Life equals...

...biscotti.

At the moment anyway. Lots and lots and lots of biscotti. 16 recipes of it, to be exact.

Yes...

...i'm a bad blogger. sorry. no time plus no laptop equals no blogging. or at least very little. i've posted a couple times on the scrapping one, but even that is minimal. i promise more when we get the computer back.

autumn's latest favorite things to do:

• climbing in the empty cupboard next to the fridge (very small, but very deep) until only her feet are showing. then, while she's laying there in the dark she sings to herself.
• pulling out all of my rubber stamps and "organizing" them all over the office--putting them in rows all with the same side facing out, stacking them, whatever.
• pulling ALL the toys from the toybox and throwing them around the room. as a result, the toybox temporarily has a big bungie cord wrapped all around it, sealing it shut.
• getting hurt--we're going through a very accident prone period I guess. toes closed in doors, falling off of everything, walking into the bookshelf, slipping and banging her head on the floor, climbing into places and getting stuck, poor girl is covered in scratches, bruises, and bumps.
• playing with clothes--she's developed radar for finding clothes everywhere and pulling stuff over her head. sometimes i'll find her with three extra layers on.

Ikea and other things...

It was an Ikea day today. We have been planning on going for about a year. And finally, we went. We were really looking for some organizational stuff and for an armoire type thing for our TV. We were not successful looking for the latter, but we did get some organizational stuff, some magnetic boards (I've been wanting some for ages), an area rug (WAY on sale!), shelving and a table top for Matt's office, some Christmas presents for Autumn, and some pretty ornaments.

I also finished a big project today that's been in the works for the last couple of months. (Definitely the biggest scrapping project I've ever completed.) Hopefully it will be a hit. Should know soon. :-)

Our house is stuck somewhere in the middle between fall and Christmas decor. Since we're not doing Thanksgiving here it's kind of confused.

Teeth

Autumn's molars are really bothering her. She's been running a mild temp the last couple days and wants to be cuddled lots. One molar is through in the back. And it's sharp--when I tried to feel it, she chomped down on my finger and left a mark. The rest of her gums are all swollen and angry looking. Poor girl. :-(

Update on Autumn

• She's a big girl! At her last Dr.'s appointment she came in in the 95th percentile in height and just above the 50th percentile in weight. She's not a very big eater. It's kind of funny though, 'cause it looks like we might have a tall one on our hands. Guess she must have gotten my family's genes there. ;-)
• She talks NON-STOP. Most of the time it's still just babbling, but it never stops. She talks to all of her toys in this funny high-pitched voice that she uses just for them. (Sometimes when I put her down for a nap, I'll hear her in there talking and playing happily for HOURS.) She "reads" all of her books in another funny voice that is reserved just for books. And then she talks to us...a lot! It's gotten to the point where she's learning a new word at least every day. Yesterday was "shoes"--she loves the "zzzz" sound at the end of the word, so it's more like "shooozzzzzzzzz"hen she says it, but it's still very easy to understand. (She loves playing with them, so it's really not surprising that she figured out how to say it.) She says "outside" now, and she's also attempted repeating "I love you," but she can't quite manage getting all the sounds in the right places. If Matt or I make any sound at her, she tries to repeat it--it can be very amusing.
• She still sucks her thumb and rubs her belly button or her ear (depending on which thumb she is sucking) a lot of the time, especially when sleepy. We can no longer put her in onsies and actually fasten the snaps on the bottom, because she has to be able to pull up her shirt to get to her belly button or she gets really mad.
• She is incredibly destructive--nothing is safe! And the house can't be kept neat unless she's out of it. Lately she just wants to get out everything and spread it around, so there isn't any floor showing through the mess. Maybe it's her way of getting back at me for removing all the carpet and making the floors slippery.
• She loves music. And she's figured out how to turn on the TV and the DVD/CD stereo. She'll get the music going and just bop all over the living room. (We need to get an entertainment center to get everything out of her reach. )
• She loves her daddy! One of her favorite times of the day is when Matt gets home from work. She greets him at the door with squeals of delight and just can't wait till he changes and plays with her. She loves to "wrestle" on the floor--which means basically that she throws herself at him in WWE-style bodyslams over and over again.

