The Serger Lives!!!!!!!!

What a day and evening. Sarah has deflowered my serger with it's wonderful new power cord and petal. It has been now used in this house! Hooray for White having replacement cords, pretty much costing almost half the price of the machine, but hey, I get a serger for half the price, and as a present to me for by b-day. So Sarah got to make some cloth wipes and find out just how wonderful the serger edging is. If anyone needs any wipes made, you can now just come to my house. Even Matt can make one, so you can too!

Some food pictures, Ben had a food drop off today, I got to make the pizza, it was so hard to not lick it for a quick taste. Ben made a pine nut chocolate tort, so yummy looking, I didn't lick it though, just the bowl with the filling and am riding on the promise that Ben will be making another tomorrow for our prethanksgiving celebration! Oh how I am dreaming of the wonderful Moore free range turkey! Slathered in some organic bacon fat (healthy, it's organic) rubbed with lots of garlic and herbs! Oh and the stuffing, don't even get me started on that, good sausage in it and nice and moist. I am quite particular about my stuffing, it has to be just like grandma Mary's and ben has fancified it a bit, celery root, additional herbs and of course the good sausage makes all the difference, definately not a kosher thanksgiving at this Lubchansky household, but oh so yummy! I am drooling now.

Off to eat ice cream with some Milo sprinkled on top.

The New Space

So with things going well in catering world for Ben, I have partitioned off a section of my craft room to make room for an office. The closet was a great choice and allowed more space than just the little computer desk we originally intended. A few magazines from the library helped make the most or our small space.
Our beautiful cork board from our corks collected while in southern illinois, plus some restaurant fillins.
The trim that I bought years ago, you know to be cool and decorate the bottom edge of some pants in college, fyi- I now know that I am not cool and trying to be so isn't worth the effort- so the trim edges some shelves, making them look less like the menards scrap of particle board that they are.

And of course the desk, fashioned from the original piece of particle board, very dense stuff so for 5 bucks we went with it. Mod Podge and momentos later it is a great collage to enjoy.

The State of Things

at our home. I love this time of year. The squirrels have finally discovered mr. happy and are gnawing at his mouth. I put my recycled tin can flower out handcrafted by the lovely hands of ms. stacey

and was admiring the blooms of our calendula. With this warm weather we were lucky to get some blooms, which were quickly thrown into the cauldron to make Asher's diaper cream.

And who doesn't love a good melting pumpkin... our last remains of Halloween, now in the compost with the chickens.

Quilt Finished...

...not a moment to soon. The final hand stitching on the bias tape was complete on the final curve of the road on 127 as we aproached Von Jacob Winery on Saturday evening. The card completed in the parking lot and a huge sense of satisfaction over actually giving a wedding present to someone, handcrafted the week before, at their actual wedding! You can see that Asher was really attached to the quilt, more probably good ridence from his perspective. He did have the opportunity to leave his mark on it though, some nice tugs on it as I was sewing, making for some decoratively un-straight lines- who likes straight anyway?

So the evening was lovely, roaring fires on the outside patio, a great touch.

While we are not good at taking pictures at weddings, and a few were out of focus, Ben did catch Natalie with Asher. She looked fabulous, her bridesmaids had some of the best dresses I have seen at a wedding, and it was so wonderful to see her after way to long of a time of not seeing her.

And a lovely day spent in the area the next day. On Natalie's suggestion we hiked the Little Grand Canyon- loads of fun, good hike.

We visited some vineyards and had two great meals in Carbondale. One at Harbaughs Cafe, a great little breakfast joint and

Longbranch Coffee house. The second was absolutely fabulous, vegetarian, local and organic. All things that we love. Ben had some great dumpling dish, I had a fantastic pizza and Asher had a beautiful plate of banana and brown rice. A couple of lattes to go and we were on our way home.

Some Artsy shots of the 30 Yr. old Mama & her Boy

Yesterday was my 30th birthday and it was awesome. I really have nothing but good feelings about being 30 and am so excited to see where life takes me over the next decade. Ben surprised me with a babysitter and dinner at a newly opened old restuarant, good food and of course company. Still made it home in time for a craft evening with the ladies and then cozied up to the first fire of the season. Oh, our house is so toasty!

Let's Try the return again

So we are now a home online! Hooray. So hopefully more crafting to come. As a last minute girl at all times I have given myself 6 days to make a wedding present quilt. after some investigation of the couples registry, three color combo swaps, today began the cutting and piecing together.

Things are going great. I had a wonderful weekend of programs in Busey Woods, Here is my collection of fall photos there. We just fell back, so my extra hour was well appreciated after an incredibly loooong couple of days. Ben catered, Asher sick/teething, fussy regardless. So anyway here is the lovely fall that we are enjoying. Thank goodness for cold evenings, the maples are stunning.

And me out by my lonesome, enjoying the fall weather.

The new Shower

So as an anniversary gift, Ben worked his ass off, ripped out our old surround and retiled in the bathroom. I was in time to see his detailed edging finished. All this over a weekend, when the boy and I were up in WI, plus he worked two shifts at the restaurant! I love when we are a super productive family!

