July 2012 – Thimbleanna

Color Me Bob

38 Comments / July 29, 2012 June 22, 2013 / Family

Whew! I hope you’ve had a good weekend. We’ve had a great weekend here in ThimbleannaLand. Yesterday we did The Color Run. It was Super Duper FUN!

Here’s the motley crew before the race. Looking all clean, happy and innocent. Ignorance is Bliss.

It was a perfect weather day. A little cloudy and breezy and not too hot. Here’s a shot about 2/3rds of the way through the run, looking into Indianapolis. You can see how crowded the run was. The red flags on the bridge are where they had a color station. Every kilometer, they had people positioned to spray color on you as you ran by. See the dust cloud? It was dusty at those color stations!

Then, at the end of the race, everyone throws their color packet into the air. Here’s SweetiePie giving her packet a toss.

And here’s the crowd. SweetiePie took this picture — my shots of the final blowout didn’t turn out — (so sad!)

It’s a big, fun, messy business.

Here’s the aftermath. Everyone is still really happy, but no longer clean.

As usual, CrazyBIL kept us entertained.

He’s such a goofball.

There were 10,000 runners. The race was amazingly well organized. They had water for everyone at the half-way point and again at the end. I tried to make a water fountain like CrazyBIL, but I ended up with water all down the front of me.

If you ever get the chance to do the Color Run, you should do it. You don’t even have to run — I was amazed at the number of people who walked. We all ran, some WAY faster than others LOL. And, sadly, TheFirstChild wasn’t able to run with us, but he photo-bombed us instead. That’s my boy!

Now, I’m off to finish a birthday cake for BigDaddy. (Btw, we named our team Color Me Bob — in honor of BigDaddy. He’s the original runner in our family and today is his 81st birthday.) Happy Birthday BigDaddy!!!
XOXO,
Anna

A Happy Basket

47 Comments / July 25, 2012 June 22, 2013 / Sewing

Well, Kidlets, I managed to get my bike basket liner finished! The house is a pigsty but the basket is lined. And that’s all that matters. It’s all about priorities.

I decided to highlight a little Heather Ross banana bike — I looooove those cute bikes. It’s just a plain liner, but I decided to put a little extra piece in there to cover any stuff that I might have in the basket. (I don’t want someone to pull up next to me and be able to easily grab my wallet or something out of there.) Cover use is optional though. If I decide not to use it, I’ll just let it hang to the insides of the basket.

All the fabrics are from my stash. Luckily, I had enough of that cute Dear Stella bike print to use for the gathered cover. The colors were perfect for the other prints I had selected.

I do sort of regret using the Heather Bailey print on the inner lining. I love that print and you really don’t see much of it with the gathered cover in place. I put a double pocket on one side to hold my cell phone and keys — so I won’t have to fish around for them when I have other goodies in the basket.

I also placed some grommets in the lining to allow the handles to be on the outside. I could have just cut one big hole and bound around it, but grommets were a lot easier.

I did have one happy accident — that blue strip around the top of the basket wasn’t originally there, but when I put everything together, the yellow fabric just wasn’t long enough. I had to unpick a seam and I added the blue strip. I love it and I think it looks like I planned it all along.

So, there it is. Another fun little project. I’m looking forward to using my new liner when I go to visit MeMum and BigDaddy — it’s a nice bike ride with some of our new bike trails.

I’m really liking those flowers in the basket — what kind of looks do you think I’ll get on the trails if I drive around with fresh flowers sprouting from my bike?
Perfect!

XOXO,
Anna

B-o-o-o-ring

37 Comments / July 21, 2012 June 22, 2013 / Around the House, Chat

Holy Schmokes! Another week has whizzed by. Time’s flying and I’m not even having that much fun! It scares me to think what it will be like when there is a lot of fun going on around here.

We did get some rain though. Woohoo! They say it’s no impact on the drought, but my flowers sure seemed happy. It seems like I’m wasting spending a lot of time watering this year. At least the garden is happy. If you remember, here it was a month ago…

And here it is now. It’s getting crowded in there.

And look at my pretty zinnias! I love zinnias, they’re SO happy and colorful!

It’s not all fun and games in the garden though. SOMEthing is still lurking about, despite my ugly fence attempt. This little bit of tomato evidence was on the retaining wall this morning. They could at least clean up after themselves. Pigs.

