Wednesday, January 23, 2013

To Cheer Me Up

 
I need light, warmth... green stuff. January is so dark and cold, and a bit depressing after Christmas. This week we've had the worst air quality in the nation here in Salt Lake City, Utah. Every January we get a low pressure system, called inversion, that settles in the Salt Lake Valley and doesn't budge. It finally clears up some time in February, but until then there's really no going outside. It's too cold and too hard to breath. "cough, cough"
 
(Picture of Salt Lake City, Utah and the crummy air I'm breathing every day.)
 
 
Time to bring some cheer and warmth inside!
 
Target sells these great drum shades that are just begging to be covered. I've had a plain white lamp with a plain white shade sitting on my entry table that has been
calling out to me.
 
My lamp shade is nine inches tall. I purchased a half yard of the brightest, spring time fabric I could find at my local fabric store. This is from the line Simply Color by V and Co. 
  
 
Covering a lampshade is super easy, there are lots of tutorials out there, so I'll just give you an overview how it's done.
 
 
 
 
I basically just rolled the fabric on to the shade, smoothing and gluing as I went along. Easy.
 
 
At the end I folded my fabric over, overlapped it a bit, and glued it down into place.
 
 
Once my fabric was in place I carefully trimmed all the way around the lampshade and folded it over to the inside...
 
 
I was a little worried about making it look perfect on the inside, but it doesn't and no one has noticed. In fact, I've gotten TONS of compliments on it.
 
 
I used Aleene's Tacky Glue. It worked perfectly.
 
 
My little project brightened up my home and cheered me up quite a bit on an otherwise dark and dreary day.
 
 
Stay warm everyone! Spring is on its way.

Saturday, January 12, 2013

Scouts

 
Have I mentioned before that we are a scouting family? I don't think I have. Which is strange since all 5 of us our involved in scouting. My husband is the leader for the 11 year old Boy Scouts in our area and my son started Cub Scouts at age 8 and now goes with his dad and all the other 11 year old's every week. Next weekend they are supposed to go a winter camp and spend the night in a cabin (thank goodness it's not a snowcave!) in these freezing temperatures. And I am the assistant Girl Scout leader for 2 troops, little C's Daisy troop and P's Brownie troop.

Today is the official day to start selling Girl Scout cookies. I was a little late on the draw and with 2 large troops in our area most of our neighborhood has been thoroughly combed already. I'm hoping to get a good response from coworkers and family. With 2 girls selling I'm already on the hook for 40$ worth of cookies, haha! I guess we'll be eating Girl Scout cookies for awhile. Actually, never mind that, they're so good I don't think they'll last long in this house!

If any locals would like to place an order, let me know! We'll be selling for the next 2 weeks and delivering cookies the last week in February. Yay Scouts!

Thursday, January 10, 2013

A New Year


 
I made it through Christmas. I even had a little fun. Ok...we had a lot of fun this year, but I am glad to get back to our regularly scheduled program. That first day sending the kids back to school and cleaning up the mess felt SO GOOD. 
 
Christmas Eve I started to feel a little extra tired. By Christmas day I was sure I was coming down with something. The next 3 days were horrible. I spent most of my time doing this...
 
 
(Watching Doctor Who, my newest obsession.
 David Tennant is adorable!)
 
I had the flu. The real "couldn't breath, achy body, I think I'm dying" flu. I haven't experienced that in a while. It was shocking to say the least.
 
By the 3rd day after Christmas I felt well enough to don some jeans and head out for my birthday. The kids spent the night at grandma's and we had all sorts of grand plans. None of which happened because of how bad I felt. We got some Chinese and went to a local store to buy my gift...
 
 
Our family. I love it!
 
By New Year's I was feeling better, if maybe just a little extra tired. We stayed home and had a party with the kids.
 
 
The next day we headed to the ice skating rink. Only one out of the five of us can really skate, though The Boy tries really hard. My husband ended up taking turns towing us around the rink a few times before we left.
 
 
 She wouldn't let go of the wall.
 
 
We topped it off with a trip to the ice cream shop.
 
 
She's a little excited... I think there's more candy in that cup than ice cream.
 
 
Now it's 2013 and time for some New Year's resolutions, right? Well, here's what I'm going to do (or keep doing) this year...
 
I started a new quilt
 
 
I discovered at the mall that I fit into these size 4s! (haven't done that since high school)
They're even a bit baggy, but buying the 2s scared me.
 
 
And I'm going to keep this up.  
 
 
I still have a little way to go.