WHAT I'VE BEEN UP TO

I've been up to waaaay too much lately, but here are a few of the many.  I have spent day after day trying to find a 'robin's egg blue'(light turquoisey) dress to wear for Chelsey's wedding. I finally decided to sew a simple dress and embellish it with flounces. I found a very simple Butterick pattern, but have gone to three stores and they don't have it, or they seem to be phasing out Butterick patterns! I made a 'mock up' of a dress pattern I already have, but it's not really floatin' my boat. I may end up with a repurposed dress I already have, or a skirt and sweater.

The roof has finally been repaired! HOORAY!! Yes, you may join me in my enthusiasm! HOORAY!  Now on to the flooring and wall repair. I boxed up and moved the dining room stuff back to the dining room, even though those things will have to be moved again. I really needed to have my family room functional, since it's our only living space.  Relief Society has been constantly taking up my time. This month we have had a Parenting Panel/Game Night with Valentiney treats and also a Crock Pot cooking class. Luckily, next month is a Stake RS activity, which takes the place of our monthly Ward RS activity, and I'll be gone for the monthly cooking class.

Wedding stuff is an ongoing adventure. Gathering and organizing addresses is done, I hope. Now I'm on to stuffing and sending.

The cleared off dining table came in handy. All the bluebirds of happiness are stamps I'm doing on the back of the invites. I found the ink takes awhile to dry, so they have to be spread out. The address and return address are going to be printed on labels, since my hands are old and would cramp up if I had to write them all.

Now I need to clean/organize the garage and the craft room. The garage, so we can fit the furniture in there when the floor gets fixed.  The craft room, so Chelsey & Bracken can sleep in there when they come for the Open House. It doesn't sound like it would take forever, but between Dan & me we have the energy and strength of a 102 year old!

Here's a couple fun things about Dan.

He enjoys 'harvesting' his fruit trees, so he can share his bounty with others. He found this funny lemon, and drew a face and mouth on it.

Dan may be a thief, but he's an honest thief!  He left me this note on the kitchen counter when he had gone to work. In case you can't read it, it says,"Took your last $3.00". This is one of the reasons I love him. He has amazing integrity!

STRESS RELIEF

I've really been into making different kinds of flower pin accessories, lately.  It's either that or Sudoku, and flowers seem less of a waste of time. See if you can guess what this one is made out of.

Here's a different shot that might give you a clue.

See that tail hanging off it? I'll leave it at that for now, and see if I get any responses.

Here's another one of my stress relievers...

It helps to read the carton, since all but two of them are gone...ok, one left now. These are especially delicious since my Sugarlips gave them to me for Valentine's Day, AND the almonds are salty. Mmmmm!

FUNNY STORY

Ok, so this is a really funny story  ...  nope, it's gone...  I'm sure no one ever had that happen to them!

OUT OF CONTROL

So, remember the water coming up through our floor...well, that was just the beginning of our adventure. We had the neighbor's tree root break our water main. So we had no water to the house for a week, unless we went out front and stuck our arm down that scary hole and cranked the lever. I would do that long enough to shower & flush & fill up buckets & pictures with water. Then run back out front and stick my arm down that hole again and turn it off.

We are waiting to replace the flooring in the dining/family room area until the roof gets repaired. We just found out that the roof is NOT covered by insurance, so for now, our house is sporting a lovely tarp on the roof and the inside looks like this...





This is the dining room.(entry on right, sliding glass door on left, pic taken from fam. rm.)

This is the fam rm. The only place all the dining rm stuff can go for now.

The big thing on the right is the hutch, which is too heavy to move. We could put some stuff back in the dining room while it's just cement, but we are too old and decrepid.(I can't find the right way to spell that, so you get to figure it out for yourself)

Between wedding plans for Chelsey & Bracken, Dana having surgery a million miles away, and my new calling(RS Committee Leader) this year hasn't had a dull moment!

Now, I'm going to go sew me a dress for the wedding.