The Cleanup BEFORE The Flood

It was time. I had been putting it off for some time. I certainly couldn't use it, that's for sure. Meet, my sewing table.

Somehow, someway, my table became a catch-all....a catch-all that "caught all" fairly quickly too. With that being said, I am throwing caution to the wind and I have decided to be brutally honest here. The photo you are about to see is where I was supposed to create things. Instead, I hit a brick wall each time I walked by the table. Something definitely had to be done....

Before:
A real mess that was slowly, but surely growing.....

After:

A might better I would say. There is still too much clutter on the table but I can see that there is a table. (Don't look at the pattern sticking in my "to do" box, Janette!) I even vacuumed afterwards! I threw away 2-30 gallon trash bags of , uhm, well, trash and precious cloth scraps that I had been holding on to for far too long! A couple of weeks ago, I made the curtains you see in the photo and all that the room needs now is a fresh coat of paint. Now if I could figure out how to keep little kiddos from drawing on my rotary cutting mat in INK!

OK, that was the cleaning part. Now comes the flood part.

We are accustomed to having to call for emergency services from time to time since we live near a busy intersection but nothing prepared us for what happened the other night.

Imagine Scott and I sitting on the couch, trying to watch LOST. Then, the familiar sound of a car crash broke our concentration from figuring out what year Kate and Jack were actually in this time. We walked out on the porch, scanned the yard to see where a car landed this time. This time, it was two houses away and we saw sparks flying in the distance....or what we thought were sparks flying.

As it turned out, when a car runs over a fire hydrant, at night, the car lights reflect on the cascading water and give the appearance of sparks. (Oh, and just to let you know, the person was not injured in the car accident)

To make a long story short, here are some scenes from that night:


This was the beginning of our "flood" experience. Believe me, it is very sobering to suddenly see a river of water rushing towards your front door.

Here is the water just touching the siding on the front of the house.

We watched helplessly as the water rose and rose, closer to the top of the foundation of the house. At one point, I pulled the couch out from the wall to see if the water was coming in. Thankfully, it didn't.


It's hard to tell, but this is a river of water that was washing down one side of the house.


Here is the threshold of the basement door. Notice the water pouring out of "Mr. Slither's" escape hatch. (Mr. Slithers is the black snake that I'm petrified of, that lives in the basement and leaves his skin lying around in my path each summer)

This is a photo of just after the water slowed down (thank you Mr. Water Company Employee)

Almost a foot of dirt was washed away from this side of the driveway. The gravel came from across the road somewhere....

This used to be full of mulch if you can believe it. Now the mulch is long gone. you don't even see it in the back yard- it washed down the hill, through the woods, and into a local stream.

Here is the far side of the house where the water rushed down and uncovered the downspout from the gutter. There is still some mulch here but we have a nice little ditch there now that wasn't there before.

Overall, I had no idea that millions of gallons of water could flow that quickly from a fire hydrant. I also learned that, (thank goodness) a water company employee lives fairly close to my house.


Something tells me that we will be hauling mulch in the near future.....

A Big Pile of Lizard Looking Stuff.....

What could this pile of green lizard looking mess possibly be?

Hmmm, it has hands maybe, or is that a claw?

A long, long time ago, in a land far away (15 years ago in a Big Lots store in the upstate) , I obtained a 39 cent pattern for this little guy. (Yes, I'm serious, it was only 39 cents. You'll never see something like that again- that's for sure!) Over the years, I have managed to make all of my children one of these silly creatures except for my youngest. The problem I have had, is that I lost some key components to that pattern and had given up on the hope of making my youngest one of these creatures. After all, it's ears, neck, and tongue were missing- kind of important parts in my opinion.

One day, a light bulb went off. I said, "Hey, just take one apart and trace the pieces, you big dummy". And that is exactly what I did. Now, I have all of the pieces necessary (minus and entire bag of stuffing) to complete a new one. I checked to see if this pattern was copyrighted. It wasn't so I'm going to make some of these little guys and try to sell a few this holiday season.

All I can say for now is that if I manage to get this big guy back together again for my son, you might actually get to see what this creature will turn out to be. I haven't decided if I'm going to sell these in my Etsy shop or not. The thought has crossed my mind to just sell them here on this blog. Still working on how to set that up. (Blog store set up tips are welcome by the way- I'm clueless.)

1/2 of My Stroll Around The Block Wall Quilt

1/2 year of strolling around the block

About a year and a half ago, (long before I knew that Etsy existed) I searched the web for an idea. The "idea' that I found was making a quilted wall hanging from 12 blocks containing renditions of each month of the year, in the form of a decorated house. Each house had different backgrounds, looks, and had little personalized touches that a person could add to it and make it their own. Well, hey, I like this kind of thing. I'm not good at coming up with ideas, but I sure can run like the wind when I find a good one!

You can go to HGTV and search for details on the quilt. Unfortunately, HGTV has changed their web site and if I am not mistaken, they have removed the instructions. You can, however, see a picture of a finished stroll around the block quilt here. Hopefully, I have copies of the pattern packed away in a box somewhere...(hopefully...).

