Random Pinterest Tuesday

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

WOW!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Source: news.yahoo.com via Ben on Pinterest

100-year-old Fauja Singh became the oldest person to complete a full-distance marathon when he finished a race in Toronto last week.

Source: theletteredcottage.net via Christa on Pinterest

 

Sweet treehouse!

Source: hsph.harvard.edu via Christa on Pinterest

 

The Harvard version of USDA’s new MyPlate, that recently replaced the food pyramid. While it’s a much needed improvement, I prefer this model.

Source: thepioneerwoman.com via Christa on Pinterest

 

I'm about to go make myself some iced coffee, with or without these exact ingredients. It's that or a nap. :S

Source: fancyfrugallife.blogspot.com via Christa on Pinterest

Cute birth announcement, if you could get it made and photographed quickly enough!

Big news Friday

Oi, it is Friday already! And while the crisp coolness of fall continues to creep into our evenings, I can’t help but wonder if I’ll need my parka for Halloween. It’s no big thing to see a 50 degree temperature change over the course of hours here.

Meanwhile, will someone please recommend flooring for my house? I only have carpet in the bedrooms and “luxury vinyl tile” in my bathrooms and laundry room. That means my kitchen, living room, hallway and dining room need to be floored. I’d take a picture of this dilemma, but frankly, I’m too lazy. And it’s ugly. And the “under construction” smell makes me nauseous. So I hibernate in my bedroom when I’m home, where it actually feels cozy and not construction-y. 

For any of you that feel like all the DECISIONS you get to make when you move into a new home would be soooo fun, it’s not all it’s cracked up to be. Because when you see that the cork you want to put in your new house has a price tag of $9/sq. foot and is the most expensive in its line, you can’t help but know you can do better. And then all the options start to blend together and you only see a big fat ball of fuzz.

Or perhaps it’s just the haze of getting through the first trimester. Because being pregnant makes me feel like an old lady that is primarily concerned about getting to bed around 8.

That was my big, anti-climactically staged announcement: I’m pregnant. And due in April. It has been sneaking up on me.

I also meant to write this post the other night, so after realizing I couldn’t get a good self-photo, I got my 6-year-old back out of bed (where I’d put her 5 minutes earlier) to get a picture of me. When I’m not wearing a skin tight maternity tank on clearance from Target, I don’t show this much. But I was already pajama-bound at this time.

(I’m hoping when Windows Live Writer publishes this post to Blogger, this photo will remain small enough where my panty line and lack of upper support will not scream obnoxiously at you!)

Have a good weekend! I am going to try to dodge bullets from any inexperienced hunters that might be in my area for the opening weekend of pheasant hunting season. Which is actually not a big concern of mine. 

So, here’s to our state bird—majorly depended upon for economic prosper in South Dakota and, as with many other things, made in China.

I’m baaaaaccckkkkkk and have so much to tell you

Hello! If you are still here, you know I’ve been gone for a while. In June, we moved out of the house we been living in out in the middle of nowhere (because someone else getting out of the military in Texas had dibs on buying it before he moved his little family home to South Dakota, but we got to live there for several months prior so it didn’t sit empty) and have been in transition ever since.  And as it turns out, this tiny little town where we live has no housing; zero, zip, zilch.

Every year when the school gets new teachers, it is like a mad rush to fight over the only two places available and the rest commute from the next biggest town 45 miles away. So we had to go house shopping, quickly! (I’m skipping some of the story here; we were planning to buy a different house in town that had come up for sale, but decided not to). Meanwhile, I told my husband to find us another temp place to live, so he moved us in with his parents.

I don’t care how much you might love your in-laws, it is purely out of love for your husband if you can fathom living with them for any period of time. And their gardener who knows everything. But that is a TOTALLY different story.

Fast forward, we bought a house in June to move to the location of our choice. Which was actually a very difficult decision. Then we needed to hurry up and build a basement.

So my hubby dug a hole:
  And I learned how to set concrete forms, pour concrete, set ICF blocks (see Ana White’s momplex blog to get an idea about how we built our walls if you’re super curious) and a million other manual labor tasks I’m not sure I would learn again if had the choice. I dubbed myself the construction intern for the summer.

Pouring cement.

Building Styrofoam around basement floors.

Pouring cement into Styrofoam block walls (not with the recommended equipment!).

And then after what seemed like waiting forever on the house movers, our home came (No siding on that side, because a garage is supposed to go there):

The house is about 1800 sq. ft on the main level:

I picked this floor plan out of my 4 options because I liked the spacious closets, laundry room near the bedrooms and large kitchen. Ranch style layouts have never been my favorite, but those were my only options.

They say—I’m not sure if it’s about building houses or not—that it will take twice as long and cost twice as much as planned. I would say that is pretty accurate.

