Bliss Beyond Naptime

Feeling So Soule

I don't have to tell most of you how incredibly inspiring Miss Soulemama is but I thought her blog could use a little traffic help so I thought I should give it a little mention. I was especially giddy this morning after reading this post  about their dining table set up with having everyone in the family claim their very own napkin ring. I've actually been muttering ""GENIUS" to myself all morning. We do cloth napkins too but I get icked out about accidentally mixing them up and cross contaminating gribblies with each other. Kind of like backwash. You know I love them all to bits but ... gross.

 Another bit of inspiration from the Oprah of the crafty mommy blogging world is to embroider over an Edie original sketch then make a pillow case. We were so needing more pillows on our couch. Craig and I fight over the sad little two that came with the darn thing on movie nights. Craig then starts crying and says "when are you going to make some pillows?". So I made pillows. The back of the pillows are envelope style if you can imagine with three sweet little wood buttons with really pretty floral cotton fabric. Maybe I should get off my lazy tush and take a picture already.

 

I used up all the last bits of last year's Yard and Yardage sale fabric scores (just in time too. Next one is next month!) so I'm hoping Craig will be pleased with my frugally sustainable resourcefulness. There's now a pillow for a rainy spring day and one for a sunny summer morning. And Edie says when we have guests come over we can just flip them over so they can check out the buttons!

Week of Color: Pink

I'm not sure what the rules are of this blog-along but I think I'm busting one of them by posting such old shots. Obviously the one above's from Halloween and the following are some I just had kicking around the laptop so some of you might experience a sense of vicarious deja vu. That's what I get for being all cocky about "pink's going to be easy!".

Week of Color: Yellowish

Before I forget! I want to mention that my new banner is a close up shot of the painting of our house as interpreted by the infamous Marty Machacek who is the husband of the infamous Dana. SO love this painting. It hangs lovingly in our front entrance. In other news, Edie's solstice doll has a name now; Lavender.

This colour they call yellow was a tough one for me. Had I more sun around here to take more pictures ... wait a minute:

We've been playing with window crayons Santa stuffed in someone's stocking.

 

This one's definitely on the 'ish' side of things. Love beeswax though. Now I'm we're thinking first chickens then cows and wouldn't bees be nice?

These Pyrex bowls were a score from a Women in Need store auction. Love them and they've seen alot of cookie action this winter.

And, uh, squash. Downing lots of those these days too. There was some yellow snow around the perimeter of Craig's office but, again, let's keep this blog clean!

Week of Color: Purple

It's easy purple for me because I live with the princess of all things pink and purple. Hopefully her Prince brother is keen on these hues because she had us paint the room they are to share one day in a beautiful monstrosity of pinks, purples, fairies and unicorns.

Craig found this suit at a kids' consignment store. What a purple score. Though 80 percent of our stuff are hand me downs or Grandma gifts, have I mentioned he's the kid clothing shopper in the house? The man would breastfeed if he could. Really.

The kinda purple section of our bookshelf.

The really purple corner of our bedroom.

I Lump it, She Lumps it, We all Lump it!

I've been tagged by Lumpkin! If you have little girls like Edie who are into fairies and fantasy mice, oi, this is the Etsy store for you. Sarah creates, among beautiful pieces of custom knitted sweaters and art, these sweet little fridge magnet paper cut out dolls that can be dressed up in different fairie outfits. I can't tell you how many hours Edie's spent happily sitting on the floor playing with Bing while I cook. So, when we get something in the mail from Lumpkin the Mouse she freaks. So, I told her I'd take a picture of her colouring from the book Lumpkin sent her and email to him. She was so stoked.

So here's the rules to the Meme:

1) Link to the person who tagged you
2) Mention the rules
3) Tell six quirky yet boring, unspectacular details about yourself
4) Tag six other bloggers by linking to them
5) Go to each person’s blog and leave a comment that lets them know they’ve been tagged

So here we go. Hmmmmm...

Quirky yet Boring Item 1: I have a fudgescicle stain on my leg from when I was three. This is one of my first memories. My older brother had a friend with a birthmark on his leg. When I asked him what it was he told me it was his baby. I decided I wanted a baby too so I smeared some of the Fudgescicle I was eating on my leg, placed a bandaid on top (why do I feel like I'm violating a lot of copyright laws here?) wiped the residual mess with Kleenex, and did not remove for a week. Et voila! I knew I was to marry Craig when I realized once I explained the "flaw" he was the first person who truly believed this happened.

