Great Weekend

We were able to do some fun (to us) things this weekend...

Blake got off work early on Friday so we decided to go out for a dinner date. We went downtown, walked around, shared a dinner and stopped in at Ben and Jerry's for ice cream. They have the best ice cream! On our way home we got a phone call inviting us to tour the temple a day early! (The day before it opens to the public). We were pretty stoked about that. It was a good opportunity, and it was beautiful inside!

View of a stained glass window from outside.

Saturday we went to Cirque du Soleil! They were in town for a few days, and this saved us from having to make a trip to Vegas to see them. It was a lot of fun! We were pretty impressed by some of the acrobatics, and death-defying maneuvers. We had a great time, except for the ridiculously long bathroom lines.

Here we are waiting for it to start!

Now I need to study and get ready for another week of school...

Back to school

Yikes. It has been two months since I've done anything here! Believe it or not, we have actually been doing stuff! :)
Last fall I decided to go back to school for little while. Very little, mind you. I was happy in my done-with-school-ness. But I went back this fall. So far it has been really good, even the getting up early and studying. I left my job of nearly 5 years in order to go back to school. I had offered to stay and just cut back on hours, but was told that company "didn't work with school schedules". That decision was a little tough. I didn't want us to struggle financially because of me not working. But we felt it was the best thing for us. We looked at our expenses, and set up a budget, now the hard part will just be to stick with it. :)  I'm sure we'll be okay. I also have applied for a couple prn (which is "as needed") positions, and am really hopeful. Ultimately that is the kind of thing I want to be doing.
Blake is still doing well in school also. He does a good job of balancing school and work.
We found out I was pregnant last month, and were so excited to have a baby. However, Heavenly Father must have other things in mind right now, because I miscarried recently. The excitement turned into sadness. Things could have gone way worse though, I am thankful they didn't, but I was sad it happened.
Currently I am looking forward to the autumn holidays, and trying to enjoy the season change. I'm sure gaining a few pounds is in order with all the wonderful seasonal treats on the horizon. 

Pesto!

I've been loving pesto lately!

I made a batch last year, and I pretty much only used it on salmon (which is delicious) and tomato soup (also good). This year I wanted to make some more, especially since I had access to fresh basil this year (as in go and pick it yourself then make pesto that night) and it's free. I also have a food processor this year which makes everything so, so much easier. (Last year I used a blender. Lemme tell you, it was a pain!)

I've been mixing regular basil with lemon basil. Oh my. Lemon basil smells so good!

I've made three batches so far.

It's so easy! Pick it, de-stem it, assemble it, mix it. I freeze it in ice cube trays after in blobs with my cookie scooper so I have easy portions to store in my freezer. (The blobs aren't quite as neat-looking but way easier to work with.)

Now I can try it on all sorts of things - like pasta and chicken, I hear it's great with those.

The Necchi

Here's another trivial tid-bit:

I got a new-to-me sewing machine probably a year and half ago, and probably took it out of the box once before a month ago. Don't get me wrong, I like to sew, I've been doing it since middle school, but I figured nothing could compare to my mom's Bernina. So I always did my sewing at her house. 

By the way this machine came from my grandparents house, it hadn't been used in years. 

I got this photo off the internet, but mine looks exactly the same.

So lately here I've been wanting to break it out and sew from home. I have a bunch of little sewing projects to get done (and it's nice to not have to tote my supplies around). 

It seems to be in pristine condition, besides a few little nicks in the paint. And it still had all the little tools and attachments, plus a separate serger attachment! I read through the owners manual, and started 'er up!

It works great! I'm pretty thrilled. Granted, it doesn't have all the bells and whistles my mom's Bernina has, but so far its been fabulous. And it was free. :) I'm so blessed! 

Thanks again Mom for snagging it for me!

Kabobin'

This last weekend was my 10-year high school reunion. Yikes. I feel old. But it was nice to see some folks from high school days.

On another note: I made kabobs!

My husband has a hard time liking squash in any form. I've been trying a few different things. The garden was putting out plenty, so I needed something to give. Also, I wanted to make kabobs, I never have. That's right, never. I had always thought they were too much trouble. Now it was time.

