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April 28, 2009

Our wonderful new Mini, Nigel!

March 25, 2009

Wow, two posts in one week, maybe I'm making a comeback? Over Easter I'm going to Memphis for Joe's baptism and first communion. Since I'm one of the godmothers, I need to come up with something cute, spring-ish, and comfortable to wear to church. I've been searching around for about a month now, but can't find anything I like in the stores or online. So, today I went to JoAnn's and bought this skirt pattern. I have some gorgeous fabric that I bought back in November that I want to use to make view A, but without the border, just have the whole skirt out of the same fabric. I really love that this skirt has pockets and several pleats in the front. I'm hoping to make a quick muslin this weekend and then make the real skirt next weekend. I never really give myself enough time for these things, but I'm hoping that this skirt will go together fairly quickly. Wish me luck!

March 22, 2009

Today was Eva and Henry's joint family birthday party. It was supposed to be last night, but Henry was very sick Friday night into Saturday morning, so it understandably got postponed. This is the memory game that I've been working on for Henry most of this month. This project was a LOT more work than I expected, but I think I just liked the idea so much that I down played the work in my own head. I made 40 tiles so that everyone Henry is related to has a pair, including Otto and Belle. The hardest part was finding good pictures of everyone where they were by themselves. Oh and then cutting around each tile with the pinking shears was physically the hardest part, my hand was sore the next day! I pretty much followed these directions from Alicia Paulson. The only changes I made were that I used the iron on decal paper, 4x4 squares, and interfaced both the fabrics for extra stability. And instead of those bag instructions, I made Henry's bag using this tutorial. The bag went together really fast and I was happy with how it turned out. In fact I used the same tutorial to make a gift bag for Henry and Eva's cousin Ben, and I'll be making up to 13 gift bags for Eva's party in a couple weeks. Hmm...I should probably get started on that!

March 17, 2009

I have been crafting lately, but it's all surprise crafting that I can't post about. It turns out that tonight was my last woodcraft class. We've gotten through all fo the construction except attaching the back, which shouldn't be too hard. Then I have to fill all the plywood holes with putty, sand the whole thing down, prime it, paint, and put on the legs. It's amazing to see it all put together, and even more amazing that we had no major mistakes during the process. We thought one board was cut a little too narrow, but it worked in the end. Chris and I are going to bring it home either tomorrow night or Thursday night, and then I just have to be self motivated to get it done. I'll post another picture when it's in the living room. Also, I should be able to post at least one of my projects this weekend.

February 12, 2009

I know I have posted in a long time, mostly because I haven't been doing anything crafty, so there wasn't much to post. I know alot of people get more active in their hobbies when they are under stress, but I do the exact opposite, I hibernate on the couch watching bad TV to take my mind off the stupid horrible economy and all the layoffs that are happening...especially when those layoffs started happening at my company. But this morning I followed a couple of blog links that led me to the Something Old Something New blog entry about this being Freedom to Marry Week. As I've said before, this is something I feel very strongly about. I honestly just don't understand why anyone would want to deny two people who love each other the opportunity to get married. What could more love possibly hurt? I once had a friend tell me that she was against gay marriage because she didn't want to have to explain to her children why two men were kissing. I was gob-smacked. I mean, what would you say to your kids if they saw a man and woman kissing? And why would the explanation have to be any different for 2 men or 2 women? Why don't you just say 'because they obviously love each other very much' and be done with it? It just boggles my mind that there are people who believe that allowing gays to marry somehow diminishes their own marriage, did your marriage diminish when Anna Nicole married that skeleton? Ugh.

January 8, 2009

Once again I signed up for the woodworking class at Portage Park, but this time when I showed up there was an actual class. It's basically just the guy who runs the shop, a guy working on a project, and me. Which is AWESOME because it means that the shop guy is basically going to be my own private tutor. He took me around and showed me how to use the drill press, table saw, band saw, jigsaw, miter saw, band sander, and planer. We reviewed my drawing of the TV stand I want to make and he said that it shouldn't be too hard and even told me what to buy at the store. I'm so excited. I've been refining the plan ever since to figure out the dimensions of each piece and determining the best layout to get everything out of one 4' x 8' piece of plywood. I'll be updating with pictures along the way!

