43rd Birthday

First off, look how cute my little butterfly pillow case upcycle dress is on. So cute!

I had a birthday this month! I took the day off and Scott switched his days off so he would be off too. We spent the afternoon doing some car shopping and doing some test drives. It was fun! Especially since we knew we weren't buying a car that day,  so no pressure. I really liked driving the Mazda 5. It's all fun and games until you figure out how much the car payments are going to be, right?

After that we went and met my parents for dinner at New China in Manteca. The service was HORRIBLE. But it was a fun time with the family. 

Another one in the books!

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First Real Craft Show

February 11th I did my first real craft show. Of course the weather didn't cooperate as much as she could have and it was super windy. And cold! But I learned a lot and sold enough to at least pay for my booth space and some lunch from the taco guy with a couple dollars left over lol.

My Mom and Melissa went with me. I had probably the best spot, right when you walk in from the parking lot! Too bad the weather kept more people from coming.

I ended up making "straps" out of ribbon to hold my cozies down. The wind would come up and WHOOSh they'd be on the ground. Thinking I would like to get some of those clear plastic riser things to set things up. I just used one of my boxes here.

Here is the other side

The wine totes flew off the table several times too. (there's mom back behind the table lol)

The booth next to me was selling bows, they had some great ideas for set up

So things I learned:

When booking a craft show, make sure it's a place easily visible from the road or has a lot of signage and/or advertising. This place was off the road at a golf course and had a tiny little sign out by the road.

Bring ropes and or bungie cords. Also maybe some kind of weights to hold down the canopy.

A longer table cloth would be nice so you could put all your stuff under the table and people wouldn't be able to see it.

Wind sucks.

I am signed up for another craft show on March 18th. That one has a lot of advertising and is on a busy corner so it should be better!

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Sick Day

Guess who is home sick. Ugh scratchy throat and stuffy nose. The kids are also home sick with the same.

So far I've taken a shower, had 2 cups of coffee and did the kids Fafsa. I should have finished my coffee first because I put Melissa's name backwards when I made her ID so now I have to wait a couple days for it to clear with the correct way. But for the most part they are done.

Ok going to work on some blog updating! I really need to put away all the clean clothes I just dumped out on my bed looking for a clean pair of undies but I have the rest of the day to get that done right? Procrastinators UNITE!

Oh and BTW the river levels are still fine and we are still dry. The water in the river actually went down a bit yesterday. Funny how all the news was saying how it was going to go up a ton and it didn't.

I feel so mentally drained from all the news and stress in our neighborhood.Pin It

Sheesh

If you watch our local news or read the paper you will think my entire neighborhood is under water and the levee is about to give out at any moment and we are all going to die. It's crazy!!

Yes the river is high but it's no where near "going over the top" as all the news is reporting. They are using pictures from 20 years ago at the gun range on the other side of the levee from saying how we are in danger of flooding. Uh that's not even here? It's crazy!

They are doing 24 hour levee walks to check for boils, gopher holes etc. Around the clock teams walking looking for trouble. Which is fine but still a bit over kill I think at the moment. I went with my parents yesterday since they signed up for a walk. Oh look! A little puddle in someone's back yard (it rained a few days ago). It's all so blown out.

They are posting evacuation pictures on the local newspaper website for us. Um, why would I need to evacuate? Everyone is just FREAKING OUT.

I think I annoy my mom because I'm like eh, it's fine! A friend sent me a message that said she read we are in danger of our levee breaking. Yeah no. They did find a small boil last week but it's all sandbagged up and nothing is coming out. The river has even went down since then so it's not really an issue.

Reminds me of Chicken Little and the "the sky is falling!"

Back in 2011 I posted this picture when the river was getting high. It's really not all that much lower than it is now. The difference? NO ONE talked about it. Weird isn't it?

Here are my pictures from our levee walk

yep, river is totally "going over the top" here

 here too

I took this pic of the quail, but on the left is where they put some plastic to shore up the levee a bit. There were some vertical "lines" in the soil there, so just a precaution. Also, the water isn't even touching the plastic area.

Bunnies! Since the "boonies" (area behind the levees that is usually a playground lol) is all flooded they are all over.

This is the road out to the boonies.

Yes, the river is up, but this is what this area is meant for. It's an over flow area.



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Swap Meet

Last weekend Scott and I went to the Turlock Swap Meet. While this is most a "car" thing there are lots of other little treasures to find so I totally enjoy going. Plus my dad is usually there selling stuff so it's nice to stop by and see him too.


We got there around 9 but then it probably took us at least another half an hour to find somewhere to park and then a bit to walk to the entrance. It's a good thing we looked at what streets we parked on because we never would have been able to find our car afterwards.


I had brought a bunch of flyers to hand out to advertise for our little car show out where I live. I debated on how to hand them out. Scott suggested standing by this one gate where people come in and out between areas so that was what I did and it worked great.

Scott has been into fixing up old bikes lately and ended up buying this bike that was missing a front wheel for $30. Then when we were walking around he found another guy that was selling wheels that would work for the bike for $10. We had stowed the bike at my dad's booth so when we came back he just put on the front wheel and was able to wheel it to the car. Too funny.

He also bought some bigger handle bars to put on the tandem bike he bought off eBay for $1 awhile back (hmm never showed that on the blog I'll have to find some pictures)

We also saw this car, which is basically a souped up version of my first car which was a big pile o'crap. We had some good laughs reminiscing about that car. (like me having to climb over the passenger seat to get in because the door hinge kept breaking).

I had my fit bit on and when I looked at it later we had walked over 8 miles. No wonder we were so tired when we were done!

 

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Another Little Dress Simplicity 8145

Continuing on my crazy sewing spree, I decided to make this cute pattern, Simplicity 8145 (another one I picked up at the $1 pattern sale). I went through my stash and decided to use these fabrics. The one on the left and the bottom are (were) pillow cases to upcycle and the other fabric with the big mod flowers I had got from someone's fabric destash on a Facebook group.

After I cut the pattern out I decided I didn't like the stripes. That was after spending A LOT of time matching up the stupid pattern too!  I actually kind of pinned it all together before sewing it and decided the stripes just didn't work. I set it aside to get that little vest done for Robert and then went back to it on Saturday.

I found a solid piece of fabric in my stash that worked well so used that instead of the stripes for the side and then used the big flowers for the back. The pattern is a little weird because it has the bodice part and the side parts as one piece and then the little apron like area is another. I decided I didn't want the bodice the same as the sides so I did a little bit of a change to the pattern.

And then when I was done I made the button holes and pulled the fabric through for the knots and they looked just like little boobies sticking out of the front of the dress. GAHH! I think I put the button holes just a little too low. So I decided to go with plan B and put actual buttons on the straps. That's a bit better.

But then after looking at it I think I'm going to take those buttons off and then loop the strap through and have them button onto themselves. Kind of like this.

When I get done making 100 mug cozies (or so) then I will come back to this one and change the buttons up. I can see quite a few little mistakes on this one. Whoops! If I make the pattern again I'll know what to watch out for right?

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