Been Busy

So I know I have been missing in action, but..............
I have been having a lot of fun on my days away from work and in spare moments at night.
I promise to come back and write about what I have been doing, but basically i have gone crazy having fun creating, crafting and cooking.

Hope you all have a great day and a very wonderful Love Day tomorrow!!!!
Here's a little snip of what's been going on.

I Sew and He Builds

Ahhhhhh, the weekends are truly the best.  Yesterday was spent cleaning for me and hunting for my hubby.  But today, today was all about planting myself down with Molly and spending the day making a cute little Fall Bunting to hang.  After chook feeding and coffee drinking, Robby and I parted ways and he headed off outside to work on the root cellar he is building for us, and I took a seat with my faithful friend Molly.

All of the lovely colored threads I inherited from my mom.

Lucky, lucky me:)

 



I have never made bunting before, and for those of you who know me or read this blog, you know my experience with Molly (my sewing machine) is very limited.  I am teaching myself to sew in a very trial by error sort of way.  I bought some really cute Fat Squares a few weeks ago at Walmart of all places.  I thought the colors were great for Fall and would make a cute bunting to hang in my kitchen.  I found this tutorial on one of my favorite blogs, The Yvestown Blog, and decided it was time to try it out.





My flags all cut and ready to be sewn together.

 

I saddled up to Molly, took a deep breath and let the festivities begin.  First was sewing the flags together and then turn them right side out and press them.  That went very smoothly and I was feeling pretty good about my progress.

 

Next was sewing them onto the bias tape which I had already folded and pressed to prepare to accept the flags.  This was the trickiest part and if one looks real close to the finished product, one would see quite a few woopsy-daisies, but that's okay.  Just proves it is handmade, right?

After I was done, I took it to the kitchen and strung it in my big kitchen window, it was long enough to drape twice:)  Unfortunately, my flash doesn't work on my camera and the sun was so bright behind the window, so you can't really see the colors, but you get the idea.  I love it and can't wait to find some fabric for Christmas and do some Christmas Bunting.  I know it's not anything fancy, or too difficult, but it makes me feel happy and maybe it will make others who come in my home smile too!!

Robby made a lot of progress on the root cellar too.  The roof is on and all that's left is covering it with dirt, finishing up the front with some more logs and a door, adding some steps down to the cellar and leveling out the ground around it.  I am so proud of Robby for building this for us.  The cedars were all cut on our property so it was a very cheap cellar for us to build.  Lots of manual labor but with materials we already had on hand or on property.  I LOVE that.

Looking down into the cellar early on, from the "roof".

 

Before dirt was packed around the sides and the roof was put on.

 

 

 

 

Black paper put down as a barrier for moisture.  Now to be covered in 18 inches of dirt.

 

 

All of this crafting and building made Robby and I very hungry for something sweet.  So I went to the kitchen to whip up some Pecan Bars for us to have as a treat:)

 

 

 

 

 

Looks like someone couldn't wait for them to cool

and for me to cut them.  Wonder who the could be?

 

Hope your weekend was as good as mine and that the week ahead brings you much to smile about, lots of love and a few moments in each day to be creative and do something that makes you really, really happy. 

XX







Where Has The Time Gone?

 I cannot believe it has been over a month since I have posted.  Where has the time gone?  When I left off last time, I had just been hired for my new job.  Now it is a month later and I am finally back to say something about it.  Crazy!!!!  Or cray, cray as I have learned is the new way of saying crazy.  Hmmmmmm, not sure how I like that one.  Anyway.  I do know the last time I wrote, the Sunflowers I had planted in the middle of my veggie and herb garden had not begun to bloom, nor had they grown to their over 10 feet tall loveliness.  I planted them in memory of my mom.  Her favorite flower was the Sunflower and I couldn't imagine having a garden this year without them in it.  I do believe mom had a bit of her green thumb in our gardens this year.  They have never been as pretty or as prolific as this year.  Our veggie garden has provided us with food all summer long and a pantry full of canned yumminess to last through the winter.  It helped that I was home for most of the season to nurture and talk sweetly to my gardens everyday, but I am sure mama was helping me too:)

As much as I have loved having my garden to pottle around in, I am ready for the season to be done.  The plants are starting to die, the bugs are starting to creep me out, the grasshoppers have feasted on bits and pieces of this and that, my chooks have pecked at the tomatoes they can reach and the fall grass is starting to put up a good fight.  I am ready to settle in and start my Fall/Winter projects.  Learning to crochet and knit well enough to make something, spending quality time with Molly whipping up some granny chic frocks and other goodies, baking breads, making homemade soups and staying warm by the wood stove.  I LOVE fall and winter!!!!!!!!  However, if it hadn't been for such a prosperous summer, our pantry wouldn't be full of tomato juice, tomato sauce, green beans, peppers, potatoes and onions.  It is all worth the work and effort.

