Hands To Work

Baby, it's gonna get cold outside!

December 7th. 8:19 p.m. 50°. But all that is about to change it seems.
On another note, I've surpassed 3000 pins. Can we say addictive?

Delishishnious

 

Roasted Brussel Sprouts.  Oh my.  I made them last night and it was veggie nirvana!  I heated them up for lunch today.  Will have more for dinner.  And a snack.

To make, coat fresh sprouts with olive oil.  Throw in a bit of sea salt and course pepper.  Bake uncovered for 45 minutes or so in a moderate oven.  Stir occassionally.  Eat massive quantities.  Take gas-x.

This Knocks My Socks Off!!!

Y'all know I'm addicted to blogs, right?  I love to find cool recipes, decorating ideas, confessions...the whole bit.  My new blog love is Lori's awesome blog called Frugal Farmhouse.  She has a tutorial on her blog right now showing you how to cover your floors with plywood and make it look like old painted planks. 

She buys a 4x8 sheet of plywood, cuts it into 8" widths and glues it to the subfloor.  Then it's painted and coated with varathane.  How cool is that???  My entire second floor has carpeting that needs ripped up and thrown away.  I'm currently working with the man to get him on the plywood bandwagon!

Here is a pic of a an old drop leaf table that she spruced up with paint.  Lori is so generous to always include all of her how-tos and give links to vendors. 

 
Spend some time on Lori's blog.  You are sure to be inspired.  She has a huge list of other blogs that she visits.  And her older posts are well worth spending time reading. 

One more thing.  I recently found this beautiful shop called Hand and Cloth.  I love what is being done here.  I have some Christmas presents on their way! 

 

"Hand and Cloth is a social enterprising ministry in India that provides a living wage, school scholarships, and a loving community to young women at risk of prostitution and trafficking. Each young woman is paid per-piece to stitch kantha dorokha, a traditional two-sided blanket made from recycled sari material. Hand and Cloth provides school fees and tutors for the young women and also offers regular Bible studies. The young women live together in a community outside of the red light district, where they sew together, share meals together, study together and pray together."

Tomorrow I will be driving up to Frederick to get my hair cut and colored by my baby girl.  I'm excited to get the gray covered.  I'm dragging the man with me so he can see what E and I have been gushing about for months.  The Temple is AWESOME!  If any one reading this that lives somewhat close to Frederick MD needs a cut and color, please call and schedule an appointment with Elisabeth!  She is doing a great job and I am oh so proud of her!!!

Have a great weekend ~ love Tracy 

  
  
  

Fall!

Can you believe that it's the middle of September already??? Chuck and I are babysitting Lily today and now that she is napping, I'm getting a few things done around the house. I picked up some fall flowers at the store down the road and filled an old watering can. Put out my autumn wreath. Put pumpkins on the dining room table. All the while, football is playing on television. The weather is cool. Awwww, I LOVE this time of the year!!!

What have you been doing lately?

My Calendar Dilemma

I love calendars.  Especially calendars that I can throw in my purse.  But I'm so picky.  Did you know that about me?  I will pass over most calendars that I find in discount stores or pharmacies.  Even popular and well made calendars in book stores don't do it for me.  I want quirky.  I want pockets.  I want room to paste magazine pictures and ticket stubs and doodle.  I want a soft cover.  I want pretty pictures.  I want hand drawn.  I want something that is NOT mass marketed.  Any suggestions?

  This is a journal page by Pam Garrison.  Think she would make me a calendar?   I would be happy to color it in myself.  Here is another page that hasn't been finished:  Cute, huh?

Several years ago, I drew up a calendar with a stitched design in the back.  I love it and have a few more copies to use but it's not quite right.  Thin paper, not much room for writing, and NO POCKETS. 

 Soooo, I'm looking for some inspiration.  I need a calendar sooner than later.  Help a girl out, would ya?

Journaling: My New Obsession

I have written here before about my journey into journaling.  I started with an online class from Mary Ann Moss called The Remains of the Day.  I am half way through my second journal and find it easy to keep updated.  I write in it almost daily and while it's nothing newsworthy, it chronicles my real life.  Work, drive, kids, grandkid, dog, husband, doctor visits, griping and complaining, exclamations of joy.  Just usual everyday stuff.  This is the first time I've ever been able to keep a journal.  I had always tried to write interesting things that other people would want to read.  So I have about 10 journals with two pages on which I actually wrote!  The ROD journal class finally allowed me to quit trying to be something I'm not.  I am not exciting.  I am not a writer.  But I do live.  I experience.  I love.  And I want to remember those things.

Now I am taking it one step further.  Something I have always wanted to do and admired what others were doing...Art Journals.  Hope is teaching an awesome online class called Nostalgic Musings.  I nervously signed up and am HOOKED.  Markers and watercolors and paper and tape.  Fun, fun, fun!  Lots of encouragement and inspiration from Hope and the other class attendees.  You should see what they are doing.  Awesome!

