Just Because

 So, my little guy has been growing steadily over the past few months. Eight actually. Today he is eight whole months old. How did that happen? He is such a joyful, happy baby. I'm so lucky to have two kids that are happy babies. I'm a little sad to admit how fast Gus is growing out of everything. Including his diapers. It's taken me way longer to let go of his itty bitty newborn diapers than I'd like to admit. I just like looking at them. He was so wee little. But, I finally decided that it was time to give up those first newborn sized diapers and so I sold them. I packaged them up  and put them in the mail yesterday. Just because I added these:

I figure, I like surprises. And I like little bitty knitted things. So. I figure the ladies getting the diapers would like this stuff too. Aren't these just so cute? They each took about an hour from start to finish. I magic looped them both because I thought that the double pointed needles were too fiddly. I used a pattern for the longies and made up the soaker pattern. It took a couple of tries but I finally got it right. So when the Mamas open up their diaper boxes this is what they'll see:

. While I was knitting these up my husband wanted to know what I was knitting them for. Well, I tried to explain to him, they're for cuteness. "Huh?" was written all over his face. Just for fun, I tried again. "I may have married a crazy woman." flashed in his eyes. (I know because I've seen it there before) I sighed and gave up. I think that he just doesn't understand the fun of a simple, little surprise or doing something just for the fun of it. Or knitting for cuteness's sake. Oh, well. At least I have friends who understand. Right?

Cucumber "Sushi"

I'm always trying to come up with new and inventive lunches for Chickadee. I'm lucky in that she will try just about anything and likes almost everything including sushi. The other day I had a flash of inspiration and came up with a great idea. I can't put sushi in her lunch I can put fake sushi in there. What I came up with was a hollowed out cucumber filled with rice, veggies and cream cheese. Here, I'll show you what I mean. . .

First you start by slicing your cucumber in half. Then hollow it out like so. I used the business end of a potato peeler to do the job.

Next, choose your filling and start slicing. I used red pepper, carrots, asparagus spears, rice, cream cheese and avocado. You want long, skinny slivers.

Step 3: Stuff your cucumber. It helps to go from softest to hardest ingredient. For instance, I started with the rice, mashed that down with a butter knife, added the avocado, then cream cheese, then peppers, asparagus and finally the carrots. Hint: If you can't get something through, feed it in alongside a carrot. Works like a charm. Trust me. It's also helpful to really pack stuff in there. The more jammed in there it is the better.

 

Slice your cucumber into little sushi "rolls"

Pack up and enjoy for lunch! These were fun and they tasted really yummy! The two things I learned from this are: 1. Sometimes I have good ideas and 2. I need a new cutting board. (Mostly for taking good blog pictures)

When I look at other blogs my thoughts are usually like this; "Hey, that's really cool. Maybe I could do that." Then; "How much time did that take?" And finally "Doesn't she have kids? Where the heck were they while she spent x hours doing that and taking pictures for the blog?" So in case you were thinking that too, these didn't take that long (like 20 minutes or so), Katie was sleeping and Gus was here. . .

"helping". So now you know and you can relax and enjoy your "sushi". 

The thing about a blog is

That you have to understand how they work. At least sort of. When I started this blog, on the first day I looked at the stats and saw that seven people had checked it out. "Yay" I thought. Seven whole people checked me out! Then the second day eighteen people had looked at my new blog. "I rock" I nearly shouted. By the third and fourth days I was up in the thirties even. The proper booty dance ensued. Use your imagination and yes, I am that good. 

Then came the fifth day. Sad, sad fifth day. Fifth day was when I noticed the "Don't track your own page view" icon. Yep, I probably should have noticed that before. And then turned off my own looksies. Sadly this was not the case. How many times did I check out my own blog? I don't really know. I do know that the more page views I saw the more I looked. Darn that little icon barely visible right there, smackdab in the middle of my screen! Just. . .darn.

The moral of the story is if you're going to start your own blog beware of the "Don't track" button. You can decide for yourself whether you want to turn off your own views or not. As for me, I think I'll keep tracking, you know, just for now. And if you are reading this. Thanks. I love you man.

Hurray for . . .

Renae! It's another dreary day here but I'm so excited. I finally (almost) finished the quilt for Renae. For those of you who don't know, Renae is the wonderful blessing who came and stayed with me for over two weeks just to help deliver my baby Gus last year. I truly could not have survived not only the delivery but the terrible case of Crankypantitis I developed those last couple of weeks.

On one of her visits the year before Gus was born Renae found a lovely quilt at Pottery Barn she liked. Of course I quipped "I can make that, only better." So we went fabric shopping last summer and I  came up with this. . .

And made this. . .

Now all I have to do is get the backing ready and send it off to be quilted. I would quilt it myself but it's too big for my little machine and I would like it to be done sometime in this century. You know, as excited as I am to get this finished and off to it's forever home, it sure looks mighty good on my bed. . .

Every Sunday

Every Sunday should be relaxing and simple. Take today for instance, it's a dreary, cold, wet, yucky day so we're relaxing inside. First thing this morning Chickadee and I went out for a girls breakfast together. (Oh, how that girl loves IHOP.) Then we spent a little time over at the Barnes & Noble next door just browsing and hanging out together. When it was time to feed Gus again we had to scurry back home. How did I know it was time to feed Gus? The sudden tingling and conspicuous wet spots on my shirt told me so. Yep, definitely time to go home. . . 

Now I'm cleaning the house, getting ready for tomorrow and making dinner, enjoying a crispy fire, homemade Seeded Dakota bread with butter and honey, a bit of knitting and tea. Chickadee is reading her new book, Gus is napping and I don't know where Aaron is. Can you hear my sigh from where you are? This is what a Sunday should look like. . .

Warm Wishes

I just wanted to thank everyone for their kind thoughts and well wishes for my mom. She's still in ICU but she's stable now and will probably be moving to the big hospital in Atlanta soon. Gus and I arrived home on Friday night and we spent most of the weekend cleaning up the garden and raking leaves with Katie. It helped to clear my head and sort out all the emotional stress of the past couple of weeks. So, just so you don't think that I already abandoned my new blog I took some "before" pictures of the garden so I can keep track of our progress through the growing season. Enjoy and thanks again everyone. 

Center Box

Left box where the herbs grow.

Right box where the neighbor's cat. . .never mind.

I am a Zen Master.

"The kiss of sun for pardon, The song of birds for mirth, One is closer to God in a garden than anywhere else on earth." ~ Unknown

Paris Room

Hey there!  I wanted to share these pictures with friends and family and decided that the best way to reach everyone and not compose a million emails was to start a blog.  Wow! I never thought that I would have a blog of my very own.  Wow.  

The Tea Party!

Finding the Gem.

Found the Gem but not the Room.

Chalkboard that still needs to be hung up.

Yes, I did make those curtains!

The Quilt I made!

One Happy Girl and her Cat

So, there we go.  These are the pictures of Chickadee's new room.  I love it. It turned out better than I hoped. I wish I had taken before pictures but you didn't need to see that.

I hope that I can keep up with this blog and continue to post on a regular basis.  And I hope that you enjoyed looking at the new room.