A New Bag

Presidents day means a day off for my husband. We like to try to go do something fun on these days off but it was just too dang cold today and we are all to one degree or another getting over colds here so we didn't do much.

I made some homemade marshmallows, well attempted to I think they are going to get remelted for rice crispy treats as they seem to be a little too sticky this time around. I also made a big pot of spegetti sauce, this was all before 10 am.

We then made a run out to take my good sewing machine to the repair shop, again, the third time in 6 months :(.

Luckily I have a backup machine, not the greatest but it works. So when we got home from all the running I decided to do a little sewing for myself. I can't remember the last time I made something for me and not something for someone else or baby diapers. Well I made a diaper bag so it's not all for me.

I used this tutorial and adapted it to work with this old military blouse.
And made a nice bag that looks like this
And pockets on the back
and on the inside too
I'm going to give it a try, it's not quite as big as I was wanting it, I'm trying to go back to full time cloth diapering which means needing a pretty big bag to go out with. It was a nice simple and fun project to do on a relaxing "day off"

Clean Sweep

I have the itch to organize something big time right now. I just feel this NEED to get my house running as smoothly as possible and that means going through and getting rid of the extra things that are just taking up space. This could have something to do with the fact that I put some things in our storage room and now cannot get into it because some totes fell in front of the door thus blocking entry, it could be that when my husband brought up the possibility of staying at this base an additional 4 years and I asked him if he would want to move at that point and he said no that my mind is now going OK we are pretty comfortable here with our two children but we plan to add more and well it's going to get a little crowded.

Somethings need to be kept, I really do like to get my china out and use it, someday we will have long Sunday dinners with the table set with the best dishes, to be honest I want a second set that is English, I am living in England after all I should have a set of English china as a souvenir. I don't really want to buy all new Christmas decor, or other holidays for that matter, and one day like the Sunday dinners, I will have it together enough to decorate for the changing season. But do I really need to keep the toys that cost me $3 at the thrift shop, or the $20 high chair? Well the baby IS using th high chair right now but you get the point, I probably do not. I'm even wondering if I REALLY need that extra freezer in my kitchen, though it's not really in the way and it is a good place to feed the cat.

So now I'm off to continue to purge and organize my house.

So what are you reading?

This is the pile of books I'm currently reading. My mom wouldn't be surprised by this, she often said she wished she had not taught us to read because she could never get our noses out of books. So what's there?

Eat Fat, Lose Fat by Mary Enig and Sally Fallon

Organize Now, a week-by-week guide to simplify your space and your life- Jennifer Ford Berry

One Year to an Organized Life-Regina Leeds

The Bible

a couple of catalogs because I need to order some clothing

The Coconut Oil Miracle-Bruce Fife

Civilization, A New History of the Western World- Roger Osborne

The Good News About Women's Hormones- Geoffrey Redmond MD

The Hormonally Vulnerable Woman-Geoffrey Redmond MD

Suppermom Has Left the Building (that book has moved since I took the pic and I do not remember who it is by)

So what are you reading right now?

Back, maybe....

So I logged on to blogger for the first time in months. I have had update my blog on my to-do list for a while now but find more "important" things to do. In the last few months I havn't been all that createive. Blame the gloomy English winter or pregnancy but I just have not had the will to do more than what had to be done. I have done a few things and I am working on getting photos of them to put up.

I am in the midst of making newborn diapers and covers, I have much of them cut I'm just waiting on supplies to come that I have ordered and most likely will not get them done until the end of May since I want to put bamboo velor on the indside of them and well I special ordered a bunch of it, so lets hope my new born diapers get done before I have a new born, LOL.

Here is a picture of one diaper I did make while exprimenting with diaper making. I made several proto types and eventualy drafted my own patteren because most of the patterens I printed off the internet wound up way too small and now Livi has a few diapers for her dolls. This diaper I made from an old polo shirt that Justin no loger wanted.

I made a Mai Tia carrier a couple of months ago and think I will really like it, unfortualty I have not been able to try it out because Olivia runs and hides every time I get it out. I would love to try it and take some pics but I don't think it's going to happen unless I put it on the dress manaquine and put a doll in it.