So what else have I been doing the past month?  Well, I started my new job which is working with 2 year olds and a local University's child care center.  I am having so much fun!!!  I love the teacher I work with and feel we are a great match.   The kids are amazing, both challenging and rewarding all at the same time.  Each and everyone is very different.  Different home environments make for very different children.  This is something I try very hard to remember when interacting and relating to my new friends.  For 9 hours a day, 5 days a week, I have the responsibility of trying to provide the best and healthiest environment for these kids to be in.  I can't control their home life, but I can do my very best to make their time with me, a wonderful and meaningful time.  When my children were very little, and I would see that I was losing my patience with them.  I would stop and look at their little hands.  Their tiny hands would remind me that they are just little people trying to learn the rules and the ways of a very big world.  For the most part, the things they did "wrong" were not intentional and weren't done with evil intent.  Therefore getting angry with them did not help the situation.  Having the patience to explain to them why certain actions were unacceptable took more time, but in my mind, would result in a better understanding of how not to act.   Making myself have the patience to do that, over and over again, with 10-13 two year olds all day, could have the ability to be a bit trying.  But it is what I have chosen to do.  These kids give unconditional love all day long to those of us who work with them.  We may discipline them and correct them time and time again, but 2 minutes after we have made them sad or cry because we corrected them, they are in our laps asking for a story to be read, wanting to have us play with them on the floor or "time" them as they race around the playground in their new tennis shoes that make them run "real fast."  When I come back from my lunch break, just as they are waking up from their naps, I am greeted by a chorus of "Hi Miss Debbie, I had a really good nap today!!"  They are filled with sweetness and joy and I feel it is my job to make sure they stay that way.  It is also my job to help them learn how to get along with others, share their toys, use kind words when they get angry, be respectful of others and basically just learn to be a part of society.  Their little minds are like sponges and they really do learn so fast.  They are already learning Spanish and Sign Language.  I am certain I did not know either of those when I was 2.  This has been a great fit for me so far.  The days go by so fast, and before I know it, the weekend is here again. 

My boys head back to school tomorrow.  This year I will  have a senior and a sophomore in high school and a sophomore in college.  My oldest is living at home with Robby and I trying to figure out where his life is going to take him.  We are trying to gently make him realize his life will take him where ever he sets his sights.  I feel that good things are on the edge of happening for him and am hoping and praying for this to be true.  It is so hard as a parent to see a child not being able to move forward, either because of lack of desire or lack of belief that they can.  I am not quite sure which is the cause right now, but am trying very hard to help beat whichever the cause may be.  It is such a contrast working with two year olds and their biggest worry may be that they forgot to bring something for Show & Tell or that they don't want to take a nap and then having my sons being the ages that they are and all the concerns and worries that come with that. 

So that has pretty much been my life over the past month.  Busy but wonderful.  My baby chooks are almost as big as their mamas and their daddy.  My lovely Penny has decided to sit on 2 eggs, so it looks as if we will have 2 more babies in another week and a half or so.  It will be fun to watch her be a mama to 2 babies since I was the mama to the last 16.  I leave you with a few pictures that kind of sum up the past month.  I promise not to be gone so long again.  I have my new schedule down pretty good now and have adjusted to my new routine.  Have a great week everyone:)









A weekend with Molly and Vivian

Dottie Angel and Ted and Agnes are two of my favorite blogs.  I long to have a friendship like Tif and Rachelle have.  I don't want to have to live so far away from that friend, but to have someone to having sewing projects with, who is just as quirky and off center as me, would be great.  We could teach each other patterns for fun little dresses and one of a kind outfits that maybe most people wouldn't really consider ever wearing.  I love reading Tif and Rachelle's blogs and see what crazy antics they are coming up with.  Currently they are working on a book together that has all kinds of wonderful Granny Chic-ness in it.  I cannot wait to get my hands on that book!!!!  I have Tif's book which I blogged about here.

