The Gem Faire

Since I've been beading and making jewelry, I've wanted to go to a rock show in hopes to find some killer deals on beads.  It finally happened!  The unfortunate thing is that I had no one to go with to ooh and aah over beads.  So, I met a couple people there and had fun without a buddy.  The fun part about the bead show is getting to see thousands upon thousands of top of the line quality gem stones that I could never afford.  For example, I love tourmaline.  The strings are tied together in bunches so I picked them up to read the price tag.  $1200 a string, and I'm holding about a dozen strings.  Oh, but they're half price this weekend.  (Cuz that will make a difference.)  Anyway, I did find lots of good deals.  I bought most of my strings of rocks for $1-$3 a string.  I also found several awesome pendants.  Unfortunately, there's never enough money to buy everything you'd like to get.  For example, I wish I would have bought some more rose quartz.  The next gem faire is March 20-22.  I'll have to start saving money now so that I can have a good amount to spend!

I also shopped some yard sales today.  I decided to shop in different neighborhoods since I was already on the other side of the valley.  I found it to be very frustrating; however, I did find a yard sale that was selling a roto tiller and after talking them down, I decided to buy it as well as a spreader.  It will be helpful considering we have a huge garden and yard.  Now to pull all the dead weeds back there.  It's got to get done, but today I need to work on the front garage.  With fall here, winter is on its way and I'd like both cars to fit in the front garage.  

Time to get to work.  Hugs to all!

Temporary Arrangements

We moved into this house so that my mother in law wouldn't be alone.  She has a bad back and can't do stairs, so she needs a bedroom on the main floor.  I wanted her to have her own bathroom so she doesn't have to share with the kids, so we decided to leave her in the master bedroom.  This puts Church_Mouse and I in a small bedroom downstairs with a small closet that is "the closet under the stairs."  I can't manage to keep my room clean since there just isn't enough space to put things.

To make a room for the little boys, we created a "wall" out of shelving to separate their bedroom from the family room.  It has worked just fine; however, they don't have a closet.  Their bedroom is pretty darn big so they have plenty of space to play....and make big messes.  

The other night Church_Mouse said to me, "We've been in this temporary situation long enough.  It's time to make a plan."  So we started talking about what we can do to have a second master bedroom and bathroom.  Of course it will take a long time to get it done since we'll be doing the work ourselves.  The little boys will end up in the room we are currently in and their room and the family room will become the master bedroom.  The area by the utility closet is already plumbed for a bathroom.  The rest of that area which is currently the little boys room will be a sitting area and craft area.  We'd like to go ahead and install a fireplace in the family room since there's already a chimney there.  Then on the other side of the family room, we'll build a walk in closet.  I told Church_Mouse the closet needs to be built first so we can use it before the rest is done!  Then we should install the fireplace so we can stay warm this winter.  Oh, and I can't forget the best part.  We'll get new carpet for the basement.  Time to start pricing lumber.

Kids say the Darndest things!

Yesterday I got a phone call from another mom whose kids are currently off track asking if Rafiki could play with her son.  I quickly called back to see if Kobee could play with her daughter, who is in his school class.  So off they go "the back way" to get to their friends' house.  They played for about three hours and came home around dinner time.  I asked Rafiki if he had fun, which he certainly did.  Rafiki said, "Mom, their house is huge.  It's bigger on the inside than it is on the outside!"  I had to laugh.  It was particularly cute coming from an eleven year old.  We've never lived in an area where there are affluent families so it was quite an adventure for them.

Tether Ball

About three weeks ago, I looked out my front door and said to myself, "Huh, something looks different."  Towards the side of our house we have a long skinny garden area with a tree at each end and my well in the middle, with lots of dead weeds taking up the rest of the space.  The thing that looked different was to the right of the first tree was a big pole, with a long rope attached at the top, dangling down the pole.  "I wonder where that came from," I said to myself.  We don't have many neighbors, and the pole with base attached is pretty darn heavy, so it's not like a toy some kid accidentally left in the yard.

We decided to wait for awhile to see if anyone came to claim the pole.  It's been three weeks and no one has said boo about it being theirs, or mentioning that they donated to our yard in hopes it could find some use with all the kids.  Nothing.  So, since possession is 90% of the law, I guess it's legally ours, right?  I decided to order a tether ball for it.  We're going to move it to the back yard and probably concrete it in so the kids don't knock it over trying to climb it and we'll have a tether ball pole.  Remember the school playgrounds when we were kids?  Most of them had two or three tether ball poles.  I haven't seen one in ages.

It's fun having things in our yard that other home owner don't have because that's a reason for the kids to play here for awhile.  I recently bought a really nice soccer goal at a yard sale and all the kids in the neighborhood came over to play soccer.  Okay, we don't live in a neighborhood. We live on a dead end dirt road out in the middle of nowhere between two cities.  So the kids from two houses came over to play soccer and it was a lot of fun.  Adding a tether ball pole to the back yard should bring all sorts of excitement.  

BTW-my goal to paint the living room last Friday...didn't happen.  --heavy sigh