I had read once that you need to soak your sticks (if using wood) before you grill them so they don't burn up. I soaked mine for about 30 hours. Then I marinated some steak chunks. (I didn't plan ahead well enough here, I should've prepped the meat yesterday) I used the marinating attachment for my foodsaver, it saved my bacon. I cut the meat into chunks first (so more surface area for marinade) then let it do the rest. While waiting, I cleaned and cut my squash and onions.

After I put it all together!

They cooked up really well.... 

(I also brushed them with some reserved marinade while grilling).

Aren't they beautiful?

I'll definitely be doing this again. Oh yeah, and they were delicious! Blake even said he liked the squash!  :D

Happy Sunday, and first week of August!

Sumer so far...Lots of things...

Man, time flies! July is almost gone already!

We went camping earlier this month. It was just a few days, but oh so nice to get away!

We did a little hiking (ahem, walking), 4-wheeling, lake-swimming, and plain ol' chilling.

 A bit of 4-wheeling.

Walkin'.

 Swimming. No one chose to swim with me. 

We also traveled to the east side of the state for a few events. Including my sisters twin babies getting blessed in church. They are so cute!!

I've worked on a couple projects lately as well...

I attempted my first dying job. It turned out great! I had a pink sweater that I wanted to be a yellow cardigan instead. So I got to work.

I first made it into a cardigan. Then bought some golden yellow Rit Dye, and soaked it in a cozy yellow bath.

Rinsing!

It looks orange here in the drying photo (crummy lighting), but really it is that nice mustard-y yellow seen in the former picture. I love how the color turned out! Sadly, I don't have a picture yet of me actually wearing it. 

I decided I need to have a dress form! The pre-made ones are something like 100 bucks. No thank you. I chose duct tape. Plus duct tape ones are actually made to ones own body shape. 

Let me tell you, I was really excited about making a dress form! My own personal sewing assistant!

I enlisted my husband to help with the taping. 

(Unfortunately, the photo uploader rotated my picture. How do I fix it??)

I  finally got it onto a stand! (Thank you Dad for making it for me!)

Here she is! It looks fabulous! I painted the stand a very light grey.

I think I will call her Alice.  Alice, welcome to the family. :)

She is already getting to work, what a great assistant!

As for a little update on my plants...  :)

My Plumie is doing wonderful! Cranking out lots of leaves!

If only it would flower this year. 

My orchids are doing about the same as usual. That mystery orchid that bloomed in February - it has dropped a couple more flowers. It's sad, but I noticed the other day it is also sending up a new leaf and root. At least it's still growing something.

The other one has yet to bloom at all for me, but it also is sending out leaves and roots (many roots).

That's about all for now!

Things as of late

Things have been going well:

I saw a picture of a really cute hedgehog pincushion (for sewing) on the internet recently and thought: why have I never thought of that?? I love hedgehogs!
So today I tried to make one. Here goes.

[The pins are the hedgie's spikes]  It didn't turn out perfect, it kind of looks like a mouse. But it's good enough, I know what it's supposed to be...

My plumie is still looking good and always improving.

It just opened up about 10 new leaves. Yay!

My orchid though, I am sad to say, has started to drop flowers. :(  They have lasted about 4 months though, I think that is great!

I think I will find myself buying more orchid colors in the future.

Here's some more plant stuff...

My plumie and orchid are doing quite well. I thought I would document it. :)
The plumie is still putting out leaves at a good pace...

It is over two feet across from leaf to leaf. And always putting up new leaves. I'm so glad its growing well!

And my "other" orchid that has not yet bloomed appears to be re-establishing itself in its new container. Over the last several months I've had to repot it a couple times. It was beginning to look a little rough.
But now - it is sending out several fresh new roots! That's encouraging.

Although that one on the right is going the wrong direction. Turn back!

 And two more on this side too. :)

I have had an Aloe plant years, and lately it has been looking sickly. I'm trying to devise a plan for saving that one now too. Hope it works, it'd be sad to lose it.

More baby goodies...

