Today in my Life

Today I chronicled "a day in my life" as a part of a blog hop.  You would think it would be easy to chronicle "a day in the life" but I quickly found the hang up. Though I could have crafted a romantic look into the typical rhythm of a day in my life, I chose instead to simply capture "This Day" in my life.  And truly I think what I have captured has much more personality, shows more about me, and will be more interesting to me far in the future because I chose to do so despite the many "non-typical" things that went on today.

7:30am I woke up to the smell of oatmeal and the sound of a crying baby.  We kept the boys up a little late last night with a sitter because Jeremy and I were out at a class.  SO the baby hadn't really woken up on the right side of the port-o-crib.  Once he was seated at the table with oatmeal of an edible temperature, and a spoon in his fist he was much happier.  I, on the other hand, would rather still have been in bed. 

And yeah, we're eating out of a random selection of tupperware and pyrex bowls, because the dishes didn't get done last night.

8:00am After breakfast Owen read scripture stories to us.  We recently finished Book of Mormon Stories and have now started on Doctrine and Covenants Stories.  Last semester when we were homeschooling we would let them watch the accompanying videos, but today he needed to get dressed for school.

 8:30am Jeremy left to take Owen to school--he's been attending his local elementary school again for the last week and a half.  Jonas went along for the ride.

I sat down to post on my Urban Pioneer Story blog--a great post about our latest homesteading adventure.  And I checked on a few blogs, and Pinterest (love!).

Jeremy got back and got ready and left for campus for the day.  I got dressed and picked up the living room.

10:15am  My visiting teacher came over for a while.  Jonas and her son played trains while the moms enjoyed a nice chat. 

11:30am The boys and I drove down to Owen's school to eat a "special" hot dog families-invited lunch, celebrating "Hot dog!  We're so excited construction is complete on the new school gym." 

Then they played on the playground together until it was time for Owen to go back to class.

12:30pm I put the baby down for a nap.  (He slept for three hours he was so worn out.)

I lay in bed for a while and read a book, and tried unsuccessfully to get Jonas to entertain himself on the computer. Finally I just abandoned the book.

 

Jonas and I worked on grinding some wheat--I'll make bread tomorrow.   

 And I did a little bit of laundry.

3:55pm With the baby in tow we picked up Owen from school.  When we got home Owen did his chore of feeding the chickens.  Then the boys stayed outside for a half hour to play in the nice weather.

After heading in the boys sat down to watch Danger Mouse on Hulu (Jeremy got them into it) while I made dinner.

 5:30pm We sat down for dinner.  Mushroom and kale polenta--perfect wintery comfort food. 

After dinner I gathered supplies and Jeremy and I practiced some twostep moves.  (One day we'll look like this.)

6:30pm We left the house to go teach the two step at for Mutual (youth program) at church.

8:40pm We arrive home and put the boys to bed (late for the second night in a row--I hate that).

9:00pm I'm in bed.  A hahahaha!  No I'm on the computer, writing on my blog.  Usually I alternate days on the blogs, but today's blog hop is a special occasion.  I'll probably browse Pinterest a bit more.  Read more blog posts in my queue.  After Jeremy finishes doing dishes, we may watch something on Netflix or Hulu.  Jeremy needs to do his physical therapy.  I may take a bath or read more of my book.  Then before bed it is time for scriptures and prayers, and talking way too late into the night.

2:00am  I can probably guarantee to be asleep by then.

Today was definitely not a typical day, but I don't really think typical days happen all that often at all.  Today was a day.  We got most everything done we needed to (We missed family scripture study--we should have done it during dinner since we were going to be out late.)  A "typical" day may have seen Jonas and I at the library for story time this morning--but in the real day we preferred our visitors and our visit to school instead.  Here's to non-typical days--may our life be full of many more enjoyable ones.


Want to read more "days in the life"?  click here

New Year's (Infographic) Greetings

Our first year married I tried to do a Christmas card/family newsletter, I was lenient with my timing saying, "It's completely appropriate to morph it into a "New Years'" card/letter."  But the next year I decided: forget all that.  The holidays are just too busy to get that done.  I don't want to be stressed out the whole time that my cards aren't sent out yet.  So I decided that Chinese New Year letters were a much better idea and would leave my holidays more stress-free. 

