A new collection

This is the beginning of a new collection of doll clothes from the 1860's era. This dress is pattern from Bunny Bear but I have switched out the sleeves and added a front plaquet with buttons. Watch my website (see the link to the left) for more items in this era to be added in the near future.

Three weeks old

Rylie is now three weeks old. I'm sorry that I've not posted anything sooner but now that I've been scolded by several, here's a short slideshow of our beautiful little Rylie Lynn.

Welcome Rylie Lynn

Rylie Lynn arrived today at 11:03 am weighing in at 6 lb 12 oz and 20 inches long. Mama, baby and Daddy are all doing well.
Welcome Baby Rylie. We love you!

The first day

I guess it's true what they say. "Today is the first day of the rest of your life". Yes, I know. It sounds corny but I've never been a clever writer so that's the best I could come up with. Technically today was only half of the first day of the rest of my life because the first half of the day I was at work. I worked very hard, knowing that it's the last day of the month and it's always real hectic. My heart wasn't in it though and as the first couple of hours passed, I started to care less and less. Then I got an email from the boss with their ideas of a new compensation plan. I went outside to call Brent (because the new office is literally in a bunker and doesn't get cell reception, plus, I needed privacy). Then I cleared out my email, shut down my computer and walked out the door. Yes, I quit my job!

I am not sure I feel relief yet but I do know that I don't regret it. I am going to enjoy my time in Arizona. I am going to concentrate on expanding my line of doll clothes and I am going to be a success.

May I direct your attention?

Hi everyone! In case you have not noticed, I have a new friend. May I direct your attention over to Barb's Day? A while back, I answered a request for flannel shirts for the dolls I sew for and ever since then, I consider Barb and I to be good friends. Her last post is a fashion show of items I've made for her. It's worth looking into, especially if you want a little humor. Barb's quite the writer. I am working on another project for her as well but don't expect to see photos of these items until after the holidays.

I am also in the process of including "boy" or "tomboy" clothes in my line, thanks to Barb. She's been posting about me on a message board dedicated to American Girl dolls and because of this, my website has hit an all time high of close to 400 hits a day (389 hits in one day, to be exact). Thanks again, Barb!

I am getting ready to head out to Arizona this week. I will be there for an undetermined amount of time. It will all depend on who gets sick of whom first. My newest grandbaby, Rylie Lynn will be born on Friday. I can't wait! Yes, I will post pictures as soon as I can.

KissyFace

A picture is worth a thousand words! No need for explanation.

Good Golly Miss Mollie

As Papa puts it, this little girl has one heck of a personality. She's sassy and so talkative and even though she just turned 2, we think she thinks she's 15! Saturday night Kim thought she would come over so I can show her how to sew some things. They'd been here about 15 minutes. About three minutes of silence and Mollie comes down to my office with a box of baby wipes. She said, "here mom, clean me up". This was AFTER we cleaned her up!

This is what I found on my bathroom counter and in my makeup box:


Then as Kim and I were cleaning it up, Kim doesn't hear Mollie. She called out to her and JUST IN TIME, we caught her: Yes, that's a handful of vaseline. She was just about to rub it all over herself. She actually had two handfuls but I got one before we snapped the picture.

Remember the Sesame Street song: Guess which thing just doesn't belong here, guess which thing(s) just isn't the same...
Kim isn't sure if she followed the cat or the cat followed her.

It's Brent's fault

Brent said he started feeding her to keep her away from the baby quail. She came around every night at the same time. She follows him as he waters the lawn. It started raining at night so we left the garage open enough for her to come in and keep dry. This is where Brent found her the other day:

I did try to bring her inside one day but the dogs freaked her out. She will sit on the garage porch and meow but as soon as we open the door, she jumps down, almost as if to say "come out and play". She loves her ears and head scratched but don't even think about rubbing her back or tummy. She BITES!

90 degrees

Yes, it was 90 degrees in my bedroom on Sunday evening at 7pm. Brent finally got around to taking apart the HVAC to try to clean the filter. It's in such an awkward position that it's very difficult to get to but he managed to get part of it exposed so that he could get the vacuum brush in there. When he opened it up and shined the flashlight in there, it was covered in dog hair and dust, at least an inch thick. He carefully vacuumed it off and by morning, it was 70 degrees in my room. Ahhh, finally some relief. Now, I am hoping that by getting this fixed, now our electricity bill will go down. It was $332 for one month! Brent has a thing about fans and portable air conditioning units. He thinks the more the better. He doesn't pay the bills. He also doesn't pay the water bill. It was $200. Man, this summer is wiping me out.

