Wordless Wednesday: Soccer Phenomenons

Running, Football, and Tuscaloosa

Those are a few of his favorite things.  Husband, that is.  

A few weeks ago when it looked like we were on the cusp of spring, we drove to Tuscaloosa, ran around campus for an hour (that double stroller is getting heavier and heavier), then played football on the quad, then enjoyed the river walk, then had lunch at Pepitos.  (holy run on sentence, Batman.)  

It was pretty much Husband's dream day.   And he deserved it.

My mini football team

Wordless Wednesday: Beach Babies and a Pier

He asked for a football pillow

So a football pillow is what he got.  We had a minor miscommunication early on.  Turns out he wanted an actual football shaped pillow.  I forced him to settle for a pillow covered in footballs.  He loves it anyway.

look at those dirty feet.

inexpensive fabric from Hobby Lobby, pillow filling and quilt batting leftovers I already had = super cheap football pillow.

Pinterest: Contact Paper into Frosted Glass

About a year ago it really started bugging me that we the top maybe 1/5 of our front door and the entire dining room door was clear uncovered glass.  It bothered me that any person as tall as me could easily look in our front door and see the living room, office, dining room, and the long hall to the bathroom.  It bothered that the neighbors that lived across the street from our dining room door always seemed to be sitting on their front porch when we were sitting down to eat dinner.  It was borderline creepy.

I'd thought about curtains or blinds but I didn't really want to do much to keep the sunlight out.  I just wanted to feel a little less exposed.

Thank you, Pinterest.   I found this great pin that led to this great blog (not just this one post, her whole blog is pretty great.)

I already had contact paper.  score.  I decided to use the stencil for the front door and solid blocks for the dining room.

And I ended up tracing my stencil right off the computer screen because we didn't have ink in the printer at the time!  seriously, I didn't even want to wait for printer ink.  After lots of tracing and lots of cutting out and measuring, I gave it a go.

I probably should have worked slower and took my time, but well, I was excited and I rushed through getting it finished.  It's not perfect, but I really like it and I think it's much improved!

I put the contact paper on last summer (talk about slow on posting!) and I haven't had any trouble with any of it peeling off.  

front door glass

the dining room door

Farmer's Wife Sampler Quilt (Part 1 - March 2013)

 Jennifer invited me to join her in sewing/making/quilting the Farmer's Wife Sampler Quilt.  I'm all about sampler quilts.  So, off to buy the book I went.  I finally had to settle for amazon.com for my copy because no bookstore, crafting store or quilting store in my area had it.

She wanted to use paper piecing to do the blocks.  fantastic. I love paper piecing.  It's so precise and there are NO pins to slow me down!!

So I joined the Farmer's Wife Sampler Quilt Along Group on yahoo! They have templates for paper piecing   and a very active message board and LOTS of pictures.

I decided to use some fabric I already had from Connecting Threads. I think it's the autumn collection or something similar.

For March, I set a goal for myself to construct 10 blocks.  I did it.  Well, I finished the 10th block on April 1, but I included in my batch for March.  I skipped 3. Basket.  I wasn't ready for it.  I needed to think on that one a little (spoiler alert, it'll be in the April batch) But I'm trying to work mostly in order.  I did skip number 11 and went straight to 15 because it was the next easiest one and I wanted to get finished!

In no particular order:

1. Attic Windows

2. Autumn Tints

10. Bowtie

4. Basket Weave.
Husband was startled when I showed him this one.  Yes, it looks like a swastika. I could  have modified it but I didn't.

15. Buzzard's Roost
See why I skipped ahead to this one?  It was easy!

6. Big Dipper

5 Bat Wing

8. Bouquet -- I LOVE the clean lines on this one.  

7. Birds in the Air
this is the first one that made me think, "WOW, these blocks are tiny." But I'm pretty  sure it won't be the last.

9. Box
This one was REALLY hard for me to figure on how to paper piece.  I ended up  just doing the conventional way because I was just doing a lot of staring and not a lot of understanding.  I might end up redoing this one because I'm not very pleased with some of the joining pieces.

The coloring of the fabric seems to be a little off in the pictures.  I'm using natural light plus, taking all the pictures on my yellow cutting mat.  For example: the sickly yellow looking background in Box is actually a really pale pea green.

Wordless Wednesday: Back Seat Driver

Me and The 1000 Miles Challange

Yes. You read that correctly.  No, no typo.  1,000 miles.  

Here's what it means:

On March 4, Husband emailed me from work, as he often does, and wrote something like, "If I run 5.5 miles every other day, I can go 1000 miles in a year."  At the time, He'd been running a 10k (6.2 miles) every two days, so I replied that he could definitely do it, because he's so close to it already. He's a great runner, really focused and has ideas for running a half marathon in the future.  Basically, I gave him a reply designed to pump him up and get him in the right mind frame to do something I thought he could do.  He replied back, "you could do it too. You're a great runner."

What?  seriously, something I don't even think I'm a runner. Mostly because I'm lazy and can easily go two weeks without putting on my running shoes and not feel the least bit guilty about losing momentum.  But he had a point.  At the time, I was running right at 5 miles in an hour at least twice a week and sometimes 3 times.

Of course, I replied back with when do we start this challenge?, what are the rules?, and what is the prize for completing it?

We settled on TODAY or that day, rather. March 4, 2013 to March 4, 2014.

We can count all runs and walks we log on our Sports Tracker app and I can count all treadmill runs and walks.   (Husband doesn't really touch the treadmill)  We will not count hikes (which I think is bunk) or bicycle rides (which I understand, a little)

Husband said our prize will be looking at ourselves in the mirror with no clothes on.  :-/   I respond better to actual prizes, but smaller clothes will definitively be a byproduct so I can get behind that.

Here's a little prospective on my insanity: I have to log 2.8 (rounded slightly up) miles a day to fulfill my 1,000 miles challenge.  Also, 1,000 miles is roughly from our house in north/central Alabama all the way to New Haven, Conneticut. 

spoiler alert: I'm already behind.  But excited nonetheless.

I'm insane.  But please, help me stay accountable.

the shoes that will start me on my journey.

BTW, this is in no way an April Fools' Day joke.  But, HAPPY 4th Birthday to Fergus Adoniram