Only three more days until Halloween....oh, and only two until my Birthday! How about that? 

We've had some crazy weather this pre-Halloween season in Kalamazoo. On Tuesday, I drove to work listening to the gusts of wind and warnings of severe weather throughout the region. After hearing weather alerts at work, warning of tornados in regions that grew closer and closer to Kalamazoo throughout the morning, I soon regretted my decision to park under a tree. And as I headed to the library's basement, armed with our department's first aid kit, a two way radio, some flashlights, blankets, and a book--just in case--I  regretted my decision even more. But fortune was smiling upon me that day, and I, along with the car, survived the day unscathed. 

Later that evening, Jared and I drove out to Mattawan to attend the Kalamazoo Young Life banquet, where we ate some great food and had the opportunity to join a hundred other adults in a marshmallow fight. It was a great time! It was encouraging to see so many supporters of Young Life in one room.

The banquet was Pirate themed. Jared makes a better pirate than me, I think :)

We're looking forward to joining a community in Langley as supportive as the one in Kalamazoo! When we left the banquet, it was still cold, blustery and raining. Jared and I had set aside Wednesday as our pumpkin day, when we'd venture out to Gene the Pumpkin Man's farm and then spend the evening carving our finds. Unfortunately, prospects of good weather for that day were looking pretty bleak.  

But lo and behold, Wednesday morning met us with blue skies and plenty of sunshine! It was a bit windy, but Jared and I still enjoyed our annual trip to Gene the Pumpkin Man's farm.

A little bit of pre-pumpkin-farm excitement

Gene the Pumpkin Man's pumpkin kingdom!

Jared with his pumpkin find

It was really windy!

And on the way back, we ran into a little bit of adventure when we pulled over to watch 15+ cop cars, sirens blaring and lights blinking, zoom past us in pursuit of a car. Turns out, we were kind of part of a high speed car chase! The full story is here. These are our completed pumpkins!

Mine's the spider web, Jared's is the bat

We don't have any candles, otherwise they'd be lit up. Somehow this happens every year lol.
I've now carved a total of three pumpkins this Halloween (which is more than enough!) but these are still my favorite :) 

Well everyone, it's that time of the week for a review of my bookshelf. Unfortunately, I'm still reading the same book as last week.....but I figure this is a good time for some old favorites. And, since this is the week before Halloween and apparently I'm obsessed with Halloween...these books may contain a lot of monsters and possibly even some spookiness. 

The Gates by John Connolly

You know how there's that old saying "Don't judge a book by it's cover"? Well, I don't believe in that-- I judge books for their covers all the time.  That's how I stumbled across author John Connolly-- I was drawn to this cover for his  The Book of Lost Things. After enjoying this book, I started researching him and discovered he's a bestselling Irish author famous for crime thrillers--not exactly my style. But in recent years, he's written two novels with lighter, more fantastical themes, The Book of Lost Things and topic of today's post,  The Gates. Perfect for this Halloween season, The Gates tells the story of a small boy and his dog's adventures after his neighbors accidently open the gates of Hell, allowing the creatures within to wander into our world. Now, it sounds dark and scary and kind of...I don't know...horror-esque, but this book is surprisingly hilarious. John Connolly manages to create a mature, multidimensional story filled with a cast of hilariously loveable demons who are not in the least bit scary. With his witty and deceivingly light writing, Connolly creates a supernatural masterpiece with this monster filled fairytale. 

And lets face it....I just realized that I don't really read scary things...so for the sake of not ending up with  a big old list of teen vampire, werewolf, fairy and immortal novels (all of which I adore, by the way), I'll just end it with this! Does anyone have any spooky recommendations for the Halloween season? 

