La-de-da

This past weekend was a pretty eventful one. Valentine's Day was low-key and that's fine with me. When I was a kid Valentine's Day usually involved a heart shaped box of chocolates and a stuffed animal of some sort. My parents probably went out for dinner, but I can't remember. And I find that the holidays that weren't huge at my house when I was younger, usually isn't as big of a deal at the Button casa. Trav and I had a few hours out but it was kind of lame on the Ooh and Ahh-o-meter. I don't really mind lame things that much usually and had a great time just being out.

Amanda had a big thing though. She auditioned for an acting thing and was invited to go to a super-big, high-falutin' acting thing in June- in Orlando! Apparently this is *the place* to meet agents and directors and such that you could not get an audience with otherwise. She prayed about it and we prayed about it and even though the cost is going to be really, really high, we know that this is the thing she's supposed to do. So my daughter has dropped out of college to become an actor...and I'm encouraging it. Funny.

Oh, and you probably should know that the insurance adjuster came out this morning and said that we do, in fact, need a new roof that they will be mostly paying for. The window guy came out this morning and installed a new window in our bedroom- finally. I can actually see Westhaven from my window now. Trav's van is fixed- and it took amazingly little money to fix it. And I'm thankful.

So on to the crafty stuff. I've finished block #2 of Kyleigh's- sans bells. I watched Holiday Inn last night while I was hand-stitching it and forgot to put the bells in. Which I was reminded of by Halle, Travis and Amanda. Bummer.

And I decided to go a different direction with one of those frames I bought. I mixed a little bit of white artist acrylic paint (the amount shown was *way* too much) with a really wet brush and brushed it over the frame. Easy peasy.

The watered down paint pooled nicely in the grooves while still coating a lot of the frame itself.

Then I took the black ribbon off and switched it for this nice brown and blue one. Beachy, no? Ignore the palm tree-ish things inside. It was an experiment with masking fluid gone awry. I'm pretty sure that I can do better than that, which is why I haven't let Travis take this one to work.

And just for giggles, here's a shot of the gutter that was blown off the house. If you look closely you can see a shingle stuck in the bushes. That was some wind we had last week, wasn't it? When that nasty rain storm that was part of it came through our area I was stuck in car line waiting for Chloe. I got a bit nervous at one point and was thinking about tornadoes, not realizing that the school had apparently gotten some sort of tornado warning. I probably should have turned the radio on. But I was busy reading my very first issue of Coastal Living- and I love it.

Oh, and one more tidbit before I sign off. If you have time you should totally take this quiz. Yes, it's another one about style but I really liked it. I scored 33% Nantucket Style, 33% Cottage Chic and 34% Modern Elegance. I thought it pretty much nailed the looks that I really like. So have fun with that one. I didn't think I had much to write about but sometimes once I get started I just don't stop. So I'll stop now.

I Forgot to Dry the Jeans...

Chloe has 3 pair of jeans and I washed them all last night- and forgot until I woke up at 7:55 that I hadn't dried them. I don't remember ever doing that before. Gaaa! What to do? Can I send her in a skirt? At 50 degrees, it's warmer than it has been and with her coat it wouldn't be that bad. Then I imagined her shivering on the playground, squatting down so that her coat would cover her bare legs. Capri pants then? That's just slightly better than a skirt. And I could imagine her pulling her socks all the way up to cover the exposed leg. She'd look like a hillbilly (and I'd look like a bad mom) but it would probably not be too emotionally damaging. Then I heard the cough. The really congested cough and thought it probably wouldn't matter that I didn't dry the jeans. And sure enough she's got a sore throat and a cough. She doesn't really have a fever but with the sickness that's going around it's plenty of reason for me to keep her home- besides the aforementioned lack of clothing to wear.

I should probably catch up on some other things here as well.

Travis and I led worship at Life Group about a week and a half ago. I was pretty nervous when it was time to actually do it. I wasn't nervous at all leading up to it because I just really felt that it was the right thing and that it was the right time. But every body that's ever sung in front of people before knows that it's much more nerve wracking to sing in front of 20 people that you know in an intimate setting (meaning they're standing 10 feet or less from you) than it is to sing in front of 2,000 + strangers, on a platform, with bright lights shining in your eyes so you can't see anybody. But apparently it went well because Marianne asked us to do it again in March and from here on out to do it for the first Life Group of the month. I'm excited and I think I'll get less nervous as time goes on.

Our V-Day plans got messed up a bit but we were able to reschedule and have dinner on Sunday instead of Saturday. Amanda woke up really sick Saturday morning and what we originally thought was a stomach bug was actually the result of a bad dream. It upset her so much that she got really sick. She has a nervous stomach and you never really know what is going to stress her out to set it off but it's never fun. We did have a really nice meal the next day though. OK, if I'm going to be totally honest, I think that Ellendale's didn't have it's A game on when we went but it was still nice. The service was great, I just find that if you go to a restaurant at an off time the food just isn't usually as good. I had a burned crouton in my salad (or maybe two) and my potato mound was closer to a rock in texture, and they gave me about 5 green beans and two pathetic carrot slices. I know I'm not a restaurant critic but the food just wasn't as good as the other two times we've been there. Well, Travis' sweet potatoes were out of this world amazing and the pork chop and steak were very good- I'm just not used to having negative things to say about it. Moving on...

My sister in law is expecting their new little girl sometime in the next month and I've promised to do a painting and to make this cute little thing- only in pink. I haven't found the fabric yet and the needle is broken on my sewing machine although I could probably hand stitch it without too much difficulty. I've never shopped for a sewing machine needle before. For the painting the inspiration is this set from Pottery Barn Kids. Angie is doing the pinks and greens from the set and my only hesitation is that I can't *really* tell what the colors are from that. The pinks look more peachy on my computer screen. I know it doesn't have to be exact and I may just do a cream backdrop with butterflies and some flowers. I really should get started. It would be really nice to drop off in person though. Travis still has never seen their last baby and he's almost two. *Sigh* If they'd only move here... ;)