What this hermit has been up to...

Making pincushions! I have plans of starting up my ETSY shop soon.

and I made homemade ding dong cupcakes... which were to die for. If I could find a way to keep them fresh I would airmail one to all my hillbilly friends!

All right, so I haven't been a complete hermit, but almost! I have been quite busy, playing with the kids, tending to the garden, baking, crafting, sewing, and rearranging the furniture and finally realizing that no matter how many times I move the furniture this house just isn't getting any bigger! I love my little old house that we are renting, I can picture myself living here forever, but with wanting to have a bunch of little ones... just thinking about it, I go into panic mode, and start moving furniture, thinking where will they all fit? But worrying about tomorrow will do me no good. Today I have two kids, and I love my little house, I will worry about the future when it gets here. I did make a cozy little corner for my seing machine, wedged right in between the couch and the dining room table, this room isn't cluttered, it is multi tasking! p.s. I think I can squeeze a couple more babies in here!

Blue Monday

This is my first Blue Monday Post. Blue Monday's is hosted by http://smilingsally.blogspot.com

Here is one of the new pincushions I have created. This is one of fourteen that I have been working on. I just love polkadots and ric rac. Have a happy day!

Missing Hillbilly...

Hello to all, I apologize for going missing and not updating the blog. I have had a lot of drama this past week. Y'all already know that I am in the process of simplifying my life. You have read of my phone strike, you have probably noticed that I am blogging less frequently, and when I do blog I speak of desiring to us my time more wisely, and focus on enjoying the simple things in life. Well... simplifying.... became very complicated. The story I am about to share, does not invlove anyone who reads my blog, however, all though I know that what I write, will not be read by this person, I will still refrain from mentioning her name. A certain someone, brought about a great deal of drama in my life this past week. I had tried to befriend this person, even though we were very unalike. The friendship quickly became very overwhelming. I would receive an alarming amount of phone calls and hang ups daily. She harshly criticized my dear Caillou's behavior, and had the audacity to diagnose him with her medical opinions. This certain person is neither a doctor nor an educator of children. Our time was spent, listening to her complaints about her marriage and family, listening to her spread horrible untrue rumors, and hearing her go on and on about how horrible it was to be pregnant, and give birth. It greatly saddened me to see that her child was an after thought in her life, rather than taking front and center in her heart. After several months of trying to extend my friendship, I finally decided that this was not an atmosphere that I wanted to be in. I decided to right a short little note. In it I kindly let her know that I was feeling a bit overwhelmed and was working on simplifying my life. I spoke of the happiness I feel being a homemaker, and that I wanted to do less running around. That I was sorry if this let her down or dissappointed her, but that my priority was my faith, and my family, and that I had to work everything else around that. I in turn received a trio of very unkind emails from her husband and her. All though there was much drama this past week, I feel a sense of relief, that it is all done. It was very hard to spend time with a person who left you feeling so drained of any happiness or feelings of the Spirit. Well.... I appreciate you listening to me ramble about the drama of my past week. So on a happier note I will share the better stuff! On Friday, I went to the grocery store. I parked my car and lo and behold there were three ducks sitting next to me!!! I gathered the boys into the shopping cart, and began duck herding. I knew these ducks had wandered off from the duck pond behind the store, the same duck pond that we released a crawdad into, and the same duck pond in which we emmancipated a cow by accident. We were quite the sight, running and quacking with the shopping cart, tossing french fries, and trying to herd the ducks back to the pond. After a good 20 minutes, I was quite out of breath, and had not made much progress, but it sure was fun trying!

I did not make these darling little pincushions, but I can't wait to try my hand at making some of these litte lovelies.

The past two days I have been down at the hospital visitng my mom, who is recovering from having had a hysterectomy. She is in a lot of pain, but on the road to recovery. After last week's chaos, and the past 2 days of lots of driving,early mornings, and late nights. I am ready to stay home!!! I am going into Hillbilly Hermit mode! I may however venture out for quilt group, and perhaps a stroll to the thrift store. But for the most part my next few days will be filled with baking, creating, and playing with the boys. Every day Caillou has been asking me to make cake, so tomorrow cake I will bake! I have so many little projects going on around here. I am crafting and stitching up a storm. I have it all planned that I am going to hold a little craft fair here at my place, selling my homemade goods to fund my boys Christmas presents. I have been stitching, and glueing, and modge podging, and bow tying, and paper cutting lots and lots and lots. I just finished up some little sewing notions boxes, and now I am working on pincushions, journals, rag dolls, and soft critters, and making a darling little garland to hang on the wall... a row of tiny houses for my own little tiny house. Also in this weeks plans is to sew Jasper's teddy bear for his birthday and collect some more cans! I am collecting as many cans and bottles as I can so that I can afford to get him a store bought gift. Money has been so tight. Our church has blessed us by paying this months rent, but we still have so many bills left to pay. With a bank account balance of $9 and an unemployed hubby, it makes it difficult to keep on the sunny side of things. However, I am going to do my best not to worry, and craft myself into oblivion. I will come out of hiding, and post a new post as soon as I have some pictures of what I have been making to share! Have a wonderful week.

Simple things....

It is the simple things in life that are good, that are real, that bring happiness. Enjoying an ice cream with little ones, snuggling in the hammock with a dripping wet ( I just got out of the wading pool) toddler, the peaceful feeling of a baby breathing against your neck. These are the things that make me happy. Oh yes, and sewing pretty things, making sweet yummies, and making my house a home. It is in these things that I find happiness. Simple things. I have been in the process of simplifying my life lately... removing distractions and taking more time to enjoy these simple things.

