ahhhhh they're gone :)

The guys working on my pantry and floor redo are gone! wooo hooo!!! They are the nicest guys but man I'm glad they are done with this phase. Here is a pic of the floor, it's looks good but I can't seem to get it clean. It's always dull looking. But that could be from the drywall dust / shop vac mishap lol.

then here is the pantry, it's HUGE and I love it!

I need to go grocery shopping to fill it up now lol.

And I'm starting to gather ideas for the main kitchen redo DH wants to do. The little pantry redo droze me crazy, I don't know how I'm going to make it thru a big remodel...................

oh well at least this time I know to buy lots and lots of those cheap plastic paint drop cloth things to cover EVERYTHING. At least I learned to be more prepared.

I've been working on getting my office / sewing room back in order. Hopefully tomorrow I'll have my machine set up and can actually sew something. The first thing I want to do is stitch out our logo. Hopefully I've got it digitized correctly this time and can put it on a few shirts for us all. I would have never dreamed I would like machine embroidery as much as I am. There are sooooo many cute designs out there. And maybe someday I'll learn the ins and outs of making my own.

I wish Jennifer lived closer so she could learn it also. She is so crafty and creative. And she's starting her own little boutique! Check out her etsy store here http://www.etsy.com/shop.php?user_id=5272100

And she is also working on her own website. She amazes me. She is so talented and creative and smart too! Not to mention beautiful :) I'll have to find her wedding picture and post it, maybe this weekend.

Dust, dirt and noise

Well I'm certainly keeping up with this new toy aren't I???? Most days I start out thinking of posting something witty and funny and next thing I know I'm nodding off and the day is done. Where do the days go???? My mother always said "wait till you get older the days will fly by". Yeah but at a speed fast enough to break the sound barrier? And I'm only 47! What happens when I'm 60? Me and Scarlett will think about that tomorrow......................

I still haven't learned anything about blogging. My links on the side STILL don't work, but when they do there are some fun blogs to visit. Hopefully they will still be active by the time I figure out how to fix them. But I wouldn't hold my breath..............


My house...... it's a total disaster right now. I've got a gaping hole in my family room down to the crawl space. It all started out innocently enough. We have our business office here and when I got my fabutastic Bernina it also went in the "office". A little cramped it was. Well with Bryan off to college (I thought, he came home today ugh) I thought I would move into the other bedroom. It's a tad bigger and much better lighting. But the carpet is 10 year old white Berber, and altho it's held up incredibly well it is nasty. It's carpet and it's 10 years old and it's been thru 2 kids and 3 dogs. Need I say more? None of whom particularly like to vaccum, myself included.

So I got inspired by a friend in Phoenix, Missy, that laid her own wook-look laminate in her kids rooms recently. It looks great! So, I decided to lay laminate in my office/sewing room. Not so nasty and dusty. Well maybe still dusty as I live in 5% humidty New Mexico. There's enough dust to choke a horse and small children. When I told DH of this marvelous idea, he looked at me as if I had 3 heads and ignored me. A few days later I told him again. He agreed to help. Well by the next day we thought we probably needed to to both bedrooms. Then that left the hallway and 2 huge stains of unknown dog origin that just will not come out. And the nice replica of the bottom of my iron. A hot iron melts perfect little circles into Berber. So we need to do the hallway also. Then that leaves the stairs...... "might as well"

So I then called someone to give me an estimate. No way am I going to try and do all that. Especially with DH's "help". NO WAY lol. So a week later the floors are in and look great and the trim is almost finished. Then I'll repaint the bedrooms.

BUT WAIT, there's more ~~ as that dorky commercial guy says.

We decided to close off another set of stairs that was a total waste of space (only 6 steps, it's mroe of a bi-level plan) and knock out the back wall of our pantry. They are in the process now of knocking out that wall. They've been in this process for 2 days now.

I'm so tired of the noise...........

and dust.....................


and men.................

and the general mess as I have 2 bedrooms and a good size pantry of stuff cramed in the kitchen.

Good news is there is no way I can cook for several more days. The stove has "stuff" piled on it also along with in front of it. But I'll have a huge wonderful pantry in a few (I hope!) days.

And as the dorky man says: but wait, there's more!

DH wants to extend a wall in the kitchen and cut it in half. He's bound and determined to cut this wall in half. He's making me crazy...............

It might work, but that means retiling the kitchen and new countertops (yeah I know waaaaaa!!) The contractor is "thinking" up ideas. great................

But it is going to be sooo nice when it's completed. And hopefully soon I'll get my machine set back up and actually get to sew.

If anyone is reading this I hope you're having a "smurfilicous" day!


edited to add: whoo hooo I got the links fixed! You can now get to some of my fav blogs out there. now if I can just figure out how to add pics in the middle of a post. it keeps putting them at the beginning. yes I know I did it before, but the mind ya know...............

Day 2 and still going........

I've just spent the last 2 hours lost in blog land when I should be cleaning up the kitchen. Some very interesting people out there, and the cool things they do on their blogs. I did come across the blog for dummies and can't wait to read thru it and learn how to make my blog page pretty also.

I also came across Marilyn's blog (I would post a link to it but don't know how just yet!) and she lost her beloved Keesha dog. So sad....... My oldest dog, Cinamon, is starting to really slow down and I don't want to think about having to make that decision. They are like my kids, only without the back talk.

I went collecting paint chips today, I'm thinking green that is just a tad on the limey side. Not sure yet tho. I also measured DS's room and got it down on graph paper. Figured out a sleeper sofa will not fit with all the other stuff that has to go in there. DS was so upset, he acts like he won't have a room at all to come back to. All I'm doing is putting his things back in the room that was his for the past 9 years! He switched to his sister's room when she got an apartment at college and took most of her things. He does tend to panic if things happen out of order or if they're not on his list, and moving rooms is definitely NOT on his list. Gotta love him, especially since I can't shoot him :)

Here is a picture of the quilt I made for my parent's 50th Anniversary

My mom was excited. My Grandmother, her mother, tried to show us how to quilt when we were young but no of us seemed to want to learn. My cousin Robbie, who is several years younger than me, has been quilting for quite a few years now and now that I'm 47 I'm learning. Better late than never I guess.

It's "square in squares" pattern. Very easy to do and looks good. Then I meandered the quilting around the pictures. Printing the pictures was a breeze with the new paper/fabric they have out. It's good quality fabric laminated onto either a paper or plastic backing. You run it through your ink jet printer, let dry for a couple of minutes and peel off, then cut to size. The Electric Quilt brand on the plastic type backing was much easier to peel off.

I'm proud of the job I did, especially considering it's only my 2nd quilt.

I'll be glad when I get my room remodeled and moved into so I can start working on my projects again. Running a business out of our home, taking up this hobby and living with a packrat husband sure makes for lots of "stuff". It's "driving me crazie" !! Gotta get some organization going somewhere. I'm going to put in a closet system from easyclosets.com like we did in our master closet. That makes all the difference. I actually like going into my closet now lol. Only this one will be shelves on 2 walls and 1 wall of double hanging. Then I'm trying to decide between laminate wood floor or engineered wood. I'm leaning toward the laminate, mostly because it sounds like I can do it myself.