Sitting here with my english muffin and a cup of hot chocolate that replaced my coffee this morning (it's that kind of day). Overwhelmed with how many things there are to do today. But they're mostly nice things. Like planning when to have a Memory Works open house. How I'm going to decorate for Christmas. Pondering either block painting some canvases or creating a series of collages to go along the top part of the side wall in the living room (I've never done either before). Contemplating teaching a mini-class at my cropping group next month. Lots and lots of scrapbooking to finish. Christmas presents to make. Thanksgiving presents to make (my family). Figuring out what to use my Michael's 50% off coupon on (I think I want a Cropadile). Thinking about applying for two new design teams in the works. Need to make a list of things to take to NC for Thanksgiving. Need to figure out when and where to take photos for our Christmas cards (which I am, once again, not making this year). Oh, and trying to figure out how I look as a redhed.

Well, not really. Just got the red highlights back in again after a year. Except there are more of them. And they're redder. But I LOVE my haircut. :)

Yesterday: got caught up on kitchen chores, got my hair done, got presents for the two people we have in our Thanksgiving name exchange, bought Jenn's bday gift, ran errands, got two more projects upoaded to sassacraft, bought a (cheap, temporary) rug for the dining room, planted all the rest of the iris and elephant ears, and went out for lunch.

I'd better go since Autumn will be up soon and I need to get at least one thing done first, so the morning won't be a total wash. Oh, I don't know if I mentioned it here, but I've got an Etsy shop now. Though there's not much in it at the moment. I will be listing some gift card holders sometime soon. If I get some decent pictures ever.

See Matt's blog for our opinions on the election. He words it a little stronger than I would, but yeah, we're pretty much in agreement over the whole thing.

Anyway, I'm up again (as I have been all week) at a ridiculously early hour 5:00 ICK! I think I'm going to try to get a little more sleep in a couple minutes, but wanted to give a quick update.

The living and dining rooms are completely painted! YAY! This has only taken me about forever, but I'm very pleased with the results. And all the carpet from the rooms is up and out of the house. Thankfully. It was nasty! And the floors really really make the house look better. (Except for one spot, but I can live with that.)

Thinking about Christmas stuff already. I can't wait to start decorating. We're planning on going with an actual theme this year and using all retro-looking red and silver stuff. Should be fun. I just bought two pounds of glitter. In case you don't know, two pounds of glitter is a whole stinkin' lot! Going to use it to make ornaments, etc.

Trying to get myself organized and figure out how to start selling Memory Works products. I'm very excited about them, but mostly just because I want to use them myself. ;-) They really have nice stuff. You can check out my other blog for all the stuff I just bought. The BG Fruitcake line is great! I want to do an open house and I would like to do it before Christmas, but I just don't know when we'll fit it in. Hmmmmm.....

Autumn's talking more and more all the time now. She uses a few phrases and quite a few words. Of course, most of the phrases are only recognizable if you're spending a LOT of time with her. The two new words yesterday were "bath" and "outside". Clear as a bell. And then she wanted to say bath over and over as I was putting her in the bath and outside while she pointed out the window.

She loves making us happy. She's also really getting into "helping" with things. She loves to put the wet clothes in the dryer as I hand them to her and then to close the door. Last night she had to clean up the floor where she spilled some milk (on purpose) and then proceeded to wander all around the room wiping up invisible "spills" from the floor. And she's always walking up to me and giving me things that she knows she shouldn't have so that I can put them away. Things like coins or my stamps or things like that.

Oh, and she loves Reagan's kennel. When we're out in the breezeway for any reason, she follows us out and then climbs in the kennel and drags all her toys in there. So when I let Reagan in at night, I always have to take out a bunch of toys before she can get in.

