I totally forgot that I was tagged a few days ago, by Jeni
So here are six unimportant things about myself:
1. Right now, I miss Dave. Not a big shocker, but his being away stinks. And he has to go to a funeral this weekend :(
2. This year and last year, we tried to plant our garden where the previous owners had theirs. Thankfully, this year, Dave built another garden in what seems to be a better area (more sun). I decided today that I'm giving up on the first one- it's getting overrun with weeds and doesn't get nearly enough sun and it's driving me nuts.
3. Another thing that is driving me nuts is Sam squeaking at the door asking to be let out. Fool.
4. Oh, one more thing that drives me nuts...when I bring my own bags to the grocery and they say, "Plastic or Paper"? Or, try to stick my stuff in plastic bags anyways without asking.
5. Six things? Really? Facebook is fun
6. Tomorrow is wine night. Woo to the hoo.
And sorry, I'm not tagging anyone else.
Wow, you'd think I haven't really been good at blogging lately or something. I blame it on work and Facebook. Work has been really busy lately and I've taken on a second contracted job of organizing a silent auction for another local non profit, with the task of raising at least $30,000. The auction is in October, which means solicitation letters need to go out by the end of this month. And I've been sewing any other spare minute I have, in part to boost my etsy store, because I have had some ideas I've wanted to try, and to boost my inventory for the massive amount of fall shows I plan on doing. And, Dave is out of town. Until AUGUST. That's is a long time, now isn't it? And he hasn't even been gone for a week yet and I miss him pretty terribly. It can get very quiet here in this house and as much as I love our four cats, one lap for all four of them just isn't enough. And our king sized bed? Feels way way to big without him :(
Him being away though does mean more sucky reality tv watching for me, more time spent on crackbook, and eating whatever I want for dinner, which lately, is a baked potato with broccoli and low fat cheese. And reading magazines that are coming in and doing fun quizzes like the one in Real Simple this month, handwriting analysis. And this one: Discover your personality through color. I am Pop Art and Almond & Honey.
So I am doing two arts and crafts sessions at a somewhat local camp next week and the week after. And surprisingly, being an arts and crafts person myself, am at a slight loss as to what to do. The first session is with 20 kids ages 11-13. The second is 30 kids ages 13-17. Perhaps it's the large numbers of kids, perhaps it's the ages. I have to lead the activity and get all the supplies. Any suggestions?
July 06, 2008
New to the shop, a purse and wallet set. The purse is quilted and has an inside pocket and magnetic clasp.
Something is eating our tree
This is sad because it's arguably the most beautiful tree in our yard. It's a giant maple.
We are sending pictures off to the Extension service. Our first thought was termites, but we can't find any little bugs with wings. I'm pretty sure it's gotten worse in the past two years.
Featuring The Scrap Exchange, Scene
of the Crime Rovers, and the Triangle Sound Painting Orchestra
at the
CCBPlaza, July 18,
2008,
6 - 9pm
The Scrap
Exchange will
produce an outdoor Swap-O-Rama Rama including a giant clothing swap and a DIY
station for altering clothes. We will also provide a hands-on make-n-take with
materials for participants to make birthday hats.
***What to bring: a
bag of unwanted clothing (and then you can take as much or as little other
clothing as you like)
The Scene of
the Crime Rovers,Durham's one and only punk marching band,
will provide live entertainment beginning around 7pm.
At dusk, there
will be live music and a mixed media audio/visual collaboration by the
Triangle Sound Painting Orchestra and Jim Kellough. This performance will
begin as the sun starts to set and will continue until around 9:30.
July 02, 2008
New bags. I've been toying with the shape. I think I like the blue and yellow one best.
All are quilted and fashioned after a famous handbag (ahem) designer. More to come, they are fun!
We are looking forward to this weekend. Parties, sewing, gardening and spending time with my hubby since he'll be out of town for the next three weeks. But we have a trip to MA to look forward to after that and a trip to the beach.
This holiday always reminds me of a place that I used to work at, where big funding reports were always due the Monday after the holiday. I always spent the entire holiday with excel spreadsheets and numbers and analyzing stats. I hated it. But not this year!!! It's just a nice reminder of the good place I'm in now.
Oh, and speaking of bags. have you seen these?
They were in Real Simple last month. I ordered them. They are fantastic, and we love love love them. We were slightly worried though, that our recycling guys would think they they were recyclable too, and take them. But thankfully, the first week we had them, they had the smarts to figure out that we use them instead of our bins. This past week? Not so lucky. Two of them are gone. I'm having a heck of a time getting through to the recycling dept here too. Very very mad. And I miss my bags. And I want them back.
June 26, 2008
New quilt on Etsy
hmmm, that's kind of an over bright photo
June 18, 2008
Some new bags in the shop. This is the second batch of all of these- since these all sold out I decided to make some more
And, after our mailman RAN OVER a package he was supposed to pick up, Sam got into the box
cat can be pretty cute and funny sometimes
June 16, 2008
Happy Birthday, lil' sis.
June 15, 2008
I've been a bad blogger lately. All busy with work and stuff.
The garden is coming along nicely, albeit, slowly.
Hopefully these will turn yellow soon
Our first tomatoes. These are big beef tomatoes.
Peppers are here. I forgot which variety this is.
This is insanely frustrating. You can barely see them, but there are bean plants in there. The entire area in our garden that has beans and peas is covered with this stuff. I think its crab grass. It's completely carpeted the area. UGH.
