June 2011 – Thimbleanna

Photo Scavenger Hunt: June

28 Comments / June 30, 2011 June 30, 2011 / Photo Challenge

Don’t fall over — I’m actually on time for this month’s photo scavenger hunt hosted by Kathy. So…here we go….

A Childhood Memory: One day when MyDadLovesMeBestSister and I were little girls, we got in trouble. (I know. Hard to believe. It only happened once. Well, for me, anyway.) BigDaddy got mad at us (he never got mad) so he told us that in 30 minutes he was going to give us a spanking. BigDaddy was a very smart man. He knew that 30 minutes of suffering would hurt a LOT more than a measely spanking. But, we were smarter than BigDaddy. We went to the pan cupboard and we each got a pan and stuffed it in the back of our pants. ‘Cause, you know, BigDaddy would never notice a big pan handle sticking out of our pants. I’m pretty sure we still got spanked, but I hope BigDaddy at least laughed.

A Farm Animal: Ok, so I cut his head off. This is a barn in Gettysburg. I was too busy looking at that original cannonball hole in the wall of the barn to pay attention to the location of the horses’s head.

Wheel Trim: Remember? From when we were kids?

An Elephant: My childhood ring holder.

Architectural Detail: Corbels waiting for a hat.

Cheese: Shredded. And your last view of the fugly green tile which will be kicked to the curb … tomorrow!

Cutlery:

Night: Cars leaving the neighborhood.

Something that Starts with a Z: Kathy and I were thinking the same thing. (Unlike the brilliant Jane. What self-respecting sewing blog wouldn’t turn to Zipper first?)

Something with Your Town’s Name on It: Yellow pages (or the zoo sign — I love it, every month, there are always pictures that will fit more than one category.)

The View from Your Door: Straight out the front door.

Branches: {Sigh} The view skyward, under more trees ravaged by that nasty ash borer. We have 5 more and they’ll all have to be cut down. If you’re in the Eastern US and you haven’t seen the ash borer yet, brace yourselves. ;-(

That’s it for June — July’s list looks like lots of fun and anyone can join in!

XOXO,
Anna

Winner, Winner…

37 Comments / June 27, 2011 June 27, 2011 / Around the House, Chat

Well, all the fun guessing over my stove knob colors has come to an end. You guys are SOOO funny. I decided to add some Divine Twine with a little pair of scissors to the Ruby charm pack. (The Ruby charm packs should be here in about 2 weeks.)

So….what color did we get?

RED!!!

I swear…I have no idea how it happened. I think I wanted black and TheManoftheHouse somehow talked me into red. I was really surprised when that stove arrived with red knobs — I thought for sure we’d ordered black, but I checked the invoice and sure enough, Bigger than Dallas, it said r.e.d. Black would certainly have been a better match for our kitchen — there’s going to be a lot of brown (the thoughts of which make me want to throw up), but Red it is! I’m thinking I’ll probably love them and they’ll take my mind off of the sea of brown. I hope so anyway.

And the winner? I took all the red guesses and copied them into a word file (did you know if you do that it will automatically number them for you?) and made TheManoftheHouse Random Number Generator yell out a number.

“What for?”

“Just Do It.”

“Fourteen!”

Miriam Yellow Roses, Come on Down! (And send me your address!)

And theeennn, because I was just as surprised as you are, I decided to give all you black guessing girls a shot, since you said such nice things.

“Do it Again.”

“Twenty-two!”

Melissa Life’s Been Good to Me Sew Far (haha) you win for the black team. Send me YOUR address too.

Thanks everyone for playing! Now, do you wanna see our new thermostat?

Hey — I heard you say “not really”. I’m going to show you anyway, ’cause it’s really sexy.

I have no idea why we have a new thermostat. It’s a man thing. We got a new furnace last fall and last week they showed up and put this new thermostat in. Something about needing to train the technicians on this new technology. There were several people here to learn the ropes (I hope that’s not a bad thing). All I know is I think it’s pretty cool. See that 4th icon up there? Weather? (Sorry for the poor light pictures.) It has wireless internet and it goes out and gets the current temp, forecast and lots of other stuff like the radar map.

Which I’m going to LOVE. Whenever I go to mow the lawn, if it’s cloudy I always have to wait while the computer comes up to check the radar map and see if there are any storms around us. Now I just have to hit the weather button — no waiting!

