SAVE THE TABLE and GHOST LAPTOP

We bought this crazy table for the house and i love it. It's perfect. It just fits the room so nicely. but it was getting rocked up. the wood scratches like nuthin. so in order to preserve, i decided to get a vinyl cloth for it. nerd alert. i realize. However, this strip of vinyl was a cool color and finish. even the pa fabric ladies admired my choice. and even though it doesn't cover the entire surface, it doesn't bother me a bit. and also one of the best parts is that it was only 8 dollars!!!!! not interested in table coverings? oh well. i am. perhaps you'll be interested to know that i can't disable the italics feature for some reason. holy crap. it just did it on it's own. the laptop is possessed!!!!!!

What's Been Filling My Time

Lately, I've been very busy with non stop activities. Some of this business is great. It's catch up time with friends, it's playdates and baking cookies with them all in aprons, fitting in workouts at the Y, and bargain shopping trips to buy dollar shirts. But throw in an upcoming craft show, a sewing fundraiser, thanksgiving and combine it with the rest and i'm about to run away from home. I obviously still have some lessons to learn with doing less and freeing my time, especially on the weekends.

But just look at the "Max" character from the Wild Things that my friend Keri drew and i sewed on this shirt! too cute for words. These are the shirts we're making for our fundraiser along with many other designs.

As usual Tulia hated being my model but if it scores a good shot of the goods, i do it anyway. i couldn't resist her evil eye in this one.

Transforming....SLOOOOOOOWLY

At first there was the great ugliness. tulia's room rated 2nd ugliest in the house. due all to the blue and medium blue and dark blue and then the blue sponge paint. it had to go. but not at first. only over time.

at first we lived with it. then made modifications along the way. such as a bunk bed and some furniture rearranging. but who were we kidding? we needed paint.

but which paint? at first i was dead set on aqua. then mustard, then this two tone thing. but the set up wasn't right. should the "juicy fruit" color go on top? (ps- after giving in and letting tulia choose a pink, she went against it and refused pink, this juicy fruit was our compromise).


or should the juicy go on the bottom? should edgar jump up on the sill? oh yes he did. was it wet? oh yes it was.

Should there be any yellow at all? Oh lordy. so yeah after playing around with colors for three days, i ended up getting rid of the yellow. the juicy fruit basically rules. it's feminine and it's playful. i think it ended up great. EXCEPT FOR THE FACT THAT I'M NOT DONE YET!!!! that's right. it needs a second coat. that blue was torture to cover up. so yeah, tomorrow i start again.

but i needed to set things up and feel like things got accomplished.

and they did. i like it. i even pinched pennies and cut her old comforter in half making two covers for her bunk beds. i think i might be satisfied.

Wild Thing Halloween

It's needless to say that we're a little obsessed with Where the Wild Things Are. I mean even since Tulia was 3ish (wild things birthday party masks? remember?) she's been loving that book. and even since nate and i were little and read it, we loved it. so tulia actually has nate's original book from 1970something and there are green scribbles all in it and she comments on how naughty her daddy was to draw in books. However it wasn't easy to convince the lady that a wild thing costume would rule. You see, she wanted to be a skull with a candle coming out of it's head, a dead cat and then a bleeding dead cat. (ew.)
Long story short, wild thing costume idea won out in the end.

I got the fur at the PA fabric outlet where i had a rather pleasant and bonding discussion about fur with the previously thought of "mean pa fabric lady". she was all about this costume and taught me how to cut fur.

Nate and Tulia added the horn aspect via paper mache and the rest of it was made by moi. I even made the hoodie (without a pattern!) which for me was a total miracle.

In the end, i felt like we achieved a glorious finished product...perhaps minus my face painting skills. nate and i have decided since we probably won't be dressing up this Halloween (why aren't we though!?) that we shall live vicariously through this costume together.
the end.
happy hauntings.

Colors of Now

Let me write about this bush. I don't know it's name or really anything about it except that I LOVE IT! Actually, I knew when we moved here, that it was the kind of bush that would turn BRILLIANT red in the fall. and here we are, and I'm discovering the changes in my yard and it's a beautiful thing. this bush brings me enormous joy.

also behold the common beautiful pest known as the morning glory. it's terribly invasive but i cannot bear to rip these out. so i suppose morning glory take over is inevitable.

my back door has these kale plants. I've never bought them before because let's face it, seasonal window boxes run up costs. but i couldn't resist getting these. only 2 of them. no harm right? plus these babies will last way into the cold weather season.

and lastly, i finally went to get color on my new do. black and brown for autumn's sake. that and the insecurity of my brother's criticism that I always go for red color. there. are you happy russell? i happen to really love this color job. the browns blend under the black all around the front and sides and i think maybe in the back al little too. seeing this photo really has me asking only one question. Why didn't i find my stylist earlier in life. i've never been so tickled as i have been since finding Tamara. she does what i ask and even cooler every time. hope everyone is enjoying October. Costume blog coming soon.

New Painting

Whenever i ask tulia what she'd like to do and give her no limits, she always thinks for a sec. and then says PAINT! So i don't always happily agree and run on over to the easel and do a painting with her but I do always have a watercolor station set up for independent painting because watercolors are pretty much harmless. And given her track record of painting her body or furniture or the floor, acrylics are off limits unless i attend. So my dilemma as always, is how to sort of guide her painting skills but not guide the art making itself. It's totally tough! Part of you wants to grab the brush and do it yourself! and part of you just can't stand to see her mix all the colors (AGAIN) in a big muddy mess and paint the whole canvas in rapid non careful strokes, ending up with yet another brown and muddy canvas and smashed brushes all done in 5 minutes.
So a lesson in care, in choice, in thinking before doing, in purpose and patience....for us both. She chose the colors, I taught her how to blend then carefully to avoid the mud. She chose subjects of what to paint and with just a light hand in her execution, tulia made a pretty darn awesome painting complete with a praying mantis, a butterfly, a stinkbug, a rainbow, a monster, a ladder a jungle. When she finished painting it she declared that is was a present for her good buddy Sophie. After a little desperate begging, i convinced her to let us hang it in the dining room. Sorry Mara, maybe the next painting?

Autumn Style, aka Fires and Apples

This is the first fire we lit in our new house. it was exciting and then it was sort of terrifying because...well...sorry to dog you out Nate but....he didn't open the flue properly. which means smoke. and i have a very cranky nose and a very cranky smoke smell tolerance and well....the first fire made me feel like maybe the fireplace is perhaps not all that nor it's bag of chips.

but besides that we had a really nice lunch at my moms in the apple capital of PA, adams county. i used to think that it was the apple capital of the usa but no. i think it's washington. REGARDLESS....there are tons of apples and almost every back yard is next to an orchard. Here is a basket full of what was left over on the trees after the harvest. we picked some and mom drove down the road and somehow encountered a friendly latino apple worker who happily picked "La Doña Lili" a bag of leftovers.

so the size of these leftovers is incredible. it's like you really can't imagine them unless you have seen these your whole life growing up. this photo doesn't even really show you the true scale. it's totally ridiculous that these big apples are not choice apples, like the farmers somewhere along the line said whoa....this is too huge....no way, we can't sell these. i happen to think the oversized apples are probably the equivalent to the bees knees and tulia brought the two biggest apples to her teachers today and i loved that.