Mommie Marzie

So my sweet husband said, “Sure, let’s go to Utah.” So here we are visiting our families. YAY!!! We’ll be here for a week or longer. I’m so excited and having so much fun.

We didn’t tell any one we were coming so they were very excited and surprised. That kind of made it even more fun.

I’m taking lots of pictures so there will be lots to post when we get back. (Like my mom’s quilt stash!!! And fabric stores that we visit. And hopefully the new Ikea in Salt Lake. Ahh…)

More later. Hope you all have good weekends.

We’ve lived in this small little town for less than a year. Which means we are still trying to figure out all the little quirks and traditions.

This evening around 5 we headed downtown, contact check with the optometrist. We noticed all these people sitting out in lawn chairs facing the road. All down Main and 3rd, the two busiest roads in town. We thought “Oh, must be a parade tonight.” After all, it is Summer Fest this weekend.

After the eye doctor we decided to go through the drive through at the DQ. (Yes, I know, not the best food for us, especially Joe, to be eating. But we didn’t want to heat the house up even more cooking.) We’re sitting there waiting for our food when we see police cars driving down 3rd. Going along with our earlier assumption we figured the parade was starting and we were going to be stuck at the DQ watching it because there’s no way for us to get home from where we were if the parade went down the two main streets.

So we watched.

And I should have learned by now to take the camera with me everywhere I go! Maybe I’ve learned my lesson now.

Following the police cars came some cowboys and cowgirls. A herd of about 10 to 15 steer, one of which had an impressively HUGE set of horns. And a few more cowpokes. Then a cop and an ambulance. Then all the people packed up their lawn chairs and left.

WHAT THE???

I talked to a native of our town. He said that it is a huge tradition dating back about 60-ish years. The annual cattle drive to kick off the Crooked River Round-Up. Last year was the first year they didn’t do the cattle drive because people complained about it. But more people than that complained that it didn’t happen last year so it started up again this year. It’s just too funny!

Why is it that I have one boy who is fine getting a haircut and the other boy screams like he is in mortal pain and danger? Last night we buzzed the boys’ hair. We think it’s better for the summer to have nice short hair on the boys.

Big Goofball was first. He did OK. Once or twice he let out a little “ow”. He did some squirming and scratching at the hair that got on him. But over all he did great!

Little Goofball, on the other hand, acted like he was dying! Screaming and crying and wiggling. I was trying to hold on to him and hold him somewhat still while Joe buzzed his hair. At one point Little Goofball reached up and felt his hair and let out louder wails. When he was done I took him into the bathroom for a shower. As soon as he saw himself in the mirror he started wailing all over again. I kept thinking that he was being like Samson with his hair and we were killing his strength by giving him a hair cut. SHEESH!

And today has been such a busy day. My to-do list was HUGE! (Change oil in truck, get Joe’s prescription, etc. etc. etc.) I’m down to four or five items. Phew!

We are going stir crazy. Ideally I would LOVE to go to Utah to visit with family and friends. The reality of it is that Joe still can’t drive and I don’t know that I can make the drive. And Joe probably wouldn’t be able to do the things in the truck that I usually do to take care of the boys on a long drive (he gets car sick soooo easily). And once we were in Utah I’d be content with sitting around doing nothing at my mom and dad’s. If Joe wanted to go somewhere and do anything he’d have to have me or someone else drive him.

So what do we do?

We go to the coast.

The drive to the coast is not that far, one that I can handle no problem. We’re going to stay at Cape Lookout State Park in a yurt. Two nights lodging will only cost us $66, which is less than one night in a motel. And we can cook and make sandwiches to survive on. So we’re going to do it. I made reservations for next week. YAY!

It won’t be the same as going home to see my mom and dad who I miss so very much. But it will get us out of the house with very little money spent.

I’ll leave you with pictures of the silly Goofballs playing nicely together.

Thanks to Irene at Mushroom Villagers for teaching me how to link Flickr and WordPress together. Ahhh…

No, that’s not a typo. Irene over at Mushroom Villagers created this CD Poket and tutorial. She’s kindly shared it on her web site. As soon as I saw it posted I had to try. Especially since I bugged her to make a tutorial. (Irene - did I say thank you? Well, THANK YOU!)

(I took this outside on the deck. The sun was going down. I thought I had better light than this but oh well.)

I made three of them. It didn’t take much time. The instructions were pretty clear. The hardest part was folding and ironing the hem. I have issues with folding and hemming that started long ago. If you look really closely, you can see that some hems are bigger than others. Or maybe you wouldn’t have noticed if I wouldn’t have mentioned it.

Once I got the hem folded it took me less than an hour to sew all three of them. I didn’t have heavy enough interfacing to go in the middle so I was going to use cardboard. But I was trying to hurry and couldn’t think how to finish up the top after stuffiing it was cardboard. Another thing I learned is it would probably be better with a smaller scale print since you can’t see much of the print on these. But they were pretty cool fabrics.

