beach getaway

 

Last week was spring break, so a BFF, Kristel,  and I headed up north on a road trip to Lummi Island.  We have friends there that are like family and it had been wayyy too long since we had seen them last.  Chris was my youth pastor in junior high and high school, and when my parents moved east right before my senior year, I lived with Chris and Tammy and their kids Eric and Emily so I could finish out my senior year at my school.  When I met the Logger, he began coming to my church and later Chris is the one who married us and we still attend the same church, though Chris and Tammy left about 3 years ago for Chris to become Senior pastor of a Village Missions church in need of pastoral leadership.  We miss them tons.  They are my ‘second family’.

Since we have crying babies, they made the wise decision to accommodate us in our own beach house for our overnight stay.  Some of their friends let us use it for free!  Thank you Jones family!  It was nice to have a place to put the kiddos down at night without putting one of our friends’ kids out of their room.  The little place was just adorable…

 

Nice great room, huh? 

The place had a nice mix of beachy accents and timeless pieces…

 

The two kiddos and I got to hog the master suite, which was serene…

There was also a nice little kitchen which we did have to use to make our movie popcorn…

Then there was the loft with beds and toys for the kids…

 

Toys which they hardly used because the view was so amazing…

 

Yes, right after I shot the picture, Susanna fell off the stool.   I get the bad Mom award.  Again.  I thought I was curbing my paranoia and letting them have some fun.  Wrong.

She recovered though…

But do you notice her eyes?  Ready for a tangent?  She started going cross-eyed a day or two before our trip, all of a sudden.  The day after we got back and I realized it was quickly becoming more and more frequent, I frantically made a pediatric eye care appointment for the next day.  Turns out, she has very extreme farsightedness which strains her eyes and causes her to cope by going cross-eyed, so she has to wear glasses now until at least puberty, when her eye muscles will strengthen and she will stop going cross-eyed.  My little baby!  The doc was shocked that Susie has reached her milestones early, despite her extreme vision challenge, and that once she learns to keep her glasses on she is likely to have a “developmental explosion” which I am not sure I am ready for!  Praise God that we caught it in time and that we can prevent permanent damage.  And for those of you expecting, or who have babies up to 1 year old, the clinic offers completely free checkups so that this kind of problem can be caught earlier on.  If this was ignored, she would have encountered permanent damage, so I recommend the checkup!  The clinic is Northwest Pediatric Eye Care in Bellevue.  Okay, done with my tangent.

Tammy and Mark and I braved the rain and took a walk on the beach…

 

 

I am always so fascinated with barnacles.  They are such stubborn little creatures, feasting while the tide is in and then closing up so snug and tight while the tide is out.  I kept wanting to keep one of these rocks but didn’t want to kill all the little guys.

I acquired quite the rock and shell collection…

And I did sacrifice one little barnacle that I couldn’t resist…

I was a bad blogger that didn’t take pics of us with our dear friends!  Photographing details is much less intrusive than always sticking a camera in someone’s face, but I do need to do it more often!  But at least I focused on enjoying time with them right?  That is what I am telling myself.  We got to gab, beach comb, have deep theological discussions, watch a movie and cook and eat together.  I used to babysit Emily- like, when she was a baby- and last week I taught her how to make Fettuccini Alfredo!  And Eric is like seven feet tall and sounds like a man.  I feel so old!

And one last thing - am I the only one who is a little nervous on ferry rides?  Maybe it is just the tiny ferry we have to take to this particular island..

It only fits two rows of cars on either side of the … whatever it is called where the captain drives.

It is not a long ferry ride…

But I still find myself planning ahead for how to get the kids out if we sink.  And I have seen that Mythbusters episode so I know to open the window to release the pressure (I usually do it as soon as we drive on).  It doesn’t help that I always seem to end up right in front.

Anyway, I am sure you have reached your fill for random vacation photos, so that’s the end of my story.  I spent 2 hours today disassembling one Ikea bed and assembling another.  Big changes coming in Susie’s room which is Susie & Mark’s room at the moment!  It won’t be ideal, but it will be functional and I will do my best to make it a pleasing space to be!

happy birthday to me

 

While checking the date paying my bills yesterday morning I realized it was my birthday!  I must be getting old. 

I was at Mom’s this weekend and she kept the kiddos when I left, so, being kidless and it being my birthday… I did what any responsible mother would do.  Retail therapy.

I finally got a chance to check out the Ruffles & Rust Square in the antique capital of the …state? …region?  …universe?  I don’t know but Snohomish has a plethora of antiques.

I wasn’t really looking for anything particular;  just basking in the euphoria of strolling downtown with no ankle-biters.  This is what I came away with…

Cute bags are always a good sign.  =)

 

Another white plate for something I am working on in the entry.  $3

A mattress spring for $3!  In the Farm Chicks Video two ladies said they got mattress springs and seemed like they had no idea why.  Well I have some ideas!  Um, also, I am the background of that video at 6:32 which is funny because that videographer was everywhere and I tried to avoid him like the plague.

