Your Barn Door's Open

If you weren't around my neck of the woods this weekend, consider yourself lucky. We had some pretty nasty weather: rain, thunder -n- lightening, tornadic activity. You know, fun stuff. The kind of weather that makes you think, "hey, let's invite the inlaws to town for a visit!". So, that's what we did.

Bernie shows his true feelings about our art activity with a simple gesture. Notice my hubs is no where to be found...crafting repells that one like kryptonite.

Which meant we were pretty much trapped inside most of the day. Turns out that was okay. Diana loves to craft things up and had been trying to come up with a present for her fellow rug hooking friends (and when I say "rug hooking" I don't mean those tacky latch hook rugs we all made as kids -- I believe I made one of a pair of mushrooms. Classy. I mean the kind of rugs hooked from strands of wool like in the olden days. When dinosaurs needed something to wipe their feet on. Am I still in parentheses here? Crap.) She's going to some rug hooking event in a barn and wanted something to commemorate the event.

Diana's inspiration: Art teacher Debi West had her students create these adorable Haiti Houses as a fundraiser. Seeing this magnet on my fridge gave Diana the idea for her barns.

When hubs finally did make an appearance, wearing his special anti-craft shield (made from decoupaged  pages of his NRA magazine), he informed us that our flags were hung incorrectly. After a boring debate in which I fell asleep a couple of times, he resorted to looking it up online. Can you guess which way to hang the flag is correct? Oh, sorry, did you fall asleep too?

 I know, even if you aren't into the barn/country/Cracker Barrel vibe, these are kinda cute, right? What the photos don't show is the three dimesional quality of the barns that we accomplished by painstakingly hot gluing roofs (rooves?), doors and windows. I believe Diana's going to adhere a magnet to the back before gifting these to her buddies (whom she affectionately refers to as "hookers" because of their hobby).

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Whenever the in-laws come to visit, they come bearing gifts. Kinda like the three wise men. But instead of receiving frankincense (which, btw, is like the worst baby prez ever. Wasn't anyone helping that guy at the Baby Depot?), I score great stuff. Like this amazing fabric from vintage flour sacks. Sigh. I could just ooh and ahh over it for hours.

Thankfully, we managed to weather the storm. And we were able to enjoy a beautiful, though breezy, day today. And, really, it doesn't matter what the weather is doing outside, we always manage to have a great time together (I know, I just gagged too. Time to stop huffing sharpies while blogging)...

Kraftin' Kudzo

 I know you aren't going to believe this, but this photo was taken in my yard! Don't worry, I'm sure my black thumb will find a way to kill it, but in the meantime, look! It's a flower! In my yard! Must be all that fertilizer the neighbor's dog plopped into our yard...

At my house, we like stuff with dual purposes. For example, Mitch has organized all of our candy (and yes, there is a high enough volume that it needs to be organized) in recycled spaghetti jars. Which leads to conversations like this: "Where are the Reese Cups?" 

"The dark chocolate ones or the milk?" 

"Um, milk, I guess..."

"Large ones or the travel size?"

"There are two sizes?"

"Uh, yeah (rolling of eyes at my apparent ignorance). Try Prego or Newmans."

 Oh, look, a dining room table slash buckle making factory. Another dual purpose! Sadly, I cleaned the table before taking this picture. According to hubs, "Cassie Clean" does not meet up to health code standards. A little dirt never hurt anyone, says me. I don't think...

While hubs has been thoughtfully organizing our pantry, I've been slowly transforming every part of our house into a functional room slash crafting work space. It ain't pretty. But it's working for me. The drawback? I live in fear of the doorbell. It started when an exceptionally well-dressed dude on a bike came to my door...   (cue reflection music):

Dude: Hi, ma'am, do you have a minute?

Me: (cringing at the word "ma'am") Um, I guess.

Dude, removing bike helmet: Well, I won't take but a moment -- (peering behind me) hey, did ya'll just move into your house?

Me: (attempting to block his view) What? Me? Yes! No. Well, maybe.

Dude: Oh, well, I just noticed all of the stuff you have ... everywhere.

The "sewing room" (which I think was originally a bedroom, hence the bed it once housed) occasionally doubles as the shipping room.  And the breakfast room is currently two-timing as a mini photo studio.

The other prob I've encountered with my craftin' sprawl is that it's like kudzu -- it has a tendency to take over. It just spreads and spreads, covering everything in it's path until all that's left is mass craftin chaos. The only place that I haven't allowed my craftin' to creep is the bathroom and Mitch's side of the bed. But give it time. My Kraftin' Kudzo is resilient.  

 My flower garden, on the other hand, I'm sure will prove to be not as resilient. Before the week's end, chances are it'll be dead and weed-ridden...in which case I can find another purpose for it. Preferably NOT a doggie crapper!

Squirrel Love

Lookin' for Squirrels in all the Wrong Places...

I felt like I was watching an episode of Bugs Bunny. Remember how Elmer Fudd  was always trying to find that Wascully Wabbit..."Be vewy vewy quiet, I'm hunting wabbits". Watching Asha trying to find the squirrel was vewy vewy simiwar.

Dude, I've not blogged in ages. And once I get out of the habit of something, it's pretty hard to get back into it. Kinda like goin' barefoot all Spring Break and then trying to force my feets into something suitable for work. So far it looks like I'll be wearin' my flippy floopies come tomorrow morning. Makes for a quick and easy spanking tool: flip it off, WHAP, slip it back on.  Oh, I'm just kidding! Corrporal punishment was abolished my second year teaching. I cried for a week.

This corn was actually meant for the birds. Try tellin' him that. Later I found the cob at the edge of the deck where the greedy little furball had tried to make a run for it. Have you ever seen a squirrel eat corn? They eat it one kernel at a time, spinning it around in their hands like we eat it off of cob.

Watching Asha look everywhere for the squirrel, only to have to it be right in front of her reminded me of so many things. Like having my sunglasses on my head while spending 20 minutes cleaning out my car to find them. And that would be AFTER I've spent 15 minutes looking for my car keys, which, of course, I've got looped thru my thumb.

 What with all of the woodland critters we've got in my yard, I thought I'd create a couple buckles in their likeness. 

But then there's other stuff too: stuff to be happy about, thankful for, excited about, stuff that is right in front of me but I don't see it. Or I forget about it. Or I'm too busy focusing on the other stuff: stuff I can't fix, find, change. I'm like Asha staring at the wrong thing, looking in the wrong direction.

Speaking of stuff, I've got waaay to much. So I opened a new etsy store. More info on that soonish.

But everyone does that, right? Why? Is it what motivates us? Gives us drive? Personally it drives me crazy at times. I once heard of a woman who wrote down something that she happy about, thankful for and looked forward to doing every morning. She started her day focusing on what was right in front of her.

Finally she sees him. This would be after I picked her up and plunked her down right in front of the little guy.

It seems like a great idea. Maybe I'll try it. I'm a lister, to-do lister, grocery store lister, New Years Resolution-ister. So, what's one more list? If it helps me focus on what's right in front of me, then it can't do me any harm, right?


Oh! New shop:

http://www.etsy.com/shop/vintagedomestic