Making Plans

Yes...the blog still exists. I've been hemming and hawing about writing simply because I didn't know quite what direction I was planning on taking. Honestly, it's still a bit of a craps shoot. But, I've flown by the seat of my pants plenty of times before, so why should now be different?

Where I've Been

It's actually been a bit of a crazy fast two months. Life moves too swiftly sometimes and the days just start blurring together. 2016 has been interesting, to say the least. My life is so incredibly different than it was just a year ago...in a lot of good ways. I'm happy. Really happy. And after a few years of a lot of stress and indecision, that is a wonderfully good thing.

I got out of a relationship that wasn't good for me. Things had been fading for the last couple of years and I had been struggling to keep it together, but it became clear that neither of us was benefiting from being with one another. It was painful and terrible and somewhat messy, but leaving was the right thing to do. And in the end, I found someone who truly values me for who I am and who treats me incredibly well. He is kind and generous and loving and I am incredibly lucky to be able to be with him.

I also discovered that getting out of a profession that I didn't love was one of the best things I could do for myself. It was a decision that wasn't completely voluntary thanks to some medical issues, but I made some major changes that let me leave that life behind. At this point, I can honestly say that I don't miss dentistry. I do miss some of the people, but I don't miss the constant stress and the physical pain that came from trying to make every day work despite my illness. Luckily, I was at one point smart enough to prepare for the fact that I might one day not be able to work in the field, so I don't now have to feel like it owns me. I worked very hard for the thirteen years I ran my practice and now those years have become something that was a good investment.

Where I'm Going

As for where I go from here in the professional department, that's still a bit up for grabs. My good investment is paying off in more ways than one. Life has arranged itself in a way where I am stable enough to not have to work in a formal profession for the foreseeable future, so I can take my time and decide what I really want to do when I grow up. I've been attending college courses for the last two years and working on my English and accountancy degrees, but...I think I may shift things slightly once more. I'm good at accounting, but (much like dentistry) it just isn't something I love. Writing, on the other hand, has never failed to be something I enjoy. I'm considering taking next semester off, but I plan to continue to pursue some form of English education (and potential employment) -- formal or otherwise.

In the meantime, I have myself a pending new job. It's one that I'm terribly excited for. In just a few months, I should officially have myself the job title of Mommy. Amazing really.

I've always wanted to be a mother, but it just wasn't in the cards. (I'll likely write more about that at a later date.) After a trip back to Idaho to clean up some details from closing the business this past summer, I found myself terribly nauseated on the flight back to Minnesota. The feeling continued for days afterwards. A week later, I was surprised to learn that I was, in fact, not getting sick, but pregnant. It was a bit of a shock, but a really good one.

It's been a pretty good pregnancy thus far. I really can't complain. We've been getting excited and slowly accumulating things in preparation for his arrival. We still have a lot of work to do, but we're plodding along.

The house we live in is an old farm house that we have been planning on renovating. Originally, that was intended to be a slow-paced project, but a few things have needed to be accelerated since there will be a new baby in the house. Part of the new journey for the blog had been planned for following our home improvement projects, so now we're getting a bit of a jump start on that.

Right now, the projects are primarily focused on stripping wallpaper from two of the bedrooms and repainting. We'll be putting flooring into what was the storage room so that it can become our bedroom and the room we're currently in will become the nursery. The color palette for his room has been all picked out and he'll be decked out in foxes. (I'll share more about the house and our plans in a later post.)

Currently, we have about 11 weeks to get our act together and have everything somewhat prepared. Wallpaper has been removed from one of the rooms and it's ready to paint. We're moving boxes around to clear it out and then the fun begins. Once that paint is finished, I'll start removing wallpaper and painting the other room, while flooring is installed in the first. After that, it's furniture moving and assembly. With any luck, things will start really coming together over the next month.

