Life Updates in Pictures

So how are things in my life? I thought I'd give you a little tour in pictures:
We're still preparing to re-roof the house next month... one of our helpers has bailed, we have to make sure the other one can be there or we may have to try and find a way to budget a professional to come do it. For now it's patched up, and we're ripping out moldy ceilings and such (well, sort of... long story, which will require way more pics.) to try and keep any biohazards out. Anyway, note the light gray patching which I did, and later covered with black roofing patch... much less water is leaking into the bedrooms now!

Sarah-doggie, pictured here looking perplexed at a doggie treat, is loving being an indoor doggie but shedding like CRAZY!!! What hte heck?????

M, the unofficially-adopted daughter, had her 18th birthday in May! Here we are celebrating at Red Lobster. Behind us, you might notice, is the huge aquarium with the large crabs. We ate some of their cousins during our meal... I was not too impressed, but James and M liked them! I enjoyed the shrimp, and shockingly... I enjoyed the stuffed mushrooms, which DID contain both lobster and crab meats.

Here are greens and brocolli growin in my garden, along with weeds and the impossible-to-remove poppies.

My husband has decided to grow a goatee. HOT, is he not? it's getting longer and fuller these days too.

Yes, I did build a trellis completely out of bits of leftover yarn and discarded yarned creations. I planted two very-cool types of beans that climb this year... I forget what kind these are, but the others are called asparagus beans and the instructions tell you to pick the beans, for best flavor, when they are eighteen INCHES or smaller. I kid you not... the things should be huge! How fun is that?!

As always, poison ivy is attempting to steal my soul. Here it is growing in my garden/poppy patch.
Sarah-doggie, looking cute like always.

And last but not least... a pic and poem.

bowed

imperfect

Beautiful

My Vacation in Pics

These pics are in reverse order, because that's how blogger put them and i'm wayyyyyyy too lazy to move them all.
I found out that I may get a chance to watch my niece and nephew some Saturdays coming up! WOOO HOOOOO!!!!!! Baby time rocks.

K-boy has grown up!!! It's creepy how much he looks like his Uncle James.

I got to love him and hold him and cuddle him... watch him play with his wittle toys and drool all over EVERYTHING.

Nana also got to hold K-boy, who is looking rather Stewie-ish in this pic! LOL

And where did this all happen? At K-girls birthday party of course!!!! She just turned two years old, and look at the look on her face... Aunt Jana loves that kid SO much. Aunt Jana also got her first hug and high five from K-girl that night.

K-girl opened up her presents in her cute wittle dress...

Aunt Jana decided to make her look like an antique photo... with 411 pictures to choose from (all but 50 were from her party lol), I had lots of fun tinkering with pics lol

She got fishies for her birthday, and was SO EXCITED!!!!!!

Baby Flower was born!!!!!!!!!!! Aunt Jana got to sit in the waiting room all through the time that Mommy was being induced... and felt her heart plummet when she heard that the doctor had came out, grabbed Daddy, and said he didn't like how the labor was going and he was going to C-section the baby immediately. Nana and Aunt Jana prayed a lot, that Flower would be okay... and she came out perfectly healthy and looking just like her Mommy. Aunt Jana cried a little, she was so happy. So did Nana!

Uncle James looks so natural holding Flower... is this a sign?

Aunt Jana loves holding baby Flower!!!!

Mark and James played 13 Dead End Drive at the family Christmas at my house. Notice that Marks shirt says "I see dumb people." Also notice that Mark is looking at James.

Jakey LOVED making faces at the camera!!!! How can you not love this kid? I mean, really...

He's just so cute! Even when making monster faces!

We adopted a student from Japan for the holidays, and she played Monopoly for the first time!

Mommy and Momma Rita played too, as did Jana and Jakey. Jana got bored WAY before the ADHD (but medicated!) Jakey... is that sad or what?

K-boy was lookin all gangsta in his wittle hat at Nana's house for Christmas!

Jana gave Flower's mommy two goth onesies for Flower, just for fun! Aren't they cute? Jana also bonded with her other sis-in-law, pictured on the left. Scary stuff!!! (And yes, Kim and Jakey were at the family Christmas. DONT. ASK.)