January 6, 2009

Chris and I had a wonderful Christmas holiday and managed to spend time with everyone in our immediate families. The night before we left for our trip, we went to the Gale Street Inn with Kris, Sarah, Brian, Eva, and Henry for Chris's birthday and to give Eva and Henry their Christmas presents. As always it was a great meal and everyone was very happy with their presents, Henry insisted on trying on Eva's sleep pants and walking around in them. Very early on Saturday morning we started our drive to Chris's Dad's place in Memphis. A drive that should have taken about 9 hours ended up taking 12 hours since we blew the front passenger tire about 6 hours into the drive. Good times. Otto was a real trooper and I can't even explain how helpful his new car seat was, he loved it and barely cried the entire trip. We got to Jim and Liz's place in time for dinner which was awesome because Jim made up a huge pot of spaghetti sauce. Chris spent that night and the next day bonding with his sisters that he hasn't seen in like 7 years. Lauren is now 15 and Alex is 11, so much different than when we last saw them. The drive to Pascagoula was uneventful and only took about 6 hours. We even hit a Sonic on the way since they show their commericials in Chicago all the time. The first night we went out to dinner and gambling with Chris's sister Beth, her boyfriend Fred, and Chris's brother Mike's girlfriend. Mike joined us after work at the casino. Biloxi looked really good, it seems like the areas I was in have fully recovered from Katrina. Tuesday we lazed around until everyone came over and Beth made a HUGE dinner and we opened presents with her, Fred, and Josh since they had to head back to St. Louis early. Again on Wednesday we lazed around and I baked three pies and then Grandma Jean, Bobby, and Devin came over with jumbo and we opened presents with them. Then it was Christmas. Cindy and Cecil hosted dinner for probably about 30+ people. Cindy was feeling great so I took over cooking duties and made 3 casseroles, a salad, and a cranberry relish. Cecil's daughter's Leah and Melissa were there with their families so it was good to see them since it's also been 7 years since the last time we saw them. The next day was extremely lazy, I think we watched at least 3 movies and just ate leftovers all day. Saturday we got up early and drove back to Memphis to stay with Bill and Susan and the kids, and also my folks since they were in town. We got there around 1p, so we were able to spend the whole afternoon/evening and went out to their local Indian restaurant to celebrate mine and Chris's birthdays. The drive back was uneventful since we had the warm up, so we got back to Chicago before dark and didn't have to shovel since there was no snow. We had such a wonderful time, but we will definitely not be traveling next year over the holidays!

December 14, 2008

Ah, now I'm all done with my Christmas projects. Today I finished Chris's sleep pants (I love that elephant material), my sleep pants (not pictured), and Henry's stocking. Henry's is the green stocking, Eva's is the red one that I made several years ago. When Kris and I were babysitting the kids last weekend, Eva and I were talking about how I needed to make Henry a stocking. I said I was going to make one like hers, except with the colors reversed. She didn't like that idea. She wants Henry's stocking to be just like hers and then have me add 'Eva' and 'Henry' to the stockings to tell them apart. I find it much easier to just make Henry's green and then they are very easy to tell apart. I'll have to see what Eva thinks when I hand over the stocking on Friday.

December 7, 2008

For Christmas this year, we are only buying presents for the kids in the family 21 and under, so that's 12 kids on Chris's side and 4 on mine. We decided to buy books for all the kids from Amazon to make it super easy and affordable. So all the kids on Chris's side are getting 2 books while the kids on my side are getting 1 book and pajamas (for Henry) or sleep pants (for Erin, Joe, and Eva). I've been working on the sleep pants for a couple of days now, it's taking longer than usual because I'm finishing all the seams to make sure they are comfy and wash well. Erin and Eva are getting the same material, it's the softest prettiest Christmas pattern. I really wanted to save this fabric to make sleep pants for me, but that doesn't seem like the Christmas spirit. Joe's fabric is fish skeleton's that I also bought to make sleep pants for me, but I really think he'll love this fabric. Now that the sleep pants are done, I'm all done with presents. I am just waiting on one more book from Amazon. It's weird to be done so early.

