My Plants are Singing

4 days off in a row means time to catch up on some things that were getting neglected. Our plants are looking much better (I imagine them thanking us and singing happy songs) as is my office which was in desperate need of a filing cabinet and now has one. Even all of my paperwork is in it, within alphabetized file folders!

Today will go by too fast so I need to be choosy about what I will do. I took a day off from running yesterday because most of my joints ached. My body takes quite a pounding from all of the running I do and I would hope that is all it is. I don't think I can blame the running for sore thumb joints though?

Men of a Certain Age premieres on TNT on December 7 at 9pm Central. I really do not watch very much television but the previews for this look really good. It stars Ray Romano whose comedy Everybody Loves Raymond is based on. It's very rare I get excited about a TV show but I am looking forward to watching this one.

Tomorrow is the deadline to register for the 10 mile Frost Bite. I will be running this one for the first time this year. We don't have any snow yet and it would be kind of pretty if we had some for this run.

I hope everybody had a great Thanksgiving.

Repurposing Materials for a Christmas Card

In exchange for one of these FABULOUS bracelets my friend Dawn makes, she asked that I make her a couple of cards--one being a Christmas card for a swap she is doing and another for her daughter's piano teacher. (I wonder who is getting the better end of the deal on this exchange, hmmm? Yeah, umm, me no doubt.) I started on the Christmas card this evening. I love this wrapping paper! I've had it for awhile now and have been wanting to use it on something. The beads, from a magnetic bracelet that Lydia broke, will soon be garland. I plan to do some stitching on this too. I had fun digging through my stash for stuff to use on this but man did I make a mess of my craft room!

I Am SOOOO Inspired

Wow...Everybody Likes Sandwiches is a great blog. I am so inspired to get busy in my kitchen! Check it out people.

Plarn Anyone?

It's been so long since I've been in my craft room that it is RIDICULOUS! It always seems to be last on my things to do list these days but this evening I picked up an issue of Cloth, Paper, Scissors and it inspired me to get in there and make SOMETHING. Reading this magazine I realized I really love fiber arts and collage and would reallllly love to take some classes.

We watched Al Gore on Letterman last night and he was promoting his new book Our Choice: A Plan to Solve the Climate Crisis. He sparked our interest so we bought this book today and I've started reading it. Now I'm inspired to make some projects out of recycled materials so I started to look around online for plastic bag ideas because I am just disgusted with how many of those I dispose of and oh my goodness, there is a plethora of things to make with plastic bags. Did you even know there has been a word created for plastic bags used as yarn? Yeah, it's called "plarn". I love that.

A Very Spooky Halloween

We carved punkins last night. Lydia's is on the left. The bat is mine and Ken carved the skull. I love the skull! Didn't he do a good job? Lydia won the carving contest again this year.

After pumpkin carving last night and much pleading from Lydia, we took her to the haunted house at the Rising Star Mill in Nelsonville. We were 5 steps into it and she said VERY sternly, "I want to get out of here RIGHT NOW!" There was no going back at that point so Ken walked through the rest of the haunted house with her wrapped around his neck clinging for life. It was put on by the YMCA and it was pretty spooky. I was scared even a few times.


We also made some cupcakes. Not as cool as the brain cupcakes we made last year but they are just as tasty.

More about Berlin and the fall festival

So, more about our trip to Berlin. I'm telling you, if you want to find some cool shabby chic/vintage stuff, the Saving Grace Salvage Company in Berlin is the place to go. It's well organized and they have a wide variety of goodies. My most favorite find was the vintage jewelry! Because...my friend Dawn makes THE MOST beautiful bracelets (and sells them on Etsy by the way) out of this stuff. I scored a bunch of pieces for her (and it just happened to be her birthday) and I was smiling the whole way home, seriously. I didn't take any close-ups of what I got for her and I wish I would have!
We met Simone Lapierre (I am probably really messing up the spelling!) who is a beautiful girl inside and out, I'm telling you, so nice. She was face painting when we met her. Besides being an artist, she is also an actress.
She also helped Lydia make a lantern.

We did some shopping too and Lydia picked out a new outfit for her American Girl.
Saw some chain saw carving...
...and of course, no trip is complete without a stop at Taco Johns!
On the way home Lydia told us she had a lot of fun. I think this is a day Lydia will remember when she gets older because we had a lot of fun as a family.

Pumpkins on Petunias Pumpkin Drop

It's Saturday morning and we're all sitting around trying to decide what to do with the day. We searched at www.travelwisconsin.com and found Pumpkins on Petunias in Berlin, WI. It mentioned a farmer's market, crafts, bake sale, great shopping in the local shops, and a pumpkin drop. We like visiting small towns and decided that would be our destination for the day. I'm so glad we went. It was a great day! We met so many friendly people.

We didn't get very lost on the way but had to stop at a gas station to ask for directions. The gas station clerk ended up being from BER-lin (emphasis on first syllable) and smiled when Ken asked her where Ber-LIN was. When we arrived in town we parked and walked down Broadway looking for where this pumpkin drop may be. We weren't quite sure exactly what the pumpkin drop was. I was picturing them dropping pumpkins all over the road and thought that would be pretty messy. When we saw the fire truck and the large crowd standing around it, we knew that was it. We stood in the front with all of the locals (and 3 lovely girls from Chicago) and watched them drop these 3 huge pumpkins on this car. [Sorry the video is sideways. I don't have time for video editing these days. I would love to have more time for that some day though.]

There's much more to tell about this day but I must get to work now so I will have to share more later!