Well, it's official---I love Halloween! All the costumes, spookiness, pumpkins, colorful leaves, and of course, candy!! But I have realized this week that there is one thing I do not like about Halloween....the pumpkin carving contest at my work. It's not that I dislike carving pumpkins at work--it's actually really fun to walk through the library with my hands covered in pumpkin goop---it's that I do not like group projects. You see, every year, the library hosts a library-wide Halloween party along with a contest where each department submits a carved pumpkin ( or two). In the past years, my Government Documents department has tried to submit a pumpkin that is somewhat Gov. Docs themed. Three years ago, we did a globe like this one:

Then last year, we did a set of three pumpkins featuring the statue of liberty, the liberty bell and the Lincoln memorial. Here's how they turned out:

They were intricate and lovely, but what do you think won the competition?

A stupid Swine Flu pumpkin like this one:

But not even that detailed. It was an outrage. Ok, or maybe I'm just bitter, but the whole thing didn't exactly make me excited for the pumpkin project this year :)
But nevertheless, my mornings at work this week have been devoted to tirelessly searching for a creative and witty idea for a pumpkin. See, it has to either be creative (like the Swine Flu one, apparently) or scream pop culture enough that people have no choice but to love it...like a character from a popular movie. And of course, I love making things somewhat over the top and detailed--I'm never one to shy away from hours of menial work if the end result is awesome. So when one of my coworkers submitted this duo of Star Wars pumpkins...

Darth Vader and the Death Star

I was excited. They would be perfect! And while the Death Star looks daunting, it's actually not that hard--just some boxes and such. We had a couple other ideas too--

Nightmare Before Christmas themed pumpkins

From Where the Wild Things Are

But the favorites so far have been Star Wars or else this one. 

 

We'll probably  end up using this last one--some people seem to think the Star Wars ones are too much work (*sigh*).But I guess I can't complain, this pumpkin is pretty creative, and actually pretty cute. But I guess I'll just have to use one of the other awesome ideas on my own pumpkin, which I will be getting tomorrow!!! Yay!

Happy week before Halloween everyone!

Hello all! Check out my chairs now--

Jared and I decided on this blue, so instead of a kitchen that threatens to look sort of McDonald's ish with red and yellow everything, we have a more balanced red, yellow and blue, like this:

photo from the lovely blog Dear Daisy Cottage--this woman's house is the happiest looking place I've ever seen :)

In the store, the blue we picked was a little more dusty, not quite as bright, but of course paints tend to come out a little different in person than on the sample. They're blue, and they're kind of bright, but I love them! 

And this is the fabric I have so far for the seat cushions.

I found these on my family's annual trip to Shipshewana at Yoder's Department Store--they carry all sorts of fabrics, including lots of 1930's vintage styles that I am in love with! I could have probably spent all day there trying to eeny, meeny, miny, moe my favorite from the bunch, but fortunately my mom was there to patiently guide me and help me narrow down my selections :) I'm planning on using the yellow stripe as kind of a "default" cushion for all four chairs (once I have 4 of them) and the red for mix and match. I'm excited for the splash of color this will bring  someday to what I'm sure will be a very white apartment, and I can't wait to find more fabrics! I think the blue chairs will let me be pretty versatile, perfect for my flighty decorating habits :)

My sisters and I on our Shipshewana Trip

And to add some more excitement...meet my third chair! 

Jared's mom had a splash of luck when she found this in a used furniture store out near her. I gave it a little love this weekend---glued some joints all by myself!--and now it's stable and ready to paint. I'm still trying to decide whether I should prime this one with gray spray primer like I did the others, or just go ahead and paint it blue. The chilly weather isn't exactly appealing me to the primer method...but we'll see. So three down, only one more chair to find! Hopefully by the next post I'll have actually gotten a cushion or two made, somehow I've ended up with more projects than I bargained for, but I love it!

So when Jared and I got married back in June, I had this idea that, yay! this means we'll be going everywhere together from now on--aka I'll never be alone again! Sadly, this is not the case. While you read this post, you should imagine Celine Dion's "All By Myself" rocking in the background (if a Celine Dion song can actually "rock"...). In fact, if you happen to have that cd on your itunes (aka if you're as nerdy as I am) I invite you to fire it up. It'll really add to your whole blog reading experience. Because this week, I am truly All By Myself. 

