In The Blue House

Alley hanging out

Alley hanging out, originally uploaded by homebodylynn.
Alley likes to sit right there between the dining and living rooms so she can keep an eye on everything.

The weather's been so nice lately.  It makes me want to start summer right now. Piles of books, lazy mornings in the backyard and breezy evenings cooking out.  Of course, by the time summer really gets here, there will be humidity and stickiness and all that ridiculous heat. I won't want to hang out in the backyard. I'll never want to go out at all. The books, however, are welcome anytime.

Evening Hallway with Bunny

couple things

Bee gave me something new you might like to have too. I tend to collect images online and stick them in an inspiration folder- the same way I tear pages out of magazines and save them. I rarely remember where I got the images, which bugs me, and I'm terrible about organizing them. Makes it a pain to find them later. Mostly I'm just cluttering up my computer. Now I use evernote.  I just highlight the image, post, recipe or page I want to keep and them clip it to evernote. I have a notebooks for various categories and best of all, evernote lists where I got it all from! There's more you can do with it, but I am terrible about adapting to anything new and it will probably take me a year to figure out how to get the most out of it. It's still in beta and I couldn't get it to work in Mozilla, so I use it in ie right now. If anyone is interested, I have nine invitations left and would be happy to e-mail you one.

other things I'm enjoying right now:

thiscraft blog (I want to make one of these)
this lovely book
this DIY dollhouse
Jek's spring bed
rachel ries
this food blog

I love the chill night air

Tonight behind our house

The weird warmish weather this morning and afternoon caused a pressure change that made me migrainey. It wasn't a horrible headache, but it hurt and  I felt queasy and stupid. I've noticed the migraines bring depression and I don't think it's just because I'm in pain, because I'll feel that way even before the headache starts.  I think the tiredness and emotional crappyness are all part the migraine package for me. I hear some people become euphoric before headhaches. Wouldn't that be cool? Anyway, I was feeling like the world's worst mom because I was still hanging out in my jammies and moving real slow, but then I realized I still managed to:

+work on math with my son, the math hater
+Read and discuss his history assignment
+make lunch
+facilitate M. in painting her own version of Van Gogh's Starry Night
+play some Timez Attack and have a little math lesson with M.
+sew  big ugly patch on  the back of my boy's vest before he went to the punk show with Bee
+damp mop the kitchen floor

By this evening it had cooled down and the weather change made the pain lift and even better, I cheered up!  I cleaned the living room and fed my pets and took M.E. outside to make an entry for her moon journal. The guys came home from the show (Bee tired and Lee pumped-up) and now it's time to read M. a Franny K Stein story and go to bed. I'm looking forward to the cold weather tomorrow. Good night!

M.E.'s Starry Night

Hearts

M.E. and I worked on Valentines for co-op last night. I thought it was going to be simple paper cutting and a little glue, but she had other ideas. She saw these felt fortune cookies in Martha Stewart and had her heart set on making them for her friends. Even though it took a lot more time than I wanted and was a bit of a gluey mess, I'm glad we did it because she loved making them. We were able to use scraps we had from other projects, so they didn't cost a thing to make (which is my favorite kind of craft). We both loved how they turned out. I like how they look like fortune cookies, but also sort of like hearts too.

I used more scraps to make M. a Valentine pin to wear today.

Here's the great big mess we made while doing all this

and here's a Valentine for you!

Almost grown

Lee will be fifteen tomorrow. He's getting a laptop, which he  already knows about. This is a present for me too, because now I don't have to share my laptop with him anymore. No longer will my unsuspecting ears bleed when surprised by some horrible screaming music he's added to my iTunes. No more kid hopping around behind me asking when I'll be off so he can have a turn.  He can take his kabillion manga pics and put them on his own computer.  I am so happy for him that he will have his very own laptop!