So this journal isn't documenting my daily life.  It's more of a coloring book for me.  Hope gives us an assignment or a prompt and then we get busy.  My first exercise was horrific but it got better.  Below is the exercise to write Ten Things About Me:

The next spread shows the exercise to write about someone or something that you love.  Hope wrote about her sweet dog.  I wrote about my Spawn Of Satan dog and my sweet Lily.  The two girls in my life.  When I have more time I will show more detail of this spread and the second attempt at the very first exercise that we were to do.  My first attempt is embarrassingly bad!  YUK!


 

So if you are looking for something to fill a creative itch, hop on over to Hope's blog and sign up for the course.  Off to finish my adult responsibilities so I can get home and color!!! 

My Girl

 

 

Chuck and I have been spending a lot of time with Miss Lily.  Elisabeth has started a new job with less than ideal hours.  Lily spends the day with her Daddy's mother and the evenings with us.  She is 2.5 years old which means she is busy and talks incessantly, but she has been such a joy.  We take her out to eat each Wednesday evening before going to church.  Last night we went to Bob Evans and she had a fruit plate (pineapples, apples, strawberries, grapes and bananas) with yogurt.  She ate and ate and ate from that plate.  She had half a roll with strawberry jam, lots of broccoli and noodles from Chuck's plate and all the peas from my chicken pot pie!  She is amazing. 

E took her to see How To Train Your Dragon.  Well, now she has her imaginary boy and dragon with her at all times.  Please be careful where you sit, stand, put down your purse or mail.  They must not be squished!  I especially love it when she shows them to me as they "sit" in her hand.  She rarely watches television and I think that has allowed her imagination to blossom.

I have so many happy things in my life and she rates right up at the TOP of the list!

Look at This!

My good friend Carmen Sutton  has just started a web site.  She is the MOST amazing finisher and offers her services with a quick turn around and reasonable price.  She and her buddy Jean are two of the nicest girls I know.

Well, isn't this the cutest design!  Wonder who's it is???

So stop what you are doing and visit Carmen's site right now! 

 

oh My!

I am SO THANKFUL that the above scene is not what is outside my door right now.  I do have about 6" of water in that very spot but the grass is actually greening up and the birds are singing like crazy.  Yeah!

So, it's been like months since I last updated.  At least it feels that way.  So you don't get the idea that I sit around and twiddle my thumbs all day I thought I would share a bit of what I've been up to.

By now you know that I took Mary Ann Moss' fantastic Remains of the Day class.  I'm still loving it.  It's rare for me to stick with something this long.  Since I have the attention span of a flea, normally I would have found thirteen other projects to investigate.  But my little journal is getting quite the work out.  I refuse to start another one until this one is full.  And I write in it nearly every day!

I have bits and pieces of mail, pictures, stamps, ribbon, old check registers and even a cool Rebecca Sower piece that I bought on etsy ages ago.  Impulse buy (who me???) and wasn't sure what to do with it once I received it.  Who knew it was meant to be a journal post about my Mom. 

Another fun part of the Mary Ann class is that several people organized swaps where each participant would make a set amount of pages and then exchange them with someone really awesome.  My awesome girl Lelainia who lives in Vancouver BC and worked at the OLYMPICS and also will be a torchbearer at the Paralympics sent me four seriously wonderful pages.  I told her that I like love OBSESS over birds so she dug through all of her stash and included lots of birdie goodness.  These pages will be the bones for my next journal.

Then there is this fun little guy to help me stay focused and inspired on journaling.  It's a tiny little Polaroid printer.  I got mine here and found it to be the best deal.  It fits in the palm of my hand, prints out cute little 2x3" color pictures either wirelessly from my phone (well not my phone because even though the iphone does a lot, it won't let me send pictures to the printer.  hmpff.) or directly from my camera with a USB cord.  It comes with a rechargeable battery and power cord.  Never needs ink.  Who thinks of this stuff???

Okay, enough of journaling.  What else?  Oh.  Ebay.  I've been having an obsession with ironstone.  Look at this soup tureen that I scored.  Almost paid more for shipping than I did for the dish!

And.  I've.  Been.  STITCHING!  Yeah!  I remember how and my fingers still work!  My good buddy Shelley went to the Nashville market and shopped just for me.  Isn't she awesome!  I am working on the new Blackbird series Anniversaries of the Heart over one on 32 count linen.  This is a stinky picture but you get the idea.  This has been a great diversion while recuperating from a minor surgery (and don't even ask about it because I won't tell!) !

And finally, I've been spending a lot of time with my girls...Helen the Horrible who I'm really working with.  We spent about an hour outside in the rain today playing and splashing in puddles.  I'm seeing a bit of progress! See that wild look in her eyes?  This was after the towel drying and she couldn't contain herself!

And finally two more of my favorite girls outside yesterday with bare feet!  Having fun on the porch swing.

Off to watch Finding Nemo for the forty fourth time.  I have a list of posts so hopefully you will hear from me again before month's end.
 
  
  

 

  

Saturday Randomness

Images from my house on a Saturday morning.  I love Saturday mornings...