wonderment

Thankful

kelly — Thu, 02 Sep 2010 18:42:56 +0000

Today I’m thankful for May 1st, 2012.

Why?

That will be my last day of school.

I know. Epic.

OK, to be fair, it may not be exactly May 1st. The Spring semester ends on the 1st, but I will be doing my student teaching that semester (as well as taking my methods course), and I don’t know when that would end (presumably by the end of the semester, but who knows).

It’s OK. You can be excited. Jump up and down a little if you’d like.

May 2012 is actually when both and I will be graduating (she from her second round of nursing school). It was deemed necessary to throw a huge party in celebration, and our house was deemed the appropriate locale. No date picked, or time, but you could start planning what food you’d like to bring to the potluck.

So I’ve added a little countdown timer (over there —>) to try to be more excited, since 2012 seems like a really long ways off. And, honestly, today’s info, 1 year 7 months 29 days, is not exactly thrilling. But, it is a light at the end of what has been a really long tunnel. (I started Fall 2006, and already had my Bachelor’s degree. How is that? As a small consolation, I’ve earned a second Bachelor’s degree. Woo-hoo. And no, I won’t actually have a Master’s degree when I’m done. Seriously. But I will have lots of graduate credits to transfer to a Master’s program at some other school, if I so choose.) At some point, I’ll update the date when I really and truly know what it is, but for now, May 1 will suffice.

Also lovely? Now when people ask me how much longer I have, there’s an answer! For real! This would come in especially handy if I was planning on seeing any extended family anytime soon.

As for the details, I’ve got two classes this semester, two in the spring (plus practicum), the summer OFF, two in the fall (also with practicum, I think), and the one in the spring along with Student Teaching. I’m really excited about that summer off (taking classes then didn’t change my graduation date at all, so why bother). I don’t know if you know this, but houses are high-maintenance. At least, ours is. Maintenance with love, though. (It’s just hard to keep up on all of it at the same time.) I don’t actually have a copy of the plan, because my advisor was going to transfer it to another form, and then submit it for someone’s signature, and then his own signature, and then my signature, and then it’s official, like a contract to graduation.

But in the meantime, let’s celebrate May 1.

Very, very thankfully.

Switching it up

kelly — Wed, 01 Sep 2010 15:03:49 +0000

How about a linkfest where you supply all the links, instead of me?

See, here’s the thing: certain parts of our garden have been very productive. Like the cucumber plant.

Washed and ready, waiting around with the other produce (farmer's market patty pans and potatoes, grocery store onion and sweet potato). The other home-grown produce is sitting in the background - our patty pans are just too big for the basket (they might squish the others!), and I don't want the tomato to overripen, or affect the other veggies somehow. As a bonus note, we used one patty pan (a small yellow one) already, and I actually cut up (blegh!) and put one of the tomatoes in a recipe for dinner.

And, well, I need something to do with all those cucumbers.

We used one already, gave one away, and there’s one sitting in the fridge (waiting to be used for – who knows what, but it’s ready!).

Lovely shade of green, don't you think?

I have a few recipes favorited in my iPhone apps, but I’m looking for more options.

What would you make with them? They’re not pickling cucumbers, at least not in the traditional sense. They’re rather large, and perfect in every way. (Really, no exterior blemishes, even the ones that were found on the ground.)

See? Perfect!

So… comment away! What would you make?

Eat me!

Two Pictures for Tuesday

kelly — Tue, 31 Aug 2010 13:52:13 +0000

Just two pictures to share with you today. Not much to say. This first one is primarily for , who helped me out this weekend picking out fabric and doing a lot of stapling.

Two chairs already covered in the floral. The blue one is what I found last night to coordinate for the other two chairs, unless someone tells me it's a horrible idea. Note: the selection of home dec fabrics (the 45" wide ones) at JoAnn keeps getting smaller, and there weren't many options. I miss JCarolineCreative.

And, a final sneak peak of my DQS9. It’s going off in the mail today, and when I know it’s been received, I’ll post pictures of the completed project.

Ooh, pretty!

Happy Tuesday!

