Kicking off my favorite time of year!

I hope you all had a great Thanksgiving!

It was a quiet day here, we are a thousand miles from family again this year, but we didn't let that stop us from doing the "dinner" thing.  We may take some flak for this, but I made a HAM instead of turkey this year.  Although I do love turkey, I don't like the smell of it cooking all day, and the only thing I detest more on that day than cleaning a bird carcass is the thought of wasting the bird carcass LOL, so I decided to avoid it all and do the ham :)  Tomorrow I will use the leftovers for a ham and bean soup that I can pressure can also if I have enough.

The night before the big dinner day we decided to forgo cooking and head to our favorite salad bar place for dinner.  When we got there it was sunny out, but when we left they had just done the illumination of Town Center, so that put me in a bit of a holiday mood, even though hubby was wearing shorts!  Yes, it was in the 70's again, yuck!

Lots of things to be thankful for this year, but I'm especially thankful for a child that will actually wear the sweater out to play that mom knit :)

I decided to try Cake Pops for the first time...

Not too bad for the first attempt!

I will admit to shopping ON Thanksgiving Day!!!!  I can see you cringing right now, but hey - it was a craft store so does that make it any better?  I didn't think so.  80% off an item I had been coveting for 6 months made it okay for me :)

One thing I found interesting was possibly a sign of the current economic times - I passed Target which opened in the evening and the parking lot was almost empty, but when I pulled into Michael's at 6 pm there were lots of cars and several more pulling in behind me.  I'd like to think that means more people are instead spending money on their crafts, hobbies, their own home and making gifts than in years before.  I know I don't have the cash for new tv's, gaming systems and the like, but I sure can find a few dollars for some yarn for a knitted gift :)  Funny thing too, everyone in there was pleasant and chatting with strangers instead of pushing and shoving!

Then it was time to dig out the Christmas Gear...

And decorate the tree!  It's never too early for military families to decorate.  Last year many of us military spouses had our Christmas stuff out after Halloween LOL, I think that may have had something to do with the fact that our spouses were on deployment and due to return just a couple of days before Christmas, we were just a bit excited :)  Remember last year here?  Hubby had to climb in the car and drive 1250 miles just hours after stepping foot on dry land!

Oh yeah... WHAT could have possibly had me out shopping on Thanksgiving night?  That white carousel below - reg price $40 - with the sale and coupons, I snatched it up for under $10!  I can't wait to stock it up with crafting nonsense :)

Today's agenda:  sending the kids outside to play with daddy, hot chocolate and pattern cutting for me!

Tina over at Our Rustic Roots asked the other day about crafty/sewing spaces, so I'm going to do a post later on about my space.  I meant to do a post about my sewing/crafting space saving setup last year but never got around to it, although I did do one on my yarn storage "hallway".  I even had the photos grouped on my old Mac's desktop but we all know what happened to that thing.  Maybe if everyone has time in the next few days they could post a few pics of their setup for whatever the wintertime hobby may be - large rooms, tiny rooms, kitchen table sewing, whatever space you have, show us how you set it up!  I know this time last year I was a freak show with my newfound obsession with my search for a sewing machine and learning how to sew, and creating a place for it all naturally became entwined with all that.  Besides looking at peoples' pantries, is there anything better than snooping at crafty spaces?  I think not.

Apron Challenge!

It's done!  

Susan at e-i-e-i-omg! challenged us to an apron sew-off and it was just what I needed to snap out of my blogging laziness the past month and get back into the swing of things.  Thanks, Susan!  Head over to her blog later today when she will link up all the participants to check out all the aprons!

Finnegan said it looks like I'm getting x-rays at the dentist -

whatever, who asked him?!

It's Sink or Swim Time!

Yes, go ahead and laugh now...


uh, oh... it's directional print!  I don't know why I bought this way back when I did - I think I was just ignorant, but now I know about stripes, directional prints, and wow do I know better than to pick a fabric for a first time venture that is supposed to go public!  Oh, well - it's showtime baby :)

Time to get to work - I didn't mean to procrastinate, I really thought the apron had to be done by Thanksgiving Day, but now I hear it's Monday, yikes!  Susan, you did great on pulling me back into the blogging world, because you know I can't let a good challenge pass me by LOL!

