On a Whim...

I am pretty sure that the hubby doesn't like it when I have a whim.  It usually means a project and spending money.  On the last Sunday of the Olympics, I had just one of these whims.  While sitting in Church, I decided that it was time to paint the spare bedroom/craft room.  So it went from a very pale yellow that made the room look very large to this mocha color that I fell in love with.  First I have to say that I love poppies (random I know, just follow me) we found the poppy art work at World Market in February (I think).  That is the picture that I was thinking about when looking for the paint color for this room.

Started out with this pale yellow...

I always paint and "cut in the trim" first.  I don't tape to the horror of any painter out there, but I have a pretty steady hand and with a wet rag handy I can usually clean up any messes I make.  I just can't tape without the paint bleeding under, causing more headaches/work.

There's the poppy picture...I think it looks good, what do you think?  I should have said earlier that the paint was to also go with these curtains.  We brought the curtains up from the living room once we got new curtains for that space.  (There is a story there and I will try to remember to post that another time.  Now we all we need is a new duvet and pillows. 

And if I do say so myself, I think the room looks great (minus the mess...it's been a catch all the past couple weeks.)  I will post better pictures once I get this room cleaned up...And don't get excited, it will probably be a while before that happens.

Spare/Craft Room To Do list:
- hang more artwork
- CLEAN up the clutter!!!
- make a large craft table
- get a better/more comfortable chair
- better sewing desk
- new duvet/pillows
- clean out the closet

Thanks,
Renae

Friday Night Lights...

What a day!  I took the day off of work and went shopping with my Mom.  It was fun and we got a lot of really cook ideas from the stores we went to.  We also "took a tour of the country" as we visited 6 counties on our shopping spree! 

Yes!  Tonight was the football scrimmage and okay, I'll admit I wasn't paying attention to the football scrimmage.  Tonight was also the dance team's first performance, and since my girlie is on the dance team, that's where my attention was.  I can't believe we already have the scrimmage tonight and the first football game next Friday.  Time just flies by!

So I am attempting to attach a video of the first 2012 fight song performance...so here it goes...

 

 

I am hoping this works and can post more videos in the future.  But for now this is one tired mama!  Good night!

 

Bridal/Baby Shower Mints

Okay, I have to say it's harder to keep up on the blog than I thought it would be.  Life just gets a little crazy and then a week has flown by and you haven't been on the computer, let alone your blog.  (Sigh)  I have been working on a ton of projects, just haven't uploaded them...but be warned, they are coming!

We had a "Church lady" wedding mint making party last Thursday.  The Church ladies are my Church friends and I have been fortunate enough to be a part of this group of amazing women for the last 11 plus years.  When we sit down to make the mints it's also a time to keep up on each other's lives and to give out great advice.  There is no real skill involved with the mint making and even my kids have helped when we were short on ladies.  My friend Jenny makes the cream cheese "dough" a day or so in advance, I don't know her recipe, but here is one that I have used in the past and think it's pretty close:

Cream Cheese Mints
1 8 ounce package of cream cheese
1 2 pound bag of powdered sugar
10-12 drops of flavoring (your choice and to taste)
food coloring
sugar for coating

Mix ingredients in a mixer, the powdered sugar will fly so cover your mixer with a towel.  You want to make the dough ahead of time and refrigerate for a day or two before putting into molds.  If the dough is too sticky when you go to make the molds you can add more powdered sugar, they should have the consistency of play dough.

You will need the flexible/rubbery molds that will allow you to "pop" the mint out easier.  When you go to make the mints, remember that the color you make them is important...bright or dark colors aren't always pretty when they stick to the teeth.

To mold the mints: add regular sugar to the mold and pinch off a small amount of dough.  Roll the dough into a ball and roll the ball in the regular sugar then push into the mold (the more sugar you and to the outside the easier the mint will pop out of the mold.)  Once the dough is pushed into the mold, you will want to level the back of so that it's level with the mold.  Pop out onto a flat surface and let stand for an hour or two, then line an air-tight container with wax paper and stack carefully.  You can put in the fridge if your event is coming soon, or in the freezer for a few months.  (I know I'm not alone in sneaking a bit or two when there are leftovers.

If you are making mints for a big occasion you can double or triple this recipe...and keep in mind the shape/size of your mold this will determine how much dough you will need.

Thanks to my friends for letting me take this picture ;-) and a special thanks too Sue for being my hand model!

Til next time...
Renae

Wow...

Even though I was inside at work all day, I am so glad that there is a little relief from the exhausting heat we have been having.  I think the high today was mid eighties and driving home from work with the windows open was a great novelty!  And to add to that sweet relief...Yes, I have turned the AC off no windows open yet, but that could happen later, for now ceilng fans are our main source of cool.  And this is even better news because school starts in a day and the high school does not have AC (it has never had AC even in the stone ages when my husband and I went there.)