And my last item from the shop was…

Some delicious burlap!  A genuine Colombian coffee bag, to be exact.  I have wanted something like this for a long time, to copy Pottery Barn’s burlap pillows, and thought I would have to wait till the next Farm Chicks sale, but Ruffles & Rust had them for $3!  PB’s Found Grain Sack Pillow Covers are $89!  Score!

Not bad for under $10 total.   I had heard R&R was expensive, but I found the prices to be in normal First-Street range, with most odds and ends at reasonable prices.  It doesn’t have the dime-a-dozen feel that the Farm Chicks Sale has, but if you need something now and can’t wait till Farm Chicks (or have some ‘birthday money’ to spend), I would recommend R&R.

I had $15 of my ‘miscellaneous’ budget for the week left, and I was still basking, so I continued on down the street and found this big old flower frog…

I passed up the $8 price tag the first time, but ended up seeing a bunch of tiny ones for up to $12 so I went back for this one.  I have wanted one of this type and size for a while now, to use for pencils on my desk.

Then it was time for a stroll through Target while I could actually hear myself think.  I told you this was retail therapy!  This is where it overflowed into the ‘it’s my birthday and I am on a roll’ budget department.

Found these on clearance…

I know, exciting, right?  I have been trying to get wooden spoons at thrift stores but they kinda gross me out.  Is that snobby? 

And then I got some new lamp shades for the bedroom.  The old ones were square and cheap looking and whenever we adjust the swing arm lamps the shades got all wonky and drove me nuts…

Much better.

And when I went to get four of the six white mugs that I needed at Fred Meyer, I found them to be on sale from $3.99 to $2.69.  I got all six instead.

These are really cute mugs, by the way.  They are just BIA open stock, but they have a little rim at the base which gives them the cute footed look, but it is wide so they are not tippy.  Very nice.  Now I won’t run out of mugs anymore!

So that is my birthday retail thereapy.  Have y’all been doing any retail therapy lately?

paint by numbers

 

Can you tell I have been keeping my agreement to work out every day?  Can you tell working out has replaced the time slot formerly occupied by blogging?  Bummer, I know, but I am being healthy and really trying to work blogging into a new time slot somewhere between bible study, working out, hygiene, cooking, cleaning, homeschool, cooking, cleaning, toddlers, cooking and cleaning.

So.  Paint by numbers!  I blogged last year about touring the Coastal Living Ultimate Beach House 2010, and noted that they had a couple paint by numbers in a hall bathroom that were darnright adorable.  Is “darnright” a word?  Anyway, I decided it was time to try one and see if I liked it / could handle it / could make one actually turn out good.  I had no success at finding a nice landscape paint by number set, which is what I was shooting for and what was in the Coastal Living house.  After a plethora of puppies and kittens and parrots and many long walks down craft store aisles, I finally found this mare and foal set that I thought I could do for Susie’s room…

Plus, it was very small (5x7) so I thought I might possibly actually be able to finish it.  Halfway done paint by numbers are not very attractive. 

Well I started in on it and it was more fun than I thought.  The paint has to dry in between applying different colors, so it was a nice little project for when I only had maybe ten minutes, but wanted to work on something creative.  It ended up taking me a couple weeks of doing  a little at a time, until it was finished.  I just left it out and worked at it when I could.  Here are some progress shots…

 

 

…and the finished work…

I was not thrilled with it at first… I thought it looked a little zebra-ish.  But I came to realize the cover example does, too, and it started growing on me.  Also, though, the colors on mine did no come out the same as the colors on the cover, so they won’t blend into Susie’s room as well, but I can go with it.  Here is a side by side of the cover and my results…

 

My colors feel a little darker, more moody and less sunny, but no one will know since they won’t be comparing the two once mine is framed, matted and on the wall.  One could certainly use their own paints and mix whatever colors they would like. 

If you are not artsy, don’t worry!  The set comes with everything you need including brush, paint, paint board, practice board and a sheet that shows all the spaces/numbers so that as you cover up stuff, you can still tell what color to fill in where. 

It was a fun process, and I highly recommend it if you like the look and, or, the process!  I certainly loved them in the Coastal Living house and there was a medieval nautical battle scene paint by number in a thrift store that I passed up, which still haunts me a little.  I might have to do some online searching and see if I can find any bigger landscape sets… or nautical scenes… or old barns… or…  what would you paint if you could cheat a masterpiece?

153.8 & 32.8

That is my weight and my body fat percentage as of yesterday! I think I might be seriously losing my mind to publish that information. I am doing it in hopes that it will motivate me. You see, my pain-in-the-butt friend challenged me to do the 30-Day Shred with her. I already had the workout DVD (I actually purchased this set of 3 of Jillian’s videos and love them all), but I hadn’t been doing it on a regular basis. I was asking Kristel if there was a diet that went along with the 30-Day program or if it was just doing the workout every day for 30 days. It is just working out. I am now doing it every day. If I don’t, I have to pay Kristel $5 for every day I skip. And vice-versa. That should be motivating.