In addition to the house projects, I'm taking an active part in running our farm. We raise Belted Galloway cattle (Oreo cookie cows) and Berkshire pigs (black pigs with white feet that have superior meat quality). We're likely adding some poultry and lambs in 2017. I'll be in charge of our blog (coming soon...) and our marketing/social media presence, in addition to helping with the day-to-day activities required to keep our little herds going. I'm very excited for what the next year could hold for us in that direction. It has some great promise and it's a life I really love. I'll be sharing bits and pieces of that here on this blog, but will mostly be directing that information to the upcoming new farm blog. (Keep an eye out for that in the next month. I'll be posting about it here.)

My goal with this blog for now is just to keep it going. I'm going to be making myself a new posting schedule to keep me in line and (with any luck) should be able to start having things to share over the next few weeks. The plan for now is to try and post at least once a week. Writing will be centered around a hodgepodge, per usual. There will be project posts, to be sure, but there will also be posts about books as in the past along with some farm stuff, some mommy stuff, and ... just life in general.

I realize that this has been a long and full post, but I needed to get myself caught up a bit so I had a place to start. If you've stuck with me this far, thanks. I'm really looking forward to sharing some of this new and crazy life with you. There is so much that it potentially has in store. Life is truly amazing. You can never quite predict what you're going to get.

Happy Pumpkin Week!

This Saturday is Halloween. Around here, that only means one thing... PUMPKINS!

Preparation work for the yard display is in full swing over here. I'm drowning in pumpkins. I'm down a gutter this year as Collin will be working out of town until Friday, but Darian has stepped up to help. I'm working with a total of 36 large pumpkins and 4 small pumpkins this time around. Thus far, 21 of the needed 31 guttings are completed. I should be able to wrap up that phase today and then move on to the good stuff.

We've had one interesting and fantastic development this year. We have got ourselves a sponsor! How awesome is that? I'm lucky enough to know the wife of the team that owns The Farmstead Corn Maze & Pumpkin Festival in Meridian. They have been amazingly generous this year and helped to supply us with some great pumpkins. 

We retrieved our bounty last Saturday with the help of two particularly adorable little pumpkin wranglers. It took us four carts and three trips, but we managed to get everything out to the truck relatively smoothly. The girls loved being able to pull a wagon together and were pretty darned great despite the air that got chillier towards the end.

The pumpkins are now all safely tucked in the garage. Gutting started Monday and I've just been picking away at it. All of the gear is out and ready and our best tools are being put to the test once again. (For the record...tried the mixer this year with completely failing results. If you want a good gutting instrument, stick with the ice cream scoop.)

We're excited to put on another fun display this year. It's going to be a crazy week, but I'm determined to make this happen!

To keep up with all the pumpkin fun, be sure to follow over on my Instagram. You'll get all the good sneak peeks there as the week rolls along. Happy pumpkin week everyone!

It's Time to Do a Little Reading. What's on Your TBR?

This weekend is going to be a busy one. We have plans for a round of golf, dinner with best friends, and of course celebrations for Father's Day on Sunday. But in any moments of down time, my attention will be occupied by a book. It's a big reading weekend!

Tonight I'm starting the 48 Hour Book Challenge. The challenge is hosted by Mother Reader and is a nice social event with lots of reading. I'm starting mine at midnight and rolling on through 11:59pm Sunday evening.

At the same time, this weekend it's time for a #FlashReadathon. There's no host for this, it's just a free-for-all. Everyone reads and socializes about in on the social media platform(s) of their choice. They've already taken pretty heavily to Twitter this evening. I'm getting antsy to join in.

It's always fun to read with a bunch of my bloggy friends.

While I do love reading and socializing, sometimes I find it hard to find a good book. This is more often because there are too many to choose from than too few. Like most serious readers, I have a TBR. A TBR is a "to be read" list. In my case, the TBR contains about 2,000 books -- including both those housed in my home library that haven't been read and the books I've shelved on my "to read" shelf on Goodreads.

Becauese I'm also a bit of a mood reader, I tend to be pretty indecisive. I like to have a plan and very frequently keep a stack of books in my nightstand. But if the mood doesn't strike right, I'll often find myself frustrated and not feeling into a particular kind of book. That can spell disaster and send me into a book drought where nothing sounds good. It's a bad, bad thing.

