Vessel of Light

Taken January of 2010...before Baby Boy, before hair cut....but it IS a picture of me singing!

Every year our youth organization for the teenage girls, "Young Women," has an evening dedicated to welcoming girls who will be turning 12 during the coming year and graduating the primary program to move into the Young Women program.  (They'll stay in the Young Women's program until they graduate high school/turn 18, and then they move onto our women's organization, Relief Society.)  We call it New Beginnings.

This year, we chose the theme of the Ten Virgins: we need to fill our lamps with oil by doing good works, strengthening our testimonies, and living the gospel.  Our president found a fabulous song online, A Vessel of Light by Toni Thomas and Diane Tuiofu.  You can click on that link to download sheet music and see the lyrics- this piece won a Special Recognition Award in a 2007 Relief Society music contest.

ANYWAY, because we will have four youth groups combined that night, I offered to make a rehearsal CD for everyone to learn the song with, and recorded a vocals track for good measure.  My husband helped me make it on an evening when the kids were safe and asleep (and away from our NOISE) with their grandparents. Is this the first time I've been able to share a song that doesn't involve my point and shoot camera??  I believe so!  It's piano and vocals, on an actual microphone!  I'm singing STANDING UP!  It's always fun to record something on piano, then pretend I'm a rock star, singing along to the accompaniment in my head phones to record the vocal track.  Huge thanks to Wonder Daddy for helping record this and mix it down a bit.

It's a pretty song, I can't wait to hear the girls sing it for their parents and friends in a few weeks!  (Click on the link below, it should start playing the mp3 file in a new screen.)  

Vessel of Light 

Making, Making!

A got a surprise Etsy request the other day for a beaded badge lanyard- a big surprise, because I'm not sure if I even have anything stocked in the Etsy shop any more, it's been so long since I checked.....anyway, these things are a blast to make! They're really similar to the beaded eyeglass chains (as in, they're both seed beads on beading wire) but I finish the loop to make a necklace with a badge clip in the middle. It was fun to get out all my supplies and make something useful.

I felt so adult: I didn't even pout when I lost 10 inches of beading, scooting the wire over to a measuring stick to make sure I'd gotten 32 inches. I used up every single red seed bead I had in that mixture, I was not happy to lose them all over the floor! I love the sparkle and crazy randomness of seed bead mixtures.

This one, I made a while ago. I just LOVE the colors on this- sparkly aqua things make me happy!

Trying to buy some time with a grumpy toddler son, my sister let him wear Grandma's vintage necklace. The beads flew a LONG way when he yanked it off! I offered to re-string it, since it needed new seed beads anyway; does anyone else find that vintage beads lose their metallic coating? Half of the remaining beads were gold, the other half were coral colored. So, now it's re-strung on floss with pretty silver beads. This necklace probably doesn't look long, but it's FOUR FEET of beads! Way too much fun to wear vintage jewelry like this, it looks just like candy I think.

A little clip I made for my little sister- it's organza with burnt edges, sewn together with a turquoise bead (I think- I know it's stone!) The organza was trickier to burn than I thought....or, rather, it burnt very well and my large circles of organza quickly became teeny tiny circles of organza. If you hold the fabric at a slight upward angle when holding it to the candle flame, you'll get a better curl on the edge. Just something I figured out.

The Room!

Bedding and lamps from Ikea, afghan was crocheted by my grandmother's friend for our wedding, and the crocheted throw was done by my great-grandmother.  Vintage thrifted milk glass candy dish- it has a bunch of shop stuff I still have around.

The Master Bedroom! Isn't that a delicious blue? I absolutely adore it. I want to eat it with a spoon. Yes, I'm pregnant. We knew that. Such a perfectly creamy dreamy color, it's just a happy room to be in- the kids keep joining me whenever I'm in there, it just feels good!  My husband did so much over his vacation week between Christmas and New Years-

• he raised the ceiling (it was bowed after a roof leak) 
• sealed, primed and painted the ceiling
• primed and painted the walls
• replaced the old, too-loose, outlets
• replaced the old light switches to match the white color of the new outlets
• MADE a bed. 

My little brother agreed to come and help Wonder Daddy put our bed together- he blinked quite a few times when he arrived and I pointed him down the garage.  "He's down there, with the wood and the saw- he's ready for you!"  Poor kid thought he was here for a half-hour allen-wrench fest with an Ikea bed.  They did a gorgeous job, and I really have no good pictures to show.  It's a box, with four legs, and lots of slats.  And very, very difficult to photograph.  We're still deciding on headboard and a paint color.

BUT.  Guys, I can sleep on this bed.  I can roll over on this bed without gratuitous, pitiful, whimpering.  I'm not on the couch any more!  Who knew replacing the box spring with slats would make such a difference?


And this?  This I love- it's where Baby Boy will be.  (No, he doesn't have a name.  But we'll just call him Bam Bam.  Yes?)  His Nana made the quilt, and it is SO soft.

