Swollen noses, gray hairs, grody patina, friends, and antiques

My week started out like any other week, school and work.  Sophie and I even made cookies during the fall break.  I love baking with the kids.  Then Thursday night after the cookies, there was a wrestling incident that ended in Mom catching an elbow to the bridge of her nose.  Yes, I caught my husband's elbow in the nose.  Luckily I don't bruise like most people, so I don't have 2 black eyes.  Instead I look like I haven't slept in a couple of weeks and have a major sinus infection.  No big deal.  Mr. Handy Hubby really felt bad, he made me a special ice pack that worked better than any ice pack ever.  In a quart zippy baggie fill with equal parts hand sanitizer and water, then he just popped them in the freezer for two hours.  It never freezes hard, it gels more like a great margarita.  You have to wrap it in a towel because it is colder than ice. It molds perfectly to the area you apply it too.

Friday while at home with the little kids, by the way Ethan hates that title, Matthew's work called.  He had a seizure at work.  I ran up to get him and he was still a little altered by it.  I get him home.  He is alright.  We are still just counting down the days until the neurology appointment. Waiting for doctors is going to make me go completely gray way too early.  I mean common, I thought the military was bad about the hurry up and wait game but these specialist could teach the military a thing or five about hurry up and wait.  We have been dealing with this seizure stuff for over a month now and still have 3 weeks to wait before we see the neurologist.

So Friday night we had a pair of teen brothers staying the night with Ethan.  Eli and JJ are great kids that go to church with us.  I made homemade calzones for dinner. Yum Yum right, well kind of, I need to tweak this recipe a bit more.  They were good but I prefer to have a bit more flavor to the crust. But the teenagers did not complain.  The boys stayed up late and played Super Mario Brothers on the Wii.  Surprising that the Wii still entertains teens, although they kept saving things like "This takes me back to my childhood" and "I loved playing this as a kid".  It is bad enough I have a swollen face, and more gray hairs this week, now they are making it worse with their comments about "when they were kids".  I thought it was funny.  Handy Hubby and I exchanged looks several times, rolled eyes, and snickered more than once.

The teens wanted to sleep in on Saturday. Go figure.  I had different ideas.  I made them all a big breakfast.  Pancakes, eggs, sausage, and bacon.  All that work and they ate and went back to bed.  Teenagers, go figure.  See the young can't hang.  While the teens were back to crashing, my friend Tammy came into town and we hit the Dollar Generals.  I got 3 rolls of landscape fabric and a metal table/plant stand for all of $2.50.  Woohoo big spender. Then she and I hit up the local antique store.  I have to give a shout out to Old Songs Sung antique store in downtown Cushing, OK.  If you are in the neck of the woods, you have to stop in there.  They have everything.  For this trip I was hunting out antique flatware with a nice grody (yes I still use Grody) patina to it. I had and idea.  Jackpot!! $6 later I had 4 knives and 2 forks.  I already had 3 spoons at home to complete my idea.

Tammy and I do craft shows together heading up to the Holidays.  We use the extra cash for Christmas money and black Friday shopping.   But this particular idea is actually for my house.  Although I think I am going to make a few to take to shows this year.  It is an organizer for the kitchen.  It will hold my rolling pin and my aprons.  This will free up some space in my drawers and be a more decorative way to hang my aprons than just a nail.   Tammy also dropped of some ribbons and a wreath so I can make bows for some awesome wreathes she is making. Busy busy busy.

You know if you think about it, I go to an antique store to get things with a grody aged patina and with a swollen nose and more gray hair I have a grody aged patina.  I accept that.

