Freecycle, Kijiji & Earthcycle.

Yes I know, second post in one day….I am all over the redecorating for nothing.  The other day I left some coffee tables at a garage sale and I’m still kicking myself over it.  But today I’m ecstatic I found a FREE chair on Kijiji and my girl Roxie took me over to pick it up.

It needs very little work, just one leg has a crack in it.  I’m going to sand it down, recover and bing, bang, Bob’s your uncle!

Now I’m busy looking online for inspiration I would love it turn out as well as this bloggers!

Domestically Unemployed

End of term picnic in the park…with SUNSHINE (mostly)

Before I start with the picnic I just have to share.  This is the newest craft magazine on the market.  It’s AMAZING.   Love love love it.

Anyway on to the end of term picnic.

Whatever your thoughts on school uniforms you have to admit that this is the cutest thing EVER.  Mr. Magoo wore his white shirt and tie every Monday, Tuesday and Friday and his yellow NLIS polo shirt every Tuesday and Wednesday.  He did not vary from this unless FORCED by circumstances beyond my control.

He is looking forward to wearing ‘home clothes’ next year but has made me promise that we can still have a PE kit for when we have PE.  So we’ve saved his PE bag for homeschool.

Here he is in his favorite uniform .  White shirt, tie and jumper….oh and he’s holding Ted, the newest member of the family.  Ted the teddy.

This is Elijah’s friend.  He is hilarious.  He has decided that it is his job to make sure Elijah is ok at all times.  He also needs to tell me exactly how Elijah’s day was before Elijah does.  It’s a love/hate relationship….mostly love.

Here is Mr. Magoo getting his present from his teacher.  He loves her so much, it’s amazing.  He gave her a good cuddle at the end of the day.  She’s moving to Kent at the end of July and he has told me that he is going to send her a postcard.   Unless it’s too hard, then he will just send an email.

His teacher got her kiss but he made sure he didn’t look like he was enjoying it too much.

All the Moms trying to get pictures.   My friend Bea trying not to cry.   She is so sweet….

Another school year over and our adventure in homeschooling starts in September.   So glad that we leave traditional schooling on such a high note.  I think that makes a difference.   We aren’t running from anything we are running to something…..There will lots of days kicking balls in the park I hope…..maybe Ted the teddy will join us.

Blog resolution…

I should totally make a resolution to blog every day of 2011.

um, no.

First the knitting.  This is the yarn Mr. Magoo wants a pair of socks out of, but currently it’s making a beret/tam so he has to wait.  This means that everytime he sees it, he tries to bring it to me so I’m hurry up and make him a pair of lime green and yellow socks.  Nothing like a little pressure from the peanut gallery.

For NYE I decided on homemade pizzas.  The crust came out perfectly and they were a big big hit.

There was a LOT of dough so I made some cheesy bread buns out of the remainder….yummo! Doubling the recipe would have been enough for 3 thick crust or 5 thin crust pizzas, easily!

There was entertainment here last night.  A sock poppet theatre, beyond funny, I couldn’t grab my camera fast enough.  There were so many hilarious shots but here are a few that had me laughing my ass off.

I love that in this pic, he is giving me the side-eye, like I’m the crazy one.

I have NO idea what was going on at this point I was laughing too hard.

Now off to catch up on some of my favorite blogs….want to come along?

Today I’m going to visit Mommy Wants Vodka, Betsy Steps Out and Mom to Bee , always good for a smile. I will then fall down the warren hole that is decorating and knitting blogs for a few hours cause that’s what happens when I start out at Shabby Chic Cottage!

Kiss my ASS 2010!

I didn’t get noise makers for tonight.  Why?  Cause I hate noise makers.  I did  get Christmas crackers for the 25th and we didn’t get the cheap £1 ones from Poundland either!  These ones came with fancy crowns and everything!

The problem with Christmas crackers is that they are so fun that it’s almost impossible to get a picture with the kids actually pulling them because they are in such a hurry to pull.

But at least I can get a shot of the crowns!

I knit myself a nice new earband for the cold on Christmas day which promptly lead to the temperature shooting up to plus 9C and now it’s too warm to wear it.  So instead I took a million pictures with my MacBook (after figure out there is a program to do that other than iChat) so I could post a picture.  The hard part was finding a picture where I didn’t make a weird face.  Damn I’m cute.

I was going to start a nice project for myself, maybe a pair of socks, gloves and cowl with this gorgeous sock yarn that I painstakingly winded after a mishap now known as SwearGate 2010 but Mr. Magoo has demanded a pair of socks….in lime green sock yarn that he saw in my stash.  So that’s next….

Happy New Year to all my readers…..both of you.

 

Car boot heaven….

