There are no words...

Get a load of this bathroom sign at a Thai restaurant close to my job.



Hilarious!

Wrap it, wrap it real good.

Ok, so misquoting "Whip It" isn't going to win me any cool points, but I am a child of the 80s.

Disaster ensued when I tried coasters, so I chucked those to the side for now. Instead, I picked up the S.E.W Everything Workshop book that I'd bought about a year ago.

The wrap skirt seemed simple enough and I had just enough of an old maroon bedsheet left to try it. I figured, if it got messed up, I'd be guilt free since it wasn't fancy fabric.


Note to self: Iron skirt again before pictures.

Its not perfect or anywhere near perfect, but I'm thrilled that I completed it. I just need to find a shirt that makes me look less frumpy, haha.

I think the mojo is coming back, slowly but surely. Finally!

So, what are your kids/neices/nephews/whoever dressing up as for Halloween. Piper and I have been discussing it for awhile, but she can't make a decision and its driving me nuts!

Bakefest

The weather has been chillier this last week and it put me in the mood to bake. Of course, when I did bake, the temps shot back up, but there was no stopping me.

This banana bread recipe (first saw it on Ally's blog) has become a family favorite and is requested on a regular basis around here. Add walnuts and it is soooo good. I normally use one of those disposable aluminum loaf pans to make them. But I realized that this is something we're going to be making on a regular basis, so I treated myself to a regular loaf pan.



Now onto the good stuff. The super duper make you drool good stuff.

When I asked you guys to recommend blogs, you responded with a bunch of great blogs that I'd never heard of. One of them was How to Eat a Cupcake and Oh My Word, it is full of amazing cupcake recipes. A.M.A.Z.I.N.G! There was a small puddle of drool on my keyboard after I'd browsed the site for awhile.

The cookie dough cupcakes and frosting sounded too good to be true and I had to try them. I started off with the easy part...making the mini cookies for the top of the cupcakes.



Then I filled the cupcake liners with batter and plopped frozen cookie dough balls on top. I use the aluminum cupcake liners because I don't own a cupcake pan and the aluminum ones normally hold their shape really well.



I filled the liners a little too much! I was lucky that only a few of them ran over, but the liners expanded, instead of keeping their shape, and they looked more like muffins than cupcakes. Time to get myself a cupcake pan.

All done!

Other than the odd shape, the cupcakes came out drool worthy. I was worried about making frosting from scratch, as I've only done it a handful of times, but I was worried for nothing. It should have been a bit stiffer, but the taste was out of this world. My MIL told me to quit my day job and bake full time, haha.

We're supposed to go grocery shopping this weekend. I need to figure out which is the next cupcake to try.

A FO, really!

Big hook, big yarn, clear pattern = instant gratification!

This is the Kelechi Slouchy Hat pattern. Very simple pattern that results in a cute hat.


Hubby was clearly impatient with having to
play photographer and didn't wait for me to
actually look his way.


Or back up.

I used a partial ball of Caron pounder that was in my stash and a J hook. The hat was finished in 2 days worth of commutes. It would have been faster, but I fell asleep one way. I'm certain I snored and the person next to me probably won't offer to be my new BFF anytime soon.

Hubby and Pi went to the local farmer's market yesterday morning and scored a whole bunch of pumpkins. They're not actually shiny...just wet.

The little ones are in a large bowl on my dining room table, along with sunflowers that they bought for me too. We're taking our time to decide how the large ones should be decorated.

That leaf wall hanger is actually a table runner that I scored at Kmart for cheap. Because of the way our table and place mats are set up, a table runner just doesn't look right on the table. But it makes one pretty wall hanging for fall.

There's been a lot of baking going on this weekend. Wait til you see!

Egad! Its been nearly two weeks since my last post! Don’t you just love a good reason to use egad? Must just be me, huh?


I’d love to say that I’ve been so craftily productive that I just haven’t had time to blog about it all. I’d love to say that I fear misplacing Piper underneath the pile of FO’s that threatens to take over my apartment. Or that my yarn stash is depleted to dangerously low levels.