Sort of. 

This week, I have been distracting myself quite well actually. So this post will be a modge podge of my week so far. Here's a sort of "table of contents" for the post:

Part 1.  This Week's Bookshelf

Part 2.  Happiness is this right here

Part 3. My projects

Part 1.My Bookshelf
I am a little bit ashamed, and surprised, to report that my bookshelf has been very small this week, and last week too, since I guess I didn't post then. I've actually only read about 1.5 books during that time. Which for me is a little bit appalling, but I have a good excuse--for once, I'm catching up on books written for adults! And those take a lot longer to read, sadly. But my 1.5 books of the week have been great!
The Help by Kathryn Stockett
Now, I feel like I'm about a year late jumping on the bandwagon for this book. It's all over the stores, all over book review charts, etc. And it was actually recommended it to me by my mom, after her book club read it, and my older sister Katie. This book is fabulous. I want to be Kathryn Stockett, because this is her first work of fiction and it is absolutely wonderful! I began reading it last Monday, with hopes of finishing it by the weekend so I could discuss it with my sister in law Shawn, who was also reading it. And I did not have trouble reading it in that amount of time. I did, however, have trouble putting it down. This book made me have a lot of "oops" afternoons, where I had a whole list of things I was hoping to accomplish and promises to fulfill but instead I sat with my nose in the book, hardly able to take a break to eat. And actually, I'm going to be a really bad reviewer here and refuse to write anything more about the book. I'll explain: usually, when I read a book, I've read the back cover, or read a review for it, or had it recommended to me, or saw a preview for a movie based on the book (which always makes me rush to the library so I can read that book and base my opinion on it before the stupid filmmakers ruin it for me). But I always open a book with some sort of idea of what it's supposed to be about. This book was like a present still in the wrappings, I had no idea what it was about, didn't bother to read the cover, just started reading. And I loved it! I loved the feeling of surprise, of something brand new to explore. That's probably why I want to be an editor. It's not that I'm a stickler for correct spelling or grammar, I just want to read the books out there before anyone else, to be the first one to explore a story, and even change it a little bit. So anyway, for all of you out there who haven't read this book, I want you to have that same experience. Just go get the book and start reading--put all your faith in my opinions, please and thankyou. :)

And on to book .5...
The Story of Edgar Sawtelle by David Wroblewski
This book is my .5 because I'm reading it right now, probably about half way through. This one is not really a surprise book, I picked it out for my dad for Father's Day a couple months ago after reading the back cover and thinking it looked good. And I guess all I can say is that I like it so far! There are lots of sweet pups in it (I guess I'm a sucker for a book with dogs in it! Maybe that means I should get a dog...HA). I'll write more when I've actually finished it :)

Part II: Happiness is this right here
I've had a lot of small things that have made me happy this week, so I've decided to just compile a list to share with you all. I've included pictures whenever possible (all stolen from the internet, of course :). Oh, and the order is not reflective of the amount of happiness each moment/object has brought me.
1. Palmer Peanut Butter Pumpkins, from the bulk food bins at Meijer. They look like just normal Halloween candy...then you unwrap it and have this little pumpkin guy grinning up at you! I don't know why, but it makes me smile every time I unwrap one

2. After I found a book for someone at the library today, they actually said "Wow, I think that's the quickest anybody's ever found a book here". It's sad how much that warmed my heart.

3. Eating split pea soup and going on a walk in the woods with my sister, Anna

4. Watching Hocus Pocus all the way through for the first time ever. Thankyou ABC Family for your 13 Nights of Halloween!