For more baby shower fun things, I wanted to make twin-themed onesies. Thanks to pinterest, I found a link to making iron-on stencils out of freezer paper for painting onto t-shirts and whatnot. Super easy, totally my kind of thing! I also found a different site recommending use of acrylic paint to do so (rather than fabric paint). I already had acrylic paint - perfect! Away I went! (That is once I was able to find some of the paper.)

It was late by the time I was able to work on the onesies, and tedious to cut out the stencil, so I only got a few done.  

Here they are!

I am thrilled with how they turned out! I can see many applications for this.

If I am a little more patient in the future they'll be even better.

This is what they look like once the paper is ironed on (plastic side down), and the paint applied. I stuck cardboard behind the area of fabric I was painting so no paint bled through to the back.  From there you just peel all the paper off once the paint is dry. Voila! 

Owl hats

My sister is expecting twins in the near future, and I think owl hats are really cute. So...why not make them owl hats!


They were pretty fun, I'd never made animal-themed hats before. I found a picture of one I liked and modelled mine after it.

So Lora, if you see this, these are indeed part of your gift this weekend. :)

Photo Projects...

So I've been working on hanging pictures lately. 

And working on it...

Working on it....

Finally, we got to hang some! We haven't gotten far, visually, but we feel like we've made progress. 

This is it so far.  (We had to work around the thermostat). We have more than this many frames again to go, so really we are not quite half way done.

And we hung our first canvas print! I recruited my dad to help me attach it to the frame. And he's the one with the staple gun. He helps a ton with my projects. I'm very grateful.

Here's what we ended up with. We took the photo at the Oregon coast. 

I think it looks great. It's definitely not perfect, but it turned out well.

All is Swell

Things are going great as far as my plants are concerned. :)

As of today this is what my Plumie and Orchid look like...

(sorry the photos are cruddy)

Six and a half leaves, and counting. And all five blossoms open. Yippee!

My latest project has been photos.

I like the idea of a wall-photo-collage, so I am rounding up pictures of from our various trips, hoarding frames to use, and working on the tedious task of 

selecting, organizing, editing, arranging, etc. 

I thought it would be pretty simple - yeah right. It seems like I've been working on it for a month. I just got to a point where I can actually print the photos. Trying to learn Photoshop at the same time made it a little more challenging.

Once I get this done, I can move on to all the other projects I have stacked up. 

I'd better get busy.

Better and Better

Things are getting better and better with my plants! I couldn't be happier with them.
Progress had seemed somewhat stagnant with my plumeria, though I was very happy with my two leaves. Yesterday I noticed it was putting up a couple new tiny leaves! Yay! So glad it is making progress. :) 

This one is the bigger of the two.

Also, my orchid that is flowering right now (aka Mystery), just opened its second bud the other day.

I hope I can keep being successful at this plant-growing stuff, I'm loving it. :)

It's open!!

My mystery orchid opened today! It's so pretty. 

Last night... Starting to open!

 Once I got home from work today it looks like this! Almost completely open. 

I'm really glad it has some color on it.

Orchid update...

My orchids keep on keepin' on. The one without roots, I think has given up the ghost so to speak. So I am now down to two.

The mystery orchid is doing great. And I am still anxious to see it pop.

The other one has been a bit suicidal. It's gotten top-heavy and keeps falling over unprovoked. This morning it took a tumble and amputated its own leaf. 

At least it was a clean break. It was the biggest leaf too. Bummer. I'd been planning on repotting it, so finally today I did it. It now has a bigger, more stable container. No more falling over.

I Got Leaves!

Here's what she looks like today!

Each leaf is 11-12 cm long. And they are green now!

I've been giving it more sun lately, and it appears to be doing great.

I get more and more hopeful all the time. 

The orchid hasn't changed much, so no photo. Still waiting for it to pop open!

Growing...

My Plumeria seems to be doing great so far! I'm so excited!

It seems to be growing about a centimeter per day. 

I've been taking lots of pictures out of all my excitement. 

 

Almost two centimeters in two days!

(Yes, I realize this is nothing life-changing, and not really a big deal,

but I love it!)

Also, my budding mystery-orchid seems to be doing pretty well too.

So now I just keep sitting and waiting...