December 6, 2008

Today we were supposed to be baking Christmas cookies at Brian's, but he's sick, so that was cancelled. Kris had already bought all her ingredients for apricot walnut rugelah, so she brought it with her to Sarah's house tonight. Kris and I babysat the kids so Sarah and Brian could go to the No L in Chaunkah cabaret at Davenports. Eva helped making the last two dozen. We followed Martha's directions which had you roll the dough into a circle, spread on the topping, cut the circle into pizza slices, and then roll each slice from the wide end to the point. Since Kris had already made the dough, the cookies went together really fast and were really delicious. Eva and I kept joking about how apricots were nature's candy. After dinner, we made a small felt garland. Henry LOVED playing with the felt strips, he wanted to carry them around and then he kept trying to balance one on Kris's forhead. When Kris took Henry up to put on pajamas, Eva snuggled under a blanket on the couch to watch a movie, when Henry came down, he immediately wanted in on Eva's action. Unfortunately they didn't both really fit, but they stayed up there long enough for me to get a good picture!

December 2, 2008

Chris and I had a wonderful Thanksgiving weekend that included the parade, brunch at our house, a quiet dinner for just the two of us, a cocktail party at Sarah and Brian's on Friday, and Nick and John's Slava party on Saturday. The weekend seemed very long and relaxing, plus I even cleaned the craft room and got some crafting done. After searching high and low for cute kids pajamas, I've decided to make sleep pants for Erin, Joe, and Eva this year. I even have good flannels already, so really I just had to buy a pattern from JoAnns, so that's three presents for $1.99. I also got a pattern for sleep pants in my size since my current pair is starting to disintegrate, I need something to wear on our upcoming Christmas vacation trip. I'm working the kids sleep pants like a factory, I traced all three sizes off the pattern, cut out all three pairs, and started sewing them. I'm hoping this makes it go faster and it helps that they all use white thread. The pattern is one of those one-hour deals, but because I am finishing off all of the seams, it will be taking me more than one hour per pair. I'll post pictures when I've got them finished. Oh, and the Obama quilt is on hold until January.

November 23, 2008

Every year Kris, Sarah, and I make ornaments for all the kids in the family under 21. We also make an ornament for each of us, Mom and Dad, and Grandma. This year that totals 23 ornaments. This year we stamped snowflakes in 4 different colors on white cotton, Kris wrote each name and the year on another piece of white cotton, then we sewed them together and stuffed them to make pillow ornaments. We started with 5" squares, so the finished ornaments are probably about 3"-4" across. Eva came along to help, and even got to stamp her own pink snowflake. I had expected it to take quite a while to do the ornaments since each one required hand stitching, but really we were done in probably about 3 hours. And the ornaments are really adorable.

November 15, 2008

I found this clip early last week, but my absolute hatred of Keith Olbermann prevented me from watching it until today. And I'm shocked, shocked at how eloquent he is, how he is able to say exactly what I'm thinking in a way that I would never be able to say it. This clip actually made me cry, because I also cannot fathom why anyone would be against gay marriage. I find it infuriating that people want to deny them this very basic expression of their love. Listen to the clip.

November 13, 2008

Tonight I fused all the pieces to the front of the quilt, nothing is actually stitched down, but this will hold it in place until I get it all stitched down. The white cotton piece is actually big enough to be a lap quilt, so I'm pretty tempted to make this a useable quilt instead of a wall quilt. My biggest concern is all the white material since I am notorious at getting a stain every single thing I touch. Combine that with all the red fabric, and I'm worried that this won't wash up without bleeding. I'll have to think about it for a while. I'll get batting large enough for a lap quilt just in case.

November 12, 2008

So I'm going with the word change for my Obama quilt. I tried a couple of different ways to do these letters but ended up just going with double-sided interfacing. I'll iron these to the front of the quilt and then stitch them through all three layers with a zigzag to help reduce fraying along the edges. I skipped one of the materials I used in the red stripes because I didn't like it as much as I liked the other fabrics. I'm hoping to get to JoAnns this weekend to buy white cotton batting and then do some actual quilting on Sunday. Oh, and this is one of the first pictures I've taken with my new awesome camera. I took it at night, so it's still not a perfect picture, but it's so much better than what I could have taken with my cell phone.