I was already partially prepared for this project too! I had a huge box of fabric scraps, thread, embroidery needles, and iron on fusible webbing. I was set! Unfortunately, I grew tired of the fabric I had on hand and devised a plan to create havoc on my friendly fabric cutter at the local fabric store. I think she shivers when she sees me. Hee heee heeee.

"Excuse me, could you cut me only 3 inches of this fabric", I would say sweetly. The lady would gladly oblige. Then I socked it to her. Unbeknown to her, my buggy was full of a stack of fabric bolts. Each bolt would require only 3 inches of fabric to be cut from them!

Why only three inches? Well, three inches was enough to get some scraps (sometimes 45" wide) and provided me with plenty of little "left overs". I didn't want a lot of the same fabrics showing up in the quilt after all.

Now, don't get me wrong, I'm not an evil person. I just think that it is funny that when I head to the fabric department now, the lady is suddenly at lunch most times. I can picture her peaking from around a floral display and saying, "arghhhh, here comes that annoying woman again!" She then takes the fastest route to the break room and hides.

Well, that fabric lady can rest easy (at least for awhile), because I've slacked off on my efforts to finish the quilt. At this moment, I only have January through June finished and I haven't had any inspiration to pick it back up. Thinking back, I think I stalled because I couldn't find any 4th of July fabric to start July with. Maybe there is some in stock now....hmmmm......got me thinking now......

I'm all about not waisting what I have so I'll walk you through each month. You know how I am, I have a story behind everything I make. It just has to be that way with me. If it isn't important for some reason or another, it just isn't worth making!

January

January was fairly simple. The plaid tree trunk was made from some John Deere fabric that I made a quilt out of for my youngest son. The grey snowman was made from fabric that I bought 11 or 12 years ago for a celebration at my oldest son's school. I made George Washington's pants from that grey fabric. The sky fabric was from some snowmen fabric that I pieced together. Boy, I butchered that fabric all to pieces! I did, however, have enough left over to make this little tote in my Etsy shop from the left overs.

February

This was the first block I made in this series. I didn't start with January like normal people would. The fence posts were made from scraps that I used to make a scarecrow costume out of for one of the kids over the years. The main house piece, just happens to be the same fabric that Annie the Baby Safe Teddy Bear is made from. George Washington's pants equals grey sky too.

March

This house was made of an extra curtain panel leftover from my living room curtains. The sky was made from some leftover material from my oldest daughter's quilt.

April

All fabric on this block was purchased new except for the sky fabric. It was leftover from a baby quilt that I made for a second cousin last summer.

May

All new fabrics on this one! (The ribbon however, is some that I purchased a long, long, long, time ago).

June

All new fabrics on this one except for the sky. I made a baby quilt from it and parts of "Blue, the baby safe teddy bear".

There you have it, after reading over what I just typed, I believe that I am way too sentimental. Maybe I remember way too many random bits of information. Maybe I have jibber jabbered long enough. Regardless, this is my "handmade" that I have been working on and hopefully, I'll get the energy to finish it this year. I'll keep you posted if I do.

"Boo Boo Tator"

"Boo Boo Tator"

A Different Version of "Boo Boo Tator"
(Although washable marker color is not recommended)

I realized that I haven't gotten very "crafty" lately and there hasn't exactly been anything exciting "Outside my Windows" either. Maybe I have exhausted every last ounce of anything that resembled creativity. Maybe I can't seem to figure out my camera and it's "particulars". Maybe I'm going through an early mid-life crisis. Who knows.

I did have that great idea to do a mini meatloaf cook along but after looking at the pictures of raw hamburger meat- let's just say that the idea of a meatloaf cook along was a bad idea. I decided to spare everyone the nasty looking photos. (I just had a cold chill just thinking about it).

Ok, so I haven't been crafty but one of my kids has. My son has created what he calls, "Boo Boo tator". Boo Boo Tator was born from the question, "What happens when you put a potato in the freezer"? The answer, it freezes. Well, this quick thinking mom got to use my son's creation fairly soon after Boo Boo Tator was completely frozen. That creative son that I was speaking of, you see, he ran through a room and bumped his foot (or was it elbow?) and was crying hysterically. Well, it just so happened that I was standing at the open freezer and spied the frozen spud.

"Here," I said. "Put Boo Boo Tator on your boo boo". Guess what happened after that? My boy stopped crying immediately and giggled. There must have been some magic in that old spud. The boo boo was forgotten.

A few nights later, I had came down with a horrendous sinus condition. I blew my nose a little too hard and you can guess what happened next. My quick thinking hubby ran to the freezer and instead of grabbing some ice, he grabbed boo boo tator and wrapped him in a wash cloth. It was 10 minutes later when my nosebleed had stopped that I realized that there was a frozen potato on my nose. (Don't worry, the boo boo tator I used was thrown away immediately- I secretly replaced it with another so my son wouldn't know)(Aren't I sneaky?). Twice in one week, a "boo boo tator had saved the day.

So folks, A Boo Boo Tator is the simplest and easiest of all home made crafts that I could come up with to share with you this week. Now take this knowledge and go freeze a spud.