Wings As Eagles: April 2009

Saturday, April 25, 2009

A glimpse of my day through photos

fresh cinnamon rolls

sink full of clean dishes

bowls of pancake flour

fresh fruit salad

clean folded laundry

finished quilt block

my babies!

Friday, April 24, 2009

Spring Cleaning: My bedroom

I admit, the spring cleaning bug has bitten me and I am eager to get started! I've been trying to figure out why I'm so thrilled about cleaning, but I think it partly has to do with the fact that Jena and Krissa are moving out and we are changing rooms, some furniture and such. I think that's the reason anyway.

But I will admit, it's always nice to have a clean house from top to bottom. You know, that cleaning that only gets done once a year. Like dusting every single place in the room, vacuuming every inch of carpet, washing windows, etc. You get the idea....

I started my bedroom last week, the main reason being that I needed to put away my winter clothes and get out my spring and summer things. I don't want to wear black, gray and brown to church every Sunday in April. ;) Plus since I found some spring fabric in Denver, I wanted to get out my spring skirts and see what I had and what I needed to sew.

Yep, it's quite a mess! And it's a good thing you can't see my dust-covered shelves from this view or the pile of totes and shoes stacked at the end of the bed! Or the closet!

What started out as just changing clothing seasons, ended up in a full blown-out cleaning spree with rearranging the furniture as well. While I had to work around my business schedule and my room was a working zone for about a week, it's wonderfully nice to have my bedroom all cleaned and back in order.

Since I will have two empty closets downstairs vacated by my two sisters, I was able to get rid of my temporary closet in my room and move those sweaters into Krissa's empty closet. I love empty closet space! It won't be empty for too long! ;)

I also discovered that I have way too much stuff crammed under my bed, in my closet and just all over my room.

I found out......

I really don't need all those audio tapes that I never listen to anymore and are outdated, do I? Most of them are audio recordings I did of movies that I would listen to as I sew and now I just use my computer.

I really don't need THAT many curling irons, especially since my favorite one is the one I found at Sally's in Houston!

Anybody need hand cream, body lotion or shower gel from Bath & Body Works? I think I have ample. ;) I always buy those on sale and stock up. I think I'm stocked up for quite a while.

Cd cases in abundance! To make access to my cds easier, I take the cds out of their jewel cases and put them in a cd binder. It's quicker and easier for me. Plus they are all ripped to my computer where I listen to most of them anyway.

Yeah, my mess overflowed into the hall. I had bundles of trash to take out plus totes of things to take to the consignment shop.

Ahhhhh! Wonderfully nice!

I changed my shelving a little bit. I just love these shelves Dad built! They are perfect for all kinds of things! First of all I took everything down and dusted each and every little trinket I had plus I got rid of some of the things that were there which gave me a whole empty shelf. I filled that up with dvds and books that I had hanging around. Plus I put my shoes at the bottom since I didn't have my temporay closet where they were before.

Oh and last, but not least....Skittles' and Scampers' toys.

First thing in the morning when I get up is gather up all the mice, paper balls, bells and pom poms for my kitties and put them in a pile under the bed. By the next morning, they will be all over the floor and my bed, but at least they are in a pile once in a while.

I even found a couple toys under the covers which explains why I woke up in the middle of the night to Scamper digging around, under the covers, near my feet. ;)

More on my spring cleaning schedule later this week......

Wednesday, April 22, 2009

Frogs, fireflies, firebugs and all that stuff

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Here's your trivia question for the day:
What do you see wrong with this photo?


Keep scrolling down and keep reading to find out........
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Did you find it yet? lol!!!
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Much to my embarrassment, it took one of my 2nd graders to discover it and tell me about it. ;)
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I had such fun creating these decorations and am enjoying implementing them into my class lessons each week. I'm teaching on prayer in addition to following my time-line of the Old Testament. The little frogs, fireflies and firebugs are as cute as they can be!

C'mon In!

bulletin board


Last Sunday my two twin boys in class did very well. They are very active and do not come from the best of homes, so many times my hour of teaching is spent keeping them in line. This time they did splendidly well and I'm so thankful! Praise the Lord for that!

We decorated prayer boxes which they thought was great fun. Especially the sticky glue dots that we used. They thought that was great! Then I had frog diecuts in the lime green frog basket and wrote a topic or someone that they could pray for this next week.

As each one drew their own frog out of the basket, we talked about who they could pray for and how they could specifically pray for them. Then they took their prayer box home and their prayer frog to remind them to pray for that person each day. Each week they will get to pick another prayer frog to add to their box. They were so excited that they wanted to take more than one prayer frog home!


Also, I was really encouraged because I'm planning for my class to sing several songs dealing with prayer during the morning worship service and while the girls are excited and have their parts memorized, I've been struggling with getting the boys involved.

