Craftyness Exposed

I claim to be lacking in the creative department but once in a great while, like once or twice a year, I come up with an idea that actually turns out pretty well. Other times I have an idea in my head and how it should look, but it just doesnt turn out like I had imagined (the tote bag I just finished making). I'm not any good at scrapbooking, I see neat detailed pages other ladies have done but just cant come up with any of my own. That and scrapbooking can turn out to be a very expensive hobby! I would also love to be able to quilt. It would be so neat to have a collection of quilts in different styles and fabrics. It'd also make great gifts. My patience is lacking in the quilting department and the one basic quilt I started last year still sits in my mom's sewing room because I havent figured out how to handle 5 yards of fabric for the backing.

The one thing I have figured out how to do is making barbed wire wreaths with silk floral arrangments. The results aren't professional, but the vision in my head actually came to life relatively well. These suckers come to life in about an hour, which is great for my lack of patience and desire to see the end result. Brad and I were visiting the Texas town of Bandera when I got this wreath idea. One of the little tourist cowboy stores had barbed wire wreaths decorated in various ways. I thought they were so neat! But there's no way I was going to pay $40 for any of them. That was on our honeymoon two years ago. I did make a wreath for myself (not pictured) and basically change the flowers every season. It wasnt until I was completely stumped for Mother's Day gifts that I dug the old barbed wire out again and starting thinking. I ended up with three wreaths. One for my mom, Brad's mom, and my grandma. My sister was thrilled with them and wants one too.

I apologize for the quality of the pictures. Again, I am new to the digital camera movement and havent had time to master the photo editing software ... nor the way the camera reads light. Oh and that could be another craftyness of mine, photography ... though does that really count? Probably not. But I do enjoy finding pictures. It's kind of like the way some women enjoy finding a great bargain at the mall ~ look and look and look and search and look and search. I do that with potential pictures ~ this angel, that angle, high, low, slower, faster. When I'm in the mountains it's reeeally bad. How did I get on that subject?

Anyway, the wreaths ....

Above: Mom's wreath ~lavendar & blue lilacs w/ green little berry clusters & green polka dot ribbon on top of green plaid ribbon. My favorite part of this one is the ribbon!

Above: Grandma's wreath ~ the same lavendar & blue lilacs with green berry things and blue/lavendar striped ribbon on top of blue gigham ribbon ~ very cute! This is my favorite one overall

Above: Brad's mom's wreath ~ Sunflower with little blue flowers, some grassy thing, and mini white daisis, dark blue ribbon on top of white w/ blue floral ribbon ~ the ribbon really dressed this one up nice. Sorry about the darkness, I know what I did and a little editing probably coulda fixed it.

So that along with grilled steak, cheesy scalloped potatos, cole slaw, cheddar biscuits, and sour cream chocolate cake was our Mother's Day (100% homemade of course).

Up next, Father's Day!

Have a lovely day!

Pictures!

Finally I have a few moments to upload a few pictures. This process is slow - or I'm really impatient, so I dont know how many will actually make it on here yet. These are from my day tromping around the woods/river/swampy area where we found the mushrooms ... YUM the memory of mushrooms makes me drool. Ok, quit yapping and load pictures!

This is a Robin's nest in a thorn tree. At least the tree is good for something!

The very first mushroom we found! Isnt he cute! He tasted good too! This is the kind to pick and fry in butter.... soooo good.

Purple wildflowers in the woods.

The river in the woods. It's really neat how natural and untouched it is back there.

Ok, one more! I really dont have time/shouldnt take the time, but I just loves these flowers!

These little flowers are clusters of what look like littel daisies. I have a good close up of them, but dont have time to load it.

I'll try to post pictures of the wreaths I made for Mother's Day another day. When Brad went to the UPS store to ship one to his mom the lady thought I was selling them on e-bay! I was flattered that she thought it was that nice!

Have a lovely day!

The Short and Sweet of It

Ok, so I'm over my "get me outta here" mood (though the job search continues) and a lot not so thrilling has happened, but at least it hasnt been totally dead and boring either. Well maybe that's an overstatement haha. Since I've got oh so much to say I'll just give you all (cause there's oh so many readers ;) ) condensed version, thus the short and sweet of it.

• Went mushrooming hunting last Saturday and found about a dozen! If you've never had fresh wild mushrooms you are missing the best food God created ... yes it even beats chocolate! I do want to add a bit of caution, not every mushroom in the wild is eatable, some are poisoness. We douse them in flour and fry them in real butter, no fake stuff here! YUM YUM! I've got the cutes pictures of the cute things (mushrooms pre-picked) but I dont have my digital camera here and dont have time today anyway. Yes, mushrooms are cute, yes I am weird haha.

