Playing catchup

• I missed Friday. I knew it was Friday, but I couldn't make myself write coherent sentences.
• I have starting putting some of my shop items at our local mall for consignment this Christmas. It's a really great deal for me, but in return I'm volunteering my time at the shop so  that the owner can have a smidge of a life. I've already sold a bit of stuff and had a handful of custom orders. I took this little batch of zipper wallets up to the store today- at $5 each I really hope they fly off the shelf.
  
  
  
• Today I'm headed to the local thrift store for quarter day. I can't wait! It's once a month, all clothes are $.25. It's always completely crowded and I always come home with a bunch of stuff I end up not being able to use, but it still ends up a bargain. And, best part? I get to go ALL BY MYSELF.
• On Thursday we took the Bug to Sioux Falls to have a suspicious lump on his arm looked at. The doctor did a biopsy and he has two little stitches. He is SO angry at the doctor, and at us. We get lab results back in 8 days, so any good thoughts his way would be really appreciated. 
• Things on the bar in my kitchen are literally a foot deep. This is a function of my sewing all the time and being gone all the time and OUTGROWING THIS LITTLE APARTMENT. I can not wait to move. We have so many things that we just CAN'T put away, as there is no where else to PUT things, except in long term storage, and that's so hard to manage.

What I Read This Week:

• Hell if I know. I didn't finish anything.

How to make a cheap Lego table

The boys are crazy about Lego. I am also crazy about Lego, but not quite in the same way. I am, like every other parent, sick of picking them up, of moving them off the table, of stepping on them! I have been coveting all the fancy Lego tables I see on Pinterest and Amazon, but it's just not in our budget these days. (Plus, they're all so small!) I've been dreaming up all kinds of solutions, none of which work. I bought a washing machine pan recently, but the boys didn't like the height of the lip and it was too awkward for them to move on their own (you can see the corner of it under the table. It's about 30x30). I've been obsessively checking the local Facebook yard sale group and the thrift store for a cheap table and today we finally scored this beauty:



Ok, so it wasn't a lot to look at, but it's big (31x40) and it was only $.50. That's half a dollar. We stopped by our favorite hardware store and picked up some trim pieces and a can of blue spray paint. (I might add, we get a terrific discount at the hardware store, so this was also very cheap.) This is what the trim looks like. Mike tells me this is called "cove" and is used for inside corners and along the ceiling.



I used a hacksaw to cut it to size. It could be done much better with some kind of electric saw, but I was in a hurry. If you cared, you could make pretty mitered corners. I didn't care. Then the Pirate and I nailed it down on all four sides to make a lip to help contain the Lego.



Next we spray painted it a bright blue color. Ideally, we'd put two coats on, but it was very windy and we used the entire can on our first coat. I decided I didn't really care, since it'll be covered in Lego anyway.



Finally, we ended up with a table that looks like this. The washing machine pan slides neatly underneath. We have two of the big base plates, but the table has room for 9 of them, so I'll be watching for a good deal on Ebay. I won't attach the ones we have until I can do all 9. I don't expect that this will actually completely contain the Lego, but I have hopes that it will at least help.



Our total cost? About $9 and we have most of a box of nails left over. Without the nails, about $5. Your cost would be slightly more, without the crazy hardware store discount, but still way less expensive than a real Lego table.

Three things to love about Pierre, South Dakota

1. This morning the Bug, the Princess and I went to the thrift store. Tuesday is the day all the new stuff appears, so it's a fairly crowded day in a very small building. Add a loud 3 year old and a stroller and you can imagine how much they love me, but we still go every week.  Today I had given the Bug his very own five dollar bill with which to buy his toy. Predictibly, he lost it. I mentioned it at the check out and she took my name and number, but really, it was $5 and I expected it to be gone.   I got a call, less than an hour later, that someone turned it in. Yes, this could happen anywhere, but it seems like such a small town thing to me.