Yeah, yeah, go ahead and laugh out loud at that one.

The truth is that I’ve been tired and lazy. There was some sort of Back to School event all last week. The principal’s meeting was a wash because the Biff and Buffy parents couldn’t shut their traps long enough to let anyone hear what was being said. We did get to meet Pi’s teacher who is very young and extremely wet behind the ears. He seems to have a passion for teaching, so I hope that translates into fun and unconventional learning for the class.


Last Friday was the Back to School “block” party. Block goes into quotation marks because it was actually held in the school parking lot. There was a DJ, food, games, and general silliness. It was perfect weather and I had a chance to chat with other parents.

Pi also plays one mean game of water balloon tossing.
How awesome is that expression? Ha!

But not such a mean game in the hula hoop contest.


She was out after 15 seconds or so.


Because I've been so tired, there’s been a whole lot of lazy going on when I can squeeze lazy in! I was especially lazy last weekend when I slept til 12, then took a nap around 3 for oh...two hours! It was heavenly. Pi was with her dad in Brooklyn, so no need to call DCS just yet.

So what have I been doing? Getting up, working, coming home, and crashing.

The place mat I was working on during my commute has been replaced with sleep (dudes, I catch a 6:12 am bus and have to use a flashlight for the driver to see me at the stop) or light reading. In an attempt to cajole the mojo back, I tried sitting at my new craft table to sew some coasters. I figured that was simple enough, but after 2 broken needles and general disaster, I accepted that the mojo is way way off and put it away.

When my mojo is off, I usually head back to the hook (preferably a big one..size J or bigger plskthx) and something that's got the kind of instant gratification bang I need to get things moving again. Since the weather has gotten chilly, a new slouchy hat seems to be in order. Here's hoping that I'll actually have a FO before the weekend is over.

If only I had an ounce of this energy!


Happy Wednesday peeps!

Festifall

This weekend was the annual Festifall street fair in our town. Apparently, its a big fair to celebrate the coming of Fall, but today felt more like Summer than Fall!

For such a small town, it was a big fair with lots of people. There was a water dunk tank. That guy got dunked at least 3 times in just a few minutes.



A kiddie train rode around the street.



Piper got into the festivities too. She loves rock climbing and jumped at the chance to do it again. It was tougher for her this time because she was wearing ballet shoes** and they didn't have much grip on the bottom.



A spinning, flying teacup ride that made me want to puke just watching it.



A local knitting store, that I'd yet to visit, had a booth outside with plastic bins full of yarn on clearance. They were all $1 each because they were trying to make room for their fall yarns coming in.

I scored 5 skeins of the 80% cotton, 20% wool yarn that's made in Peru. Never heard of it before, but the tag says its normally $7.95 a skein, so I'd say its a good deal.



Pretty, eh? If I didn't have storage issues, I probably would have bought up an entire plastic bin. Man, the temptation was soooooo bad. They've got a knitting club on Tuesday nights too. Not sure if I've got the time to actually go, but its neat to know that its there.

I've been crocheting too. Just very very slowly, since I've mostly been sleeping on my rides to and from work. Its nothing exciting...just a placemat, but here's a sneak peek.

** Speaking of those shoes!!! I took her to buy a new pair of flats because she'd outgrown her old ones. None of the children's sizes fit anymore, so I knew we'd have to try adult sizes. I figured a 5 or 5 and a half would do it. Nope, not even close! My little...err...big girl fit into a 7 and a half WOMEN'S shoes! Good grief, we're going to be sharing shoes soon and she's only 9!!!

And the winner is....

The random generator picked number 1! That's Kristina P! Shoot me an email with your addy and I'll mail it out. :)

Thanks for all the blog recommendations. I'm about to get into my pjs and check them all out.

**Please ignore the fact that's its only 8:20 on a Friday night, that I'm only 28 and probably shouldn't be sooooo excited about getting into my pjs, but alas I am.** ;)

Happy weekend peeps!