Dry Creek Design Craft Update

I can't believe it has been a whole month since I posted about sewing. I am sure you all dying to know what I have created. I made 13 pairs of booties, two recieving blankets and 10 nighties for the church humanitarian project. For Dry Creek Design I made 4 - Three Little Pig story books, 12 - Mother Goose Story books, 108 pull over bibs - (you should check out the 11 new designs I added), 8 nursing coverups and 14 matching burb cloths.

Earlier in the month I made 6 Bible Quiet Books and 10 Mother Goose Quiet Books. You can't see them very well, but I found some really cute little finger puppets to go in Noah's Ark!


The sad part is - it took me most of the month to do the quiet books and the rest I got done in less than 10 days. The quiet books are very time consuming and it seemed like I kept getting interrupted so it took even longer.

Strawberry Jam

I have been promising John that I would make jam the first time I saw stawberries for $1 a pound and today was the day. I had a hard time finding MCP pectin - Walmart and Albertson's didn't have it, but our little grocery store here in town did. This is about 4 gallons of jam. It took 13 pound of strawberries ($13), 8 packages of pectin ($16), 2 cups of lemon juice (50 cents) and 16 pounds of sugar ($7.50)!! That comes out to $37 or $9.25 a gallon.

I will have to run to town in the morning before paintball to buy more containers to put it in! I think John will share if you wanna come have a taste.

For your viewing pleasure I have included this photo of the center piece I created for the table at the talent show last night. Everyone guessed right away which table I decorated!

It's a Wonderful Life! ! ! !

I was reading back through some of my posts - "pity party" was pretty bad. But even I have bad days. All in all, we have had a wonderful life. We have spent lots of time doing fun things and John was there for so much of the kids growing up that most dads only get to hear about at the end of a long day. Life is not what I thought it would be like at this point in our lives. I thought we would be camping, fishing, visiting places like church history sites, exotic tours and especially visiting our kids. But just because life is not what I expected, it doesn't mean it is not good.

We are so blessed. Most of our children and grandchildren live close enough to visit often and those who don't call and blog to keep us updated. I love our litte valley, the church and our community. I am very busy with my church calling and all that it involves - I love to serve others. I love to sew and my business is growing by leaps and bounds - sometimes it is hard to keep up. I may have to start treating it like a real job!! The paintball can be a pain, but it is nice to be around young people who are so enthusiastic - and they think this old grey haired granny is pretty "cool" I think. I have loved spending time with my respite kids. They sure give me a different perspective on life and what is important. I have a warm home and more than enough to eat, we have enough money for all our needs and to occasionally help our children, I do not live in fear for my safety and I am surrounded by people who love me despite my shortcomings!

Any way, apart from a bad day here and there, LIFE IS WONDERFUL! If there was one thing I could change it would be that John would not be in constant pain. But, if things were not the way they are, I am sure I would have been too busy and distracted to learn the important lessons this life has to offer.

Here are some pictures of some turkeys that visited this old turkey (me) the other day.

Lance left last week. Before he did, I cooked him an awesome dinner of oven fries, steak and mushrooms and a yummy salad - by candlelight I might add. Lance furnished the A&W root beer for our fancy goblets!

We miss you Lance - I haven't gotten on the treadmill and my popcorn bowl has been empty since you left.

Hard Worker

Seems like I was super busy all week but I didn't get a lot of sewing done. I did get 10 cloth books made. I made 5 Mother Goose and 5 Three little Pigs. The Mother Goose ones were sold, but the Three Little Pigs is a new book - the illustrations are by Mary Englebreits and are so cute!

I have an order for 10 Bible Quiet Books that I need to get out by the middle of next week. They are much harder and more time consuming than these little cloth books.

My shipment of towels for pull over bibs and humanitarian stuff came today. Brandon was here and helped me bring it all in. Brandon was so impressed that the mail man brought me so many presents.

He pushed and rolled them up the ramp. It is hard work moving something that weighs as much as you do. At one point he said, "Granny, stop taking picutres and help me!"

Check out that face!

Counting the boxes and taking inventory.

We can flush the toilets! Yipeee!