I have a million projects planned, but for now, I am overwhelmed by simple things that need to be done before the snow flies, like the rest of the flooring…or building a small deck so we can use the front door, etc, etc, etc, etc, etc, etc, etc.

As my friend Mateya calls it, right now I am a harvest widow. Corn and sunflower harvest began on Monday and my husband leaves 7-7:30 a.m. and gets home 10:30-11:30 p.m. Wow! I do not envy him, and I am certainly looking forward to him having a break.

In case you’re super bored by the house talk, let me leave you with this photo of me trying to pick up a 110 lb alligator snapping turtle at the State Fair last month. The reptile show man said, “I’m going to give some REAL WOMAN with a real camera the photo opportunity of a lifetime”. There were definitely not a lotta takers in the crowd and my husband raised my hand for me. Lucky, huh?

Want to hear something else exciting?
Come on back next week. Looking forward to being back with you guys!

xo

Wedding Wednesday: GIVEAWAY Wedding Video and Wedding Videography Coverage

I’ve been hard at work moving out of our house the past few days and am.so.over.it. Just in case you’ve been wondering why I’ve only showed up for Wedding Wednesdays. I will tell you all the juicy details very, very soon, dear readers and catch you up. And I promise we’ll talk composting. Meanwhile…..I just wanted to let you know that you should share a chance to get FREE(!)* wedding photo and video coverage with any friends you have getting married (between November 2011-December 2012). In a previous edition of Wedding Wednesday, I shared my own wedding highlight reel, which I adore. My videographer and good friend, Adam, of AJ Production Company has teamed up with a great photography friend of his from Studio LB to give away the big burrito of fusion wedding coverage to one lucky couple.

Here’s the dish:

1. It’s a destination wedding giveaway. I know you’re thinking “Well, crap, my wedding in (insert U.S. geographic location here) is not a ‘destination’!”. Not necessarily true. If you are not from South Dakota, (and let’s be real, most people aren’t! ha) then your wedding is still some form of a destination for this talented local duo.

2. It includes:
-All-day photo and video wedding coverage
-online video highlight reel (like mine)
-three dvd copies of extended video highlight reel (this is a 15 min version of your day)
-copyright to all images on a dvd and $500 print credit (niceeeee)
-A $7000 value

3. The application is crazy easy. You just have to have it in by July something or other.

4. The coverage is free, but you have to pay travel fees for the videographer and photographer. 

And hey, it sounds kinda like I’m advertising, but I don’t mind promoting a good product and a good deal. Especially if I know the quality of the work personally.

Here’s a video Adam shot in Georgia recently

 

cody + amie - married from AJ Production Company on Vimeo.

And a couple recent photos from Studio LB

Source

So that’s my piece of that. Take that 15 minutes to submit an app if you’re eligible! It would be so cool if I “knew” the couple that wins, if even virtually, so let me know if you do!

Speaking of knowing virtually, let me know your blog address in a message or comments if you are following me so I can also check out your blog! Some Blogger/Google followers don’t have it posted to their profile, so I can’t find them. 

Also, Laura from Studio LB sometimes shares hints on improving photography, as I’ve seen other photographers doing. Perhaps I should pick up a few hints so I can better my own blog photos. Anyone with me?

Have a GREAT Wednesday people!

Wedding Wednesday: Beans bags ANNNNNDDDD my weekend recap.

I love it when I almost have a post written and my writer crashes. Not. Have you noticed I can't keep it to one simple thing in my blog titles? Good grief. They're always "Such and Such ANDDD.....Something Completely Unrelated". This is not surprising if you've ever had a conversation with me.

Anyway, you may or may not have noticed I’ve been AWOL for a week or so, but I do have some decent excuses.
1. Packing, because we have to move out of our house by the end of the weekend and my planting/farming husband is of little help with that at the moment.
2. Looking for houses, which includes driving across the state looking for houses to move to this town where we live that has no housing market and no houses for sale.
3. Planning a 40th anniversary party/60th birthday party for my mom with my 5 siblings and making it to my nieces baptism and friend’s wedding in the same weekend.
4. Dreaming of having a new HOME where I can live for more than 7-12 months.  
5. Playing with my adorable new baby goat kids.
Anyway, I made you a collage of my weekend, in case you were curious.Click to enlarge.

Top left to right: A. My parents, cutting the cake this weekend; B. my sister-in-law with my newly baptized niece, Ava; C. my parents cutting their cake 4o years ago (actually this wasn’t a photo from the weekend; my bad).

Middle: A. The caterers at the wedding I attended, holding the remains of edible centerpieces—a delicious trio of cheese spreads. Why didn’t I think of that? P.S. The food was by Chef Dominique in Sioux Falls, SD and it was AMAZING! B. Me pretending to get a photo of my husband, but really trying to get a picture of the cheetah skin hanging on the wall in the library room behind him; the wedding was in a museum (The Museum of Visual Materials) that I’ve never been to. C. Again, pretending to photograph my kindergartener, but really getting a shot of the décor/vibe of the reception room.

