Sometimes I'm Still Surprised...

We've lived in Eastern Washington for 7 years now.  Most of the time, I think I've settled into the lifestyle here and go with the flow.   Seriously.  I don't even pause when I see a minivan with camo side panels (do families go hide in a duck blind with their minivans?).  Testicles hanging off of trucks don't faze me.  Baby clothes in blue and pink camoflauge patterns are de riguer.  Going to the local mall gives you a cross section of kids ranging from gang bangers to cowboys and everything in between.  Heck, we're even members of the local indoor shooting range.  (Oh, and in case you were wondering, yes, I am a terrible shot.)  Needless to say, I feel like we have settled into a rhythm here in our adopted home.   

Every once in a while, however, I am reduced to being a gaping child at some new-to-me sight.  Seriously.  I get all wide-eyed and pull out the camera, as if I need to be able to prove that I'm not just telling a tall tale.  So, look at what I saw at our local gas station one morning:

Here, have a closer look:

Yep, that is a cow in the bed of a pick-up truck.  (Oh, did I mention that here pick-up trucks are for work, not show, and they're referred to as rigs?)  So, some rancher/farmer had a cow in the back of his rig at the gas station.  I've never seen that before.

Of course, after I saw that, I wondered if the cow was off to the slaughterhouse because that is the other part of living here.  Cows aren't just scenery.  They're food.  I guess if my name is on the list for 1/8 of a cow, I have to own that.  Those beautiful cows grazing on grass in the pasture are destined for the dinner table...that is why they are being raised.  Meat doesn't come on a foam platter wrapped in cellophane.  Meat comes from animals.

Still, I sure hope I'm not getting part of that cow.  We bonded over the gas pumps.

Frugal Animal Beds

With four cats and two dogs, I always have animals laying around.  Seriously.  They're just laying around all over the place.  In the past, I've spent money on animal beds, but oftentimes, they were cheap material that couldn't stand up to washing and I need to wash them...a lot.  I needed a better, but still frugal solution.  Two rag towels, an old floor pillow, and twenty minutes later, I had a fully washable dog bed.  It turned out so well that I wanted to make some more animal bed covers, so I headed to Target and bought their $3.50 bath towels and made two more.  (The rag towels worked well, but I didn't take pictures.)  Here is how I did it:

We just use old pillows for animal beds.

Lay one towel on the floor.  Lay your pillow on top of the towel, closer to one edge of the towel.  Leaving the same amount on the opposite edge, cut off the excess.  Don't discard as you'll be making an envelope closure for this pillow.  (Great tutorial on envelope closures here.)

Lay the pillow you're using on one towel.

Now, pick up the pillow, but leave the portion of the towel that had been under the pillow in place.  Take the piece that you've cut off and lay it on top of the towel, matching the cut-edge to the outside edge of your towel.

Putting the finished edge on the inside makes this a quick project.  Your

envelope folds are already finished.

Now you'll take your second towel and cut it to a length that is one half the width of your pillow and lay it on top of the other two pieces of towel that you've already cut, making sure to put the finished edge on the inside of the pillow, just like you did with the second piece.  Pin all three layers together and sew around the outside edge. 

Sew all around the edge...in some places you'll be going through three layers

of towel...just be sure to catch those inside edge.

Flip your pillow cover right side out and insert your pillow.  Lay it on the floor and see who gets it first.



Cat bed?

Dog bed?  Either way, this one is in Buttercup's room now.



Well, either way, cat or dog, it is an animal bed that cost $7 and twenty minutes to make.  It is oh-so-washable.  Just what we need in this menagerie!

If you don't have a serger, you can just zig zag the edges.

Oh, and you'll have extra toweling.  I cut mine into squares, serged the edges, and got myself a bunch of new washcloths.  Not bad for $7!!

Lots of Irons in the Fire

When you read DIY blogs with any regularity, you are presented with beautiful "before and after" pictures of amazing projects.  These blogs make it appear that these talented people live their lives sequentially, going smoothly through one project start to finish before they begin their next amazing project.

My life doesn't work that way.  Not even close.

Right now, I have a lot of irons in the fire.  If kept a photo log of them all, I would present them in nicely laid out progression of completed projects.  But I don't...I'm lucky if I can remember to snap ANY pictures along the way.  Still, I'm doing some fun stuff, so I thought I'd share some of it with you.


Finishing the garage gave me space to start working on others things.  In addition to the bathroom off the laundry room, I've decided to tackle the red bathroom.  Yes, red.  Learning to put on make-up with a red bathroom was quite a challenge, let me tell you.  This bathroom is the only room in our home that hasn't been painted in the five years we've lived here.  Why?  Because the paint was so horrible (it bled red every time I wiped it down), I was just sure that I'd have to use oil-based primer and it would be a horrible job.  When I was at Home Depot earlier in the week, though, the girl at the paint counter encouraged me to try Behr Ultra, Home Depot's new paint with primer included.  Painting meant the weird chair rail needed to be removed and, look, there is a strip of wallpaper that needs to be removed.  Yippee! 

Why did they leave this when they put up the chair rail?

  A lot of work needs to be done before I can think of actually painting, but still I am thinking about it.

For $2.50, I brought home a "flat" sample of the color I'm thinking of using.  She promised it would cover and I think she's right. 

There has been no bleed through. I'm so jazzed!  Maybe this won't be the horrific project I think it will be.  Yeah, I know, it will still be a big project.

While I was upstairs, I decided to add this shelf to our closet.  I love it.  It finishes the closet perfectly and gives me some much needed storage (which, you might notice, I already filled).

Love this shelf!  Only $12 and some effort!

In between all of this construction, I've been raising this cute girl...

and turning her into a crazy cat lady.

Should I be worried that Valiant took this pictures of his sister and the cats?

One of my cats thinks she's a dog and sleeps on the dogs whenever she can.

Cat-Dog?  (She's certainly big enough!)

She also heard that I'd decided to add pictures of my shoes to their respective boxes to make my closet more organized and wanted to be in on the project.

Needless to say, the project isn't done yet.

Oh, and Buttercup and I started volunteering at a local animal shelter two days a week.  (Valiant says he can't do it because he'll want to bring all the animals home.)

Still working on the laundry room and the attached bathroom.   So, here's the truth...I don't think anybody's life actually flows neatly.  I think we can make ourselves crazy holding ourselves to those "after" standards.  Life is messy, even when the pictures aren't.  The fun starts when we embrace it all. 

Yep, a lot of irons in the fire.

Babysitting - Nagle Style

Babysitting: At our house, we do it a little differently.

Cajun is babysitting Biscuit (who doesn't think she needs a babysitter).

Ninja and Cajun babysitting Biscuit (who really doesn't think she needs TWO babysitters).

Lucy is babysitting Cajun (who doesn't think she needs a babysitter).

Keep in mind I was obviously "babysitting" everyone, or I wouldn't have been able to snap these photos. Babysitting Nagle-style...baby animals count.