November 9, 2008

Is it odd that the presidential election is what is spurring me on to crafting again? I had this idea on Thursday to make a quilt of Obama's logo because that logo is just so awesome and graphic. I used HyperSnap to enlarge the logo so that it about 21" wide and then printed it on 6 sheets of paper. Friday night I taped the paper together and then cut out the pieces leaving the shell in tact to use as a template when I put the quilt together. Saturday I went to JoAnn's and bought bright read and blue cottons, I love the reds I found and will be using them for an Advent calendar quilt I'm working on, but the blues I'm not as happy with, I got the best ones I could find, but they just aren't as strong as I would like. But whatever, I don't want this project dragging on forever while I search for the perfect fabric, that's why I have so many unfinished projects already! The red pieces were so easy, I just cut 3"x5" rectangles out of the five red fabrics and sewed them together into one long strip. I pinned the templates on to the strip, basted around each template with my sewing machine, cut out each template with at least a quarter inch border, and then ironed them to the basting line. They came out great. For the blue arch, I folded the template four times to determine the right size and shape and then cut out nine of that shape, sewed the shapes together, basted a quarter inch, and then ironed to the baste line. I couldn't be happier with how this is turning out. The picture shows the pieced shapes on the template. My plan now is to make a quilt sandwich with plain white fabric on top and I'm not sure what on the back and then quilt these pieces onto the top through all three layers. I'm kind of tempted to add 'CHANGE' at the bottom, but I'm not sure what color to use. I'd lean towards red, but then won't it be bottom heavy with all that red? If I can't figure it out by the end of the week, then I'll leave the word off and just do the logo. This is the first quilt I'm making as a wall quilt, and I already have a spot picked out in the computer room. Now I just have to get Chris to fix the light in that room so I'll be able to see the quilt once it's on the wall. Also, sorry for the crappy picture. Right now the only camera I have is on my phone and while it takes great pictures outside, it pretty much sucks for pictures inside unless it's a very very sunny day.

November 5, 2008

I'm still in a little shock. I can't believe the election is over so quickly. I honestly thought we wouldn't know the winner until this morning. Congratulations President Elect Barack Obama!! I am so proud of America that we have come this far and that we were able to get past all the hate and scare mongering during the campaign. I truly believe that Obama will be a better president than McCain. I thought McCain's concession speech was eloquant and touching, he seemed more relaxed and normal than he has in months. And Obama's speech was also very eloquant and uplifting. I can't even describe how happy I am that this Obama will be our President in a few short months. And I have the highest of hopes for him, I realize that he isn't a miracle worker, but I believe he will do everything in his power to improve our country!

And now for my only catty comment, what the hell made Michelle Obama pick that dress? It is SO ugly and distracting. Also, does anyone else think of the Chris Rock movie Head of State when a politican ends a speech with 'and God bless America'? A part of me waits for the 'and no one else' part his opponent always tacked on.

November 4, 2008

We have a special channel on our DirecTv HD box tonight that links us to the top 8 channels covering the election. You can scroll through the pictures to select which audio you hear, or click on one of the links to take you to that one channel. Chris and I played with this for a while, but have ended up watching BBCA, Comedy Central, and WGN for the local perspective. Kris and Sarah both got tickets to get into the gated area and hear Obama's speech live, but my hatred of crowds meant I chose to watch the results at home with Chris. I've been texting with Kris, Sarah, and Jill all night. I'm still nervous about what's happening, but I am getting more hopeful as the night goes on.

October 29, 2008

I'm feeling a lot better since yesterday morning, but I'm still not able to get into the Halloween spirit. We still haven't bought candy or a single pumpkin. It will be a very very plain Halloween this year at our house. If I did have a pumpkin to carve, this is what I would do: Yes We Carve. I would only be able to do one of the logo pumpkins, not the relief carving of Obama. I'm printing off the templates to save for another possible project.

October 26, 2008

I've been knocked out of commission for about the last 10 days by a horrible infection I've developed under a root canal in one of the teeth on the bottom right side of my jaw. The pain was incapcitating for about 5 days - I took 40 vicodin in those 5 days and the pain never completely went away. The pain has mellowed a bit since then, but it's definitely still there. Just a dull throb. And now, with the weather turning cold I've been having allergy issues since yesterday, meaning I'm waking up in the middle of the night not from pain but from coughing fits. So, yea, good times. In the past 10 days, I've probably only slept for more than 5 hours at a stretch twice. I just barely got Eva's Halloween costume finished in time for the Roscoe Village parade today, Chris and I dropped it off this morning, but this is the first time I'm missing the parade in 5 years, it's all beginning to get a little depressing. And the root canal specialist had to put me on another kind of antibiotic since I'm still in pain, I started taking the new pills on Friday, and they taste like oil that has gone bad, a taste that lingers for hours and hours. Chris is getting more than a little tired of my non-stop whining about all of this, and I agree with him, I'm more than a little tired of it myself. I go back to the root canal specialist on Nov 3 to have the medicine flushed out of the tooth and the cement(?) put back in. I've had 3 root canals, and none of them came close to hurting as much as getting a root canal removed, so I'm hoping that this next appointment will not result in more pain. Okay, enough bitching, thanks for letting me vent internet!