To help me combat this problem (and to help keep books from getting buried deep within the TBR and forgotten) I decided to make myself a TBR jar.

I created a spreadsheet with the names of all of the books on my TBR and their authors. I then printed it out. Each strip was then cut and folded.

Originally, the plan was to use a large mason jar since I have several prettily decorated ones leftover from our wedding. But after folding only a small portion of the strips, I soon realized that there was never going to be enough room. I considered only placing in a handful of selected books and replenishing as the supply grew low, but decided that just wasn't what I wanted.

After a search of the house, I found a large container that used to house indoor tulips. It's a 7" diameter cylinder that stands about 15" high. Basically, it's ridiculously large for something like this.

After folding, and folding...and folding. It's now around 3/4 of the way full. And I'm not done. I have a handful of strips left to cut and fold. Man, that's a lot of books!

It's been a pretty long undertaking, but I'm excited for what it will allow me to do. I'm pretty giddy for the moment I reach into it and pull out the first strip. The plan isn't to lock myself into something. The plan is to give me a random idea of what to read. I've made the decision that (at most) I will allow myself to pull out three strips when I'm stuck and don't know what to read next or when I'm just not feeling the book I'm reading. From those three strips will come the choice for my next read. If any of the strips happen to be a book I've already read somewhere along the way, they will be tossed and replaced by another fish in the jar. I'm hoping that will allow me more diversity in my reading, as well as prevent me from getting in reading slumps.

There is a good mixture in there. There are children's books, memoirs, humor, YA fiction, historical fiction, and much more. Most genres are represented. It's a fun new toy, but a daunting reminder of all the books I want to read...a daunting reminder that will no doubt grow as I find more books to add to my TBR, to my Excel sheet, and to my jar. It's amazing how many wonderful works of literary art there are out there for me to get my hot little hands on.

If only I could read them all...

How many books are on your TBR? Do you keep a separate TBR for immediate planned reads or do you lump it all together like I do? Do you have a TBR jar?

I'm ready for my crazy weekend, especially all of this reading. I'm ready to break out the books and to maybe have the moment arrive where a dip in the jar is taken. Hooray for reading! Off I go!

Z is for Zebra

We made it! Today is the last day of the 2015 Blogging from A to Z in April Challenge. It's day Z!

It's been a whirlwind of a month and I've read a lot of blog posts, but I'll be taking May and June to get around to blogs on the list that I haven't visited. During the challenge, I've probably read over 2000 posts just from A to Z bloggers. That's a lot of reading. But it's really been a fun time. I've met a few new friends as well, so that's always worth it.

Today, I'm sharing the Zebra Hobby Horse I made for my nephew's 2nd birthday earlier this month.

To make this baby you'll need felt in black and white, a wooden dowel for your stick, some buttons for the eyes, some scissors, some fiberfil stuffing, and a sewing machine.

I made my pattern by modifying the one from over at Lia Griffith's blog. I liked her general idea, but I wanted a larger head for my zebra.

Even with my enlarged pattern, I still wanted more space. I cut a generalized shape for the head that was about an inch larger all the way around and then fine tuned it.

I cut out a total of two head pieces and two ear pieces. You could cut out four ear pieces and make stuffed ears if you like, but I liked the looks of these ones. I cut everything with pinking shears just because I liked the look. Nothing fancy.

I then cut out my stripes from the white felt, as well as 3 x 12" strip each of white and black felt to make my mane.

I used scissors to give myself a nice fringed mane and then weaved the black and white strips around each other to add dimension and break up the colors.

I pinned on my stripes and added some white felt centers to the ears.

All pieces got their individual stitches. All stitching (except for the mane) was zigzag stitching (another Z word!). Again...just because I liked it.

I pinned an ear on each head piece and marked the locations for the eyes as well as a general idea of where my mane would start and end. I stitched across the bottom edges of my ears once they were folded and pinned to the head.

