Baby Crafting

This is all pretty old, but I realized I'd never put it up on the blog.  I had some fun making some onesies for Alex and a special little girl named Mara, who was born to a friend I used to sing with at church. 

For the first two, I used transfer paper that goes through the printer, then you iron it on.  Pretty simple stuff. 

Our little future Stormtrooper

When someone posted on FB a picture of a shirt with this saying, Mara's mommy said she wanted one.  So, I made one for her baby shower.  I hand-stitched a simple little bow to make it look more girly.

For the next onesie, I used my Sizzix.  I ironed some fusible stuff (the name escapes me right now) to the back of the fabric, cut it out with my Sizzix, then ironed it onto the onesie.  Easy peasy.

So nice to get to make pink stuff!

And finally, a card to go with Mara's gift.  (She got some other stuff, too, including a wooden teether in the shape of a bird and some homemade burp cloths.) 

I used DeNami stamps on the card, as well as a Martha Stewart edge punch.  You know I love me some Martha!  And DeNami is my favorite stamp company.  It's a fairly basic card, but I've found that my papercrafting time is minimal with a baby in the house.   I think I made that at 11pm, if that tells you anything. 

A Little Piece of Home

The past few weeks have felt as if we're on a very bizarre vacation.  Our cats are here, but we still don't live with them.  We have a house, but it's empty.  We live in an apartment, but it's not our stuff.  Just... odd. 

It makes me want to go home.  Home, as in Texas.  Where I no longer have a house.  But it's all been so surreal, it feels as if I should still have a house back there that's just waiting for us to return.

Just when I was feeling especially lonely and homesick, my husband came home for lunch with the news that he'd run into a group of older folks who were in the VOM gift shop, and they said they knew me and my family.  One lady was telling him tales of my grandfather showing up for church in his pajamas! 

Turns out, a group of senior adults were visiting and volunteering at VOM, having come from the church I was born into.  My parents met and were married there.  We moved away when I was a baby, but we came back when I was 14, so I actually had memories of many of these folks. 

They invited us to a barbeque, and it was so wonderful to see my fellow Texans who know my family.  Like a little taste of home, just at the very moment that I needed it.  And my sweet Alex was thrilled to have all those grandmothers wanting to love all over him.  I think he's been feeling the loneliness of no longer having an entourage at church.  When we visit churches, no one knows him, and yes, he's noticed. 

This is Alex, me, and Mrs. Teer.  My parents met in the Sunday school class that Mr. and Mrs. Teer taught.

Alex is being held by Anita, who was my 10th grade Sunday school teacher.

The whole group from Plymouth Park Baptist Church

Again, God came through in a remarkable way, one in which I would never have expected.  Just when I was desperate for home, He brought it to me.  Such an incredible blessing!

Fixing Up the House

While we've closed on our house already, we haven't moved in.  It was filthy, the carpets are nasty, and appliances won't be delivered until next week.  (The guy who bought our old house wanted the appliances, and as the washer and dryer were 16 and the fridge was 13 and didn't match the new kitchen anyway, we were fine with letting him have them.)  So, Steven works during the day at VOM, and I go to the new house when I can and do some cleaning and love on the cats until Alex says he's had enough.  Steven goes over in the evenings to do some work of his own.

For example, while prepping Alex's room for painting, Steven discovered that there was painted-over wallpaper in there.  He started pulling it off and found messed up drywall.  It's turned into a full-blown project that has him frustrated. 

The nice thing is, he can mess up the carpet all he wants, as that's being replaced on May 2nd.  It's really gross, and the house smells funky, in large part due to the nasty carpet.  I genuinely don't understand how people can stain a carpet so badly.  But it was a rental before we bought it, and I'm learning that people just don't take care of stuff when they don't own it. 

My kitchen needed some TLC.  The cabinets are nice, but they're 32 years old and a bit banged up.  I cleaned them, then discovered that my furniture feeder actually made it with my cleaning supplies slated for apartment living.  I was so excited to find that!  I rubbed that in, and I'm hoping the cabinets will drink that up.  When my Howard's Restore-a-Finish comes out of storage, I'll go over everything to make it look prettier. 

Isn't that diamond checkerboard floor fabulous?!  I fell in love with it when we looked at the house.  It's even my shade of green! 