October 10, 2008

I couldn't agree with this article more: Wishing for the old John McCain. I remember a time when I respected John McCain as a man of high integrity. I'm not sure what happened to him besides the desire to be President so badly that he is willing to completely tramp all over his own dignity. Last night on the Colbert Report, David Gergen said that John McCain is a better man than this. I hope he still is, but I'm not seeing a whole lot of evidence.

October 8, 2008

Speaking of things that scare the shit out of me, this probably tops the list. I have a definite fear of heights (inherited from my Mom) so even though I clear their height requirement by 1 inch, I'd never ever be able to do something like this. Well, that and the fact that this is something I would never ever be able to afford either, but that's beside the point.

October 7, 2008

I'm slowly, oh so slowly, making progress on Eva's Halloween costume. I've read through the pattern directions, marking off the sections that are for the view I'm making, ironed the pattern pieces, and ironed both materials. I haven't actually cut any pieces out yet because I have to clean the craft room enough so that I can at least get the fabric spread out on the floor. That's my goal for tomorrow night. Watching the debate depressed me too much to get any cleaning done tonight. Why do they just say the same thing over and over again? Why can't they just answer the question asked honestly without all the pandering? And who the hell and still be behind John McCain? He creeped me out tonight with his 'Grandpa telling you a bedtime story' voice. Does he think that's going to make us feel all warm and cosy about the economic disaster we are currently experiencing? Cause it doesn't. Him and Palin, quite frankly, scare the shit out of me. I find it amazing that Sarah Palin says that Barack Obama think's America is so imperfect that he's palling around with terrorist. Okay, I'm not going to try and excuse what William Ayers did in the 1960s, but that was 40s years ago and multiple sources have refuted the idea of Obama 'palling around' with him, they live in the same neighborhood, serve on the same committee, and Ayers once hosted a Meet the Candidate function at his house for Obama. Compare that to the fact that Palin's husband was a member of the Alaskan Independance Party that wants Alaka to secede from the union from roughly 1995-2002. Hmmm...does that sound like he thinks America is perfect? And she is married to him, not just an aquaintance. So what does that say about her character?

October 6, 2008

On Friday I got an email with a 10% off code from Sew, Mama, Sew. I've always enjoyed reading their blog, but I have never ordered from them. As I was looking through their site, I fell in love with the blue and orange flower fabric, so I decided to bite the bullet and place an order. Imagine my shock, utter shock, when the fabric arrived today - barely 2 days after I ordered it! I don't remember exactly what my shipping cost was, but it was reasonable or I would have canceled the order. I wasn't able to get any good pictures, so I grabbed pictures off the Sew, Mama, Sew website. The fabric is all gorgeous in person. I want to make a skirt out of the flower fabric and am considering using the other two fabrics to make a craft day tote bag - the wood grain on the outside and the yellowish green pattern inside. It's beautiful material. I'm so excited. And I've been wanting to make a bento box quilt since seeing Lauren's on her blog. I love all the solid colors she used and the way she sewed her quilting lines. It's a gorgeous quilt, as are most of the things Lauren makes and posts in her blog or on Flickr.

October 5, 2008

I was supposed to get started on Eva's Halloween costume today, but I had a little too much fun at Sarah and Brian's brunch, so instead I came home and took a nap and now I've been watching football with Chris for the rest of the day. My fantasy team is kicking ass right now, but I'm pretty confident that will end soon. It's looking like I'm going to be up 4-1, which means I've already won one more game then I did in the entire season last year. I don't mind finishing in the middle of the pack, but I find it a little depressing to be in the bottom 4 almost every year. I did stop on the way to Brian's yesterday at Hancock and they had the Simplicity pattern for Eva's costume in the right size, so I'm good to go tomorrow after work, the material has been washed, it's only waiting on me to stop being so lazy. I'm basically going to make the pink dress on the cover without the bow in the back.

