31 Days of...

Wine? 


Really? I’m going to do a post every day for 31 days about wine? Yep. Sure am. I think?

When I saw this post from the Nester, I immediately knew that I wanted to participate. But it scared the crap out of me. 31 days is a big commitment. What could I write about? I asked my sister if she was going to do it. She said she was thinking about it but was also skeered and not sure what to write about.

So, I wrote out a list of things that I’m passionate and had some knowledge about and I could come up with 31 posts for.

This is that list:

Then I started to think about what the posts would be about. I wanted them to have some substance, but I didn’t want them to be too complicated.  That narrowed it down to Books and Wine.  Once I had those topics, I started making a list of posts for each. Needless to say, I was able to come up with more posts about wine than books. But you never know, a book about wine post might pop in there too.

Aaack! Did I really just say I was going to do this? <insert f-bomb> (Did you know I’m a cusser? Yep, I am. In a HUGE way. I try to hide it, but I don’t do a very good job sometimes. I blame my dad.)

What about you? Are you in? I double-dog, no, triple-dog dare you. It’ll hurt less than sticking your tongue to a metal pole in the middle of winter in North Dakota. I promise.

Porch Update

I finally have a couple of updates to the porch project I started a couple of weeks ago.  And my craft room floor looked like this:

Fantastic.

I knew I wanted a wreath for the front door, so I’ve been pinning a lot of wreaths lately for inspiration.

Like, this one:

 Source: Madigan Made via Jill on Pinterest

 And this one:

Source: Little Things Bring Smiles via Jill on Pinterest

 But, I finally decided to tackle this one:

Source: Lisa Leonard Designs via Jill on Pinterest

And it’s probably one of the easiest things I’ve done.

I got the grapevine wreath on sale at Hobby Lobby for $3.50. Then I picked up some nice soft yarn while I was there and used my 40% off coupon.  I also picked up some burlap at JoAnn using a 40% off coupon as well. That’s right, I was a bargain shopper! (So, I’d never bought burlap before. Why? I don’t know. Anywho, the girl that cut it for me was not impressed to be cutting burlap. I guess there is a right way and a wrong way to cut burlap, and the last person to cut it, did it the wrong way. Who knew?)

First, I wrapped the yarn around one side.  Then I cut my burlap (not the right way), and used hot glue to attached it on the back.

My next big decision was what kind of flowers to put on it. I didn’t have any felt, but I did have some plaid fabric from some pillows I’d made a few years ago.  I did a search for fabric flower tutorials, but didn’t see any that jumped out at me. . (There are a bajillion.) I didn’t really want to sew and I didn’t have any buttons. Then, I remembered this fabric flower tutorial from Emily at Jones Design Company. Perfecto!  These were super easy and didn’t take much time at all.  The only issue that I really had was I cut some of the strips too wide and they weren’t very long, but in the end, they worked out pretty well.

I spent maybe an hour total. (And some of that was wasting time cutting circles out of fabric trying to make flowers before I finally broke down and looked online.)

The other thing I knew I wanted to do was use a pumpkin as a planter. I fell in love with them after seeing this:

Source: Martha Stewart via Jill on Pinterest

So, I broke down and bought a couple of pumpkins. (There’s a patch by my parent’s house that’s free pumpkin patch and I was trying to hold out until I made it up there, but I just couldn’t do it.)

I knew that I didn’t want to see the actual pot the mums were in, so I cut the whole in the top of the pumpkin a little bit wider than the circumference of the container.  To keep the container from falling to the bottom of the pumpkin, I stuff the pumpkin with plastic shopping bags.  This was very easy as well and makes me love pumpkins even more.

I’ve got a few things left before the porch is really ready for fall. More pumpkins, maybe a hay bale, some cornstalks…we’ll see.



Linking up with these fab folks!

One year blog-o-versary!

It's been a whole entire year since I started this blog. I was on maternity leave at the time. My baby is now 1. Sigh. Where did the year go? I had all kinds of plans and ambitions.

Funny how life gets in the way of grand plans. How does that saying go?

If you want to make God laugh, tell him your plans.

More truth to that than I ever thought.

We've had a lot of changes in our lives in one short year. Buying a house, remodeling, moving, losing family members, our oldest starting kindergarten, our baby close to walking.

Slowly but surely this new house is becoming a home.  We've got all kinds of ideas for this house and I can't wait to get them all done. 

I was going to do a recap of all the posts I've done up to this point, but I changed my mind. I'm going to keep this short and sweet.  Thanks to those of you who've hung on with me during this year. My posts are sporadic. I know this may not be good for gaining or keeping readers, but that's just how my life is.

I do projects when I can fit them in between kids, cooking, cleaning and work.

I'm hopeful though. This house inspires me so much and I have so much that I want to do.  So, hang in with me for another year and we'll see where we end up.

Poor Pitiful Porch

Our front porch is kinda pathetic. Pitiful actually. We haven't done anything with it since we moved in back in April.

I was finally tired of it.

See what I mean? Pathetic.

But, I have grand plans. 

They involve this.

Maybe some of this.

Some Pinterest inspiration. (Oh, Martha, I love you.) 

source

source

And, The Nester's wreath party. Seriously, crazy stuff going on over there!

 
But, before all of that can happen, it needed to be cleaned up. Just a quick sweeping and I'd be ready. Yeah, right. I don't know why I set myself up like that. Between the leaves, paint on the window panes, the bush taking over one side and the bird poo I had my work cut out for me.

So, out came the razor blade scraper, the hose, and the nippers. It looks much better now. (And Steph, the dead bird is finally gone.)

And that's as far as I got. It's all cleaned up and ready to go, but playing jumbo bowling with RC and Baby Peach in the back yard and drinking beer with Sparky distracted me. And it was a great distraction.

I'll be back with progress. I promise.