Housekeeping

Spencer has been a bear this week.  I’ll spare you the details but will just say I wish he was hibernating this winter.

The girls started swim lessons, and Meg refused to accept the fact that her class was over and grumpily sat on the side of the pool till she was bodily removed.

Bryce and I are putting down dirt, fertilizer, seed, and wood shavings on our side yard this weekend.  Which is over 6,000 sq. feet.  Roughly the size of a small park.

I had Reese’s Puffs for breakfast so am optimistic about how my day will go.

I took a bee keeping class Tuesday night.

Elizabeth and Adeline worked for months taking care of the chickens so they could have the egg money which they saved and each bought a bunny with.

And with the incessant want to feed their bunnies carrots, I’ve since started charging Elizabeth and Adeline $.10 a carrot.  It’s not cruel, just good business practice.

The house next door where the previous resident was evicted has since been purchased and is having a complete overhaul.

They are taking down the 10ft high wall of blackberry bushes that separate our yards and in the process found a massive nest of rats.

Pray for me, people.

I am planning my garden and am anxious for the middle of March so I can plant potatoes, peas, lettuce and broccoli.

My crocuses have popped up.

I gave the guy a talking to who assumed he could use my driveway as a parking spot with out my permission. 

Rude. 

Him, not me.

I’ve also gotten half way done on a lot of unimportant projects.

We bought shelves for our basement which is so unbelievably organized which no one will ever see because it’s still a creepy basement in a 100 year old house.

And one more detail about the stencil, I made the edges narrow enough that I didn’t have to overlap it to do the next section, which saved a lot of time not having to move around a lot and wait for areas to dry.

It’s also completely crooked.

Hope you’re having a good week and you’re all welcome to come play at our park when it’s all done.

Katie

The Stenciled Wall

I’ve been wanting to do something to this wall for a while.

My first idea was stripes.

But then I remembered I love stencils.

Ever since the 8th grade.

I wanted to do the green ivy stencil as a border in my kitchen when I got older.

It was the 90s.

In 8th grade I was also convinced that I wouldn’t get married till I was 30 and that I was bound to meet that special someone at a pet store where we had both coincidentally taken our dogs to buy some food.

What?

I also had a crush on Boyd Law in 8th grade.

We should just be thankful I was wrong about all those great ideas.

 

I really like this for this type of wall.  It’s really graphic so I don’t have to do a ton to the space, which I’ve always struggled with decorating but small enough area it didn’t take ages to do.

The Details:

I made my own stencil.

I had a plastic template sheet on hand.

I Googled quilting designs and found one I liked.

Printed it out.

Traced it on the plastic sheet.

Then used an x-acto knife to cut it out. (I put it on my cutting mat.)

I bought paint in a color two shades darker than my wall and in a different finish. 

My wall is semi-gloss and the stencil is matte.

This wall took about two hours.

Last night.

Not including an intermission of Project Runway.

And a brief pause when Meg fell out of her bed.

Some tips:

Try your template out on a large piece of paper.

This is a really good idea.  I was originally going to do my stencil square but decided to do it on the diagonal after trying it out.

Buy good painters tape to hold your stencil in place.

I used a small foam roller.

Don’t put a ton of paint on it.  It will drip and make the edges of the stencil rough.

 

Hope you have fun plans for the weekend,

Katie

Happy Love Day!

I hope you got to eat chocolate for breakfast!

Katie

I Wish:

It wasn’t so cold….or that I was warmer.

I didn’t have two meals worth of dishes in my sink because I can’t seem to coordinate the dishwasher effectively.

Spencer wasn’t a bear when he woke up in the morning.

Chickens weren’t so messy.

Or kids cried so much.

The flowers Bryce bought me two weeks ago weren’t dying.

The gate that I ‘found’ in my neighbor’s yard looked better in front of my fireplace.

I didn’t have to go to the dentist this morning.

I was a more in tune parent and realized that taking the kids down the biggest hill first when we went sledding on Saturday wasn’t a great idea and that I had thought about that before Adeline cried for 45min about it.

Next week wasn’t the last episode of Downton Abbey.

I had more ambition and wasn’t so lazy.

I didn’t become annoyed at my children

or feel claustrophobic when all of them are wanting to help make dessert.

I had made crinkle lemon cookies well before last Thursday.  So good.

I didn’t have to cover for Meg after she mentioned someone was ‘big’ in the aisle at the grocery store.

Spencer didn’t cry for the thirty minutes it takes me to bag two weeks of groceries for a family of six and Adeline and Meg didn’t run around like a bunch of banshees all at the same time.

I didn’t feel so guilty for taking naps.

It wasn’t laundry day.

What do you wish?

Katie

Apparently cold February weather makes for a depressing post….

An Executive Decision

I have decided to award the quilt to:

Elizabeth & Matthew

who said:

On a side note, this quilt instantly made me think of my cousin's family. My cousin's little boy passed away almost a year ago just before his second birthday. Pinwheels is what they/we remember him by. Do I get more entries for having a touching story and a family that would LOVE to cuddle up in your blanket and think of sweet little Lincoln???? If you're up for a cry, you can read the blog dedicated to him http://thelinktolinc.blogspot.com

I’m sure she promises to make sure this family receives the quilt.

Hope the rest of you don’t mind.

But don’t think every sob story is going to get you something….=)

To make it fair, I’ll host another giveaway sometime this month, a collection of fabric fat quarters, and swear to keep it random….

Thanks for all who entered.

Elizabeth, email me the preferred address so I can get it in the mail:

katiebolander@hotmail.com

Also, Christian Bale is my celebrity crush.  It’s a good thing no one picked him, they would have been automatically disqualified.

One thing more Benedict Cumberbatch (had to google it) plays Sherlock Holmes on the PBS series which is awesome.

Katie