I see you Ms. Fancy Pants Overachiever Mama Pea, popping up on my Reader with your title "Done!", umhmmm.... I refuse to click on it and read it - la la la la, I can't hear YOUUUUUU!

yep there's flames shooting out of my scissors now, I'll finish, I swear!

Fall Colors... Finally!

Would you believe it was 82º here yesterday?  Disgusting!  Lettuces, spinach and the like refuses to sprout or do anything at all this season, what a bust.  The good news is that the high today was early in the morning and as of right now it has fallen to 48º, keep going!

Fall colors finally appearing...

An early holiday gift for me, and no doubt my only one - and I am just fine with that!  Santa needs to pay bills, not buy unnecessary objects this year!  Plus, I asked "Siri" if I needed anything else this year and she told me me that she was all I needed, solved.  :)

Wouldn't you know that I don't hear from the school all year, and then when my phone breaks down, that's when they are trying to call me.  The school nurse has called twice in the past 6 weeks from Finn's school and I was the "bad mom" who couldn't be reached, figures!  But no more.  Also, if any of you are among those who I need their phone numbers, please send me an email with them, as all my contacts vanished.

With the lack of decent fall growing temps for greens and broccoli, we have been deficient in fresh so we have really been using up all the goodies that were put away last season.  

I'm not sure what the deal is, but the kids will eat their veggies as long as it's in stir-fry - although of course they have to exhaust the noodle or rice supply first before they move on to the nutritious stuff!

A couple of nights ago I went to a social event with some other gals at our church.  Very fun - the "assignment" was to cook a dinner for your family on a set budget that varied with the family size, and then bring it in and tell everyone about it.  The amount was a modest $5 for a family of 4 and went up from there.  This particular meal came in at approx $2.99 just for the 99 cent large package of Phillipine noodles (half the package will make one family meal leaving half for another night), and I estimated $2.00 for the amount of sliced chicken breast that went into the skillet with it.  Of course, the cost of my snow peas, beans, peppers and onions from my harvest stash were "free"... or were they?? Ha! The evening was really fun, we all ate a ton of good stuff and came away with some new recipes from others to try.  Now I wonder if everyone fed their families before leaving the house with the cooked meals, LOL!

Random strange sighting of the week:

What?  You've never had Canadian Bacon in your purse?  Don't judge :)

I'm progressing at a snail's pace on the apron, but progressing nonetheless.  Here's the fabric, kind of a funky Swedish folksy print I had oodles of on hand, can't remember what the original intention was but it was definitely kitchen related, and the pattern is cut out finally.  I'm hoping Sunday will be the day for indulging in quiet time with my sewing machine!

I have been scrapbooking a bit too, another reason I have been M.I.A. for awhile, I just can seem to find time for it all - I had like 7000 photos that needed to be transferred from a backup to the new computer and I did it, but they are all out of order, ugh.  One more thing, I am starting to get into couponing quite seriously, and that requires a lot of time as well.  I'll be sure to post what little I know so far on that soon, but I saved about $80 today in coupons, on things we actually use!  I'd love to be able to say that I don't have the time for that, but in all honesty it's become a necessity in order for us to be able to give our kids a nice Christmas this year, and unfortunately we can't even think about traveling home this year, it's just too cost prohibitive, on the bright side at least it's "in vogue" to be concerned about the economy and it's effect on the family LOL, now it's cool to be cheap... crazy, huh?!  Things will look up in the next year, I just know it - we just have some mud to wade through first.

I do know that I am thankful to have a happy and healthy family and plenty to keep me busy so I don't ever become bored with staying at home, and my great extended blogger family - I have gotten an email with the best news from Annie's Granny, a box just arrived this evening from Patty, a couple more emails checking on me and making sure all was okay during my unusually quiet hiatus... I am very thankful for all of you!  Now I'm looking forward to spending some time with some hot chocolate this evening and catching up on everyone's posts!  