Okay, time to try to go back to sleep.

A Little Republican

Life...

...is keeping me from blogging much right now. Autumn has the chicken pox and is absolutely miserable, so she's pretty much taking up all my time. Also, the laptop isn't really working, so I'm stuck with the old SLOW desktop. All that to say, don't expect much in the way of posts for a while.

one girl demolition team

This is an all too common scene in our house. Whether it's the books from the shelves, the laundry from the basket, the toys from the box, the trash from the wastebasket, the toys from the bathtub. You name it.

If there is a quiet moment in the house you can bet there's a little girl making a big mess. And feeling oh so proud of herself. Check out that grin. :-)

Silly Girl

Today:

-I'm putting together a big crate for Reagan and the moment I get it finished Autumn walks into it and begins to open and shut the door. She thought it was a great Autumn house.

-She's sitting on the couch flipping through my Martha magazine. And I glance over. She has stopped flipping the pages and she is now licking the page and saying "mmmmm." It's a full page picture of cookies.

-She took the top tray off of her high chair and carried it around the house. Occasionally stopping to put it down and sit on it.

-She's taken to dropping things into the bathtub. Today I found two printouts of scrapbooking stuff and the TV remote. Thankfully the bathtub was otherwise empty.

Random Review #2

Sugar Free Raspberry syrup. For a while we were getting sugar free raspberry italian sodas from the coffee shop as an occasional treat. then while i was in ohio i picked up some of the syrup and now we make them at home with club soda. very good. and 0 calories.

More Ohio Pics

Ohio Pics

Somehow I didn't get a whole lot of decent pictures from the trip...but here are a few (though still not very good). Love the one with the funny face on the stairs though. ;-)

Random Reviews #1

Genisoy Soy Crisps. Very good. A lot like eating those flavored mini ricecakes except they actually have protein so they stick with you. Favorites so far are the ranch and Matt likes the apple cinnamon. Autumn LOVES all of them. And this week on sale at Kroger for $1.50 a bag. Try them.

Ohio

Had a great time in Ohio. Expecting chicken pox to hit our house in 1-3 weeks though. Will be posting some pics at some point soon.

The Hit Gift

More Birthday Pictures

Birthday Pictures

My blog is boring. Everyone else seems to have all these thoughts and discussions of big ideas (or at least little ones). They discuss the topics on the news or in books they have just read or from classes they are taking.

Mine is just a badly kept journal.

Oh well.

Still addicted to it.

Anyway, I've got a lot to do today in preparation for heading to Ohio on Saturday morning. A bucket of orange cannas to get planted. Some of that pretty purple groundcover (no one knows what it's called) to plant after I figure out where it should go. An oakleaf hydrangea to plant (again, after I figure out where it should go). Red canna tubers to box up for Jessica. Three more mums to get into a pot on the front steps. LOTS of housecleaning. Need to water everything inside and out. Oh, and laundry and, of course, packing for the trip. Lovely.

We had a birthday party for Autumn (and her grandpa) last night at the coffee shop. Turned out to be the perfect place to have it.

Right around the corner, but not at home--convenient, but didn't have to clean up for company.
Quiet--we pretty much had the place to ourselves until the shift change at the hospital when it suddenly filled with nurses.

Friendly baristas--the fact that we had 9 people there all ordering meals and drinks in the evening and leaving nice tips probably had something to do with it.

It was nice and very simple.

The best thing though--the coffee. This place has better coffee and espresso drinks than anywhere I have ever been before. A zillion times better than Starbucks. A zillion times better than any of the local places we used to visit in NoVA and DC. It's weird because no one is really into coffee down here. If they want coffee they go order some at Burger King. So I'm not sure if the local place here will be able to stay in business--but I HOPE so. I LOVE THEIR COFFEE.

