Cabinets

Dugan's getting ready for the holidays! No, not really, just further evidence of torture by Dina.

Stanley's enjoying some time with me all on his own, since the big, bad dog is in the other room and things are quiet in our temporary office.

Today was a productive, yet expensive day. Brad and I bought each other our Christmas presents (PAB - if you're reading this, don't give me a hard time, 'k? I know your position on Christmas gift giving time-frames).

I got office cabinets for Christmas! They're very nice, and I can't wait to get them installed. They're oak with a whitewash on them, so I think they'll go well with the floor and grey walls. Brad got an air compressor that we can use to put in the wood work and install the cabinets.

The casing are all painted and ready to be installed around the windows and doors. We were going to do that today, but by the time we were done cabinet shopping and tool shopping, I was just too tired to do anything.

I just realized I hadn't posted pictures of the floor. It turned out extremely well, especially considering that it was the cheapest flooring we could find. It's supposed to be floating, but we glued it down so that any future water issues would not find water trapped underneath the floor...

My Boys

My house doesn't stink anymore!

We've ripped up the carpet in the office, torn off the baseboards and moldings, pried up the carpet tacks and scraped the glue off the concrete. I've patched, primed, and painted the walls. Tonight I put up some shelves on either side of the window (need to get two more sets of brackets for two more shelves, I think that would look better). The wall color is grayish/silver with just the slightest hint of lavender. It's slight enough to suit brad, and just enough to suit me. Tomorrow I start on the flooring.

This week I also was able to start on some Christmas soap. I'm trying to emulate starlights mints. I think I did an *okay* job of it. If I had to do it again I would make them a little more intricate, but I'm still happy with how they turned out. It was a multi-stage process. First I had to pour the white soap and let it harden just enough so that it was solid, but warm enough so that I could cut and mold it easily. I cut each mold into 8 pieces and then shaped them so that they had a little swirl to them and let them harden completely. Then, I filled just the bottom of the mold with clear soap and arranged half of the white pieces and let that harden. Then I came back and filled the mold the rest of the way with red soap, scented peppermint, of course.

Sewage stinks

Due to a blockage in our main house drain, I'm getting a "new" office. new floors + new woodwork + new paint = lots of renovating fun for me! Those of you who know me well enough know that I really do mean FUN FOR ME! I've been dying to do some renovating around the house and now the house has presented me with an opportunity to do so. Not that now is the best time to be forced to have to do home renovations, but there's never really a good time...

Christmas crafts

Gotta start early, to try to figure out what to make for Christmas presents. These are my attempt at jelly roll soaps. They're red & white and peppermint scented!

My favorite season

My favorite time is upon us. I like the fall. I like the leaves, the cider, making fires in the fireplace, snuggling up to watch tv... This is also the time of the year that I seem to get back into making things as we're not so busy doing other things. Something about lower temperatures just make my fingers itch to knit!

Dugan ate all our slippers last winter, so I had to make more. I made a pair for me, Brad and Dina. We'll have to do our best to keep them out of Dugan reach. He's not very destructive usually, but if he comes accross dirty socks or underwear (yes, eeew, dirty underwear) then he just chews it to oblivion. Clean socks he could care less about.

So here's this year's crop of slippers (with Dugan looking on - it's really not possible to do anything without him on top of you):

Meanwhile, Brad & Dina have found a good joint hobby:

long time, no blog

Yikes, it's been awhile.

I've been busy with the typical summer stuff... yard work, enjoying the sunshine, visiting family. And signing up to host a foreign exchange student for the 2008-2009 calendar year. I'm not quite sure what we were smoking at the time, but we have a big house with rooms just begging to be used, so we thought we'd give it a try. Our student will be coming from Germany and will arrive on August 15th, just in time for the Hanson family reunion, the poor thing. I really don't know what to do with a 17 year old teenager, but I guess we'll find out. Everybody keeps saying - just treat them like any other member of the family. But, besides me and Brad, our only family members are the dog and two cats. I don't think she would appreciate being crated while we're out of the house. But, on the other hand, I think she does come house-trained, so that's a bonus.

In the meantime, I decided to tackle the upstairs bathroom. The wallpaper was a HIDEOUS metallic gold & pink pattern. Upon removing the wallpaper, I discovered that they had applied it directly to the drywall without any paint or primer. So I spent a day stripping wallpaper, pulling off bits of drywall and sanding, then another day priming the walls, then another day filling the holes and getting the walls smoothed out. Hopefully tonight I can sand the mud and apply another coat of primer. From there I hope to be able to just fill the small stuff missed the first time and be ready to paint. We'll see. I had taken pictures to post, but now I can't find them. Sorry. They weren't very attractive pictures - just ugly wallpaper and scarred walls.

Jacob, my oldest nephew and godson, turns 4 on Sunday! Time goes so fast. I'm trying to finish up the quilt I've been making for his "big boy bed" for two years. I'm not sure it'll be done in time for his party on Saturday, but I'll give it a try. For now, Jacob's very happy with his "Cars" comforter, so I can't imaging that he'll want to switch that out for a stinky home-made quilt for a little while. But, when he grows up a little more, it will be ready for him.

These are the blocks that i'll put together into the facing of the quilt. The red in the upper left-hand corner of the picture is the cordurroy that i'll use for the border and backing (here's to hoping there's enough of it to go around!)

A very brave/stupid momma rabbit gave birth to 4 little bunnies in our back yard. Unfortunately, only 2 have survived this far. I think Dugan gives the little ones a heart attack. He is obsessed with them and always wants to watch them. I didn't get a very clear picture, but they're very very cute!