Crocheting Halters

It has really been beautiful here in the Carolina's the past couple weeks. The weather has been warm souring into the 80s. Me and Nick have been able to get in some nice long walks and the flip flops and tank tops have come alive in my wardrobe. 

But there has been a couple cool or rainy days where all I want to do is curl up in my recliner and crochet. I found a new pattern for a granny square so I made a couple signature halter tops. 

 

First let me show you this little baby shower gift I made for a church friend. I crocheted a little bonnet and booties that can be used to bring baby home from the hospital, pictures or church. 

 

These little crochet items are often never used and just put away as a heirloom. Regardless of what she decides to do with this set, I had fun creating it. 

Now about the halters. I couldn't hardly wait to show you. Though they are unique, they are not really my style, so you probably will not see me sporting one of these. I made my daughter a white one last year that is similar to these and she wears it well. I think they are rather cute and if I was in my 20's again, I'd attempt the look. 

 

I can't make two the same as I just add the colors as I go. I will start each square with a color and just add fill in colors as I go.

I call it the boho or hippie look. I'm sure there is someone out there that would love to have one of these. It seems to be the new (but old) trend this summer. "Whats old is new again" they say. 

 

I can see these halters being worn with cut off jeans and sandals. They are cool and perfect for the beach.

I had fun making these and plan to do some more on my spare time. 

I have also been having fun creating dish cloths and baby rompers. Im telling ya, my creation ideas are all over the place. I may crochet a trivet on day and a pair booties the next. I never know what direction the hook is going to go. I like trying to make new things and have come a long way on learning to crochet. I surprise myself sometimes.

Halters above can be found in my online store Here. 

A Trip to Charlotte

You will not hear much about trips to Charlotte from me. I do not mind going to visit my daughter, but Nick is uncomfortable with me driving there alone yet he hates driving in Charlotte unless he really has to. Most of the time, our daughter will just come home to visit. She doesn't mind the drive. She likes the quietness and "her room" here at home. 

The last time she was here, she noticed birds singing, crickets chirping and squirrels running around. She said "Mom, I don't get to see any of that where I live".  Funny how we do not notice things around us until they are gone. 

Saturday after we had our breakfast and coffee we jumped in the car and drove to Charlotte to visit her. We delivered a bistro table we had that was worn and never used. Ash and her roomate wanted it for their covered patio.

 

We thought it might look a little wierd but ya know young people now days. 

We got the table set in place and she asked her dad to hang a piece of art on the patio next to the table. Task complete.

Not sure about those pillows but, whatever.

 

It was lunch time, the weather was beautiful, breezy and warm. She wanted to treat us to lunch and mentioned a nice place about a mile down the road that served healthy vegan foods. Ok, first, none of us are vegan but have been eating more healthy. Unless its a salad, I want to see meat or cheese on my plate. We agreed to lunch.

Fortunatly, her apartments is right next to the light rail trail. Its a walking trial that run along side of the light rail train that runs from one end of town to the other. Being only a mile to the eating spot, we wanted to walk there. 

 

Its was a great little one mile walk as we explored things around the city. She would name stores, resteraunts, art galleries and more as we walked. 

The restaurant we was an old mill turned into a unique place to eat with indoor and outdoor seating. The name was Lunas Kitchen. The menu offered healthy salads, desserts and of course smoothies. 

I ordered something called falafel  

 

Falafel is made with chickpeas and other healthys things with a side of creamy stuff. No dairy involved. The white creamy stuff was made with some kind of almond milk. Sorry, I'm not health food educated. 

Ashley ordered bbq sliders.

 

I kept eyeing her plate trying to figure out how they got veggies to look like bbq. She said "mom, the meat is actually mushrooms!" Nick got a kale salad. After one bite of my turd balls, I traded Nick for the salad. We were all happy. 

It was a fun day. 

Mountain Dew Soda Cake

Holy snackaroni! I just made cupcakes muffins using only two ingredients. 

I had no frosting, therfore they are muffins.

 

Googling around on the internet I seen "Soda Cake". It only called for two ingredients. 

 

1-Box Cake mix

1-12 oz can of soda.

Thats it! Zip! Bam! 

The only soda I had in the house was Diet Moutain Dew (diet because I'm on a diet, haha). 

I mixed it with a box of cake mix and the magic (not Jacks magic) appeared right before my eyes. 

The cake mix got all bubbly, fizzy and foamy until it was mixed well. 

Poured into a muffin pan and baked according to the directions on the box, I had the fluffiest most moistest cupcakes muffins ever! 

 

They were quiet delicious as I ate three of them. I'll regret it during the night. 

No worries on the calories (unless you devour them like I did).

Recipe makes 24 muffins.

Since there is no milk, oil or eggs, this recipes is light on the calories.

While the regular recipe bakes up each cupcake at about 120 calories each, this soda recipe falls at around only 70 calories each. 