One more thing - this is how lame I am lately -

Don't think for one second that these are mine, no, not this year...

These are Loch's!  These are what he brought home the other day from the plots at the school garden he volunteers at.  If it wasn't for Loch this year our fall harvest would be a complete fail!  I hope he doesn't get too confident that he'll outdo me in 2012, I'll show him - I'm not ready to pass the torch yet!  

Happy Veteran's Day!

Yes, I'm still here, still struggling with I-don't-know-what!  I've been SO tired lately and so "not myself" that I'm afraid to post since I don't have any earth shattering projects going on right now.  I will say that the past 2 days have been really good, not tired after waking up and slowly returning to getting some daily chores done "on time".


I promised my mom a photo of her well-dressed guys, the result of a lovely day out thrift shopping!

Don't let their silly faces fool you, they love dressing up and Finn has been asking if he could wear his tie to school LOL.  I am proud to say also the the boys tie their own real ties and have expressed disdain lately over the unavailability of "real ties" for the younger set.  :)

The occasion was church, which was quite a shock to the kids as neither hubby or I had exposed them to much mostly due to the fact that we came from different backgrounds and hadn't ever really sat down and had any real discussions on the subject.  After some lengthy searching and researching, we have finally started to add faith into our lives and our childrens' lives.  I'm not sure why it took so long, but faith is never a bad thing to have in a family or life, no matter what faith a person has or shape it takes in their lives.  So anyway, that's been an added place I need to devote time to as well, so I'm in the midst of trying to best divide my time best between all our activities, and now I'm preaching to the mom choir, aren't I?!

I'm actually thinking of a dry erase board with a schedule on it just for ME!  Don't laugh, it actually calms me to see schedules posted all over the place - I'm weird.

I know one thing is on the schedule for sure today, I'm going to at least go through my fabric stash and pick a fabric for that apron!

Please thank the veterans in your lives today for us, and as a husband & wife veteran duo we appreciate all the thoughts we have been sent as well, have a great Veterans Day!

And fess' up... do any of you have that apron completed already?!!!

Aprons and Rants...

Count me in for the apron sew-off this month!  These are the patterns I had in the house to choose from:

I swore I wouldn't go buy and books or new patterns since we just spent so much on a computer.  Next I need to check out my fabric, good thing I have a good stash of that, too!  I'm thinking the top pattern, since I really don't like aprons that "tie" behind the neck, I like the simplicity of the old styles that just just require flopping over the head and that have big pockets.  What do you think?

Sparkless expressed that she needed a good rant from me :), and wow do I have some from the past month.  I'll be quick though since I don't really want to rehash the loss of the computer!  Okay, here goes...

You know what the worst part of the computer ordeal is?  The fact that the old computer is bigger than the new one, and that the style hasn't changed one bit!  There's something nerve wracking about spending money on something YOU ALREADY HAVE (albeit non-functioning)!!  One would expect "new" to be "different" - maybe a light show or that it now doubles as a serger machine...something!!

4 year old mac now resides on the floor next to stacks of Halloween decorations...

New, smaller (but faster and functioning) mac on the desk...

I guess it's good news in disguise, the design is so awesome that it hasn't changed LOL, the other good part is that I have more desk space!  The bummer part is that we did have to put it on a credit card, but at least we were able to score it at the Navy Exchange here which had 0% interest for a year, 10% off and no sales tax, which is a pretty big chunk of change on such an expensive purchase.  As far as choosing the computer, there was no contest for me, since macs are all I've ever owned and they are wonderful (the demise of my last one was due to a storm and my not taking proper precautions!).  The kids' old style iMac with the dome drive is still functioning and it's really old, but it's also really slow, LOL.  Hopefully this one will last, and lesson learned:  this time I sprung for the extended Apple Care warranty :)

Only one more hurdle to overcome, and that's the fact that my iPhone died the same day Steve Jobs did.  Consequently, right now I'm paying for cell service I can't use, grrrr!  It was kind of overdue though, since I'm one of the proud ones that was still using the 1st generation iPhone, it was getting to be kind of a badge of honor whipping that relatively big iPhone out and having people ask "that still works?"!  Well, no longer, and that's next on the list.  It's hard for me to upgrade the thing since I only text and hardly ever use the phone to actually talk, BUT I did like having it when I needed it...   

