cRaZy PuMpKiNs

I have my "quilt" top done! Here is a picture of it. Well, at least before the border and binding and stuff... Oh, why do they make these quilts so complicated!!!

What I've been up to now that I'm unemployed

My glads are blooming by the garage - we planted 100 bulbs we picked up at Sam's. They are a weedy mess - hopefully Keith can sneak out some mulch from work for free and make them look better.

The garden is also weedy, as the crabgrass has snuck up on me. I'm going to go out there today with some soap & vinegar - I heard it will kill weeds if it touches the leaves. (But I will stay away from my real plants!!!) I have two tomato plants that are doing very well and I ate my first grape tomato this week. We also took off a big bell pepper.

Yesterday morning, I helped a neighbor search for her dog that ran away when she let go of the leash. Her dogs are ALWAYS getting loose, but I felt bad just sitting on my butt drinking my coffee on my porch watching her. I ended up taking a second walk for the day and never found the stinkin' dog.

I've been doing some stuff in the yard - Mowed lawn for the first time in years. Didn't run into too many things with that zero-turn radius thing.... hee hee.

And of course, the sewing...I've been working on the layered tank top view of THIS. I had some fabric (below) I bought a couple weeks ago at Wal-Mart for $2 a yard. Should be cute when I'm done.

Mendon's Motorcycle Show

This weekend, Mendon had their 175th anniversary party. There was mud volleyball (yick...) lots of food, funnelcakes, and we got to meet a few neighbors. They also had a car and motorcycle show. Keith decided to enter his bike! He showed up, paid his $5 entry fee and guess what he ended up with... 2 x $10 gift certificates to the Harley shop in Quincy (he's thinking of getting a full-face helmet so that will come in handy), and he won 2nd prize AND Mayor's choice in the Motorcycle division. For winning Mayor's choice, they also got a car care kit. Sweet! Here are some pictures:

Yes, I'm still alive...

Well, maybe I'll start "blogging" again. I've been having some issues as I downloaded a newer version of Photoshop on my computer... and my 6 year old computer barely meets the minimum it takes to run it, so editing photos so it's easier for you to see them on the Internet takes longer than it used to! Maybe if I start being good extra early this year, Santa will put me on his extra-good list and I will get a computer for Christmas. It would be a toss up between that or a water softener.

Anyway, here is a link to some photos we posted of our trip to St. Louis... And if anyone wants an absolutely phenomenal steak, Carmines is definitely worth every penny you pay (and it's a lot of pennies...). http://www.facebook.com/reqs.php#/album.php?aid=105922&id=612684912

We've been having birds at our bird feeder. Just in the past week we saw a set of Cardinals (male and female), Blue Jay, Blue Bird, Red/House Finch?, a couple woodpeckers, Titmouse, and of course the common ones (Robin, Starlings, Pigeons, sparrows).

My garden still only has peas and potatoes, but they are huge and I noticed today the potatoes are already blossoming. They seem to be loving all the rain we have been getting. I have purchased some tomatoes and peppers and a couple other things and need to get them planted some time soon!

Finally some Furniture for our House!

We have finally purchased a piece of real furniture for our house (well, besides that big honkin' piano...). Here is what our couch looks like (and yes -the zebra print pillows are included!).

http://www.ashleyfurniture.com/Showroom/Showroom.aspx?PageId=Showroom&CategoryID=0&ItemNo=5450038&SetDomTab=4&SeriesNo=54500&CollectionId=&style=1&IsClicked=1&CatPageNumber=1&bFromSearch=Y&Keyword=5450038

Woohoo!

Check this out - we made news today! Won't affect my job any, except to make it crazier! :-p

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/29182317/

Pjs

Here are the pajamas I've been working on for the kiddos and the girl's dolls! I have to watch them unwrap them in a couple minutes, so I'll add more comments later...

Sarah's:

Katie's:
J.T.'s:

Christmas with the Mathisons!

Christmas with the Mathisons is always a fun time... Here are some highlights! Just don't ask how our buns are looking or what we spread on them.

Aaren with his new satchel he can use student teaching. He's almost ready to be licensed to go out and corrupt tomorrow's youth!


Loren shows his affection for all Kubotas.


Carrie models 2009's upcoming fashions.


Look! Grandpa can use a digital camera!


Keith caught Grandpa by surprise.


And mom can use her bucket!!

Christmas - "Santa was Lazy"

Santa didn't wrap half the presents he left! But in his defense, the wheelbarrow is hard to wrap, and Ruthie didn't really care.
Keith helped get things ready for going up to Minnesota. He especially helped in modeling my mother's present - a bucket to keep her quilting stuff together and ready to go!

Catching up...

