Love this stuff

Mod Podge seems to be my obsession lately. I have used it for years. Like in college when I decoupaged many random things . . . stools, jars, empty bottles. But lately I have rediscovered my love of Mod Podge. I guess it began this past summer when I made this table. I've been using it ever since.



These are my latest use for it.

I love Mod Podge. Have I said that already? I love it so much I want to marry it.





I have also been a quilting maniac lately. I've made two quilts in the last two weeks. Just took this one to the quilter over the weekend.


And, since this post is about stuff I love it is only appropriate that I include my latest fabric wish.



Ginger Blossom from Michael Miller. It is in quilting cotton with plans of also being printed in flannel. Love it!

Ok. I'm done.
-dana

Full time

I spent all last week being the PE teacher at the girls' school. Talk about exhausting. Screaming, running, jumping, pinching, giggling, sneezing, telling, whining, coughing kids all day long. Did I mention screaming?

It did, however, give me new . . . no, not new . . . rather, reaffirmed insight on motherhood. I hope to share that soon.

I also hope to share some clogging video. I just need to figure out how to upload from the new flip video camera.

OM. OM. OM. [that is me in a meditative yoga like trance trying to settle my spirit and soul from PE teacher torment. . . OM. OM. OM]

-dana

I've been tagged

I've been tagged by Jill to share five random and weird facts about myself. Only five?


1) I've lived in 7 different states. I could name them all but then the authorities would be tipped off on my whereabouts.

2) I ate so much pineapple when pregnant for the first time that I don't like it much anymore. And, with the way I'm eating guacamole these days I know there will come a time when I don't like it much either.

3) I have flown in the Good Year Blimp.

4) I have been with the Street Narcotics Unit of the Kansas City Police Department as they rolled up on a crack house, rammed open the door and proceeded to execute a search warrant.

5) I'm generally not a country music fan but I love a song from Randy Travis called Forever and Ever Amen.

I'd love to know some random and weird facts about everyone I meet. Just makes them more real. More relate-able. Less intimidating. Do share. Please.

-dana

One thing leads to another

I made lunch for the girls today with some of this yummy bread I made yesterday.



After lunch we started in on some Valentine crafting.



Which lead to hanging them. One ended up in the office in front of the large picture window.



Which lead to photographing the birds at the feeder that hangs right on the window.




Which reminds me that the bird feeders need filled. Which leads to . . .

-dana

Scene

These line a small shelf over a claw foot bathtub in the master bathroom.

A little unnerving to have 80 eyes watching your every move.

-dana

Crafty result

Back in December I mentioned that I was starting a sitting-in-the-car-waiting-to-pick-up-the-girls-from-school project. I finished it up.




Here is a close-up of the fabric.




Now, on to bigger quilts. Although . . .I do need something to do while I wait in the car. Hmmm.

-dana

Quilts and such

I made this for my mother for Christmas. The fabric is Freshcut from Heather Bailey. I couldn't share it here beforehand since Mom reads this daily.

That is the thing about quilting. I love it and love the result but at last count I had 35 or more quilts. I suspect more will be gifts this year than last.

-dana

Many names for this guy

You know him as Razor. But there are other things I could call him.

Maker of the aforementioned cookies.

Father extraordinaire.

User of silly words. Ok. I've got to share the latest few. The other day cookie maker guy was telling me about a show he saw. A do-it-yourself kind of show. He was describing the house and the neighborhood. He said, and I quote, "It was in a real charmy neighborhood."

::Blink:: ::Blink::

Yep. Charmy. Not charming but charmy.

Ummm-kay.

Then last night he burst out excitedly that he had an ephithisis! I thought that maybe I needed to take him to the emergency room! An ephithisis sounds dangerous, or contagious, or painful, or at least like something that needs checked out. Never fear though cause the guy meant that he had an epiphany.

::Blink:: ::Blink:: Back to the names . . .

Adventure racing man.

Best friend in the world.