I lined the mane up and sandwiched it between the two head pieces. I then sewed down the edges all the way around, leaving the bottom open.

With my zebra all put together, I started stuffing him with fiberfil until he was nice and plump. It took a lot of working down the nose to get the face right before I could get the rest of the head and neck ready to go.

The trick was trying to make sure that both sides of the nose and both cheeks were in the same positions - otherwise my poor zebra would be lopsided.

The ears didn't lay quite where I wanted them to after stuffing, so I hand stitched them for positioning. Probably not a bad idea anyway since I'm sure they'll get some good tugging.

Next was adding the dowel. I tried using the glue gun method, but it was just messy and not helpful. Instead, I used it just enough to gum up the insides and get the dowel attached to the fiber fill inside. That will prevent the dowel from simply sliding back away from the head. I then stitched across the bottom of the head piece to tighten and secure the dowel.

Lastly, I added his eyes and a blue ribbon around his neck to cover up his surgery.

He's all ready for a ride around the Serengeti. I like how he turned out, but next time I think I'm going to shorten the dowel by about 6". It's just a bit too long for the younger kids.

And there you have it! Blogging from A to Z. Amazing. It really is a fun event, it's just exhausting. I did a better job at being prepared this year, but I still have room for improvement for 2016.

And now...well...now I'm going to take a small break and be happy that I don't have to do a post for tomorrow. I'm going to do some blog reading for the next few days and then I'll be back for more fun. 

Mother's Day is coming up, so I have projects to work on. I also still have a few UFOs (unfinished objects) that could use a little of my time. And then there's the matter of the sewing room. It's a bit of a disaster at the moment. It could probably stand a little touch up...

Thank you SO MUCH to those of you who joined me for A to Z. It's been a blast! I look forward to doing it all again next year!


Miss any of my A to Z posts so far this year? Find them below...

1. A is for Anna (Easy Anna Cape)
2. B is for Bath (Appliqued Bath Mat)
3. C is for Child (Children's Growth Ruler)
4. D is for Denim (Denim Bib)
5. E is for Etch (Etched Casserole Dishes)
6. F is for Felt (Felt Hopscotch Mat)
7. G is for Good Night ("Good Night" Envelope Pillows)
8. H is for Hood (Easy Hooded Towel)
9. I is for Insulated (Insulated Beverage Cozies)
10. J is for Jumper (Embroidered Spring Jumper)
11. K is for Know (Know When to Hold 'Em/Fold 'Em Laundry Sign)
12. L is for Loveseat (Envelope Loveseat Pillows)
13. M is for Mittens (Fleece Baby Mittens)
14. N is for Ninja Turtle (Felt Ninja Turtle)
15. O is for Owl (Owl Stuffies)
16. P is for Princess (Princess Peg Dolls)
17. Q is for Quilt (Moustache Quilt)
18. R is for Reading (Appliqued Reading Pillow)
19. S is for Superheroes (Superhero Peg Dolls)
20. T is for Tumblers (Custom Etched Barware)
21. U is for Upcycled (Little Kitchen)
22. V is for Vinyl (Vinyl Pallet Art)
23. W is for Whipped (Wild Orange Whipped Body Butter)
24. X is for Xtra (Play Kitchen Accessories)
25. Y is for You (You Are My Sunshine Nursery Decor)

Are you visiting from A to Z?

Be sure to leave me a comment (including your blog link) so I can come over and return the favor!

Y is for You

Holy crap this has been a day. But...I did manage to get a project finished for letter Y. Yay! How pathetic would it have been to drop out of the A to Z Challenge on the 2nd to last day?

Today's magic word is You. As in, "You are my sunshine." I mulled through a few possibilities before randomly landing on this one. It was down to the wire with this and I really had no clue where to even start. Nothing seemed like it was going to be feasible within the time frame I had available to me. I even had the girls at the office trying to help me come up with a project idea before I left at 5.