Where does the time go?

My darling Jasper is a mere month away from his first birthday. Where has the time gone? It seems as if only yesterday, I was in my tiny bathroom on Ivy street looking at two lines on a dollar store pregnancy test. Since that day in the bathroom, I have began my journey into motherhood... I have given birth to two wonderful little souls. Caillou is now 2 1/2 and losing his babyhood more and more each day. All though I celebrate and relish in all the new and delightful things he says and does, my heart breaks, realizing that he is growing up way too fast. And my ever so wonderful Jasper, all though he may nurse all night long, and snuggle in my arms half the day away, I am realizing he is no longer a little newborn. He is going to be 1 year old!!! He is becoming so spunky and adventurous. You can tell that he really loves life. He is curious about everything! It is hard to believe that Jasper is the same age now, as Caillou was when we first found out that Jasper was on his way. Caillou seemed so much older at 1o months. Perhaps it is because Caillou was so much more mischievious and independent. Sadly, my oven is currently empty, no babies baking in there as of yet. Instead of morning sickness, and a motherly glow, I have pms and pimples. Oh well, soon. There surely will be more babies soon. I must be patient and while I wait I will enjoy my two little ones to the fullest. I am very eager to start work on Jasper's birthday party. Since he is such a snuggly little guy, I am having a teddy bear picnic party. I am in the process of sewing him a teddy bear just his size. I know it will give him many years of comfort and cuddles. Oh, I wish I could freeze time and keep my boys little forever. However since I can't do that, I will settle for sneaking into their rooms and watching them peacefully slumber for a bit. Goodnight y'all.

Sugar coating things...

When life stinks.....bake cupcakes

Lots and lots of cupcakes.

Little Hillbilly Hermit...

A hermit (from the Greek ἔρημος ēremos, signifying "desert", "uninhabited", hence "desert-dweller"; adjective: "eremitic") is a person who lives to some greater or lesser degree in seclusion and/or isolation from society.

This past week, I have somewhat gone into hiding. I have been by no means a full fledged hermit... but..... I have been on phone strike. It rings, I do not answer it. I get messages, I do not return them. It isn't that I no longer like my friends, it isn't that my phone services have been disconnected, I am just on strike. It seems that everytime I am on the phone, Hurricane Caillou goes through my house, leaving a path of destruction. It got me thinking... . Am I really on the phone long enough for you to make this big of a mess? What could I be better doing with my time? What am I talking about on the phone that is so improtant. Not that chatting on the phone with friends and family isn't wonderful, but it does consume a lot of time out of the day. Now granted, I am a full time mama, and my world revolves around my kids, and I shouldn't guilt trip myself for a little ME time, however, I am just plain bored with being on the phone. I want to spend my ME time a little more creatively... sewing, painting, crafting, scrapbooking, baking, gardening the things that make me feel good inside at the end of the day. The things that make me feel like, wow, today I was an awesome mama, I taught my children good things, I made some yummy treats, and even found time for a little creativity. I want to go to bed with a feeling of having accomplished more with my day. Too often, I lay in bed thinking, tomorrow I will make this, tomorrow I will sew that, tomorrow I will paint the treehouse,tomorrow tomorrow tomorrow..... Another reason why I have gone on phone strike.... usually the topic of my conversation is about the crappy things going on in my life, I wear my heart on my sleeve, and hang all my problems out on the clothesline for everyone to see. Granted I know it isn't good to bottle up my feelings, and sometimes it is good to talk things out, but there is no point in talking about the same stuff over and over and over again. I am smart enough to know that not talking about my life's problems wont make them disappear, but it also doesn't do much to help me keep on the sunny side of things. So, I am not dwelling on the negative, I am focusing on the positive, I am going to make the most of each and every day, and spend my time more wisely. I am going to make an effort to visit with friends face to face more often. I am going to spend more time doing the things I love, playing with my babies, making them laugh, baking sweet smelling yummies, growing gardens, sewing skirts, journaling about my life with my two wonderful boys in my perfect little house! Don't worry y'all I wont become such a hermit that I will never update my blog. My blogging and journalling go hand in hand, I am keeping record of all my crazy adventures, so that one day my boys can read all about their silly old mama and all the little things we did together.

The cow that got away....

Okay, so a few posts back I told of my recent adventure trespassing at the duck pond and snuggling cows. Well... the story continues... my friend stephanie and I left the duck pond at around 11 am. About 10 minutes after we had left and made our way over to McDonalds, a friend of ours from our quilting group passed by the duck pond on her lunch break. She knew of our adventurous plans for that day, so when she saw cops cars at the duck pond, she immediately thought " oh my gosh, my friends have been busted for trespassing." Upon taking a closer look, much to her surprise she instead saw, that it was not us in handcuffs, but two police men trying to herd an enormous brown cow, back into the field by the duck pond! I can only imagine, how hard she must have laughed that day, first thinking we were on our way to jail, and then discovering that we had accidentaly emancipated a cow from it's barren field, barbed wire prison. Of course, my friend Stephanie and I were oblivious to the fact that a cow followed us out of the field, we were too concerned with finding an opening that would accomodate our strollers, so we could take a closer look at the abandoned house. We only learned of the cow that got away 6 days later at quilt group. We all had a good laugh!