fun at night

Here's something fun to do in the middle of the night.

Find a comfy position early on in the evening.

Fall dead asleep.

Around 2:00 a.m., have your daughter come in and wake you out of dead sleep by announcing:

"MOM. I accidentally took out my rubber bands."

Get up and straggle to the bathroom. 

Make sure you do not run into the door.

Grab two miniscule rubber bands and try to put them on without your glasses and sleep in your eyes.

Pick pink because you can see them.

Put child back to bed.

Go back to bed your self.  Curl up, listen to your husband snore, and give yourself time to write this adventure into a blog post in your head, wondering all the while if you will ever fall back asleep.

Repeat at random times.

Really.

Tons 'o fun.

Have a fabulous day.

Lynn

Triumph

Ta-daaaa!

I only had to rip out 1/2 of my heart...

but it made me happy in the long run,

and there was very little blood this time.

AND...

I did manage to cut off the ribbon I LATER remembered to sew in,

but figured out a way to put it back on.

Does that mean I am "destined" to sew????

Well, I have to say it was an easier learning curve than the DVD of photos I promised for my husband for a dinner we are hosting. (more on that next week)

MUCH easier.

But I doubt there will be any king-size quilt coming out of my sewing machine any time soon.

come see all the beautiful hearts at Mosaic Magpie!

Linking to Inspiration Friday

Trying Something New...

I am intentionally waiting for more solder.

It's coming on Tuesday. 

Sigh.

In the mean time, I some how entered a "Heart From The Heart Swap".

You should go over to my friend, Debbie, and visit her wonderful blog, 

Mosaic Magpie.

Some of the hearts have started coming in. 

I'm beginning to sweat bullets.

Here are my sewing skills:

1) Eighth grade, Home Ec. I think I made a blouse. I know I cheated on the test for naming the parts of the sewing machine.

2) Some embroidery when I was a kid.

3) Sewing stuff on a paper lunch bag for Christmas this year.

Not bad...

HA HA HA HA HA!!!!!!!

Thank the Good Lord that Debbie put a TUTORIAL up for us.

Here is my first attempt.

Wow. I even used pins.

(I un-earthed these from a sewing basket that Lauren had in Junior High, when she too, thought about needlework.)

Wow.

Thank goodness this is the wrong side of the fabric. 

Thank goodness a sweet friend GAVE ME her sewing machine. 

Thank goodness I remembered something from cheating on that test back in Junior High, and I can thread the bobbin to the needle. Kinda. Well, after several tries and stabbing myself with the needle. Who knew those were so stinking sharp?

I can do some of the fun stitches on the machine, but I can't figure out how I know where I am on the stitches. So I just make sure I count up and back from straight to my favorite stitch. 

How many of you are on the floor right now?

Fine.

I am merrily reading Debbie's tutorial, thinking, "this is great. I learn so much better by seeing than just reading instructions. I can SO do this."

Ha.

What I can really do is improvise.

This is my interpretation of a seam ripper. It's supposed to be a tool to make holes in paper to put brads through. It lifts stitches out pretty well.

What  I really, really can do is NOT FOLLOW DIRECTIONS.

Uhhhhh....

Let's backtrack for a minute, here.

I put the cool little decoration on the back of the heart. Check.

I pretended it wasn't really material I was working with, but rather a paper lunch sack, and added the decoration to the front using a napkin and some wax paper.

Then we come to this:

Really. I thought the directions said to put both right sides together and sew. Well, that didn't make sense when I

a) sewed the whole thing shut and realized I couldn't stuff the heart. 

and

b) when I had to right- side it out

and 

c) when I didn't have an edge to fray.

This is what happens to your front decoration when you smoosh it  and pull it to right-side it out and you use wax paper....

The best part is knowing I am learning that practice is good. I have always thought that the first time out has to be the finished product. The more I do, the more I learn this is not true.

So I tell myself, "I think I can, I think I can." and live for the day that the solder comes in.

Have you tried anything new this year??

More Lemonade

Since it was so lovely, Brenna played hooky from school and we took off for the beach.

The plan was to meet up with some friends of Lauren's and have breakfast.  Then Brenna and I would enjoy the beach and Lauren would meet us later after hanging out with her friends.

We gave it our best shot, but who knew it would be cold and cloudy and windy?

Miss Party didn't care.

Unfortunately, the beach patrol didn't look favorably at dogs running with wild abandon all over the beach. Mr. Beach Patrol was quite nice about it, and when he came up to us, he said, "I didn't just see this dog running all over the beach now, did I?" Being the person I am, I said, "NO SIR!" and grabbed the leash and threw it around her neck. He smiled and walked away.

Ah, well. It was fun while it lasted.

We went back to sand castles and freezing in the wind. Well, being cold in the wind.

As Debbie so eloquently puts it, (do go check out her blog) look for the blue sky amidst the grey.

So we did.

I think we found the blue, as well as lemonade...

Join us for  Inspiration Friday at Vanessa's!

To Always Be Able To Make Lemonade.

This week, the soldering has been put on hold as next Monday, my eldest daughter leaves for Italy until the end of May. I am mostly excited, as I have a trip planned to visit her in March and the things I know she will learn and experience are beyond anything I can imagine. But....

Sometimes I'm not so excited.

O.K. There. I admitted it.

Now. Instead of having a sob fest on this blog, I'll show you the fun things the girls and I are doing before Lauren takes off on her journey.

Monday was picture fun day. We had big plans to go all over town and take pictures in various settings. Unfortunately, we are having a heat wave and it was up to 85 degrees on Monday, and we were sweating after ten minutes and decided to forgo photography for some iced coffee and iced tea. Very bizarre.

 I know, I know. Boo hoo for us. I'm sure we have zero sympathy from those of you in the South and East coast are that buried in snow and ice. 

Here's our photos:

(Yes, I will share Benna's photos later...)

 Tell me I'll survive four months without this girl.

Miss Party could have stayed all day.

Man, I love these girls.

Have a great day in rain or shine!