Friday, August 28, 2009

I need to get people to pay be to make them things or maybe just to pay for the fabric and I will make them things. :) You could throw in an extra ten or twenty dollars if you wanted (for me and groceries). :) Anyhow, if any of you want to take me up on that, let me know. I will work for fabrics.

Oh, to have money to buy all the fabrics I want. My newest favorites are:

* Feedsack V (1930s feedsack prints) by Windham fabrics. Here is just one example. The green is my favorite, but I love them all.


* Moda (sigh. I love mainly all Moda fabrics. They are all so colorful and wonderful)
- this set is called: Figgy Pudding


This is figgy pudding forest.

And this is four different fabrics from the figgy pudding set (found this on etsy). Love.

* Third, I am in love with Moda's line called Fresh. Seen here.



In other news, I am still looking for a job. I need to do something. I am getting a little stir crazy at the houes. sigh. Anyone have any jobs that they want me to do?

Tuesday, August 25, 2009

projects and more projects...

I have been listening to Wes King as I do projects around the house today. I have never listened to Wes King before in great length. I really like his stuff. I am glad that Jared has three of his cds. It is always fun to discover new music that isn't really new because then you can listen to a lot of that artist without having to wait for new cds to come out. All of the sudden there is all this new exciting music to listen to. It makes me happy!! :)

I decided to turn the rag rug into seat pads. This is the first one I finished while Jared was reading The Fellowship of the Ring to me last night. It is much better than the movie. I love hobbits.
This is my table runner waiting to go to Mrs. Shelton's house to get quilted. I am so proud of it and I can't wait to show you all a complete picture of it. The red is going to be the binding and the white flowers are going to be the background.

I started a new table runner last night. I cut all the pieces while Jared was working on something else. Today I sewed all the squares together and I just need to sew all the squares together and it will be ready for quilting as well.

squares and more squares getting squared up.

This is sort of what it will look like when it is finished.

Here is the porch railing all painted. It looks really nice. I should have taken a before picture. It was all gray and half of it was primed and half of it was not. It was a mess. Now it looks cute and white and clean. :) YAY!!

This is my third apron. It has eyelet ties. This picture is terrible because the daisies are actually light blue with yellow centers. It is quite pretty.

This entire dress is made of selvadges (the sides of the fabric that you cut off because you think they are useless). Isn't this crazy? Imagine the amount of sewing that this took. Wow.

Friday, August 21, 2009

Project number six is complete. It is another apron, but I haven't gotten a picture of it yet.

Project number seven was to paint the porch railings in the back and front, which I did yesterday! It was so hot outside that the paint was drying so fast. But I finished and now our porch railings are painted a nice bright white (instead of looking all gray and half painted). Painting is fun when you can see the difference. When I helped paint my parents upstairs this summer I didn't have that much fun and I was trying to figure out why (because I normally really enjoy painting) and I think I have figured out it was because I was using almost the same color to paint over the old color. I like seeing a difference when I paint. I should have taken before pictures for you all. Pictures of the finished project will have to wait because I have to leave to go to SU to meet with the Chemistry department about teaching a lab. It is going to be fun teaching a lab on a subject that I haven't had since I was a freshman in college (six years ago).

Yesterday I went to the gym!!
* elliptical machine for 30 minutes
* biked for 20 minutes
* Pilates for 30 minutes
* kickboxing for an hour

Kickboxing is brutal and I am totally uncoordinated. But if you all are a member of the YMCA you should totally try out some of their classes. They are a lot of fun. I am going to keep trying some of the other ones that offer. I figure if I am paying for a membership I should use everything I can of that membership. I am even thinking about going to play soccer on Tuesday nights... maybe. If I can remember how to kick a soccer ball.

I am wearing these awesome new dress pants today. I bought them last weekend and I am quite proud of my shopping success. I went into GAP last Saturday with Anna and found these awesome dress pants, but I didn't have my coupons with me so I put them on hold (I have never done that before). I came back later that evening with Jared and had him try on some shorts that were on sale. We ended up buying a super nice pair of tan dress pants (originally $56.50) and two pair of shorts (originally $48.00 each) for $1.36. Ha. I love being a GAP card hold they send you such amazing coupons all the time. Woohoo.