It is fixed!!! Last night when we replaced the old pump with the new one and turned it on ------- water gushed out every where! I suppose it is typical for the funneefarm that the sewer pump goes out but that is not all. The pipe was broken where it goes out of the tank. So it was another night with no flushing then of all things, a blizzard hit.

We woke up to this to do the work in! Those snowflakes were big enough to be snowballs!!

This morning Steve had to dig a hole 4 feet deep big enough for him to get down in, cut off the old pipe and put in the new one. Those of you who have been unfortunate enough to be here when the sewer pump went out before know eactly what I am talking about. Soooooo, after 3 trips to town for parts and only 4 or 5 hours of work in an April blizzard it was finished! We waited the mandantory 5 hours for the glue to dry and turned it on!!

Yippeeee!

The toilets are flushed, dishwasher run - only the basement bathroom left to clean cuz the toilet ran over. (which stinks, cuz I just cleaned it before this happened!)

But all is well now - Steve and April took me out to dinner and I am going to bed and it is only 9:30.

Sorry guys - but Steve is now the brown noser board leader with a whopping 20 points - you have to admit that he earned it.

In between holding parts and doing what I could to help Steve, I did get to spend a little time cutting out some cloth books for a new order - I never actually made it to the sewing machine today. Guess I will have to survive until Monday before I can get a little "therapy".

Life on the not so Funnee Farm

I vacuumed the living room and under the couch cushions, cleaned the refridgerator, cleaned bathrooms upstairs and down. I only had time for 45 minutes on the treadmill. Created a new account for my respite billing and got my billing done for March. Balanced my accounts and paid bills online. Put clean sheets on my bed. Purchased new pump in hopes that someone will show up to put it in for me - threw a few towels on the basement bathroom floor to mop up the mess once again. Working hard boosts my spirits or at least makes me to tired to care about things that go wrong.

I got online and ordered transfer paper, towels for bibs, new tags for Dry Creek Design and a few things to complete some humanitarian projects - spending money is a great spirits booster! I sneaked in a few minutes and finished a couple of quiet book pages- ahhhh, therapy.
Next I picked up Merilee's kids and a respite client, too. Luckily, April showed up with left overs for dinner so we didn't have to eat bread and water.

Steve helped me worked on the sewer pump - of course one pipe broke - we hurried to the co-op and got that replaced before they closed. We couldn't find a pipe wrench so Steve went to a friends house to borrow one. Home again - of course the oulet on the pump was a different size than the last one. Will have to wait til morning to get a different pump or an adapter. Mean while the toilets are filling up and the sink is full of dirty dishes, but I have lots of help - if all goes well, we will be in business first thing in the morning.

Here is the lineup of kids on for the evening laughing at cartoons! Couldn't help but bring a smile to my face.
Such is life on the not always so funnee Funneefarm!

Pity Party

Most of you know that John (pappy)(husband) is disabled and has been for the last 21 years. He hasn't been too bad, but the last 4 or 5 years he has had several major surgeries and just hasn't quite recovered. We get to spend a lot of time together, but we don't go any where much except to doctor appointments. He spends all day, almost every day, in bed sleeping, reading or watching TV. I was really looking forward to today, we were supposed to go to Billings for a dr. appointment- of course I was going to get groceries, pick up stuff for "therapy" (sewing) and paintball and at least eat at a fast food place or maybe Red Lobster if he wasn't too miserable by the end of the day. Not to be. He didn't sleep well last night and his shoulder hurt too bad so he couldn't go. I guess I should be used to it, but it is hard. I hate to drag him with me, but I don't like to leave him home either. And, you can't drive clear to Billings just for sewing supplies. Sigh.
Lance just came upstairs and informed me that the toilet won't flush - I checked the breakers, outlet and pump - everything works except the pump. So now the nasty job of pulling the pump up out of the sewer and putting a new one ($400) down in. Not as easy as it sounds as many of you know who have helped replace it in the past. Broken pump means no showers, laundry, toilet flushing or dishwasher - which is currently full of dirty dishes. Sigh, Sigh.

The best thing for feeling sorry for yourself is to get busy - so here I go!