Annie sings this song to her little guy as a lullaby, so I figured it would be a great thing to put on a vinyl sign. When I got home at 5:30, I set to work.

I had a couple of boards already stained from when I made the Children's Growth Rulers. That makes this the third project in the A to Z completed with the help of MinWax Wood Finish in Provincial 221. (The other one was my  "Love Lives Here" pallet art.)

I pulled up my Pazzle software and created a design for my 18 x 15" board. (Yup...you can design with text and images. It's pretty awesome.)

But...I only had 12 x 12 vinyl in the color I wanted, so I did a little copy and paste action and redesigned to fit all of my word cuts onto a 12 x 12 sheet.

He's the famed Pazzle in action. I cut out my sun in yellow vinyl and the lettering in a blue.

Letters all cut and ready for peeling.

I removed the excess vinyl and weeded out the areas like the center of the o and a using some Honey Bee Tweezers. They're one of the most handy little tools I have laying around.

Another handy item in this type of project? Transfer tape. I just tear off a piece, smack it down on the section I want to move, and then peel it up from the backing. This helps me keep my words in line and prevents a lot of swearing when I'm trying to get things centered and straight.

You'll notice I had to finagle to get sunshine all on one line. I'm magic like that.

Then I started lining up wording and adhering vinyl.

Almost done...

A quick layer of clearcoat and this baby is already to go. All it needs is some cure time and some hangers attached to the back, and it will be all ready to hang in the little guy's nursery. Phew.

Nothing like a last minute project!

Tomorrow is the very last day of the 2015 Blogging from A to Z in April Challenge. I'm exhausted! I still have a lot of blog visiting to do, but I have been able to keep up with a handful of awesome bloggers so far.

The good news is that tomorrow's project has been done for over two weeks! Just a little post writing to finish and it will be all ready to roll. Then I can go ahead and cruise across the finish line and call this year's A to Z a success. I'm so excited!


Miss any of my A to Z posts so far this year? Find them below...

1. A is for Anna (Easy Anna Cape)
2. B is for Bath (Appliqued Bath Mat)
3. C is for Child (Children's Growth Ruler)
4. D is for Denim (Denim Bib)
5. E is for Etch (Etched Casserole Dishes)
6. F is for Felt (Felt Hopscotch Mat)
7. G is for Good Night ("Good Night" Envelope Pillows)
8. H is for Hood (Easy Hooded Towel)
9. I is for Insulated (Insulated Beverage Cozies)
10. J is for Jumper (Embroidered Spring Jumper)
11. K is for Know (Know When to Hold 'Em/Fold 'Em Laundry Sign)
12. L is for Loveseat (Envelope Loveseat Pillows)
13. M is for Mittens (Fleece Baby Mittens)
14. N is for Ninja Turtle (Felt Ninja Turtle)
15. O is for Owl (Owl Stuffies)
16. P is for Princess (Princess Peg Dolls)
17. Q is for Quilt (Moustache Quilt)
18. R is for Reading (Appliqued Reading Pillow)
19. S is for Superheroes (Superhero Peg Dolls)
20. T is for Tumblers (Custom Etched Barware)
21. U is for Upcycled (Little Kitchen)
22. V is for Vinyl (Vinyl Pallet Art)
23. W is for Whipped (Wild Orange Whipped Body Butter)
24. X is for Xtra (Play Kitchen Accessories)

Are you visiting from A to Z?

Be sure to leave me a comment (including your blog link) so I can come over and return the favor!

X is for Xtra

Today is X day in the 2015 Blogging from A to Z Challenge. As an English major, it truly hurts me to use "xtra" in place of "extra", but I got desperate. If it helps, it's better than the x-cessories that I could have used instead. Also, technically this will fit for the term xilinous, but I used that last year. So... you get what you get and you don't throw a fit.

Today's project is a set of accessories for the little kitchen that I made for my eldest niece. The original set was pot holders, oven mitts, and a chef's hat, but for some reason I failed to take any pictures at all of the hat. I'm really batting 1000 today.