Quirky Yet Boring Item 2: It is physically impossible (this is a discovery Craig pointed out to me just recently) for me to wave to someone who is in a different type of environment than me (ie I'm in the car, person I know is outside or I'm in the house, person walking towards house) without making this weird grunting/dorky laughing type sound. Wish this thing had audio sometimes.Reeeeealy attractive.

Quirky Yet Boring Item 3: I've only had snoring episodes twice thrice in my life. First time in Grade 10 due to a nasal infection that lasted nine months. I know because I always fell asleep in math class and my snoring would wake me up. It was super quirky when the infection came out of my nose but that story's for a different kind of Meme. Then, the snoring started up again when I was pregnant with Edie near the end of the pregnancy. And now these days  - got my motor running again. Craig and Edie sleep together now in a room far far away from scary-nosed Mommy.

Quirky Yet Boring Item 4: I can't go to bed without a clean kitchen. Craig hasn't seen me "let go" yet much to his chegrin. I never, ever thought I'd turn out like my mom in this department, but I get it! To wake up to a dirty keetchen. Ay Carumba, how dees-ghasting!

Quirky Yet Boring Item 5:  There's a typo in my wedding ring that I LOVE. Craig wanted to inscribe the message to me "I will nurture your inner child". But instead it reads "I will nuture your inner child". We wait with abated breath to check out Drippy's plumbing.

Quirky Yet Boring Item 6: Man, this is tough. This one for sure is safely under the umbrella of 'boring'. I guess I think I'm really good at sitting still on the couch. I don't fidget much. I think this comes from wanting to hang out with my older brother growing up. If I fidgeted too much he'd tell me to beat it. So, I can be like I'm not even there. Luckily I have that handy, dandy, middle-child syndrome to balance things out. Hello! Look at me!! Read my blog much? Hello??!!!?

Now to tag: You, you, you, you, you, and, let's see, you. Yeah, you over there trying to hide. Lots of fun, I promise! In a quirky, boring kind of way.

Shucks...

Princess Pea rocks. Not only is she the bendiest blogger around (scroll down to the bottom of the post. Trust me; so worth it.), she took the time to nominate me for a Brillante Blog Award. I never ever receive awards - though I spent a couple hours after dinner last night giving blue ribbons to knitter, jam makers and unusual vegetable growers at our town's fall fall.

Unlucky for me I went to school in the olden days when they didn't give out awards willy nilly lest someone's self-esteem experiences a banana type bruising. (Off topic, Craig, Edie and I went for a picnic at the local public school's playground and witnessed a gym class in progress. The teacher was teaching the kids how to play kick ball - that was surprise number one - kids need to be taught this by teachers now. And the teacher made all the other kids cheer whenever the kid who was practicing kicking the ball made contact with their foot to the ball regardless what happens to the ball after that. I guess you had to be there. I found it pretty surreal or maybe I'm just so out of the gym class loop these days). So I'm pretty stoked and humbled. I love blogging so it's so nice to get a little Yay, Kathy!  for something I love to do so much. Those of you without a blog, try it! It's fun. You get to shamelessly write about whatever and whoever and people are forced to read about it! It's like being on the yearbook commitee but you get to chose only the most flattering pictures of you and your best friends! Plus now there's photoshop. Yay, Photoshop!

So thank you Princess Pea. I'd like to pass the kick ball around and cheer on these seven beautiful bloggers with my nomination:

Beauty that Moves
Waldorf Mama
Zona Pellucida
Handy Crafty Woman
Niki Shell
Monkey Spin Monkey Do
Sulu Design
String Theory Knits

BFF (Blog Friend Forever) and BMF (Best Mum Forever)

Look what my best BFF came all the way from Victoria with last week. Her husband Marty painted the Quack House, an early Christmas present from Craig's dad (shhhh, we weren't suppose to open it yet I don't think but how could anyone resist), and they swung by the valley to personally drop it off. 

 

I believe this is the photo he based his painting on. We use to drool all over his paintings that were displayed in our favorite coffee shop in Calgary and always joked we should get him to paint the house that we lived in at the time to comemerate where Edie was born (because, you know it's going to be a famous landmark one day) but this house is waaaaaaay more photogenic. Or is that paintagenic?

The artist versus the engineer. Funny how our paths crossed with this really sweet couple. I met Dana at the knit circle I joined when I first started knitting when Edie was just wee and we became friends. And then Craig came by one night, and I think Marty was there and we realized that Craig and Marty use to race bikes together once upon a time. Then we all moved to BC at the same time. Them to Victoria though. We trying to convince them to come out here though.