5. Finding the trail of "I miss you notes" Jared hid all over our basement when I got home on Sunday night

6. Apple cider. mmmmm I love fall!

7. This post from Enjoying the Small Things blog. It was heart warming in a "oh goodness I'm reading this touching post at work and about to cry in the office" sort of way.But I'm loving her blog, glad I stumbled across it!

8. "Inheriting" two very old, very pretty (and also dusty, musty, mildewy) books from Jared's great great aunt

9. It finally being cold enough for mittens and scarves--only I had to wear Jared's mittens this morning because I don't have any of my own in Kalamazoo and it kind of made me look like a puppy with my huge paws :)

10.News that Jared's brother and sister-in-law are expecting twins! That's not one baby, but  two babies! And two more nieces or nephews (or maybe one of each?) to love come May!

Part III: Projects
Well, most of my time this week has been spent sewing, sewing, sewing (which is also why I haven't had much time to read. Can you tell my whole 1.5 books is getting to me? lol). Next week, I'm attending a Halloween themed bachelorette party for my friend Amanda, so I need a costume. And of course, instead of buying one (which is just too easy for me, I guess) I'm sewing one. Actually, it's more of a money saving thing---I'm not going to spend $40 on a costume when I can buy fabric for just $3. Although, I should probably start charging myself for time. But anyway, me and my sewing machine have really spent some quality time together this week :) Pictures may or may not follow, depending on how the costume actually turns out!

So that's a wrap up of my week all by myself! I'm really looking forward to seeing Jared again on Saturday. Oh, and for those of you who noticed that I've posted twice in one day....that's just me overcompensating for not blogging last week, and trying to prove to myself that I can do this! Thanks for sticking with me :)

Hello! 

Jared is off gallivanting around in Langley right now, touring apartments, meeting  people, talking to banks and cell phone companies, enjoying the beautiful views of Mt. Baker and the Golden Ears mountains, and apparently getting very very lost. On Monday, he flew into Seattle , then took a bus from the airport to Surrey, the next town over from Langley. He flew out to attend Young Life in Langley's annual dessert fundraiser, which is this evening, so cross your fingers and wish him luck that everything is going ok!

And over this past  weekend... he finished his bike! It is now all painted, polished, and reassembled--so all those little baggies of parts somehow found themselves back onto the bike where they belong. The bike looks great, but unfortunately he has the camera with him in Langley so I can't post the after pictures! Next time...next time. There are still a couple things he hopes to do with the bike, like change it into a single speed, buy new pedals, and get fenders (which will probably be important to have in Langley, since it rains a lot there!). But for now, it works and looks great!

I'm pretty sure once he finishes this project, he'll be itching for another. I, personally, wouldn't mind if he made me a bike like this one:

only in a pale yellow. And maybe with a gray seat instead. It's not that I love bikes that much or anything, but maybe if I had one that was pretty and lovable, I would like to ride it more--at least I think that's Jared's hope. There's a bike just like this one parked outside the library every Thursday, and every time I see it I just want to give it a little pat like a pup. It's just so cute! I can picture myself riding it around with a basket full of flowers on the back and a packed picnic basket. Maybe next week I'll try to take a picture of it...I've been tempted to take one with my phone for a couple weeks now, but I'm always scared the bike's owner will catch me and be suspicious.

So I guess this turned into more of a "hers" post anyway...oh well ;) I promise pictures of his completed bike in the near future.

 

Hi everyone! Welcome to my bookshelf this week! Here's what I've been reading.

The Art of Racing in the Rain by Garth Stein

For any dog lovers out there who currently do not have a dog, this is not the book for you...but only because it'll make you want a dog really bad. And for those lucky bums of you who already have a dog, well, reading this might make you wish you had a different dog. In short, I loved this book. Author Garth Stein tells a story of grief and loyalty, love and persistance in this creative novel, and he tells the whole thing through the voice of a dog--an intelligent, well mannered pup who insists that the key to dogs remaining subordinate to humans is their lack of opposable thumbs. It's sad, it's frustrating, but it's also lovely. I would definitely recommend this book. 