Tuesday, August 18, 2009

First, last night Mom and Dad came for dinner (so other than Matt Robins coming over to eat chili) they are our first real dinner guests. Yay! If I was thinking I would have taken pictues, but I wasn't. We had fun hosting people. Hopefully that will be the first of many people in our house. I love having people over.

Project number 4
is finished. It is another apron. I have actually started project number 5 (another apron) and will probably finish it today. I cut all the material out, which I think is the hardest part. Pictures of that later (if it turns out).

Isn't it fun fabric? I found it at Hancock's for $3 a yard. That means this apron cost me about $4 to make. :) I should have bought more of it, if I was thinking at the time. But it was three days before my wedding when I went shopping. heh.

The top cut out and being ironed.

The skirt finished two nights ago. I am wearing Jared's pajama bottoms because 1. we wear the same pant size (and shoe size actually) and 2. my pajamas are under the bed in a box and it is a hassle to pull them out and 3. I was cold and wanted pants right then and his were just laying there right by the bed (he was upstairs working on Christian Education stuff and because it is warmer upstairs than downstairs he had the AC on lower than normal so I was downstairs freezing in my shorts).

Finished project number 4. I think it is super cute!! And I am out of white ric-rac. So sad. No more finished projects until I buy some more.

Finished project number one. Also cute.

My problem is I am falling in love with all my projects and don't want to give them away. I am going to to be fifty and have 300 aprons hanging around my house because I love them all too much. ha.

And this is project number 2 again. Note how it looks different than before. I love making these. It is a table runner (or will be). I have to buy fabric to make boarders around it and get some backing for it. I am using some graduation money for that. So if any of you sent me money for graduation (even though I didn't send out announcements this year), thank you again for being so sweet and I am using your money on me and not just the house and bills. :) YAY!!

Monday, August 17, 2009

Profesional wedding photos are up on Jen Seay's website if you want to see them. This is actually not one of her photos, but cousin Laura's photos. I thought it was cute and so I am using it to announce that my photos are up!! Go look at them.


And here is one of Jen's photos. I love my family!! And I had the more gorgeous bridesmaids ever. Check out the pictures of me and my bridesmaids (doesn't Hayley have the most beautiful eyes?). I am so happy that my family is now symmetrical. We have four blonds and four brown haired people. Now my siblings have two options, two of them must marry blonds and two brown haired people or all of them could marry red heads. :)

Saturday, August 15, 2009

3 projects (only pictures of two)

This post is for Mrs. Bailey. Thank you for the sewing machine!!! I am using it. :)

Project number one is an apron. I have finished the bottom. This was around 9:00 tonight. The edges aren't hemmed and the ties aren't sewn on. Project two is there on the bottom left sneaking into the picture.


This is about 1/2 and hour later when the ric rac is sewn on, the ties are sewn on, and everything is hemmed (expect the top since it will be attached to the top piece).


Side view. I really like the yellow ties. :)
Yes, I am in my pajamas.
My next apron is going to be a half apron (because I think they are cute - just not with engineering white t-shirts).
The second project will look nothing like this when it is finished. I just really like the colors and how I matched them together here. But once I start chopping up these squares and rearranging them they won't look like this. I'll post completely pictures in a few days if it turns out.


Project number three is a rag rug. But I haven't taken pictures of it yet because I am not sure if I like it yet.

Friday, August 14, 2009

Betty Crocker and Ronald Reagan

Last night I was telling Jared how my hero in cooking is Betty Crocker and I just love her and want to be like her. Then Jared told me that she isn't real. How Jared knew this and I didn't is a great mystery to me. He knows the strangest things. I bet this is how children feel when they find out Santa Claus isn't real.

So I guess now two of my heros in life are fictional people: Sherlock Holmes and Betty Crocker.

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And here is a video of another hero of mine (Ronald Reagan) speaking out against socialize medicine.



You can find the whole transcript here.

"... First you decide that the doctor can have so many patients. They are equally divided among the various doctors by the government. But then the doctors aren’t equally divided geographically, so a doctor decides he wants to practice in one town and the government has to say to him you can’t live in that town, they already have enough doctors. You have to go some place else. And from here it is only a short step to dictating where he will go.

This is a freedom that I wonder whether any of us have the right to take from any human being. All of us can see what happens once you establish the precedent that the government can determine a man’s working place and his working methods, determine his employment. From here it is a short step to all the rest of socialism, to determining his pay and pretty soon your children won’t decide when they’re in school where they will go or what they will do for a living. They will wait for the government to tell them where they will go to work and what they will do.

