Get Off Your Buns

So this is the sofa we purchased from IKEA in April. It is massive and we totally love it. Uno problemo. The profile is waaaay too low. We thought we wouldn't mind, but it is driving us crazy. In the image above, there are little feet visible, but in reality, when the furniture is placed on carpet, they disappear, because they are only 2 inches tall.

I've been on a search for the "perfect" bun feet for awhile, but I can't seem to find any dorel feet that are 4 inches tall and skinny legs just look awkward with the fat sofa propped on top of it.

I think I found a happy medium. A tulip foot. Not too ornate, not too skinny, not too short, and most importantly, not too expensive. $5 baby!

So, what color should they be? Keep in mind the color of the upholstery, my laziness (gotta be a stain or spray, I am not brush painting them) and the furniture nearby (tv armoire is antique white and old piano is mahogony that I would not really love if it were not suited on such a pretty piece of furniture).

Antique white like the armoire? Stain? What kind? Do I try and mock up an aged black walnut stain so they look like my kitchen table? I don't know if a weathered stain would look good on such a modern sofa.

Suggestions, friends...

Summer Reads

I think I have officially converted. To the Kindle! I'm so spoiled. Picking up "real" books seems like a chore, and turning pages? For suckas!

Anyway, I'd recommend all three of these to anyone. Loved them all. Some themes I found in all three of them are the beautiful power of words and escape of literacy, overcoming adversity and making the best of bad situations, grit, gumption, grudges, and gratitude, mother/daughter relationships, abandonment, and loving what you have. Be sure to read The Glass Castle (also by Jeannette Walls), too.

I cried, cheered, and laughed out loud from behind a book a lot this summer.

What should I read next?

Imagination Station

When we lived in Morgan Hill, Ca (2003?) I taught at a preschool that had an awesome indoor playground called "The Village". (ahhh! no! Not like the scary movie, The Village! It's a kid's playground.)

Scaled down to child size, it looked like a walkup commercial building with four little store fronts on the first floor and one room above with stairs on one side and a slide back down into a ball pit on the other. It rocked. When I taught there, I was commissioned to make little signs for the stores, like Jamba Juice, Pet Store, Library, Flower Shop, etc.. The signs and coordinating prop boxes could be swapped out so the kids would have different environments for dramatic play.

I've always wanted to give my own children a similar experience but clearly, I do not have the space for an indoor playground (wouldn't that be a dream?). Rather than miniature buildings for the kids to play in, I designed and constructed a market stand instead. It's about 3 ft wide and 4 ft tall. Perfect for my littles.

I bought the wood (I paid extra to have them cut everything to my measurements right there in the store to save time, have less cleanup, and make for easier transportation of the lumber back to my house. The total cost for the in-store cuts was $1.75. Totally worth it.) a few weeks ago, and it has been sitting in my garage waiting for me.

Yesterday, I felt like doing something creative.
As soon as Corbin and Quincy were down for a nap, I got started.

2 1/2 hours later, they woke up, Reese got home from school, and their very own little Imagination Station was waiting to be played with. Cute, right? With an electric sander I smoothed all of the surfaces and corners down to bullnose so there are no sharp edges for little hands to get hurt on. I also cut out 8 wooden signs that will attach to the top so it can be a bakery, a library, a lemonade stand, a ticket booth, a theater, a grocery store, a pizzaria, whatever!
I'm still trying to decide what color to paint it. I'll probably just use whatever I have leftover in my garage from another project. Even with it unfinished, the kids love it already.
I cannot wait for my preschoolers to see it!

Mousetrap

R.I.P Little Fatty.

In All Fairness

We hit the Benton County Fair on Saturday night. Notice the pit stains on Captain Murph. Those are no coincidence. The fair is a schwetty place. First stop? For obvious purposes, we went for the deep fried foot long corn dogs.

We ran into the Nielsen girls and they rode the swings together. Before they saw their friends, my girls were afraid of the swings, but the power of peer pressure worked toward our advantage and before we knew it they were circling by with their hands in the air and smiles on their faces.