I hope everyone had a great weekend, we certainly did.  Sunday we a great Church service and then we made a trip to Home Depot for some paint and house numbers.  The address numbers that are currently on our home are too small and not in a very visable place.  We will take photos and post when get around to this project.  I have some photos from the spare room and will post when we get the room completed...right now it's a bit of a disaster.

Back to School Tip of the Day...

After our first year in kindergarten, I found that stores will put back to school items on clearance a week or two after school starts.  So watch the stores...you may be purchasing double the supplies this year but it will help next year.  I out everything into a plastic tub and store them in the basement until they are needed.  You can also buy items like pencils after the holidays to use for school or to store up for gifts at school parties.

Another way to watch spending is to watch sales ads, I know that the office stores (Office Max and Staples) have pretty good sales on certain items this time of year.  And if you are a teacher check to see if they offer a teacher's discount.  Every little bit helps!

Now that we are starting high school (yikes!) the supply list is a wait and see what classes you have first.  Of course, Caleb is still in 8th grade so the list is the same for him as it was for Lauren last year.  Hoping there are no crazy supply needs for Lauren's high school classes as we have already dropped a fortune for her dance team uniform and all of the things required to go with it (bag, shoes, poms, and now we need to get a jacket).

Of course I have been working on other projects this weekend and have taken pictures of those things, but not the supplies that we purchased.  Darn it, I didn't even think of it while were out...I just wanted to get out of the store without hearing "can I have" or "can we get" one more time.  Another great tip is to take one kid at a time and start earlier than I did this year!

;-)
Hope you had a great weekend, we did!

Renae

Odds and Ends

T-shirts, ribbons and elastic oh, my! 

Today there was work (of course) and after work, I drove across town to someones house to pick up my new Fire Fighters Rock t-shirt...I am very proud of my fire-fighter hubby!  (And I will post a picture of my new tee in a day or so.)

Well, you know the saying "pick your battles"?  Well, my freshman has the gloves on and has come out boxing!  I just think that she has underestimated her scrappy mother!  HaHaHa!  But seriously, this young lady has been pushing the bounds of every limit lately.  The hubby and I are trying to stay united and that can be tough (we have kind of been on strange schedules lately and not seen much of each other.)  I guess the point of this is to say that she's been a lazy bum this summer and I have put my foot down and told the little miss that it's time to get prepared for Nutcracker auditions.  This entails the open studio and conditioning classes.  Well her argument was that her ribbons weren't sewn onto her ponite shoes yet.  Ah-ha!  It's not my favorite thing to do and it's a little bit of a pain (in the finger)...but it must be done.  I have tried to post some pictures and will try to give  "how to" to go with the pictures.

First, you need ribbons, elastics, pointe shoes and the waxy string (and the needle to sew with).

Lauren likes to write the R and L in so she knows which shoe is which.

I don't really measure much.  When you buy the ribbons, you will cut in half and half again so the ribbon is in quarters.  Elastics will have to be cut as you are measuring and trying the shoes on. 

You will need to mark a line towards the heel of the shoe.  It's kind of hard to explain, but put the pen on the inside of the shoe at the heel, fold heel over and pull the pen across the inside of the shoe to create a diagonal line (picture #3).  Then you want to sew the elastic and ribbon together on that line.

My stitching is not the straightest (I am slightly mortified to show you this).  I try to sew a box or rectangle on the ribbon/elastic so that it's on there firmly.  Once the ribbons are on firmly, have the dancer tie their knots and then cut to the length she needs (this will prevent cutting the ribbons too short.)

Then we burn the edges to keep the ribbons from fraying, this is basically taking open flame to the edge of the ribbon.  You don't want to burn or set them on fire, but you do want to"melt" the edges so they wouldn't fray.  I also use this when I am doing a craft with a ribbon and don't want the edges to fray.

So, now it's as clear as mud right?  Most stores are helpful with better instructions or will charge a small fee to sew them on for you.  Since I can sew (even though it's not straight no one really gets that close anyway), I try to get rid of as many costs as I can...yes, I am cheap----I mean thrifty!

And yes, they end up very well loved.  This is Lauren's last pair.  When I get a picture of the new ones on her feet, I will post it.

;-)
Good night for now.
Oh, of course more Olympics, and for whatever reason, I could not sleep last night.  Hopefully there is not a repeat of that tonight.  But diving is on right now...Can't. Stop. Watching.

.

Monday...

Why is it that Mondays are so hard for all of us (okay, maybe it's just me!)  I know that this week part of my problem is that I am not going to bed before midnight so that I can watch the Olympics and then the news.  But what a weekend we have had (beyond the Olympics!)

