Mommy's Day Out

It's been forever since I've been out shopping.  Mostly because we couldn't afford new clothes (couldn't afford much of anything at the old house, the new house makes things a little easier).  My everyday shoes were falling apart and all I had to wear was sweatpants since I didn't have anything else that fit.  I nearly cried at Christmas because some people at church helped us out with presents for the girls at Christmas and they included two sweaters for me.  Hadn't had new clothes in so long.

Enough with the depressing stuff.  I had $50 in gift cards each to Sears, JC Penny and Kohl's.  DH stayed home with the girls and I took the car.

Started out with lunch at Del Taco.  Chicken tacos (free with coupon) and cheesecake bites.

Then it was off to Sears. Got some very comfy Dr. Scholls shoes (I had a different style of their shoes, very comfortable but literally falling apart) for $20 (was $80).  Some Lee jeans for $20 and the polo tank of $7.  Apparently I'm a size 18 now which means only 2 dress sizes to lose.

After that was JCP.  Got two pairs of Lee jean shorts ($17.99) and two of their solid color tees.

Last up was Kohl's (it wasn't in the mall).  I love the purple shirt (it was $13 on clearance).  The brown shirt was a regular solid tee and the other thing was a skort.  I couldn't find a skirt that fit well and this has belt loops on it and I figure no one can look up my skirt while I'm chasing Zoé around church.

So, here were my spoils of shopping!  

Stamps and stuff

So, this afternoon I decided to move my stamps out of the closer where it's a wee bit damp because of the bathroom and someplace drier.  I figured I'd share some pics.

I love hand painted caches.  This came out of my dad's love collection.

This one holds a special place in my heart because it is from the stamp show that I helped my dad with.  I helped him haul all the exhibits from the post office and then went around with a screwdriver and screwed and unscrewed all the exhibit cases.  I was about 13 or 14 at the time.

One of my Dad's friends who was a cachet maker, made this for me.  He did several Star Trek ones for me in the past at my Dad's request.

Another hand painted cache.  Isn't it gorgeous?

This is for the Wisconsin sesquicentennial.  The envelope is actually a piece of the Wisconsin road map.

Star Trek stamps.   Of course. 

Some of my Lord of the Rings souvenir sheets from New Zealand.  I have all of them from all the movies and from the first two Narnia ones as well.

Rather cool Harry Potter stamps from Taiwan.

And now for something completely different...a Scentsy.  Very cool.  Was give to us yesterday for Adèle.  It's like a flameless candle with a lightbulb inside and you can melt different scented waxes.  

Some progress, some setbacks

Here is my weekly progress on the "To Have and To Hold" piece:

I had a bit of a setback on the carnival afghan again.  I thought it was 120 rows but it turns out it's 180 rows and I'd already decreased.  [sigh]  Putting that piece away for today.  Maybe I'll try again in a few weeks.

Progress - slowly but surely

Here's what the wedding sampler looks like so far.  Not much to see yet.

Weekend project

So, this weekend (my weekend being Sunday and Monday now), I didn't stitch but embarked on another project that I got done this afternoon while the babies were asleep.

Our back door in in our living room.  And it has a window.  With no blinds or curtains.

Now, the backyard is fenced but it is a little weird to just have this big open window sitting right there.  Since we rent the place, we can't do a lot with the place really and it's a wooden door which I really don't want tobe screwing things into.  So, I made this:

The fabric is a heavy felt that I got as a remnant at Jo-Ann's for $4.  I sewed the top and bottom so that I could stick dowels through it (those would be $1.25 dowels I got at Jo-Ann's).  Then I got a set of Command hooks to hang the dowels on.  That was the expensive part because it was like $10 for the 4 hooks.  However, they come off cleanly with no damage to the surface you stick them to.

Sunday Pictures

So nice to have Sundays off.  I still don't quite fit into most of my dresses :( but I put Zoé in her cute ladybug dress and Adèle into the yellow dress that one of the ladies at my former church made and thought would look cute on Zoé who has since outgrown it of course.  They're cute.  We won't talk about me...

I've stopped breastfeeding so I can diet now and I'm hoping I can get back close to my regular size.  I really really can't afford a new wardrobe and I'm getting tired of sweats.  The color seems to have come back to my hair (I noticed before that the color had literally been leached out of my hair and so I had to dye it last year then I let the color fade and it's back to strawberry blonde for the most part).