Here's my BFF and my new drumcarder, Jaws. Whole other post on him later. Dana and Marty were both such dream guests during their stay here. Marty helped Craig out with Project Firewood, my mom was here too so dish doing, yogurt container organizing and meal making were pretty much off my plate for the last ten days and with Dana around, sad attempts at taking self portraits for the blog were scratched off the list too. Only another craft blogger can understand how helpful that was.

Edie and Grandma. So wonderful to have her around and see how beautifully these two funny ladies connect. I thank her for all her help around the house and general support. And apple pie with the apples from our trees. That was yum.

Joyfully A Do Be

I was featured! Well, my creative space was featured. My messy creative space mind you but I had to capture the essence of the answers to the interview questions; basically creativity before housework.

Check it out! Joyful Abode is a cute little blog, lots of food and artists, two of my favourite things... I feel like a bit of a schmuck though. I spoke of the cute little bird cage above my window sill. You can see it there above the letter "K". See? See?  And now looking I realize that the picture was taken before I hung it up. Duh! Maybe if the sun pokes out I can send Emily a last minute pic to add because it's awfully cute!

Edited to add the birdie.

Any way, enjoy the read and the rest of her blog! Love the punny title she came up with. Impressive!

Potty Pants

I have to say I miss this part of my day when I get to organize my thoughts and share with you things I get excited about that only you can understand. Cuz, really, if you couldn't give two poo poos about things like recycled sweater overalls for toddlers you'd probably be reading something other than this right now.

Problem is Edie's not sleeping in in the mornings like she use to. That was (wuzzzz) my Mommy time to play with my blog. Note the past tense. This topic of why to blog has popped at my daily read, who in turn was pondering the musings of one woman's internal search of why she subjects herself to this amazing phenomena of voluntary public exposure to scrutiny. In the middle of typing, the Tangerine awoke from her nap so I had to go lay with her for a bit and while lying there, talking in my head I can go on, and on, and on on why I love keeping a blog (though you can hardly call it that these days with my scant postings). I guess community is here, which I love, and those who read understand the reasons "why on earth".

I try explaining to my knitting group a couple of time. I think because a lot of the women in my group don't have access to internet, let alone highspeed internet not being available here yet, the description of the blog culture must sound pretty self-indulgent and nerdy. Though those aren't the last two words I would use to describe myself I have to say this blogging business is helping me in a period of my life when, perhaps, I feel a bit more lonely (not in a bad way mind you) and in need of some visual structure to the chaos that feels like my life sometimes.

Oh, man, I could go on some more but I'm speed typing cuz I gots to cook supper, I hear Edie crying and I want to get ready to leave early for my knit circle.

But before I go... Aren't these too cute?  Check out the iceberg hanging over the window. My friend Ellie makes such things - the pants, not the iceberg. She's amazing. She'll be at the knit circle tonight. I keep telling her to open up an Etsy shop. Only problem with these trousers is... Edie's scared of them. Maybe because they're a touch too big on her. I'll keep trying though. Therefore, pics are sans Tangerine.

Ooo, ooo, oooo (ala Horseshack), before I go. Potty Pants because Edie's been going pee pee all by herself in the potty the last two days. Little big girl!

Fart Farm

I have been busy. This time of year is typically my busiest season with Do Be Clean plus I'm back into teaching yoga which has been such a saviour in keeping some element of balance in my life. Not to mention it gets me out of the house once in a while.

Above is the building I'm teaching out of. It's nestled in a patch of property known as the Art Farm. Because my class is running through the supper hour I called the yoga cd Craigy made me "Fart Farm". You know, you're digesting, you're twisting, you have yourself the makings of a Fart Farm.

I've been crafty too. While crafting and whipping up lots of soap I've been listening to lots of podcasts including Cast-On, Lime n Violet and Sticks n String. I'm still exploring the plethora of podcasts out there. I don't know if it's because of early onset of cabin fever but loving the sound of a human voice while I create. Of course this has got me thinking I would love to have a podcast to call my own. Craig thinks that's not the greatest idea cuz Mommy's time is stretched pretty thin these days but don't you think the world needs a podcast talking about knitting and crafting while taking breaks to do yoga once in a while? Or does that sound too tiring? I guess I'm still trying to incorporate my yoga and crafting life together somehow.

When I have a moment I'll be taking pictures of some finished objects and will be sharing them soon. Until then, might I direct you to my updated website? I have displayed my full soap collection available plus links to my new Do Be Clean blog to keep customers in the loop on specials, promotions contests and such as well as to this blog here. Just for fun.