I Had a Free Afternoon? I Made Something?

I can't believe it. This is more rare than an eclipse happening twice in one day.

I had a free afternoon. I almost forgot what a free afternoon feels like!

At 2 pm I made my own coupon organizer and finally got everything ready for future shopping trips.

Then I got my daughter from tutoring at school by 3 pm.

Little son and daughter had no games/practices or anything.

Silence in the house for 2 hours while my youngers played at the park from 3:15 to 5 pm.

My husband and son had baseball practice at RVMS and were done early by 4:30 pm. They went out to celebrate at Chuys because my 12 year old maintained his high honor roll GPA for the first progress report of the 4th quarter.

Then my high schooler son texted me and asked for a ride home at 4:30 pm because baseball practice ended early.

4:30 pm and I don't have to be running and driving around until 9 pm? I am in shock.

My 7 year old son made his own dinner by 5 pm. Yes peeps, MADE HIS OWN DINNER. He heated up 5 frozen taquitos and sat down at the table with a glass of milk.

Whoo hoo. (jumping into a break down routine here)

Then my hubs went upstairs and took a nap for a couple hours.

Then my high school son takes my 9 year old daughter on a BSD by 6 pm, a brother sister date. My daughter got a BSD coupon for her birthday yesterday. They both rode their bikes to the Fry's area and went to Carls Jr for dinner and were gone for a good hour.

So what did I do from 3 to 8 pm?

I sewed! I crafted! I altered my top from Old Navy that I got two months ago so it would fit me better. Then I took the leftover fabric and added other leftover fabric and made my daughter a bohemian style skirt. I am nearly done. I even made a fabric flower clip to go with it. Pictures to follow soon.

So crafting and no cooking for a family of 6, no running around, no driving and rushing, no homework, and no one knocking on my door and bothering me this afternoon. Even my dog snoozed all day.

It was really nice. Everyone did what they wanted to do today.

What do you do with a free afternoon?

Lucky Late than Never

So this is supposed to be a craft blog, and I barely post anything crafty here...blame the time game on that one.

So here is some tidbits from my March Lucky decorating. I kept it simple: changed out the jars in my soda crate hanging on the wall in the lobby. Every month it has a different look and theme. This is March's look. The top row has thrifty paper crinkles that I made myself from lunch bags. The second row has wheat berries and cupcake lucky charms inserted. The bottom row has green polka dot scrapbook paper and chipboard letters that I had on hand spelled "luck." The top of the shelf: I shopped my house and put them on there:

I collect vintage Ball jars, and change up things inside them all the time:

Plus my favorite decor item is my gumball machine. The month of March had the thrifty shredded paper cut from a lunch paper bag, crunched up, thrown it, and added some shamrocks I had on hand:

I let my kids use the cupcake shamrock toothpicks I had leftover and they stuck them all over the place. Here is a few in my antique milkvase with the new sprigs of spring grass growing it in, from wheat berries:

I added a bit more green on my piano. I have two antique milkvases on it, and I am always trying to come up with ideas to fill it up with something cute. The weather got weird in Feb and Mar: superhot, supercold, superhot, supercold. I decided not to plant my mints in March and temporarily put them in the vases for instant lucky green:

This thrifted makeover shelf has something new hanging from it or on it every month. The month of March had my lucky star charms I made last year hanging on it:

So that's it. Very very simple. Being a busy mom who lives in her car only allows me a tiny bit of decorating in the house lately. Keep tuned in for April/Easter decorating that I did.

What was I like as a kid?

This post is a copy/paste that was saved in my personal folder on my desktop. I needed a place to put it.
This is from July 2009, and I think it was for my Mom's genealogy project. The last two questions have not even been answered yet.

What was your best subject in elementary school? Recess

Jr High?  English

High School? English and Dance Class

What was your ambition in Jr. High? To just make it through with good grades and upgrade my social status

High School?  Graduate and go to college, get a boyfriend

What did you want to accomplish? Good grades, college, be self-supporting, travel and better education opportunities, be independent, be able to read and write, and speak well enough to pass off as a hearing person

What were your Hobbies? 

