Budget Minded Modernist
The new August 1st start date for school ended our summer a little early this year. When we got back from Maine, we hit the ground running, and I feel like I’m finally starting to get a handle on things as we settle into the school year. Here are a ton of snaps from the end of the summer..mostly the magic that is Maine, and a few back home taking Otto to his first concert…Woofstock.
Triple digit heat and no rain for weeks has our woodland friends gasping for a drink. We’ve started running the back sprinkler at dusk (no water bans yet) and it’s been drawing in a show every night.
This drives Otto nuts, and he’ll scare them away by barking through the window, so he has to be crated while we watch the wildlife and let them have a nice long drink. When they are up the hill, he’s cool with them, but when they come in this close, he gets territorial.
Oh, and if you ever wondered if fawns lift a leg, or what not…the answer is no…female dog style squat.
The fawns aren’t the only visitors to the sprinkler in the evenings. We’ve had baby owls too….I can’t seem to get a good shot of the “wing spread shimmy” they do in the water. I really need to take a photography class!
Good idea wildlife. It’s too hot to be outside without water, so the CC picked up a mister at Lowe’s for $16, and it has made a huge difference. We love it so much that we now have plans to install a hidden misting system so we can be outside all summer without keeling over.
The lady Vizslas love this shot……..
Otto has a knack for taking his rawhide chews and turning them into stogies. We have these shots we call the High Plains Drifter series we thought you might find funny, or not.
He’s almost 9 months old, very much a puppy personality, but when he sits there with his rawhide cigar, he looks like a wizened old man.
‘Memba when he looked like this? Just under 6 months ago?
These months of hard living, with obscene amounts of attention, and he becomes……..
BTW, Adam was always my favorite Beastie….
I’ve been Instagramming, but not blogging…again. That’s why I set up the tweets to import a weekly post, so those Instagram photos are available here as a post instead of just in the sidebar. Do we like this, or notsomuch?
Would you rather I perdiodically post the photos as a recap on the blog, or is the weekly tweet recap good enough? This is a poll, without my having to activate a poll plug-in, so I’ll be looking for some piping up from you fine people.
Here’s just a very little of what’s been going on…some have been on Instagram and some never quite made it.
We had another evening of treehouse glamping, where there might have been a jedi lightsaber show.
I don’t know anything about editing and resizing video, or I’d show you some moves, but the file is too big to upload here.
The lightcube glowing through the treehouse window was our nightlight.
Otto spent half an hour staring down this deer one day, and will watch them as long as they hang around. He seems cool with them, and doesn’t bark often. It’s the chipmunks that seem to piss him off.
These are two projects currently in progress. The CC is building a firewood shelter/shed which will also hide our ugly air conditioning units when finished.
I am working on a pair of Keller chairs. The CC doesn’t think I am we are ready for the living room chairs yet, since the bottoms might be a bit complicated for newbies like us.
Otherwise it’s been cooking, digging, mulching, weeding and hanging by campfires. Y’know, springtime stuff.
One of our favorite farmers markets opened today, so that makes us happy…but the humidity started to roll in this week, which makes us sad..and sweaty.
Don’t forget to let me know what you think about my attempts to integrate the different media. If you want to follow me on Instagram, I’m @modfrugal, same as Twitter.
I didn’t blog much over the Holidays since I’ve become such a fan of Instagram. It doesn’t mean I won’t ever be back here, but it has definitely changed the way I share. Being able to snap on the go minus all the time required for a blog post=more time for family and friends=good thing. I’m switching the link on the side to Followgram over Instagrid since I think it’s more comprehensive. Anyway, here’s what we’ve been up to.
There were Ninjabread Men…..
and Star Wars Pancakes….. (Thanks LBJ and JJ!)
We made our very first Gingerbread house! It’s never been my thing, but after seeing an A-Frame at Trader Joes, I couldn’t resist. We had a blast making it. Next year we might try again, baking all the pieces ourselves…The CC thinks we should make a mini treehouse!
and there was daily Elfing…..
A road trip…..
…and back home in time for Christmas.
The first signs of doubt…heartbreaking. Hoping this wasn’t our last year for the magic…but if it was, I like to think we made the most of it.
Of course, there were gratuitous puppy shots…..
On New Year’s Eve, we hosted a slumber party with an art project…the ubiquitous crayon melting project.
This was mine……
and here’s the gallery of the kids’ creations….
I showed them photos from here and here in order to give them more ideas with different styles. I loved how everyone made something unique, and they had such a good time. There was (outside) doubt about whether boys would get into such a project, and when they were done and so proud of their creations, I felt quite pleased that maybe all my ideas aren’t so bad after all!
For what it’s worth, here’s my take on this project. I found that the embossing heat gun (white one above) was the best tool. The hair dryer puts out too much air, so we tended to use that to create splatter patterns and not so much for melting. A tea light flame isn’t quite strong enough and gets extinguished easily, so we subbed out a taper candle.
Time to start packing up the decorations and get organized. We haven’t printed out the annual list yet, so lots to do to ring in 2012…Happy New Year!
UPDATE: Hung the yellow piece in the bedroom. Things are still deciding where to hang theirs.
Fun with photography apps!
A few favorite ornaments seemed to be a good place to play around…..
These first two are from my childhood….my parents picked them up for me on their travels in the 70’s.
A family favorite was “Pancho Claus” picked up south of the border. He was a candle in the form of Santa wearing a sombrero….the wick came out of the top of his hat. One brutally hot summer he melted in the attic and we mourned his loss, not unlike a pet. What?! It was the 70’s and Pancho Claus was cool I tell you….Trust.
These glittery little beauties were found at estate sales in my 20’s….from someone elses childhood.
Um…all birds. Sorry.
The red flocked deer below belonged to my parents, and I adored them growing up. They used to be on our dining room table every year, in front of a silver punchbowl full of poinsettias. Sometime in my 20’s or early 30’s, I begged for them, and they were kind enough to oblige. The vintage brass deer candle holders are a recent Etsy purchase.
Felt circles bought from Fred Flare a few years ago are sill holding strong….
On the puppy front, Otto is growing very fast and into everything…..he even tried to chew the lights!
He is Ottofabulous the LoveShark. Sometimes he’s Pushkin (the CC wanted to name him that at one point, so it’s one of his bazillion nicknames.)
What are some of your favorite holiday decorations? Hannukah, Chinese New Year, etc.. Is there a piece from your childhood that you cherish, or have you gotten something new that will be a keeper for years?
 Photos brought to you by Diptic, Hipstamatic, Big Lens and Instagram. I found a plug- in that imports the Instagram photos to the right sidebar, so the latest snaps will be there. I swear, I will pick up the SLR again at some point.
