Appropriate Graffiti

This particular sheets of art paper have certainly seen more than the usual use.  They were originally taped together to create a backdrop for a play.  Then they were used for a bit of graffiti art.  Nice colors...

I am Puss.......in Boots!

Bunny Love

Bachelor Camping Day Five

Yes, Michael's hand is inside the fish's stomach.  Ick.

Bachelor Camping Day Four

Three ducks in a row...

Bachelor Camping Day Three :: Edge of the World

Bachelor Camping Day One

David, Thomas and Michael took off for a long-weekend camping excursion with some homeschool friends. Since we've been having record heat, the lake was much used.

Here is Michael testing the pontoon boat he built for the trip.

Could probably use some more boyancy..

Wild monkeys swimming...

Home Made Pontoon Boat

Bead Love

I got a bee in my bonnet recently, and have decided that the blinds in the windows have to go.  Not all at once, and not necessarily now, but they need to be phased out.  It started with the dining room being painted; we took down the blinds before the sanding, and I'm determined not to put them back up (the windows are still bare, until after the painting is done).

Next came the bathroom.  We've got mermaids and shells in there, with a nice, soft, mossy-ish green, and I wanted to kind of keep with the water theme.

This is what I found.

It's hard to see in the photo how the sunlight is being captured by the beads, but it really add a nice light to the bathroom.  I really like the "sheet of rain" pattern.

Yeah, bead curtains are hokey.  Maybe even a little bit tacky.  But they make a really cool sound when you move them.  And these ones in particular make me smile every time I go pee.

I found them here, by the way, and they were pretty reasonably priced.  They came door-length, so I trimmed them to fit the window.  The pattern accommodated perfectly.

Bread Love

This was baked in the crock pot.  Really.  Not as crispy as when it's baked in the oven, but wonderfully soft, much easier, and way less mess.  And it doesn't heat up the kitchen like the oven does.  Too cool.

A friend of mine Pinned this idea on Pinterest (If you haven't been there yet, don't go.  Really.  You'll thank me later when you start hearing from all of your friends how much time they're wasting on the site).  The authors of Artisan Bread in Five Minutes a Day blogged enthusiastically about the method.

Waiting for the heat

If you haven't tried the Artisan Bread in Five Minutes a Day because it seemed complicated and you didn't have all the stuff you need to bake it with, then this is the way to do it.  Even though I have all the stuff and the technique, I'm not sure I'll be baking our bread in the oven ever again.

Birthday Cake

For his birthday, William wanted a chocolate cake with vanilla icing and strawberry decorations.  He got it...

...though the "day" didn't quite fit.

Kids Recycled Shorts Camping Apron

I'd been messing around with this idea of making an apron from a pair (or more) of the kids' outgrown shorts.  I've been collecting pre-loved denim from cut-offs for quite a while (which are currently going into the Camping Patch Quilt), and somehow once you're collecting and reusing denim legs from cut-off jeans, you kind of feel wrong about just getting rid of the shorts once they're outgrown.  Weird, I know.

Anyway, I needed a camp apron.  I didn't want to take my only kitchen apron camping with me, because, well, camping cooking is just messier and more industrial than cooking in your kitchen at home.  And, I was thinking all those pockets and belt loops and hammer loops, and how handy those would be on an apron, and how sturdy denim would be, and how the  material would already be broken in if I used shorts.  Kind of rambly, huh?

Well, somehow, I ended up trying out this idea on an apron for a kid, instead of one for me.  Not sure how that happened, but this is what I did.

A pair of shorts and scissors.

These were once one of Thomas' favorite shorts.  You can tell by the paint.

I cut up the front of the shorts, on the right and left of the zipper, a few inches from the front pockets, and opened it out.

The back-side of the crotch seam made it pook out funny, so I pinned a straight-ish line from the inside, sewed it and trimmed it so the front would lay flat.

And, by the way, what clever person rolled up my tape measure backwards?

Did a simple double-turned seam up both sides, and it was done.  No need for a tie; since there are already beltloops, you can just use your belt to keep it on.  Lazy, I know.

Ready for chow duty on our next camping trip.

No, somehow, I don't have a camping apron yet.  But, I'm thinking about using a full-length jean for mine, so it will be longer.  Whatcha think?

Snake Two

Today we had yet another visitor. I actually like this part of living where we live....even in the suburbs, we get wildlife.

While watering the lower garden, my attention was grabbed (in a very primitive, survival-instinct kind of way) by a snake hanging out under a pile of chopped-up tree trunk. After hearing the rustling (and freezing and stopping breathing), I caught sight of a snake under the pile. It was black-and-something. But, I saw it's underside, which made me wonder if it wasn't dying or in distress in some way. No, I did not hang around to find out. I promptly finished up my watering, told the kids to stay away from that area or risk being eaten, and advised David as soon as he got home that his attention was required to tend to a certain visitor.

Dearest Hubby did get around to fishing the critter out. He found the tail end of a brown snake under the woodpile, and pulled on it. It resisted in a dead-weight kind of way, even though it was not moving. He pulled again. It resisted again. Eventually what he pulled out and snagged in his fishing net was this.

"Bit off more than he could chew"

Yep, that would be a black snake eating a brown snake head-first.

Now, there is now way I would have thought that that black snake could have eaten that entire brown snake in one meal. I mean, he doesn't even have a wooden leg to put it in.....where's it going to go?!? We watched for a while before David scooped up the entire meal-in-progress in his fishing net and deposited it in a large storage bin.

At that point, having his meal interrupted and everything, Blackie spit out his dinner, took a gander of his situation, and then proceeded to again suck down his meal.

About half down.

Just about done.



(Can't really see it that well, be he's got just a bit of tail sticking out of his mouth).

"Just hate when I get snake stuck in my teeth."

Done with dinner. Now time to re-locate.

Touching is the best part.

After surviving a paparazzi of people taking multiple pictures of him eating his dinner, our friend was scooped up by Papa Bear and delivered to the "wilds" of the area surrounding the creek that runs through our (very) suburban neighborhood.