Summer Wrap

Whew!  It's been a busy summer, y'all!

It was all-Godspell-all-the-time for awhile there.  Here's a video of my solo.  (That's Nature Boy in the polka dots!)




I can't believe it's already Back to School time for the neighborhood kids.  Why, back in my day, we didn't start school until after Labor Day.

Long live summer!

That said, I'm totally being a follower and starting our homeschool year now too.  Our homeschooling style has shifted a lot over the 7 years we've been doing this.  We started out doing unit studies, switched to a 3Rs, Ruth Beechick-y approach, got all hippie and unschooled for a few years, and now we've settled into plain ol' "relaxed homeschooling".

Which I define as:  not enough formal school work to look or feel like actual school, but enough formal school work so I don't have panic attacks and go prematurely grey.

Finding your groove in homeschooling is like getting past that annoying period in your 20s when you're all, Who am I?  What am I supposed to be doing with my life?  It's a relief, really.  I'm fairly certain that I spent more time agonizing over learning styles, teaching methods, and what other people might think about our choices than I did actually homeschooling for the first 5 years or so.  For real.

Now that that's over (knock on wood), I can confidently say that I am:

Woohoo.

In other news, I'm still fat.

BUT, I've gone to a couple PiYo classes (pilates and yoga combo), and I really enjoyed them.  Even though I sweat like a man and I'm too arthritic for a yoga mat, so I use our gel mat from the kitchen.  (Yeah, all the young skinny girls wanna be like me!)  Usually I work out at home, alone, after everyone else has gone to bed.  Not because I'm ashamed or anything.  It's just, that's my time to Netflix binge, and exercising without being entertained by TV is just weird.

As we wrap up summertime, I'm going to take a minute to review the highlights.

Ren Faire!

We got a pet mouse.  (Read: the snake didn't want him.) 

He's actually a really friendly little guy.  Hand-tame and everthang.

Berry pickin'!

Ripley's Believe It or Not Odditorium!

Did some more crafty stuff.

Nature Boy grew an awesome garden.

And he started a wire wrapped jewelry business!
If you'd like to buy one of his necklaces, send me an email at yeahisaiditblog{at}gmail.com.  You can choose your stone from several options, and the price is $15 shipped. 
(The pendants below have already sold.)
We're considering a family Etsy shop, but for now, we're set up to take Paypal.

That's all I got!  I hope you've enjoyed your summer.  Please leave a comment sharing one of your favorite activities of the summer, or tell me something you're looking forward to this fall.

I Made Deez

In keeping with my long history of slacker-blogging, the following is a post consisting of a bunch of pictures of stuff I made recently.  I was in an artsy mood there for a few weeks.  Crafting, combined with 8 (LONG) weeks of practices for the musical, Godspell, has me creativity-challenged right now.  Soooo, hopefully you enjoy looking at photos of crap I made!

With the Crapper decorating the wall in our main bathroom, we obviously needed something for the master bath.  So I made this.

Then I busted out my new Cricut machine and made this wall art.

The Cricut machine came with some glass etching goo, so I made some etched initial vases with vinyl stencils I made on the Cricut. 

Everyone needs some giant 'staches for tooling around town.

Then I was all inspired to paint cartoonized portraits of my family!
 

Including the dogs!

And Tree Guy (grudgingly) hung them up in a display for me!

Then I made one for my mom.

Then I made some more signs to decorate our walls.

And then I got into doing initial art, a la Pinterest.  I used fancy linen samples that Nature Boy rescued from a dumpster for me (woohoo!), regular acrylic paint and plastic stencils.

And now I am exhausted! ;p


P.S. Whatsay I open an Etsy shop? And make custom cartoonized portraits of people and pets? Folks could send me a picture via email, and I could paint a small portrait for them for $15 shipped. Would you buy one? Do you think there'd be a demand for it?  What about framed initial art?  Custom birthday raps?  (Just kidding on that last one.)  (Kind of.)

P.S.S. Happy summer, y'all!  I can't wait to go swimming.  To show off my curves in my skirted granny swimsuit with the big floral print.  And a wide-brimmed gardening hat.  Hell, yeah!

The Crapper: a Love Story

So I finally bought a potty sign from my friend Erin at Oh Honestly, Erin.  (I know.  I've pimped her blog before.  But the girl is totally pimp-worthy.)  And she also has an Etsy store! 

Potty humor is big in our house, so I knew "the Crapper" would fit right in.  I wanted him to feel at home with his new family, so as soon as he arrived in the mail, I took him on several excursions. 

But first, he had some bonding time with his new dad, Tree Guy.

 

  

Crapper in the sky with diamond.

 

 

The Crapper with a log.



 

 

 The Crapper with my dog.

 

 

 

 

 The Crapper with some cake.

 

 

 

 

The Crapper with a snake.

 

 

 

 

The Crapper with our Tank.

 

 

 

 

The Crapper with some drank.

 

 

 

 

The Crapper with a hat.

 

 

 

 

The Crapper with the cat.

 

 

 

 

So there you have it.  Adopting the Crapper into our family inspired my own creativity.  (Thanks, Erin!)  I've been in a painting/stenciling/Mod Podging frenzy since bringing the Crapper home.  (A crappy crafting post is coming soon!) 

  

Have a great weekend, y'all!