Around here: 3/14/13

There's so much happening around here, and yet not much of anything. Every day is so full, and when I lay down at night, I think, "Where did my day go?!" You know how they say, "The days are long, but the years are short"? Well, I feel like each day goes faster and faster.

Anyway, here are some snapshots that really illustrate life with Abezilla: fast moving, blurry, and one where I caught him watching the cars outside, which means he was sitting still long enough that it's not blurry. Oh, and a few with some waterfalls of drool. Those teeth just won't quit! ;-) 

 

He loves the camera (or phone, let's be serious...). Those last few, he was walking toward me saying, "Fuh (phone)? See?" He likes to see the pictures. Just wait until I tell him that when I was growing up, we had to wait to get the prints back from the developer to see the photos. Prepare to have your mind blown, kid!

Work-in-progress Wednesday

It's Wednesday. And I can't think of anything to blog, so maybe a theme will help me out. So, here's what I'm working on:

In a word, it's my future.

Or a giraffe.

More later, after I overcome my fear of failure. ;-)

Happy Wednesday!

Peace,

The one where I stack wood and discuss middle-child syndrome

This is how I spent my Saturday this weekend.

Forgive my sweatpants. It was early. Like 9:00 a.m.

Well, Saturday morning. I spent the rest of the day on my computer and phone planning a super-fun monkey-themed baby shower for one of my dearest friends. ;)

But anyway, Rob and I received a cord of wood to burn in our cast-iron stove. And we had to stack it all ourselves.

As the two men who delivered the wood were tossing it off their trailer into our front yard, I posted on Facebook, “Stacking a cord of wood. It's weird to me to have wood delivered.”

To which my big brother said, “What are you talking about? You grew up having it delivered. Except then it was delivered by your dad and brothers to the back door.” And my little brother “liked” it.

And I said, “Hey! I helped. Once.” I can’t help it if I’m the princess.

But of course my brothers would gang up to pick on the MIDDLE CHILD!! This has been going on since we were little.

It’s true, though. Generally, it was my brothers out in the woods helping my Dad cut down the tree, chainsaw it to the correct length, split it into pieces that fit the fireplace, then stack and haul and stack and haul. I might go out occasionally. Not to take them coffee or hot chocolate. Nope, not me. That would be too nice. I just went to watch a little and maybe play with the cat that thinks it’s a dog named Marcus.

Sometimes it payed off being the only girl. ;)

And P.S. I happen to know that my Dad already has a day of work in woods planned while we're all home for Thanksgiving, so that he, Big Brother, Little Brother (who is 6’, by the way. But Big Brother is 6’2”, so it still works), and Husband can “do the manly bonding.” {Name that movie.} Maybe this time I'll take them something hot to drink. ;)

Peace,

Finished Product

So, I finally got pictures of this dress. I've worn it to two weddings. I feel so frugal. ; )

Here's the front:

Grease spot? What grease spot?

 And here's the back. I added a few extra "patches" so the ones on the front would look less like "I spilled something on this dress, and now I'm trying to mask it..."

All Photos © Me

Pretty good, no? Works for me!

Peace,

My New Old Dress

We have about a bajillion weddings this summer (and by "bajillion" I mean 4), which always begs the question, "What to wear?" To make matters worse, as I've mentioned before, we're on a pretty tight budget (no fun for the wardrobe, but hey, we paid the last car payment a few weeks ago!). So what's a girl to do? Going back through my closet, I found the little white dress that I wore for our wedding rehearsal last year. It was so cute, and it was a steal at Nordstrom's Rack. I knew when I bought it that I would probably never have another opportunity to wear a white dress, but I got it anyway thinking I could just have it dyed. Well, it was time to revisit that idea.

I didn't think to get a Before picture before I got it wet, but at least I thought to get one then. It's not that translucent when it's dry.

One small problem here. I think I got a little too close to the chicken wings at our second reception (which we had for our friends in Colorado who couldn't come celebrate with us in Cincinnati), and there's a bit of a grease stain down toward the bottom.

See it there? I figured that I'm dyeing it dark, it'll cover it up. Problem solved.

So. I got my biggest pot and filled it with water and lots of salt, according to the directions on the dye.

And I got my dye. Rit actually has a great color selection, and a color mixer on their website. They give offer different formulas for getting colors other than the basics they offer! But I decided to go with just straight up teal.

I wanted as dark a teal as I could get, so I dumped the whole thing in.

That, my friends, is scary dark.

Get the fabric (dress, in my case) soaking wet. There was still soap left in it from the last washing—I could tell, because it bubbled out as I wrung it dry—so I had to soak, wring, soak, wring, soak, wring, several times.

In it goes!

3...

...2...

...1

What was I thinking?!? Welp, too late to go back now.

P.S. Those oh-so-fashionable gloves are left over from my textiles class in college. Nice, huh?

Let it simmer for over an hour (directions were on the dye bottle, thank goodness). I let it go even a little bit longer, since I wanted a darker color. (Plus I was doing laundry at the same time and was downstairs when the timer went off. Oops!)

Then rinse.

And rinse.

And rinse.

And rinse. You have to get all that extra dye out of there, or else it'll wear off on your skin when you wear it, or it'll dye all your other clothes the next time you wash it.

Then dry! It can be tumbled in the dryer or drip-dried on a line.

Apparently, grease doesn't take color the way un-greased cotton does, so there's still a hint of the stain. I've found an embellishment in a slightly darker teal that I'm going to sew over it, but haven't gotten around to that yet.

But anyway, that's what I did to make my old dress new!

All Photos © Me

Peace,

New Look

It's been a while since I let Rob cut my hair short. I think the last time was right before we got engaged. Which was over 2 years ago. He's been dropping (not-so-subtle) hints recently, and I was ready for a change. So...

Tada! Not too drastic, and I love it!

Peace,

Thunderbirds!

Last Wednesday was the US Air Force Academy graduation ceremony, which is always concluded with a hat-toss flyover and then an air show. It's one of the most unique parts of living in Colorado Springs. And my office building is pretty much directly east of the Academy stadium, so we have prime real estate for viewing the show. Here are some shots I got this year:

All Photos © Me

Peace,