As the World Turns

I feel like I have been out of the loop these last several weeks. I hardly have time to read my favorite blogs, let alone write on my own blog. I know, I've said this so many times before and I am sure you're all thinking I'm full of myself or crap, whichever but regardless, I will do my best to catch up.

Work has been busy as usual. Month end is always hectic. One person quit and I had to let another go so I trained one new employee and I've interviewed for the remaining position. Our COO has come out of retirement (thank goodness)and although I did the initial interview, he now wants to make the decision between my top two picks. We've had a higher than usual turn over the last few months. I blame myself for that in part. Maybe I wasn't clear enough when I interviewed in the past that this is a regular full time 8-5 job and somewhat stressful because of the work load. I guess people just think that working from home is a piece of cake. It's not. It takes a person who is focused and can stay focused and not be distracted by the little things going on at home. OK, enough of work talk for now. I will save the rest when I go on my rant next week.

On Friday 7/16, I flew to Arizona so I could go to a shower for my newest grandbaby. She will be born on Sept 3rd and I will be going back then as well. This is Jessica. I can't really call her the mommy to be because she's already a mom and has two kids, 15 and 13. Jessica is a very sweet woman and I know she and my son will be great parents.
Someone had given them a car seat and although it was only 2 years old and in good condition, I wanted to make a new cover for it. Not many car seats are designed for little girls and this one was tan plaid. Not girly in the least. I had Jeff send me the old cover. I picked it apart and used it as a pattern and Voila! a brand new car seat! I also made a matching canopy to keep the baby protected from wind or rain or whatever but because they are in Arizona and it gets so hot, I didn't want her to suffocate under the canopy so I made one with a mosquito net attached so that she can still be a little shaded but will get some air.


Sunday I took Jeff and Jessica to Babies R Us to get some necessary items such as a stoller and swing. Yes, I know. This baby is going to be spoiled by her Oma. I have to because I won't get to see her whenever I want like I do my other grandbabies. I will be going back in September when she is born. Jeff has asked me to come a couple days before to help Jessica get ready and then he would like me to stay for 8 weeks. I am not quite sure I can stay that long. I told Jeff that he will be anxious to get rid of me way before 8 weeks. I think this is something we'll just have to play be ear.

I'm such a slacker

I'm such a slacker when it comes to blogging lately. I have lots of excuses; from no time to nothing to blog about. My latest excuse is that It's almost no fun to post unless you have pictures to share. I have a brand new camera. It's a 12 megapixel camera. For some reason, my desk top cannot read the card so I have to load the pics to my mini netbook. Problem is, Blogspot won't allow me to load photos with that high of a resolution without resizing them and the problem with that is my mini doesn't have a photo program that I can use to resize them. This means I have to load on one computer, email to myself, start up my other computer, resize the pics then load to my blog. I haven't had the time to figure out any other way. I'd load one of the many photo programs I have onto my mini but my mini doesn't have a disc drive.

I started this post last night and actually even had quite a bit more that I posted about but when I went to publish it, my mini contracted a bug. It took me another two hours to fix it. NOW, I can't even remember all that I typed.

It's 85 degrees in my bedroom right now. Yes, we have central air and yes, it's cold downstairs but up here it won't cool down. The coolest it gets overnight in my room is 77 degrees. Brent said the coils freeze up and then it stops working. Gotta get that fixed!

It's still not coming to me. I can't remember what my post was about so I will just call it to an end. I'm going to do some reading to catch up on all of your blogs now.

A day off

I had a procedure scheduled for today so I took the day off from work. So why is it that I feel so guilty? Is it because I have so much work to do or is it because my procedure went quickly and I got out sooner than I expected and if I wasn't so sleepy, I'd probably go to work? I don't know but in any event, the doc said I shouldn't be driving for at least 4 hours so I can't go to work ...oh wait, I don't have to drive to work, I just go downstairs to my office! My mind is a bit fuzzy right now so I don't even think I should be blogging. I certainly can't sew or I would be unpicking every mistake I make. I think maybe I will go back upstairs and try to sleep a little. I've been up since 2:30, with the exception of the 30 minute nap I took during the procedure. Now don't go worrying about me. It was nothing really. Just a little screening that my doctor seems to think is very important for anyone who turns 50 but at least I've been given a 10 year pass because everything looked excellent. I may be overwieght but I'm healthy as a horse!

