My New Friend

I have been sorta MIA again.  Something arrived this week that should have been instant blog fodder, but I got wrapped up playing with it.  Heh, that sounded dirty and I like it.  Anyway, the lovely, gorgeous, wonderful Angela from MomVault sent me a new friend!  I'd been complaining about how I wasn't sure I could be a "real" crafter without a sewing machine.  Sorry, pioneer-style women, but I can't sew everything by hand... but trust me, I tried! Anyway, Tuesday the UPS dude showed up (and of course, since it wasn't the FedEx dude, I wasn't naked this time! But I was taking a nap--how do they always know?!?!) and delivered this sweet baby! 

I should have done this post right away, but as soon as it was unpacked I wanted to get started!  Just one piece was damaged in the shipping and a little super glue fixed that right up!!  I have projects to share with you, but that will be the next post.  Since I've been wrapped up in projects (and since Punk has all those packing materials to drag all over the apartment) my home has gotten a little chaotic.  I realized I have 2 laundry baskets of clothes waiting to be put away. 2 baskets of socks, undies, towels, and other assorted stuff awaits me.  It's not like me to let stuff sit for a week!  At least I hung the shirts, folded the towels and paired the socks already.  When I get into a new project, it's hard to step away for the rest of the world!  I forgot lunch 3 days in a row!  Anyway, I better get back to tidying up.  I'll try to get what I've been working on up later tonight, but first I need a clean space to take the pictures!! 

Thanks again, Angela!!

Punk is enjoying it too! 

"Oooh, fresh box!"

"Dis new toy for Punky?  How I play wif it?"

"ZOMG!  New box and paperz BEST TOYZ EVER!"

Happy Birthday, America!

Happy Birthday, America!!

And THANK YOU to all of my soldiers!!

Crunchy!!

I made these the other day.  I think I'm addicted now.  I want to make mini ones and big one and put them everywhere!  Although, they kind of remind me of this:

It's one of Punk's crunchy balls. How weird is that?  

I also made a couple button-flower headbands.  Kate thinks she might like all the ladies in her wedding party to wear them, so I thought I'd experiment with them a little. 

(I don't know why that picture is to the left, since it's set to center.  grrrrrrrrrrrr.)

And, finally, I spent the weekend with my Mother-in-law and my brother-in-law.  Dawn (the MIL) brought me these super cute scrapbooks.  (They're empty so I can decide what I want to put in them.)

 

 They have such cute details inside!  These are 2 of my favorites:

 

Of course, Punk loves the fabric on the bindings.

 
So cute!!  Ok, I have to go beat the pants off Andy in MarioKart!  Hahahahaha!

"Wayback" Wednesday: Painting Project

This painting is from the first Valentine's Day that Andy and I dated.  I painted it for him in my dorm room, which was totally against the rules, but that NEVER stopped me, hahahaha.  I had planned to add another layer of paint (so it was all one tone of black instead of thick and thin areas--you can see right through the paint in a lot of places)  but never got around to it.  I brought it home with me from my parents' house last month and a couple weeks ago, I put it on the wall.  It's never had a home before, it's just always been a project that needed finished. The more I look at it, the more I like the unevenness of the paint.  And I love the way it looks on the wall.

I'm linking this to Domestically Speaking's Power of Paint party. Make sure you go over there and check out more of the awesome paint projects for this week! 

Whoops. Overdue Update. It's a Novel. Sorry.

Sorry I haven't been with you guys for a while.  I hadn't even noticed--things have been a bit hectic for a while--until Kristi asked where I've been.  I've been here, I guess, just not vocal.  Given how much has happened since the last post, let me catch you up:

•  We had a party (in our apartment--hence lotsa cleaning) for our anniversary.  Found pixi stick sugar on the floor and pretzels behind the couch the day after-- pulled a muscle restraining myself from kicking the guest resposible's ass.  Had to clean again.  
• Got a Wii.  Spent time unlocking all levels and getting ratings only to discover I have to do it all again to unlock everything.
• I hosted a sleepover for my favorite surrogate family.  The kids swam in the hotel pool and then everyone had pizza in my apartment and the kids stayed here while their parents went back to the hotel.  I figured they could use some alone time because they're moving soon (actually, they move officially tomorrow) and L was leaving a couple months early to set up their house and start work at the new place. So the kids stayed here.  Of course, that meant cleaning up before and after them.  It's crazy what 3 kids and 1 cat can do to an apartment.  
• Went mattress shopping to prepare for our tax return so we could finally get a bed.  We've been sleeping on a futon for a year. 
• Bought a bridesmaids dress. 
• Went to Biolife regularly. 
• We had Easter at our apartment, just us.  Andy got me an egg dyeing kit because I loooove dyeing eggs.