October 4, 2008

Today was our annual cooking day with Brian, so Kris, Sarah, and I went up to Brian's place and spent the day making sausages. I was surprised at how time consuming the process was, but now that we've done it, I'm sure we'd be a lot faster if we do it again. Sarah got there about an hour after we got started, so she missed the most disgusting part which was taking the natural casings out of their salt packed container, rinsing them out, seperating them into 4 foot lengths and then setting them aside to soak and soften. She made it in time to help out with part where you open the casing under a stream of water to rinse out the inside, but by then we were mostly okay with handling them. There were still a couple of moments where the thought hit you that you are standing around holding intestines, which is really gross, I would never have made it on Frontier House. First we made a maple breakfast sausage, which we put in casings partly just to give us practice before we moved on to the apple leak sausage and bratwurst. Once we had the meat mixture complete for each sausage, we cooked up a little patty to ensure that the flavoring / seasoning was correct. Right away the breakfast and apple leaks sausages were amazing. The bratwurst was pretty bland, but since we don't know if the flavor will develop over time, we decided to just move forward with it as is. Luckily Brian already had a meat grinder attachment for his Kitchen Aid which he uses regularly and he was able to buy the sausage horn attachements pretty cheaply off Amazon. I'm not sure how long this process would take using a hand grinder, as I was exhausted by the end of the day. I will definitely be making the maple breakfast sausage again as I'll be able to just get ground pork and the grocery store, add all the seasonings, and then form into patties for cooking. I'd even make the apple leek recipe again as bulk sausage, although I'm not sure the apple and leeks would actually cook up in the sausage that way.

Pictured above: salt packed natural casings right out of the container, initial rinsing of the casings, grinding pork.

Pictured above: Kris and Brian separating the casings, casings soaking in water, Brian putting the casing on the sausage horn with Sarah looking on.

Pictured above: casing loaded up on the sausage horn, maple breakfast sausage, maple breakfast sausage twisted into links.

Pictured above: leek and apple sausage, close up, and twisted in links.

Pictured above: bratwurst, close up, and twisted in links.

September 30, 2008

I haven't been crafting at all lately, mostly because I've gotten addicted to the Pack Rat game on Facebook. I can play it for hours without realizing that any time is passing at all. But that is slowly changing. Mostly because I've completed all of the sets that I'm interested in and partly because with Halloween coming up I need to get started on costumes for Eva and Henry. Eva wants to be an angel, an angel in a SPARKLY dress. I've already bought the sparkly part of the fabric and I've picked out a pattern, but Simplicity wasn't on sale this past weekend, so I didn't buy the pattern. Henry is going to be a devil, and I also found a good Simplicity pattern for that, so I just need those patterns to go on sale at JoAnns. Last night while flipping around on TV I came across that new Whatever Martha show. Now I will fully admit that I happily and blissfully worship at the alter of Martha so maybe I'm just not getting it, but watching her daughter Alexis and some friend of Alexis's watch Martha's old show and make fun of Martha, the crafts, and the guests if a little off putting. Maybe if Alexis and her friend were funnier or wittier I might get it, but really it sounds like two 13 year olds making fun of their parents for being square. It's just stupid.

September 27, 2008

We drove up to Milwaukee today for Josh and Kristin's wedding reception. They got married several months ago down on Sanibel Island, and today they had a reception at Root River Park, which was beautiful. It was a great day to spend outside, and traffic wasn't bad either, especially considering there was a Cubs v Brewers game in Milwaukee this afternoon. I didn't know anyone else at the reception, but Chris knew a couple of guys, so we were able to find people to hang out with. We actually spent a couple hours talking with Kristin's family from Fond du Lac, once we found the common sports ground, conversation was easy. Also, beer helps.

September 20, 2008

And the mural is done! Today I just had to put another coat on the blue stripe to get rid of the splotchiness and then put a couple coats of light blue on the clouds. I'm really happy with how this turned out, and it looks like Eva is too! Her room is very GLBT friendly now. A couple years ago for Eva's birthday, I bought wooden letters to spell her name and painted them periwinkle. Today Eva helped me put a coat of primer on the letters because she wants to paint them pink. I'm glad this mural is done because it really showed me how weak my back muscles are, it's a good thing I found my Wii Fit last weekend, I've been using it almost every day after work, but I'll be skipping today. Today will be all about my nap during the Cubs game.