June 09, 2008
It's too hot to do much outside lately so I've been sewing instead. I haven't been making purses and bags lately, but this fabric just told me that it must be made into a bag. It's a good size, has good pockets inside, and a magnetic clasp to close. More details here.
And I've been making more box pouches. These are so fun!
June 01, 2008
Yesterday Dave and I had our first mojitos of the season. A few weeks ago he bought two mint plants and made a special bed for them. Then last week bought two more, one of which was a white mint that he found in Carrboro. It is awesome. He is going to go back and buy another one. Here's his mint bed, which was made specially for our summer mojitos
While we were sitting in the rocking chairs on the front porch with our drinks, it started to rain, big, fat rain drops, some of which soon turned into hail
Before all of this, I went to a Triangle Street Team Etsy meeting and craft get together. Both were awesome. Karen taught us how to make candles. Here is Joanne (Jammin' Jewels) and Tina (Scatterbox) and they are gluing the wicks into the jars.
And, MimiKiwi, aka Michelle, putting paper over the tops so we could drive our candles home.
And Karen and Tina pouring the melted wax into the jars.
I also got this great new garlic pot from Michelle. We love it, Michelle!!
Our garden is starting to come alive, finally (no thanks to the 2 snakes I've seen or the 3 black widow spiders dave spotted). Here is our front yard bed. There are lillies all around the back of it, which I transplanted from the back yard a few weeks ago. Dave put in the vincas last week, weeded and mulched the whole bed, and put in two other flowers (can't remember what they are). We also have a few rose bushes in there- that all look horrible because they have black spot, another kind of lily and lamb's ear.
This is by our mailbox. I put in primroses last year that came up like gangbusters this year and they are mixed with some achillea (yarrow) and salvia. Dave put in the gerbera daisies, and last year I planted a peony, lilac and hydrangea, all of which are doing well. Will have to move some of them as they get bigger. And our huge lavender plant. Love that thing.
And not so big yet, because I just planted a few days ago, beans, peas and dill. The beans and peas are actually already sprouting.
And carrots, brussell sprouts a few pepper plants and a few tomato plants.
Dave's herb garden. It's hard to tell from the picture, but this is actually quite big.
Here he planted Texas Thyme and lemon thyme (a plant I bought last year- I love lemon scented herbs), sage, parsley, and oregano. Basil to the left and peppers to the right. The bed is bordered by sunflowers and a few zinnias, which reseeded themselves from last year.
and the other end of the bed. Okay, so that sort of little hill with rocks and an avacado plant on top? A giant ant hill is under that. They've made their home on an old tree stump, so rather than wreck their home, we just built around it. Dave put in some extra vincas around it too. And to the left, more sunflowers as a border, and then cleome, more zinnias and cosmos. All of which he'll have to thin out, because right now they are growing on top of one another.
And lastly, my favorite bed right now:
May 30, 2008
Just when we thought we wouldn't have anything more to watch (Somewhat of a spoiler, don't open unless you've seen last night's episode of Lost), two new shows are due out, one of which I'm very much looking forward to. The first is Fringe, which looks, ehh. It is a JJ Abrams show though. The second looks great. A Joss Whedon show, featuring Eliza Dushku, Amy Acker, and my current boy-crush, Tahmoh Penikett. First because I think he's one of the best actors on Battlestar, and second because the dude is HOT. From EW.com, "Dollhouse will touch on all of the things that enrich the soul of the creator of Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Firefly.
Drop-dead-gorgeous female hero? Check. Her search for identity and
purpose while carrying out a specific mission (or, in this case, the
specific mission-of-the-week)? Done. Disparate people banding together
to forge a family out of isolation? In there. Skillfully twisted
dialogue that's both catchy and revealing? Boom. Lots of the kicking of
ass? Youbetcha." So I don't know, Tru Calling didn't grab me, but this new show has nothing but great things being said about it.
May 23, 2008
On one of the walls in our living room, Dave and I are going to hang photos of great sites around Durham. I've been taking photos and collecting them, and now we are at the point where we are deciding which ones to hang. I'm also trying to decide if I want to hang originals or do altered ones like these (picnik is a whole lotta fun)
May 22, 2008
I apologize for the grossness of this post. This is where a tick was on me. It bit me about a week ago. This is what it looks like today. Does anyone know if it's something I should be worried about?
In not so gross news, here's a picture from this morning. Sometimes I wish pictures could convey what it feels like too- breezy and warm and smelling of spring and summer.
Just new to all Etsy stores, a policy section. Very nice.
And you can RSS stores. This feature has been here for awhile, but since I'm new to RSS feeds, it's new to me. Also very cool
Sophie in a basket
sam always wants to be where anyone else, be it human or cat, is
May 14, 2008
Hot off the presses (sewing machine?). I've been inspired by really bright fun quilts lately and so decided to try one. I started with the two different kinds of cat fabric and worked from there. I then determined that orange and green would be the base colors and I'd find patterns to match them. I wanted it to be the size of a lap quilt.
This is what I came up with
Should I bring to the Durham Craft Market to sell? I have listed it on Etsy....
Edited later....yay, love that photoshop!
May 12, 2008
Some very sweet people have been blogging about MegRNC and Batteries lately, here and here.
We had a quiet weekend, I didn't do the craft fair on Sat because I've been sick and wanted to try and get better. Spent some time sewing and gardening (really weeding), and visiting with mom. And watching Survivor.