Well, I may not have a friend who likes sewing and crafting, but I do have a niece who has a new found love for sewing.  Sewing anything.  And she and I have had a perfectly peachy weekend of sewing.  We haven't been together, she is about 3 hours away, but we have text on the phone all weekend our projects, accomplishments, failures and goals.  Sending each other pictures of finished projects and screw ups (my pictures being the screw ups, her's being the accomplishments).  When Kristina was here last weekend, we did some crafty loveliness together and I showed her my Dottie Angel book.  I also explained to her how much Dottie Angel loves her sewing machine, so much so that she even has a name for her, Miss Ethel.  Kristina thought that was just as precious as I did, and so, we both decided after spending a little more time with our dear machines, we would name our lovely sewing machines too.  Today, Kristina unveiled to me the name of her machine, Vivian.  It just so happens this is the same name as her amazing mom.  Come to find out, that is pretty much the reason she picked that name.  As she explained to me, her sewing machine is "feisty, yet loving and full of creation."  Well, I would never describe Viv as feisty, but I'm not her daughter, so that makes a difference, but loving and full of creation certainly describes my dear sister-in-law to a T.  So without further ado, may I present to you, Vivian.

My dear sewing machine is called Molly.  As I explained to Kristina, when I was pregnant with my children, I always said that if I had a daughter her name would be Molly.  Well 4 boys later, I still don't have a daughter, but I do have a sewing machine, and so she is Molly.  She is the most girly thing I own and so I thought it was fitting she would get my non-existent daughter's name, hahahaha.

This weekend, Kristina was texting me pictures of projects she was working on.  She just finds these little tutorials and away she goes.  She and Vivian just produce all kinds of lovely things.  Now understand, both Kristina and I are very new to sewing, me more new than she, so something as simple as a fabric bookmark make us pretty darn excited.  Today, we both attempted eye glass cases.  What an epic fail it was for me, and she had a bit of difficulty too with her first one, but she made a second one and it turned out just great.  We got this idea from this website.  I know it will look crazy simple to you seamstresses out there, but for Beanie and I, especially me, it was a challenge.  But, I was real proud of myself and stuck with it to the end and learned what to do different next time not to make it so tough on me.  So here is my work in progress on Molly.  Notice how I have the laptop right on my sewing table so I can follow the tutorial step by step.  Pretty pathetic huh?

So, I don't know exactly how this happened, but Kristina started her eye glass case a good hour of so after me, and finished a good hour or so before me.  What the heck?  Well, I guess it could be because I got side tracked and decided to make some Peach Hand Pies while in the middle of sewing, so I had to stop and go to the kitchen several times.  They turned out really good along with the two mixed berry and peach puff pastries I made with some left over puff pastry dough.

Now back to the sewing, here is how Kristina's turned out:

See how Kristina's has that nice contrasting trim up top, I could not get mine sewed correctly so there is no nice contrasting trim on mine.  And here is mine:

Oh well, my glasses do fit into it and until it falls apart, it will serve it's purpose just fine.  I went a little too heavy on the batting, which is why I think I had so much trouble sewing the top, but I know for certain my glasses will be comfy and safe in this ultra cushioned glass case:)

It was a lot of fun sewing a little then texting Kristina to ask her how she managed her glass case so easily.  It was almost as if we were sewing together again like last weekend.  It is so much fun having someone else who is just learning to sew and for the most part is teaching their self.  We want so BADLY to just be able to sew a piece of clothing, but I know for myself, I am a LONG way from doing that.  But in the mean time, I am having a wonderful time with Molly, and Beanie is loving her Vivian.  I now have a pillow cover, an eyeglass case and a fabric book marker under my belt.  WOOOO HOOOO, I am GOOD!!!!!!!  Hey, we all have to start somewhere right?  If any of you know of any great sewing blogs that have good tutorials for newbies, like me, please send me the links!!!

Oh and before I sign off for the night, I have some exciting news to share with those of you who don't follow me on Facebook.  I have a new job!!!!!  I applied for a teacher's assistant position at a daycare at one of our nearby Universities.  It is for the 2 year old classroom and as of this past Friday, I am now an employee of Shenandoah University and will get to spend 5 days a week with energetic 2 year olds who are certain to melt my heart.  I applied for this job over a month ago and  had just about given up hope when they emailed me on Wednesday and wanted me to come in for an interview.  Once all the paper work is done, I will be starting later in the week.  I am so looking forward to this new chapter in my life.  I will miss not being home all day with the gardens and the chickies, but I knew this day would come and I am happy about it.  I'll let you know how it goes.

Have a great week everyone and I hope you all find a little time to be creative and do what you LOVE!!!!!

XXOO

Debbie