North Carolina

For my birthday back in September I went to North Carolina to see an old friend and his wife. I have since told that old friend that he has stayed in my life this long (going on 13 years) so that he could introduce me to his wife and she would become my new best friend. Yes, I met the women in July then drove 9 hours again two months later just to see her and spend a weekend crafting. My 2 nights turned into 4/5 and we had a great time!

On the way down I had to cross many bridges but this one scared the Bee Jeezee's out of me! It had only center supports and was very pretty. I drove really slowly to get a picture of this from my drivers seat on the way back. No drunk driving, just photo taking!

 

This is Miss Ashley. My new bestie. She was teaching a couponing class on base while I was there and took the course. I learned a lot.

 

She taught me how to do this. We did this in one day while there. All this cost her something like $17 but got $21 in coupons so she made $4 in couponing talk for all of this. Can you believe that?! Before you think poorly or judge why she needs 54 deodorants know that she will be sending all of this over seas with her husband and his unit when he deploys in a few months. She donates to her military family and its hard no to support her efforts when you know that!

 

We also did some amazing site see while there. We stumbled upon Fort Muncy which had an amazing history dating back to the 1700 Or 1600. I can't remember.

Ash and I decided we needed to find an abandoned fort and turn it into a B&B because it would be cool. You know, with those few millions we have laying around we thought it would be easy!

 

Of course the guys would have to do the yard work with grounds like these. Oh, yeah  that's the ocean in the back ground!

 

As part of our shopping I picked up this reusable cup. I take this on all of my subbing days. It appeals to my green (stop throwing everything away) side and my support my college roommate who has breast cancer side. It says " Fight like a Girl" in the breast cancer pink. I thought it was more school appropriate then "Save the TaTas" even though that was an option.

Sewing

I have sewing here and there all summer. I have eventually caught up with bee blocks. Got more then a few quilt tops finished and am wrapping up my fourth quilt since my summer has begun.

This is baby Eli's quilt. Eli is due soon to one of my oldest friends. He is actually a few days younger then me, but we have been friends since before I can remember. The squares were actully left over from a quilt top that I made my FIL. it was just enough to be a perfect baby size. I embroidered "Eli" in hunter green on one corner. Its backing is a green with a yellow boarder. The new parents LOVED it and said it was a perfect match to the nursery.

 

This quilt top has been hanging on my design board all summer and in front of the window too! The majority of the larger squares were done from a bee. Then I added some to round it out. Its very summery. I don't love it and don't need it. I have the batting and backing picked out and think it might be my first item in my future etsy shop. We'll see.

 

This is a primary color block quilt that I am wrapping up as we speak. The binding is about 1/4 of the way on. I hand stiched a half inch into each block. The fabric was a "Bee's Knees" line that I got in California 3 years ago. My local quilt shop keeps pulling out the flower prints (not shown here) and I keep grabbing it. Luckly what they keep finding and clearncing was enough for the quilt back, binding, and a little something else if this quilt ends up having an actual purpose. I love it too much to let it go for now.

 

These are 3 of my new 5 pillows I made. The grey looking front pillow is actually a wool suit material that looks browner in person. It has an envelope back and will have a short life span until I can make a Christmas themed pillow. The floral print was Pier One inspired. it has hand embrodeired details on it in glitter thread that apprently doesn't photograph.

 

These the floral pillows made it to the living room this summer after spending all winter in a cabinet and not on my masterbed. So the new floral pillow is suppose to be a fall version of those three.

 

Camping

To avoid doing a picture dump I'm just going to do a bunch of post in a row. Maybe some will be long, maybe not. Here goes!

This is our last camping trip. Hubbs is here stoking the fire for dinner. We have the new to us Coleman pop on the right with its awning folded out. The white tent directly behind him was something we bought after having tarp envy of other camp sites. The orange and black lights were a new addition this last outing.

 

You can see the camper is pretty good size. It also came with the "rug" that is very visible here. Its about the size of the white tent, but we put it off to the side because of the picnic table.

This is part of the lake we were camping on. It was a CCC lake (we think) with a very tiny dam. It was actually a great spot.

This is what it looked like when we went at the end of September. It was amazing. It looked nothing like this 30 miles south were we live. The rows of green evergreens were replanted some time after the lake was completed. We know this because they were all in a straight lines around the lake. Thus, the give away that it was a CCC project.

 

Edited to add...

Our first set up with the new camper. We also borrow friend Kayaks.

 

 

 

Yes, we have hanging lights. It gives off plenty of light at night.

 

Inside the camper. It actually has most of the curtains down in this picture. I plan of re doing all the blue curtains to a different color by next season. Maybe a black or stripe. In the picture is the "Kitchen" and dinning table.

This is SIL and I at the half way point of one of the mountains around the park. It was the only vista view the whole hike. I complained a lot on this one. I like my hikes to be prettier then just trees. Mia goes on all our hikes with us and loves them. Water is still her favorite part.

 

We have more pictures somewhere, but apparently not on my phone. We did however love camping all summer.

