Our First Wreath

I grew up in a very crafty home.  This is not to say that I am crafty, but my Mom is.  She had a good eye and the ability to make things with her hands.  She can sew, quilt, woodwork, etc. (the list could go on and on).  She even used to sell her stuff at craft sales (you know those sales that usually take place in school gymnasiums with table after table of everything craft-like).  I remember going to lots of them as a kid and being bored out of my mind (sorry Mom).  When I got old enough to do my own thing I promised myself to never attend another one of those, which of course was a lie to myself.  However, I go to them very rarely.

My house does not have a lot of cutie crafty things in it.  My tastes run along different lines.  Because of this, I really haven't developed my non-existent craft making skills.  This year Tom and I decided to buy a wreath for our door (we have a very ugly door with a very cool "No Smoking" sign on it), we were hoping it would cover it up a bit.  Obviously I was not going to make it from scratch or buy a brand new (expensive) one.  What we ended up doing was buy a used, but pretty nice looking wreath from Goodwill and replacing the ribbon.  I did the amazing feat of making my own bow our of new ribbon (thank you YouTube videos)!!!  We will now have a moment of silence to commemorate this amazing fact.  I think I did a pretty good job for a first attempt.  Here are my before and after pictures with a close-up of the before bow (gag).

 

As an added bonus, here's a cool picture of Tom in his new prescription safety glasses for work.  Isn't he studly?

An Uncomfortable Day

So as many of you might have heard, western Washington had a nasty snow storm last week.  Rain we're used to...snow added with wind and freezing temperatures knock us all for a loop.  Now don't get me wrong, I'm an Idaho girl so I'm obviously used to cold snow and I lived in Rexburg for quite a while so I'm also used to frigid winds.  However, what I am not used to is living in those temperatures without heat.  The snow wasn't really the problem, it just added to the fun with icy roads people couldn't navigate.  It was the wind that really caused the damage.  I don't think our pine trees are used to being abused the way they were.  Trees were fallen all over Kitsap County (unfortunately they took anything with them that was in their way....most obvious to most of us were the power lines).

We lost power around 7 pm last Monday night and didn't get it back again until Tuesday evening around 5 pm (we were the lucky ones...some people didn't get power back until Friday or Saturday).  The first night wasn't too bad.  However the next day (which Tom and I both got off of work due to the weather) started to get pretty chilly!  Towards the end of the blackout I was starting to try to talk Tom into going to Kirkland to stay with his cousin (in her heated house).  Just as he was starting to consider it, the power came back on.  Pretty much the whole day I was wearing my coat (inside our house), it was a balmy 45 degrees in our living room.  Our fire place wasn't much help either.  I think it's pretty much for looks.  We ended up moving our couch up right in front of the fireplace.  That helped out quite a bit.  We also have a gas stove, so we could still make warm meals and hot chocolate.

This experience showed us we might want to look into getting a generator just big enough to power our heat & refrigerator.  I don't mind being without light or television/movies/etc, I actually kind of enjoyed that part.  However, I'm a modern woman who isn't used to living in the freezing elements!