I need a life

4 in the afternoon and here I still sit on the couch. Not terrible, considering the fact that I only got up a few hours ago. But still, this loneliness makes me the laziest person on earth. 

Why is VH1 airing "Cutest Babies" from November 2006? Brangelina has already adopted one and given birth to two more babies since then. It's so irrelevant. They didn't even have pictures of Jaden James. Besides, I think all those babies are so much cuter now that they are toddlers. We need an updated show, people!

Yesterday I came home with two placemats and one cabinet from Goodwill, but no other fabric, sadly. It's alright though. The placemats are from Target and I got them both for $1. I turned it into a sewing machine caddy/thread catcher/scissor holder thing. It's super cute, pictures to come, I swear. The cabinet I am painting and turning into a new sewing machine table. Because I'm currently using Curt's Peavey speaker and as cute as that may be, it's just not cutting it. 

Now I'm going to the library to get some knitting and sewing book as well as some movies to keep me company for the next four days. As long as I stay busy, I am okay. Oh, I'm also going to stop at a gift shop here in town and look at the Vera Bradley stuff. My sister asked for a replica, but I am stumped as to how to put it together, so I have to go look at their construction. Shh, don't tell Vera. Once I figure that out, I'm sure that's how I'll spend my night. 

And because I hate posting without pictures... At least I have one happy puppy to keep me company!

Scary Sunday

So apparently Lifetime didn't get the message that it's not Halloween anytime soon, because they are playing a day's worth of scary movies. Well, as scary as Lifetime can air on TV I guess. The lineup includes "Blessed" (2004) - 'A woman unknowingly becomes pregnant with satan's spawn after she and her husband visit a fertility clinic.' Seriously?! I only saw the last couple minutes of that, but man, does that sound terrible! Next was "Haunting Sarah" about adult twin sisters who have kids that are BBFs until one dies and possesses the other. Yeah, it was pretty hokey. Now "Carrie" is on, which I have started numerous times but never followed through. And I'm not going to today, either. 

I have big plans for today:

1. Wash the dishes that have been sitting there for too long waiting for me to wash them.

2. Go to Goodwill and see if I can find a sheet with a cute pattern to make this shirt. I really love this one specifically, the print is so cute and I love the extra long belt to go around a few times. 

3. If #2 proves successful, make the shirt. If not, maybe stop at Joann's on the way home and see if they have anything cute I could make it out of. I'm looking for a cute bright floral print or something, vintage inspired perhaps. And lightweight so it makes a nice summer shirt. It's so darn hot here, I just need something loose to lounge around in. Maybe a sun dress should be added to the list as well. 

Last night I made a bunch of headbands, they turned out very cute and they were SO easy to make. I've been wearing my hair up lately just to get it out of the way, so a cute headband makes a boring ponytail more acceptable. 

First dishes, then I can reward myself with fabric... I'll be sure to post whatever I come home with. 

Vacation Photos

We went on vacation to Ohio with Curt's family recently and I just got the pictures onto my computer, so here they are too look at. There are a ton of them, so I've broken them down into mosaics to keep this post reasonable sized. 

First, Marblehead Lighthouse. We drove by it and went about 10 miles out of our way, then we finally turned around and found it. It was terribly windy and hard to enjoy. Plus, I have seen a lot of lighthouses in my life, and I kind of feel like once you've seen one you've seen them all. Especially since most of the ones I have seen are on the Great Lakes shores, so they are all quite similar. The highlight of the lighthouse? Curt trying to get close to the water, even after I warned him about the waves coming up. So guess what happened? He got all wet.

On July 4 we went Putt-Putting for Cali's birthday. Curt was a pro-


We went to the ferry boat launch to watch the fireworks from Put-In-Bay across the water. It was strange because they were a ways out there, so we could see them, but we didn't actually hear them until much later. Which was fine with me, because the BOOMING has always been my least favorite thing about fireworks.


We also went to Put-In-Bay which was interesting. We took a ferry over, then walked our way around the island. It is obviously a party-hearty place to be, which is not really our scene. But it was fun to see and we were all amazed at the overwhelming number of golf carts. That's what pretty much everyone was driving around in, and there were so many. Hundreds, as far as the eye could see. I can't believe I forgot to take a picture!


July 4 was Cali's birthday, so of course there was cake and presents. I took a bunch of photos, but these two really stood out. Can you see the resemblance? Cali is Curt's 12 year old replica in girl-form.


It's scary how much they look alike sometimes. The first time my mom met Cali, she couldn't get over how much they were alike in their facial expressions and tendencies.

We have been back from that vacation for a few days, and now Curt is already gone again to play at a camp in Wyoming. The week will be elementary aged kids, so that will be interesting and hopefully fun for him. He is all alone because getting the band out there was proving to be a hassle. So here I sit, trying to figure out my first attempt at knitting color-work. I started them and thought they were fine until I kept going and realized I had royally screwed up. So I kept going thinking I could resolve it later, then I took a closer look at the disaster and decided the best thing to do was to rip it out and start again with the pattern. So that will be the rest of my night.. what to eat for dinner? Probably the polynesian meatballs leftover from the other night, unfortunately. Or pizza rolls? Nah, I don't want to turn the oven on... too hot... I'm melting... 

