Outdoor Lights

I know this will be super-fascinating, but I was excited that we finally bought outdoor lights. The old ones needed to be replaced badly, but I was looking for something in brushed nickel that I liked and never did find anything, at least in my price range. So I finally gave up and we bought these instead. We've ordered a new garage door and I figure that they will match any hardware that we put on that. So yay! One small thing checked off my list.

Before

After - does anyone else think it seems weird to have a single light up there like that?
I'd rather put up one on each side, but oh well. There are house numbers underneath it,
so that helps a little, but still. It feels a little strange to me.

Front porch before - chipped paint on the railing and all!

After - whoops! Forgot to take an after for the front door and a before for the side. Whatever. They're the same light. I finally got The Man to finish painting the railings for me.
Looks much better.

After - side door light.

There's so much more to be done, but those old lights were really bugging me! One thing at a time........

Amigurumi Elephant

Have you ever tried amigurumi? I've thought about it, but I always assumed it would be more complicated than it looks or would be too time-consuming. I decided to give it a go the other night, and make some little animals for the Little Man.


It wasn't hard at all. The hardest part is sewing all those little pieces on. That hurt my fingers, but I didn't have the right needle and it was a giant pain in the butt trying to get it threaded with the yarn.


Isn't this little elephant adorable? I hope he likes him! Now I have to decide whether or not to save him for Christmas... I realize the Little Man won't remember either way, but I should give him something for Christmas, don't you think?


I'm envisioning a little galvanized bucket filled with amigurumi animals, handmade by his Mama for his first Christmas. Perhaps I will do that. Now I need to make a run to grab some more appropriate colored yarn for these animals. I actually picked the elephant because I had gray on hand.

Patterns are from Lion Brand....elephant here and lots more here.

Measuring Spoons

I saw these Measuring spoons from Anthropologie as a Christmas gift idea in the December issue of Country Living, I believe. I think perhaps I need these!

{Behind}

Is it sad that I've discovered some cute pictures of the Little Man that I don't remember taking?? I'm running about a month behind in editing my pictures and I found some last night that I'd forgotten about. Ack. That's what I get for taking so many, huh?

I guess I'll get to them all eventually . . . Too many is better than too few!

Child's Bookshelf

I have been going through my Cottage Living magazines recently, looking for something that I think I remember seeing in there and not finding it. I am starting to think perhaps that it is in another magazine. Ugh. This is going to take me awhile to find, I'm afraid. In the meantime, I've been copying recipes and other things that catch my eye, since I have a terrible habit of putting down magazines and forgetting altogether the things in them that I liked.

Anyway. I found this in one of the issues. Unfortunately, I've already forgotten which one, and I'm not going to look it up to find out but I scanned it in to save it for when we start putting together the Little Man's room.

The Little Man is currently set up in my office and as much as I like that, I think its a bad idea. At least for long-term. I am not getting as much work done as I would like and I think after the beginning of the year, he's going to move into the spare room so I can get some work done while he's asleep.

I think this is simple enough that perhaps I can persuade The Man to replicate for me. I like the idea of having a little bookshelf that the Little Man can reach. We'll have to see - its a little room!

Single Serving Pie in a Jar

What a cute idea! I am now craving little strawberry rhubarb pies with a crumb topping.

The No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency

I just finished watching the first season of HBO's "The No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency. Its based on a series of books by Alexander McCall Smith. I discovered his books a couple years ago and have read them all as they've come out (there are several ongoing series) and have enjoyed them. They're light and funny.

It was interesting to see the book as a show and The Man and I both enjoyed it. It was taped entirely on location in Botswana and the scenery is beautiful and even the credits and colors of the whole thing were bright and beautiful. I'm not sure what I expected Botswana to look like, but it was interesting to see the actual place after having read the books.


Check it out. Its available from Netflix. You should really also check out his books as well. Our library has most of them available as e-audiobooks, so I imagine that other libraries do as well.

A Long Walk in the Woods

A couple weeks ago, my husband and I decided to take a short little trip that was supposed to be a nice hike through a wetlands area and end up at a waterfall. It was something that we had read about in Pursuits magazine (a magazine about Pennsylvania designed to get you to visit PA) and since it was near the outlets in Grove City as well, we thought we'd go up, take a nice walk, take some pictures and hit the outlets before heading home.

I'm not sure what's wrong with us, but we didn't read the article as closely as we should have, apparently. We knew it was about 3 miles back to the falls, but it seemed to take forever and for some reason, I was thinking a 3 mile loop. The wetlands, while interesting, were not an hour's worth of interesting. We saw lots of redwinged blackbirds and one crane.


The Little Man behaved wonderfully. He doesn't mind just looking around at everything usually. Dutch gave up after awhile and insisted on being carried. We walked and walked and wondered where in the world the waterfall was. Finally, we came to the main road. Where was the waterfall? Did we miss it?


I got a little bit of cell reception, so I called Mom & Dad and asked them to read the article to me again. Turns out it was just down the main road a little ways and behind an antique shop. The walk through the wetlands was completely unnecessary and most definitely not a loop. We had, however, parked our car back at the other end of this loooooong trail and it was getting dark, so we turned around and made the hour long walk back to the car.

By then, of course, it was time to feed the Little Man again so we gave up on the waterfall altogether. I was tired of walking and lugging around the camera and the dog and The Man had carried the Little Man the whole way. We were both starving. So we popped in to the outlets long enough to look at Carters and decide that the clothes were entirely too expensive for such a little person and we got fast food for dinner.


Moral of the story is read the entire article closely. Next time, at least, we know where the dumb waterfall is and we won't have to walk through the boring wetlands to get to it. At least the weather was nice and the trail was pretty.