07.31.07
Ready Mades
Will be up soon, check them out
07.30.07
Gates
When we were down at the farm over the weekend I took some pictures of a couple of gates on properties nearby. We need a new driveway gate and here are my favorites.
also love the cool very old house that goes with this 2nd one
The garden is growing like crazy
Shiloh had some fun with the squash
07.27.07
Back on the trail
A few days ago I hopped back on the trail. I have been trying to make it an every day thing. I vary what I do (bike, walk, run) and who goes with me (kids, dog, alone). Yesterday I dragged the whole family for an evening bike ride, and that was fun. Today I took my Barley girl down for a run. I was hoping to sweat out the remainder of this cold but I probably only succeeded in alarming the people I passed with my hacking cough.
And then there is Barley, being the sweet Golden that she is, she feels the need to stop and chat with every kid, grandma, rabbit, and butterfly that comes our way. She tripped me at least 5 times before I decided maybe a brisk walk was better than a run.
It is always interesting to see who and what we will encounter on the trail. Friends and neighbors, small critters, oh and last week a 4 foot long snake crossed in front of Cole and I while we were biking. Well it didn’t really cross, it just kind of stayed in one spot and I thought it was a tree branch blocking the path so I was going to run over it. Until I got closer…. and then of course we had to stop and inspect it. After seeing one like it at the zoo we determined it was a ratsnake.
Barley got a bath on the front lawn when we got home and is now passed out. Love that dog.
Have a great weekend!
07.26.07
New Family Member
My sister-in-law got a new boxer pup, check her out
Her name is Lucy. I am so excited that Julie and her family have joined the dog world. Isn’t she cute?? Now if only they can survive the first 6 months…..
07.24.07
Zoo Break
Last week, before I got this nasty cold that has been dragging me down, I decided that I was going to start enjoying the things around me. One of the biggies is the hike and bike trail. When I lived in Austin I used to load my bike up in my car and truck it over to town lake to ride. Town Lake really isn’t a lake, it’s a river. And now I have one at the end of my block, equally beautiful, also along a river, wooded, and even longer than the one in Austin. But do I take advantage of it? Of course not. Andy and the kids use it when biking to the pool, sometimes we take the dogs down for a little off leash time. But for the most part we don’t use it that much. Every time I walk or ride down there I think the same thing, I need to come here more. It’s peaceful, it’s pretty, it’s shady and cool, and it’s incredibly convenient. I did good for a few days, got my bike out and hooked up the trailer for Cole and off we went. Then I got sick. But as soon as I kick this cold I am going to get back on track.
The other thing we don’t take advantage of any more is the zoo. It’s a pretty good one. I talked Andy into going on Sunday. It was a nice break from doing work.
Did you know that baby flamingos are not pink?
The zoo has a lot of great conservation projects going on and one of the cool things that I really like is their manatee rehabilitation. They fly these big guys up from Florida after they have been injured (usually by boats) and get them healthy again. When they are strong enough, they send them back to the ocean.
The 1914 carousel is also one of my favorite things.
Lots of cool animals to look at
No zoo trip is complete without a ride on the train and the boat
I skipped the boat ride to watch real boats sailing
What a great day and much needed break.
07.23.07
Hogworts
Friday our library transformed itself into Hogworts. And had a party from 10am to midnight when Barnes and Noble trucked over a bunch of copies of the new book.
Part of the fun was to put on the sorting hat and find out which house you belonged to. My older boys all got Griffendor, and so did I. Andy got Hufflepuff and Cole, crazy little Cole got what everyone expected him to get, Slytherin.
Pillows
Adding a new category to the website with these fun pillows. All will be one of kind.
The backs look like this
This is the back of the USA pillow. The covers are easy to remove.
I have also added a new ready made category in the kiddo section and added this blanket
All the ready made lunch totes flew out the door so I added a couple more.
