He Sowed She Sewed

Hello there, Jared again.  Remember a few posts ago when I mentioned that I was looking forward to re-invigorating the gardening portion of this blog, but we have to be patient here in the Northland because March and April are far too unstable for any significant outdoor gardening?   Remember that?

Well, the past 24 hours are a perfect example of why northerners must twiddle their green-thumbs even while the April sun blazes bright and the frogs harmonize and the loons wail across the waves.  We mustn’t be fooled.

Yesterday afternoon featured heavy rain showers mixing with high winds to create a stormy spring evening, perfect for a bowl of chili shared in a warm kitchen with friends.  The forecasters were mentioning that overnight enough cold air might filter in to bring us 2-4 inches of the white stuff.  Nothing out of the ordinary for this time of year.

But this is what we woke up to:

And to top it all off, the power has been out since sometime before 2 am, so with the house getting cold and no cookstove to make a hot meal, we barreled down the drive and made it out to the highway so we could head into town.  Oh, the adventures of the Northland.

A while ago we had a young family event out at our house.  We had about ten families come on a Saturday morning for brunch, fellowship and skating.  It was snowing which made for a gorgeous day.

While all the parents and kids were out on the rink we saw about 8 wolves head out to the left of our house and quite a way out onto the ice.  How do I know they were wolves?  you might ask-

Well, they were the size of deer but looked liked dogs.

When I ran inside to grab my camera there was only one wolf left, darn it.  Ah well at least I got a picture of one of them.  Unfortunately it was snowing pretty hard at the time.  I will just have to keep my  camera close at all times.  =)

As I was driving home I couldn’t help looking at the stars.  Yes, my eyes should have been intensely scanning the road for bears or deer or whatever creature wants to smash my car on the highway.  But I had to keep glancing upwards to the sky.  The stars were so bright tonight and I am so grateful that I am no longer in the city.

My husband and I had been living in the cities for the past 7 years.  When you live in the city, you get used to a starless sky.  You look up into the air at night and see darkness.  And to be honest I didn’t know I missed the stars.

But now that I have my stars back, I don’t know if I will ever want to give them up again.  They are immaculate up here in the North.  They are not only way up in the sky but they seem to reach down and touch the earth around you.  They go on forever and there are different levels of stars.  The close ones, the farther stars and the way, way far away stars.  The milky way is in the night sky and the big dipper is hovering over our lake right now.

I love, love, love my stars and am so glad to have them back.

I have an etsy store!!!

Come and visit me and buy all 11 of my beautiful items =)

I am so glad that I finally have this online store up and running.  It is long overdue and now when I make things I can easily add them to etsy.

Mostly sweater pants are for sale right now but I hope to have some jewelry wallets and necklaces up there in the next couple days.

I suppose I could take special order requests if you want.

Keep checking in for new things you can buy for Christmas presents.

I am pretty pumped about this, if you haven’t noticed.  Yay!

Visit Me!

Time for a craft!

I made Aleah a pair of pillowcase pants.

They are soft and the best part about them is I didn’t have to hem the bottom since I used the finished seam of the pillowcase.

And of course the pants needed a pocket for small pals or perhaps a snack.

My first sewing project in my new house!

We have moved out of our previous house and are now in a huge four bedroom house on Lake Vermillion.

It has been a tiring and exhausting few days of packing and unpacking, moving and hauling, not sleeping, wrestling children and cleaning.  But it has definitely been worth all the work.  For eight glorious months we get to stay in this house that is rented out to vacationers during the summer months and now rented to us until next May.  Here are a few pictures for you to see:

Not many people get to wake up to a view like this one:

Aleah and Sophi’s favorite part about our new spot:

There are many great things about this house, mainly- We don’t have to eat in the living room, you will not have to sleep on the couch if you come to visit and you will even have your own bathroom.  I will have my own bathroom when you are visiting.  And you will have a GORGEOUS view of one of the most beautiful lakes in Minnesota.

We are so happy and blessed to be able to live in this remarkable place for eight months.  In the spring we will have to move out of this house because it is rented during the summer to rich people with gobbs of money.  We will then move into the parsonage.  Until then, we will be soaking up every minute.

This skirt took me about ten minutes to make and is so darn stinking cute on Sophi that I could just about scream.

I first saw this idea on a website called pintrest.  This website has beautiful pictures and wonderful ideas.  This is the picture I started with.

Since the minute I saw this picture I have been hunting for a wooden headboard with which to make a bench.  I have seen some new headboards and some  for more money than I would like to spend.  So I kept patiently (and sometimes not so patiently) waiting.

Last Saturday we took a family trip to the dump.  Fun right?

At the dump we dropped off our garbage and our recyclables.  As we were driving out I spotted what I had been waiting for!

There is a green shed off to the side of the dump where people can bring things they don’t want anymore but is still nice enough that someone else might want it.  I saw a beautiful headboard and footboard for a twin bed.  At first we thought we might not be able to use it because it was fairly small.  The picture in my head was to use a queen size headboard to make a bench large enough for adults.  But Jared had the genius idea to make a bench for the girls!

He worked on it one afternoon in the garage.  His work bench was an old boat trailer left in the garage and he borrowed the saw from a good friend.

The girls were in and out always checking on him and wanting to help.

Since the bench still needed a little something, I made a cushion to go on top.

Right now it is sitting on our front porch and is a great place to sit and watch the world go by.