And here is a picture and video from November (so the month doesn't feel left out before I get to the pictures of December! I think this was on the day we had Katie's birthday party.

Here's a video of them!! Watch JT make a run for it!

Happy Hallo-WEINER!

Ta Da! Finally, Some Pictures of Our Kitchen!!

Well, after working on it for a year, here are some pictures of what my kitchen looks like. And we are still not finished! The door in picture # 3 needs to be primed and painted white - same color as the trim. A couple things are actually just primed and not painted. We'd also like to strip paint off the door knob and lock as well as the hinges on the door in picture # 4. There is a door that is on a built in cupboard (last picture) that needs to be repainted and put back, but I want to put chicken wire in place of where they used to have ugly painted plastic. You'll see when I'm done. :-)

By the way - do you see those lovely flowers? They are courtesy of my loving husband. He even picked them himself at his golf course.

Garden & Yard stuff

I picked our first big purple pepper (we had one earlier this summer - I think it was kind of a freak thing...) We've also harvested our garlic (which was volunteer! We didn't even know what it was until earlier this summer. Good thing we didn't hit it with the weed whacker! I'm even inspired to grow more garlic for next year! Yumm. We can't get enough garlic bread. No vampires in this house!I bet Aaren won't be able to recognize this tree! Yes, little bro - this is one that you propogated in college last spring. We brought it over to the big house last summer and it was in a pot (it even lasted over the winter in there) until about June or so and we transplanted it. It apparently is very happy where it is. It doesn't hurt that we water it every so often. We have it staked so it doesn't flop around.We've also seen some unusual bugs. Check out this spider...He's about 2 inches long and was in some weeds I wanted to pull by our garage. Yeah, I just left the weeds there and left him alone. I went back a week after I took this picture and he had a big puffy marshmallow-like thing he was about to dine on for supper...
Also, here is the biggest praying mantis I have ever seen (though I haven't seen too many, and most of them have been babies less than a centimeter long). He was happy in my petunia containers I have by the front door. I hope I didn't blind him with that bright flash and his big buggy eyes. But isn't he cute?? :-)
We also edged all of our sidewalks - a very big task since they hadn't ever been edged and we have a corner lot. We also have one sidewalk running from the house to the garage - I think it doubled in width overnight! It had been covered by so much grass!

Projects and More Projects

That seems to be the theme for the past year, and will probably be for several more! But some of these projects are small, so I haven't showed them to you! Well, here they are:

Clouds in the bathroom - I had to do something to make that popcorn ceiling pretty. Here are a couple views from the toilet...Stripping the drawers in the kitchen - Yummy. By the way, Citristrip works wonderful!!We cleaned the entry way! Yeay! Our Paint Cans have a home in our basement now!

How Many Millers Does it Take to Install A Ceiling Fan?

The answer is Two!

I started taking out the old light fixture in our "What will be the Office/Now Living Room". The previous homeowners left a couple ceiling fans they never installed, so we figured that with all this heat and lack of A/C it would be beneficial to our sanity to install them..Yeah. Right.
First, I found out that they had not only painted the old light fixture to the ceiling, but someone had also plastered in the old fixture box. We had to chip away at it with a razor knife for several hours, but we still managed to have lots of plaster fall down on top of us. Then it was Keith's turn, as he has more experience with electricity...wait. I take that back. HIS nickname isn't "Sparky." That is why he was in charge of the electrical components of this project. :-) (I have a knack for finding live wires...)So, he worked on installing the fan, while I made sure we followed instructions. This was on Day 2 of the project, as we had to get a medallion to cover the big cracks in the ceiling. Notice the sweat on my face - yeah. THAT is why I wanted this think installed, but figured we'd have it in before we hit probably the hottest day of the summer. The heat index was 113 degrees that day.But now if it ever gets hot again, we can just flip the switch and "poof" air is circulating!

The Big One Didn't Get Away!

We finally found a good fishing hole, not too far from Mendon in the middle of a farmer's ground. Cute little lake about 1 acre big and far enough from everything there is hardly any cell phone reception! It kind of reminds me of a Bob Ross painting - lots of happy little trees, and the lake is very clean. The whole gang went fishing one Sunday (a few weeks ago, actually - I'm a little behind!) including the nieces and nephew!

I caught the first, but Keith probably caught the most and definitely the biggest! Last fish of the day was a 5 or 6 pound catfish. He was trying to get some crappie on his smallest pole with 4 pound test, so it was quite a surprise for him! It took him about 15-20 minutes to real it in, and even then he had to jump in the water to make sure it got on land!
Sarah has learned how to cast. We went fishing a gain last weekend (though not the succes the other day was) and she has even graduated to a big grown up pole!We brought lots of fishies home that weekend and cleaned them. We ate them up last night. Yum.