Haircuts and other little things that made up my week

In no particular order... :)

 

Caramel apple cider...MMMMMMMMM...my saving grace this week.

Haircut after my eye exam!  (New pics to come of my new glasses when I actually get them next week!)  15 inches went to Locks of Love, and then they cut off a couple more inches as they styled it.

This is what it looks like usually...I will dye it soon and the grays will be gone, too.  :)

Flute practices!  I'm in a flute choir AND doing a flute duet for a couple of musical numbers for stake conference next month...and playing the piano...and singing...I'm tired of practices.  ;)

FHE this week was learning the 10 commandments with hand actions and posting them on the blog.  (The other one.)  :)  This is largely what made me want to cut and dye my hair. :)

Work with this beautiful girl!  It was a rough week with both of us not feeling our best, but we made it through!  Our ward is fasting for this little girl on Sunday, so if you want to join in (her name is Katherine) feel free!

So excited to have new glasses next week and stop the headaches! 

David Boudia came to our school and gave a motivational speech today.

I'm about a thousand years behind on project 366.  *Sigh.*  AND the FHE blog.  Maybe in between the craziness of this weekend I'll catch up a little...

I have roughly 743 ideas of crafts I am hoping to do soon.  Maybe I'll even post them.  :)

And the usual: primary stuff, dogs, housework unfinished, visiting teaching, etc....  :)  Maybe someday I'll be amazing and on top of things.  Right now I'm just excited to have survived this week, migraines and pinched nerves and cramps and stress and business and all.  Here's to a (hopefully semi-) relaxing weekend and a better week to come!

Feast on the First Day of Fall!

I love when weather, calendars, health, and our financial situation all work together to make up a perfect day!  I think, aside from the cleaning I have yet to do, this has been and will be one of the most perfect days of 2012.

The Feast of the Hunter's Moon is a BIG part of that.  Even when it's hot or rainy and muddy we always have a good time.  It was especially perfect today, with a high of 59 and eventually literally not a cloud in the sky, to kick off autumn with a bang.  Here are some pics:

The entrance.  :)

Deer head man.  :)

I didn't buy this shawl, but I LOVE it and am going to crochet myself something akin to it someday. :)

The scariest tent for me...I don't like fur anyway, and I REALLY don't like animal heads on top of sticks!

If we ever have a baby, we'll buy one of these.  :)  $22 seems pretty reasonable for an actual papoose, made by an actual Native American.  :)

We look awesome.  Hahaha. 

My soaps!  Pumpkin pie for fall, peppermint for winter, lilac for early spring, blackberry sage for late spring/early summer, and citrus splash for late summer.  Can't WAIT to start using these TOMORROW!  Mmmm....

The jugglers.  The main reason we go every year.  :)

I also really love these little old ladies and gentlemen that make up the duclimer gathering.  :)

Just outside Wea Village (the Native American section, really).

Paul found this awesome little knife.  It's really quite gorgeous, actually.  The picture doesn't do it justice.

Typical Indiana.  :)  Love.

And tonight: an autumn bikeride, leftover chili (any good recipes out there? Mine was only so-so), pumpkin brownies and caramel apple cider.  Let the best season EVER begin!  :)

A little catch-up (katsup, ketchup, whatever :)

I was gently chastised by my mother-in-law about not having updated anyone in a while. :)  We are still here in Indiana, keeping busy.  So here's a *little* of what we've been up to lately, in no particular order.

 

Sunday bike rides.  Obi LOVES them, but this particular time she wasn't with us.  I'm still trying to make a little puppy sling so I can take Voodoo with me (she's a little too heavy for the basket).

After realizing I wasn't drinking much water for a whole week (it wasn't good...), I am now on a strict self-imposed schedule.  I have to drink two of these a day.  And I monitor myself to make sure I'm getting the requisite amount in a spread-out time so I don't just have to pee all day long.  :)

Okay, this picture ended up sideways.  Anyway, Paul has started a side business making websites for people.  It's a pretty sweet deal and helps to bring in some extra money to help pay off our many debts faster.  Downside: now even when he's home he's working all the time.  But not hard-core, so it's okay.  Anyway, he gives the website to people on their own personalized USB drive.  Pretty awesome, isn't he?

I don't have all the ward activities and meetings pictured, but we've had LOTS this month especially.  Relief Society meetings, two primary activities, new member social, activity days, primary program prep, choir practices, musical number practices (flute), missionary correlation meetings, primary presidency meetings and home visits...not to mention home and visiting teachers and such.  And that's just the *official* activities.  :)  They keep us pretty busy this time of year with all the turnover in our ward whenever school starts up again.

