SPRING! (ish)

Oh my poor blog, how I've neglected you.

I've got excuses.

Good excuses, even.

Family life is busy, especially with all of Gillian's activities (and we won't mention mine, all right?), and then we all got sick.

I spent 10 days being totally, utterly worthless. I got the coughing illness that was going around, and *of course* it turned into a sinus infection. And of course I waited too long to go to the doctor (I get delusional that I can kick it without outside intervention, and it NEVER happens). So by the time I saw the doc, my left cheek was making this "crackle" sound and then a pain would shoot down the back of my neck. That's something new for me. I'm totally O.K. with it never happening again.

They X-rayed my face and pronounced my left sinus to be "severely impacted." Normally she'll push on my face a little to gauge the pain, but she didn't even come near me this time. It's not good when you impress the doc. Two steroid shots and a heavy-duty antiobiotic later, I'm feeling a million times better.

Just FYI, my daily routine includes a steroid nasal spray and a neti pot. I'm also a huge fan of Mucinex, and most of the time I can fight off sinus pain.

For those of you in my Facebook friends (those who haven't blocked me, anyway), I apologize. Apparently when I'm running a fever my whine filter becomes non-operational.


So, enough of that. On to spring!

We actually haven't had much spring around here. We've gone from winter to two days of "oh, spring is here!" then right back to winter for a week, and now we've slammed straight into summer. Like high 80s. And LOTS of wind.

:-(

I don't like wind. Or heat.

On the bright side, we have some absolutely gorgeous flowers:




Greg's woodworking project has been building a box for Ryan's toys. Ryan needed no encouragement to get in the box.


Here it is after the pre-stain, from the back.


Yesterday Greg mowed the lawn, and his shadow needed to help, so Greg let him steer. (I have no idea why Ryan is making this face, but I couldn't resist.)


Of course Gillian had to get in the action, and she actually pushed the pedals, too!


Things around here are really dry, but we're starting our garden. (That would be the royal "we" as I have almost nothing to do with it. I can't rake or till, so I'm not much help.)



Tonight we went shoe shopping, and I came home with these AWESOME shoes:


Greg is mystified, but he bought them for me anyway. :-) I love how steampunk-ish they are, and they're surprisingly comfortable! It's not often when I can find shoes like this that fit my huge, wide, Hobbit-shaped feet so I'm pretty thrilled. The cap on my bottle of happiness is that they were half off!!! There's no way I'd pay $80 for a pair of shoes, but $40 was totally do-able.

Greg keeps asking where in the world I'm going to wear them. My response: "where WON'T I wear them?" LOL! They zip up the inside of the foot, so they're fast to get into and out of.

That's it for my catch-up-post-of-randomness. I hope you're all having a great weekend!

No more snow!

Last week we were snowed in, and this week it's—literally—in the 70s. Yee haw for Oklahoma weather!

I didn't get a whole lot done during Snowmageddon 2011, unfortunately. You'd think being home for two weeks that I would've, but I got almost nothing accomplished. The kids got recharged, which is a good thing.

The one project I managed to do start-to-finish was a pair of chokers. I've been wanting to make this pattern for a while, and finally I just sat down and did it:

The top one is my handspun and the bottom one is some Koigu. I love that I used all stuff from my stash on these. The pattern is from a semi-local fiber friend, Dawn, and can be found here.


I finally managed to finish a pair of socks that I started back in September:


I got smart and measured the socks before I wore them so that I won't have to constantly try them on when I get close to the toe shaping. Yay for me! (You'd think I'd have figured that out a long time ago, but I've always been so stoked to wear them that I've never taken the time to do that.)

They're my standard 64-stitch sock with a Catherine Misegade's heel. I love that method!

Speaking of feet...
My MIL sent me some fun shoes! (She sent shoes for the whole family, actually, but this is MY blog so I'm showing MY shoes. LOL!)



It was actually warm enough to wear them on Thursday to pick up the kids. :-)
Isn't that a gorgeous color on my toes? That's Isla from Zoya, and I'm in LOVE with their nail polish. Not only does it *not* stink, but the colors are fabulous! It's probably a good thing that they don't sell it within a five-mile radius of my house. LOL! (Please ignore the pasty-white legs and bathrobe.)


My awesome hubby bought me some rings for a belated Christmas present, and they arrived today!!!

(I'm modeling them on my left hand since I'm right handed and I have a HORRIBLE time taking pictures using my left hand—the camera is definitely made to be held with the right hand and NOT the left.)


That top one has a lot of neat sparkle. It's definitely more flashy that the next one:

I think they're so cool! They came from this Etsy shop, and he was very patient with me when I asked him a really stupid question. (I was so excited about getting these rings that I forgot how to read. ROFL!)


Greg has been trying some new things in bowling and they're really helping his game. My game continues to plod along in the 130s-140s, but I'm pretty happy about that. One of these days I'll get a 500 series and they'll be able to hear me squee-ing from the moon. :-)

Greg's project for the weekend is building some cabinets in the garage to replace the plastic cabinet we've been storing paint in, as well as creating some lumber storage. He's got a pile of gorgeous wood from his Dad and we need to have a better way to store lumber so that it's usable! Here's the start of the project:


He's going to get a planer and then look out, because I'm expecting some beautiful wooden things. :-)

A Bed!

Greg has been working on building a new bed for Gillian, and today it all came together.

The kids are quite excited (and being total hams!):



Greg bought some neat hardware about a decade ago and so the side rails fit into the head- and foot-boards and should be *very* sturdy but still come apart.

He put some neat storage boxes on the sides and Gilly is already planning and plotting what she's going to store in them.

The plan is to prime it (tomorrow perhaps and paint it a nice glossy white.