Bottom: A. After the wedding, we headed down the street a few blocks to visit the falls of Sioux Falls. B. Gorgeous tree blooming fuchsia outside my front window. Wish I knew what kind of tree it was. I’d line my future driveway with them. C. A car crossing a road flooded with at least a foot of water on our way home. The sign said the road was closed to cars, but seeing as how we didn’t have an alternate route, we waited and watched this car and then attempted it ourselves. They closed the road to all vehicles the next morning.

And how about a kid photo for good measure?!

Well hello precious! This pretty little lady doesn't even have a name yet! Need to work on that. 
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My apologies for the shortness of Wedding Wednesday; doesn’t moving suck?
Anyway, how about these wedding day bean bag games?
Step one: Delegate the building of the boards to future husband or handy man if you don’t have time.
Step two: Spray paint white or desired color.
Step three: Project your profiles onto a big sheet of paper on the wall; you can use just a lamp if you need. Trace, cut, lay on the boards, trace, paint. Voila! Profile face boards. Of course there are several ways you can get the faces on the boards, but that would just be my plan of action. The hair bow and bow tie are nice touches.
And I’m assuming the bean bags are made to coordinate with the wedding colors and are absolutely adorable.

Source

Love this idea for a wedding day game! My favorite part: You can use them for years to come! I might even make myself some when I finally get a home. Ah….there I go dreaming again….

See you soon!

Typeface drawer inspiration?

We’re smack in the middle of packing for ANOTHER move (this will be the 3rd in a year, but hopefully our last one for a while), so what a great time to pick up another project, right? Or not. Hopefully the finish deadline isn’t until….July. And hopefully we’re settled in a new house by then and I have plenty of time to complete it.

Our local museum is having a fundraiser for themselves (it’s a free museum) and Operation Backpack, a program that provides shelf-stable weekend food for kids that need sustenance.

They are taking “found objects”, seen here, and members of the community are painting them for resale/auction at the annual community summer celebration weekend. The newspaper is taking before and after photos of everything. With a degree in news-ed journalism, I have a soft spot for newspapers and picked up this typesetting drawer.

It was once used to store letters for setting the printing press, probably in a piece that looked like this:

 

Source

So…..what should I do with it? Scrub it and do a clean spray paint job?

Source

This is kinda cutesie, but is it useful? My first inclination was to use old newsprint as backing for the compartments and seal with modge podge. Kind of reminiscent of its original purpose. I think it could look cute with old wooden-looking letters spelling out a last name……but that’s not going to work if it’s sold to some random person at an auction, huh? I thought about including some inspiration photos for the sale, but I keep coming up with jewelry boxes.

Source, Source, Source, Source

And I feel like there’s a lot of other inspiration for jewelry boxes and these compartments are a little big. So I’m not sold on the idea.

This person used paint swatches to color the back of her try.

Source

Source

This is pretty schnaz, but where I’m going to get the letters? I’ll check EBay.

Source

Whatever I decide to do with this drawer, I secretly hope it becomes mine at the sale.

Any ideas friends?!

Wedding Wednesday: Writing Your Own Wedding Ceremony AND a video to melt your heart

I’M INTERRUPTING THIS REGULARLY SCHEDULED WEDDING WEDNESDAY FOR A VERY IMPORTANT ANNOUNCEMENT….
I had twins! Kids! Baby goats! They look puppies! ADORABLE! Seriously, I have tiny hands and look how big they look compared to my baby’s head!
l

My baby girl goats

Okay, more on that later after their photo shoot today.
Meanwhile, writing your own wedding ceremony text…….
I could have never done it with The Wedding Ceremony Planner by Judith Johnson. There is sample text, sample ceremonies, how, why, what, etc. There is also valuable information on checklists to generate and write if you are really being in charge of your own ceremony. If you have a seasoned officiate, priest or pastor doing your ceremony, the checklists probably aren’t necessary. For our outdoor ceremony with my husband’s uncle officiating, it was an absolute requirement for keeping organized. I’ll feature my checklists next week.
For now, I am providing my own wedding ceremony text to you as a sample. I picked and pulled things from everywhere until I crafted them just how I wanted. It took a while, but it was incredibly rewarding. And then the groom’s uncle also made some changes to fit his ease of reading, etc.
You will notice we did a nontraditional unity ceremony using a Unity Cross, which is displayed in our home today.  Here is also the link to our wedding video, with some of the vows, in case you missed it.
And click on this link for the ceremony text, as my blog provider wouldn’t allow me to attach it.
Happy Wednesday!