Anyway, I don’t listen to CDs much. Joe has me hooked on Sirius Satellite. I listen to it in the truck and at home. Occasionally, when I leave the receiver in the truck, I’ll listen to CDs. But I have them stacked up on top of the fridge. So maybe I do need some CD cases. The point here, though, is that I made these for other people. They are going to three people who have helped my family out these past two months in ways that I hope to repay some day.

I pulled out my sewing machine today. YAY! I originally wanted to start a new skirt. But I pulled out my stuff and realized that I hadn’t prewashed the fabric. So while it washed I did some other stuff.

I cut out two diaper cases. I’m out of hook & loop tape so I couldn’t sew them up. Then I cleaned my sewing machine. My mom suggested using canned air. WOW! It worked so awesomely. I oiled it and it purrs now.

Then I finished this UFO (UnFinished Object). I repurposed a pair of jeans into capris–or maybe they’re more the length of clam diggers. I saw this idea on a blog a few months ago and I can’t remember which blog it was. I cut off the pants, zig-zagged, then sewed on this ribbon on the hem. Ahhh….

I think Little Goofball had a good birthday. We didn’t have birthday festivities until after dinner. Which was just killing Big Goofball. Here is Little Goofball with some Transformers (non-pose able). He was holding them away from his brother in a very possessive stance.

Big Goofball just had to help open this one. It was a Nightwatcher Rafael from the TMNT movie, motorcycle included.

Here is the aftermath.

And Birthday cake (and toys). A far cry from the Star Wars cake I was told he wanted just hours before. Oh well. Cake is cake, right? I don’t think I’ll be able to get away with this on Big Goofball’s birthday.

Little Goofball is 2 today. I can’t believe it! He’s my baby and he’s growing up. (Can you see how cheesy he was for this picture? The monkey!)

We haven’t really celebrated yet. We’ve spent most of the day at the dentist and optometrist offices. Joe and I had cleanings (no cavities, yay!) and eye exams. We got our eyes dilated so I’m having big issues seeing right now. The lights from the computer screen are really annoying.

I still have to go to the grocery store to buy cake mix (or cake??? he said he wants a Star Wars cake) and milk. And wrap some presents. And work on dinner. Then we’ll do presents after dinner. Luckily he is 2 so he doesn’t get the importance of this day. Big Goofball, however, is just dying to see Little Goofball’s presents.

I’m still working on my handwork. I really haven’t done that much these last few days. (I’ve been reading a lot.) A close up picture likes this shows me all the little holes I’ve left. But oh well, I’m using this more as a learning/practice piece.

I ventured out to Wal-Mart today with Little Goofball. I took him with me to do birthday shopping. He fell asleep on the way home so I was able to get his gift in the house and hide it before he woke up. I also bought birthday presents for Big Goofball since his birthday is about three weeks away and I don’t think I’ll get out to the store without him. It’s kind of a relief to have all that done. 

And my sister Dena called me. I made this bag for her a while ago. She uses it for church and a lady in her church asked about it. So how much would I charge to make another? I don’t know! It would depend on fabric and how much I would spend on that. I’m still thinking it over. I think I might try hitting a fabric store tomorrow to get ideas, but it might not happen because Joe has a check-up with the surgeon and I don’t know if I’ll be able to drag him to the fabric store, too.

Maybe this is the motivation I needed to pull out my sewing machine again.

This post is all about my church experience today so if you don’t want to read it you can move on now.

Church was so UGH today! The day started with the Primary Chorister calling me saying we’ll be learning a new song today (I’m the Primary Pianist). It’s a song I’ve never heard before and it is for the Primary children to sing next week for Father’s Day. I found it on the church web site but I can’t get a good copy to print out. If I print it normal, it’s small and I’ve basically got my nose touching the paper to read the notes. If I print it bigger the staff lines disappear and things get all blurry. I’m having no luck and I’ve got to get good enough at it to not embarrass myself next Sunday. (Since more likely than not you won’t hear any kids singing because they don’t know the song!!!) I’ve got to figure something out. Maybe I’ll have to breakdown and buy Noteworthy Composer since my free trial is over. It’s still working so I don’t have to buy it. YAY!!

So then we are off to church. As we are getting in the truck Joe is saying to the boys that we would like them to be good today and listen and be reverent, etc. Let’s just say we came back home before we got a half hour into church. They were loud and fighting and I’d had it! And the whole congregation got to hear Big Goofball crying “I don’t want to go home and sit on my bed!” What was more embarrassing: Goofball crying loudly over powering the Dry High Councilman or the big blue streak on my neck from Little Goofball accidentally getting me with his blue marker? Plus my Visiting Teacher follows us out and stops to talk to me. The doors to the chapel were open so while she detained me Big Goofball is standing there still crying (this time about wanting to go to Primary) and the congregation can still hear him.

We got the boys home and on their beds. Lots of crying from both of them. I had to go back to church for Primary and Little Goofball came with me. It just wasn’t an enjoyable day at church. It’s just so hard to take the kids and expect them to be super good and then try to enjoy church. Makes me want to go inactive. I keep wondering how long until I don’t dread going to church because my kids just want to be kids and not sit motionless and silent? I don’t expect them to be like that but really, it would be nice if they would be less loud and more reverent.