Boo for late sunrise times

kelly — Mon, 30 Aug 2010 15:44:34 +0000

It’s getting harder to take nice pictures again. It’s only daylight until 7:30-ish (at least, daylight that counts for photo-taking), and no longer light enough in the morning before I leave. At least it’s not December (I really shouldn’t complain about 12 hours of daylight). So, while I’d like to bring you pretty pictures, I am instead bringing you mediocre pictures. My apologies. Also, I was crunched for time, so I didn’t do any artful arranging or anything. Really not showcasing my best stuff here. But, I think they show off Sunday’s activities well.

After brunch with and Sunday morning, came over to my house to help me recover the dining room chairs. There was much discussion about which fabric(s) was/were appropriate. We settled on two for the chairs (2 chairs of each, since I mostly had 1/2 yard pieces, not nearly enough to do 4 chairs), and one for the piano bench (yes, that would be the second time in a year that it’s been recovered). We took the fabric to the front lawn to Scotchguard it (if you’d seen the old dining chairs, you’d know how crucial that is – however, since I don’t want you to lose your appetite, there will be no pictures shared of them). While that dried, we disassembled the chairs, pulled out a whole bunch of staples, and got the old covers off. We did a spectacular job recovering the first two chairs (even if we did have to completely re-do the first one – we learned a lot through that trial run), and then faced two problems. One, the fabric we had selected for the other two wasn’t actually wide enough to use, and two, we were running out of staples.

In the end, it was determined that I didn’t own a second coordinating bit of fabric and would have to purchase some (we tried, we really did! I really wanted to use up some of my existing stash, which we did, just not in the quantity I would have liked). So, at this moment there are only two partially finished chairs. (I say “partial” because the chairs are a bit wobbly and we need to re-glue some joints, and then screw the seats back in – this time with new, non-rusty screws, and four in each chair, notable only because several had gone missing since they’d been recovered 6-ish years ago.)

I didn't want Prince Charming or myself to accidentally sit on the unasembled chair, so I did this. Matea didn't seem to mind at all, and has adopted this one.

We moved on to the piano bench, which needed to be recovered for several reasons. One, when we did it last we forgot to leave uncovered the spot where the cushion attaches to the bench. Two, my original fabric choice, a rusty-pinky faux suede, was just wrong. There were always butt-prints or hand prints on it, cat hair stuck to it, and it was the wrong color (though it worked with the original color scheme for the room, which has now been abandoned). We settled on a print that manages to have the colors I wanted to include (notably blue) as well as some red to tie the CL chair into the room.

Doesn't it work well with the wood? *A* really liked how it turned out, and I do too.

Before she left, I wanted to show our garden progress. While I was showing off the pumpkin, as well as the two large patty pans I’d seen that morning, she found another (smaller) patty pan, as well as some ripe tomatoes!

For scale, the yellow blob in the basket is a regular-sized patty pan. You've got to watch these carefully - I read yesterday that they can grow to full size (2-4") in 4 days. There's several that I'll need to check on this week. (Also in that basket - 7 cucumbers, just part of the harvest from the cucumber plant!)

They might not be as tender as the small ones, but they're still pretty, and I bet they still taste OK.

This tomato needed to ripen a bit more, so it's sitting in the sun. I accidentally cut off the green ones with a much riper one, so I'm hoping some of the red will rub off on them.

My professor had finally emailed out my missing syllabus, so I spent some time organizing the semester, and then quilted up my DQS9 piece. It turned out well (but I didn’t take a picture of it, so you’ll have to wait). I also sewed on the binding (at least the machine half). Then and I went to Target and Home Depot, and found ourselves at home, at 7 pm, without having started dinner yet. Oops. While the veggies were roasting, I multi-tasked.

Perhaps not the best-looking corner, but it's the one that's in-progress. It looks so cute!

I have to apologize – I had two other very cute pictures that I took of this instead, but they both turned out blurry. Apparently taking photographs in the basement at 6:45 am isn’t the ideal environment for quality pictures.

After dinner, I did some homework, managing to finish just in time to do the grocery shopping and stitch up another side of the quilt.

Saturday, by the way, was spent at the State Fair. We didn’t bring the camera, so there’s not much to share there, and since I don’t get all googly-eyed at the thought of food on a stick, I won’t bore you. I did get a nice tan (for me), and the water ride at the end of the afternoon felt fabulous after all the hot stickiness that is the Fair. Now I’m good for another year or three (Fair-going-wise, that is).