September 17, 2008

Tonight was our last Cubs game and once again we were sitting only 2 rows above a post. I'm not sure how I managed to buy post seats for 2 of our 3 games. At least the weather was perfect tonight. Especially since I got to the park an hour before the gates opened to ensure that I got one of the Carlos Zambrano bobble heads. I'm not that thrilled with the actual bobble head, I mean Carlos's head is already huge so that I think they really could have done a better job. And Carlos is not a skinny guy so they could have pumped up the bobble body as well. Whatever, he's now joined our Sammy Sosa, Brian Urlacher, Darth Vadar, and Count Chocula bobbles. The game was fun even though the Cubs lost. We were seated in a better section than last time, much less movement in the crowd, more actual game watchers. We didn't stay for the whole game because I have yet another client presentation tomorrow morning and I don't want to be tired or hungover for that. So we got home in time to see the end of the game, it's probably a good thing that I'm not going to any more games this year since they have lost every time I've gone so far. Go Cubs!

September 14, 2008

When will the rain stop? I'm pretty sick of it after 24+ hours, but at least we don't have any flooding at our house. We watched the news last night and it appears that all around us are massive floods, about 6 miles northwest of us they were rescuing people from their homes in boats. One of the guys they interviewed was caught on the expressway about 4 miles north east from our place and said the water level rose 12 inches in about 90 seconds, there were a lot of cars almost completely covered on the expressway. I stopped at Target on the way to Sarah and Brian's and they actually had the Wii Fit, so I grabbed it. They had two, so I tried to buy one for Kris as well, but I could only buy one. The green stripe still looked pretty bad this morning. I ended up going over almost the whole thing again today and instead of painting I more just bounced the brush against the wall. By the time it dried it looked pretty even, but it took forever to dry. I still managed to get the one coat on the blue and yellow stripes on the main wall and two coats on the short wall. I don't know what it is about the purple, green, and blue, but they all have the same issues while the red, orange, and yellow paint went on so smoothly. Hopefully I waited long enough before putting the tape on the green stripe. With my luck large chuncks of the paint will probably be pulled off with the tape. It looks like there's only one day of work left to do the clouds. I think Eva is getting a little frustrated because she hasn't been able to help more with the painting, but most of it is over her head. She should be able to help alot with the clouds since they are the lowest part of the mural. We also have started the discussion on Halloween costumes, it looks like Eva will be an angel and Henry will be a devil.

September 13, 2008

I went over on Wednesday night and painted the red and purple stripes. I'm using regular acrylic paints, the Dick Blick kid's brand, and I had a lot of trouble with the purple paint. That was the first stripe I did, and I used a regular paint brush, and the paint was horrible, so very very splotchy. I used a foam brush for the red paint and it went on beautifully. Sarah, Brian, and Eva had to put another coat on each stripe. This morning I met Brian and Kris at Wishbone's for breakfast and then we walked over to the Paulina Meat Market to get supplies for our sausage making day. I love the Paulina Meat Market, so much meat in one place is unbelievable. And luckily they sell natural casings, so we are all excited and grossed out at the same time. Kris and I walked over to Sarah and Brian's and got started on the mural. The purple stripe ended up being perfect. Today we painted the green and orange stripes. I was hoping to get paint all the stripes today, but the green paint had the same issues as the purple, very splotchy. And I have to admit that by the time we finished all the taping and getting 2 coats of green and 1 coat of orange up, I was exhausted. Tomorrow I'll be doing yellow and blue stripes.

September 6, 2008

Almost as soon as Sarah and Brian moved back into their house, Eva asked me to paint rainbows in her new room. We agreed on one big rainbow going across two walls, ending in a cloud on both sides. Today I went over and sketched out the rainbow and clouds, taped the rainbow, and then Sarah and Eva helped prime the rainbow and cloudds. It turned out pretty good. Hopefully we'll finish it next weekend. I used a sewing tip to help with taping the upper line of the rainbow. I ripped about half way through the top edge of the tap to allow the tape to fan out slightly and follow the curve a little better.