I'm planning to paint my kitchen and the breakfast room behind it, which will by my crafting space, a soft, pale, cheery shade of pink.  My husband is not happy about that decision, as he doesn't share my love of pink, but the kitchen is my space.  If I have to live in a house full of boys (even the cats are boys!), then I should get to have a little pink somewhere.  Besides, it'll look very nice with that green floor. 

I went on a cleaning warpath.  The house was given to us in filthy condition, which irritated me more and more as I worked.  I mean, I had a baby and a ton of packing to do, and I still managed to clean my house for the new owner!  This guy had his renters move out a month before we took possession, and he cleaned nothing.  *sigh*  I'm not one to use antibacterial cleaners (the surfactants in regular cleaners are typically enough to remove dirt and germs and don't contribute to the creation of Super Bugs), but I was finding myself a bit skeeved by the filth in this house.  (There was urine all over the toilet seat in the master bath, for crying out loud! Who does that?!)  I bought a big ol' bottle of Mr. Clean and went to town.  I'd say that you can eat off my floors now, but the cats danced in the fireplace after I'd mopped, and there's now soot scattered around. 

It's a slow process, but the house is coming together. 

The Cats Are Back!

I got a bit stressed and upset last week.  Lots of tears were involved.  In a nutshell, the cats were distressed by their circumstances, Doogie was dehydrated and had lost a pound in only 3-4 weeks (that's a lot of weight for a cat to lose), and Ninja wouldn't come see me when I went to visit.  Additionally, I was lonely and homesick.  All of that together had me a mess. 

An email went out to friends, as I was very worried about the cats and not sure what to do.  I asked for prayer for the situation, for Doogie's health, and for my peace of mind.  And the very next day, God answered in the most unexpected way: our realtor called and said we were closing on our new house a full week early.  As in, the very next day. 

The distressing visit with the cats was Wednesday, the realtor called Thursday, we had our house Friday, we had our cats back on Saturday morning.  Oh, yeah!  I love how our God cares about the littlest things, such as my sweet cats! 

They were pretty freaked out by the new house.  Who can blame them?  We'd thrown them into chaos, starting with the packing of our old house, and the changes just kept coming in new and dramatic ways.  They had deemed the bedroom of the girl who was officially caring for them during their time away from us as their safe room.  They found the locational equivalent in the new house right away, and there they stayed for 36 hours, refusing to come down and be with us. 

But it didn't take them too long to realize that they were safe, it was just us, and nothing was happening, other than some heavy-duty cleaning of the place. 

It also didn't take long for them to discover the fireplace.

See that black thingy in front of the fireplace?  We arrived at the house yesterday to find that flat on the floor.  A few minutes later, Steven brought the guilty party to me.  And no, it wasn't our Naughty Ninja!  It was Doogie, all covered in soot.  It shows well on his pretty white fur.  If you look at the picture below, you can see soot on his paw.

The undersides of all his white paws are now gray, and his neck is gray now, too.  And lest you think Ninja is totally innocent, we found sooty pawprints on the kitchen counter, directly underneath an open cabinet.  Only Ninja knows how to open stuff. 

My boys are back!

Displaced Texan

I'm now officially a displaced Texas.  We moved to Oklahoma last Wednesday.  Not everything went smoothly with the move, but we made it here just fine, and that's what matters.  We don't close on our house until later in the month, so for the time being, we're living in a 2-bedroom apartment on the campus of The Voice of the Martyrs.  We're very blessed to have this option of free housing, but I'll confess that I'm finding it frustrating at times. 

Doogie and Ninja are living with another family for the time being.  It's very hard being separated from them, but at least they're not having to stay in a kennel.  We visited them on Saturday night, and while they're very confused and still a bit frightened of the changes, they're adjusting and doing relatively well.  Doogie is unfortunately dehydrated, so I've made an appointment for him with a local vet for Wednesday afternoon for a subcutaneous IV. 

Can I just say how very hard it was to leave our amazing vet behind in Texas?  The whole office was at the front to say good-bye when I stopped in to pick up the cats' medical records.  The vet teared up, which I have to admit, made me feel good.  I like knowing that we were valued clients.  She truly cares about my furry boys, which is why she's been our vet all these years.  I asked her to move to Oklahoma, but alas, she's staying put in Texas. 