Messenger by Lois Lowry

Most people in my generation grew up reading books by Lois Lowry. In my family, her WWII novel Number the Stars was a favorite. If you aren't familiar with that book, you may be familiar with her novel The Giver. The Giver is a popular classroom book telling the story of a young boy growing up in a society bereft of emotion, differences and even color. He eventually learns disturbing secrets about his community, and flees, but whether he survives or not is very ambiguous. I read this book in fourth grade, and it's taken me 15 years to discover that Lois Lowry actually wrote a pseudo series of two books based on The Giver--this series includes Gathering of Blue and one of the books on my shelf this week, Messenger. The books are not necessarily a series, but definitely make more sense when they're read together as their location and characters overlap. Each book raises a lot of questions about how societies work, indiviualism, and morality, which is why they are perfect for a fourth grade classroom. But they're just mature enough that they make compelling reads for adults as well. So if you feel like some quick, thought provoking books, these three are great choices.

  

I love books about the supernatural--vampires (yes, I loved Twilight) werewolves, witches, wizards, I love it all. And fortunately for me, supernatural books are definitely in vogue for YA literature. These next two books fall within that category, and they have the same sort of underlying romance as the Twilight books--girl meets boy, falls in loved, discovers that the supernatural is a reality and that her newfound love could be life threatening. Now, I know that whole storyline can get a little bit redundant, but I still always enjoy seeing how the authors pull it off. So these are two of my bookshelf reads this week:

Beautiful Creatures by Kami Garcia and Margaret Stohl  

This is a sweet, supernatural story set in Southern USA, a mix of fantasy and the south. The lovely and unique thing about this book is that the main character is actually...a boy! Yes, this is a boy meets girl story, and for once, the boy is more vulnerable than the girl. Sort of. In this book set in a small southern town still clinging to its Civil War roots, things start to get interesting for main character Ethan Wate when a new girl shows up. And she's not just any new girl--she's the niece of the town's mysterious recluse. Ethan finds himself falling for the new girl, and soon discovers that his world is a much more complex and dangerous place than it seems. Oh, and best of all (to me), it's part of a series! I can't wait to read the next one, Beautiful Darkness.  

Jekel Loves Hyde by Beth Fantaskey

 This book is a fun, modern day twist on the classic story of Dr. Jekel and Mr. Hyde. After her father is mysteriously murdered, main character Jill Jekel finds her entire world turned upside down. And the mysterious, aloof Tristen Hyde, who is smart, intelligent, and truly understands her situation, only complicates matters. When brainiac Jill is invited to take part in a chemistry scholarship competition, she first decides it's not worth it. But when she learns that, before his death, her father spent her entire college fund, she finds herself desperately teaming up with Tristen Hyde in an experiment that soon becomes much bigger than just school. An interesting book that follows the classic battle between the good and evil impulses within, as present in the original Jekel and Hyde, this book is cute and creative, an appropriately spooky read for the Halloween season.

 

During my last post, you were introduced to my beautiful new chairs. This post, I'll show you the progress I've made so far.

Prep work: Chair 1

My first chair actually needed fairly little work. It was solid, fairly smooth, and hardly creaky at all.

 However, as you can see the seat caining had busted right through. So my first step was to take a pliers and rip that seat right out of there.

 Now, I know ripping isn't exactly the best way to get rid of these, but we're a little short on tools around our basement, so I use what I have :) That left me with a bunch of ragged edges around the seat though, which I then tackled with whatever sandpaper we had around.

 

The rest of the work, I did in Howell. For this chair, it involved just sanding off the finish with an electric sander.

Prep Work: Chair 2

The next chair, on the other hand, needed more than just a little work. It was creaky, cracked, and to be honest, I was a little afraid it might collapse any minute. We took it to Howell, where I could get help from a pro--Jared's dad, Jeff. 

