wreath-ragious, take 2

remember how i wasn't in love with the wreaths i made? i did some searching of the interwebs and found solutions to both problems.

this became...

this

much more simple, which everyone should know means much more my style. (i wear jeans and t-shirts everyday, for goodness sakes. less IS more.)

and...

this became...

this

i am a very orderly, organized, obsessive kind of person. (along with being simple, weird.) so, while the first attempt was a perfect example of my o3 self, the second (and final) attempt is much nicer to look at. it also took about 20 less rosettes, which means i have about 75 of those stupid things just taking up space on our disaster of a kitchen table. (i realize the discrepancy there, 20 vs 75. perhaps i cut waaay too many to begin with. perhaps.)

thanks to those who commented on my crazy crafting skillz (with a z, look out!), esp chels, whose level of craftiness i can only dream of attaining.

wreath-ragious

funny how my crafty kicks coincide with payday. interesting, don't you think? i've seen this wreath on several different blogs and wanted one of my own. however, living in an ughpt with unpaintable white walls, it didn't make much sense to me to make a white wreath. and i was afraid one color was maybe too monotonous for me. this is what i ended up with :

(still not quite sure what to do with the birds) 

close-up

i like it. with all the time i spent cutting those damned circles (by hand, because why would i pay an extra $7.50 and have to take the fig with me when i could do it myself for free at home?) and pinning the rosettes to the wreath, i can't NOT like it. buuut...i wanted to LOVE it. i think if i had cut the circles smaller (no way that's happening) and pinned them into a more random pattern (why does perfectionism have to rear its ugly head at times like these?), i would like it a lot more. it would help, too, if it weren't on such a stark background. your thoughts? feelings? opinions?

and then there's this :

the front door was a bit too drab
(and is still a bit too poo-colored)
for my liking

there is a good chance that wrapping this wreath with that yarn took longer than all the tracing, cutting and pinning took to make the wreath above. for serious. again, not sure i love it, but i couldn't stand looking at our poo-colored door anymore. even through the screen it was driving me crazy. seeing it in the picture makes me not love it. it looks so much better NOT hanging on the door. do you see how terrible this door is? it's making my wreath look bad. grr maybe i need to look into doing something about that door, eh? i like the colors though. (i can be a glass-half-full kinda gal when i want to be.) peacock and cranberry, with some oatmeal rosettes. i like that we don't have these colors inside. the last thing i wanted was more shades of greens and blues and browns. success.

now, what should i craft-up next? anyone? any ideas? hmm?

outside, everybody, outside!

we had two beautiful days this week, and you know finn and i took full advantage.

we are so happy brennen's diego trike didn't get put into storage for the winter
thank you, ruth!

he was very concerned with the front wheel,
so he would stop every so often and check it out

pointing out the airplanes

he couldn't be bothered to turn the handlebars;
instead, he would pick up the trike (without getting off of it) to turn it

he looks like such a big boy in this picture

it was warm enough after a little bit to take off the jacket
(still cool enough to leave on the beanie)

the view just cannot get any better

reading off the letters on the water meter;
when he wasn't riding around on the trike, he was standing beside... 

...or on top of it

title courtesy of our beloved guppies and mr grouper; this is our favorite little ditty they sing

the thing about rollerblading

(three things actually.) there are four things i always think of when i see someone rollerblading or hear about rollerblading (which surprisingly happens more often than you would think).
1. rachelle : she will never live down saying ONCE within my and mor's earshot that she wanted to start rollerblading. we love our schiz more than any other person we know, but this rollerblading comment will forever live in the "did she just say what i think she just said" hall of fame. (also in the hall is connie's comment on how thoughtful it was of the car manufacturers to put braille instructions on the steering wheel of may's expedition. classic.)
2. mor's joke : what's the hardest part of rollerblading? telling your parents you're gay. it gets a giggle out of me every single time. (not as loud a giggle as why did the little spanish girl go home and sleep with her boyfriend? because her teacher told her to do her essay! ahahaha!)
3. erica's fall from grace : being the cool cat she was her first year of school, big easy and her blades took on the corkscrew and lost. if i am correct in my recollection, she was thisclose to breaking her hip in the fall...? (sister? correct?) i think she just wanted to prove to our mother that her middle name should have been danger instead of yvonne.
4. mike lau and his megaphone : i was driving around with our beloved lau one sunny summer afternoon. we were just south of campus, right by liberty square, when we both happened to look up the same street at the exact moment a guy on rollerblades decided to get all fancy and try out a spin move. it did not work out for him and he fell. he fell hard. mike grabbed his megaphone and just began laughing into it. seriously one of the funniest things i have seen.
and these, my friends, are the only reasons i need to never ever strap on a pair of those joke-inducing inline skates. not that i ever wanted to rollerblade, mind.

finn = frustration

today...(and yesterday, if i'm being completely honest here)...is one of those days that i want to crawl back into bed, pull the covers over my head and sleep until finn has decided to not be such a butthead. (yeah, get over it, i called my son a butthead.) or until he's decided to not wake up before 7a, which has happened every day for the last 6 days. or until he's decided to stop pulling penny's hair, putting his hands in penny's mouth, slapping penny on the head, dumping penny's food into her water etc. or until i decide to buck up and be the mom i'm supposed to be. namely, a mom who doesn't call her kid a butthead.

to make up for that last one

because that picture below is really, um, crappy quality, here's one that is a bit better...

ain't he cute?! mor and i still ask each other where he came from and what color his eyes are. (we know where he came from, but any ideas about those peepers? a little blue, a little green, a little brown?)

how english of us

our own version of fish and chips for lunch today : baked fish sticks and ruffles (and pretzels)

(he held the phone the entire time he ate. he talked to aunt chell*, grandma, papa, ainsley, penny and da. i couldn't love this kid any more if i tried.)

*he picked up the phone before i sat him in his chair, opened it up and said "hi chell! are you? fishy chippies. chell?" without any prompting from me; i didn't ask who he was talking to or anything. this kid loves his aunt chell. i'm pretty sure the feeling is mutual.

she's in with the in-crowd

she reads how the in-crowd reads. that's right. just got me one them high-tech new-fangled electronic book reader thingamajigs. and it is awesome. do you want to know the awesomest part about it? it cost me $40, $110 off the original price. suh-weet! and came with 25 books pre-loaded and credit for another 150! 175 books for a mere 22cents apiece?! cuh-razy! i would tell you about all of its other awesomeness, except i can't yet. because it has to charge for 6hrs prior to first use. (you'd think being a $150 contraption, it would be supercharged. alas, i will have to wait until 11p to find out its true undeniable awesomeness. *sigh) i'll keep you posted, no need for alarm.
thanks for heads-up, schizzerbiscuit!