I've always lived in big cities, so Bartlesville is an adjustment, for sure.  I spent Monday searching for Graco Pack N Play sheets.  I've not been happy with generic sheets, and we need more, as Alex is using his Pack N Play for a crib right now.  There were none to be had in town, so I had to drive to Tulsa today to buy some.  That was an adventure, as I was born without a sense of direction.  Mapquest gave me directions to a Toys R Us in some scary part of town, even though I'd searched for Babies R Us.  I'd hoped to explore Tulsa a bit, but there was really nothing else in that area, and I had a screaming headache, so we drove straight home.  But hey, I found my way there and back, and I only got a little lost, so it was a huge success for me! 

We Got the House!

Just a little addition to yesterday's post.





Photo credit: Realtor.com

Big Announcement: We're Moving!

I feel as if I've been sitting on this information forever, as our story starts here, on our trip to The Voice of the Martyrs in Bartlesville, OK last May.  VOM was kind enough to lend us passes to Woolaroc, which is an animal sanctuary and museum, but we had no way to get them back, as VOM would be closed for the weekend.  A man whose family had been volunteering at VOM for 6 months was having a barbeque to say good-bye to everyone there, as they were leaving the next week to go home.  He was kind enough to invite us to his barbeque and offer to return the Woolaroc passes for us. 

That barbeque wound up changing the course of our lives.

Steven was chatting with an IT guy at VOM, who told him he should consider working there.  Then, the guy flipping burgers, another VOM worker, asked Steven what he does for a living.  Steven said he's a .Net developer.  The burger flipper (I think his name was Thomas) said, "Mike just told us 3 weeks ago to start praying for a .Net developer!"  Apparently, VOM doesn't advertise their jobs; they pray for the right people to come along. 

Mike wasn't at the barbeque, so Thomas invited us to church with him the next morning so that we could meet him.  Steven and Mike exchanged contact info, then we left to drive home. 

Many months later... VOM's board approved the developer position, Steven was contacted, interviewed, and hired!  You'd think that would be the end of the story right there, but it's really just starting, as we had some very specific prayer needs along the way, and so far, every single one has been answered. 

I had certain things in mind that Bartlesville has to have for us to live there.  Mostly specialists for our various medical needs, and they're all there.  I want to do Classical Conversations for schooling with Alex.  A church we visited a few weeks ago there is where it's held, and the CC director was pointed out to me. 

We needed our house to sell.  Our nightmare house.  The one with a bajillion cracks everywhere because the danged foundation has never been totally stabilized.  We told God that if he wants us in Bartlesville, he's going to have to work a miracle. 

He did. 

We wound up having to do something called an "Investor Special."  In other words, an investor buys the house with cash, as-is.  It's priced below market, then he comes in, fixes it up, and typically either flips it or rents it out.  Our house was on the market less than 2 days when we had an offer.  The guy wanted it so much that he didn't even work it into the contract that he has a certain number of days to back out.  Zero.  And get this: He's a foundation guy.  He wasn't fazed by our nightmare house!  We close on our house April 8th.  And yes, we're walking away with money because even though we're selling low, we've lived here long enough to have plenty of equity.

We had to make an emergency trip to Bartlesville to house hunt, as we weren't expecting to sell the house so quickly.  We had one day to find a house.  Again, we prayed that God would work a miracle and we would find a house we like and that fits our needs in that one day.  He answered.  We wound up making an offer on the first house we looked at.  (We looked at several others, but kept coming back to that one.)  We're currently in negotiations with the owner, but we're the only offer he has, so I'm hopeful. 

Last problem was our cats.  This had me awake at night with knots of worry in my stomach.  We're being offered VOM housing until we can get into our permanent residence.  The apartments there are great, so no worries.  Except... they don't allow pets.  We offered to pay for professional carpet cleaning and replacement of anything they think the cats messed up, but no, we're not allowed to have them live with us.  I won't lie; I was freaking out.  I couldn't bear the thought of long-term boarding.  We've had Doogie almost 13 years, and he's been boarded exactly 2 times, and each was only for the day.  Never overnight, and never long-term.  My heart was breaking over the idea of sticking my babies in a kennel.  We prayed.  Our friends prayed.  And Steven's new boss contacted him and offered to keep our cats.  He has no pets and 3 animal-loving daughters.  Our babies will be loved and cared for, and we can visit.  God is good! 

So, there is absolutely no doubt in our minds that God is orchestrating this entire move.  He wants us in Bartlesville, so we're going.  Yes, I'm distressed to leave behind our beloved Texas full of family and friends, our amazing vet, our church family, and frankly, everything else.  But we're more excited to see what the Lord has waiting for us in Oklahoma because we know it's going to be good!