Recent Life in upstate New York

 

 

My first quilt is officially finished!  I started it a few months ago, finished everything but the binding on the edge and then finally finished that this past week. 

Dan helped a lot with that because the instructions I was reading made no sense to me. 

 

This was originally going to be a baby quilt for the baby, but it ended up being much larger than I thought it would be.  Also, it's made of cotton materials, and isn't very soft. 

 

 

So that's why I decided to start a baby quilt using these really soft materials given to me by my neighbor.  I was planning to do it all by hand, but Dan convinced me to try using one of the machines which we bought for $10.  First, he had to untangle the thread though...

 

This is unrelated to sewing, but I made coffee cake last week and it was absolutely AMAZING.  It was very sweet, but delicious.  I like to try at least one recipe each week.  Otherwise I get in a rut and make the same four things every week. 

 

This week I made pumpkin bread using a new recipe (because after Thanksgiving I couldn't resist buying up lots of canned pumpkin that was on a massive sale).  The recipe I tried wasn't the best however...Probably mostly because I didn't mix the baking soda with the buttermilk.  I always find that when a recipe calls for both buttermilk and baking soda, when you mix the two together before combining them with the other ingredients, it makes a real difference in the overall outcome. 

 

Anyway, I'm not sure how I got off on that.  But back to my newest hobby. 

I had decided to make two baby blankets, one for a girl, and one for a boy, since we don't know the gender of our baby yet.  I cut out all of the squares and laid them out on the couch to get an idea of the pattern I wanted.  After I cut out the girl blanket in 5 inch squares, I decided that that seemed quite small, so I cut the boy squares out to be 6 inches. 

 

Dan came home from his trip and saw the two un-sewed blankets lying on the couch and said that he wanted to try making the boy quilt.  We had a sort of contest to see who could do a better job. I honestly thought mine looked nicer until he started getting creative and decided he would draw little tractors and trucks and heavy equipment on his and then hand stitch them. 

 

He didn't use any stencils at all...

After that, I knew it really wasn't much of a competition.  What could I draw on my quilt and hand stitch besides stick figures and stars?  (those are the only things I can draw halfway decent)

 

 

I settled on doing a few flowers, after practicing on paper for awhile. 

 

And yes, the center flower is very off-centered...haha

 

 

It was a really fun little project.  And because Dan convinced me to try using the machine, it went so quickly too.  I think they only took two days to make. 

 

 

So whether a boy or girl, our baby will have a nice handmade blanket. 

 

 

And this is unrelated to blankets and quilts, but I really wanted to give out palm branches on Palm Sunday at church, so we found a grocery store that was selling them and got a few.  They were so tall that we ended up splitting them in quarters.  I think everyone enjoyed getting them. 

 

Not everyone is like this, but for me, having something tangible to feel and smell really makes me think more about the subject at hand. 

 

And I know that I talked about new paint in my last post, but here are just a few more pictures from the fourth bedroom upstairs in the house we bought.  Because this was most likely the master bedroom, the paint on the walls actually wasn't awful or anything.  But we decided to go ahead and paint over it with this "oops" paint from Lowes as well.  Dan thinks it looks too dark now.  We may decide to go back to a lighter color.  But I think when the ceiling and all of the trim is repainted a fresh white, the place will look bright enough. 

 

 

 

 

Our next step with the house is the support the weight of the house in the basement.  My next remodel post will explain more fully with pictures.  But right now the center of the house is sagging quite a bit due to lack of proper support beams in the basement. 

 

Hope this post finds all of my readers well and healthy. 

Until next time!



New paint = 100% better.

Have you ever cringed just walking into a room, seeing the paint color and thought,

"What were they thinking????" 

That was my reaction to first seeing this bedroom in the house we bought. 

Obviously, it was previously a child's bedroom and the child probably picked their favorite colors to put on the walls. 

**As a side note, I've never understood it when parents allow their children to pick paint colors...inevitably, the colors picked would be neon green with hot pink stripes, or some such monstrosity. 

My thoughts are these...if you want your child to have a wacky colored room, fine.  But at LEAST try to paint it well!!!  haha.

I laughed when I saw how poorly it had been painted.  For instance, the paint is like this in the whole room...

 

 

The light switch covers were painted over...

