Log Cabin Wonkiness and Wonderfulness

Last summer I took a class from Malka Dubrawsky with a wonderfully creative friend. It was so great.

The technique was very much out of my comfort zone – at first! Then I totally got into it. We all brought scraps to work with. And I realized that my scraps are all little girl colors. I had scrap envy for a while looking around the room. Such beautiful colors. We were to create some log cabin blocks, Malka style. Which really means as wonky as you want. No rulers, no straight edge. Now I have to admit that I may have made only one log cabin block before, period. So even that was new to me. 

I think her suggestion was to make 9 blocks to make a small throw. Well I stopped at 8. Which was great. (Ha.) So when I put them together I came up with 2 good sized blocks, about 14-15 inches, kind of almost square.

For Christmas I made them into pillows for the girls (the bug’s cousins). They turned out great. And are well loved. 

(Okay, Linda, does that period go inside the parenthesis or outside?)

Mud!

Another great day of beautiful weather. I was digging in the yard. Which left large areas of dirt available. And small fun-loving girls were running around. So of course they had to make mud pies. 

Which then turned into playing in a mud pit. So much fun.

 

Disclaimer: I did create the mud pit. Although it was at the request of cute small fun-loving girls.

And then we cleaned up and had baths before The Man got home. J

a little bragging moment

When bug wants to reach something in her closet, she turns over her trash can to create a stool that she can stand on. I love that. She is so resourceful. And even though it creates a mess, I'm okay with that. Because she figured something out on her own to achieve her goal. I really am a proud Momma.

Okay, resume your day. Thanks for listening.

We are Thankful

One of the great things about my new job is that I get to be one of the room moms for Bug’s preschool class. The other room mom is AWESOME. She is so dang creative I love it. And so far we work really well together. For Thanksgiving she came up with the greatest project for their teacher. Each kid was given a paper leaf to write what they were thankful for about their teacher. Then we put it together in a frame. It’s great because she has a lot of scrapbook supplies and I have the fiber arts and other random things covered.

Turned out so cute.

Oh, and Christmas was gift cards with fun little mini trees. And we made ornaments with each of the kid’s photos. Again, such a great idea (Laura!) and so dang cute. (But I forgot to take a picture. Duh.) Wonder what we can come up with for Valentine’s Day?

Domestic Diva Action Plan

Here are my plans. And I hope by putting them here I will keep up with them and keep checking back in to mark my progress. 

1. I really need to get more comfortable cooking. On a regular basis. Normal food. Healthy food.
2. Keeping the house presentable. Got this one covered with FlyLady. Love her philosophies and her way of approaching things. I can do anything for 15 minutes. I can get an amazing amount done in 15 minutes.
3. Work on the backyard. I am building a garden. Actually three raised gardens in the back yard. I broke ground today! The Man came up with a brilliant solution to fix our retaining wall, which means we can also address The Hill. The Hill has been my nemesis for a few years now. I will conquer The Hill.
4. Redo the office. I got a great desk the other day. (Free on the sidewalk. We saw it at a neighbor’s while on a walk. Yipee!)  So I want to pull out my old work desk and put this one in and create more of a play room so that I can get all of Bug’s toys out of the living room. And then maybe we can stop calling that the toy room.
5. Get in shape? Bug loves the beach. And going in the pool. Which means I am going to be spending a LOT of time in a bathing suit. Yikes. I am taking it slow at least making sure that I am active every day. The gardening is really helping on that too.

And somewhere in there I want to make sure I keep creating and quilting. That actually seems to be the hardest to make sure I do. I need to work on that one. 

Go me!

Can you believe it's January?

We really are lucky. The weather here for the last few days has been just fantastic. This was the bug on Saturday- hanging in a mini-pool in the backyard.

What a wonderful way to spend a day in January. Nice, huh?

Settling In

Settling in to this new job has not been as easy as I thought it might be. It could be that the holidays were upon us at the time. That doesn't really make for calm, peaceful transitioning. More like, YIKES! But I really cannot get over the feeling that I need to be somewhere, or that time is short, I gotta go, I need to get back to my desk. Although I have truly embraced not being tied to my phone at all times for emails, messages and what have you. I often even forget to bring my phone with me. I never lost sight or knowledge of where my 'smart' phone was. Now that I have a dumb phone, I really couldn't care less.

And I think I figured out this smart phone thing. I totally understand why it is called a smart phone. I had a brand spanking new iPhone 4GS, for about 2 weeks. And it was so easy to navigate, so intuitive, nicely organized, etc. When you wanted to make a call, you used the button labeled call. Now my phone has a button called send. What? No, I want to call. Where is the call button? Really, I feel so dumb using my dumb phone. When I get call waiting I hit the OK button. Nope, that is the wrong one. My other phone literally asked, would you like to answer this other call? So easy. Not so much now. Okay, tangent over.

So, back to this transition thing. Strange. I have more time and yet I feel like I am not really getting anything done. And that there is my problem. My new job is to be a Mom. A full time Mom. And that means spending time with the Bug. It really doesn't mean working on the computer, trying to coupon like an Extreme Couponer (have you seen these women? wow!), designing a new garden layout, figuring out how to make Artisan Bread in 5 Minutes a Day, or how to compost for the backyard. Although I have actually been doing those things. Cool, huh? Oh, all except the computer. Haven't had much time for that. So it is the mind shift that I think is the hardest. But I am getting there. And really enjoying my time.

Hopefully more to come. When I can get the computer time figured out.

PS - yesterday I was running to the grocery store and the man was home to be with the bug. She got so upset that I was leaving. "But momma, you are supposed to be a Home Mommy now." So cute. But I did persevere and got that 15 minutes of alone time.  

PSS - and I have been working on some things. More sharing to come.