Of course I used "diet soda" . 

Win!

Want more ideas on flavors? There are many other soda / cakemix combinations. 

 

                                         (Source)

Enjoy. 

DIY Bunny Napkins and Rice Dyed Eggs

Hope everyone is having a happy Easter weekend. 

I dont have any little ones, so no egg hunts, frilly photo sessions or Easter bunny meetings. However, I do have my adult daughter home with me this weekend. She comes in so we can do some of the Eastery fun stuff. We bake, dye eggs, and shop. 

We will get up Easter Morning and go to sunrise service, church service and then sit down to a nice Easter dinner.

Speaking of dinner, as I was adding clean linens to the table, I started playing around with the napkins. I dicovered a way to make little bunny napkins. Pretty ribbon or napkin rings would make them even more fancy but I had neither.

Excuse the picture quality. The lighting was terrible in the dining room and I was in a hurry.

 

 

I made a potato salad, broccoli casserole and banana strawberry salad to go with Sundays Dinner. 

Easter shopping is complete, Easter baskets are assembled and remember the pom pom sandals I pictured in my last post? Found some! Yes I bought them. 

 

Later me and Ashley dyed eggs. Now listen up! If you dont want a mess, your gonna love this idea! Its clean, colorful and you can handle the eggs immediately without getting dye on your hands.

RICE DYED EASTER EGGS

 

1. Place white rice in a baggy.

2. Put about 5 or so drops of food coloring in the rice and mix a little.

3. Place egg in bag and shake it around. The more you shake and mix, the brighter it becomes.

4. Remove them using your hands. The dye will not get on them as its already dry. Really! Its like a little miracle.  

(Add a few more drops of color to do the next egg. The dye will dry fast in the rice.)

Hope everyone has a great Easter and remember the true meaning of the day. 

Pom Pom Fashion

There is something about spring that puts me in the fashion mode (Jack at shipslog doesn't understand. ha). Though I don't really buy much, I do a lot of window shopping.

I don't need any new clothes. I'm fine with the new smaller clothes I was able to purchase last year. I usually will get a new outfit to wear Easter Sunday but a thrift store purchase works just fine for that. 

I noticed in the stores lately, a lot of things with pom pom trim. At first I thought "too hippie or bohemian for me", but then it grew on me and I absolutely adore it! I'm now on a mission to either buy or make my own pom pom fashion. 

 

No not like that!
That's going over board but a little trim and dazzle is perfect for summer time at the beach.

 

They are putting pom poms on everything now. 

 

I love all these looks and more that I found online. 

 

I hope Mom reads this because I bet she can trim out anything I want if I decide to go that route. 

I went to the Goodwill last night. No intentions of buying shorts but I found these distressed name brand shorts that fit me perfect! 

 

I also found a light weight sweater to throw on over a bikini top and ....yes brand new, with tags, flip flops with tiny black pom poms on them. I may even add some colored one to them. After all, they only costed me 3.00.

This will be perfect to wear at the beach on a cool summer evening walk or play.

I'm taking a trip to the dollar store today to purchase my own pom poms. I have a hat like this that needs some color! 

 

Ok maybe I'm a little "boho"

Toodles! 

Unlucky Weekend

I've gotten behind on my blogging lately. I've just been lazy though I still take time each day to read other peoples post.

Hope everyone had a wonderful Palm Sunday weekend as we enter into Holy Week.
This is probably my favorite times of the year. The weather starts warming up, The flowers are all in full bloom, the gardens start to harvest and I can wear flip flops!

The daughter came home this weekend so mom here could buy her a new Easter outfit. After hours and hours of shopping from one end of town to the next, No luck.
Everything out there is either too short, too skimpy or too expensive. Yes I gave her a price limit. I figured $50 was enough to buy a nice dress or outfit and maybe some shoes. She just could not find anything she liked.
She suggested that Charlotte had more stores to choose from and will just look around there this week on her own.

Meanwhile, Me and Nick spent Sunday afternoon washing the cars, getting milkshakes and relaxing. Nothing really exciting happened unless you call getting a screw in my tire exciting. Yep, right slab dab in the center of the tire was a screw.

 

It upsets me that people are careless on what they haul in the back of pickup trucks that can fall out onto the roads. I'm thinking that's where nails and screws come from. We see at least one on the road every week on our walks.

Nick drove me to work on Monday and took the tire to have it fixed. Its time for me to get new tires so we just had the tire store plug it for now. Tires for my vehicle are so darn expensive, I have to save up for a set. I still have 2 months left before I have to get an extended warranty on my car too. I seriously looked into just going ahead and trading for a new car. 

I remember as a teenager, I would drive on the sames tires until I saw thread. If I would have gotten pulled over, I was just gonna tell the police they were racing slicks.

