Silly Saturday - History of Men Moving On (Valentine's Day Special)

I hope you didn't need this song on Valentine's Day... but it is FUNNY! :-)

Wordless Wednesday - Seed Starting. Squee!

Silly Saturday - What does the principal say?

A local principal and his family have fun with yet another snow day announcement in the KC Metro.

Review: The Bean Trees by Barbara Kingsolver

I have struggled to write this review. This book was just "meh" for me. The first section of the book while Missy/Taylor was still in Kentucky felt oddly cobbled together. The focus on Newt Hardbine seemed out of place even then but by the end of the book when the character wound up getting but a passing mention, it really felt like a forgotten story line that never came to conclusion.

I am not a big Barbara Kingsolver fan. I don't dislike her work and I enjoyed The Poisonwood Bible but she is not an author I seek out to read. This was a book club selection for me. This definitely read like a first novel. There were a few truck-size holes in the plot that brought me up short as I was reading with their jarring presence.

I think I struggled writing this because I know so many people who really like this book. I won't say I hated it but it was just okay. Nothing great. Throughout the book the characters seemed to all just blindly accept their fate or lot without question or very much emotion. It was exceptionally hard to suspend disbelief at many points along the plot line, especially when Taylor just drives off with a baby in her car with no internal dialog or seeming care. As I mentioned already, it's as if she blindly accepted her lot without question. For someone who does NOT (I repeat, does NOT) read romance novels, I still apparently like some fiery, passionate people in my novels. The dialog often centered on how strong other characters perceived Taylor to be and yet most of her internal dialog and actions didn't really add up to a strong character to me.

If you are a Kingsolver fan, I think reading her first novel would be a good thing. You definitely see the seeds of her later, more refined style. I'd love to hear why other people love this book so much. So, what did I miss?

Wordless Wednesday - Starting to Unpack my Collection... finally

Super Simple Valentine's Day "Wreath"

As you know, we moved the first of November into our dream home. I feel blessed every day that we found such a great house and one that we could AFFORD! However, I recommend NEVER moving right at the start of holiday season. As if we had a chance of ever getting fully unpacked in a timely manner (does anyone ever actually get fully unpacked?), moving right before the holidays means a lot of boxes get stashed in corners or the basement and forgotten. And while my Thanksgiving, Christmas, Easter and other major holiday decor all was packed in neatly labeled boxes, the less common holidays, like Valentines, wound up having decor strewn through a myriad of randomly packed boxes from our old basement.

In other words... I can't find my Valentine's wreath for the front door. After a quick search for it and a lack of desire to conduct anything more than a quick search, I started nosing around my craft room (still also mostly in boxes) to see what I could come up with relatively quickly and easily.

First a visit to the kids' downstairs play space that is full of cardboard:

Using newspaper to get a sheet big enough, I made a heart template in the good ol' grade school style... half a heart along the fold to make it symmetrical. I didn't measure the size of the heart beforehand, but just went with what looked right to me. It wound up about 15" high. 

I traced the pattern on my cardboard. Once the outer heart was traced, I drew another heart inside it and cut both hearts out with a box cutter. This is the ONLY time I have ever liked the tile floors in my kitchen.  

At this point, I painted the heart red with basic acrylic paint. Forgot to take a picture of that step.  Since the cardboard will show through in the finished wreath, I didn't want to leave it plain. 

Time for cutting... my finished wreath took the 5 adult-size t-shirts, two bright red and three red tie-dyed left over from another project. Any combination of "Valentine's" colors would do. I just used from the arm holes down to the bottom hem.  

Cut off the bottom hem then cut strips across, about 1.5" to 2" wide. Cut these strips at each end so that you have two strips out of each circle of t-shirt fabric. Start tying. Since I had more tie-dyed shirts, my pattern was two tie-dyed strips, then one red strip. I tied the tie-dyed strips first then the red strip between them so the red sat on top a bit. I used a wider strip of red t-shirt material, cut once into one longer piece, to make the holder.  

TADA!

Not too shabby for a thrown together wreath. 

This project can also be found at the Link Party at Make It and Love It:

Silly Saturday - Sophie's first time to see snow

This little cat in Alabama is just not quite sure what to do with the first snow she's ever seen.