I made a little something for him too. Lee loves a lot of the cute things Wee Wonderfuls makes. He saw her little felt insects when he was 13 and asked me to make him one. I promised I would if she ever sold the pattern. She does sell them at her site now, and I've been working on some butterflies for some little girls I know. Here's one:

Isn't she sweet? A little too sweet for my punk loving drummer boy. So I for him I made this guy:

I tried to give him a angry little manga face, but I think he just ended-up looking like Cartman from South Park.

And because, even though he's not a kid  anymore, I'm still his mama and will always see a little bit of that baby boy who captured my heart, I added a little something on the back:

I still make things

I've spun up a bunch of wool.

First I turned this lovely, one pound of hand painted wool from the Barefoot Spinner (no website)                                                                                                                                                      

into this pound of thick singles

I'm not sure what to make with it. That's a lot of yarn and as much as I love those fall leaf colors, I don't usually wear them.

Then I spun up this fun stuff Mom got for me at the Fall Fiber Fest of Virginia. I don't know what it's all made up of, but it looks like Muppet monster hair to me. It's from Pucker Brush Farm (no website)  and they call it "Party in a Bag"

I'd left it squashed in a bag since October and it got a little felted, so it wasn't nearly as fun to spin as it looked, but it sure was pretty soaking in our bathtub. Looked like some sort of exotic seaweed

Now I have another big pile of yarn, but this one I think I'll weave into a scarf for myself.  I like green.

Currently I'm working on this bright Muppet hair and I think it's my favorite.

It's so loud and happy  -it looks like Mardi Gras!

I'm also working on a little Wee Wonderfuls  hand sewing project for some girls who just became big sisters.

I borrowed that pink basket from M.  so I could take a tidier picture of my handwork. I wish I was neat enough to work like that- all my supplies in one convenient basket, ready to pick-up and take around the room with me. This is what my workspace really looked like:

M.'s been sick all week (strep and a bad cold). By Friday I had her cold followed by a nasty migraine all day Saturday, so now our whole house looks pretty much like that.

 

Poor M., who thrives on socializing, has been miserable and bored, bored, bored. When she wasn't coughing or on forced rest, she tried to keep busy.

She made herself a top

as well as some underwear out of a large freezer bag. "They're special because when you sweat in them, they hold all your sweat and keep you cool!"  She was so proud of her sweaty drawers! She modeled them for me, but  I refrained from snapping any photos of her plastic clad heiner. She also booby trapped the couch, hallway and various entry ways with tape and a never ending skein of bright pink, acrylic yarn. She could have done that for days, but it got old for the rest of us pretty fast.

We used her alluvial plain biome experiment as a setting for pictures with Lee's new Mouse Guard figures

And on one especially cold day, M. entertained herself by taking pictures of our pups trying to stay warm.

Alley bundled up on the couch

Petey nesting in a chair

Petey sure is lucky he's so cute, because he has the personality of a gross old drunk guy at a bar who won't leave you alone and doesn't notice your disgust when he breathes his horrifyingly stinky breath in your face and then, when he gets kicked-out of the place, his pickled brain decides the only appropriate response is to pee on the front door. Plus, that dog likes to get right next to people and then fart a lot. But so cute! Lookit him all warm and cozy up there!

A little bit of snow today

So M.E. made a little bitty snowman

I've been spending too much time browsing Etsy lately wanting things- which is just shameful this soon after Christmas.  You can't walk through my house without tripping over roving or yarn, but still I'd love to have this skein spun by Miss Hawklette and I can't stop going back to peek at this little bird at jessicajane . So round and sweet! And lookit this wallet in petal's shop. Oh man, I want it!

I also want to good night's sleep, so I'm getting off this computer now.

Merry and Bright and Yummy!

Since it was coming down this weekend, M.E. decided to take photos of  our Solstice/Christmas tree.  

this one's my favorite

Bee spent time creating today too.

homemade corn tortillas (gluten free) topped with chicken, guacamole and peach salsa

Saturday Evening

Today was a lovely day of breakfast in bed (thanks Bee!), an outing to our favorite giant library, some good news in the mail and finally a walk (or scoot, in M.'s case) around the neighborhood with friends.  The weather has cooled off so my head didn't hurt, and for that I am deeply grateful.