I’m hoping to get the quilt in the mail tomorrow (Wednesday is the deadline), so I should have another picture or two to share (but not a full reveal until after it’s been received).

Friday Fill-Ins

kelly — Fri, 27 Aug 2010 18:40:59 +0000

You do your thing; I do mine and sometimes we’ll end up doing stuff together that we both enjoy.
The tightness factor of Gap jeans is what’s been on my mind on and off all day.
Remember when you could eat whatever you wanted and stay a size 2? Good times.
Fabric, chocolate, and school supplies are three of my favorite obsessions
During the last year we did a whole lot of work on our house.
Seeing one of our cats happy puts a smile on my face.
And as for the weekend, tonight I’m looking forward to making significant progress on DQS9, tomorrow my plans include going to the state fair and Sunday, I want to be able to plan out this semester (homework-wise)! I had hoped to do this last bit tonight, but I still have not received a copy of the syllabus, despite the professor’s promise to mail it. Grr. Hope we don’t have homework.

via Friday Fill-Ins

Maybe I am Superwoman

kelly — Fri, 27 Aug 2010 14:23:21 +0000

Just kidding. But I have impressed myself with my productivity (and relative awesomeness) this week. (Also, the book I’m reading just got awesome. And I’ve been waking up a lot in the middle of the night. All this combined means that I’m tired. But, it’s a good tired. At least, that’s what I’m telling myself.)

Last night I had class, and since it was the first night, we got out early (8-ish instead of 9). When I got home, I put myself to work on the DQS9.

The aftermath

Sneak peak

Progress!

Design-wise, I’m planning on sashing the blocks with white, and then probably putting a print border around the whole thing (though I’m not decided on that – we’ll see how it looks after the sashing). I want to try to make a wonky patchwork star for the top corner (I wasn’t feeling the embroidery that I’d originally had there) on a white background, and a surprise embroidery piece for the bottom corner, also on white. Question for those two – should the piece be framed in a print, like the others, or should it be white to the edges? Thoughts? I have picked out a plaid print for the background, and red mini polka-dots for the binding.

Remember earlier in the week when I organized my sewing projects? Here’s the results of the “fall” sort.

Left to right: two skirts, two dresses, one blouse (started) and three knit shirts.

Eight things. That’s at least conceivable. The winter bag has more than this, and then spring and summer are both quite full. The three knit shirts should take only an hour or two each. The two skirts should take a weekend each, and the dresses, well, my success in the dress department has been varied, so those will probably take longer. The pink blouse has been started – the back is done, and the two front pieces were done. But, they had me put interfacing and a lining on the front panels of the front, and the fabric itself is pretty stiff/heavy, and that just was not working for me. I’ve ripped out the interfacing (except for what remains in the stitches – I’m prepared to leave that there), and now I need to stitch the facing (raw edges) under again. Then, I think, it’s sleeves, and collar. Buttons maybe? I’m not sure. I picked the version without a button placket, since at the time I didn’t have a machine that did button holes well. So, I’m not sure how the closure goes.

So, there you have it! The quilt needs to be done by Monday (to get in the mail by Wednesday), and I think I’m on track for that. No plans for this evening, so hopefully I can get the whole top pieced (assuming I complete those two corner bits). I might work on some other piecing too (for guest bedroom pillows), but only after I get as much done as I can on the quilt. The deadline for the pillows is Thursday/Friday, since we have guests for that weekend. Then, and only then, can I work on the pretty clothing projects for me. Keeping in mind, all the time, that homework reigns supreme, and I require more than 6 hours of sleep each night (8 would be preferred, but I’m delusional if I think that’s going to happen).

Thankful

kelly — Thu, 26 Aug 2010 15:02:43 +0000

Today, I’m thankful at how productive I’ve managed to be lately. Last night, among other things…

… we finally quit the gym. 15 months of not using it seemed to warrant that. OK, I have gone once since we moved, and went a few times. Definitely not often enough.

… we refilled the bird feeder, though “fill” is a misnomer, since we only had enough seed left to fill the bottom third.

… I mowed the lawn (while making dinner – a feat I’m sure you’re jealous of). Actually, I made dinner before mowing the lawn, put it in the oven to bake, and while I was out, made sure everything was OK and cooked up noodles to go with. I’m not superwoman.