I’m living in the UK, car boot heaven and until yesterday I hadn’t been to a single one.  I used to watch BBC Canada a LOT back home and most of my favorite shows had to do with property but there were a few that had more to do with antiquing and car booting.  What’s a car boot you say?  It’s a flea market where people bring their goods to a field in their cars, open up the trunk (or boot as they call it here) and sell.

The guy in the picture above is selling fishing gear.  Now I don’t give a rat’s ass about fishing gear but I took the picture because it reminded me of Tommy back home.  I miss Tommy, I miss Tommy’s wife more.  Next is a picture of the rows of people at the car boot.  I could easily go to a carboot every weekend.  I love them!  Especially at the end when everyone is trying to sell off and you hear “50p for anything!” all over the rows.

Does everyone remember my dream kitchen?  You know a few months back I posted a picture of a kitchen that I love.  It was from a house that was for rent before we came to London.  Here’s a picture to refresh your memory.

This is my type of kitchen, beautiful tiles on the floor, a butler sink, open shelving, baskets everywhere.  In an attempt to someday have that kitchen I have started to be on the look out for things that are old, vintage, preloved…whatever you call it.  I don’t want anything new.  I want to surround myself with things that come with a story.  (this does NOT include the kitchenaid mixer I want to someday own, that can be new).  I want my home to be a reflection of our travels as well as really ‘green’.  Why buy new things when there are beautiful vintage things out there.   No more crap from the mass market for me, I want useable things that last.  On that note, meet the “new to me” items from the car boot.

GLASS JELLO MOLDS!  Seriously?  I’m in love.  I mean really in love.  I saw two sets at two different stands but I had to have these.  Got them for a pound.  Yep £1.  (mostly said it twice cause I finally figured out how to make the £ sign on my macbook, small things amuse me)

My second find was at the end of the field.  Most people would think this silly but most people aren’t crafters!  This is an old map.  It’s of France and Belgium and it’s in French.  Perfect.  All those crafters out there who are trying to make a new map they find look old will understand that 20 pence for a big huge map like this is beyond criminal and they are jealous and shaking their Modge Podge covered brushes at me right now.

 

 

That’s it.  It was a wonderful day although we did end up walking about 10K because I didn’t quite realize how far the Pennyfarthing Antique fair was from the Potters Bar car boot but Miss Thing was a trouper.  We can’t wait to hit up the next one!

 

Send modge podge….and a glue gun.

So husband is gone.  To FRANCE.  When I would go on a grade 5 field trip it would be to Prince Albert, I’m just sayin’.   So I’m home with the monkeys and what happens, I have a crafting emergency.  You know where you are sitting there minding your own business and suddenly you HAVE to craft.  I’m sure some of you do.  The rest of you probably have very boring lives.  I’m making a book wreath..not exactly like this one at Living with Lindsday but close.  And I want to make something with sheet music.  I really like the look of these eggs at  Kellis house and I think I better try it out before I tackle something like an entire dressform like over at  White linen lavender fields or a table like at Miss Mustard Seed !! So Miss Thing and I went down to the Charity shop (there are at least 5 on the high street) and bought a paperback book and some sheet music.  There were some crumbled pieces at the bottom and the lady at the shop threw them in.

By the way, I showed Mr. Magoo in his uniform, here’s Miss Thing in hers.  Upper school is so different.  I can’t believe she’s in Upper School.  Here it goes year seven to year 11 (grade 6 to grade 10).  So she’s in with the big kids (and big boys much to her father chagrin).  The upside is that her Dad can show up at the school at anytime, she has no idea when so it keeps her on her toes.

My inlaws are in town!!!  They are over in London and we’ve already seen them twice!  Love it!  They have made both of us very happy and extended their sons life by YEARS by giving us the best Christmas present EVER!  (yes I know it’s September).  Here is our new baby!  We’ve been ogling this baby since we saw it in action at my friends Bets house.  We had always thought the coffee wouldn’t be that great when we saw them before, man were we wrong!  We had a week of the best coffee ever and we were hooked.  Now we have our very own.  WHOOP WHOOP!  I’ve even found a place to recycle the discs, so the environmentally friendly part of me is thrilled too!

The first cup of coffee is brewed…..

High excitement throughout the flat.

My father in law pretty much didn’t know what the big deal was, as long as he got his cup of coffee.  He needed it cause later there was cribbage.   And let’s just say I didn’t let the fact that he had just made me the happiest girl in London, stop me from kickin’ his ass.

That’s our corner of the world for today….Cheers!

Knitting IS my therapy.

