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not for sale

I found this oil painting at the Habitat ReStore Thrift shop this morning.  I thought it needed someone to love it as I believe it was once quite loved.

Check out the back of the painting.  

boys being boys and a very large dog

I thought I would share these photos from the past week.  On Saturday, we went to a craft fair exhibit.  The vendors were actually spread out all over a baseball field.  I couldn't resist these handmade wooden cars for the boys.  Deacon and Owen immediately placed them on the ground to roll them around.  They've been playing with them quite often all week.  Deacon is actually napping with his as I type this.

And here we are at the Winthrop Baseball game.

And here's a freebie for you.  I had a gig with a friend, Hannah Miller on Saturday night.  It was a venue in downtown Charlotte and people could actually bring their dogs into the place.  Here we are with the largest dog I've ever seen.

A giveaway in the spirit of music

Tonight I'll be playing again at the Sylvia Theater in York.  It is such a lovely venue to play at.  It is a turn of the century movie theatre turned concert venue-- but still a movie theater.  When they have concerts, they just raise up the screen and there's the stage.  Tonight's show will be filmed and televised on a local channel.  I'm pretty sure they will pass on the videos to me so that I can throw them up on my myspace page.

I'm really excited to play a new song that I've written on piano.  It's a really sweet lullaby that is so fun to play and sing.  I've been practicing it all morning so that I don't mess it up.  I hope it will be a nice way to close out my portion of the night.  The show will end with a grand finale of all three songwriters playing a cover song together.  Not sure what we'll play yet.  

I've been meeting more local musicians here in Rock Hill and am excited to start to work my way into the local community here.  There's a songwriter group that meets this Monday night.  I think I just may throw the guitar in the car and make an appearance.  

Finally, in the spirit of songwriting and music, I'd like to give away my album to a lucky reader.  All you have to do is comment on THIS post.  I'll announce the RANDOMLY CHOSEN winner on Wednesday, April 8th.  You can hear samples of the songs on my MySpace page.  (I just added more songs to my profile).

Cheers.

Bedroom Progress

I'm very happy with the color that I chose for the bedroom.  It is from Glidden (ICI) paints and the color is called Fossil Gray.  It is perfect.  After painting 6 rooms in this house, this is the first color that actually turned out exactly the way I wanted it to.  

I was about to run to the store on Tuesday to buy curtain rods, but as I was walking through our yard with a friend, we discovered all sorts of Bamboo growing near the edge of our property.  So I'm going to saw some off and make curtain rods with bamboo.  Won't that be neat?  I'm trying to figure out what else to do with all this bamboo.  

I would like to make some fabric art like this with our monogram on it and hang it above the bed.  I would also like to a nice summery bedspread to use and fold this quilt up at the bottom of the bed.  This quilt is quite special to us as it was hand stitched with over 4500 pieces by Andy's Grandmother.  It was a wedding gift from her.  Isn't it lovely? I really do love the feeling of sleeping under a nice soft and thin cotton quilt.

The shirt that should have been an apron all along

This shirt was $1 from the thrift store.  It took me about 15 minutes to transform this teeny-bopper tank into a motherly apron.  That was fun.  

I'm planning on embellishing it a bit with some lace, but I ran out of thread in my bobbin, so that meant it was time to quit.

I think Devona would be proud of me.

Clever Nesting

My dear friends, Devona and Colleen have begun a project called Clever Nesting.  They have become quite the inspiration to me as they reuse and repurpose all things that most people throw away.  It is helping me think twice about throwing things into the trash or recycle.  Check them out and support their cause.

Some of the music I've been listening to lately...

In the Car: Joshua Tree, U2

As I'm painting our bedroom (that's a whole 'nother post): Robinella

On an afternoon run: Boxer, The National

When I'm supporting local music: Dylan Sneed,  Hannah Miller and Mark Mathis

When I need inspiration to practice my banjo: Crooked Still, Tallest Man

While the kids are playing: The Weepies

After the kids go to bed and before I do: Mason Jennings

When Andy's coming home and I want him to be in an especially good mood: M.Ward

During Family Devotions: The 10 Commandments

When I'm rocking Owen to sleep in the middle of the night watching the Public television channel: The Police Reunion Tour

Now back to painting... Before, during and after pictures will follow this week.

Cheers.

I can make it!

While following some crazy rabbit trail about making children's clothing, I found this great site called "You Can Make This."  I downloaded the pattern for the boy's (and girl's) romper.  It was just all too perfect for my needs, with sizes from 3mo to 4T.  I could make pants, shorts, little ones for O and big ones for D.  These are simply my FAVORITE sorts of things to dress my boys in during the hot SC summer months.  

While I'd like, someday, to be able to truly call myself a sewer, I have to admit that for a while I was really scared of making anything involving curves and patterns.  It just seemed like too much attention to detail to me.  I've made appliques for t-shirts once for the boys, along with a couple of backpacks, but no clothing.  While this romper was rather simple to make with the pattern, there would be no way I could do this without one.  This was my first attempt at sewing clothes and I am so happy with the outcome.

They still need buttons, but aren't they cute?  This is a light seersucker fabric lined with white cotton.  I'm going to leave them long for a few more months and then hem them shorter when it warms up.  This is the 18mo size.  I'm planning to make a bigger one for Deacon using this fabric.   I'll probably  applique a train on them, or maybe an airplane.  These will be their Easter outfits this year--if I can make it happen.  (Andy says I should leave off the trains, planes and automobiles until after Easter.  I'm not sure that's necessary.)

I noticed that the colors really match Owen's name train that he got for his first birthday from grandma.  Maybe I'll get Owen's photo taken while wearing the romper and playing with the trains.  Won't it be so cute?  He really is rather photogenic, don't you think?

He's a little bit cartoony too.  Once I get buttons on it and my camera back, I'll take pics of Owen wearing them.  (Photobooth doesn't have a "kids and pets" function, so there's no way I could get a clear picture of him using the computer.)

My to do list

So, I keep on reading different sites that make me want to make things. I'm going to jot them down here so that I know where to look when I actually get around to doing them.

Make White Bean Soup

Dye Play Silks with Kool-Aid -this one would be great to do with my sisters next time we get together

Rainbow in a Bag

A Pillow like this - Maybe a good one to handsew on a roadtrip

Fabric Balls 

T-Shirt Stencils -These are way too cool!

three ball cascade

We are on a two hour delay here at my house. Everybody went to bed last night two hours later than normal, woke up later, ate later etc. I'm still in shock that it is already 3:30 in the afternoon. I just finished lunch! Things in our house have been a little bit strange lately. We got back from our Ohio trip almost a week ago. South Carolina weather has been so great. We were even able to spend a good bit of Saturday doing some spring cleaning while the boys took wonderfully long afternoon naps. I can now see most of the floor and walls of the sun room of our house. This is quite an accomplishment.

I've been really jealous of Andy lately because he could juggle so well. Deacon really likes to watch him juggle things and often hands him three balls to juggle. When Andy wasn't around, he would ask me to juggle and I would try to throw two balls in the air, my sorry excuse for juggling. Eventually, I would actually try to juggle and fail miserably time and time again. After chasing balls all over the house, under couches and chairs, i decided that I wouldn't learn to juggle without some proper juggling balls. So I got some balloons and rice and made my own juggling balls. I even enlisted Deacon's help with making them. He thought it was so much fun. I wouldn't say I'm a pro, but I have been practicing for a few days now. I am not too shabby... for a girl.