When Corbin grew tired of watching, Aaron took him to the carousel for a horsie ride.
Reese, Quincy and I went on one more ride-they chose the kiddy coaster. Their faces were classic. We walked around and enjoyed people watching at it's finest. Carnie Edition. It doesn't get any better than that, folks.

Say, is that a knife game for children? Yes. Yes it is. Forget the rock hard stuffed bear as big as your car. At this booth, little Sally can win a switchblade!
I think my biggest regret from the evening is not paying to see the World's Smallest Woman. The striped tent had a small wooden box in the middle of it and for 50 cents you could go inside and look in the box. This offer came with a "money back guarantee that she was in really the box and alive and breathing." How did I pass this up? Question: What do people do once they get in there and see the tiny woman? Do they just stare at her? Take pictures? Does she like to chat with people? That's awkward, isn't it? Here's how I imagine 100% of conversations with the Tiny Woman go:

Patron: "Hi! Wow! You're tiny! And real!"

Tiny Woman: "My husband is a pimp. Please save me from this horrible life of exhibition."

Patron: "Amazing! 'Alive and breathing' just like they promised! Totally worth 50 cents. Come on, Jack, let's go tell Brenda, she's gotta see this..."

Tiny Woman: "Seriously? I'm in a freaking wooden box. [sigh] Okay..uh..enjoy your cotton candy. help me..."

We hit the petting zoo next and held the baby chickies, but not before stopping to sample the smoked wings, sausage, and pork shoulder. Priorities, people. Corbin loved the chicks. The girls thought the piglets were "so adorable". Milked a "cow"

and pet a bunch of livestock. Yup. Q's "shorts" are pants, that she has hiked up to her thighs. She's been sporting this style anytime we force her to wear actual clothing other than just underwear on the bottom. She says, "it's too hot for clothes. These are my hot pants." Hot pants, they are.

Later, we heard the siren call of the funnel cakes.

And Aaron gave the evening a grand finale of gigantic fresh squeezed lemonade. He definitely knows how to keep his women happy. Any beverage that includes a straw wide enough to suck up melty little ice pieces is so much better than diamonds.
Great night. Captain Murph was right. Totally worth the schwetty pit stains.

Check Out My Melons...

So it probably could have used another week of growing, but the pesky squirrels have been messing around in my garden (I think they're after the sunflowers) and knocked this guy off the vine. We'll bust it open tomorrow. I don't even care if it tastes good. I'm just proud of the fact that we managed to keep it alive. We never seem to have good luck with melons. The watermelons were devoured by squash bugs. There are a few other small cantoloupes out there, so maybe we'll enjoy a couple more before the season ends.

I planted another round of butternut squash about a week ago, and this weekend I planted acorn squash, more butternut, spaghetti squash, winter squash, ornamental gourds, and fingerling potatoes. Most take about 60 days to harvest (butternuts a little longer), so hopefully the first frosts of winter will hold off long enough for us to get a good crop and have a yummy Autumn feast!

Quincy

-is really lonely when Reese is at school.
-is back on a wearing pants strike.
-makes her own oatmeal. This is actually a pretty great thing, since oatmeal is one of the 5 things she eats willingly.
-has insisted that we refer to her as, "Astrid" for about 2 weeks.
-still chooses to wear flip flops on the wrong feet.
-finally stopped adding a request for a pet unicorn to her dinner prayers, but replaced it with a request "that mommy and daddy be so very nice."
-really needs a haircut, but cries everytime I get the scissors out.
-makes me laugh out loud multiple times a day.
-still asks to take naps and I love her more for it.
-has been telling a lot of "stories" (read: elaborate lies) lately. Her most recent being the one where she told Aaron she caught the fat rat while he was at work and then she stabbed it in the stomach with a sharp knife, and the one where she told us that last year, at preschool, Mrs. Shaefer had no clothes on for a whole day. We aren't really sure what to do with this information. We know the stories are false, but that doesn't actually do anything to dissolve the creeped out effect they have on us.