IMG_0886

Originally uploaded by allycupe

I’m knitting up a storm here in cold, dark, rainy Germany. I am just finishing up a delightful pair of socks for Elijah. I really like the way these knit up. They are from More Sensational Socks (of course). But the reason I’m so excited it because after these socks I am knitting a pair of mitts from the movie Twilight. Bella Mittens Pattern..go over to subliminalrabbit’s blog and get it for FREE. This girl can really write a pattern.

I asked Emmett today if that made me cool. You know seeing a movie, and then knitting the pair of mitts one character was wearing on the screen for like 4 minutes. Of course he said that he can’t imagine anything cooler. (when he said it, it sounded like ‘oh god, you’re such a loser’ but I know what he meant). So I’m rushing through this pair of socks with a determination I haven’t had for knitting in a long time. Funny how your passion can get turned up again….

Elijah wanted the socks to be knee highs but we settled on the length in the photo. I love the colour, the pattern ROCKS and although I’m thoroughly enjoying the renewed passion for knitting I can’t wait to be done to move onto the mitts.

Aw man the above post is brought to you by Flickr, I’m trying to see how the posts look when you upload directly from there. But if you forget anything you have to come back to wordpress and redo it anyways. I forgot to mention the 50 Euro sewing machine I’m getting from a family who is moving back to the States. I know it’ll be a god year before I can get one so I’m buying one off them. And when I can get my fancy machine, this one can be Nad’s.

Somethings are the same no matter where you live.

Two blog posts in one day!  This is what happens when you mix early morning, coffee and the excitement of the Internet man coming to my house!

Turns out that when the Ikea catalogue comes to the mail box, it doesn’t matter if you can read the words it’s still just as exciting to go through page by page and see what’s new from last year.

I meant to show pics of our free couch from the neighbour, it’s not in the best shape but it’ll work in the hobbyraum downstairs.  Once the kids are playing inside cause it’s raining all the time, we’re going to be very grateful that we have something in that room so they can go and play out of the main livining area.  The couch is in three separate pieces which I think I’m going to try to attach together once we move them to the basement.  If you look closely you’ll see that there is actually knitting on the back of the couch!  (remember when this was a knitting blog, and I KNIT!)

Following is the corner of the couch where Elijah’s toys wait for him to come home from school.  Somedays they are at a movie and need me to make them popcorn at lunch time.  Today Uppsie Daisy is reading to them so the books are on the back of the couch so she can reach them.  It’s a very elaborate morning ritual which cannot be rushed just because “the trains are coming Elijah, hurry up!”  Uppsie is a bit of a floosy, she hasn’t worn a top in quite some time, the little minx just wants to be the center of attention all the time.

I should probably bump into walls more…

I’m not sure why I don’t notice some things that others notice.  I like to think that I’m just above the superficial things in life and that I’m so advance emotionally that I live life on a different level but I think that illusion is leaving the building.  For the second time this school year a mom at my child’s school has given birth and I had NO IDEA SHE WAS PREGNANT!   She’s not a big girl either.  Just a regular mom.  Now in my defense she now has FOUR kids under the age of 6 so it’s not like you see her and think ‘wow, just about time for another baby!’ and she’s really tall so she probably carries in a way that doesn’t show that much.  But DAMN, how do I completely miss someone being pregnant.  I am really one of those great friends who can say honestly that you can gain 20 pounds and I won’t notice.  On the flip side, you can lose 20 pounds and that doesn’t register either.  However I can spot hand knit socks at 100 yards so I have other skills.

Speaking of knitting it’s time to pick up the sticks again, I really haven’t been doing a lot of it lately.  My youngest and most delightful child has decided that the only socks he can wear are homemade Mommy socks.  So cute…but he only has three pair that fit and two of them have holes in them.  Last night the only way we got him to sleep was to promise that we would look all night for his green Mommy socks.  Um,  we didn’t.  This morning when said socks were still missing there was a melt down of epic proportions.  Fortunately for Mommy I happened to find them at the final moments before I had to stick him in the van screaming but it was close.  By the way, I totally realize how crazy that sounds, don’t judge me.   So I’m going down to my yarn stash and I’m going to start some new ones for him today.  He’s my favorite kid (the other is down stairs faking sick to skip school and the other one said ‘yes’ when i asked if i looked fat in my summer shorts yesterday) so I think he deserves some new socks!

Oh and can I just add that the remake of Melrose Place looks a MILLION times better than the new 90210.  I’m still 13, shut up.

746.43

What the heck!

I’m tired.

I’m sober (out of booze)

I’m hungry (for chocolate, not REAL food)

I’ve got a case of SSS.

I’ve got gas.

It’s hump day (and I haven’t been humped)

And a lady at the library took the knitting book that I wanted off the shelf RIGHT in front of me!

I’m going to read blogs and fart until dh gets the hint and goes and buys me some coolers…..maybe I can strike a couple off my list…..mostly the hump day thing.