My sister's cute Autumn decor

Well, she did it. My sister has just deflated my day. I wanted the day to be wonderful, but how can that be--now that I know how cute her house is, and how much fun she must have had while putting it together? Just scroll down to October 8th to see her photos of her quilts and house. *sigh* Did I need to mention that Happy Valley undoubtedly has that crisp chill in the air? Yeah--she had to go and take pictures outside as well. with the snow-covered mountains. I guess I'll just stare at my two $4.98 scarecrows (from Joanne's Fabrics) that I thought were going to add some punch to my under-designed, under-decorated home. The boy and girl scarecrows actually resemble $8.15 scarecrows (which were worthy of an entire page blogged exclusively on them)--but for now I can't revel in my thrifty shopping.

Do you think she will get my fun birthday card I picked out for her? It is her birthday on the 19th...and I might just have to blog about that. That will show her!

But seriously--I can't be too hard on her because she is the only family who reads my blogs! I love her to death.

My Pet, the Hornworm

My beautiful cherry tomatoes are hardly producing anymore, but imagine my surprise when I found two tag-a-long hornworms munching away on the plants. I just thought I'd share my photos of one of these giants. It almost looks cute--just enjoying the green tomato the same way I enjoy a bright red one. This particular caterpillar could stretch over 7 inches. I've seen Tomato Hornworms before and they have been fatter than my fingers. My plan was to document how large they become in a week's time. Unfortunately, the duo disappeared the day after these photos were shot. Hmmm...where would one hide a 5 inch long caterpillar? I know they only eat the tomato plants.......and tobacco leaves.... According to the linked website, those monsters are under foot!

Too bad they went missing. I was grooming them for my little friend, Lizzie. She will take any creepy-crawly pet she can get her hands on...the bigger the better. Thats the way I was when I was 7.

This first photo taken Tues, 9/25.














This photo taken 6 days later on 10/1. Notice the severe damage to the plant!

Pearls and Me

I was busy with a new project this past weekend. I'm selling pearls! I know...I expect you all to run and hide your checkbooks, but I'm not selling at the moment. I am, however, still thinking about the fun I had and what I saw.

Quick background to how I got into My Princess Pearls is 1) Wendy Bird started the foundation. 2) I became friends with her. 3) She moved out of California. 4) I met her at her store this summer in Utah and asked if I could do anything with her pearls in California since she left. Wendy set me up as a distributor and told me of an upcoming opportunity to sell her pearls at a Republican Women's convention in Palm Springs. I set it up, and here we are now. Fortunately, Wendy sent a fine person, Gail, to "help" me. Of course, Gail was the expert...I held onto her every word...regarding pearls, or about life. Gail is an amazing, beautiful woman I wish you all to meet. I wish I took a camera to record our adventures!

Funny thing about what we learned about our product and this particular convention. It's a finer jewelry than the partying, patriotic, Republican women wanted. Who could blame them? Of the nearly 45-ish booths at the convention, about 40 of us had "jewelry". Most of that jewelry was geared toward ladies with a flashier taste for sequined, red-white and blue, elephant anything! I saw humongous elephant belt buckles, sequined hat pins, sequined HATS with elephants, even a gold-painted elephant head (wine bottle holder). The Texas Republican booth was loaded with grand, sterling silver stars of every proportion. Go Texas! Although we were assigned a booth on the back row of vendors, we were slightly cheered to know the Ladies Room was nearby. We knew we would at least get exposure from women with weak bladders. A few ladies expressed their appreciation for our quality of ....everything. Hee hee.
Some popular sellers below...the Woven Button Bracelet (1/2 price was $10),
the Hand-woven Silk Wrap skirt (1/2 price to $20), and the Signature pearls in the top picture. I liked to dress up each day and drape myself with pearls to model. I even wrapped a skirt around me, sold it, and put on another. Was this a flea market in some tourist town? The skirt was popular not only because of the iridescent silk fabric, but because of the elephants in the pattern. I had my own pearls, like this cable bracelet, but I dared not wear the more expensive Slider Pearl necklace.
And I also found out this weekend that Wendy doesn't keep any of the money for herself. Any commission that would go to her is immediately put back into the foundation for things such as shipping more 'relief' boxes to the Philippines, buying more product from the Filipino women, rent on the tiny store she has in Lehi, etc. For Wendy, its all about supporting those families who are almost totally dependent on her efforts. Wow.

Anniversary Tag

Well, its not my anniversary, but it is my friend Jolynn's anniversary. She is such a beautiful bride, and I just couldn't let this hottie down....so here is my info...

Where did you meet your husband?
James and I met the first night I was in California after I had accepted a job in Van Nuys. He sort of stalked me when he saw me in a room of married people. I was with my younger brother, but I think James was hoping we were single people. James followed us out the door and invited us to his Single's Ward the next day.

First date?
We didn't really "date" as much as I was just mooching rides off of him and others. James invited me to go to the Los Angeles temple 2 weeks after we met. We went there often together.

Where was the first kiss?
It was in the entryway of the house I was renting in Sepulveda.

Was the courtship long/short?
We dated for about 3 months before he proposed. Like my friend Marilee, I was mostly shocked that I said Yes because most of my relationships until then were about 3-6 months and then I ran out of the relationship. We were engaged for 3 months before the wedding day. For those bad at math--about 6 months total of courtship!

Where did you get engaged?
On the grounds of the L.A. temple.