Summer in the City

Our summer was off to a beautiful start until the new neighbors moved in.... When I say neighbors, I mean they live on the other side of our house, which is split into three apartments. They are on the main level directly next to us and they are smokers. Not that I have anything against smokers themselves, just the smoke that comes with them. And when I say they are smokers, I mean they are CHAIN smokers. We have the windows and doors open because it is beautiful weather, but I'm seriously considering shutting our house up to avoid the constant stream of smoke coming from their side of the yard. At least they are outside right now... what's really irritating is when the smoke inside (against lease rules) and the smell gets into our bedroom, and most recently, our food pantry! Ugh, the smell makes me sick and no doubt the second hand smoke is slowly building up inside me. While they seem like nice people, I wish they would kick the habit before I have an asthma attack. 

As a result of our house arrest, we have sadly been spending more time indoors. But the other night we did enjoy cherries indoors, much to the dismay of my now stained couch. Not to mention the stained fingers....

Oh, the little metal thing in our cherry pits? That's a cherry pitter. Totally unnecessary and only creates a bigger mess (hence the stained couch). I assume it would be useful for something like pitting cherries to be used in a pie or something where you couldn't just pop and spit... but for just eating cherries, the teeth spin circles around this thing. 

Tonight for dinner? No doubt more cherries. Yeah, I haven't been eating dinner very well lately due to the extreme heat. It just makes me lose my appetite. But tonight, I will make a nice dinner of Polynesian-Glazed Meatballs. We've had this recipe before, and it is really good and easy to make. I love the pineapple mixed in, so delicious!

Vacation

We actually got back awhile ago, but I have not posted the pictures of our trip to Washington yet. It was a wonderful and relaxing vacation. We spent a couple days in Seattle, stayed right downtown and spent our days walking around the downtown area. 

Then we went to Grayland, which is a little tiny town on the coast. There was pretty much nothing there. The closest "big" town was Westport, which also had pretty much nothing. But it was so quaint, we just relaxed the whole time. We stayed in a friend's cottage where there is no TV, internet, heat, etc. I did lots of reading and knitting by the warmth of a fire. It was so nice to get away from everything for a week and celebrate our 1st wedding anniversary. 

Yup, still have to order those wedding pictures... maybe we will get that done this month. 

Now on to crafty things. I have felt totally deprived of creativity lately, so I need a little project to get back into the swing of things. I'm thinking some freezer paper stenciled bags my Grandma ordered for a couple women in our family. I'm not sure what to put on their bags, but I will have to think of something! I think I will also do a tutorial while I'm working on them because a few people have asked me how to do them and I think a picture tutorial will make it much easier to describe. 

Aprons

I think I'm officially hooked on making aprons. Awhile ago I made one for myself. I found cheapo ugly fabric that matches our current ugly kitchen. The terrible olive greens really blend well. Here Curt models... I think he was too excited to try it on.

And last weekend while I was at my parents' house I made one for my mom from fabric I got in the Hobby Lobby remnant bin. It's SUPER cute fabric with bright colored tropical flowers on it. How nice, it matches their kitchen too. Aprons should be good at matching like that. 
I have plenty of this floral fabric left, so I'm going to make a full apron like this for myself, but with more embellishments. Maybe a ruffle at the top and bottom. Or find some other cute fabric to add a pocket. The possibilities are endless. 

I'm watching the first season of Arrested Development right now, what a joy. And it just started raining. I love a good evening splash. But this sounds like... hail? Couldn't be, it's 80 degrees outside. My poor Finnegan hates storms, he's hunkering down, shaking right now. There's no basement for him to run to at our house. 

Curt's home from work! Maybe we'll watch a movie.... 

Amy Butler Goodies

I've been doing plenty of sewing lately, so much so that I just haven't had time to post about it all. So here we go, all at once:

My cousin Stacey's sister-in-law (does that make sense?) is having a baby girl so I volunteered to go pink crazy and make a plethora of gifts using Amy Butler's Midwest Modern fabric line - YUM!

Projects included the disappearing nine patch quilt (more about this later), applique onesies, curved burp cloths, cloth shoes, and bibs. Everything was so much fun to make, I can't wait to make bunches more. I think I am going to do some more shoes, they are so cute and tiny and I just want to find as many babies as possible and put these little shoes on their little feet. 

This past weekend I was home in Grand Rapids to pick up Finnegan from my parent's so I did a little sewing there too.. pictures from that later, for some reason Blogger just stopped working and won't load my pictures of that. Darn. Alright, leaving the paper now to head home and go shopping for dinner tonight and to restock our sad little fridge. More about that later, too. Man, I have a lot of catching up to do!