The love of my life.

-dana

Weekend snapshot

Razor and the girls made these oatmeal cookies per my request.




Dried cranberries, apricots, pecans. Yum!



Then we went out to the potting shed




to play and





to make these for Papa's birthday.




-dana

My feet are freezing

Every winter I vow that by next winter I will purchase a pair of boots that are warm and waterproof. Here it is winter again and my feet are freezing.

Dreaming of these.



Pricey, but warm and dry feet might be worth every penny.

-dana

Round robin quilt revisited

You might remember me gushing about my round robin quilt. I recently had it quilted and wanted to share it again.




I love it more and more each time I look at it.

-dana

Swell

Look at what the postman delivered to my house yesterday.




Ah. Beautiful isn't it? Or rather, how Swell.



My mother-in-law, Sara, sent it. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you! Sara and I both plan on participating in my friend Susan's Block-of-the-Month quilt along that she is sponsoring on her website.

My only fear about this . . . wait . . . I have more than one fear about this endeavor so I'll list them here:

1) I won't be able to master the applique process;
2) Much of this fabric won't be used up and will sit in a pile staring at me and begging to be used;
3) The guilt I will feel from the pile of begging fabric will be overwhelming and I'll switch midway through to a quilt that uses up the beautiful fabric.

Of course, there is always the option of just stacking the fabric by my sewing machine to admire and touch whenever the mood strikes.

-dana

Cute? Or, not so cute?

Lately, this young opossum has been around. We've seen him several times. He must have a very mellow, gentle energy about him because he is hanging out at a place that has THREE outdoor cats and a dog! My cats hunt for and drag home every sort of imaginable creature so this opossum must be special.




He is a young one. Not as big as some that we have stumbled across in the barn. And, I say stumbled across very literally. Seriously, nearly tripped over. Big suckers that make the weirdest, blood curdling noise when startled. Eeek! And they are so blasted ugly. Wait . . . or are they?




I think it is the long rat-like tail that makes them a little on the left side of cute to me.

But, this little guy (or gal? I'm not gonna examine it to see!) is tipping the scale just a bit.

-dana

Say what?

I went to get doughnuts for breakfast. When I came home and put them out to eat Boo exclaimed, "Doughnut balls! I love doughnut balls!"

This is hilariously disturbing on several levels to me. Doughnut balls? Every kid in America knows they are properly called doughnut holes. Doughnut holes! I'm pretty sure that to pass the US citizenship test you have to know that they are called doughnut holes.



Anyhow, after we stopped laughing we sat quietly and enjoyed our chocolate long johns, bear claws, powdered jelly doughnuts and our doughnut balls.


Then later I was snuggling with Licious and said that I just hated that she was growing into such a big girl. I then joked with her about my plans to keep her from growing anymore. My best plan involved putting a cinder block on her head. Well, she promptly ran to tell Daddy of my scheme but in her translation of it she said:

"Daddy! Mommy doesn't want me to grow up so she is going to put a cylinder brick on my head for the rest of my life. I'll have to walk around like a duck forever!"

Huh?

I might have to give that cylinder brick thing a shot.

-dana

Art with 127 others

It has been awhile since I have talked about my art teaching gig on Fridays at my kids' school. Today being a Friday, it might be a good time.

Well, being a Friday isn't the only reason. I'm writing about it today because it was a particularly good day. Not just a good day. A great day in fact. Why? For many reasons.

First, I wore my new and super warm lined Crocs. I know. I know! They are not the cutest shoes on the planet. And, I know some people simply would not wear then on that fact alone. I might have been one of those people. That was before I ever tired a pair on. I put my foot into these little suckers and nearly thought I found paradise. So, just the fact that I wore these shoes and my feet were surrounded by utter warmth and comfort all day is reason enough for it to be a good day.

Second, this is the first art day since coming back from Christmas break and do you know what? Those kids missed art. They were incredibly excited to find out what we were doing and some of those little devils even muttered things like, "I missed doing this stuff" or "We do the coolest things in art!"

