Redecorating Project

Ahhh, what a difference a little redecoration makes. It was a small project that impacted my mood in such a big way. Last weekend I went to Staples, AC Moore and Burlington Coat Factory and then spent a Sunday afternoon in front of my computer printing 8.5 x 11 portraits of our vacation pictures, placing them in frames and *ta-da* we have a whole new entry way.

I scored big at Burlington, discovering three perfect matching mirrors for only $30 each. They were perfect for the wall I wanted to cover behind our bed.


Yes, that is a giant Led Zeppelin wall poster on the left. That whole wall was covered with posters but I wanted something a little less busy and more "mature". We're adults after all :P Anyways, I can't bring myself to pull that last one down, I'm trying to justify a new spot for it but it's so big that I'm having a hard time finding a new spot for the poster.

Oh yes, and why are the mirrors not on the wall? Right now, they're sitting on the floor because I didn't think about HOW I was going to secure them to the wall until I went to hang them and after my busy day of shopping, grocery shopping and decorating, I was not about to venture forth into another retail adventure!

One last addition was the Vietnam era anti draft poster I found months ago, finally framed and hung in it's new home, the bathroom.

Drop Spinning

I treated myself to a new toy a few weeks ago and bought a drop spindle kit from mainewoodsyarn on etsy. I've never spinned at all but I love the idea of making my own products from beginning to end one day. I watched some videos on youtube to get an idea of how to spin using a drop spindle but the directions that came with the kit were simple and easy to understand.

The kit came with four rolls of roving. The first was an undyed bit of practice roving. By the time I finished that one I was hooked. It's going to take a lot of practice to get better, but then, doesn't everything?

Road Trip to Houston, Part 3

The fourth day of our trip was sunny and beautiful. It was the perfect day to hit downtown. We ate lunch at Ninfas, our favorite TexMex restaurant, first and then headed downtown.



As we walked around looking for a high rise building with an observation deck, I snapped these shots of the reflections of the sky scrapers on sky scrapers.

Finding an observation deck turned out to be as easy as walking into a building and asking the security guard who pointed us in the right direction: up.



Snapshots of the seemingly endless sprawl of Houston.


An empty Minute Maid Park with an open roof.

Road Trip to Houston Part 2

The second day of our visit in Houston, the weather was gloomy and rainy; a typical March day in Houston. We were staying with my grandfather in Deer Park near the San Jacinto Monument. We decided to visit the monument and give Carl a crash course in Texas history. It was here the Texas rebels defeated Santa Anna and became an independent nation in 1836.




We went to the top floor of the monument after looking at the relics of the long ago war and had a great view of the surrounding oil refineries.


The USS Texas battleship is docked in the bay here as well. You can take a tour of it but it was raining pretty hard at that point and neither one of us felt like getting out of the car and taking a walk in the rain to board the ship. This picture was taken from the top of the monument.

Road Trip to Houston

Carl and I hit the road on March 8th at 7am and headed down 66 through the pouring rain on our way to Houston for a weeklong visit. Once we hit the Tennessee border, the rain abated and we made our first driver switch at a rest stop across from a giant guitar just as the snow started. Thankfully, we drove over the border into Georgia then on into Alabama and the bad weather was over. Nothing but blue skies and rays of sun. The rest of our drive was blissfully uneventful. We made our way down to Mississippi and stayed overnight in Meridian.

Back on the road early in the morning, we were both excited when we crossed the border into Louisiana. Okay, I was probably more excited than Carl to be so close to my home, but I know he was ready to get to our destination and out of our tiny car. In the picture below you can see the continuous 18 mile stretch of I-10 that runs through the Atchafalaya Basin through the reflection of Carls book.

By the time we made it to the Texas border, I was exhausted from driving but too excited to nap. We were only hours from my city and I could hardly wait to get there. We were fairly giddy as we drove through the rice fields and crawdaddy farms barreling on towards Houston.

Summer Memories

I was searching for some old photos and stumbled upon this small set of pictures I took last summer of Tinkerbell who had wandered onto the patio while I was tending the garden. She was so suspicious of the plants, at first she wouldn't walk directly up to the plants. Then she discovered that they weren't going to attack her and so she came closer for a better look.
Eventually she determined that they tasted pretty good too.

Luckily, she didn't discover this little guy hanging out in the wet shade.
All of these pictures are causing me to recall all the fond and more importantly warm memories of last summer. I am so ready for this winter to be done!

Experimenting with Gloves

I'm experimenting with fingerless mittens this week. I've never made mittens before though I once attempted gloves. The gloves, however, were a fiasco and I swore off crocheting gloves forever. Fingerless mittens sounded like it would be a breeze because you get to leave the most complicated part out: the fingers. And it is a breeze. The problem is, I love this yarn so much I don't want to list the mittens on my etsy page! And while it's still a work in progress, I'm almost certain I will be wearing these this spring and I'll just have to make another pair to list for sale later!