davejenbarnes

I was really itchin’ to sew something this weekend and found the un-paper bag which I knew immediately would only take about an hour and a half to make (with random breaks to surf Ravelry and wash a batch of dishes). So here we have my first unfinished un-paper bag. It’s unfinished because I decided it needs a base which I have yet to insert between the outer and the inner layers of fabric. Of course, I decided this after I’d pinned the lining in. Go figure.

The outer is a scrap from my mom. It’s way old. Like probably older than me old. The lining is only 8 or so years old, leftover fabric from the flags I sewed when I was the colorguard sponsor back in Roma, Texas, and sewed up all of the flags for the marching band show. I had to buy the flag fabric myself so I kept the leftovers. It was only fair, I thought. Anyhow the scraps are all tiny little bits, but I had enough to line the bag with! Whee!

I don’t know what I’ll do with this bag, but it certainly will save, like, half a tree or something since I won’t need to go out and buy a bag when I need one. ;-) Handles are in the plan… eventually… I’m hoping I can find some like the ones here.

…is that you have four months to buy a house and you’re competing with people that only have two days to buy a house.

None of the walk-thrus today were impressive at all, which is sad considering that they’re all at the tippy top of our price range. We’ll keep the area in which those houses are located in the back of our mind. For now, I think we’ll start watching the market to the north a little more closely. According to our Realtor, we should see a bunch of homes start coming up for sale by March, which is perfect since we will be looking to make an offer on one sometime during the last two weeks in March or the first two weeks in April in order to close the first week of May. We would like to have all of May before we have to move out of the duplex and start paying the mortgage payments. It would be extra-super-nice to have access to both places for awhile in order to paint and do touch-ups both in the new place and the duplex. It doesn’t appear possible for us to break our lease unless David either joins the military or we become domestically violent toward one another. (Neither of which will happen, I’m just saying that’s the only way our lease will let us out before May 31st.)

Oprah’s show today prompted me to post a blog about some of the little “green” things we’re doing.

Just this past week, I whipped out the sewing machine and started looking for simple, free, bag patterns. I found three that I like very much, all creating different types of bags. I’m itching to start and think my first one is going to be fabulous as it will be made out of a sewing curtain top that I have left from when I recovered a bench, once upon a time. I have in mind to make cloth grocery bags for us out of all the old t-shirts we no longer wear.

I’ve switched to bar soap in the bathrooms to save on those plastic bottles being thrown away. I’ve switched to using diluted vinegar to clean with (and oh, my, it is AMAZING!)… We cut up our old cotton pants (think pajama pants) and I zig-zagged around the edges and we use those instead of paper towels and napkins. Now, we certainly aren’t the most earth-conscience people but those are some additional ideas that I think are good. We can’t afford to buy a lot of products geared toward being “green” so I cut corners where I can and those are just a few.

I am very anxious to sew up a bag and will probably have pictures of that by Sunday.

Oh, and David and are going to start walk-thrus with our Realtor this weekend. I’ve found the house I want, but getting it isn’t going to happen since we are about 2 months too early. Maybe God will hold it for us, maybe not. It doesn’t hurt to dream and pray.

Wow, we’re starting 2008 off with a bang. Lowell has an ear infection. In our cumulative 39 months of parenting (if you add the boys’ ages together) this is the very first ear infection and it isn’t very fun. Lowell has had a fever and different symptoms of miserableness for a week now and we finally took him to the doctor. Dr. Chang thinks what started off as teething and congestion has ended up as an ear infection.

We also gave Lowell his first haircut today.

Update - 7 p.m. - After a more-or-less 4 hour nap and some dinner, Lowell seems to feel much better.  He’s actually crawling around and playing with, er, I mean, chewing on one of James’ puzzle pieces.