Third, some of the middle school kids even acted interested and had equally nice things to say about art class. One kid was talking to his classmates and said how cool art was at this school because at his old school they never actually got to make art. Another kid said, and I quote, "Ms. Dana rocks!"

Fourth, the deep satisfaction I get knowing that these kids are learning something from me. That they are creating. That they are doing things that they didn't know they could do. That even the ones who insisted that they don't "do" art are enjoying it.

So I'm gloating and I'm overly proud. If that bothers you, tooooooo bad! I have worked long and hard and had many hours of questioning myself and my methods to worry about being too proud or too boastful. This is one day of many so, please, let me bask in my glory. I'm basking today because I know it will be short lived. I fear it's a here-today-gone-tomorrow kind of deal. I'm basking today whether you like it or not.

Can I get an "Amen Sister"??

-dana

Those cool kids again

I've talked about these cool kids before. I got a chance to photograph them over the holidays.

Don't they make you sick?

-dana

Our first quilt together

We woke up to snow on the ground and plenty of these hanging from the eaves.



This was Tsali's first experience with snow.




After we stopped laughing at her . . . er . . . uh . . . I mean, laughing with her and her silly burrowing-her-nose-in-the-snow antics, the girls convinced me to get them set up on their sewing machines.



Which resulted in our first quilt together. ::sigh::




It is 16 inches square and done entirely on their sewing machines. Boo sewed one of the print/pink 4 patch blocks, while Licious sewed one of the face/blue 4 patch blocks. I used their machines to sew the other two blocks and instruct them on what to do. I even quilted it on their little machines. We are all over the moon excited about our first quilt together.

I dream the first of many. However, I'm not naive enough to think that they will share this interest with me forever. I know that quilting with mom will take second fiddle to many things soon enough. Hanging with friends, primping in front of the mirror, music, boys (!!), etc. Second fiddle? I'll be lucky if I'm third, fourth or fifth.

I'll cherish this tiny quilt forever.

Hopefully, the girls will cherish the memory of me patiently working with them, showing them, letting them work and knowing that they could do it. Hopefully, that will be what they remember . . . and not my freakish temper tantrum over the sewing machine glitch.

Nope, they'll remember the tantrum. 'Cause I'm pretty sure I heard them giggling at me . . . even after I gave them the dreaded evil eye! Seems that only made them laugh harder.

-dana

Vacation wrap up

We wrapped up 2007 by taking a much needed, and well deserved I might add, vacation. It included a wide variety of things including:



1) Surprising the girls with a trip on the Polar Express. As you can see, Licious was thrilled with the prospect, Boo was a bit nervous about traveling to the North Pole, and Razor . . . well . . . although the photo would indicate otherwise . . . he really was just as excited as Licious.




2) Tubing like wild maniacs down a STEEP snow covered mountain! The girls couldn't decide which was more fun -- tubing down or riding the lift back up to the top.




3) Spotting lots and lots of elk. Those suckers are huge!




4) Combing the beach for pristine sea shells. Many shells made it back home with us.


We did other things as well. Spent a week at my parents house. Played at an awesome park with Uncle Jeff and Aunt Bonnie. Razor and I went on an actual date . . . dinner, movie, shopping . . . it was heaven. Long walks. Good food. Great company.

Finally, I wonder if anyone reads this blog anymore. Fundamentally, I blog for myself and for my children to look back at one day and read the day-to-day life of their childhood and to get glimpses of what their mother was like. However, it is absolutely thrilling, flattering and, actually, quite moving to hear from family, friends and strangers that take time to stop by and read what I'm writing. For a time family and friends would email or call about my blog. And, for a time I got comments from a few readers. That has all dwindled and I'm left wondering why I feel sad about that. I'll have to give that some thought.

Anywho. My family beckons to play Yahtzee. I think it is our attempt to stretch our vacation as long as possible.

-dana