Also, I am revisiting the book, The Diet Alternative by Diane Hampton. I have a love/hate relationship with this book. I hate the way she replaces words in scripture with her own words (replacing ‘sin’ with ‘binge’ for example) to get her point across. I get why she does it but tweaking scripture rubs me the wrong way. But I love the principles. The description of the book is not very accurate; you can eat whatever you want but not ‘whenever’ – only when you’re hungry; as in your stomach is growling; and only until you are ‘satisfied’. It is a quick read and easy to follow… here is an excerpt…

In gluttony, rather than loving God with the whole mind, a person begins to eat when he is bored or worried. Rather than loving God with all his soul, a person begins to eat when he is frustrated or angry. Rather than loving God with all his heart, he begins to eat when he is lonely, depressed, or defeated…

Okay, that’s me. I eat when I am stressed, frustrated, or bored… Instead of eating during those times, I need to pray when I am stressed or frustrated and dive into God’s word when I am bored!

So anyway, hopefully in 27 days (today is day 3) I will be back with two slightly smaller numbers for my post title. =)

chicken coop tour numero uno

Fyi, for those of you who use a blog reader, check out this post on the blog - I made a new banner and it is oh so spring!!!

So we have two chickens. They live in a pathetic little tiny “chicken tractor” that is about 3 feet by 6 feet and 3 feet high. I would like a huge flock and would like to convert our unused horse stall into a chicken coop, but the Logger wants to just get two more hens and cram them all in the tiny ‘apartment’. This is a regular debate for us, resulting in “moments of intense fellowship” as we like to call them. ;) So, the Logger finally said that if I do some research and visit three coops and “report back to him” on the pros and cons of each one, and come up with a design based on my research, he will let me build it. How nice of him, right?

I’ve had this assignment for some time now, and had not gotten it done. The Logger keeps commenting that chickens are “obviously so important” to me. Finally I decided, hey, the laundry’s not done, the sink is full of dishes and I don’t know what’s for dinner, but I won’t have him telling me the chickens don’t matter to me! Ha!

My first visit was right down the road, to see Dee Dee’s coop. I love Dee Dee. She is a BFFs mom and she’s a nurse and she lets me bug her with medical questions all the time. And her coop should be a good comparison because it is about the same size as the horse stall that I want to convert into a chicken stall.

So above is the general layout. The run is about twice as long as it is wide, and still, I see it is dirt… been thinking about this. I wonder if I could create four runs as big as the one Dee Dee has, and rotate the chickens around, using one run at a time, and keep the grass from dying… Or maybe not have a run at all and just let them out every day and pray the the rouge neighborhood dog doesn’t like chicken. =)

Inside the coop, I was pleased to see pretty much the same floor plan I was envisioning for my chicken stall…

So we have 3 nesting boxes, a hanging feeder, wood shavings for the floor, feed handy in a bucket and a heat lamp for warmth.

If memory serves me, you only need 1 nest box per 4 hens, since they don’t all lay their eggs at the same moment. Dee Dee built this coop for 12 hens, so the ladies have enough room, though she says they all prefer one certain nest! She used old milk crates for nesting boxes, and I have thought about doing the same.

The big feeder is great – hanging is a must to keep shavings from covering the food tray (which results in the chickens scratching all the feed out and wasting it) and I like this style because you just keep adding food by dumping it in the top and it dispenses down to the tray. Dee Dee has a bucket out in the run for water… this is what I always wanted to do but I heard they would drown themselves if their water was too deep. Dee Dee says none of hers have died from drowning, so I am totally using a bucket from now on.

Keeping Chickens, by Ashley English, is my favorite chicken book: tells you what you need to know, doesn’t tell you what you don’t need to know. In the book she recommends 4-6 inches of wood shavings for bedding on the floor. She says if you rake it around every day the chicken poo won’t stay on top and get matted and the bedding will only have to be switched out about once a month. Dee Dee confirms that is what she does and it works great. The dirty chicken poo/shavings make a great addition to your compost heap!

The ladies obviously approve of their situation…

On my way back to the house I noticed this which prompted me to add one more thing to my to-do list…

I really need to get a fence around my garden before I plant! The ladies annihilated my corn sprouts last year! This fence actually might be to keep the dog’s paws out of the garden, but I need a fence around mine, just the same.

So that was Dee Dee’s coop. Thanks Dee Dee for letting me tour it, and for watching the kiddos while I ran back home to get my SD card. =)

I will have the Logger read this report and see if it is sufficient or if I need to continue my “research”. I will keep you informed of my progress.

I know it is not spring for a couple more days but the kids enjoyed a dose of (filtered) sunshine and some fresh air today…

Mark took his Cars out for some racing action and Susie watched from the open slider door. She still doesn’t cross thresholds. I know it is a little strange, but convenient for now. =)

-Tash