I also recently made a pair of pajamas and a dress for Olivia but I have not taken photos because Olivia loves these and also has learned to use the camera so wants to be the photographer instead of having the picture taken of her. Eventualy I will sneak photos of these things.

I have lots of other projects on the list and am working through them along with looking for a new house and preparing for baby to come. I hope I can keep up on this blog, but I'm not making promises.

Life Update

We took Olivia to the Linton Zoo on Monday, it was an OK trip but really I wish we had gone to the bigger zoo. I had been there before when I worked with youth services and so I knew it wasn't a big zoo and that there were not a lot of animals there but I was disappointed really this time, many of the cages were so overgrown you couldn't see anything. Olivia did enjoy it though and we saw lions, tigers, owls, parrots, zebras, turtles, giant tortoises, and many other animals I can't remember all the names.

We have some more trips planned in the next few weeks as my DH has some extra time off, we plan to see some castles and go to some towns we havn't been to yet

I know some of you would like to see pictures from here, I would love to share and hope to but my computer is a pain to upload and edit them, not good when you are trying to do an online store. I think I'm going to start looking at the mac books at the BX, I'm not impressed with VISTA can't use the word processor that came with my computer without a product key and there is no SD card reader on this thing (I bought it in February!!!!). Also we have not gotten back into the grove of taking pictures, so far what we have done has pretty much been going to the High Street and that is pretty much mundane for us though I know some of you it is knew and exciting.

What, I have a blog?

OK so I know it's been forever since I updated here and I have a whole long list of excuses, really. To start with my old computer died a very sudden and tragic death. The video card and hard drive both went at the same time. I was very attached to that computer, I also had not back anything up on it so I lost a lot. Luckily Justin had transferred the pictures we had taken of Olivia over to his computer so we did not loose those, but everything else was gone. We bought a new computer right away but I do not like this one the primary reason being that it does not have an SD card reader which makes blogging and posting things for sale on ETSY rather inconvenient. I have found the cord for my camera however I don't like that process as well as I like popping the SD card into the computer and getting the pictures that I needed.




Add into that finishing up with our move and well that just made life a little more stressed, but we are done with that for a while now and settled into our new house for the most part. Sometime I will post pictures as I know there are some out here who want to see it.




Before we left the States we spent three weeks with our family in Illinois we had a wonderful time and got to spend a lot of time with my brothers and their wives. I love having sisters after having had only my brothers for so long its so nice to have sisters to hang out with and do fun girl type stuff with. My youngest brothers wife and I went off a couple of times and did girl things like searching Joann's for the prefect fabric for a pettieskirt (I'm getting a foot in the mail to make it Devan I haven't forgotten) or going to a tea house to eat. We also all went out to a local pub for dinner and some drinks, it was so nice to be together too bad we are all over the world.






Devan also took some awesome family pictures of us.

When we got here we pretty much focused on finding a house and settling in. Well that's done now and I finally have a room that I can sew in so you can look for postings hopefully to be more frequent both on here and in my shop.



Now to leave you with the latest item in my shop this clothes pin apron.

How Cute is this

Olivia is growing so much, physically and cognitively. She is really starting to do some cute things.
This morning I wasn't feeling well, DH gave me a quick back rub before he left for work (too much floor scrubbing yesterday). As he was giving me the back rub Olivia came up and rubbed my feet, just like I do when she is feeling icky.
This afternoon DH was doing some grooming on our Persian cat. The cat does not like to be groomed and was whining. The whole time Olivia sat at the gate into the kitchen and stared and whined right along with the cat.
She has also started patting our back when she wants her back patted, and letting us know that she needs a diaper change.
So much fun!

It's been awhile

Wow! The last month has just flown. We have been very busy gearing up for our move and now I think we will be breathing a little easier for a few months.



We have a couple of very small projects to do and the house will be put up for sale, hopefully by the first of December.