Nick keeps an eye on my tires regularly. He is one to think tires need to be replaced after a certain amount of miles have been put on them despite how much tread is still left. He assures my safety but
they still look good to me.

Needless to say, Ill be getting a new set of tires before we head to the beach again in May.

"A Good Kid In Trouble"

I just had the privilege to read another book from one of my favorite Authors, Jack Darnell. He is also the Author of the Shipslog blog. I'm sorta Partial to Jack. Hes one of my favorite peoples. We are from the same area, and have a lot in common despite the age gap. haha.
"You can't say I don't know Jack". Haha.
Go check em out.

I have other blogging friends that have written books as well such as Rick, Diana, Fran, and R.MacWheeler to name a few. I love these people!
Hmmm. Wonder if I can write a book? ha, Na don't think so, I can't even write a blog post that makes sense most of the time.

This is the third book by Darnell I've read. Mary Ann being the first. The second one of his books I read was The Appalachian Trail. I found this book to be very interesting and I even learned some new things. There was a chapter in the AT book that mentioned running up on a troubled boy named Johnny. Not much is said about Johnny but enough to make you wonder where he came from and where he went in life. 

Well the latest book by Jack Darnell is called Johnny, The Trail and Trials will pick up on the Johnny story. I'm glad I read this book as it solved my wondering about this teen. However, you do not have to read the Appalachian Trail to understand this book. You will enjoy it either way.

I loved this book! It was large print and easy to read (which I like). It was interesting from the very beginning. My nose was buried in the pages from the start. The people and places in Jacks books are all so familiar to me as some of the settings often take place in towns and places around me. Though some names have been changed, I can often relate to who the real person is he's talking about. Then again some names stay the same [wink].

While reading this book, I felt like I was actually sucked into the story somehow. [literally]. It was a fun read that would jerk a tear one minute and trigger a laugh the next. There are twists in the story that will make you not want to put this book down. If you have ever lost a loved one, raising or know a teenager or are a teenager yourself, you may be able to relate to this book. 

Again, I am impressed that Jack can write a book while RV traveling with his beautiful wife, remodel a home and keep his blog going daily. I do good just finding time write a comment sometimes. 

Johnny, The Trail of Trials along with Jacks other books are all available on Amazon.com in paperback or e-book.
You will enjoy it. 

"Teenagers aren't bad, just misunderstood".

                                            

Here is a list of Jacks books available.

Mary Anne, A friend
Sticky
Toby's Tails (Children's Book)
Rags
S'Gar
Finally Love
Gracefully Grasping For Dignity
Why Not Forever
The Appalachian Trail
Johnny, The Trail of Trials

           

Learned Some Things

This weekend was beautiful with the temperatures reaching almost 80 degrees. "Perfect! Just perfect".

I spent most Saturday morning doing a little spring cleaning. Didn't make it past the kitchen but still, I can say its clean now. I rearranged it a bit. Well, like Four times! I'd move things from one side of the kitchen to the other. I was so unsatisfied. 

You see, I want a coffee bar, so I moved some appliances around to where I had a whole corner space for a coffee bar. I did a lot of switching around until I had a look I was going for. Then I grabbed things I already had stashed away and created a rather cute coffee area. But it didn't appeal to me. The more I looked at it, the less I liked it. I didn't like the way the toaster looked in it's new place of where the cofee maker used to be.

  

So I changed it all back. I did end up creating a coffee tray bar. So everything sits where it originally was but just in a new fashion. I still have to doll it up with some decorations and things but you get the idea.

I also added new curtains and new rugs to brighten it up. 

Speaking of "new". I learned some new things this weekend. 

1. My husband found an old Navy foot locker in the attic of his dad and moms house while cleaning it out last week. 

 

By the name and address, he was able to locate the widow and daughter of the past owner and it was returned. I learned what a foot locker was. 

2. This little piece of tin.

 

It was in the kitchen of his Dad and moms old house. I took it home, cleaned it up and then googled it. I learned it was a steamed pudding pan. It's adorable and I will have to attempt to make a steamed pudding. I've always wanted to make "figgy pudding" at Christmas so this might be the year. 

3. I learned to crochet a polka dot pattern.

 

 

It was a fun stitch and I may make some more of these dandy little dish cloths. I put this set in my shop. Hope they sell. 

4. And this! Did you know that a blender blade will fit on a mason jar? For a country girl, this gets me tickled. 

Yep no more making smoothies and pouring them into the jar. 

 

Just put the stuff in the jar itself, screw on the blade thingy and put it directly on the blender. Isn't that just the coolest thing ever? 

Now off to face the work week. Hope everyone had a great weekend.

Ps- Husband just told me I didn't mention the biggest thing I learned this weekend. 

"Whats that?" I asked.

With a laugh he said "that the coffee maker doesn't work on the right side of the kitchen because I'm left handed".

"Haha Nick, your funny".