Just Call Me Betsy Ross

I am officially a quilter. Sort of. Now, you would think that I was already a quilter given the 16 quilts that I helped a bunch of middle schoolers put together earlier this year. You would be way wrong.

Given the fact that my husband and I are temporarily homeless (aka living with my dad and enjoying cable and a freezer full of ice cream) and I can’t go into my usual “work on stuff around the house” mode during my free time, I was in major need of a project.

So, my insanity, coupled with a great opportunity from a blog I stumbled upon (oldredbarnco.blogspot.com) to win a super awesome sewing machine, led me to the construction of a real, official quilt. The blog had great step by step instructions about how to do everything, and it was the perfect way to entertain myself for a week or so.

As you can see, the quilt I made is crazy colorful, but that was done strategically. 1) It gave me an excuse to buy whatever kind of fun fabric I wanted, and 2) This quilt will go on the guest bed in the craft room. Craft rooms are crazy, colorful places, so why try and fight it?

This quilt took much more time and planning than the quilts I had made with the kids earlier in the year, but I had so much fun putting it together. It was also nice to work on it at my dad’s house because he helped me with a lot of the math (not my strong point), and I showed him how to sew.

The quilt top and back are finished, and I sent them away to have them professionally quilted (I’m afraid my little Singer can’t handle that big of a job). Once that is done, I’ll attach the binding. I’m looking forward to seeing the final product!

 

Our First Home

I realized after I put up the last post that I never officially said on the blog that yes, we sold our first house, and we’re moving on to our next remodel. Even though it was somewhat of a bittersweet day (we really liked our first house and were a little sad to see it go), we were thrilled to be able to sell it to two amazing family friends who I have had the privilege of knowing for several years and traveling the world with on mission trips with our church. As we await the next adventure, I thought I’d leave you with a few pictures (some new, some old) of our first home.

Is this What it’s Like to be a Gypsy?

We’ve encountered a few housing snags lately, and, as a result, our stuff is in storage and we’ve been staying at my dad’s house. Since we had been planning on most of our summer vacation being consumed by house renovations, we decided to seize this unexpected break to go on a spontaneous vacation. And by that I mean, we got home from church on Sunday and Zach said, “Let’s go to Charleston.” He’s good for me that way.

Unfortunately, our cameras are somewhere in the black hole of all of our stored stuff, so we don’t have any pictures from the trip. Instead, I thought I’d share a quick list of the highlights:

1) Walking around downtown Charleston admiring the incredible architecture and old stuff (old stuff ranks very high on my list of favorite things)
2) Beachwalker Park. I really almost didn’t include this because it’s so great and we don’t want the secret to get out. But we really like the people that read our blog so just don’t tell. Charleston was a little too crowded and city like for me, so on our second day we decided to skip Folly Beach and venture out a little further. This beach was so great! It’s a state park, so there weren’t all of the tacky hotels and buildings like most beaches, the sand was super soft, and it was far less crowded than Folly. You do have to pay $7 to get in, but it’s well worth it.
3) Freshfields Village. If you are familiar with my minor obsession with Fearrington Village in Pittsboro, you will know how great I think this place is if I tell you that it reminded me of Fearrington, just bigger. It was also fun because while we were there Zach bought me a great smelling perfume to replace the Burberry that he bought me as a Christmas present…and we later found out he was allergic to.
4) Shem Creek. Oh. Wow. This was a recommendation from a woman my dad used to work with, and I’m SO glad that we took her advice! The marina is surrounded by restaurants, so we ate at Red’s our first night and Vickory’s our second (we liked Vickory’s much better). The AMAZING part was that we saw DOLPHINS! Not just one dolphin, and not 300 yards offshore. There were about seven dolphins (including a BABY!) about 20 feet from us. I seriously contemplated jumping in. If there weren’t so many boats coming and going, or if I was my dad, I would have been in. Some seven year olds and I ran up and down the dock screaming when we saw them while the other adults looked on in more contained happiness. It was so great.

Overall, it was such a great trip and we are glad that we got to have such great, unexpected fun!

The Bald and the Beautiful

Oops.

Zach needed a haircut. I cut it. Then I went inside. Then I came back outside and he said, “Can you do the back?” I heard, “Can you fix these random stray hairs in the back by just going over everything one more time?” What he meant was, “Hey, I took the guard off so you can trim a straight line on my neck.” Well, he got a straight line. Right up the back of his head. I tried to convince him to leave it so he would only look goofy from the back. He wasn’t convinced. Good thing it’s summer. And really good thing I married someone with a great sense of humor.