I spent three weeks and three visits to vets trying to get our pets started on the import process into the UK. It's a complicated six month process that has to be done right or the go into a six month quarantine when we get there. We wound up driving two hours to Fort Leavenworth Kansas and the Army vet up there because the military vets are the only ones that have micro-chip readers that read European chips which two of our animals have. The processes is started now and they should be able to enter the country about the same time we fly over there. They may have a week or so of quarantine to Finnish up there but we will also have to find a house so that works for us.



In the mean time, I'm doing little bits of packing here and there in hopes that we sell our house right away and will move into a temp house. I have also gotten a creative streak, the stress has settled a bit. I cut 10 baby jumpers the other day, I'm going to give five of them away and keep the other five for our baby clothes stash. I also bought 20 some yards of fabric at Wal-Mart off the $1 rack. most of it will be pajama pants and dresses for Olivia. Some will be a shirt I have wanted to make for myself for a while and then I will have some for my fabric stash that I have a goal of building along with my pattern stash. Pictures will be coming soon.

All creative efforts on hold....

Well maybe not totally but I have some things going on right now that demand immediate attention so I will have no time to do any sewing for at least two weeks.

We have news here but I'm holding off on telling. Some may already know but there are some people you have to tell face to face before blogging about it. Hopefully we will have final details in the next week and be able to let everyone know what is going on. Anyway because of this my free time is occupied with preparations.

I really do need to find some time to make Olivia some dresses though. I got out her 6-9 mo clothes and she only has one dress in the whole lot, if you don't count the Christmas dresses she has. There is a lot of girly stuff but I like to put her in dresses for church so I will have to carve some time somewhere for that. Hopefully things will settle a bit in the next couple of weeks. This is my life. Get used to one normal and another comes up.

Feeling Renewed

I don't know what it was about this weekend but somehow I just feel a sense of renewal and re freshness. I *know* that everything is going to be OK and have a better clearer plan of action.

I sat down and worked on my Home Organization Journal this weekend. I have had them in the past and they have worked but never quite gotten past the basic daily chores and a weekly deep clean. For one reason or another I have not been able to find a way to get the more irregular task done. This weekend I devised a plan that I think will work for me. When I get things put together I will do a post about it.

I have not done any sewing in the last couple of weeks, mainly because I have decided that I need to get my home in order. So this month is organize the house and set good habits month. in October I hope to start making Christmas presents for our Friends and family.

I am also going to add a volunteer endeavor to my agenda and saw a need for people to help at the Airman's Attic on base so when I am doing my running tomorrow I will go by the Airman and Family Readiness Center and see what I need to do to help with that.

Now to work on my Homemakers Journal. I hope to share it soon.

Enjoying another little break

Labor day weekend and the hubby has a four day weekend. He had to do some running yesterday and we went to Lowe's to look at some materials to put together a proper pantry in a little nook in our house that will work perfectly for that purpose, only to realise that if we bought the materials at that time we would have no way to get them to the house. We are still adjusting to having a baby seat in the back of our car. Pre-baby we would just put the back seats down and load the car up, we have hauled allot-including 42" doors in the trunk of our car. Could be one of the reasons we had to replace the strut mounts on it this summer....

Anyway since I got Olivia and I back into our routine this week and was able to keep up on my task, I was able to do some deep cleaning while DH went and got the materials and painted them up. Tomorrow I will have the shelves installed and have room to store my extra food and supplies!!!!

I have been around just not much time to blog, or if I have the time I just can't get the energy together to form complete thoughts.


The last few days have been spent recovering from our trip back home to visit family. My supervisor at my last job made a comment once on how we still call our hometowns back home, even after being gone for nearly ten years now and having lived around the world. I think it's because of being in the military. You never really put down roots and as soon as you do your uprooted and transplanted to a new home again. Home is where the heart is, but it's also where Grandma still insist on making you breakfast every morrining and you can go out on a date with your husband with no problem because there are about a million people that are biting at the bit to babysit your daughter.