In other news, it’s festival time here in the Fort and we’ve made the trek to have the annual Funnel Cake. YUM! I think funnel cakes should be the next big breakfast fad.

Other than that, I spend my evenings in analysis paralysis. I’ve been trying to plan a new quilt project, but instead, I just spend my time surfing all the fab quilts on the internet. There are SO many quilts I want to make — (like this and this and this and this and….oh forget it, just everything on my quilt board on pinterest!) — where to start — it’s just so confusing! In the meantime, I have a new basket for my bike, so I’m hoping to entertain myself this weekend by making a new liner. Cause you know … if it can be lined, it must be lined!

Have a good weekend!
XOXO,
Anna

It’s a Matter of Balance

40 Comments / July 14, 2012 June 22, 2013 / Chat

We’re having a severe lack of balance here in ThimbleannaLand. Not that I want to complain or anything, but somebody has to do it.

Rain Balance:
For Starters, there’s this annoying drought. The farmers are really being hit hard and it’s so sad.

But many of you reading this live in areas with too much rain. TheSecondChild called this morning and said it’s been raining all week — just 6 hours south of here. He lives on a second floor overlooking the apartment complex pool and all the rain is cutting into his sightseeing. (If you know what I mean and I’m sure you do.)

Work/Life Balance:
It’s a Corporate America buzzword. But, there’s too much work in my work/life balance and it’s cutting into my quilting time. I did manage to make these pillowcases (with stash fabrics woohoo!) for BigDaddy using Cassie’s fabulous tutorial. I LOVE this pattern. No more manky pillows peeking out from under the cute fabric. And as you know — every man wants a scalloped crochet edge on his muscle car pillow cases. ;-)

Quilt Shop Balance:
Do you have the quilt shop finder app for your iAnythings? (I tried to find the link with no success – if anyone knows where it is, let me know and I’ll add it here.)

Here’s a map of quilt shops for my area:

And here’s a map of quilt shops for the Salt Lake City Utah area:

WHAT????? Is that even fair???? You Utah girls are hogging all the quilt shops! No wonder you all make such gorgeous quilts.

OK. I’m done whining now. It’s TheManoftheHouse’s birthday so I must run and scare up some birthday activities.
Have a good weekend!
XOXO,
Anna

Super What?

38 Comments / July 4, 2012 June 22, 2013 / Chat

Holy Schamoley! It’s been crazy around here. You probably heard that we had some really bad storms, here in the midwest, last Friday. Here’s the radar pic that we pulled up on a cell phone — we were at work with a perfect view of the incoming storm when they took all our fun away and made us move away from the windows. Something silly about tornado warnings. Look at that hook — that’s not good!

They’re calling it a Super Derecho. I’ve never heard of a Derecho before, but it’s basically an inland hurricane. We were lucky and aside from a few snapped trees ;-(, didn’t have any problems. BigDaddy, MeMum and MyDadLovesMeBestSister didn’t fare so well though — they’ve been without power since the storm, so they’ve been staying with us. It’s been a good time to have house guests, as the family room is spread throughout the rest of the house while we drag out the painting as long as possible. Here’s the “aerial” view of the family room — we left the couch parts and a chair to bunch up in the middle. The couches are currently serving as beds to whatever kids happen to be here — that’s TheFirstChild and SweetiePie as we speak.

It’s working out well for me though — I go to work in the morning and come home at night to a gourmet dinner. The school where MyDadLovesMeBestSister works has been out of power too, so she hasn’t been working. She’s an awesome cook and she’s made me realize that I need a wife. I could get used to this!

We’ve had a little crafty fun too. TheCuteNieces love to raid the dungeon and they decided to make message boards the other night. My heart lurched a little when CuteNiece2 chose some of my Ghastlie fabric for her board, but I gladly sacrificed the last of the tree print.

Here’s a finished shot, taken with her cell phone, that she sent me while I was at work. I think she did a great job. CuteNiece1 chose old jeans (which I had no problem sacrificing thankyouverymuch), but her board isn’t done yet.

Anyway, that’s been the excitement this week in ThimbleannaLand. No time for much else, so I’m recycling an old picture to wish all of my American friends a Very Happy 4th of July. (And a Very Happy Birthday tomy not-invisible-blog-friend Isabelle today too!) If you live in an area that doesn’t have a fireworks ban, light one for us!

XOXO,
Anna

Month: July 2012