Catching Up

So, yeah. I haven't written in a while. Life got kind of busy. Steve was gone to a conference for three days and it just so happened to be three days that got very busy for me. Before that we were working on the house and buying cars.

Plural. We bought two. I now drive every day a beautiful 2005 Grand Caravan. Navy Blue. it was a good deal, so we splurged a bit. Steve drives a 2001 Buick Regal. Grandpa Brown. Yes, I tease him about driving a grandpa car. We were looking for a compact that got great gas milage when we found that one. It actually gets 30mpg, so it's respectable and better than the van he was driving.

I was going to post pictures of the new van, but I haven't taken any yet. I'm quite proud of it though. It's so nice to drive in a pretty car every day rather than a beater. The car I had been driving around was a 1990 caravan (no grand) in gun metal gray peeling paint that had be spray painted to keep the rust off. The paint didn't quite match. It was paid for, however, and that counts for a lot in this house.

In other news, I've been crafty. I finally finished Rilla's stocking:

If you click on the picture, you should get a big version that will let you see details. This silly thing took hours, and let me tell you, by the end I was done, done, done. I'm beginning to think that cross stitch stockings are my own personal form of self torture.

So of course I needed to do something just for fun:

This is a placemat purse, and yes, that means it was made with a placemat. I added ribbon (that does match in real life) and seed beads. The Seed beads and the beaded handle I bought already strung together so don't go getting too impressed. ;) It only took a couple of hours to put it together including the hand sewing of the seed beads onto the purse. I have another one I'm going to work on this afternoon. These suckers are fun. I may have to set up an Etsy shop to sell them just so I have an excuse to make them.