Category: Just for fun

Year Four

I can hardly believe I just typed that. Four years?! It seems impossible, but there it is. We have been in this house 4 years now, and my little corner of the interwebs has hit the four year mark today.

New readers wanting to play a quick bit of catch up can see previous recaps for Year One, Year Two, and Year Three.

This was the year of getting small things done. Not a lot of big and involved projects = less posting. Sorry about that, but you don’t really want me to show up for nothing, right?

Smaller DIY jobs like a new outdoor movie screen, painting the treehouse, dealing with a drainage problem, protecting the firewood, as well as smaller scale craftiness like a the troll brothers, wooden garland, Dr. Who ornaments, and easy nonslip rug adaptations. I had yet another chance to rehab some chrome with soda, and I knocked out some other vintage chair rehabs here and here.

I closed the e-bay store since I was swamped with other things, and having only 3 items in the shop at a time didn’t make sense for the fee structure of a storefront. I’m still selling things here and there, but from my personal account. I’m always going to be selling items on the side, but I’m looking forward to getting deeper into my ceramics this year…maybe I’ll even have some pieces to sell, but let’s not get ahead of ourselves!

The only major job that got done was the very satisfying accomplishment of the half bath. I can finally stop apologizing to guests about the state of the facilities. I think as I do some revamping around the site, I’ll add the half bath to the tour of before and nows.

We traveled a bit this year.  Colorado, Smoky Mountains, Maine and England. And we enjoyed being home quite a bit too. Especially the back deck in early summer. We think we have given up on creating a ground level patio off of this area due to the ground slope and drainage, and will eventually build another lower deck. Maybe in the fall, maybe next year?

I did a little guesting around the internet last year…with Tabitha of Life À la Mode (here), Gabrielle of Design Mom (here), – outtakes from the DM tour (here) and with Jamie of Owl Really (here). It was a thrill, and an honor to participate in each and every one of them.

I still hit up the flea market every chance I get, and I still love sharing those trips with you. I ADORE hitting far away flea markets with internet friends, don’t you? When I see the title of a post on the Rose Bowl Flea, I settle in with the popcorn…it’s just one of those things.

Huge thanks to all of you, new and old, who take the time to stop in and share your thoughts. I’m always thrilled to hear from you, even if it’s to tell me to get off my ass and “Post the new sink pics already!” I will try to do better in 2013 with timeliness, my volunteer schedule made that really hard this year, but now that I have gotten the hang of those responsibilities, I think I can manage it all better.  For those impatient with my pitiful posting, you know where to find me……you’ll always get the goods first on Instagram.

Thanks again, and let’s kick off 2013 and do this kitchen thing…OK? I have a fun update on that front coming soon….

fireworks

Photo taken at Brandy’s house on the 4th of July…so much fun!!

 

Festive Festivities Recap

I went through my Instagrams so I could do a round up of our holidays. We are trying to get back into some semblance of a routine before school starts on Monday, just to ease us in.

Since I last updated, we did a bit more decorating…

modfrugal holiday disco 2012

From 1:30-3:30ish in the afternoon is when the disco magic starts in the kitchen…I bust out the sparkly platforms and get my boogie on…just kidding, not really. My windows are DIRTY.

modfrugal holiday 2012

modfrugal holiday 2012

I made another strand of wooden baubles with bigger spheres, since I ended up draping the first one on the white tree.

baubles on the table

We made candy! Dark chocolate crunchy and creamy peanut butter bites. Reese’s are our favorite, so it was a logical choice to start us off.

home made candy

We made our own Christmas crackers this year. We followed the tutorial here.

christmas crackers DIY

DIY crackers done

We knocked out a couple of screenprinted Minecraft T-shirts for gifts.

DIY Minecraft T

Speaking of screen printing, we also made our own wrapping paper at the Watkins College of Art Open House. These were the most fun to unwrap..I wish I had pictures of all the different patterns we made.

DIY wrapping paper

We went down to the Country Music Hall of Fame to make T-shirts with Hatch Show Print. They didn’t have as many of their vintage printing blocks as last year, but we still got fun shirts out of it.

DIY hatch show t shirts

We had a whirlwind trip to my parents for a few days…a party, presents, food, family and fun, until we had to leave to come back home on Christmas Eve.

presents

Back home, we scurried and prepared and cooked for the next day, just in time to reveal the last figure of the Star Wars Lego advent calendar…..we call him SantaMaul.

SantaMaul

modfrugal holiday

We made our first batch of homemade donuts and donut holes that morning…a lot of trouble, but very tasty. We used the Pioneer Woman’s recipe. One problem. She doesn’t tell you where to add the shortening and after reading 100 comments, not ONE person seemed to mention it, so rather than read through another 100 comments to see if it gets resolved, I went to the gold standard of Alton Brown for his recipe to find out it gets incorporated with the warm milk and yeast. Their recipes are very similar and Alton has never led me astray.

donut holes

Otto was very pleased with the treats in his stocking. He is eagerly watching a bag of them being opened here….