… I did more poly-ing.

… I partially disassembled the pretty blue floral disaster of a dress, wrote myself a note of what was wrong, and packed it all up for next year. The time for sundresses is over.

… I went through my clothing projects (pattern matched up with fabric), divided them out by season, and bagged up what wasn’t fall. The fall ones went on the shelf where some of them had been. There’s a lot more space in there now, and it actually seems… manageable.

… The above meant that part of my cutting table was now clear, so I cut out the embroidery pieces according to the markings I’d made on Monday. Then I cut out the pieces to make the sashiko panels for the guest bedroom pillows.

… Stayed up way too late reading. Stuff was happening! I couldn’t just leave it hanging!

… Accidentally slept in an extra 15 minutes today. Oops! Still, I’m thankful for that extra bit of sleep.

What are you thankful for? Have you been productive like me (what have you done?) or have you taken time to relax? Are things starting to get busy, or winding down?

Back to Business as Usual

kelly — Wed, 25 Aug 2010 17:40:05 +0000

After some emails were exchanged (and some reminder emails sent) and an appointment was set with my advisor, I actually managed to register for classes (by myself!) yesterday. About 5 hours before my first class was set to start. So, as of 6pm last night, I again am living in the land of homework. I promptly paid my tuition and bought books, which, thanks to Amazon Prime for Students, will arrive on Thursday, before my other class.

For those not paying attention, that means I have class on Tuesday and Thursday nights this semester, from 6-9. Both are graduate level, 3 credits each, which puts me at 3/4 time (8 graduate credits is considered full time) this semester. I should be much happier than the 8 credit semester (last spring), or the proposed 10 credit semester (that I was supposed to have this semester and next). That’s not to say I won’t have homework or be busy, just that… school won’t be completely all-consuming. I should have time to rake the lawn (is it almost time for that? no, that can’t be right), watch 30 Rock, and turn my sewing machine on a few times. And apple picking. Can’t forget the apple picking.

I am a list girl, so today I am making lists. Lists make me feel in control, and like the tasks are manageable. So far, I have an “office” one (meaning my craft room, not my 9-5), a school one, a home one (as in the house), and a Today one. I don’t have any syllabi yet (last night’s class was emailed out and thus not distributed on paper, and I’m still waiting to get my email copy), so the scheduling of homework with colorful Post-Its can’t happen yet. Ooh, fun project for Friday night! (What, isn’t that how you spend your Friday nights?) Don’t knock it – I have a 4.0 GPA (3.96 undergrad) proving my system works… for me.

For now, my lists will (hopefully) help me prioritize what needs to get done this week. If I don’t stay on the ball, I may have to bow out of Saturday’s State Fair trip (with and & stepfamily). I have some things with actual hard deadlines that need to get accomplished (unlike, say, “mow the lawn,” which is overdue but no one’s really going to do anything about it if I don’t, other than perhaps frown shamefully while driving by), and those definitely take priority over going to the State Fair, an activity that I don’t really enjoy anyway.

Now… back to the lists.

In which I actually deliver on my promises

kelly — Tue, 24 Aug 2010 19:36:08 +0000

Yes, that’s right, I actually remembered to take pictures. Amazing! So, now I can update you on the crazy weekend we had.

I finished putting poly on the trim for Prince Charming's office. And then, because we're crazy like that, we took down the stair railing, sanded it back to bare wood, re-stained it and are in the process of polying it too (it's the roundish thing next to the white thing - very technical, i know). I've got three coats of poly on it right now, and I'd like to get up to at least 5. Railings get awfully dirty, and quite abused.

We did some work on the irrigation system. I know, it doesn't look like much, but here's the deal: there used to be a big trench there, and we spent part of Saturday burying the pipe we'd laid / re-filling it with all the dirt we'd removed. I've been saving irrigation system pics for another post, but since this was such yucky work (it was hot and sunny), I thought I'd include it here.

While we’re on the sticky and gross idea… we spent two hours on Sunday morning cleaning the garage. I didn’t take a picture for you, because garage pictures are never pretty (and I forgot to take one), but it was a major effort. It is now conceivable that I could get my car inside by snowfall (which, of course, will involve more construction, or rather deconstruction – thinning down the ramp so my slightly wider Rav4 fits).

