Jamming vacations into the weekends

I'm sorry!  I'm a terrible blogger and don't visit my usuals as often as I would like...

Anyway, here's what I've been up to and I'll try and do better for my blog friends.

Since last week.  My van is not fixed yet and based on the cost of a replacement hatch, it's going to a black lift gate.  Not the pretty blue, but oh well.  It'll be my next craft project to sand it down and paint it. :)  I'll stick it on my to do list.

I just ordered the liftgate and will pick it up this afternoon.

My birthday party was Thursday night.  Meri and Shub came as well as Josh and Carli.  

J and C were leaving for their adventure in Arizona early on Friday morning, so this was their send off meal too.

Early the next morning, I met up at Josh's apartment to get some cleaning supplies that they were getting rid of.  I helped them load up the car and then left them for the final touches.  They were leaving behind a super grill too and asked if I'd find a home for it.  I was just a couple miles away when Maddy answered a text with SURE!  So I went back to the apartment to get it, passing them as I rounded the corner and they were heading out.  They didn't see me.  Tunnel vision. :)

Got the grill, cover and grill utensils all loaded up and ready for my mini-vacation for Wisconsin.

The neighbors in "college town" live for when students move out.  So many students leave REALLY good stuff on the curbs for the trash.  As I was loading the grill, one neighbor was picking thru the trash can...

I did grab the vacuum cleaner for Meri...

So that evening after work, Meri and I headed to Wisconsin to hang with Maddy for a couple days.  Got there around 10:45pm, just in time for supper!  Maddy and Matthew had baked us some cauliflower crust pizzas.  YUM...  We'd snacked the whole way on healthy things too, so the car food didn't do too much damage to our diets.

Matthew had to work Saturday and then came back to the house long enough to pack up the car for a camping trip with his high school buddies.

We went for a walk that morning at the lake. The breeze was fantastic!

When we got back to the hosue, Maddy grabbed the remote and said that in honor of my birthday, I got to pick a movie from the 80s that I wanted us to watch.  The first one that made me feel all nostalgic was Tootsie.  So Maddy didn't dither and clicked on it.  They enjoyed it with me!

Then a 2nd walk at a dog park with the girls and the "girls".  The dogs took OFF in the dog park and Meri and I got our exercise in!  

I don't think I've run in public for a LONG time.  Thankfully we were the only ones in the park.  After corralling the "girls", I had an impromptu photo shoot of Meri that Shub had requested.  

Done.

Then since the dogs were just not cooperating, we took them into the puppy dog walk area and let them run free until Daisy found a big mud puddle and jumped in.  

Yikes!  They're spirited!!!

Daisy got a shower when we got back.

After a delicious supper of lentil sloppy joes in the Instant pot, and oh my goodness, that was SO good!!!  We got to crafting!!!

Here's what we made.

Button necklaces

Hobnail vases

and embroidery hoop/flower wall hangings.

I wore my necklace for the whole drive home and will show it off at the next ASG meeting.  

I was really impressed with how the hobnail vases turned out!  Of course a couple of the sticky knobs shifted when spray painting, but for the most part, they were very cool.

For food this weekend, Maddy (and us as the sous chefs) besides the Lentil Sloppy Joes, we made Orange Chicken in the IP.  MMMMMMMM  We're talking about testing a bunch of recipes and maybe putting together a cookbook of sorts of our favorites.

And there was chocolate cake...  :)

My life is complete.

Meri and I drove home after lunch on Sunday and  got home in time for supper.  Shub had made burritos for Meri and Robb had picked up Mexican fast food for us at home.  MMMMMMMM

On Monday morning's weigh in, I had only gained 2.5 pounds since Friday morning!  Working it off this week.

My sister and her family stopped by yesterday on their way home from Indiana and I gave them some of my stash of Twin Bings and Icy sticks.  That should have been enough sugar to keep them going for the last 3 hours of their trip!

ANYHOO!  Back to work.  I hope you had a great weekend!

It's BOO time...

We are responsible for one of the treats for Leon's school Halloween party.  Leon wanted zombies.

I found these online.  He agreed to them, so here we go...

I found an old green plastic binder and unfortunately for me, I'd sent most of my crafting supplies and circle cutter to Maddy...  So I took a smallish plastic cup and traced around them with a marker in the plastic.  

After cutting them out, I gave them a good soak in soapy water and let them dry off.

Then that's when the magic happened.  I found some craft paper and glue and went to work.  Two at a time.  

Leon jumped in and decorated two as vampires so my theme branched out a little.

What do you think?  Hit or miss? 

I did a stupid thing and Pam sprayed the inside of the cupcake liners...  The cupcakes shriveled up inside of the liners when they cooled off.  So I'll be redoing that this afternoon.  

Trick or treat night is tonight in our town and tomorrow night in Meri and Ryan's.  We/Leon will have candy coming out of our/his ears...

I could live with that...

Getting My Creativity ON!

The weather is getting cooler and I'm wearing a sweater today...  I feel creative!!  I chopped up almost all of my upholstery samples from my fabric stash into 4 inch strips. 

And this isn't all of them.

WhatEVER shall I do with them??

Well, for starters... this.

I'll let you see after Christmas.

Button It!

These are buttons...  I won't tell you what I'm doing with them as it hasn't been approved yet...  But these are buttons and I'm feeling crafty.

This is Leon... on snow.  He didn't even make it into the house when he got off the bus and he was making snow angels.  He came home yesterday with a bloody nose so the snow playing had to wait.

I won't tell you what happened, but just know that he'll be looking at mug shots at the school today to identify the culprit.

This is Meri being a diva.

She isn't always a diva, but just happened to look like it when I was trying to get a good close up of her.  Her school concert was Monday night and her acapella group sang.  Awesome...

This is Leon and how he behaves during a concert.  Well, most of the time, he was misbehaving...  And three songs from the end interrupted my video making with the frantic, "I've got to poop" call.  It goes something like this... "I GOTTA GO POOP!"

 

 I followed him as he raced out of the auditorium and then heard the audience cheering for something the director said that I couldn't hear.  

"OK You can wipe my butt!"

I don't think the cheering was from that.

This is Meri.  With a chair in the FRONT row of the concert band!! WOOHOO!!!  Maddy always had to sit in the back.  Well, probably because that where the vibes were.  But yay for Meri!  When I was in college, I never got 1st chair with violin.  Maybe because I squeaked too much...  And maybe because Michelle B was a WHOLE lot better than me...

Anyway, we're proud of this kid!

  As soon as I find the video that Robb took (because I forgot to press record until half way through it...) I'll post it.

Getting through this Christmas season with pizzazz!!!