Worn Out

What do you do when your well-loved purse has trekked all over the U.S. (in addition to half a million grocery runs) and needs to be replaced? You go to Gold Rush and buy another because three years later, the awesome purse monogramming booth is back!  And yes, I did show off the battered purse I bought from them that I was still carrying around...

Compare the holey faded purse to the crisp clean seams of the new one

I used all of my initials this time!

Early Birthday

It's a few days early, but I wanted to wish HistoryDiva a fantabulous birthday! I hope you have an awesome day (despite that horrible thing called WORK).  If I can figure out who made this cake, there will be one delivered to your doorstep next Tuesday...

Parish Picnic

The picnic committee asked for homemade items to use in a raffle during the annual parish picnic.  I knit the scarf from a couple different stash yarns in fall 2009, but never found the right home for it.  A little girl won it, and wore it around the picnic like a Miss America sash!  The dishrags were knit quickly (one finished last Sunday, the other on Wednesday) to have something else to offer.  They went to a lady about the same age as me--I hope she enjoys using them as much as I did knitting them!

I'd Rather Be...

...at home, snuggled with a kitty and a good, fluffy Jane Austen spin-off! 

Mission Accomplished

Today I celebrate the completion of my 2011 New Year's Reading Resolution!  Over the past eight months, I have read the nine books of the Little House on the Prairie series for the first time.  It makes me wish that life could still be so simple--you build your own house (including hinges for the door), school is a one-room one-teacher affair for all ages, and a stick of candy and a penny are amazing Christmas presents.

Reading the Little House books has lead to several other books:

• Nellie Oleson Meets Laura Ingalls follows along with some events of On the Banks of Plum Creek, but since it's told from Nellie's point of view, you spend 2/3 of the book wanting to smack her.  Yes, she learns her lesson in the last few chapters, but then she shows up in Little Town on the Prairie and hasn't changed a bit.
• I haven't read Old Town in the Green Groves yet, but I am looking forward to it.  It covers the time between On the Banks of Plum Creek and By the Shores of Silver Lake that were left out of the Little House series.
• Only bits and pieces are mentioned abut Mary's time in college in Little Town on the Prairie and These Happy Golden Years.  Mary Ingalls On Her Own uses historical records from Mary's time at Iowa College for the Blind to piece together her story.
• I just ordered On the Way Home: The Diary of a Trip from South Dakota to Mansfield, Missouri, in 1894 from PaperBackSwap.com, so hopefully it will be here soon.  And now that I know that you can visit their Mansfield home and see artifacts from the lives of the Ingalls and Wilder families, of course I want to go!
• Young Pioneers isn't part of the Little House series, but it was written by Laura's daughter, Rose Wilder Lane.  The story is inspired by the trials and tribulations of her parents and grandparents.

Tastefully Simple

My friend Robin recently started as a Tastefully Simple consultant, and I hosted a party two weeks ago to help her get started.  The food (and cocktail-in-a-bucket mixes) I ordered arrived on Friday, and everything is awesome so far.  If you want to judge for yourself, you can order from her TS website.  The fall catalog is coming out on September 1st, and there are supposed to be some incredible items in it!

My sisters and my niece have fun with Smooshees before the party

The "First Order from My Party" award goes to Carrie!

Miss Skeeter inspects my order when it arrives...

A double batch of lemon cookies from the Lotsa Lemon Bar mix!

Sew Punny Friday

I've been negligent of posting anything other than Friday funnies this month, so here's a two-for-one craft-related pun to make up for it. The bottom kitty actually looks like Miss Skeeter...