• Saturday morning my sister's house also sold! Well, sort of sold. They are in the process of signing and purchase agreement and the buyer is working on getting financing. She seems pretty confident and somewhat in a hurry to complete the whole process ... the buyer, not my sister. My sister in overwhelmed because now she really has to move to St. Louis, where e-harmony boyfriend lives. This move will either make or break their relationship. For her sake I'm hoping all goes well.

• Sunday, e-harmony boyfriend visited and we all had dinner together and Mom's house. I made a ruhbarb custand pie. Another BIG YUM! I should have made two, it didnt last very long!

• This week I've been in the fields all day doing tillage work. Today I got off a bit early because disking was done and there's not much point in hooking up the field cultivator and running for just 30 minutes, if that. I actually have an excuse to get off work on time this week because of this Friday and Sunday.

• Friday: Dinner with extended extended family (my mom's cousins second removed ... stuff I dont understand) at Grandma's. I am making a Blackberry Silk pie to take along. Should be another yum, but I'm always leary of new pies until I taste them. There has been no bad ones yet! So that's what I'm going to do when I leave here.

• Sunday I am hosting dinner for Mother's day. Just my parents, my sister, and Grandma. We have haveing steak on the grill/fire, coleslaw, chocolate molten lava cake (or something like that) and some sort of vegetable I havent figured out yet. Oh, I need to do rolls too! So after making the pie tonight I'm doing all sorts of spring cleaning to prepare for neat freaks on Sunday. If I was a stay at home wife it'd be so much easier to keep a clean house! I know I've said that before.

• Other thoughts: Foster care for children from the court system has really been laying on my heart heavily for a few weeks. It's always been there, but it's heavier now. I keep coming up with excuses ... we dont have the money, our extra bedrooms are junk rooms, I cant even cook a complete meal now, my work schedule is unpredictable, we may be moving out of state soon, etc etc etc. Really they are just excuses and I'm letting myself get away with it. Brad knows about the thought, but not how serious I am about doing it (someday). I should sit down and talk to him about it, but I dont have the words to say .. yet another excuse.

• Yesterday God really touched me and comforted my heart. "I will take care of you. You are my daughter whom I love." It was amazing, and in the middle of a field no less.

• I made barbed wire wreaths for mother's day gifts and attached silk flowers and ribbon to them. They are so cute! I took a picture of those too and will eventually post them. Brittny, I guess I am a little crafty, but only for certain things. ;)

Mrs. BFW ~ Thanks for looking me up! I havent had time to keep up with your blog a lot lately, but yes I am a lurker. ;) I do no live in Indy though. I'm closer to South Bend. =)

That's all for now.

Have a lovely day!

Ahhh!!!

I want out! I quit. No more! Grrrr. This office work is making me go insane!

Turn for the Worse

Summer as I know it is about to change ... for the worse.

We have 70 acres of alfalfa hay on our farm. To put that in perspective, it's 2 weeks straight field work from 11am - 9pm. After those two weeks there is usually 2 weeks off before we start all over again with 2nd cutting. We usually have 4 cuttings. This is the part of farming I most enjoy ... until my neck hurts and my butt is tired. I'm outside, in the sun, enjoying the day, thinking through everything I can possibly think of (which is sometimes the last thing I need to do). There are very few problems and break downs in making hay. Anyway, of those 70 acres, only 20 acres made it through the winter. Dad had high hopes that it was going to last one more year before needing to replant. Hay is a perennial, if you will. Now we've got 50 acres of weeds. The executive decision was to till everything up and plant soybeans. It'll be a bit late for planting, but the field is not worth keeping in weeds.

Soybeans ... bummer. Granted tillage work can be done on an open tractor, providing the beginnings of a sun tan, but once the field is planted that's it, that's all, no more, until harvest in late October. And harvest is a pain in my pahtoot. So I'm a bit disappointed about this whole change of events. It may result in more time off work since office work in the summer is very slow too, which only means I'll be bored out of my mind.

I suppose I should look at it in a positive light. Since I'm looking for new employment it'll provide more time for interviewing and perhaps a transition. Had we kept the 70 acres of hay, my job search would have stopped from now til mid-September. I can also lay in the sun on my time off and be able to tan the backs of my legs instead of looking like a lobster (red on the top, white on the bottom). I can be a better homemaker and serve Brad in ways that I usually cant in the summer months. And, certainly, I can rely on God to teach me to be content with what I have, where I have it.

That's all from the farm today. ;)

I had other note worthy news, but it has since left me to provide room for more useless thoughts.

It's May!

Happy bikini shopping!

Have a lovely day!