I was inspired by Diana. All her cleaning this week has inspired me do something abhout my deck. Although I still plan on pulling up this hideous green outdoor carpet that the dogs think is grass, Brent has informed me that I cannot give him anymore projects this year. He has to finish the projects that I gave him last year before starting anymore. That said, it didn't stop me from getting him to help me clean the deck. Our deck is 24 ft x 24 ft. It's on top of our garage and walks our from our kitchen. I had him clear off his tools and leftover wood from the interior projects that piled up there then I swept the carpet to get the big stuff off, then I vacuumed all over then I shampooed that nasty grass green carpet and washed off the vinyl siding. When people see my deck and the view we have, I hear all the time, "you have such an awesome deck, I bet you just love sitting out there" but honestly, we rarely ever sit out there. A big reason we don't is because I cannot stand the smell. As I mentioned before, the dogs thought the green carpet was grass so whenever they were too lazy to gown down the stairs to use the real grass, either because the stairs were icy or they were just too lazy, they, well, you know... thus, the need to shampoo that filth. I guess I should also mention that part of my inspiration to start my cleaning frenzy with the deck is because a few weeks ago, we bought some new patio furniture and then this week, we bought a hammock. I also ordered an outdoor 9x12 matt to set the furniture on. Now, we can actually use it.

Now that it's actually a space that we can live in, Brent said he wants to mount a TV on the wall (above the grill) and then he will sit out there all the time. Actually, I have dreamed about enclosing part of this with screens and windows so I can close it up in the winter or if it rains then put my work computer there so I can work with a view instead of in my basement. That probably won't happen any time soon but next year for sure, I am going to put tile out there, even if I have to do it myself.
Next cleaning project is the front room. My new furniture is coming around the 21st so I need to wash the blinds, paint the window trim and mop the floor. That's next weekend though!

Life goes on

So before everyone removes me from their list of blogs to read because I haven't posted for so long, I figured I'd better post about everything that's been going on these last several weeks. Here we go in no particular order.

A few posts back, I commented about the landscaping in my front yard. It was pretty much non existant. Finally, after years of talking about it, we got curbing. Boy, what a difference a little concrete makes.


A closer look. I moved what flowers I had away from the house and window wells and then I've scattered wildflower seeds around. Next year, they should all be in full bloom. For now, this is it. I did buy quite a bit of bulbs and such from Roberta's but so far, less than half of what I've planted survived. Since they are guaranteed for a year, looks like I will be getting some of my money back.


A perfect peony. I accidentally got a little dirt on it but it's still a perfect bloom!


Jase turned 3 and is now officially potty trained (except at night)


Handsome Taz



Taz loves Paisley and Paisley loves to sit in boxes, no matter what size.


Lacie


The view from where I sit on my bed when I am not in my office working or sewing


Soccer Saturday: Each Saturday we go to the Grandkids soccer games. I took video of Zach's game but I guess I forgot to take stills. I got them of Aubrey's game though.

Mollie, Kim with Jacob and Brent.


Mollie likes to eat and she's will mooch off of anyone with food. (Really this is my daughter Jenny)Zach is on the right side and Jase, Jenny's boy is by Mollie.


Mollie's purple coke. Mollie loves to sneak sips of her daddy's coke. Today, she was a little feaverish and somewhat ornery so I gave her a can of grape soda and told her it was purple coke. She took one sip of it and immediately, she was a happy girl.


Papa and baby Jacob


Miss Aubrey Girl


Aubrey in action


There you have it. My life over the last few weeks summed up in a few pictures. Aside from all the stress at work and making a bunch of new items for my doll clothes business (click on the button to the left called All Dolled Up to see my stuff), life is good.

Prayers Please

I will catch up tomorrow but for now, I just found out that Linda's husband (Huhoney)had a stroke Saturday morning. I don't know much of the details as I have not spoken to her yet. For now, please keep Linda and Bob in your prayers!