And the odd zombie horror dolls are gone now too. So the ambiance has definitely improved. Oh, speaking of which--we stopped by The Joshua Cup near Matt's work the other day. He wrote about it on his blog. But their decor was really cool--they used old wood doors, minus the windows and some panels, and hung from the ceiling as room dividers (something I've always wanted to do). Anyway, the decor was really good, but the latte was icky. Tasted like milk and vanilla with maybe a tablespoon of watery coffee. Definitely not like the place around the corner--their lattes make you sit up and take notice.

Well, I'll try to get some party pictures posted at some point today--that was a lot of p's.

A few pics

Firefox keeps crashing on me lately, so we'll see if I can manage to get these up before it come down again.

Summer Reading

I'm sad to say that most of my summer reading plans remained just that--plans.

I did read 1/2 of Of Mice and Men, but after East of Eden, I just couldn't finish it.

I have The Kite Runner sitting on the bookshelf, but have yet to start in earnest.

Pretty much all of my summer reading took place at the beach. And pretty much all of that was nice brainless mysteries.

We did finish Winnie the Pooh and The House at Pooh Corner--reading aloud together when putting Autumn to bed. I always forget just how funny these are. I think Matt really enjoyed reading them for the first time, too.

I somehow have to come up with the time to keep reading and keep my brain alive, but lately there have just been so many things that are so much more urgent, that I haven't been able to get around to it.

Anyway, Autumn should be up soon, so I'm going to start some coffee and maybe start some bread to bake today. ttyl

Very little sleep last night, since Autumn couldn't breathe if she had her thumb in her mouth--and as a result, could not sleep. I brought her into bed with us. Where she determined that the only place she was interested in sleeping was on top of my face. Meaning I couldn't breathe either. Lovely.

She's finally fallen asleep. And of course it's morning, so I've woken up. But I'm still feeling very much asleep.

Gardening

Tomorrow I'm going to be SOOOOOO sore. Matt had the day off today, so we dug a new flower bed--in extremely hard red georgia clay. Man! Very difficult. Had to use a pick. But we got it done. (Though I'm going to have to make it bigger.) Added a couple hundred pounds of manure, lime, and ferilizer. And then started planting cannas.

Also got one of those big rotating compost bins from a FreeCycler. Haven't got it set up yet, but I think it will be very useful.

Oh, and when we went to Lowes to get fertilizer, etc. I got 56 mums. Yup, that's right--56. They had a couple carts of them on markdown--tiny ones were 10 cents and the small ones were 20 cents. All that was wrong with them was that the flowers had gotten dried out. The leaves and the rest were fine. So all we had to do was deadhead them and now they look great.

I'm going to be busy with gardening work for a while. I think the dining room is going to be waiting for a while to get painted. But when someone gives you a who bunch of NICE free plants--other things get put on hold.

Very Sick

All of us. Even the dog. I haven't been able to sleep much because my throat and ears are so sore. Wondering how other moms do it--taking care of the other sick people when they themselves feel so awful.

In other news--we have probably around 100 cannas waiting to go in the ground. They're sitting in Autumn's pool in the back. We just got them from a guy in Macon who was thinning out. They still have all foliage intact so they're around 6' high. I was SOOOOOO happy to get them. He also sent some other goodies--a spreading hydrangea, some ground cover I've been wanting, a few other sub-tropical things. Very cool.

Problem is going to be getting them in the ground when all of us are so sick and just too weak to work on it. It's got to be done though. They're gorgeous and I don't want them to die.

Coolest thing about Cannas down here--no digging them up unless you want to. And you really can plant them this time of year.

okay...

Jess, I don't really have any new new pictures of Autumn. I've been too preoccupied with painting, tearing up carpet, and scrapping like mad. But here are a couple of her eating chicken. I'll try to take some more soon.

The living room is mostly finished. The only thing left in the hallway to do is right around the bottom of the baseboard where it was covered by the carpet. The dining area hasn't been started yet. I have to wait for Matt to help me move some of the heavier furniture before I can begin over on that side of the room.