You can see the old wall color here.  Swine.  Light-guzzling swine.  Oh, and you can see our crazy assortment of blues-on-trial over on the right.  Ha.  We had splotches of paint, and taped up paint chips, for YEARS!  We tried and tried to find a khaki color for the ceilings that wouldn't turn spring green next to the blue, but they all did.  In the end, I love the white ceiling.

Playing with Biodegradable Packing Peanuts

Mimi making a "thing"

Back when I was a teen and in college I used to babysit two really great little kids. One year for Christmas I found them an enormous bag of colored bits of "foam" that would stick together if you got them wet. They were awesome! You could make them into crowns, bracelets, necklaces, robots...and they were simply colorful packing peanuts. You know the biodegradable ones? Yeah, they taste like Cheerios and they are SO sticky when you get them damp. Tons of fun for the kids to play with!

My husband's grandmother sent a Christmas package that was filled with these packing peanuts, so I saved them for a quiet day after the rush of Christmas. The kids loved them! I gave them a little plate of water with a rag on top for them to stamp their peanuts onto before sticking them together. The only thing was I couldn't convince my oldest girl to do it QUICK, so she ended up melting away half her peanuts, and her fingers got sticky, and the other peanuts started sticking to her...and she decided she'd had enough fun for one day. We have a ton left, I'm excited to play more with these!

CSN Winner!

Congrats to Ticia!  Random.org picked comment number 2...and that's you!

Gray Day

It's another grey day around here. Drizzly rain finally drove away the last of the ice on our street, but we're expecting more snow tonight (did I tell you it snowed last week? It snowed. It was really, really, really cold for a few days. I felt fabulous! My husband loves it when I'm pregnant, he gets all the blankets x2 at night, when I throw all my covers on top of his side of the bed. At least THIS pregnancy, I'm not sleeping in shorts with the window open...in January...yeah, I did that to him. By the by, the area immediately to the right of the amazing carved stump is full of strawberry plants, that little stick in the lawn is our fig tree, and the bed on the far left is probably going to become home to a blueberry hedge (unless our neighbor on the right decides he's ready to put a blueberry hedge in with us, like he's been wanting to for years.) The area along the top of the wall on the right side will be bush squash and day lilies and nasturtium. The main garden beds are at the far end of the picture. The bones are there, just need the guts!

A few girls came over last night for a craft swap- we've all been crazily purging our houses, and I convinced them to purge their craft rooms with me. We all grabbed what we wanted to grab from each others' stash...and what's left is going to the thrift store! I love it.

36 weeks and counting. No, I won't give you a blow by blow account of my "progress" over the next few weeks. You're welcome :) (I wrote to an old high school classmate on Facebook the other day- I met his darling wife at our reunion, and knew she was due a few weeks before me. He wrote back with a DETAILED description of every contraction and dilation and set back she'd had for the last week. I said to myself "THERE is a first time father!" He's so excited :)

I cooked last night. I KNOW! Since I was starting with cooked and cubed chicken from the fridge (leftover from cooked and cubed chicken I thawed earlier for fried rice) this soup went from cupboard to table in about 12 minutes, and that included setting the table, serving, and pouring the milk. I'll do a real write up over on the Chow Review, but basically get a pan full of chicken broth nice and hot, add some corn, cubed and cooked chicken, and some salsa. Doctor it up with grated cheese, crushed tortilla chips, and sour cream at the table. It is AMAZING, I ate 3 bowls last night. Ernie ate two bites and said she was absolutely stuffed, and Mimi....grabbed the cheese bowl and chip bag and had herself a feast. As I said, I was enjoying my soup! Perhaps I should eat AFTER the kids, on the nights that Daddy isn't home? (I made a batch of yogurt yesterday too, and chocolate syrup today. Slowly I'm getting stocked up!)

There's still time to enter the CSN giveaway! I'll pick a winner tonight- good luck!

What Is Yours Sitting On?

My parents are getting a new TV soon, and being the wonderful recyclers that they are, offered us their old one...and the solid oak entertainment center it's sitting in!  WOW is that thing heavy!  We've been measuring and considering if the center would fit, and it has me thinking about where televisions normally sit.  My grandparents had one one the kitchen counter.  My 7th grade science teacher had one on an arm on the wall.  We have one downstairs in a $99 cardboard/plywood entertainment center from Freddy's.  (Hey, I was setting up my first apartment, and I still love the cherry wood color.  It's held up pretty well!)

What kind of tv stand do you use?

CSN is offering a $45 gift certificate to one lucky reader!  It's good for anything, in any store...but not shipping.  Because that's not sold in their store.

I'm in a silly mood today.  To be eligible, answer this question:

What's the best movie you watched at home recently?

I'll close the comments Friday night and pick a winner!  If I don't hear back...I'll pick another one!

(For an extra entry, tell me how you first found me.  I'm curious.)