I saw these markers FOREVER ago, but they were too expensive to buy.  But Walmart had them in the 50 cent bin this weekend!  WOOHOO!  I got the whole set for $4...which is about how much ONE marker cost before.  They smell awesome (well, like any other smelly marker, really), and they are nice and fat for small fingers.  I plan to keep them until I have a classroom and use them as incentives (like "write with a marker for a day" kinda thing).

Of course, work is awesome.  I work with the sweetest little girl ever, bar none.  My heart breaks for her, but then there are moments like this (with her little swarm of followers and sweet girls who play with her at recess even though she doesn't talk and licks everything) and I feel really happy.

Of course, remembering September 11th.  Hard to believe it was 11 years ago already.  I took this picture partly for project 366, but also because I thought it was a little ridiculous and strange and funny that on a day when our paper is covering 9-11, a heated abortion debate, and the new President of Purdue coming for a visit, right smack in the middle of the front page is a pic of a dog "driving" a car.  No story it relates to, just the random pic.  Oh, Lafayette.  :)

 Of course, we cuddle with our puppies and such.  We've been trying to take them out more now that it's not 80 million degrees outside, so they get tired a lot more often now.

 This is me at work.

 This is Paul after work.  He is helping me design my dream home that we will never actually build.  :)  But some days you just gotta dream.

We also finally have insurance so we both have had eye appointments...yay for seeing again!  :)

 

So this pic pretty much sums up our lives right now:

Project 366--Sept 10-16

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Sept 10--made chicken wonton tacos a la Applebees!  Mmm...
Sept 11--remembering 9/11
Sept 12--working on scripture mastery as my gospel study
Sept 13--awesome big fat scented markers for hecka cheap!
Sept 14--sweet girls on the playground
Sept 15--ward new member social
Sept 16--Sunday bike ride with Paul

Project 366--Sept 3-9

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Sept 3--sketching out my dream home (with a courtyard in the middle)
Sept 4--cuddling with Voodoo
Sept 5--Paul helping me finish my dream home sketch
Sept 6--a basket for my bike!
Sept 7--RAIN! And lots of it!
Sept 8--spray-painted bike helmet for Paul
Sept 9--glow-in-the-dark bubbles with Caida

Double the Bubble Fun!

When Caida (my 7-year-old niece) came to hang out and spend the night with us last weekend, we wanted to make sure we actually did something FUN.  Usually she just gets on the computer, phone, or Wii--which are all fun for HER, and they DO allow me to still get things done around the house on a Saturday night, but it's not exactly the kind of thing that is going to make happy memories for her.  Especially now that she doesn't just live a 2-minute-drive down the street like she used to...

So I decided the theme of the evening would be bubbles.  Caida LOVES bubbles.  She will do just about anything for them.  So, Pinterest to the rescue, we first made our own bubble wands.  Not only is this a fun and cheap and quick kid craft, but I got to be a teacher and quiz her on patterns.  I let her do a couple of fun ones, too, of course...but we made patterned ones for her "brothers and sister" (the kids she lives with now).  She loved making so many to share!

Concentrating so hard!

The final collection.

Then I thought the glow-in-the-dark bubbles would be a lot of fun.  She would get to stay up late and we could enjoy the night within the safety of our patio.  All you do is break open a couple of glow sticks and pour in the glowy goodness into your bubble solution.  I discovered a few things about this that were a little disappointing...like they don't actually make BUBBLES when you do that (I had to add like 1/4 c. of dish soap to make it bubbly again), and then when you add the dish soap the glow-in-the-dark coolness of the whole thing looks really murky and loses its glow really fast.  Not to mention the bubbles themselves did not glow at all.  So it was a cool idea, but a little disappointing. Caida, in one of her most grown-up moments yet, said, "We did all that work for NOTHING?"  But she still had fun blowing bubbles at the couples walking by for an evening stroll.  :)  And it LOOKED awesome at first. :)  We made a nice mess on our porch with it all.

The next morning after Church we went to our apartment's sweet playground for a while.  It may not look like much, but those slides are kinda tall and there's one in the back, too.  And it's all VERY sturdy...even I could go on it. 

Okay, out of order, but the night before as we waited for it to get dark enough to try our experiment we made our own French bread pizzas for dinner.  Here's what Caida made with the extra plate:

And she REALLY wanted to take a picture of her first round nighttime meds. :)

It was a fun mini-weekend!  I'm trying to figure out what to do next time!