So far the floors look pretty good under the carpet. Which is a happy thing. Oh, and I found an area rug that I like. Far out of our price range, of course, but I like it anyway. Oddly enough, it's a traditional rug--I NEVER like traditional ones. I usually just like contemporary or jute or sisal ones. But there's this traditional one at Linens and Things that really appeals to me, for some reason. It's got the cranberry and olive and brown colors I like, all nicely faded to the shades we're using.

I did about 17 or 18 pages this week--and 6 or 7 last Saturday at the crop. (And projects piling up--but that's a good thing. :-)) It really helped to have Gma K visiting, so I didn't have to watch Autumn the whole time. And Autumn enjoyed the extra attention. She doesn't seem to be feeling too great these last couple days--I think she may have a bit of a stomach bug again. And she's just finally been recovering from the last one.

Gotta run--a couple more things to do online, then need to clean up some more. Then bed.

Not a whole lot going on right now--once again waiting for lbl to show up. Hopefully he actually will this time.

I'm going to start a blog for "work" stuff over on WordPress. I like blogger, and I think it's easier to use, but there are some aspects of WordPress I like better for posting layouts, etc.

Reagan is having a FIT because I had to lock her in the kitchen. She was getting a bit too aggressive with Autumn. She forgets that Autumn isn't another puppy with fur and tough skin to protect her. Autumn doesn't help much though, because she acts like one. :-)

Gotta run and find Autumn some breakfast.

By Popular Demand

Autumn was playing and then Reagan decided to try too. They were standing there together for a few seconds, but I wasn't able to catch it fast enough.






Puppy Pictures...not good ones, but pictures none the less...

Birthday ideas

For those who have been asking what Autumn needs for her birthday--BOOKS! (Or anything off of her wish list on Amazon.) Things like diapers, diaper genie refills, etc. are always good, too. But not very fun to buy. :-)

p.s. she's also in need of a new album--there's a particular one at michael's i have my eye on. ;-)

Weird, I guess Jeremy is alive after all.

Finished painting the hallway except for the baseboards right along the floor where they're covered by the carpet. Those will have to wait until I pain the dining room and living room and pull up all the carpet. I'm now looking for an area rug for the living room, but discovering that my tastes are just too expensive. All the ones I like are just WAY too much. And the ones in our price range--YUCK!

Planted a few mums yesterday. (Autumn picked out a purple one at the store.) Also transplanted some vinca. Need to see how they take and then maybe dig up some more. They've come up all over the vegetable garden since I let it go to weeds. Supposedly we can do a second crop of some veggies here, so I need to get myself motivated and get out there and clean up the garden area again. (Allergies not withstanding.)

Someone is going to give me some cannas!!!! YAY! She's about 40 minutes away and we'll have to drive there and dig them up. But it makes me very very happy. I've been wanting them for a long time. I've said it before and I'll say it again...Freecycle=awesome!

Speaking of Freecycle--I've been using it a lot lately in de-cluttering areas of the house. Mostly clothes. But it's nice to feel that things are clearing out and someone else is actually going to get use out of it. Someone even came and dug up some of our monkey grass the other day. :-)

I'd better go straighten up the house before Autumn wakes up.

Priorities for today: babysitting and getting a photo order in (there's a crop on the 9th).

This morning (again)

Waiting for lbl to get here still and there's no better way to make him arrive than to start writing something. Random things...

I gave Autumn a peanut-butter and honey sandwich this morning for the first time. Of course, she thought the best thing to do with the filling was not to eat it, but to use it as hair gel. Out of the highchair, straight to the bath tub.

Then I pulled out her Duplos for the first time in a while. She was thrilled and immediately commenced the next great battle in the DinoWars. She's also fascinated by the fact that she can put the blocks back into the tub, not just dump them out. This makes me very happy too. :-) Now if I can just convince her to do that when she's finished playing...

Coffee=good.