But today they kept asking me when they were going to sing in church and were excited about it and just about had the songs and actions memorized. I think they would have sung it this morning if I would have let them. Why the huge change? I have no idea, but I'm praising the Lord for it!

Ok, so did you spot the mistake? Take a close look at the verse. A really close look.

Yes, you are right....the Psalm is missing the "L" in the first version. Sad to say I typed the reference, printed it, cut it out, glued it on the posterboard, hung it up at church and it was there for a whole week before one of the boys said, "That's not how you spell Psalms!"

The really sad thing is that I did all that twice since I made one for the door and one for the bulletin board. However, do keep in mind that this was done late at night. Can I use that for an excuse? LOL!!!! Oh well, that keeps me humble! ;)

Monday, April 20, 2009

Guest room is clean and furniture has arrived

Our converted guest room is on it's way to being completed. It's cleaned and painted and the furniture was delivered a week ago. I even bought pillows and sheets last week since the sheets we have are too small to fit the deeper mattresses.

I also ordered blinds which should arrive this week. And then I have to decide what to do for curtains. But before I decide that, I have to decide what quilt I'm going to put on that bed. It's not like that is a must-have-tomorrow decision, but I've been thinking about it.

My first choice would be to put my Latte Quilt in that room, but that's not going to happen now since that quilt will not be complete until next year when my classes are finished.


Second choice would be my burgundy Beyond the Color Purple quilt. Jena thinks that quilt is hers, since it's burgundy, but it's still mine. Maybe I'll give it to her as a wedding gift one of these years.
Third choice would be my yellow/purple MJE quilt. I'm staying away from this one just because the colors are really bolder than what I want in that room.

Fourth choice would be my pink MJE quilt. That is my number one pick right now as it is the best match for the paint, the quilt and shams are complete and it's a soft color tone for that room. I'm just not too thrilled about doing pink in that room. Hmmm.....


What do you think? It's not like I don't have any choices or anything....:)

And if you are wondering what happened to all of Jena's stuff that she had in that room.....it's now in....
...the schoolroom and...

...in Dad's room.

And in another month will be hopefully out of both rooms! Not that I'm trying to get rid of Jen or anything, but since she made the decision to move, she can take her stuff with her. ;)

Sunday, April 19, 2009

A perfect Sunday afternoon

A glimpse of my Sunday....

I was so pleased with my Sunday School class this morning; it went splendidly well! More on that in a later post with my new Spring decorations and a funny aspect of that too. :)

It was warm enough to go outside and sit in the sun, so I took my blanket, computer and earphones and laid out in the sun for about an hour. I was more thrilled about the opportunity to take a nap, than to get a tan. But my excuse was "trying to get a little more sun", but that will take a while. More excuses to take naps in the future! ;)

I came inside and finished putting up a few things in my room and straightened up my sewing room to start some class lessons tomorrow. I started cleaning my room when I got home from Colorado last week and now I'm itching to continue spring cleaning.

Ok now, back to the perfect Sunday afternoon and reasons for this post.........

1. It's 6:30 and there's nothing I HAVE to do tonight before tomorrow. It's already done! WhooHooo!!!!

2. I'm sitting at the kitchen table with my computer (blogging!), watching Andy Griffith. Just finished the Pickle Story - one of my favs! Jena actually turned it on as she's sitting on the bar with her computer. After I finished downstairs, I settled in to listen while completing other tasks....see below.

3. Diet Mt. Dew and popcorn - umm...ummmm...good! And yes, Joanna, I will eat the whole bag. By the time you would get here to get some, it would be gone. ;)


4.
My planner open in front of me. I'm planning out the remainder of April and then May for my classes, spring cleaning, room arrangement and so forth. I'm itching to start cleaning and I'm not quite sure why???? Cleaning is not something you are supposed to be looking forward to, is it???

Friday, April 17, 2009

To Colorado and back

My Easter weekend trip to Colorado turned out to be fun and exciting as usual! I had several reasons for making this trip to CO and was able to get all those accomplished. Hooray!

Snickers - Joanna wanted one of my Siamese kittens and since she didn't want another Skittles (have I mentioned that Scamper is the exact replica of Skittles??), Snickers is the one! He did really well traveling the 6 hours and the trip went by really quickly. The fact that my attention was on this little four-legged furball probably helped that fact greatly. He was a little fussy getting started, but soon settled down on my lap, above my head or around my neck and was content.

Here are some pics and yes, I did take these while I was driving, but I was careful! :) My only fear is that I would get stopped and a police officer would see this cat near my head. I'm sure I would have been in trouble...more pics are here....

he started out in my lap...

then moved to the headrest...

and onto my head for the remainder of the trip!