Handy Hubby, Lemonade stands, and knock kneed flamingos

Well we had an eventful weekend and following week.  Last weekend Handy Hubby finished the Lemonade stand/photo prop.  Little Miss loved it.  She instantly ran in the house and grabbed her picture of Lemonade and plastic cups.  She  sat on the curb in her lemonade stand selling and giving away lemonade.  Truth be told she gave away most of it.  Unsuspecting customers got sugar free lemonade.  But she had a blast.    Her friends had a blast.  They brought out paper and crayons and made signs.  Who could pass up buying lemonade from these kids.  Daddy was just as happy and proud of his craftsmanship.  He even made a bench that perfectly stores inside the stand.  Although the bench had more cussing and fussing to make it than the stand.  There was one screw that was being insanely stubborn.  I think that particular screw was made in October.  Everybody knows, us Scorpios are the most stubborn people. That is right I am a Scorpio and I am extra extremely stubborn.  I was the one that got that screw in, but I was more stubborn than that screw.  We were so glad we made him happy to make her happy.  I think he was also happy for me to stop nagging him to make the stand.  But all said and done I will get all my money out of that prop I can.  

Now this wasn't all fun and games.  When taking the picture of Little Miss in her Lemonade booth, I shifted my weight on my knees oddly.  Something popped and I started standing there like a knock kneed flamingo.  My left knee Hyper extended backwards and inside toward my right knee all at the same time.  No worries, my knees have done this forever.  I keep a brace and crutches handy because of this problem, not to mention 2 knee cap fractures in 2 years.  My neighbors giggled when they figured out what I had done.  "Looked at a tool and thought about using it didn't you."  This is all an inside joke.  You see 2 years ago, I broke my knee cap in half, completely into 2 pieces while trying to rip pallets apart.   My other friends just call me Grace.  So needless to say I am riding the couch for a few days.  But then again I am pretty used to this considering I am as accident prone as I am stubborn, although I think somehow those two things might actually be connected.  

So Tuesday brace, crutches, and all went out to shoot test shots for the Fall Mini sessions I am going to be doing in a few weeks.  Little Miss wasn't quite in the mood to do pictures but Daddy bribed her.  If she did pictures, we would go to Sodalicious afterward.  Sodalicious is our favorite drink spot.  They also have the bestest snickerdoodle cookies ever.  So if you live in our neck of the woods go visit them and tell them HouKreative Photography sent you.   Anyways, Little Miss finally started behaving and posing for pictures.  Handy Hubby and Spazz the middle child set up the stand which for this shoot is going to be a fall pumpkin stand.  They help me haul the decorations out and decorate.  We found this awesome old tree to set up under, it had the most amazing bark patterning.

So if you are in our neck of the woods or know somebody in our neck of the woods.  Send a flyer.  We still have a few sessions open. Then afterwards you can stop by Sodalicious and have a drink and a snickerdoodle.  

Antique Pillowcase dress shoot

This last weekend, I spent the day with Little Miss doing photo shoots.  She absolutely loves doing shoots.  She begs to do them, and when we are through and heading home she gets sideways with me.  These are some of the pictures from our second set of pictures.  Daddy showed us this little piece of photography heaven in the downtown area of our little corner of the world.   As a utility worker, he knows were all the really beautiful or funky spots are to shoot in town.  Daddy worked as our photography assistant on this day.  

In these pictures, Little Miss rocked a pillowcase dress made from an actual pillowcase.  I got it at an antique store.  It was a single pillowcase and didn't have a match so I didn't feel so bad about making a dress out of it.  This particular pillowcase was hand embroidered and had a beautiful hand tatted lace edge. I made her wings too.  I was inspired by Wife Made

.

Little Miss came up with this pose all by herself.  I don't have to pose her much.  She generally comes up with her own poses and if I shoot she will give me gold.  The camera really loves her.

 This is one of my favorites of this shoot.  Her running through the grass with the side of a torn down building in the back ground is beautiful to me.  The quilt top she is running with is one I made from scraps from outfits I have made for her and her brothers.  So this picture has many memories in it.  I will be printing and framing this one.  I will be hanging it in our living room.

I love the simplicity of this shot and the compliment of the blue painted brick with her dress.

At this point she was starting to get tired and flustered

 at her older brother.  He was on the other side of the 

street riding his skateboard.  The noise the board made

 made her mad.  Her blood glucose was also dropping so 

mood swings were starting to abound.  In between shots, Little Miss would yell at her brother.  "Stop making that noise."  And "You are so annoying."  Momma had enough and called it good.