Irene Messing with my Plans

Irene has messed with all my great blogging plans.  Not only has the storm messed up my internet, phone, and electricity but I can't blog either (or do many crafts).

Here's what the road down from my house looks like:

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This is actually a picture of a  road in Vermont, but our road looks about the same.  We have three electric poles down.  I don't think we will be getting power for another week.

Jeff and I are fine, besides the lack of power, phone, and internet our house and life has been unaffected. The house was far enough from the river that flooded that we are fine.  We didn't even get much water in the basement.  But I must say: it was such a treat to actually shower after four days.  We may be off the the in-laws to get some power and internet (I can't live without you guys and my blogs I read, and Jeff can't work without the internet himself).

I hope if I'm online this week I will be hosting a giveaway.  I have some great software for digital scrap-booking that I can't wait to give away, but first you have to see what I did.

So be sure to stop by latter this week for my giveaway and tell your other readers too.  I hope to make lots of new friends.

Ikea Baby

We went to Ikea today. I love Ikea (who doesn't?). When I say we, I mean WE. It was my husband's whole clan. Jeff's parents, his sister, and her husband. We make quite a crowd walking around the store, I must say. But it is so much fun. We all help each other look for things and tease each other the whole way.

I didn't have my camera on my this trip, so all you get are pictures from the Ikea website, but I wanted to highlight some of the items I loved.

Here's what I want:

1) A COUCH ... I want a new couch in a

major way. Ours is just too dark and outdated for the house anymore. I'm just done with the brown leather. I'm really done with brown in general. I don't know what happened I used to love it, but now I'm on to grey. Guess I'm just that kind of trendy woman. Grey is the in neutral right now.

FIRST I saw this one .......

Which I love, but really it is not that practical.

Then Jeff and I spotted this one...

Which becomes this:

But .. alas they did not have it in grey. So I'm holding out for it to come back in stock, maybe by then we will have money for it. Jeff and I decided this was the best one. It really is a great design. The recliner portion even has storage underneath. The more I think about it the more I like this couch.

Another thing I want is....

2) A shoe rack. We need something to hold our shoes near the back door that we use all the time. I wanted this great little shelf for it.

But Jeff thinks it will be too tall (he might be right). So we discussed this one:

It is just that much shorter to make Jeff more comfortable. But ultimately I think this second one is just too wide for the space. In the end we got Jeff's dad to agree to make us a little box for the shoes with a little seat on top. I like that idea much more because then I will have a spot for me to take off my shoes.

Finally, we saw this lamp that we want for the living room as well. It is just that much smaller and sleeker than the one we have (and it adjusts up and down in height).

In the end all we bought was some candles,

...fabric (sorry no picture, I didn't have the patience to find the right ones online), and other assorted knickknacks.

Even though we didn't buy much I think it was a very productive day overall. (We also went out to lunch at a great burger joint, even for me who has never eaten a burger in her life. I had a turkey burger).

What is your favorite couch color? White, grey brown, or maybe you like something bright like orange. Lets share.

Learn Something New Every Day

The switch to a new email has made my life a whole lot more complicated. I now have to switch over all 150 of my blogs that I read regularly.

That leaves me with two issues:

1) What did i learn you ask? Well, I learned that which ever account you have open will be the account that you will be logged into when you follow an account. Did you know that? I have always only had one account so I had no idea. Now you know too.

2) How to change your blog email account holder. I made a new email, then added myself as a user. Made myself an administrator and then after I was sure that worked I deleted my old account. Actually that part was not the worst part. The worst part was then following all new blogs with my new account. There is probably an easier way to do this. I have no idea what way that is. Everything else I tried did not work.

To change your blog subscriptions over to blogger was a pain. I had to open them in my old account, then switch users to my new account and re-follow. Now each blog has me following them twice. I feel really bad about that because their numbers would be inflated (if only by one) because of this. I'm actually thinking of un-following all the accounts on my old blogger just to make life a little easier. It seams more fair, but then again, to my blog friends it looks like they lost a reader. Oh dear who knows.

I think what I'm going to do is un-follow my old blogs just to get my name off the internet so much. Again this goes back to my job hunt. Please...if you see you have lost a follower understand it is me and I'm still following you (or will be soon) I just don't want to be following you twice.

I will get this all under control. I might just delete my whole old account. That way there is no complications. I'll keep you posed on how all this goes.

Gone Undercover

I made a big decision today. I decided I would go undercover. That means when you email me you will only get my nick name. I now have an email just for this blog and my full name will no longer be seen.