Where did you get married?
Gosh--this is quite the theme! The L.A. temple, of course! It was a typical June-Gloom kind of day...hazy until about 3 pm. The wedding photos were taken during the hazy portion of the day of course.

How did the reception go?
Oh--I pretty much wish I could go back in time and re-do the entire day! I'm going to be a bit of a brat for a moment, so you can just skip this paragraph if you hate whiners; I was very bummed that I couldn't afford a gorgeous reception hall. We settled for the inexpensive Stake Center (gym) and I was sad that my reception was going to have basketball hoops as decorations. *sigh* As it turned out, our group of out-of-state family was running late for set-up and so James and I got to the Stake Center first. We were about 1 1/2 hours late and the custodian had gone home. The basketball hoops were not even retracted. *hysterical crying* James got the insensitive guy on the phone and told him to get his *tushy* back to the church because we needed him to set stuff up with us. *nervous break-down in an empty room* Family members start showing up, and I found my makeup bag and started reapplying. I was not a pretty bride! *blech* The highlight, besides the guests, was that we were able to move the reception line to an inner courtyard (outside) that had a wall of blooming gardenias for our backdrop. To this day I just adore gardenias. On a happier note, my bratty side was under control a month later for our Utah reception. It was held at Sil's Restaurant (on the BYU diagonal in Provo) with such a beautiful garden area surrounding us, and the food and decorations were taken care of by Sil's. *glowing bride*

How was the honeymoon?
I think it was wonderful. It started out just a little weird when we had to have James' dad drive us to the airport after our first night together. We went to Disneyworld/Epcot in Orlando. We had a beautiful hotel suite thanks to my perks as a travel agent at the time. James will never forget how stupid I was to freeze a Lemonade Bar to the back of my tongue at MGM Studios (when the guy selling the frozen pops warns you, "Be careful, they are frozen!", you had better not mock him nor stick the pop next to your tonsils because you won't have any flesh on your tongue for a week).

Go Me! or "Why I'm Not a Quilter Yet"

Look what I did! This photo doesn't show the completed item with the girls' names and coach's name. Well, embarrassingly enough, I don't sew and I would appreciate you not pulling up any high quality resolutions--thank you very much! I just got a little 'bee in my bonnet' and when I was at last Saturday's opening day at the soccer fields, my eyes were always drawn to the cutest, home made team banners. Since our team's banner was still unmade, I decided that Jenna's team would get one of those--and it was up to me. How gallant, I thought. Well, as you can see, experience was not behind me. I felt like I was back in 7th grade sewing class with Miss Hanson tsk-tsking over my shoulder. I know enough about using a sewing machine to know when I'm cheating. I cheated a lot on this Ladybug banner. I'm still laughing at the bunched-up mass jammed around the feeder area. I hate to ask...but "what am I doing wrong?" So, the banner took 2 days to figure out, and I was ready to display it proudly today at Jenna's game. Jenna has other plans. She plans on being sick and not playing her game today. I reluctantly agree. She was up coughing a lot last night. Thank goodness I have a blog to document this momentous occasion. By the way, I did a banner for Brielle's team last year. It was nice, but I learned that hot-glueing fabric is just not as sturdy as the sewn fabric.

My sister is great because....

I have the best sister. That is her -upside down- in the photo. I'm the shy blond one above. This photo was taken at a Mexican playground (heh). Unfortunately, this is the only picture I have of us as kids (at the moment). I'm sure it's because several years back, mom was tired of all the photos lying around the house and she divvied them up, gave us all our own albums, and we made our own 'scrapbooks'. As an 8 year old, I only grabbed the photos with me. But lets chat about my sister... She blogged the nicest things about me in her quilting blog. She said I was the cool sister. If cool means I'm the one who is less responsible, less organized, less talented, less persevering--but has a nice ride and a Wii---then she is correct. I'm that girl. You know when you do something amazing that really makes you want to pat your own back? I come across one of those moments and can't wait to share it with my sister. Chances are..she already has a library of those moments to relate to. Yes, I took up knitting and then found out that she had been in an internet group of quilters for a couple of years. A couple of quilts? No! She had several. I learned to make my own Freezer Jam last summer. It turns out that my sister already has a stock-pile of her own Freezer Jam and even has a better recipe! I harvested my cherry tomatoes. She has a Martha Stewart-type of garden with several kinds of veggies, about a dozen herbs, and fruit trees. Our family has a Wii (because if nothing else, it makes my kids have to stand to play--that's exercise, right?), but her family has the trampline. My kids LOVE the trampoline. My sister's kids are super smart (I couldnt stop staring at their end-of-year reports that decorated the fridge) because they got their parents genes....my kids are "social" at school (sorry kids, thats all your parents gave you). For those of you who know her, she is so kind and has tons of good advice. She was recently put in charge of the women in her congregation at church. She looks after their needs and welfare and is just a great friend to all. They love her, and are so fortunate to have her. I just wish I lived next to her *tears are welling up*. Go to her blog and get to know her. Then you will think I'm cool cuz I have her for a sister!

"Does this garage make my car look fat?"

So, who knew that a Denali is over 18 ft long? Our garage is about that, but with some ramshackle shelves in front of the intended vehicle.

After parking in the garage with the door shut, we managed to jam the Denali inside with
3 inches to spare in front.....

....and 3 1/2 inches in back! Whew!

I really think a new (larger) garage attached to a new house would have been easier to achieve, instead of cleaning out a spot for this big car! But we did it!