Happy Birthday to Me

Am I spoiled? Mais oui. Courtesy of my super sister and her husband, I am now the very proud owner of my very own Brother XL-3750. I'm not letting myself try it out tonight, because I will probably be up playing with it all night. So I'll wait until tomorrow. Will I sleep tonight? Probably as much as a kid listening for Santa. Oh, I am excited!!

I've been framed!!

Or, actually, I haven't. I have a (rather large) marine chart that I want to frame. It's 4'x3' and it will look so good once it's on the wall over the entertainment centre, which will also look sooo good once I have some (albeit more subtle than I wanted) alterations made. Whew. There's a lot more things-to-do than things-that-have-been-done. But it's coming, I swear.

Oh, yea! I was talking about frames. I did some running around this weekend with my sister (who has a lovely house that's too far away) so I checked out some prices. Micheal's was cheapest, at $370ish. That was for a very plain frame, no mat, Plexiglas, and they would have charged me more if they put the chart in the frame. Kent was just ridiculous. $576. Dollars, not yen. Before tax, and that doesn't include the glass. Did I miss something? Does anyone have any idea why this is so expensive? Cause I'm not a cheap person, but this seems v. over the top.

So it comes down to: I'm making a frame.

I've been doing things!

I needed a coffin, I mean... a tree* Er. No. I needed a night table. So on one of my no-longer-so-frequent-but-always-exciting trips to value village, I found this:for $12.99. While I pushed it lovingly along in my cart, one of the employees said, "You do know all the furniture is 50% off, right? Maybe you should take another run through there." (I did, of course, but nothing else really struck me). So, I know, it looks a little rough. But just last weekend, I saw a very similar one at winners for $199, so even a little rough, for $6.50, this is so very exciting to me. So I got some paint ($20) and some handles ($8). (Oh, and those birds were $7 on clearance). Here it is:

*I've mentioned it before. If you haven't seen it (and I don't really know how that would be possible), I recommend you do.

This is so true

All in one day, wah?

Today was a horribly unproductive day. And I won't say it was a horrible day, but it wasn't a good one. Many unimportant things that all happening at once put me in a bad mood.

I should have known better than to try and paint the nightstand. However. My "espresso
brown" paint turns out to be more of an "early 80s faux-mahogany". And I would repaint it; I went and got the colour I wanted. But now the spray paint won't dry. Yea. It's been that kind of day.

Things are happening!!

As our house is looking more and more like I want it to, I'm getting closer and closer to actually getting some sewing done!! I have plans to go to the local Sunday crafty market (assuming they like my wares), and I have some things cut out (thanks to the hurricane related power outage). I also have some furniture related crafty re-dos planned. What was that? You'd like to see some pictures that are unrelated to everything? OKAY!!

Here's the view of the sun rise from the deck. The backyard is being cleared, the inside is being tidied-up, and finished, but is not yet ready for its close-up. Soon though.

And then on Saturday, this was how the barometer was reading. We got the rain, and the wind (gusts up to 134km/hr). We only lost a few branches, and power for about 24 hours. Earl wasn't nearly as ferocious as predicted.

So I went home for the rest of the long weekend; ventured to the beach with my aunt on Monday. It's Tuesday night, and I'm thawed out. You're thinking, Wow!Already?? right? I know! So cold. I managed to completely miss the summer, the nice weather (it was about 22C when these were taken, and the water was frigid!), and all the good swimming. Next summer: I live at the beach.

Not my car (it's my dad's baby) but I drove it to the beach, so I feel like we bonded.
Craft-related: this is where some of those plans come in. I need zippers. And heat and bond. And other things that require a trip to the fabric store. Yayayayay!!

Rocco is actually this lazy. He fell asleep while chewing on his (poor, abused, mutilated, but-still-much-loved) Scooby. He did have a big day of getting trapped in the bathroom, and having to eat Q-tips to survive (obviously not exactly true, and he's fine). Hopefully a certain bf has learned to double-check the bathroom door before he leaves.