Otto xmas

It was a big day for him too.

tuckered out Otto

The CC was so excited about his Christmas present, he had to cut into the walls within hours. AS YOU DO.

christmas holes for speakers

He crawled under the house running wire, and by bedtime, we had music in the living room. Camouflaging art gallery wall hijinks coming soon.

LR speakers

Our new tradition for a more formal holiday meal is to make a nice boxing day dinner. None of us want to bother with cooking a big dinner on Christmas, and everyone was happy…except that I overcooked the Beef Wellington. Boooooo. It was still very tasty, but over done for me.

wellington

boxing day dinner

cracker jokes

We went down to the Rutherford county line to get some fancy sparklers for New Year’s Eve. Fireworks are banned in Davidson county, and the park rangers are always out in our neighborhood, so we have to buy quiet pyrotechnics.

sparklers

NYE also happens to be Thing One’s birthday…who is now a TEENAGER. Gulp.

13 years old!

The slumber party with 13 year olds and sparklers was exhausting…..

sparkler chaos

sparklers, not lightening

…and by New Year’s Day, we felt like Otto’s new nutcracker toy.

mangled nutcracker

Time to take down the decorations and get back to normal life.

We have spent some of our time off hatching the next renovation plan, so I’ll be back with that very soon. I hope everyone had a nice holiday, whatever you got up to!

 

Flash Forward

I’ll post up some snaps of the holidays soon, but I need to keep things somewhat chronological.

While everyone is looking back at 2012, and looking forward to what 2013 will bring, I had the chance to glimpse forward 30 years, or so I can only hope. We went to spend a few days with my parents before Christmas, and during that time, I got to crash a party..kind of.

My mom and 15 of her closest girlfriends get together a few times throughout the year to celebrate birthdays, and the holidays are no exception. This year, a couple of ladies had to miss out, so I somehow wangled an invitation. I’ve been hearing about this gig for years, so I was in! This younger generation interloper was ready to try and keep up these energetic ladies!

Because these are wizened and sensible women, they rented a limo to drive the majority of party guests to the lovely country home of this year’s hostess. There is wine involved after all.

It was every bit as cacophonous as I expected, with many talking over each other wielding insults, compliments, and all around chaotic merriment. We had a gorgeous lunch with champagne, a crackling fire, and a communal present swap where the rules had to be explained… Every. Single. Turn. It doesn’t matter they’ve been doing this every year for a few decades. The Golden Girls don’t have ANYTHING on this bunch.

Despite the fact a significant amount of time was spent discussing various forms of cancer, who died recently, who has been diagnosed with any of the dizzying variety of ailments and diseases…they laughed until they cried. This is their world now. This crew refers to MD Anderson like we refer to the grocery store. As friends, spouses, and loved ones drop away, one by one, they still have each other.

I can only hope that I am lucky enough to have that kind of support system in 30 years. Through multiple husbands, children, mastectomies and boob jobs, these ladies inspire me in many ways, and I was grateful for the chance to witness it in all it’s tipsy, giggly, somber, yet sweet glory. Thanks for having me.

Catching Up and Slowing Down

Do I still have a blog? Somedays, I’m not so sure. Here’s what’s been happening via Instagram.

We had some dear old friends in town a couple of weeks ago, and we spent hours here until the candles all burned down…we miss them!

My Christmas Cactus bloomed in November!

I finished my ceramics class and am really looking forward to next semester. I have found a teacher I really like, and respect, and I am learning so much more than I did in my last class.

I found some sparkly shoes on überclearance I am now referring to as my Holiday Hooker Shoes.

Holiday decorating will begin this weekend, preceded by the bumping, tripping and cursing involved in getting the bins down from the attic.

Every year, it’s the same. I start off well. I picked up a few things this Summer and Fall, and I’ve been trying to get all my errands and shopping done so that I can be finished by this weekend and start wrapping.  But, it never seems to work out that way.

I lay out what we have for each child, and find some glaring hole of inequity that I somehow missed. To further complicate the gift equality spectrum, Thing One’s birthday is during the holidays. I get stressed and grumble about how lucky they are to have shoes and a roof over their heads….ungrateful….blah, blah….spoiled…blah blah…..and then my little inner rant is over and I get on with it.

We recently got one of these……

….and I am reminded how lucky I am to have this kid around to hate me when he gets sent to his room. While I am not religious at ALL, quite the opposite…it brings this to mind.

The message translates loud and clear to my godless soul. I’m working on a zen holiday season. When annoying things happen, I will remember the plate.

…..remember the plate……

Our first batch of holiday gift candy FAILED. The chocolate didn’t temper properly and is too soft and gets all over you. Tastes great, but we have to start over. I hope we have enough packaging supplies to cover the fail…..

….remember the plate….

Four miles from the car, this happened to Thing One’s bike. Stripped threads and no tools meant it wasn’t going back on, so the CC and I took turns pedaling back all four miles on one pedal. 

…..remember the plate……

See, I’ve had some opportunities to test out zen holiday 2012 already, and all is well.

I think this Santa needs to remember the plate too, poor guy.