The Mom Cut?

Well, while Asher may have played subconsciously into the decision, the heat and need for a change from the Willie braids really played a bigger part. It was time to cut it off, send the braid to locks for love and be done with it. Ben did the deed this time, I trimmed things up a bit more, adding appropriate layers and there you have a free hair cut. I am liking the shortness, I haven't returned to this length for such a long time, if ever. Now I get to buy some cute new barrettes :)

Hope all is well in your world.

Hoping for a Come Back

As I am settling into balancing motherhood with work, I hope to get some more time for me and crafting and blogging about things other than Asher. My craft room is organized and I have been plugging away at things, but not a ton at once, typically I have a project that takes 5 times as long as it did before baby... so bear with me, I have however done somethings.

The Wallet

I have been in dire need for a new wallet for a long time, last week was my day. With borrowed sewing machine in tow (thank you rd) I whipped out a project in one day. Loving the air conditioned room (only one in the house) I did some sewing and it felt great!

I also need to get back into the swing of taking pictures of things other than the boy... more to come soon.

Bloggin Break

So I don't know if I will be back here for a while, I am hoping to have a baby in the next few days, so that doesn't really leave time for blogging. I will return as I am able to, and as I find free internet sources and an available computer. As much as we don't need another bill, nor can we afford it, having a computer and internet at home would be very useful, especially with baby pictures and stuff.

We have gotten a bunch of snow here for the first time since we moved to Illinois. 14 inches on Tuesday and another 3 today and last night. It is beautiful. All the plants around our home are covered.

My parents are on their way, so it will be nice to see them, hopefully they can help smoke the baby out. I am looking forward to an evening with a nice dinner and some euchre.

Enjoy the pictures.

Kate

The Table's Funeral

So we had a fun suprise yesterday afternoon... our furniture was complete and they do Saturday deliveries! So I had to haul some stuff around, kick some ass flipping over the dining room table, bring out my womanly tools and take the legs off the table so that is could be moved to the garage. I don't really know what possessed me to do this on my own, belly and all, but I didn't break anything and I got the job done.

I was thinking how this table has been around for my whole life. This used to be in my grandma and grandpa's kitchen. It is where we died easter eggs, ate dinners. Where the meat grinder was attached, as well as the hand pressing orange juicer, where I at breakfast and of course was reprimanded for placing my feet on the spindles that brace the legs together. It has been a great table. Ben and I have had hundreds of meals at this table with friends and family... I don't know that I am yet ready to say goodbye.

Alas, we have a new dining room table. I will have a better picture later on in the week. Ben didn't take one of the actual table upright and put together, so the best we have is the table top coming in and a chair being moved by ben (caught with his eyes closed). The wood is beautiful... and the chairs look great with the table. It is definitely a fancier dining room set, but matches the floors well and will look beautiful when the sun shines through the windows. Can't wait to entertain. Monday potlucks just got a lot classier!

Oh and we got snow... finally

Just so happy that on Saturday night/ Sunday morning, we go snow. Ben and I got to sweep it up and all the wishes of my preschoolers came true. I had a snowflake program Saturday on a sunny no snow day and we made wishing wands to wish for snow and it worked!

The house looked so nice and the air felt good with just a bit of white insulation. While others brought out their snow blowers (8 am on a sunday- butt holes!) we used our brooms. I know that they may have purchased them when we actually got good snow here, but they really aren't necessary for the one or two times you actually have to clear your sidewalk.

Kitchen in the Works

So we are still working on things around the house, or I should say Ben is as i am too tired to help and plus am playing the pregnancy card to exempt myself from painting.

Ben did a ton of scraping, cleaning or grease from 40+ years ago and discovering the laziness of previous owners and the downside of making improvements to a home that was a rental property for so long. The paint that was peeling from the doors was literally doing so because the door was never cleaned between paint jobs and instead of paint clinging to the door, it clung to grease build up from a kitchen environment! Lovely! Thank you previous landlords.

The red paint got it's second coat this morning. We will be moving back into the kitchen this evening, peeling off tape, protecting shelves with a non adhesive contact paper of sort and replacing shelves and cabinet doors. Ben also took the extra time to take off the ugly wood framing the window and re-framed the whole thing plus took apart the screen windows and replaced the screen and half round oak trim that was keeping the screen in. Then of course repainted and went to pop the windows back in to find them 1/8 of an inch to big, so he has some more planing work to do to make them fit. The glass windows will be fixed up this summer, as we didn't want to much cold air in the house. You can see the window progress in the pictures, click for larger views. I will post more before and afters once i have completed project pictures.

k

The French Presses Cozy

So for a few years now Ben and I have been wondering how to keep our french pressings warm in our cold, cold house. I think about 6 months ago on some craft blog I saw tea cozies and there was some discussion about french presses, so I put it on my list of things to do before the baby comes and voila last night I cranked it out. I am very happy with it. Using some of the funky 70's quilted fabric from the stash my mom gave me and again making a cool bias tape to match, we can have tea or coffee sit out and keep it warm! Or so we hope, haven't really tested it yet. But hooray another thing checked off the list!