Happenings at the homestead

Nesting time again. I am blessed to have a whole room for my own (3rd bedroom) which I have turned into my office/sewing room. Some time ago we redecorated Craig's office/guest room and I think it turned out really great. The theme is "world travel", based on this giant map we got at IKEA ages ago. All the wall and deco fabric colors are derived from the map, with a silver/white/birch furniture scheme we were able to cobble together from existing and some new stuff from IKEA (my new favorite furniture store as it's cheap and I won't cry if we have to get rid of it in the next move).
So, with Craig's room looking so awesome (in my humble opinion), I have been burning the brain cells trying to make my own sewing room at least as good if not better. I found some great fabric to make curtain for the window and as replacements for the closet doors (this works great as I can open the whole closet area all at one time to stuff multiple storage boxes on the big rack that replaced the single hanger bar).

still has a ways to go, but I finally got the bulletin board and thread racks up.

next up on the opposite wall is the giant pegboard (6' x 3') that Craig helped me mount this weekend.
It was looking sort of blah, so I painted a lovely chocolate brown (to match the brown fabric in the curtains) "frame" around it.
Actually this was more frustrating than I anticipated as our walls have some texture which always seems to let the paint bleed underneath the painters tape I use to mask out a line.
Luckily I still had some leftover beige wall paint and painstakingly fixed this with a teeny tiny brush to make a nice straight edge. I think the next step will be an inner border with the orange flower fabric.

Oh, and another thing we got done on this vacation is finally, finally planting a tree in the backyard. We visited the local nursery (3 Palms) to find this lovely Desert Willow. This is what it looks like today:

This is what I hope it looks like in a couple of years:

Thanksgiving

The Thanksgiving holiday has been great. Had dinner with some good friends. I remain ever thankful for abundance of food and friendship in our lives.Jack made absolutely delicious pumpkin soup and pumpkin pie from actual pumpkins (Cinderella type, I believe) as well as mashed potatoes. Mary prepared stuffing and green beans, I made roasted Brussels sprouts (the crowd was divided about those), cranberry sauce, apple pie and rolls (OK, the rolls were store bought) and Craig prepared a couple of juicy bone-in turkey breasts with gravy.

For a little fun, Mary made this very creative recycled headband, she had a bet with Jack to see how long it would take the rest of us to notice that the original source of this lovely item was a pair of Jack's underwear! Classic "penny pincher"!

Jack makes friends with Tex and is trying to educate him on the finer aspects of Storage (according to Martha Stewart).

Finally finished snowy scarf

Finished the "Snow Day" scarf. I love the way this looks, pure white and sparkly like snow. This is a simple drop stitch scarf, just 4 rows of garter stitch with 1 row of YO's, repeat until desired length ( or run out of the angora, like I did).

Aidan's First Birthday

Aidan had his first birthday this November 18th. He is getting quite mobile, not quite able to climb tall mountains yet, but he is definitely working up to it. Maybe I'm biased, but I think he is the cutest and happiest baby I have ever met!

Not only did Aidan get lots of fun gifts from friends and family, but Grandma got a little gift as well, my daughter bestowed upon us one of her mutts who was getting a touch unfriendly towards the baby. He is fitting in well with the rest of the doggie pack here in sunny California.