Nana is showing K-girl the Sesame Street books Aunt Jana and Uncle James gave her for Christmas!

Altogether Jana had the best Christmas EVER. Somehow she forgot to upload the New Years Eve pics for this post, so you'll see them later... but this Christmas I really felt like i had a family... two precious neices and one nephew that I'm completely crazy about, family that I argued with, and so on... it was amazingly awesome.

Life Update in Pictures

Henna tattoo. I got this from a student group at the college I work at, as part of International Education Week... and holy crap, it was awesome!!!! I could fall in love with these. Also, as an added bonus, mine seem to soak into the skin better because my skin is so dry! SWEET!! (On a side note, can anyone else find the giraffe on my hand?)

A deformed butter lid. Coincidentally, the notches melted into it seem to match the pattern on the right front burner of my stove exactly. *sigh*

A puzzle! My mommy and I worked it Saturday, now I just have to glue it together and put it on my wall!

A coloring page!!!! Tammy V is designing coloring pages again for Art Everyday Month! You can find this one here. My inner child was BEYOND happy with this, and went to town painting last night! Thanks Tammy!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Now I'm going to lay down, because I'm getting a cold. Good news and "eh." news to share later.

*hugs to all*

New Creations

So, for those of you who are wondering...

Yes, I have been crocheting again! I made a new baby set... hoping to get some things made to try and sell in December. We'll see how that works. For now... I made a baby sweater: (My first baby sweater! I'm so excited about that!)



And a reversable baby bib...

And even a hat!!!!

Fredbert was kind enough to model the hat, but it looked kinda wrong on him... he was being all rap star about it, which is just wrong in a girly hat, ya know? LOL

Week in Review 8/29

Jen always does a Week in Review, and it looked kinda fun. Here's my week.

Saturday:
*Bought 1/2 lb jalapanos & 1 bunch of cilantro for salsa - $1.23
*Stayed at Kim's house, randomly crafted, watched The Mist. (Not bad at all! Wierd, but cool.)

Sunday:
*Went to church with Kim & Jakey. Our church is fasting in September, so she decided that she and I were going to fast pop. I was very impressed, and am now drinking Diet Coke like crazy while I still can. lol
*Watched Halloween - Curse of Michael Myers (Really good!!!!) and Halloween - Resurrection (OMW. SO. STUPID. Didn't even finish the movie.)
*Sewed pieces of fabric together for future quilted bibs.
*Went to evening service at church with James, and then grabbed Mexican food... Carne Verde = Heaven. Seriously... so yummy. Also was almost brave enough to speak to the waiter in Spanish. Almost. (No idea why I have a phobia of speaking Spanish to waiters... *shrug*)

Monday:
*Watched Star Wars - Episode 1 with James while crafting.
*Learned a new crochet stitch called the Open Ridge Stitch. This is the front:

This is the back:I really liked that stitch, and will probably make a few more things out of it.

Tuesday:
*Watched Star Wars - Episode 2 with my hubby while randomly crafting. Cut out some pics from magazines, sewed some more quilt pieces together.
*Made Salsa, and it didn't suck!!!!! Woooooooooo!!!!

Wednesday:
*James made a pie, and out of his deep love for me, saved me raw pie dough to eat. I love that man!
*Mother in law and Aunt Clara were both put in the hospital. While in the waiting room, we got a call from Andrea and Sherwood (who we haven't chatted with in over a month) to say that their pastor had been in a car accident and they wanted us to pray. On our way to exit the hospital, we ran into Brittany & Phillip, who I haven't seen since January. Brit was in the ER after falling in the shower, hitting the sink, the sink cracking off the wall, and Brit possibly breaking/fracturing her back. We gave hugs to their kiddos (Gracie is 3 now, and was going to come home with us but got scared at the last minute. Hannah is 9 months old and SO CHUBBY!!! And all kinds of cute brown hair.) and gave them out new phone number. Altogether the weirdest night we've had in ages.
*Learned a new crochet stitch called the Alternate Puff Stitch. Not my favorite stitch, and I've decided I hate this yarn right now.