 

In general, it's just hideous in my opinion.  I've been longing to paint over it.  The other week, Dan and I were at Lowes looking for something entirely unrelated, and I said that we should walk by the "oops" paint section and see if they had any clearance paints.  Well, they did in fact have four gallons of similar-looking, nondescript, blueish- greyish paints.  We got them all.    

 

 

 

I started by pulling nails and tacks from the walls, and then sweeping and dusting the place. 

 

Since I can roll paint pretty well from a roller, I did that and Dan did the cutting in with a brush.  He honestly amazes me with how fast and accurate he is- and with no tape at all. 

 

 

I can still see orange, because it's only the first coat.  But to me, the improvement is huge. 

 

Dan did the next room by himself (since its really small and he is super fast).  Yellow isn't a disgusting color or anything, but Lexi (the girl whose bedroom it was previously) wrote threatening messages on the wall to her friends as well as drawing swastika's all over.  We felt that it needed to be covered up.   



 

 

He finished in record time.

 

 

 

While Dan worked on the Yellow room, I went to town on this room, peeling off the numerous stickers on the walls. 

 

Again, why a parent would allow a child to put hundreds and hundreds of round stickers all over their room is beyond me. 

 

 

 

And the finished product. 

 

By the way, we've begun making back part of the money we spent on the paint since I collected $2.31 in pennies and nickels so far in the bedrooms.  Not a bad deal!

 

So the walls might be boring now, but at least they don't hurt my eyes to look at. 

 

😄😄😄

 

 

 

 

A Rant on Furnishings.

First, let me say that I am still loving the winter weather, but I'm also anticipating the spring time when I can put in a nice big garden.  We got another 7 inches of snow last week.

 

 

 

 

Dan plows out the church and a few neighbors in the area.  He asked me to come with him this time, so I did.  One of the neighbors gave me this blanket she had just finished making.  She said it was for the baby.  Our baby will be VERY warm next winter, because it is made out of very nice fleece!

 

 

 

Last week, I had a strong urge to clean the house. 

I usually clean once a week, but sometimes I do a half-hearted job, or skip dusting the heaters...forget to bother with the rooms we don't use downstairs, ect.

 

Well this time was different.  I literally tore the house apart.  And it felt SO good.  I changed out our bedspread (which I like to do occasionally) and dusted everything.  I noticed something which I never have noticed before.  In every room, our furniture doesn't match. 

 

I love it that way...

I grew up in a home where my mom had mis-matched wooden furniture all through the house.  Something about it says "homey" to me. 

I know that everyone is different about styles and what they like, but really? The telling factor as to whether or not I'll like a piece of furniture is how much it costs. 

 

I love that our bedroom furniture cost a total of $25. Only the bedframe cost that...everything else we got for free! :) 

 

 

 

In our living room and dining room, the only things that cost money were the sofa, table and chairs, serving table, and trunk.  And they total roughly $100.  It's really quite easy to come across things being tossed that are really in very nice condition. 

 

By the way, if these pictures look strangely stretched, its because they were taken using the panoramic setting on my phone.  Our house isn't really oddly-shaped.  

 

This is my music room, which is where most of the clutter is.  I have shelves of music as you can see.  Everything in this room was free, including the piano, which actually holds its tune quite well!

 

 

And the spare bedroom, we splurged while living in Baltimore and bought a used rocking chair for $15 (it probably wasn't worth that because it has a massive crack in it on the seat), the tv stand for $5 and the bed frame for $15.  Even the two TV's were free...

 

 

I think one of the biggest things that cause people to spend money frivolously is thinking that they have to have the item right away, after moving into a place.  Most of this furniture in our house we acquired slowly, not right after getting our house and getting married.  If we had been in a rush to furnish our house, we would have ended up paying a lot more to do so.  

 

As it is, I am very happy with our mis-matched furniture.  We recently re-modeled the lobby of our church (which I'll have to post pictures of next time!), so we were visiting lots of furniture stores, thrift stores, antique stores...you name it, looking for deals.  I was shocked at the amount of money people regularly spend on low-quality furniture that matches, but isn't even real wood. 

 

 

 I like to think that my house looks nice and like a home.  I don't need to feel like I'm walking into IKEA each time I walk into my home. 

Wow, enough of my rant.  Hope you all are having a great week.  Dan went to preach for a nearby Bible college for two days and he'll be back any moment.  I'm happy, because since being together for nearly two years now, being apart for even two days feels like FOREVER. 

 

Until next time!