We began with the most basic issue--fixing the structure. This involved adding screws, replacing screws, gluing, and regluing rungs. This was fun, because for me it was a major learning experience. One of the most valuable things I learned to do was to reglue the loose rungs. And it was easy--we pounded them out with a rubber mallet, reglued it with some Gorilla Glue, and then clamped the chair together and moved on.

Fixed rungs

With that fixed, the chair actually became pretty stable. All it took then were a couple new screws, and it was all set. Mostly. I was still pretty concerned by this cracked seat corner. Not only was it a gaping crack, but it was also kind of unstable.  

 So we used some wood glue and clamped it together, and then I filled the crack with some Plastic Wood. This is what it looked like after.

Once this chair gets a new coat of paint, it'll look like nothing was wrong to begin with.

Seats:

Now, just looking at these chairs, it's pretty easy to see what's wrong with them:

No seats!  So the next obvious step is to make them some seats. For this, I had a couple options, some complicated, some not so much. But what I wanted (and still want) is a seat that is solid, snug, and can be removed easily, with hopes that the final product will be a cushioned seat that I can lift off and change fabrics at a whim for a new look. Jeff came up with the design we ended up using--a fiberboard seat that extends to within an inch of the edge of the frame. This seat is attached to a wood insert that fits into the frame hole, preventing the seat from sliding and adding weight to keep it tight. 

I made a basic pattern for the seats using poster board, traced it onto the fiberboard, and then faced my greatest fear: the band saw. Ok, so it's not my greatest fear. It's just that everytime I think about an electric saw, I get images of severed fingers and hear echoes of those woodshop horror stories teachers like to tell students to scare them. But it ended up actually being pretty fun. 

So brave... :)

At the end of the weekend, this is what we ended up with:

Freshly glued, sanded, ready for painting, and now, including seats! The next step will be painting, and  adding foam padding to the seats to make a basic cushion. Thanks for reading!

 

  

Hi Everyone! 

This is the first "his" post, but I've got to admit, he's not the one writing this. Jared's been putting a lot of work into fixing in his bike, so I'm here to show off all that work to the world! 

The "Before" Picture

A couple weeks ago, Jared adopted this 1979 Schwinn Traveler from my dad. He had originally purchased this bike before marrying my mom, before the kids came along, and most definitely before me. He got a lot of use out of it, but eventually it just became an ornament hanging on the wall in their pole barn, collecting dust and, unfortunately, a whole lot of rust. When Jared and I were in town on a visit, we saw this beauty sitting outside, ready to be donated to a rumage sale. Ironically, though, Jared has been searching Craigslist for a road bike for months now--when we move to Vancouver, we're not planning on bringing Vanna Green (my old green minivan) along, leaving us with only one car, so instead Jared's planning on commuting via bicycle. So he immediately snatched the opportunity to adopt this bike. Considering its age, this bike was in pretty good shape. There were some issues though:

Worn tires, a little bit of rust

More rust...

And more rust...

And a couple spider webs too :)

 Jared started out by stripping off parts of the bike, piece by piece, to decide what all needed to be replaced, and what just needed a whole lot of cleaning. Within a couple evenings, Jared's bike was in pieces.

Baggies of parts--all labeled 

With the help of WD-40, steel wool and a whole lot of elbow grease, Jared was able to scrub the rust off the bike. Eventually, the wheel spokes and other parts were actually shiny again. 

Jared was able to remove most pieces by himself, but found that, for those pieces where a special tool was necessary, many bike shops in the area were willing to help out--most of the time for free, too. And the one shop that did charge got a nice little surprise--apparently, at one point or another some bees decided to make this bike their home, and unfortunately, the shop ended up with a floor of dead bees. Oops! A couple parts did need replacing too, like the tires, but Jared was able to find some great deals shopping at nashbar.com. 

By the next weekend, the bike was down to just its frame, ready to be sanded, primed, and painted.

 

That's all for now, but check back again for an update on the painting process!