While The Kids Don’t Know Where I Am…

I’ll quickly post this.

I’ve been busy.

(Aren’t we all?)

Whoever coined the phrase ‘the lazy days of summer’ was a big fat liar.

And was perhaps medicated.

Or murdered in his sleep….

I have a pile of sewing projects to get done

about 75# of pears in my basement ripening

cucumbers ready to be pickled

and

zucchini needing something, anything really.

And let’s face it,

most days I want to remain a melted puddle on the floor that I become once 12pm 3pm hits.

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Here’s the low down on how projects work for me.

Day 1: Find idea.

Some days later: Find materials.

About a week later: Put materials in laundry room.

Stay awake at night for a week: Think about idea.

In sleep deprived state: Find tools.

One week later: Put tools by materials.

Finally: Move everything to ‘project’ area.

After a while: Do project.

Even longer: Paint project.

All in the same day as I’m finally motivated after a month: Paint again.

One more time.

May or may not be driven by desperation: Figure out where to put project.

Bryce reconsiders marriage commitment….

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Two weeks ago I finally finished this project.

I’m going to put this outside my front door.

Once Bryce solves my problem and tells me the best way to hang it.

(Please don’t acknowledge the ‘R’, it’s embarrassed enough as it is….)

From the cut out semicircles, the kids made these un-sailable boats.

Bryce and I had our ten year anniversary.

{You don’t have to tell me, I know he’s awesome…}

My friend watched our kids for like 12 hours on Saturday so we could go out.

We went garage selling/estate selling and found these two things (pre-clean up, thankyouverymuch).

And this cute set of green Pyrex china.

That jar of peaches is one of 60 we canned last week.

While my sister was here.

In 90 degree weather.

In a house without air conditioning.

Now that I think about it,

I haven’t heard from her since….

Katie

P.S. If you have any great songs to recommend, I would love it if you mentioned it in the comments.  For real.  You should do it.

Winner and Projects

mamapineapple is the winner!  I’ll get it to you soon, since you live just around the corner, or maybe not quite that soon, because in fact, you do just live around the corner….

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I stopped by an estate sale one Saturday and picked up this old vanity mirror frame and a couple of other frames.

I painted everything up and put it to work.

I  finally filled out my mock gallery wall.

And if anyone cares, I put away my 4th of July décor.

Yesterday.

Approximately 37 days after I had first put it up.

And because I’m nesting, I’m working on projects completely irrelevant to bringing a new life into the world.

Like repainting my kitchen benches.

Which after much searching, I came to the conclusion that I never took a ‘before’ picture as they were too hideous.

Because I was at Wal-Mart buying back to school supplies I bought some orange-ish/pink chevron fabric.

Which I put on a down pillow I bought in Utah at Ikea…..nine months ago.

It actually looked way more salmon/coral color in the store or maybe that was the insanity talking after toting around four kids in Wal-Mart trying to find pink pearl erasers….

Didn’t think that one through.

Have a good weekend.

Katie

There was this one time…

when I was like ten.

And my parents shipped me off.

To Utah.

Where two of my aunts lived at the time.

Shipped off, my friends.

Because my mom just couldn’t take it anymore.

Looking back, perhaps I may have been a bit obnoxious at times.

I was ten!

Isn’t everyone a bit obnoxious at that age?

Anyway, I recall one event with fondness, my aunt taught me to cross-stitch and make a pillow.

So, I thought I’d teach my girls to embroider {ahem, last year}, that way when they’re shipped off, they won’t be bored.

They finally, finally finished up their names and we made their pillows last week.

I’m also teaching them that matching/coordinating fabric is not the same as having the same color of fabric.

Super hard concept, apparently.

And one other thing you should know about me.

I’m an excellent bumper crop gardener.

I plant at least ten different things each year and I end up only being good at about four of them.

Last year was tomatoes, broccoli and green beans.

This year I had one out of 12 broccoli plants survive, two actual bean plants out of an entire package came up and out of 25 tomato plants only like two have actual tomatoes.

However, I am rocking peppers, beets, lettuce, and potatoes this year.

Whatev.

And I made plum jelly from some free produce.

It is delicious and tastes a lot like grape jelly.

So I thought I’d give one away.

To enter:

Make sure you’re a follower.

Leave a comment telling me what baked potato condiment you couldn’t live without.

For U.S. residents only, sorry (lame postal service).

Enter before Wednesday 9pm.

One winner will be randomly selected.

Looking forward to it!

Katie

Some People….

Put fluorescent industrial lighting in their kitchen.

Some people firmly believe there is never, never a good enough reason to have this type of light in any house.  Ever.

Some people replace that light with a chandelier that was replaced by a ceiling fan because some people chose to buy a house

without air conditioning and move to a state where one weekend it’s 95 degrees in May and furiously put in four ceiling fans and

the next weekend its 61 degrees.

Some people have chandeliers in their kitchen because they bought a house that was built before electricity was invented so

lighting options in much of the household are limited, but they really, really, really love a certain chandelier, so in the kitchen it

goes.

Some people have vain children whom on occasion demand to have their pictures on a blog post.

 

 

Some people have little boys who enjoy wearing pink leotards while playing with trucks.

Some people may or may not be nesting….

Katie