Flash forward a few years.  I'm just not really got about follow through--with anything really.  If you (or your mother) gave Jeremy and I a gift for our wedding--I'm sorry for not getting you a "Thank you" card, I really am--can I just agree to give you a hug when I see you in heaven and we'll call it good?  Things printed, put in envelopes, individually addressed, needing stamps--I'm just not very good about it.  I usually end up after step 2 or 3 and it's May already and I finally just say "forget it" until next year. 

With the advent of the "green revolution" my situation has improved as it's no longer necessary to physically mail things, you can e-mail them (for cheap too) and it's all in the noble name of being ecologically minded; however I'm not really organized enough to have all my e-mail address books from my three e-mail accounts (y'know high school, college, and my grown up gmail account)  consolidated into one list.  So my point is:  Here it is--if you are someone I know personally, consider this your personal family newsletter from me--with all the love and affection appropriate to the nature of our specific relationship. 

This year's family newsletter was a lot of fun to put together.  It was a collaborative effort between Jeremy and myself.  Infographics are really big right now in design --probably because they are a lot of fun to make, and a reasonably fast project.  Jeremy and I got a kick out of coming up with different items of family information that could be used, and how to use as many different types of charts and graphs as possible.  And we even completed it without any cross words exchanged--though there were a few sarcastic ones, and a few really sarcastic ones.  For your viewing pleasure here is "Our Family 2011" (click photo to enlarge).

Felt Heart Chain Garland

Oh, Pinterest is so much fun--isn't it?  Today I did a little project combining two different ideas I'd seen on Pinterest--folded felt hearts and a paper heart chain.

Oh, It just makes me happy.

First cut a bunch of felt strips.  I just eyeballed the cutting, but they were basically 3/4 inch by 2 3/4 of an inch.

Start the chain by sewing the first two strips together in a "V". 

Fold the Ends of the "V" down and meet them together under the point of the "V".  Add the next two strips for the next heart and sew together.  Sew through all four layers of felt about 1/8 inch from the bottom edge. 

If you are doing all one color heart this next tip isn't necessary.  If you are alternating colors I found it looked better to sandwich the two new color strips a little over the edge of the tip of the previous heart.  Then I zigzag stitched it together over that hidden edge.

I love the little hearts and different colors.

With a thicker felt, like wool felt, you could hang the garland and it should hold its shape.  This one I will use to drape around my piano-top valentines display.




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Victorian-ize a Blouse

I have found a quick and easy way to modify a normal blouse to make it look more Victorian and work better for my steampunk costumes. I've done two versions now so here is my tutorial for how to steampunk a blouse. 

I start with a very structured button-up blouse.  The style was to wear blouses that looked almost like you were wearing a jacket.  I really liked a lot about this blouse, all except the turned down pointed collar which just doesn't look very Victorian at all. 

Start by flipping up the collar and cut off as much of it as you want to.  I have cut both of mine just above halfway. 

Then starting on one side tuck 1/4 inch of the raw edges to the inside and pin them all the way around.

Sew right along the edge with a machine or by hand. 

Now the collar will stand up straight giving it the feeling of a period blouse.

Me in Paris.

On my other blouse I tried to get the ruffly collar look of the Victorian era. 

 

Here was the collar previous to my mod.  

I cut this one down halfway as well.  To make it ruffle a little bit I pinched the fabric of the collar about every 3/4 inch and sewed little pin tucks--just sewing as close to the edge as possible to make the fabric pinch together-- alternating on the inside and the outside of the collar fabric.  I did this along the center line of the collar--not sewing the tuck all the way up to the hem.  This was enough to make the collar ruffle a bit.

Obviously there would be better ways to actually sew a Victorian blouse, but this is an easy way to mod an existing blouse to look more Victorian without needing to buy any other fabric or expend much effort at all.

We Love Who?

  Geek baby.  Such a cutie.

We really love Doctor Who. 
In case you've never checked it out --the older episodes are all available to watch instantly on Netflix.  The new seasons are available to subscribe to on i-tunes.

Jeremy and I started originally with the 2005 episodes.  They are a bit old school but improve in quality quickly.   My sister started with the 2010 episodes and suggests that route to avoid being turned away by cheesy special effects. 

But the story lines are creative, and clever.  The characters are interesting and (surprisingly) change every season or two which keeps things extra interesting. And the show is inter-generationally-family-friendly.  (Just ask my mom.)