07.22.07
Demolition Day
Those of you that have been reading this blog for any length of time know that I have gone back and forth about our house. For the past year we have looked at a lot of houses, and talked about remodeling and adding on to the house we are in. In the end, we have decided to stay put and make the house we are in work for us because when it comes down to it, we love where we live.
The architect has finished the plans, the bank has loaned us a chunk of change, and now the city is hopefully granting our permits. And the fun beings.
Today was demolition Day. I was thinking that it would be bitter-sweet to watch my screened porch being demolished but it was actually kind of cool. It was in bad shape anyway and needed to be redone. It didn’t pass inspection when we bought the house 4 years ago. But, it was also one of my favorite places in the house, at least before the cutting of the shrubs incident.
So with the help of our neighbor, the porch came down. The boys and their buddies also had a job, to pull up the brick patio. I was so proud of how hard they worked yesterday, pulling up the brick, loading them in wagons, and unloading them in a temporary location under the playset so we can reuse them later. They worked ALL day.
By the time they were finished, the bricks were close to the top.
The demo begins with the roof
Then the sides
I think the sledgehammer was Andy’s favorite part
Once the wall crashed down, all the boys scrambled up to pretend like they had a hand in it all
Matthew Austin and Will
Matthew hanging out on my porch remains
Will and Austin
Step one is complete. Next step is to bust up the slab of the porch and then the crew comes and starts digging the new basement. It’s going to be a long 4-5 months. I’m not looking forward to the dirt and dust and strange men in my house but it will be fun to record the progress and watch the house change shape and become more efficient for a family of 5.
07.18.07
Bedtime Yet?
Ever have one of those days where you get up and just go through the motions until it is time for bed?
Last night around 8pm Austin started having stomach cramps. They got so bad that he could not sit up straight, walk, or sleep. After 5 hours of pain and tears, Andy decided to take him down to Children’s Hospital- at 1am. When I finally decided to try to go to sleep, I got into my bed only to find my favorite little 4 year old had decided to pee in my bed. I got him changed without waking him up and fell asleep. At 4am Andy and Austin come back. Andy takes a shower and heads to the airport to catch the shuttle (Limited’s corporate jet) to NYC. I try to go back to sleep and find that Cole has peed again! He never pees in the bed!
So today we have been a little zombie-ish.
The great thing about the “shuttle” is that it comes back at night, so hopefully Andy will stagger in the door around 10pm tonight, exhausted I’m sure after 48 hours of no sleep. But as I type this I am watching the nightly news and of course there is some minor explosion is Manhattan that will probably in some way alter his plans. To top it off the soar throat crud my kids have been passing amongst themselves has now been passed to me.
So enough of my pity party.
Today I finished up a party order that was full of black and red bags. Sometimes this happens, like when Cathy does this and I get a ton of orders for the Bailey bag in the Kashmir Amy Butler print. It’s hard to pick out fabric online, you can never be sure of the colors, what is brown, what is black, etc. I try to make it easier by posting a lot of bags made up in the Flickr page to make the choices easier. I’m not sure where I am going with this, I am tired. I guess what I am trying to say is I like it when I get a lot of similar bags on a party order, it makes cutting a lot easier- especially when you are zombie-ish! There was one in the bunch that mixed it up a little bit- and since I haven’t done a bag with this combo before I took a picture and here it is.
Oh and Austin, he’s fine. Nothing that some time spent in the bathroom couldn’t fix. In fact he just walked in here and asked if we were going to 10 cent hotdog night at the pool tonight. Forget the fact that it is 7:15, we already ate dinner, he got 4 hours of sleep last night, and I am already in my pj’s. Oh and 10 cent hotdog night was LAST NIGHT.
Sigh. Kids.
07.17.07
Finding art in weird places
We have a ton of old license plates. A few of them were actually on our cars but most of them came from our really old garage. I have been thinking about cool things that I could do with them-
I washed them all the other day and when I put them all out to dry I thought they looked pretty cool so I took a couple of pictures
Especially when I added the filter in Photoshop.
My favorite is the older ones. I love the ones from 1974 that say Seat Belts Fastened? Very Cool.
