That's pretty neat

I like nature, and a week ago I went for a walk with Eli and his brother Joseph through Mt. Auburn Cemetery. It was the first landscaped cemetery in the United States, and it is beautiful. While I was there I decided to pick up some pine cones with the intent of using them in some kind of decoration. A few days later I raked my back yard and found a bunch of sticks that were intertwining around each other, I thought that also had the potential for something crafty. 

Below is the result, and by the way, it cost me nothing! The vase is my roommates!  

The end of this is looks like pumice, cool huh?

Dresser to Impresser

My boss was trying to sell this piece a few months ago at her yard sale... fortunately for me nobody bought it, and her husband wanted it out of their storage. She had painted the whole thing white some years ago, how many? I do not know, but I thought it was time to it some TLC of my own.

As you can see when she painted it, she painted right over the handles, which is not a bad thing, considering they were probably a nasty strange brassy green color before.

 First, I had to take out the screws... Whenever I use a Phillips I think of Dad and his story. I think he was in Japan and someone asked him about a "plus" or "minus" personally I think that is genius, because then there would be no doubt which one is which. 

Look how cute that screw is sitting all by itself

 Now it is hiding because of this awful paint job I did. I had this blue and green paint that I thought I would try using to see how it looked on the dresser... DISGUSTING, that's all there is to it.

 So I painted it a nice glossy black and voila we have a winner.

 When I got the dresser some of the edges were a little banged up, and there was build up of some sort of glue or something. So I got out my sand block and got to work, getting all the stuff off, and beating the rest of the edges so it looks like its on purpose. Thank you mom for letting me help you paint and sand crafts with you, those skills have proven very handy since I have moved.

 I don't have a reason for putting this picture on except for the mere fact I like the shot.

Cake Night

This is Monica, she is getting warmed up for the coolest roommate cake night ever!

 This is almost like fairy dust in the sense that it is pretty much magic. All that is required is a paint brush (as seen to the left) and gum-paste to decorate.

Here we have some petals and leaves that have already been fairy dusted

 Here am I putting fairy dust on the petals.

These little girls were experiments... I think they turned out pretty cute.

Here is my first lily. Monica had to assemble but I pretty much did the rest... and can you tell I am so proud of myself?

I wanted to make a lily like the kind Dad has out front, so we mix in the die to make this orange color.

 All I have to say is Booyah we are awesome. 

Rocky

  Apparently I am afraid of a raccoon. The other night I came home from a Relief Society Choir practice and when I got out of my car I saw something out of the corner of my eye, when I looked it was the fattest raccoon I had ever seen (actually the only raccoon I have ever seen), we both stared at each other for about a minute, then I slowly made my way toward him/her when all of the sudden it started hissing at me!!!!!! AHHHH! so then I backed away, its chubby little body slowly came down the porch steps never taking its eyes off of me and then it bolted down the driveway away from me. When I ran to the door I couldn't find my key for the back door and it smelled disgusting, almost like a skunk but not, who knew they stink too? Once I made it safely inside, he crept back to our porch, so my roommate, her boyfriend, and I all watched as it somehow managed to get its fat little body onto our recycling can and then use its paws to open our garbage can and then go at the trash. We really wanted him to fall into the garbage can, unfortunately he didn't. Then I had the question what do raccoon s eat?

I looked it up, and they like fruits and nuts... in case you wanted to know too.

Dad named him Rocky after a Beatle's song

Z goal check off

So, as many of you know, I have a list of lifelong goals called, "Z Goals" and yes there is an actual list. On this list is a goal that some may say is dumb, it is to be in a hurricane. Well thanks to Sandy making her way up the East coast I finally had that experience. Granted it wasn't as scary by the time it reached Boston, but I still saw many fallen trees and fences blown down.

Here is some water we set aside just in case. We also filled up the bathtub and my roommate bought lots of bottled water 4 cases to be exact. People in Maryland actually needed this because apparently one of their sewage plants began spewing sewage back out.

Here we have raindrops on the window... dramatic I know.

Here we have more rain, unfortunately you cannot see how much the wind was really blowing in these pictures but trust me it was.

The only side affect we had, was a leak in my roommates room. Sorry Monica.