We worked on the spare bedroom too. If you need a refresher, it’s a dark, odd room where we’ve been keeping lots of boxes and random things (because the room is unused). Also, the server rack takes up a large corner of the room. It used to have my old twin bed in it, but in the great bed switch-up this month, it now contains a queen! And I spent part of my vacation organizing the linen closet, so now the room is all set up.

This looks more like a place you'd like to stay, right? White bedding, down comforter and pillows (I'm working on pillow covers for those two square ones), art on the wall...

We had a spare side table after the bed switch-up too, so it found a new home here. The chair came from the living room (actually, the chair came with the house).

As a side note…

Prince Charming loves having a chair by the front door, where the earlier one used to be. So, he found this replacement on CL. Cute, no? It's actually a designer chair that retails for over $1,000. Crazy, right? That red boucle on the seat just has to go, though.

Back to the decorating… our next stop was making the downstairs hallway also look a bit more lived in (instead of just storage area for ongoing projects, like the trim at the top). Pardon the picture quality – it’s pretty dark down there, and still a bit messy, and even with some artful cropping and adjusting the exposure, I could only do so much.

Right outside the guest bedroom

I asked if it would be OK if I decorated the hallway with all of my coffee / French stuff. He said that was fine, and I went to unpack several boxes of “decorations” that we haven’t yet used. I sure came up with a lot (four pieces didn’t make it onto the walls, and there’s probably more I’m not remembering).

The hallway (door in the middle is the bathroom, door at the end is the spare bedroom).

I had to do a little collage for these, because the bathroom is notoriously hard to photograph (exhibit 1, exhibit 2). Also, it’s kind of ugly. The sink area is painted bright blue, but the rest is white (and cracked and peeling). There are all these weird corners… but I digress. I wanted to make it look more like we actually used the bathroom on a regular basis.

Slight improvement. Great artwork for a bathroom, right? The calla lilies used to be above our dining table in the old house, and were a gift. I love them, but they need to be re-matted before we could use them anywhere else in the house. This works just fine.

After hanging the pictures and getting a bunch of boxes into storage (and out of the spare bedroom), we tackled the “library.”

This may not look like much, but trust me, it's a huge improvement.

We got rid of 7 grocery bags of books – sold them to Half Price Books, so someone else can use them.

Formerly, there were two overflowing boxes under the shelves of my books labeled "to read," and we found two more boxes in the spare bedroom. We had to get rid of some to fit everything in, obviously, but it was needed. This is about all the work we're going to do on the library until the family room remodel this winter, when these bookshelves will get replaced with something that is not dirty, dusty, crappy, raw plywood.

And, because that wasn’t enough, we started on a new project. Just some hints for you, though I’m sure you can figure it out. Full reveal… next Monday perhaps?

Well, hello!

Lovely lines.

And lastly, an update on the garden (I sacrificed my body to get you these pictures – the mosquitoes are out like crazy in the mornings, since the sprinkler runs at 6).

Squash! And a pumpkin (also, technically squash)! How cool is that? (Disclosure: these are the only two fruits from the huge squash plant monstrosity that we have going on.)

Whew! Now you know that I wasn’t joking when I said our weekend was crazy busy, and that we did a lot of work. The pace has to slow down soon, because classes are starting and I won’t have time for frivolous things like making our house look presentable to non-family members. Seriously, vacuuming is a luxury during the semester.

Sharing some Etsy love

kelly — Tue, 24 Aug 2010 17:22:32 +0000

Do you want to know how much I love my new Rav4? I had a custom keychain made, because the red plastic thingy they gave me at the dealership was not worthy.

It’s true.

Now this is worthy of my new car.

I found SewSweetStitches via Flickr, where she shares some beautiful pieces in one of the embroidery groups. It took me a while to figure out exactly what colors I wanted, but once I did, she made it up for me pronto. I was very impressed.

And then it arrived at my house, quite quickly as well.

Isn't it lovely?

Anyway, you should go visit her shop. Keychains aren’t really her thing, but she is more than willing to do custom work (since barrettes and iPod cozies aren’t really my thing).

Beautiful stitching!