Dang-it, our school needs a marching band

Percussion group is going fabulously this term. Even though we have fewer students, we are still having a ton of fun. We were lamenting this week that Aquinas doesn't have a marching band (or a football team!). I am all for starting one to play the half time show (?) during our lacrosse games!

Marching band was such a hoot both in High school and College. Who can forget those sexy uniforms, running over the flutes, carrying that big bass drum, making lots of noise, running over the flagline, cheering on our football team, making cool patterns out in the field, early practices, late practices, running over the majorettes and their big hair, bus rides, and AWESOME MUSICAL EXPERIENCES.

Go band.

Microbiology test this week :-)

Fun fabric for Tam

Last weekend I did a little fabric shopping at Joanne's. Yeah, yeah, yeah...like I NEED more fabric for projects I want to do. I just can't help it! Especially when shopping with Tam who really likes touching all the different textiles. This fabric totally caught his eye...I just don't have a clue as to why !

He then carried the Cars flannel bolt around for the next ten minutes until we got to the fabric cutting counter. Now, this yard of fabric is a favorite in our house currently (second only to

his knit blankie). I almost hate wrestling it away from him to be used for the intended sewing project.

This weekend, I hope to have a go at a simple shirt pattern for Tam using this material. We are just realizing that kiddo's head is starting to be too big for some of his 12-18month shirts...and some of the 18month pants are becoming carpi's! Good thing next week is my spring break week = little free time for projects.

Oh, he's growing so quickly.

Wordless Wednesday - sick kiddo

Tam's fighting some type of infection this week.

He's been waddling around wanting to be cuddled for the past few days.

Having his favorite blanket helps, I think

Taxes (sigh)

Due to an economic crunch, I elected to do our taxes myself this year instead of tax guy. (He took the news well, and said he would ask us again next year).

3 hours spent last Saturday night deep into taxcut.com and paperwork...

Federal taxes done; I just need to copy and send them.

State taxes started, but I don't want to pay to e-file so I'll do them via snail-mail.

Local taxes not even thought about yet; this is because we usually have to pay (Brian's work doesn't withhold local tax).

Sigh....

My (sad) reward for this task was to watch a few episodes of America's Next Top Model. I'm so addicted to this show for how unreal it is...and how crazy the host Tyra Banks appears to be.

Sigh...

Hopefully I'll accomplish finishing all the taxes this next weekend so that I can gloriously wait for that refund check... to pay bills.

Sigh ...again.

Finished sink in bathroom

Our downstairs bathroom is just a little closet turned into a 1/2 bath. When we bought the house, the walls were a pale dirty yellow and the sink was a HUGE pedestal sink. We loved the idea of having a bathroom on the first floor, and we knew that in the future, we could change the decor.

Well, time has told us that having this bathroom is great. It is so easily for our guests to access it without having to go upstairs to answer the call of nature. As to redecorating, we started this process when we were redoing the kitchen in the summer of 2008. The crappy vinyl floor came up, and the same ceramic tile as the rest of the kitchen went down (thanks to Brian). The walls became a slight off-white color with chocolate-brown trim. In the process, we ripped out the gigantic sink.

We knew we wanted a smaller/narrower sink bowl to better fit this small area. However, it took me nearly a year to find what I wanted at the price I was willing to pay. In the the year-gap, Brian re-installed the beast sink temporarily. Eventually, Overstock.com was our friend and we both agreed to a frosted brown glass bowl and a oil-rubbed copper fixture.

Brian, a man of many talents, built a shelf to hold the bowl. He then tiled the shelf for protection against water drops. Then he installed the bowl and faucet. With this shelf, the pipe-work underneath was left exposed. I wasn't sure if I liked this industrial look or not and I decided to find some fabric to make a skirt to hide the plumbing.

Finding fabric took another couple of months. We needed something that looked similar to the cream & brown color in the room and something not too "girl-ly" (according to Brian). Here we struck gold at a local fabric store's discount racks. The fabric on the left went in the bathroom...the fabric on the right became kitchen curtains.

Now we found the fabric in August...and I FINALLY finished the project this weekend. I just made a simple tucked skirt with a hemmed edged and staple-gunned to the sink shelf. (The staple-gun is my new favorite love even though it was technically Brian's Christmas gift (lol). To hide the staples, I hot-glued a bit of trim to the top.

A project finished and checked off the list!