Wednesday, October 31, 2007

Happy Halloween


Happy Halloween! Yes, I am one of those people that dressed their dogs up for Halloween.... I know. I know. But the costumes were just too cute to pass up. So I had to buy them. Lily lasted in hers for about 10 minutes but Sammy lasted in hers for over an hour.

We also dressed up. Just not tonight. Hopefully I will have pictures to post tomorrow of Ben & me in our costumes. Tonight we had about 10 trick-or-treaters. Not too bad considering there are no children on our block.

Here are a few more pictures of the dogs:




Thursday, October 25, 2007

My office


I have been working on making my part of the basement a more workable office. One thing I was lacking is somewhere to hang my inspiration & trend photos. Normally I make trend boards on foam core but I have no where & no way to hang them up. So I had to come up with another way to display.
When we moved to our new building at work, each person with an office got a full wall of cork tiles. So they had a bulletin board the size of an entire wall. So I thought about buying an over sized bulletin board to hang up. They were more expensive than I wanted to spend, but I found cork tiles of my own. Perfect!
So I bought some & hung them on the wall above my desk. Of course, the sticky pads they came with didn't work. The tiles kept falling off. So I finally glued them to the wall last night. And, presto! I had a reusable trend/inspiration board.
And yes, I drew the pictures hanging on either side of the board. The desk is an old student desk. It came from the elementary school my great-great-aunt went to. And my grandfather painted it blue. Some day I plan to strip it & stain it back to it's original color, which was a dark mahogany/cherry color. Someday.

Wednesday, October 24, 2007

Wedding Quilt


So my dear, sweet sister-in-law, Ellen, made us a beautiful quilt for our wedding. We got it during their visit in July. We have been using it for a few weeks now that the weather is cooling off at night. I finally got around to taking a couple of pictures of it this weekend. So while the bed was made & there were no animals on it, I tried to figure out how to get the best shot.

It is a difficult quilt to take of picture of that does it justice. It fades from light at the top to dark at the bottom. But since our bed literally takes up the whole room, it was hard to get the effect. But, trust me, it is a beautiful piece of work.

And she took the time to add 2 calla lilies appliques at the bottom corner. They are my favorite flower, so it was quite appropriate. The quilt pattern is a cool, funky swirl pattern which also fits me perfectly.
So thank you, Ellen, for the beautiful wedding gift. We really do love it & really are using it.

Tuesday, October 23, 2007

Trophy


So we have a little football pool going on at work. Each week we pick who will win a game (normally the Sunday night game) and how many points total scored. The winner gets a non-alcoholic drink of their choice.
So the game we bet on over the weekend was the Steelers vs Broncos. I was grumpy because I can not go against the Broncos, being the die-hard fan that I am. And after watching the embarrassment a couple of weeks ago by the Chargers, I was sure the Broncos were going to lose this one too. But I had no choice, I had to pick the Broncos.
Miracle of miracles, they actually won the game! And so the oh-so-beautiful trophy landed on my desk. It consists of a candlestick, bundt cake pan & football wrapped in foil. Isn't it lovely? Aren't I lucky to have it on my desk all week? I bet you are jealous :)

Free Beer

So Saturday night Ben, Margaret (my sister) and I went to see one of my favorite bands, Jackopierce at the Soiled Dove Underground.

The Soiled Dove is a really great place to see a concert for grownups. They have tables to sit at & a bartender that brings the drinks to you. Very chic. We of course sat up front because I did not want to be back with the talkers.

After the opening act, Creede Williams (who was hilarious & decent music too), the waitress brought me 2 extra beers "from the band". I freaked out for a little bit about why I got the free beers, since I was sitting there with my husband, but my sister suggested that it was because I was sitting front row center. And that made sense to me.

The concert was absolutely awesome. Jackopierce is my favorite band to see live. It is all acoustic but there is still so much energy. And they love Colorado, it's like a 2nd home to them. I knew every single song except for the new one. I was probably pretty funny to watch because I was literally bouncing in my seat, clapping, screaming & singing every word along with them. You know you have seen a band a few too many times when you can tell which song they are going to sing before the 1st words come out of their mouths :) This was my 11th time seeing them. (Most of those times were while I was in college though.)

Every semester they would come play at The Blue Note around finals. You had to buy tickets the day they went on sale otherwise it would sell out. I saw them every semester except for 1st semester my freshman year. There was always a bunch of us that would go & inevitably we would run into others that we knew & have a huge group up front. The concerts are some of my most memorable times from college.

Thursday, October 18, 2007

New shoes

So I have a slight problem. I either have flip flops & sandals or boots to wear. I only have 1 pair of plain old shoes to wear. Which sucks right now because it is too cold for flip flops but not every day is boot weather.

So I went out last night to find a pair of shoes to add to my collection that will work during the fall transition time. And I found the most comfy new pair. Normally when I buy shoes, I end up with a blister or 10 on my feet by the end of the day. But not with these shoes. Not a single place being rubbed wrong or a single sore spot. I love them!!! And want them in every color! I totally recommend them.

(if you click on the picture above, it should be linked to more info about the shoes.)