From younger to older:

1974 to 1979: playing dolls and “house”, playing with girlfriends, circling around the neighborhood block with my bike over and over while avoiding the “lines or cracks” on the road, being with family, outings, camping, hooked braided rugs, collecting stickers, , reading Dr Seuss and Disney books, playing fort in the basement, playing on the swingset outside, helping parents with the garden, playing with worms and potato bugs, avoiding the neighborhood bully named Jason, Moppet Dollhouse set, Sesame Street Clubhouse 1979 set, playing hide and seek, looking forward for a babysitter named Casey to come over, writing stories and drawing pictures, playing office with Dad’s junk mail, sneaking into the Nestle Quik chocolate powder

1980’s: teen friends, reading Trixie Belden, music that I sneaked out to listen with friends outside the house (Def Leppard and other rock and roll), tanning outside, Charms necklace, Levi skirts and jackets and focusing on the latest 1980’s fashion complete with big hair, brooding, dancing (at home), avoiding like the plague any kind of domestic arts/crafts/sewing that my mom tried to teach me, Looney Toons, Slumber parties complete with soda, pizza, and music, and not sleeping a wink all night,  YW camp and Youth conferences, going to the University Mall, going to the Scera Water Slides and the Scera theater for movies, Friday movie nights with the family complete with homemade CCC’s, French bread pizza, Twizzlers, and popcorn.

1990’s: fashion, keeping fit, tanning, changing hairstyles and clothing style, attempting to learn to sew, getting a boyfriend, HS football games, and HS dances, dance classes, working out, going dancing at the clubs such as the Palace, the Edge, and a country club for country dancing, getting good grades, going to the mall, wondering about college, trying to find ways to avoid being home to babysit younger siblings,

What was your favorite music and music groups? LDS hymns, pop rock, rock n roll, Paula Adbul, Michael Jackson, Bryan Adams, Bon Jovi, Def Leppard, Meatloaf, NKOB

Favorite sport(s)? absolutely no interests except Powder Puff football my senior year, and watching HS football games, (as a social status thing to check out the cute boys and make friends)

Major interests in Jr. High, High school? (see hobbies)

What did you do in your spare time as a teenager? If I had spare time, my mom made sure to fill it with chores and babysitting my younger sibs. Otherwise I would just disappear in my room on the top bunk and read.

What do you remember most about your Jr High and High school years?

How did you meet Ryan? 

Heather Says: It was an Assident.

Recently I was told by my husband that I have been pronouncing the word "accident" incorrectly.

I swear it was an assident. I mean accident. I had no idea.

All these years I have been pronouncing accident as "ass-sid-dent" instead of AK-cid-dent."

So peeps: when I mispronounce something, TELL ME SO!

Don't let me babble on like an idiot.

We all know what assume really means. Meaning you made an "idiot" out of you and me.

Don't assume that I know how to say some word if I am repeatedly saying it wrong. Don't assume that someone else will tell me and help correct me, because they most likely won't because they are afraid to assidently hurt my feelings. I mean accidently.

I may be a real good "talker" for a deaf person, but dang it, I still make assidents. I mean accidents.

The letter K in the middle of most words is usually prounced from the back of the throat with some tongue pressure. It's something I can't "see" while lip reading and definitely don't always hear. Therefore I don't get that reminder on how to really say a word.

The only exception is the silent K such as know, knew, and knee.

My hubs had to ASL sign the word "accident" out phoenetically in segments until I got it right but pronouncing it over and over. I kept assidently saying assident a few more times until my kids fell in a heap of giggles on the rug. (I mean accident)

I don't know how hubs missed this word over the years, but I can say he was too busy helping me with my other mispronounced words. There was this one word I was saying that sounded too close to the F bomb, so I think that word took priority over assident. I mean accident.

Well, that's the most swearing I have ever done in a post. I need to look for a bar of soap for my mouth, but my kid probably stuffed through the shower drain trap tonight and will tell me that it was an assident to avoid getting in trouble. I mean accident.

Hey! This could be a potty talk post! There was this one time back in high school when I used to say com-poo-ter instead of com-pute-ter....

The Many Measurements of Merry

My daughter's Measurement Report for School in the 3rd Grade:

She chose my dog Merry.

1.      Her belly is three candlesticks long.

2.       She is 4 pencils long.

3.       Her ears are two bouncy balls wide.

4.       Her legs are 3 ½ inches long.

5.       Her head is 5 inches long.

6.       She is 14 inches tall.

7.       She can run 138 feet in 17 seconds.

8.       Her temperature is 99.2 degrees Fahrenheit from under her armpit.

9.       Merry likes her bath water at 105 degrees Fahrenheit.

10.     She eats ½ cups of food per day.

11.     Merry drinks 2 or 3 cups of water per day.

12.     She is heavier than a small pumpkin, but lighter than a large pumpkin.

13.     Her hair on her body is 99% white and 1% black.

14.     Merry is ½ poodle and ½ Shiz Tzu.

15.     She eats 2 biscuits per day for a total of 14 biscuits per week.

16.     She weighs 11.6 pounds.

17.     Merry is 99% lovable and obedient. She is 1% naughty.

18.     Merry’s eyes are ½ inch wide.

19.     Her biggest tooth is 7/8 inch long.

20.     Her smallest tooth is 2/8 inch long.

21.     Her paws are 1 ½ inch long.

22.     Her nails are ¾ inch long.

23.      She jumps 16 inches high when she puts her paws in the air for a high five.

24.     She can shake her paw with your hand at 6 inches high from the ground.

25.     When I was done with my report, I got a handful of M&M’s and they were ¼ inch long.

Heather's Crazy Construction at Christmas

Disclaimer: Don't try this at home

If you like everything perfect at Christmas time, all the holly glistening, and your house full of jolly singing and cocoa sipping, and wrapping presents:

Then don't do construction, painting, and rearranging furniture and 2 rooms around in 4 days before Christmas.