Yellow Cart

So today I was woken up early. I'm not going to name times or anything... but it was a good hour plus before I have been naturally rolling out of bed. It was a lovely morning after the tornado rout storm last night and it was cooler then most mornings lately. I sat out side and reviewed a magazine that was a year or so old. Then decided I wanted to be productive... and productive was going to require Star.bucks. So I got up and started driving. Made it to the corner of my street when I saw a moving sign. Which I of course promptly followed to the next street over.

"Tons of cars" I thought, "this must be good!"

As I walked up the product lined side walk I noticed elderly people poking through copper pans and cake molds. Lots of folding tables, cassette tapes, and VHS. Then I noticed a lovely yellow cart. I had seen similar carts popping up on design shows and magazines. I looked around for a price. I saw a tag and thought ...

"Nope, must be for the box of tapes above, or maybe each tape individual, but not the cart! Surely not the cart".

 I went inside to look around and realized the "more inside" meant a few pieces of furniture and some napkins. I went back out side and checked the cart.

 "Maybe that is the price?"

Well I need to walk away. I have no real need for this lovely, slightly scuffed, retro yellow cart. So I went and got my coffee. While I waited I googled retro carts. Couldn't come up with much that wasn't brass or glass. I figured, if I have enough money in my car and purse I'll go buy it. So I swung back by, saw the beauty and handed over the loot. IT WAS MINE....

Went home and did some research. I know I got a pretty good deal... but how good?

On Craigslist for $40

Same site for $125

I'm going with both these sold since they are no longer actually linked to craigslist.

Mine looks more like this.....

But without the hand in the top right. Now, after looking for more high priced carts I realized other people have walked away with deals like  mine but I still feel proud of my self. I usually see deal like today's only before I realize how great they are.... So I don't feel bad for my cart deal of the day when I say I paid...


TWO DOLLARS!

Picture dump

Just to catch up my hoard of readers since its been a while I thought I would do a picture dump. No real reason these pictures all go together except they were all on my phone.

Flowers from my yard. I didn't plant these. They are all left from the previous owner. They are located on either side of my garage. They are two kinds of lilies and a hydrangea.

I made 4 quart jars of dill pickles about two weeks ago. They need to sit for 4-6 weeks for best flavor. We'll see how good we do. I know we didn't pack enough slices in there, but live and learn!

This is the cucumber plan that all but one of those picking cucumbers came from. We dug up one of the clothes line post (first tiny tree on left) but didn't feel like attacking this one this year. Maybe next. It made since to plant vining plants here. We had peas in the right originally. This plant is about spent but the 3 vines in the garden are just now taking off, even though they were planted at the same time.

I dyed my hair back to the "natural" color. I had a few inches of natural that they attempted to match it too. I told them not to tell me what color it was and to just do it. I would really like to not dye my hair, but I always go lighter or red and it eventually needs touched up.

Some friends of ours was traveling for the rest of summer and we volunteered to clean the pool for them! Ha we took advantage on the hottest day this week and went for a swim. That is Hubs with Mia. Mia LOVES water and was a great swimmer once we pushed her in. We knew she would be fine since we took her camping to a lake with us about 2 months ago.  We even ordered her a doggy life jacket so she doesn't get so tired.

This is what the pergola looked like at the beginning of the week. I have since weeded all the creepy crawly weeds from hell around the edge. The vines on the left side were there last year and have since found cracks in the foundation to start a second area. Yes, that middle post is 2 maybe 3 vines and their off shoots. That whole side is a bench, that I would like to put some pillows on eventually, but I still have more cleaning to do before that can happen. The plans are to rough up the wood next year and stain it with a nice out door deck stain in a rich red or brown color. I think I'm going to try to talk Hubs into staining the concrete as well. This area needs to be a "destination" in our yard so I want it to be important!

In the back right hand side of the yard I killed off a bunch of straggly grass and used stones from around the yard to create a boarder. It was just recently mulched. It is a funny shape, but I wanted there to be a "hide out" behind the tree just in case I wanted to do something fun there. It is completely in the shade all most all day due to the neighbors trees. Hopefully I'll get a bird bath in there next to the tree soon. Oh, and plants....

After

Before

Here is quite the work in progress that makes our yard one step away from ghetto redneck.  Although it doesn't look TOO BAD here... this area is actually pretty cluttered. I spent yesterday ripping out dead plants our of planters and moving them around. so they were less of a problem. This "patio" was expanded using pavers from the other side of the stair case. The patio was awkward on that side since the cement path didn't go that way. You can see in this before that there was a flower bed here originally, but the dogs had that trampled in a few days.  We don't have enough of the pavers to complete the whole section and come to find out they are no longer made. I'm not sure we would have started this project if we had known that.  We could still order them but we would have to get close to 1000 at like $1 a pop. NO thank you! My plan was to put the patio chairs and umbrella on the new patio, but the large new birthday grill takes up most of the space. This is an area that has lots of projects to come!