I don't think I like the dark red paint we had for the end walls in the living/dining room anymore. I painted the bookshelves (still need some touch-ups), and brought them in here, and I don't like the way the color looks anymore. May need to go back to my original plan of using a green on the accent walls. But I think I'll keep the bookshelves in here anyway. I like the red, just not on something as big as a wall. Maybe I'll re-paint the wicker toy-box to match. I think the red will be okay on the walls in the kitchen. (Though I'll have to add more task lighting under the cabinets, which I need anyway.)

The creamy color on the walls in the hallway looks really good though. I need to finish the trim. Our hallway is the size of a closet, yet has six doorways leading out of it, so there is a LOT of trim. :-) But the walls only took one coat of paint, so that's awesome.

Been de-cluttering things and giving lots of stuff away on Freecycle. I still have another box of my old clothes to go through and list, as well as some baby stuff left over from the yard sale. It feels awesome to be purging all this stuff out of the house. Another nice thing about Freecycle is that you can use it to get rid of clothes like you can goodwill, but the people who want the clothes will actually pick them up, so you don't have to take them anywhere. Very cool. Especially since it means that, unlike goodwill, you're not tempted to bring more junk back with you from the store.

He's still not here, so I'd better call and see what's up.

Later.

eBay help

Ok, so I got up early this morning when Matt was getting ready to head into work, thinking it would give me time to get the house in order before lbl arrives for babysitting today (he's sick, so it should be oh so much fun). Of course, it doesn't dawn on me until I try to start cleaning, that most of the things that need to be done--vacuuming, dishes, etc--are things that if done now, will wake Autumn up. (Her bed is on the opposite side of the wall from the kitchen.) Now, an Autumn awake at this hour makes for a very fussy Autumn for the rest of the day and added to a sick lbl--who is sure to be fussy as well--that makes for a fussy mom.

All that to say that I'm going to have to wait till Autumn gets up and then do a really really really fast cleaning job on the dining room and kitchen.

Okay, as to the ebay help. I'm a ebay novice. Over the last few years I've bought maybe 2 things from ebay. Now, the other day I was looking for a particular patterned paper and ran a google search. Someone on Amazon was selling it for a very reasonable price, so I looked at her "store" and found a bunch of other papers I've been looking for, also quite affordable. So I loaded up on several things. This was all "buy it now", not auction items, and I had to commit to buy all the items separately. Well, it says that the seller combines shipping and to contact her for an invoice before paying. This was going to happen anyway, because my $17 order, turned to $88 with shipping. Yeah, that is PAPER we're shipping here--about 30 sheets. Anyhow, I contacted her, contacted her, and contacted her again. What do you do when the seller you're buying from just doesn't send the invoice? Do you just forget about the order? Do you complain to someone? I don't know.

Anyway, I need some help if someone has gone through something similar and knows the answer.

Gonna go get myself in order for the day now, even though the house has to wait.

seeya.

Paint!

Well, it's started. I expect the process to take a long time--several weeks at the least, since I have only small blocks of time to work on it. But there is now paint on the hallway ceiling and the inside of the bookselves for the living room.

And yesterday I started a new small flower bed around the trunk of one of the cedars in the front yard.

My goal is to get the bookshelves finished tomorrow morning and then do the walls in the hallway. I may have to wait a little longer to get the trim done, though.

The bookshelves are going to be dark red on the inside and black on the outside. I think they'll look cool. :-)

Good thing about painting the hall, living room, and dining room is the fact that I don't have to use a dropcloth--the carpet goes as soon as the painting is done. The bad thing is that most of our furniture is too big to move out, so we're just going to have to move it around the room as we work on different parts and make sure to keep all of it covered. Lovely.

On another topic, I've been reading lately about the health benefits of coffee. Pretty cool stuff.

And all the puppies are gone now. They sold incredibly fast and there are more who want them.

Gotta run--Autumn is terrorizing the puppy (major role reversal here) and I need to get dinner ready.

Pictures--post 12