2. When we first moved here I worried about the tiny library. One of my first posts was about the library and how  less technologically advanced it was than my old one. As time has gone on, I've come to love the little library. I can get most of the books I want off their shelves, and if they don't have it there is always Inter Library Loan. They forgive all fees if you return books on Wednesday and Sunday, there's no limit to the number of books you can check out, and all books are 30 day loans. With only one or two exceptions, the librarians are all very friendly.  But here's why I really love it- on Sunday, Mike dropped me off at the front door so I could run in some returns and pick up my holds. I get a LOT of holds. I was standing at the desk putting my returns in the bin, when one of my favorite librarians looked up and saw me. She said, "Oh! I have something for you!" and propped against the phone, right there on the front desk, was a little note attached to a card that they had found in one of my returns. The amazing part is not that they would return it to me (though really, it was an unremarkable Christmas card), but that I hadn't told them my name. They didn't KNOW I'd be in on Sunday unless they'd noticed I'm there every Sunday.  It wasn't with my holds that I hadn't even asked for yet.  When we go to story time, which is not as often as you'd think, the children's librarian remembers ALL the kids names, including mine. This personal touch is exactly what I want in a library.

3. We recently had some work done on our car.  We only own one car, our other vehicle being a company truck. We are allowed to ride in the company truck, but it only seats four. So we had no car that the entire family could fit into. The day that it was returned to us was a particularly busy one for Mike and he was having a hard time getting away from work, let alone finding someone to take him to pick it up. When I was talking to the woman on the phone, she offered to bring it to me. "Oh, I'm headed that way anyway, I'll just have my partner follow me. No big deal!" No extra charge. My car showed up at my door within the hour.

Things to Look for at the Thrift Store Should I Ever Go Back Alone:

Last Friday I got a wild hair and took all three kids to the thrift store here in town. It wasn't completely crazy, we'd been to the post office, where they were perfect, then Dairy Queen, where they were also very well behaved. It was a bit risky, but I didn't think I'd have a better chance, so we went.

In the 2 minutes we were there before Buggy decided that he should play hide and seek under the racks, I think I discovered that there will be lots of treasures to be found. If I ever get to go back alone! I did find the bowl above, and a small blue ball jar like these. I know there were more of both the bowl pattern (am I the only one who loves that bowl?) and some more jars. After getting home with my jar, which I plan to use as a soap dispenser once we have a drill again, I realized that I'd really like several more to use for popcorn and rice and beans. That led me to the inevitable list making, and since this blog is Books. Lists. Life, I'm sharing with you.

Things to Look for at the Thrift Store Should I Ever Go Back Alone:

• A striped knit shirt. I read a lot of fashion blogs of the what-I-wore-today variety (as opposed to the runway fashion variety) and I see a lot of cute layering with striped shirts. I want narrow stripes of a color and white. I need to keep in mind that I can alter a too big one.
• Skirts. I can alter a lot about skirts. I'm not a big wearer of shorts and would like more everyday skirts. I need to keep in mind that I can cut a dress in half and make a new waist if it's cute enough.
• Belts. How often do these bloggers use belts to belt over a cardigan or a dress to make it interesting?
• More mid-sized bowls, maybe serving platters. The bowl above is the size you'd use for a side of peas. We have very few mid-sized bowls.  I love that they wouldn't all match.
• More jars with lids. As previously said, for dry storage.

• Interesting things to use for storage. In my sewing room I have little glass bowls for my buttons, and a little casserole dish holds sewing odds and ends. I need to look for little baskets and bowls and boxes. (Can't seem to move that picture to this bullet point. See the little jars on the left? Second shelf? They stack, buttons are sorted by color.)
• Linens. Sheets, tablecloths, napkins. Both for use as is and to use as fabric for sewing.
• Craft stuff. I noticed this store has a whole wall of hoops and patterns and I don't know what all (I noticed it as a ran past dragging the baby in her car seat and loudly whispering for the Bug to "get back here right now!"

Ok, giant list. You see why I need to go alone? What do you look for at the thrift store?

As a side note, see the troll on the top shelf? That thing was in my grandpa's study my entire life. It used to scare the shit out of me. (Sorry for the language, but crap does not convey the terror.) I would sneak down the stairs past it so it wouldn't get me. When my grandfather died and my grandmother moved, we were asked what we wanted out of the house and that is one of the things I requested. I love it.


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