. since we last met .

. it's been busy and then a little less busy . i've enjoyed the slower time and am using the time to refocus and set some goals for this year . very excited about some new business ideas .

. i've been to vegas, twice .

. chicago, i don't know how many times .

. fell in love with and watched all of downtown abbey, most of the while with a cup of tea .

. attended wppi for the first time ever .

. moved .

. started recycling .

. really enjoying cooking with lots of fresh veggies .

. establishing family night with people in my life that might as well be my family .

. doing my best to be fully submitted to what God has for me .

. drank loads of bubble tea, mostly with my tracy friend .

. met nate and jaclyn kaiser and jasmine star .

. got my hair cut shorter .

. then grew it back out a bit .

. considered growing it back out all the way again, but decided to hold off because jasmine and nate both told me i had cool hair . (this is always subject to change)

. built stronger relationships with some .

. not been what i should to others, will be working on that .

. reconnected with old friends .

. having fun hanging out with these 2 every so often .

. having fun decorating the new pad .

. causing me to think about rebranding my photography, so that's in the works .

. overwhelmed by loved ones, the good kind of overwhelmed .

. enjoying that with every twist and turn in life there's always room for change and better yet, improvements .

. getting dressed up all fancy and stuff .

. for a big party, that was a bit of a let down, mainly because i'm not into the kind of parties where you have to yell in your friends ear just to chat . :) fuddy duddy, i know . getting all dressed up was my favorite part . oh and taking fun snapshots with friends .

. rang in the new year by watching and photographing a beautiful home birth .

. and then had photos from the birth make the front page of the cedar rapids gazette .

. resting outside in february barefoot (not in iowa) .

. braved getting a tattoo . i'm tougher than i thought . it says 'it is well with my soul' . always a good reminder .

. frequenting goodwill, stuff, houseworks, salvation army and all those great places to see what treasures i may find .

. i've gotten involved in a great connection group through my church, the ladies in this bible study are great knitters, i love watching them do their thing as we discuss God's word .

. i'm sure there's more, but i'm going to let that do for catching us up . hopefully more to come soon .

sweatshirt turned laptop sleeve

. so i ordered this sleeve for my ipad and shortly thereafter thought about how easy it would be to make, if i could just sew .

. lucky for me i know someone that can . thanks ten !

. i snagged an old sweatshirt out of my closet, i knew i wanted the edge from the bottom of it to hug the end of the laptop to kind of close off the sleeve . pinned it all up and passed it off to my lovely sister in law .

. the underarm of the sweatshirt made for a little lumpy odd corner, and i like it . it reminds me of that sweatshirt, i liked it, and it went with the capri pants that got a hole in a very unfortunate spot so they could no longer be worn (although i still have them...maybe i could make something out of them too, ooh, i just got an idea for the sleeves of the sweatshirt...sweatshirt, part 2) .

. and well, i had tenille add ric rac . why ? because it's cute .

. now i can throw my laptop in it's sleeve and into my giant purse and i'm set .

. on target .

. last week i felt behind, especially when i realized it was 10 days til christmas ! it's amazing what just getting them wrapped will do . i realized i only had 1 more gift that i needed, and picked that up yesterday, so now to wrap that and a few others that the hubs has come up with and we're ready .

. it's this week ! how did that happen so fast ?

. it was as easy as it looked .

. so i'll admit, at the hotel i watched waaay too much tv . we don't pay for channels so any tv i do watch is pretty intentional, on line . so when i have access to hgtv, tlc, and shows like the martha stewart show, i tend to overload (we even watched the little couple, i can't believe what they make into shows these days!) .

. yesterday i saw this cute little idea of making a rose ring for valentine's day out of pipe cleaners on martha . what good is it, not much . but how cute is it...very ! i tried one this morning and it was just as easy as it looked on the show, that's seldom the case in my experience . it's a little big and maybe a bit much, but fun, none the less . if you or a little girl in your life are interested in making one you can follow the directions here .

. it's almost as big as my fist .

:)

. not quite .

. ahh, good to be home, and i really don't miss the tv .

:)

. thanks and sorry .

. my good friend emily made me a lovely little flower that she attached beautifully to my candle she gave me for christmas . i've burned the candle and it almost irritated me to see the beautiful flower just hanging out there . i was so jealous of my candle . i'm really into hair pretties all of the sudden, so i took it apart a little and made it work for me (tim gun would be proud that i 'made it work') . the gals in prison liked it...and a few at the mall too .

:)

. so thanks so much emily for the beautiful flower, and sorry i took it apart and made something else out of it .

. oh, and happy february...january in iowa...done, couldn't be happier . we're on our way and february's a short one .

. more wintertime craftyness .

. sometimes it's fun to just make something random . typically i think where i would i hang it? will this match so-and-so's decor? would they really like it, or only because i made it or not because i made it . i maybe tend to over think my projects i work on, but i'm practical like that . this was a random project that had no specifications so whatever i ended up with was all good .

. i should do more of this .