• Baked a cheesecake for Andy's birthday.  White Chocolate Raspberry Cheesecake. 

• Andy's dad and brother, Sam, came up to see Dan (Andy's other brother) run in the Sioux City Relays.  Sam stayed with us part of the time. So guess what I did?  Cleaned again.  
• My parents came up that weekend too, to bring our bed frame and a treadmill (the family who is moving gave it to me--the emergency stop thing is technically broken so they can't keep it around with kids--so they bought a new one- this one's been in their storage room for a while and since they're moving they needed to get rid of it fast.)  Since they brought up all that stuff, I had to rearrange most of my apartment.  The treadmill is in the corner of the living room so the futon, coffee table and lamp had to be moved.  Oh, and all of Sam's stuff since he slept on the floor that night.  (On the futon mattress-- one of our futon support bars came loose and neither Andy or I could get it back.  My dad fixed it while he was here--oh, also, to clarify, we have a futon in the living room and one in the bedroom.  We lived in a dorm before here, you know!)  I also had to rearrange EVERYTHING in my bedroom.  The bed is on the wall where my bookshelf used to be. I pulled all the books off the shelf and Andy took it apart to move it to the other side of the room.  The futon was turned the opposite way and put up to couch position.  So now one side of my bedroom is a reading nook.  Love that.  Bed frame assembled to wait for mattress.  
• Ordered a new mattress!  Woo hoo!  Put up art that had been waiting for that.  Bought new sheets and washed them to be ready.  Bought slats for under the box spring.  The kid working at Home Depot cut EVERY. SINGLE. PIECE. WRONG.  Pulled a muscle restraining myself from rolling my eyes and doing it for him. 
• Took Punk back to my parents' house in Nebraska to get his shots from a vet I used to babysit for (she trusted me with her kid, so I'll trust her with my baby.) Punk remembered her from last year and got so upset he got himself loose from his harness and crawled under the car.  After scratching my face.  Took a bit, but we finally got him out from under the car.  We were all grateful he stayed under the car and didn't run instead.  He's fast, dude.  Finally we got the shots done.  The only way to get Punk to hold still was for me to hold him and sing to him (Will you take me to... Punkytooooown!!) which impressed the vet.  Andy made my day by telling her that Punk only likes me and just tolerates other people cuz I make him. While we were in NE, I packed up some of my favorite books and such to bring home with me. 
• Our mattress was delivered!

• A kid I spent 3 summers nannying for just turned 16 a couple months ago and right before mother's day, she rolled her car.  She broke broke 1 vertebrae, crushed another, broke 2 ribs and injured her knee.  She is in rehab/physical therapy and seems to be doing well though.
• I helped a friend move from Dakota Dunes back into Sioux City.  She lives just down the hill from me now.  I'm hoping that means I'll see her more.  It's been a lonely for me here for the past few months.  
• Andy's brother's girlfriend stayed here before leaving on a class trip.  Cleaned again.  Boys are f-ing messy.  
• Got new internet service!!
• Made Mother's Day cards and wedding dvds for the moms and grandparents. 

• Made recycled magazine coasters while watching season finales of my favorite shows. 

•  Punk developed a lump on his back the size of a marble (right about where he got his shots).  It didn't bother him but it bothers me.  It's almost gone now, but  it drove me crazy for a week.  It showed up really fast and shrank really fast, but for a week, there was just a marble sized lump on his back and you could see it, no matter what he was doing. 
• Punk woke me up by barfing in the kitchen one morning, so I went outside and took photos of dew and such after I cleaned up the barf.

•  Planted a window garden.  Hopefully tomorrow I'll be relocating it to the apartment of the friend who lives down the hill.  She loves veggies too and had a key made so I can grow the plants on her deck.  

•  I also painted new pots for them. 

•  I reorganized my closet.  It needed it.  Every time I needed something from it, I had to drag 47 other things out first. 
• I checked to see if they'd filled the pool yet.  I checked several days in a row.  Finally today they started.  With a garden hose.  Shouldn't an in-ground pool have a system? 
• Finally, I "celebrated" Chad's birthday.  That was by no means easy.  In fact, it might have been the hardest thing on me all month.  I realized a few days ago that I've now lived more years without him than with him. That sucks.  Like, a lot.  

Aren't you glad I did that in bullet points instead of paragraphs?  You think it's long now?  Trust me, it could be worse.  So I'm sorry I hadn't blogged in so long, but I guess I was busy living.  Thanks for reading, all of you who made it this far.  I'm off to bed now. Nighty night.

New magnetic curtain

New magnetic curtain, originally uploaded by MistyHCunningham.

Here's the picture I promised you of the magnetic curtain I made for the apartment door. It's really fun to play with... providing you don't get the magnets stuck to any piercings.....