It results from this: (where's the cheerful Christmas setting?) And an ugly old 15 year beat up crappy *couch used to sit on the right of the photo at the wall that I threw out (and cheered with joy when the dump truck finally hauled it away on trash and bulk day)

And this. Getting hives yet? And with all projects, it turns into several BEGATS. (Starting a project such as painting a simple wall will begat in finding a hole in the wall to be repaired, that begats into fixing some electric work, then begats into some construction work, that begats into fixing/painting or buying furniture that will take place at the newly painted wall.....)

Oh, and the hubs will start tearing out and re-doing your pantry at the same time:

Then this. ALL the walls were repainted. All this resulted in 3 bags of decrapification:

Oh yeah, I have a TINY bit of Christmas stuff decorated, but you can barely see it with vast amounts of stuff on the kitchen table that resulted in 3 days of ordering in pizza:

After a lot of frustration, elbow grease, grunting, heaving, pushing, cursing, crying and countless trips to Ace and Home Depot: I finally got this:

A room with so much wasted space and a couch I hated turned into this MPR. Everyone is in the same room doing various sorts of things, and the kitchen is right across from it. Now I won't be alone cooking and cleaning and we are all together doing various stuff. Mostly creative stuff in this new MPR. And amazing enough the square footage of usuable space is exactly the same as before even though I have more stuff in this room.

Left of photo: Hubs built me a 9 1/2 feet long workstation that you can see on the left that has an office and craft area. Three people can sit at this desk, awesome! I am working on a canvas dropcloth table skirt to hide all the rough looking areas under the workstation, and it stores my sewing machine and probably more food storage eventually.

Back wall: Expedit bookcase on the left has all my craft/scrap/office supplies. The center is the armoire housing all my preschool supplies. The Expedit bookcase on the right is all the preschool baskets of activities for centers, plus books.

Right side of the photo: The 100 year old piano is finally finished! It took Ryan a year to work on getting the nasty 70's varnish and laquered built up grime off (that was put hastily over the original finish from 1910 in about 1969). We finally had a local piano guy finish it up, stain it, and tune the piano. It is now back to its original state and sound. This piano is a Richmond upright 1910 that Ryan's grandmother bought off the floor in a local mall in 1959 in SLC. It got hauled around in different homes and treated pretty badly over the years. Then it was in my husband's mothers home for about 23 years getting beat up by some of the grandkids. Now it sits in my home and my daughter practices her piano lessons on it. We are very proud of this new addition to our home.

So this wonderful MPR is a result of my son wanting his own room for Christmas. I gave up my office/craft room determined to do something better with the living room downstairs. The original office was becoming a meeting place for everyone, because everyone wants to be doing something creative in the crafts or busy doing something on the computer, or talking to someone who is doing something on the computer etc etc. So we had 6 people and 2 dogs in a tiny office/craft room, never mind the rest of the big house available to spread out!! It was driving me insane!

And I still have to post pics of Cade's new room that used to be the office. The pantry: not posting. Just added more wood shelves, and shelves on the side. Nothing too spectacular except I can have a place for  food storage.

*More on the couch as noted above in this post: I threw out this crappy couch THREE times over the years. Each time my oldest son and husband hauled it back into the house. There's something about never messing with a man's dogs, guns, trucks, the TV remote and their beloved couches.

Bedtime with Mom AHHH!

Translation:

I have a story to tell you.
My kids will not go to bed.
They are screaming and fighting.
Bickering and complaining.
They do not want to go to bed.
It makes them feel sick.
Me as a mom,
I have a throbbing headache,
POUNDING AND POUNDING
It hurts.
What to do?
Hmm....
Maybe I can hide in the dark in the bathroom,
and just sit on the seat of the toilet waiting.
Hmm..what to do?
(little boy enters the room)
See what I mean?
(son bothering me)
See? Look over there! Can you hear them fighting?
Complaining and bickering?
Hmmm..
Maybe I can kiss them goodnight
And send them to bed.
Will that work?
Will they want a kiss goodnight?
Come on, give me a kiss.
(kissy kissy kissy)
I love you.
Hmm...
I am tired.
I have sagging tired eyes.
Oy...Sigh.
Woe is me.