He's adjusted very well at Joanna's house. It took Zippy (Joanna's cat) a few days to adjust to this little white rat running around all over her room, but they seem to have become friends. As long as Snickers doesn't steal all of Zippy's places to sleep, he'll be fine. And Zippy latched onto Snicker's toy mouse that I brought. :)

sleeping with Joanna

sleeping on top of us while we were watching a movie

Denver Fabrics - How can I not go to Colorado and not visit Denver Fabrics? I suppose it is possible, but that would be disappointing. But I did really have a valid reason for going. Really. Honestly. And it wasn't just more fabric for me, although I did find some. Don't laugh, cause Joanna found some too. :)

I managed to get a couple pieces for a bedspread I am stitching for a customer. And I found the perfect combination of fabrics for bathroom curtains. I've looked all over here and online and haven't found a thing. But what I did find was perfect and I love it and the stripe fabric was even on sale (reg. 22.00, sale 7.00)! How fantastic is that?!?! I was hoping for something striped, but didn't think I would find it.

Fabric for bathroom curtains - see that stripe?! I love it and it blends well with the green solid and towels (it looks better in person than this photo!)

Ok, I will admit, I did find some pieces for me. I'll even show you what I bought and it's not that much. Plus I can't get quality, inexpensive garment fabric around here, so I stock up when I can.

Black with pink stripe - What can I say - it's black! And you know I never have enough black stuff to wear! But this has a pink stripe which makes it unique.

Black sparkle sheer
- I'm not sure what I'm doing with this, but I loved it. And if I didn't get it, Joanna was going to, so of course, I did. ;)


Gray plaid
- Joanna actually picked this one up and then decided that she didn't need it since she had like 8 yards of it at home, so I took it.


Brown embroidered suede
- This just feels so nice and I love the embroidery!

Now this is not typical me. The eyelash knit caught my eye because of the color - a beautiful aqua/blue! It just looked so spring looking. Then Joanna found the wild print on the left to go with it. It's quite bold with it's large yellow, orange and green floral print, but it does match the blue really well. I'm still not sure about the print and looking at it in this photo versus in person is not improving my opinion on it. But I'll make a skirt out of it and see how it turns out.

The Thorn
- Ok, perhaps my main reason for going to Colorado was to see the Thorn, which is a theatrical production depicting Jesus' death and resurrection. It was excellent! If you ever get a chance to go, you should!

I planned to go to church Sunday morning with Joanna and then start for home, but the weather did not cooperate with my plans. Joanna kept saying on Friday that I would get snowed in and wouldn't be able to return home Sunday and guess what happened? Yep, you couldn't have planned it any better, Joanna! ;) (btw, I know she's reading this! lol!) We ended up getting a full 8" of wet, heavy snow and we did not go anywhere on Sunday. Monday morning was bright and sunny and was the perfect weather for driving home.

My car was covered with snow; of course it was the one with the most!

And while we were getting snow in CO, it was pouring rain here in Kansas. Yes, pouring! Dad said we got 2 1/2"! Praise the Lord for that because we needed it so badly!

Skittles and Scamper back home were a little lost without Snickers and of course, me. The moment I walked in the door, Skittles was in the kitchen to greet me. As usual, she looked thinner than when I left. She's most certainly a one person cat and if I'm not home, she's not happy. Especially if Jena is home.

Thursday, April 9, 2009

Not just one, but two kittens in the car

This morning I took both kittens to the vet for their shots. Usually that entails screaming kittens, kittens crawling all over and kittens crawling all over me before settling down on my lap or shoulder. Needless to say I wasn't disappointed; that's exactly what happened.

Do you know just how LOUD Siamese kittens can get? And do you know how LOUD a choir of two Siamese kittens can get? And if one of those kittens is right next to your ear, do you know how LOUD that can get? EXTREMELY LOUD!!!! For the entire 30 minute drive to town. Thank goodness the drive home proved uneventful.

Once we were inside the vet clinic, all was fine and dandy. Scamper and Snickers started running around the room, investigating everything in their path. Until a large dog came in; you should have seen them run with fluffed tails and fur raised practically 10"!

These little driving trips I can handle, but tomorrow I'm taking Snickers to Joanna and that is a 6 hour drive to Colorado Springs. I'm not sure I'm looking forward to that interesting trip. ;)

Snickers: "Where are we going?"

I went by Wal-Mart after the vet and put the kittens in the front seat and 15 minutes later when I got back to the car, they were still in the same place! But as soon as I started driving, they crawled over onto me.

Snickers: "Can we go home now?"

Scamper settled in around my neck...

...and Snickers in my lap for the ride home.

Quite an interesting ride!