I consider my weekends to start on Thursdays, I work on Fridays but get off work at 11 and so I don't really count them.  Well, last Thursday I officially become the mom of a high school freshman.  It doesn't seem possible, wasn't it yesterday that she was starting kindergarten?  And to top that, as we are standing in one of the many lines there are to endure, a boy starts to flirt a bit with her...Oh boy, here we go!  It's probably a good thing that Dad subs at this school quite often.  Maybe he can keep the boys away for a while.  We are on the count down til school starts (9 days for L, 10 days for C).

Thursday night my very good friends at Church provided a meal for the family.  We had pulled pork sandwiches, chips, potato salad, slaw salad, fruit salad and brownies and chocolate cookies.  YUM!  It was so wonderful to host a dinner for my family and be able to spend more time with them because no one was stuck in the kitchen cooking.  (If I was thinking, I would have taken some pictures, but this is me-missing photo ops.)


Friday we babysat for our friends' 3 and 6 year old, we swam and ate pizza and Steve and Lauren took the boys down to the park for a little baseball.  I stayed behind with Caleb because he wanted to swim a little more.  Did I mention that it is great to have friends with a pool?  Some pictures form that night...

Steve and I (not the most flattering pic-but oh well)

This is the picture that I usually get out of Lauren

Steve and Lauren and the boys (Can't seem to get a picture of Caleb!)

A sunflower that was in the back yard-beautiful

Saturday was a big day and I realize now that I have gone a little out of sequence with my postings...sorry!  Saturday was the day that we had Grandpa's memorial...my wonderful hubby was the officiant (how proud am I?  VERY!)  The service was very beautiful and all the more special because of Steve and all of the wonderful people that came to celebrate Grandpa's life!  He was a Shrine clown when we were growing up so in honor of that we took some fun pictures.

Jill, me, Steve and Robbie

Sisters (Renae, Jill, Rachele and Robbie) rockin the clown nose!

And finally, Sunday was a big day starting with breakfast at Church and a surprise party for my friend Jenny.  Breakfast was one of my favorites in biscuits and gravy (everything is better with gravy in my opinion!), sausage and fruit.  YUM!  Can you tell that food is a very big part of our lives? 

There was a hymn that we sang at Church that was pretty meaningful, I like to believe that it was a little love from Grandpa.  A verse that has been popping up over the last few weeks in Matthew 7:7-8 (Ask, Seek, Knock), this verse has become pretty important to us/me and the first hymn we sang on Sunday was based off of this verse, so like I said it was a little smile to us from Grandpa. 

Thanks Grandpa Kenny, we miss you and love you too.

Sunday afternoon and the surprise party that was very hard to keep from my best friend Jenny.  All I can say is that the thought in my head was "remember it's a surprise, don't say anything about the party, remember it's a surprise..."  Jenny, sorry if I was acting weird, it was me trying very hard to keep a secret.  PS-Steve (Jenny's Steve) did an amazing job getting this organized!  What a great guy and I think I have said this before, but he's the second most wonderful Steve I know!

Wow!  That's a lot and I will let you go for now.  Another big week for us, gotta get moving on Back to School (or from here on out B2S.)  

Til next time...

PPS- Thank goodness for Spell check and calculators!!!!



Olympics...

Ummmm.....so I have not had time to write this week, I have been watching the Olympics.  Well, actually I have been reading and watching the events when they come on.  So it's been up til at least 11 pm to watch the events (and sometimes after the news to watch the late night things as well.)  Now is when I confess that it finally caught up to me yesterday (the heat didn't help) with a giant headache.  I finally kicked it (the headache) this morning.  I really hate having headaches!

I can't tell you how much I have been looking forward to watching the Olympics this year.  I love the summer Olympics (mostly for the gymnastics, diving and swimming) and over the years the reasons I watch have changed.  As a little girl, I imagined that I was one of the winning gymnastists, and now that I am older it is more the fact that I am amazed at the athleticism and overall awesomeness of the athletes.  I am the most emotional for the gymnastists, and yes I cried for Jordyn Wieber when she didn't get into the all-around, when the "Fab Five" won gold, and again when Gabby Douglas won the gold.  I was close to crying for the swimmers as they won too, but for some reason it's always to gymnastists that get me...I think that it has to do with the fact that it is kind of a once in a lifetime thing and the swimmers can keep going (Michael Phelps is in his third Olympics, right?).

Well, I don't know what events are on next week, so posts are going to be hit and miss.

PS-Diary of a German War Bride by Trudy McFarland is a fascinating revel to the life and times of a family trying to make it in Topeka, Kansas.  I finally finished it this week and have started on another book, more on that later.