You can still see me, and I will still be the author of this blog, but I am trying to take my name off it. I'm looking for employment, and although this blog is not a bad representation of myself, I think it is more professional to have it be more anonymous.

Please bear with me as I make the transition. I still love you all.



Lets have a discussion: how do you feel about your name on websites? I'm really interested in your responses.

Hubby Craft

This one was made by my beloved hubby.  He made me a sliding shelf for my under-the-sink-garbage.

He was kind enough to record the whole project with my camera.

It all started with a simple impulse buy at Ikea.

They had these drawer pulls on sale for $1.99 a pair.  We cut the wood, and attached the pulls.

We (and I do mean HE) added the little rail.

So now I have a drawer for my garbage.  No more pulling it our when I want to get into it.  Beats the $50 to buy one at the big box stores.

The grand total for our one?  About $12.

Do you have anyone who makes nice things for you?  Tell me about it.

Where I Party:

Reupholstered Chair Big Reveal!!!

Remember that little ottoman I did? Well, now the whole chair is done.

Before

After

It's white!!! **white pleather that is (you know fake leather)** I know, I make everything white. What to do. I want to lighten things. White was once my favorite color (because it was all colors, that's a seven year old mind at work there).

I like how the chair came out don't you?

I made it the same way I made the others. It was quite simple (besides the buttons, I hate the buttons).

I really think it brightens up the whole corner (bad lighting aside, it was cloudy today). I can't wait to finish the headboard, then you can see the whole room reveal. It will be great.

What is your take on reupholstering? Love it, hate it? I want to know.

Where I party:

My Very First Time To Reupholster!!!

I did it!!! I reupholstered my first piece of furniture.  I was surprised to see that it was not as difficult as I thought it would be.  (In truth I did pick a pretty simple piece to do.)

This chair is quite famous.  At first I was hesitant to change the fabric.  This chair and ottoman will probabaly loose some of the value because I'm changing the leather.  But if I learned anything from my dresser debate, it is that I should do what makes me happy and not worry about the value.

Here is the before and after.

Before

After

As you can see it is a white "leather-like" cover.  I'm not crazy about the color.  I went back to Jo-Ann's to find more only to see that they don't have any more white.  So I'm changing it to a more off white, or antique white.  Unfortunately that means I have to redo the ottoman, and worse yet, the buttons.  

I did all the buttons at once.  

It was a big pain to do all these buttons, my thumb nails almost broke.  I know, it is silly to complain about my nails breaking but they still hurt and it has been two days since I made these. Now I have to do them all over again.  Sheesh, maybe I will put on a chick flick and of it in front of the TV.  

  

Here's What I did to finish the ottoman, after the horror of the buttons (you will just have to figure out that one for yourself).  

I took the ottoman apart: 

Took the old leather off.

Took the old buttons off, and then added the new ones.  It was at this point that I lost it a little, because I thought my work was for nothing because I did not have an upholstery needle.  In swooped my brilliant mom. No she didn't drive over from AUSTRALIA (to New York) but she did have the foresight to buy people junk sewing kits, one of which had a upholstery neadle.  Thank the lord.  

I cut out and added the new fabric.  Used my new found upholstery needle, and I was almost done.  

Staple it all together and ...BAM...your done.  As my friendly Jo-Ann's worker said "have staple gun will travel."

Next: the rest of the chair

So what do you think? 

That is Fred and Russ, they live there.

 I will be sure to post the whole chair when I get it done (maybe by next week).

Where I party:

Zucchini Cake

What do you do with a giant zucchini when your husband won't eat it?

Make Zucchini Cake of course!!!

Jeff hates zucchini, and I'm not a big fan myself, so when I  was given this huge zucchini from a friend's garden I was not sure what to do.  At first I was going to make zucchini pancakes, but when I saw this recipe in the July Martha Stewart Living I knew it was the thing to do.  The recipe is not online yet, but be sure to look for it in the magazine.  This was a killer cake, soooo good.

I went all out and even candied the zucchini for the top.  I had to boil the zucchini for twenty minutes, but it made the cake look so good.  Yum.

I had to lay parchment paper to keep the zucchini under water.

This was probably the most successful zucchini cake I have made to date, and I make a lot of cakes, zucchini included.

Slice into the cake and it was even better.

We ate the cake in two days.  Not so good for our waist lines, but so good for our taste buds (hey we are eating veggies right?).  I have another zucchini waiting for the zucchini panckaes next.

What do you do with your garden zucchinis?

Where I party: