Project diaper bag: complete

It occurred to me that I never did report back about making myself a new diaper bag.

Now that it is made and I've been carrying it for some months now, I would definitely change a few things, but mostly I like it and it has some fun and useful features.

These pictures are not great, but bags are difficult to photograph, I've found.

My favorite things include:

• handle is made of seat belt fabric and is my first attempt at an adjustable strap. Turns out adjustable straps aren't difficult at all, and this one makes this bag able to be a shoulder bag or crossed over my body
• also my first attempt at doing the zipper pocket on the back, which i love to stow books away from the main pocket of the bag
• cup holders--didn't have them in my other diaper bag and one for me and one for henry are used everyday
• cell phone pocket sewn into the side--because i finally entered the 20th century and got my first cell phone. and i'm kind of loving it

Things I would do differently next time:

• i made a special pocket just for a diaper/wipe clutch, which I like, but next time i would put it on the opposite side of the bag from the back zipper pocket, as it makes that side heavier and very unbalanced.
• the plum quilted fabric was a spontaneous purchase and coordinating fabrics were purchased (floral) and repurposed (green) to match. But I'm losing the love for the plum.

Probably too much analysis of a bag for many of you readers, but I like to document these things for my own sake.

And finally, here is the bag in action at the roundhouse at the Train Museum in NC on a very hot day.

Almost unpacked

Wow, moving is crazy. It has been awesome and overwhelming to try and get everything organized and all the utilities and cable and internet transferred and set up again. I still haven't hung any curtains or a single picture on the walls, so at times it feels like we're living in a vacation home, but eventually we'll get there. Mostly I just need my big sis, the decorating expert, to make a visit here stat and help me hang all the pictures in one crazy, fun weekend.

Things I LOVE LOVE LOVE about this new house are things that many of you probably have but I wanted to share so that I don't ever forget how lucky I feel to finally have them:

• garage
• bar in the kitchen so we don't have to eat every meal at the table
• bonus room at the top of the stairs for toys, sewing machine, and art station (picture to come if it is ever clean enough to show to the world)
• garage
• built-in dishwasher
• garage
• James gets to ride the bus to school! Which means my children's nap routines aren't forever at the mercy of a drop-off or a pick-up

And just one thing that I am loathing a little that came with the new digs:

• ants

We feel blessed and lucky to be here, and my shop is back open again and we are feeling like this is home now.

Summer happenings

This summer has been a happy mixture of fun and crazy. We have been lucky to spend a lot of time with our extended family visiting the Oregon coast, riding horses at the Carefree Ranch in North Carolina, swimming in the Atlantic Ocean for the very first time, and hiking up the gorgeous Black Butte summit.

We have also been in the process of buying a new house which has taken since the beginning of June and has been both a huge blessing and a huge challenge. We are hoping to move this weekend, and are super anxious and excited to have a little more space for our growing boys.

Garden 2010: part 4

Turns out pruning my tomatoes was the right thing to do, especially because my yard is situated in a not great way for the tomatoes to get all the sun they need to grow, grow, grow. I have been frustrated for years at the shade my house casts on my garden plot during the early morning hours. If I was going to live in this house forever, I would definitely change things, but in fact, we're moving in one week, so I'm about to start over in a new yard anyway. But for now, the tomatoes are as big as I have ever had, and hopefully the people who end up renting my house will let me come and harvest.

I need some advice from some fellow Tuesday Garden Party visitors about my squash. Every year, although my vines seem healthy, the actual squash just seem to wilt away before they have a chance to get large. This applies to winter squash as well as summer squash. Suggestions?

Linking up:

Garden 2010: part 3

Last year I was introduced to the concept of pruning tomato plants. The suggestion came from a fellow gardener when we were having dinner at her house and I expressed my awe at her amazing tomato yield. She suggested I prune the plants, which was something I had never considered. This news was received too late in the season for those tomato plants (which, you might remember, were ravaged by a large rodent anyway), but I resolved to try in 2010.

Before

If you look at your tomato plants, you'll see many green shoots that don't have blossoms attached, and those are the ones that can be safely plucked off. By removing this greenery the plant has more energy to give to the blossoms, and eventually the fruit, which should, in theory, produce a higher yield.

I'm no expert. Like I said this is the first year I'm trying it, so I'll report back my findings. I'm also staking some tomato plants for the first time instead of caging them all.

After

In other garden news:

• we have been in snap pea heaven for over a month now and there are still many, many more to be picked and eaten
• being first-time potato farmers this year has made us anxious to know what's going on underneath all those leaves, so we plucked one and found two little new potatoes, which were roasted and eaten. yum.
• for the first time ever we are having success growing carrots. hooray!

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Linking up:

Little jugglers

Watching a local juggler and reading library books about juggling makes the Fuller boys want to learn how to juggle.

So a request was made for some juggling balls.

I always love a project that doesn't require a trip to the store for any supplies. This one used old socks and white rice. Just don't look too closely at the hand stitching.

Little chalkers

While we were gone to D.C. I thought it would be fun for the boys to have something new to do while Gma and Opa were here. Inspired by this post we decided to make big outdoor chalkboards for our little artists.

We bought a large--8' x 4'--piece of hardboard and had it cut it in half. We chose hardboard because it is smoother and cheaper than plywood ($11 compared to $35). One can of chalkboard paint, two coats of paint, and one day of drying later, they each had a 4'x4' board of their very own.

I've never met a kid who doesn't love chalk and a chalkboard--including me--and these will be used and used during these gorgeous, dry, Oregon summer months.