monoxide poisoning due to the equally ancient and very gerry rigged furnace.

There are so many things I am going to miss about this house, but I think more than anything else I am going to miss my neighbors. They are wonderful people and I will miss seeing them every day.

That, and the space. I will miss the space, our next house will most definately be smaller LOL