*  Side story here: as the 1st "smart phone", I thought it was pretty cool to have years ago when it first came out but thought "really, will I ever use it for what it is?"... After having it for only a month, we took a road trip home to MN and when we stopped at a rest stop at midnight in the Middle of Nowhere, PA I went to get Finn (then about 2 yrs old) out of his carseat in the dark, I noticed little pills scattered all over the backseat.  He had managed to lift up a bag off the floor with his foot, root around in there and come up with an irresistible shiny foil package of estrogen pills.  Oh yes, he had popped them all out and I had no idea if he had ingested any!  Now I'm screaming and freaking out, Charlie is sticking his finger down his throat trying to make him throw up, the dogs are barking in the back, it's the middle of the night and it dawned on me:  smartphone!  I was able to look up  poison control on the internet even as my "voice" calls weren't functioning, and was able to get an "online help" person.  She assured me it was not an emergency when I told her what the pills were which was a huge relief!  The real relief came when hubby retrieved all the pills from the floor, seat and Finn's clothing and found that they were all accounted for!  So there's my little story for the day, haha!  

The End

Not really the end, of course... I have questions for you!  To save some $$ and get my new cell phone, I've been thinking of dropping the land line to the house.  Have any of you done this?  I don't know why it's so hard to drop that historic "landline", but really it doesn't seem to serve much of a purpose anymore.  

Okay, next up today I need to start digging through my fabric.  Was that enough of a rant, Sparkless?  :)  And ooops, I guess I wasn't very "quick" about it, was I?!

Fall is having an identity crisis here!

It's hard to get back in the blogging routine!  I do NOT recommend taking that kind of time off personally, as for me it resulted in a slight depressive state of not doing anything, since I didn't feel "accountable" for doing anything!  I'll have to ease back into things so I don't end up in a rant about the past months' events in an incoherent manner.

I'll start by showing you some photos of what our place looks like today.  I've been enjoying so much seeing everyone's fall photos, and it's a good thing y'all are posting them for me because fall just doesn't seem to "get it" here this year.  Although the past few days have been wonderful with lows in the 40's and highs in the 50's and 60's, as recently as last week it was still in the 80's.  Consequently, we have some split personality stuff going on out there.

This is my view now from the computer through the back door, I do like this!

For a different perspective, this is the stand of grass from the other side of the back door/deck:

The past year this clump that was planted from 8" plants 2 years ago has spread and is now a welcome privacy screen, no wonder Ms. Dove loves this area for raising her babies!

The "mud clump" I received as a gift from one of the Master Gardeners in my class 2 years ago is now a full 12+ foot tall stand of Maximillian Sunflowers.  Those are dead hops on the trellis behind, ooops!

Mums surprised me this year - they bloomed all summer since I neglected to prune them back in June, but they still bloomed for fall anyways...this is one thing I will miss someday, mums being perennial!

Rosemary hedge is in full bloom

Herb containers are blooming

Summer is hanging on in some places...

While obvious signs of fall are 10 feet away!  This is a 14 year old "Dwarf" Burning Bush... LOL I wonder how big the non-dwarf is?  :)

Found this still going strong -

Didn't plant this but maybe it's a blanketflower from last year?

Still cotton out there!

I imagine we will go straight from flowers to snow here, a very strange year.  Keep posting those fall leaf photos, everyone - some of us are relying on them!

Now I'm thinking of updating my blog look as well, I'm loving all the photo headers everyone is changing... change is in the air!