I Think His Tractor’s Sexy

We hope to soon have a larger yard than we currently do, and, of course, one of the first things that came to Zach’s mind was getting a riding lawnmower. I can’t say that I wasn’t excited about it too- some of my favorite childhood memories were when my dad would let me drive his riding lawnmower down the street to the nearby playground (don’t worry, he was with me). As usual, Zach found a great deal on Craigslist, and we are now the proud owners of a riding lawnmower…which we promptly drove down the street to visit my dad who was working on a neighbor’s house, singing Kenny Chesney while we rode.

Our Corniest Post Yet

One tradition among the men in our Sunday School class is playing cornhole at pretty much any and every event. So, of course Zach was excited when one of the guys in our class called to see if he would want to be his partner for a cornhole tournament in Durham. Yes, a cornhole tournament. A couple hundred grown men (and a few women) in a glorified beanbag toss competition.

The tournament ended up being a lot of fun! The event was hosted by a local sports radio network and was held at the American Tobacco Campus. They recently renovated the area and it’s absolutely beautiful. Very industrial mixed with really neat natural areas. Zach and I are waiting for someone to get married there. And invite us to the wedding, of course.

Even though Zach and Jason’s team (Pure Focus) didn’t get to the finals (they were beat out by Los Hermanos del Maiz) they did a great job, and it was the perfect day to be outside in the sunshine.

No Girls Allowed

 

 A few months ago before Sunday school Zach was talking to a few of the guys in the class and the conversation somehow drifted to the need for a man trip. Some people (like me) might say, “Yeah, we should plan that,” but not my husband. He said “Put it on the board. That makes it official.” Onto the whiteboard it went, and Zach became the official coordinator. A date was set and, after several weeks of making jokes about crafting spears before bear hunting and cooking Spam over a can of Sterno, the men headed out.

Zach and nine other guys spent the weekend at Hanging Rock State Park. They ate meat, played sports, and generally did things that would’ve made their wives nervous. Very manly. Meanwhile, the girls had a scrapbooking night. Everyone was happy.

 

16.

That’s the number of quilts I’ve sewn in the past two weeks. No kidding. Ok a little bit kidding. I haven’t actually sewn all the squares together, but I was responsible for getting the batting and backing attached to all 16 of those little buggers, no matter how badly misshapen they were.

Why would they be misshapen, you ask? Oh, just because I thought it would be a great idea to teach middle schoolers to sew. It was, in fact, a pretty fun idea. We had a grand ol’ time. What I didn’t foresee, however, is that before you teach middle schoolers how to sew and tell them they are going to make quilts because, after all, that only involves sewing squares together with little straight lines, well….you should first teach them how to cut. “Make a template for a square that is four inches by four inches ” I told them. While I did get beautiful squares, I also got two inch trapezoids, eight inch rectangles, and any other shape imaginable in between those two sizes. Remarkable. Chalk it up to creativity.

In the end, however, it turned out to be a pretty great project. The kids donated their quilts to Project Linus, an organization that gives handmade blankets to kids in the hospital. It was neat to see them get so excited about doing something for other kids. The representative from Project Linus that came to receive the quilts was so impressed with them (much to my surprise- and relief!) that she is having an article written about them in a newsletter for NC State (that magnificent university). Now I just need to locate some sort of kindergarten cutting quiz to use before next year’s sewing lessons.

Appreciation

Last week was Teacher Appreciation Week at school. And by that I mean “Bring Your Teacher Approximately 50 pounds of Anything Chocolate or Sugary Week”. Even though I’m not a big desserts person (with the exception of ice cream, of course), it was so much fun getting showered with little notes and goodies from the kids. If you’re in the neighborhood and have a craving for sweets, stop in- we have plenty to share!

Spring Retreat

Last weekend we had a great time at Carolina Beach during a spring retreat with our Sunday school class. The weather was perfect- summer is right around the corner! We went to the beach, played cornhole (grown-up term for bean bag toss), and played Rock Band (my first time- who knew it was so fun?). We also got to hear from the leaders of another young couples class at Colonial. They had some great encouragement to bring on the subject of marriage. I know we’ve said it before, but we are just so incredibly blessed by this particular group of people!