Monday, October 15, 2007

Cleaning & other business

Our weekend was spent mostly cleaning & working. We desperately needed to clean since it has been a little while & I can not stand the clutter & dust any more. I even moved an old dresser into the kitchen as temporary additional storage. We desperately need more drawers because we only have one drawer for all our cooking utensils which was overflowing. You often have to shake it to get it open or closed. But now I have space for all the utensils, the kitchen towels & even a place for our napkins & place mats. Hopefully soon I will be able to find a bakers rack or some kind of hutch that a) I like, b) is not an enormous piece of furniture and c) don't have to pay out the nose for.

The other part of the weekend was spent working on Ben's new business. He & his father have been discussing for some time now about going into property investment & management. And finally on Friday they decided to go for it and put an offer on a house. The house is a 3 bed 1 bath in desperate shape. We looked at it on Saturday & I wanted to cry when we were done. The outside doesn't look too bad. The yard is dead & littered with trash. But the inside was horrendous. I still can not believe that people live like this. The entire house was stained & filthy. Paint was splattered all over the living room (even on the TV). There were so many flies in the house that there was fly tape hanging in the dining room. In the kitchen, there were gnats all over, eggs sitting on the counter & about 1/2 the cabinet doors were missing. And the back door does not have a door knob, only a deadbolt.

There were 4 kids left home alone. All probably under the age of 9. The front door was unlocked. And no one told them we were coming over to look at the house. But they were not worried or scared there were strangers walking through the house.

And the worst part was there was a bright, shiny new truck in the driveway. These people were taking better care of a car then a house where children lived.

I felt amazingly blessed for the environment I grew up in & live in. And sad that there are children being raised in that environment. I can not fully explain the disgusting state this house was in.

But, we find out in about 2 weeks if the bank accepted the offer. If so, I will post some pictures so you can see what it looks like.

Saturday, October 13, 2007

Brand name

So my business needs a new name. Another woman has already taken susu designs & is using it to design Greek wear. So I have to come up with something else. And this time get it registered so it is mine.


So I have posted a poll to see which one of the options you think sounds best. If you come up with something else that is not listed, feel free to leave it in the comments.

Thanks for your help!

Friday, October 12, 2007

Big Step

Ok, so remember the whole reason for me starting this blog? Well, I obviously have not done a very good job of working toward it, have I?. I keep letting life get in the way.

BUT...

I have now taken a big step to start working on my own line. I have purchased a dress form!





I bought the smallest one in this picture. One of me reasons for procrastination was not having a professional way to photograph my clothes. I found these on ebay for only $80 (including shipping). It is something to help me get started; I will get a fancier one when later when I have made a little money from my business.

So there will now be more posts about my designing & links to where I am selling.

Friday, October 5, 2007

Before & After

We have spent the last couple of months working on our front yard. We had a total of 13 evergreen bushes, some of which were dying and some were too big for the space they were planted in. Oh, and Ben & I are not big fans of THIS many evergreens.

So here is a before picture that was taken on August 19. Notice the abdundance of green bushes, but brown yard :)

And here is the after taken this morning. I wanted to wait until my mums had started to bloom so there was a little bit of color. I love how you can see the rocks now. Before, the bushes were so big, you could not see all the beautiful rocks. Oh, and look how green our yard in now all thanks to the fixed sprinkler system.


We still have some more work to do before this project is actually finished. We have 30 years of needles to clean up in some places still. And all of the beds need to be cleaned out & re-edged. The yard needs to be re-seeded with drought tolerant & super sunny grass. And I need to plant some bulbs, flowers & other plants to add some color to the yard.

I am going to plant bulbs in the next week or so & the rest of the project will probably have to wait until spring time. Stay tuned for pictures in the spring of all the tulips, daffodils & crocuses in bloom.

Thursday, October 4, 2007

"new" sewing machine


A couple of weeks ago we stopped at a estate sale & found a vintage sewing machine. I was debating on whether or not to buy it when the lady said she would sell it to us for $30. I didn't need it, but couldn't pass it up for that price. Could you? So I added it to my small collection of machines. 4 sewing machines & 1 serger.

It has been sitting in my car since then waiting for me to figure out the model number & when it was made. Finally today I did some research at lunch contacted Singer, and discovered it was manufactured on February 18, 1914 in New Jersey. Unfortunately, it is not a much-coveted featherweight (which weren't made until 1933), but is a model 66.

I did find out some interesting facts about it too:
- originally it was a treadle machine & later was coverted to electric.
- the model 66 was introduced in 1900. It was seen as the machine for the new century due to the high arm style.
- it was also the 1st machine to have a fully enclosed needlebar, round bobbin and a horizontal oscillating hook. Most modern machine still use this principle.
- the decoration on the machine is Eygptian designs which was very popular at the time.

A couple of other interesting facts I learned were:
- In 1850, Singer made the 1st practical sewing machine by changing the direction parts moved. And also used the treadle instead of a hand crank (which was how all other machines were run at the time).
- the first Singer sewing machine cost $100 (in the early 1850's!!!).