The best part is that both of these projects are ones that can be made from scraps. Yay scrap stash!!

Let's start with some pot holders...

I made a set of two pot holders from some leftover denim and a little bit of patterned fabric. Just remember, these are play accessories, so they aren't really designed to protect from actual oven heat. Do I need to spell that out more plainly? Don't grab hot crap with these. There. That ought to do it.

Start with four squares of denim. Mine were 4" squares. Iron them flat and sew two wrong sides together, stitching around the edges. This doesn't have to look pretty, the stitches get covered up.

Piece together your edges by using some homemade bias tape. I had some leftover from when I made some jean aprons. I wanted this to have a bit of a scrappy look, so I cut the bias tape in short sections and pinned it all together.

Zigzag stitch around the inside edges, extending through the bias tape at the corners. Surge or stitch to close the outside open edges of the tape.

Stitch on a little ribbon loop for hanging and you're all set.

Add some oven mitts...

These ones are little more realistic in terms of construction for use, but still...no grabbing hot crap. Seriously, don't do it.

I made a pattern out of some white fleece using my kiddo's hand as a guide for size.

Cut out four pieces to make two mitts.

Cut out four more pieces in your outside pattern. I added an extra quarter inch to mine for some unknown reason. You don't have to do that. It just makes things more bulky and your thumbs come out funky on the outsides because you haven't made them distinct enough from the hand section...you'll see. (And this is how you know I'm not a professional...I show you all of my mistakes. With any luck, you'll learn from them.)

Layer and pin. From the top you should have: two fleece pieces on top of two pattern pieces with right sides facing each other.

Stitch around the edges, leaving the bottom edge open. Flip inside out so your fleece is the inside lining.

Finish by tucking the bottom edges in and stitching around the opening. This is the only place where that extra 1/4" came in handy. I folded my excess patterned fabric over on itself to get a clean edge and then folded it over the fleece to the inside to leave a hem of color inside of the mitt.

See...funky shaped thumbs on the outside. They're surprisingly fine on the insides, but overall my extra 1/4" was just a pain.

Now your little chef is all ready to cook in his or her (not hot) kitchen. Just a little something "x-tra" to make their play time fun.


Only two days left! Can you believe it? This month has gone crazy fast.

Tomorrow is Y day. I'll tell you a little secret...I have no idea what the post will be. It'll be a surprise. As of right now, there is no Y project. It could make for an interesting day today...

Happy Tuesday everyone!!

Miss any of my A to Z posts so far this year? Find them below...

1. A is for Anna (Easy Anna Cape)
2. B is for Bath (Appliqued Bath Mat)
3. C is for Child (Children's Growth Ruler)
4. D is for Denim (Denim Bib)
5. E is for Etch (Etched Casserole Dishes)
6. F is for Felt (Felt Hopscotch Mat)
7. G is for Good Night ("Good Night" Envelope Pillows)
8. H is for Hood (Easy Hooded Towel)
9. I is for Insulated (Insulated Beverage Cozies)
10. J is for Jumper (Embroidered Spring Jumper)
11. K is for Know (Know When to Hold 'Em/Fold 'Em Laundry Sign)
12. L is for Loveseat (Envelope Loveseat Pillows)
13. M is for Mittens (Fleece Baby Mittens)
14. N is for Ninja Turtle (Felt Ninja Turtle)
15. O is for Owl (Owl Stuffies)
16. P is for Princess (Princess Peg Dolls)
17. Q is for Quilt (Moustache Quilt)
18. R is for Reading (Appliqued Reading Pillow)
19. S is for Superheroes (Superhero Peg Dolls)
20. T is for Tumblers (Custom Etched Barware)
21. U is for Upcycled (Little Kitchen)
22. V is for Vinyl (Vinyl Pallet Art)
23. W is for Whipped (Wild Orange Whipped Body Butter)

Are you visiting from A to Z?

Be sure to leave me a comment (including your blog link) so I can come over and return the favor!