Zoé would also like to be nominated for the new T-Mobile 4G model according to my husband.  As seen here:

Wonder who they'd get to play the iPhone... :)

A suprise

So, I never made a wedding sampler for my wedding, mostly because I could never find one that I liked.   Well, I was at Jo-Ann's yesterday and found this:

So, I got it and I'm going to work on it at work so my husband never sees it and then surprise him with it.  What do you think?

Congratulations!

I have to say congratulations to my dear friend Luke.  He finally finished Wisconsin Lutheran Seminary (7 years of college + 1 year as a vicar) and was assigned this morning to a church in Kenosha, WI. 

Congrats Luke and good luck with moving all your stuff. and the kids and everything.

He and some friends have a blog about Science Fiction writing which you can find here.

End of the weekend :(

So, it was my last day of freedom.  Didn't get a lot of stitching done but here are some current WIP pics of the stocking.

I intend to finish the carnival afghan once I find the loom and partially finished panel.  They are still packed somewhere but I have the partial blanket unpacked.  Go figure.

Here's how it started the weekend

This is the picture that I just snapped

Busy Sunday

Well, my long weekend is nearly over :(

Today, I got to go to church for the first time since November.  November was when transportation started getting tight and my schedule changed so I worked 10 hours on Sunday starting at 1 pm.  We're switching back to our old church because of the move.  There are no WELS churches very close to us and we're equidistant from our current church and our old church, so we picked our old church because we always felt more at home there.  Maybe I'll be organist again!  The girls were pretty good.  Zoé ended up in the nursery halfway through but she's definitely in the throws of the terrible twos.  Adèle didn't fuss too much (it was her first service, pastor came to our home to baptize her).

Haven't done a ton of stitching as both babies are demanding attention.  And Zoé as always wants to play with Mommy's pretty string.  I'll post a picture tomorrow sometime of my stocking progress.

Been putting up my books as we try to clear the garage so we can put our car in there.  Going to leave a ton in storage.  My DH wants to start up his Bible studies again so we put out his Greek and Hebrew lexicons (he was studying to be a pastor before his wife left him and our pastors are required to learn the original lanugages). 

And as for the picture, we went to Don Pablo's to see my DH's cousin who was in town.  Didn't expect to stay for lunch but they invited us to sit down.  This was Zoé playing with a ball of tortilla dough.  She went through two, becoming one with the dough.  It's in her hair and up her nose.  Bathtime tomorrow morning (we were too tired to do it tonight).  Guess I'll be making pie dough for her to play with.

New mixer!

My swagbucks mixer that I got off Amazon came today!  Check out the unboxing.  I may put a video of it in action up later

5 day weekend!

It's shift change weekend which makes it a 5 day weekend!

Hoping to get some stuff done and I've managed to find most of my stash. I'm converting my vanity into a craft desk since the mirror was broken by Mom's cat while it was in storage

 I ripped out the Ruana so you'll see that it's been removed from the UFO list.  I now have 6 balls of this yarn:

Brenda from Loom Lore suggested an afghan square pattern which I may try out but I'm thinking of converting the pattern for the long loom.  Unfortunately, my blue long loom has broken a peg

I'm going to see if using a loom clip can allow me to still use it.





This so would have been posted yesterday if Blogger hadn't crashed.  At least it's back up :)

My First Hardanger

So, the 99 cent kit I got included a "how to" sample kit which I did today because they gave us a 2 hour lunch because we were overstaffed (yeah, I worked on Mother's Day - about 8 1/2 hours instead of 10).

Here's the kit:

Here's how it turned out:

Now, I think I was supposed to go over 2 threads but I got confused because the instructions showed over one so it turned out very very small.

Also, my husband made this for me from the girls :)

Happy Mother's Day

From one mother to another....Happy Mother's Day.

The Return

Finally, I have my internet up and running and a little time to actually read some blogs and post a bit today.

We are mostly moved in but I still haven't found all of my stash so I haven't been stitching.  My cousin sent me some stuff right before I moved.  I'll have to post some pictures later.

Our new house is a 3 bedroom 2 bath.  A lot  smaller but it fits us much better than the last one.  Just had to fix put a new transmission in the car too, not cheap!

AT&T has put in a bid to buy T-Mobile but it will be a year before anything changes.  I might keep my job because I'm in a call center and not a retail store.  It's a bit iffy because AT&T is Dallas-based so they might consolidate.  Hopefully, I'll be teaching by then anyway.

I did pick this little kit up for 99 cents at a local thrift store

Been wanting to learn Hardanger for awhile, so hopefully I can start it next week once things a little more unpacked.

The baby is getting cuter by the minute