Thursday:
*Wierdness continues as the neighbor stops by to introduce herself and give us Avon books. (I forgot to tell her that you were my personal Avon rep Leti. Oops. Which reminds me... any Imari on sale?) She stayed a while, and came back later to bring her daughter over. She (the daughter) is in Pre-Algebra and needing help, and I rock as a pre-algebra tutor, so... that's awesome. She is kinda goth, wants to be a coroner, and may be able to get me permission to go with her to see an autopsy!!! HOLY CRAP!!!!!! I love my life.
*Watched Star Wars - Episode 3 for the first time, in between neighbor visits. Anni goes evil, Padme dies, and even Yoda is injured? I have a love/hate relationship with that movie.
*Sewed together the pieces I'd been putting together all week to form the quilt blocks. This is my fave design...
These are an old design that I am still attached to. It was so much easier to do these this time...
I love the design of these but HATE how they turned out. Going to try it with different material this time and going to be careful NOT to accidently hit the needle placement over to the left while sewing these. *sigh*
Love this design!Friday:
*Off work early! Went to the thrift store and bought shirts for me and some baby clothes for K-boy.
*Watched Michelle Obama's speech at the Democratic Convention... WOW. I'm speechless.
*Realized how much more fabric I already have cut out to piece together. Go me!

How was YOUR week?

Bibs Galore

In case any of you would like to see the latest baby bibs I've been making... I made a slide show! These are not all of the ones I have, only about half... the ones that took good pics lol Notice the pink camo bib especially... it's PINK CAMO!!!! *hugging it tightly* I'm going to have to put these online to sell soon, so I'm trying different places to put them. Etsy just takes to long to type them in, it drives me crazy! I'm trying Typepad at the moment, I'm not sure how Melba uses it with her own domain name, but I'd like to do that eventually. Anyway... here is the slideshow!

Mammoth Caves - Tour 1 Part 1

James and I got up in the morning and happily made our way to book our tours. On the way, I had to grab at least a few pics of the greenery... The main reason I love Kentucky and Tennessee so much is because things there are SO GREEN!
Look! I found a little flower!
And even more greenery! Heck, there's even moss growing on a few of the rocks in the little ravine! Finally, our tour was ready to start. They loaded us up on buses to take us to to New Entrance Tour.
We did not get far before we realized that caves were NOT meant for men as tall as James!!!!
The lady in the purple jacket in this pic turned out to be my first caving budd. She pulled up (ALONE) in her RV at the same time we pulled into the campground on the first night, and we figured out how the camp setup worked together. I was more than happy to see her the next day on our tour!!! She was a riot, and is now one of my heroes. She's been hiking all over the place, in all kinds of exciting places to the west... When mention was made that the caves were explored by volunteers, she was the first to ask "WHERE DO I SIGN UP?!"


Check out this pit!!! Can you believe that this is NOT the place known as the bottomless pit??? HOLY CRAP!!!!!!!!!!! Are the walls not just so beautiful?

This is Colleen, our guide. She ABSOLUTELY ROCKED and we learned so much from her! Did you know that along the hike, you are supposed to avoid touching the rocks whenever possible? The oils and such in our skins can actually change the landscapes of the caves! There were quite a few places where you couldn't help touching the walls as you squeezed through, but for the most part we were an obiedient little group.

At random points along the hike, we saw scenes like this...
We were not comforted by the debris! She told us that the rocks rarely crumble anymore, now that they have settled comfortably. Did you know, also, that earthquakes have only been felt one time in the history of Mammoth Cave? That was umm... a huge earthquake forever and ever ago. Perhaps the New Madrid series of quakes from 1811-1812? But earlier this year, when I was woken up by the bed shaking voilently, they felt nothing in the caves. Evidently, earthquakes are like throwing a rock in a body of water... the deepest ripples are felt at the surface.
The lady in the purple jacket, however, was not convinced... she muttered things like "You can NOT tell me that these rocks are not gonna come down!" I'm sure she felt REAL secure going through this passage...

Next, we went into a section of the caves which are known as the Frozen Niagara. This portion was SO AWESOME, and I took SO MANY PICS, that I am giving it it's own post!