What can we do about this? Well, you and I can do a great deal. We can write to our congressmen and our senators. We can say right now that we want no further encroachment on these individual liberties and freedoms. And at the moment, the key issue is, we do not want socialized medicine.

Former Representative Halleck of Indiana has said, “When the American people want something from Congress, regardless of its political complexion, if they make their wants known, Congress does what the people want.”

So write, and if your representative writes back to you and tells you that he or she too is for free enterprise, that we have these great services and so forth, that must be performed by government, don’t let them get away with it. Show that you have not been convinced. Write a letter right back and tell them that you believe in government economy and fiscal responsibility; that you know governments don’t tax to get the money the need; governments will always find a need for the money they get and that you demand the continuation of our free enterprise system. You and I can do this. The only way we can do it is by writing to our congressmen even if we believe that he is on our side to begin with. Write to strengthen his hand. Give him the ability to stand before his colleagues in Congress and say “I have heard from my constituents and this is what they want.”

Write those letters now; call your friends and them to write them. If you don’t, this program I promise you, will pass just as surely as the sun will come up tomorrow, and behind it will come other federal programs that will invade every area of freedom as we have known it in this country. "

Thursday, August 13, 2009

More photos from life ...

The making of Grandipop's chili.

Cooking: 1lb of meat
Also cutting up 6 stalks of celery, 3 onions, and 2 peppers.

Peppers, onions, and celery

draining the meat

2 giant cans of kidney beans, two large cans of diced tomatoes, two cans of italian stewed tomatoes (these can be fudged... like sometimes I use italian diced tomatoes or six little cans or seven depending on what is in the pantry), 1TBS chili powder, 1 TBS Worcester Sauce, and at the very end 2 -3 TBS of honey (put in right before serving). Oh and a little salt and pepper.

I blend my tomatoes all up so that I don't have chunks of tomato because I don't like that.

It is all finished and waiting for dinner (and more dinner and another dinner and dinner with Matt Robins and more dinner... ). I serve it with cheese, sour cream, and either mexican chips or fritos.

I made popovers because I needed to use up some eggs and milk and because we had had them in Maine and I wanted to try to make them again for our 1 month anniversary. Yay.

I took Hope to the free movie yesterday and I couldn't help but notice how insanely huge my parents impatients have grown. I thought they were big for the wedding, but now they are giant. Wow. Hard to believe they started off as single little two inch by two inch plants.



Wednesday, August 12, 2009

A few photos from life...

I don't know how many of you remember, but I wanted pink dishes and the only ones I could find were from the 60s and weren't sold anymore. Well, in Maine Jared and I found the pie plate from the Flamingo collection!! Yay!

Okay, items in the picture: Betty Crocker Cookbook (I use it all the time - thanks mom!!), blue Marta Stewart dutch oven (found at Macys marked down from $99 to $23... YAY!), flamingo pie plate, funny blue plates (we found them in Maine and are going to hang them on the wall somewhere), and my polka dotted plates (bought at Pier One also with a gift card - they only had five though and I want more, but I thought five was better than none).

polka dotted plates. love love love.

Funny blue plates. Aren't they weird? They are also from the 1960s. They had much more interesting designs back then.

Box for my dutch oven.


The sky at night last Sunday night. It was raining and the sun was setting. It was sort of creepy, but yet beautiful.


This is Jared driving the Schrodts sail boat on the Nanticoke River two Saturdays ago. We had such a great time.

And earlier that day, while Jared was in a Christian Education meeting, I wiped down all the walls and filled in all the tack holes with dry wall mud. I was there from 9:30 - noon. Yes, there were that many holes. Crazy.

Tuesday, August 11, 2009

I've been married to my best friend for one month!!

And it keeps getting better and better...

Thanks again to everyone that made our wedding day and rehearsal dinner so perfect. I wouldn't have changed a thing; everything was a dream come true. Jared and I feel so blessed to know such wonderful people and we are so thankful so many of you helped to make us feel so loved and special. We will continually be thankful for all you have given us. Here are just a few of my favorite pictures and people. I need on of the parents. These beautiful memories were taken by my sister, Anna. Thanks, little buddy.