40th Annual Art in the Park & Dozynki Festival

We attended the 40th annual Art in the Park last weekend.  Lydia's favorite this year once again was painting the cardboard boxes.  I think for Christmas I will get her a bunch of boxes and some new paints.  :-)

We each went home with some goodies.  Lydia got a poncho and this cute little dog.  He is so well made.  His legs and tail move 360 degrees.  I bought a necklace made by Wired Wimzy(?)....ugggh, I should have gotten her business card because I love her work.  I'd buy more.  Maybe Dawn knows where I can find her?

The Dozynki Festival was going on the same day so we walked through that.  Lydia picked out a punkin at the Farmer's Market.  I love the Farmer's Market and wish I could get over there more often during the summer to get fresh veggies.  It's on the other side of town though and I'm not the best planner-aheader.

Yesterday I started to decorate the house for fall.  I LOVE this time of the year in Wisconsin so much.  Such a pretty time of year.  Lydia and I are going to do some halloween crafting today.  Going to look for some bat templates for my Wishblade.

Wallet Space Saver - Card Holder

You know all of those loyalty cards and such that collect in your wallet, preventing you from buttoning it shut? That is when an extra card holder such as this would come in handy. I found the Scrappy Loyalty Wallet tutorial at the A Spoonful of Sugar blog. This is draft number one.





Think I'll keep this one for myself.

Blue Beaded Bracelet by Lovely Lydia

Lydia and I did some beading after church today. She made this bracelet for me. Now we are off to bake some of Grandma J's A&W Brownies with fudge frosting for the party at the Brandt's tomorrow!

JusticeWorks - Just Run Green 09 Half Marathon

Ran the JusticeWorks Just Run Green Half Marathon today with Dana. So nice to run again with her. We did the Portland Marathon together in '07 (can't believe it's been 2 years already). Took 9 minutes off of my last half marathon time today so pretty happy with that. They didn't have chips but according to my watch I finished in 2 hours and 2 minutes which is a 9:19 pace.

Chococat Lunch Bag

The inspiration for this lunch bag came from the purl bee's Back to School Lunch Bag post. When I showed it to Lydia today she was all for it so after we made a quick stop at the Dance Education Center to get our new shoes and clothes for pop dance class this year, we went to Herrschnerrs to pick out the fabrics...

I cross-stitched the chococat a long time ago and always wondered what to do with him. We thought he'd work well with this bag. Lydia chose the brown polka-dotted fabric to match him. The purl bee pattern doesn't include a lining so I combined this pattern with another pattern I got from my friend Dawn for bags because it has easy directions for how to make a lining.

Lydia went to bed before I finished. I had told her it would be done by Friday (and she was very bummed because she wanted it for tomorrow) so she will be surprised when she comes down for breakfast in the morning and sees this at the breakfast bar.

Decorated Notebooks

Lydia and I played in the craft room today and decorated some notebooks for each other.

Surprise Gift Cards

I made these cards for the girls on my lia sophia team. I like how when you lift the cover it pulls the gift card up and out of the pocket. I found the template here.

Hot-Rodded Grill

Ken hot-rodded our grill today. New burner, paint job, and a cleaning. And of course a skull sticker and a road sign because every grill should have these things.

Crafting Hiatus

This picture was taken in San Telmo, a neighborhood in Buenos Aires. On Sundays, crafters line Defensa Avenue to sell their creations. This crafter's name is Daniel Bobadilla. I purchased one of these bags. LOVE it. My laptop fits in it perfectly. He actually had to finish the bag I picked out ...I saw it behind him on a table and asked him if I could have it and he told me to come back in 15 minutes after he had finished it. He gave me his card with his Flickr URL: http://www.flickr.com/photos/danielbobadilla/sets Appears he is also quite a photographer.

This is the longest I have gone without a post since starting this blog in May of 2007. Since March I have been traveling for work and I've been keeping everybody updated via Facebook (you can find me here). My travels have taken me to London, Paris, Calcutta, Hyderabad, Uruguay, and now Buenos Aires. I've been taking advantage of any free time by going to see all of the sites--the pics are on Facebook. I should be back in the U.S. on 7/3. I am looking forward to getting back into my craft room, I do miss it! But I miss my little girl even more as you can probably imagine!

New Friends in Kolkata

Mohan and Aditi own a tea and coffee business and live in Kolkata. I met them at the hotel last night and they were kind enough to call me up today to see if I wanted to get out and see some of Kolkata with them. They took me to Swabhumi, a very nice shopping area where you can buy handicrafts like this purse.

They also took me out for a nice lunch which is where we saw the dancers in this video. I leave for home in three more days. I've met some very nice people in Kolkata. It's amazing how that happens when you leave your hotel room.

Indian Drivers are Crazy!

Since I posted last, Bows and I have been to Windsor Castle, Stonehenge, and Oxford. We are now in Hyderabad, India. So far I have been very entertained with my drives in a cab to and from work each day. The approach to driving here is completely chaotic. It's just crazy. I almost had 4 heart attacks in the cab today. Horns are used as signals, constantly. Everybody drives every which way, pulling out in front of each other, coming within inches of smashing each other, yet I haven't seen one accident yet. I can't put anything into words that would describe the chaos. It's amazing.


In Hyderabad I've learned that this city is well known for it's Pearls. I would like to go shopping for some. I'm also told by several Indians that the food in India is spiciest in Hyderabad. They have one mixture of ingredient they use and it's call gun powder. I like Mexican food and that is spicy but I can't hardly eat the Indian food here. I cough after each bite.

I taught my first 8 hour class today and it went well considering it was my first presentation to a large group of people in a looonnng time.