Anyway, it was a very nice visit. We went back because my brother is deploying to Iraq and DH was to deploy to Afghanistan also (more on that later). We spent a few days with DH's family and then went to my family and spent the rest of the time there. We had a great time with everyone just hanging out and having all the siblings and spouses together at one time. I am the oldest of three with two younger brothers so I love having sisters-in-law. I made this bag for one SIL who lives in North Carolina with my brother who is a marine

So being a marine wife really has nothing to do with this bag....it has more to do with why she lives where she lives. The bag is a messenger type bag for a computer. Made of denim so that hopefully it is very durable. What is so special about it is that the lining is this great hippy themed fabric that I found on the clearance rack at Joann's. She loved the bag. I have another project in mind for her that involves old uniforms but that is all I'm going to say for now as she may read this blog some day.

My other SIL who lives in Illinois and is married to my youngest brother who farms is a wonderful photographer and getting into business for herself. She took pictures of Olivia for us. She has done all of Olivia's pictures but these are much better because they aren't at Seares in the studio but outside on my parents property. It was really hot thought so Olivia got tired of it really quick and we tried to get pictures of her next to the chicken coop. That did not go over well, my mom gave the birds some cucumbers to get them to gather close and a goose hissed at Olivia and that was the end of the chicken coop. Here are some pics...

You can see more of her work here.

Our trip was a very relaxed one with no real commitments or things we had to do which is unusual, but then we are normally back for only a few days not almost two weeks and it's normally an holiday so we are obligated to go to every relatives dinner (or so most people think even if we only get five minutes notice). This was very nice because we just kind of hung out for a few days here and there.

We got back and spent a couple of days just kind of winding down then DH went to go to a pre-deployment briefing only to find out that he is not deploying. We do not expect people to understand this but we were not happy when we found out. DH volunteered to deploy to help us out financially. I am very happy to have my husband home for the holidays and to spend time with him, I did not want for him to go. However at the same time we had made the mutual decision that if the opportunity presented itself the best thing for the family would be for him to go. We had spent three months preparing for deployment emotionally and made plans for me to go home to our family over the holidays. We also made financial goals based on him getting extra pay for the next four months and having less taxable income next year. The news took us from behind and made us reevaluate everything that we have on the table at the moment, time for a fresh look.

DH still has one more week of leave left so he is finishing up the inside remodel of our house that has been going on for three plus years. It won't be quite done but the base boarding and door molding will be on the walls rather than sitting in the garage :) and there will only be a few small things to do and a couple of maintenance issues and we will be ready to move :) If the Air Force will be that kind to us.

I have many projects that I will be getting to soon, and I may just get to posting more often also.

I did it.....

I have the previously mentioned items listed in my shop. One handbag and three baby slings. I had a pretty productive afternoon. Not a normal thing for Sunday as I try to take a day of rest but since DH was in town giving away kittens and Olivia was sleeping a figured I would take advantage of the quite time. I listed the hand bag and then started pizza fro dinner. DH got home about that time and started finishing up some projects he had going...including putting a shelf back on the wall that had toppled down in the middle of the night and torn big holes in the drywall on the way down. We finally got the kitchen table cleared of the books that had come off that shelf. He then started cleaning the fridge which I finished because I wanted to make sure I could find everything when I needed it. My did it need to be done. It was embarrassing and I'm glad that when people come over they don't look in my appliances very much. After that was done DH spent time with Olivia and I went back to my sewing room. I finished the top stitching on two slings and got the lining put together on a bag I'm making for my sister-in-law. The lining is the same as the purse I posted in the last post, she is into anything hippy and when I saw the fabric I knew I had to make her something out of it so I bought what was left of it.

So for next week................I'm hoping to keep up on the house pretty well, I'm having company Friday night and really don't want to spend all day Friday cleaning. I'm still working on being routine enough that my house is pretty much always clean. I was there at one time, before we moved three years ago, I just have to get settled with my new life again and learn to balance all my task. I need to get the bag done for my sis-in-law as we are going to be seeing them in the next couple of weeks, and in all fairness I should come up with something for my other sis-in-law but I haven't gotten to know her well enough to know what she would love. I'm also hoping to at least get some christening dresses started to sell. I have allot of extra lace from the one I did for Olivia as well as extra fabric I figured I would give them a shot.