Now I’ll go sit in the corner while you all find pity on the poor person who gets all excited over a dumb ol’ thermostat. ;-D Have a wonderful week!

XOXO,
Anna

Rock Houses

32 Comments / June 24, 2011 June 24, 2011 / Chat, Travel

I love, Love, LOVE the old pioneer rock houses that are out west, so when I was visiting relatives in central Utah in May, I drove around and took a few pictures of some rock houses. Luckily, there are quite a few of these little beauties that are being restored and they’re gorgeous.

While I’m showing you pictures of these rock houses I have a really fun story to tell you. Remember this red door that I posted as part of my May Photo Scavenger Hunt?

A few days ago I got a comment that said something like “imagine my surprise when I saw the red door on your post and realized that it’s the view I see when I look out the side of my house!” (Hi Bonnie!)

It turns out that Bonnie lives right across the street from this pretty little red door. Ohmygosh! What excitement. To think that we could have met that morning when I was driving around taking pictures of rock houses in her little town.

Several e-mails have ensued and I’ve been blogstalking poor Bonnie. I can’t help it. In my defense, she’s living my dream life in a rock house that they’ve beautifully restored.

You’ll really be in for a treat if you go spend some time at her blog catching up. Among all of her other talents, Bonnie is a wonderful cook and you wouldn’t believe the treasure trove of recipes.

I’m intentionally not showing a picture of Bonnie’s rock house — you can see it in her blog header. It’s adorable. Isn’t this little blog world amazing? It’s so fun to meet new people — it seems there’s an adventure around every corner.

The house above is the one that started my conversation with Bonnie — the red door is on the side of the house, not visible in this picture.

And the house below is my true-love rock house. It causes a lump in my throat and a tear in my eye. This is the house that BigDaddy grew up in and that MyDadLovesMeBestSister and I spent our childhood visiting grandparents. My grandpa died when I was 17 and the house was sold. It was a beautiful little house when I was growing up. Grandpa was an amazing gardener.

It fell into disrepair in the 80’s and 90’s and looked awful for a time, even sitting empty for awhile. A new family owns it now and they’re at least trying to take care of it. The picture above is from 2 years ago. I must say, I’m not a fan of the cover-the-first-four-feet-of-rock-with-cement method, but at least it’s not crumbling like it used to be.

Now they’ve added a front porch. It looks so different. Even the trees aren’t the same. Oh well…time marches on, doesn’t it?

Gosh, this post took a sad turn. That wasn’t intentional. I really just wanted to show you some pretty pioneer rock houses and tell you that I found a fun new blog friend, so enjoy!

XOXO,
Anna

Little Vinyl Bag

44 Comments / June 21, 2011 June 21, 2011 / Sewing

Ok, you guys are pretty darn funny! Your comments on our new stove knob color are keeping us very entertained here in ThimbleannaLand. Thanks so much for taking the time to place your guess. And to Kristyne and MyDadLovesMeBestSister, PINK and half-and-half are NOT options for the contest! In case you’ve missed something, scroll down to the previous post and you can guess what color we selected for our new stove knobs, and if you guess correctly, I’ll enter you for a chance to win a Ruby charm pack and a few more goodies.

In the meantime, a few weekends ago, I had to take a break from tile chipping and sneak in a little sewing in the dungeon. When our Beloved Aunt Annie was here for a visit, she had a cute little polka dotted vinyl bag. After much discussion, we decided that we could probably make a similar version, so when MeMum and Aunt Annie went to Shipshewana I had them pick me up a piece of vinyl.

I think this is a Kate Spain vinyl — there wasn’t anything on the selvedge, but it matches Kate’s blog header and wallpaper!

I’m not much of a bag person, but sometimes I get tired of carrying my big backpack around. I think this is really the first time I’ve had a purse that I couldn’t sling over my shoulder — for years that was the default, as my hands were always full with other things. This little bag is the perfect size — it’s small and just right for my wallet, a notepad and my cell phone.

I took some pictures when I made this little bag so that I’d be able to make another one. (I love that orange with my blue jeans!) In case you’d like an easy little vinyl bag for yourself (three hours start to finish!), I made a pdf file with instructions — available HERE.

Have a good week!
XOXO,
Anna

Now, We’re Cooking with Gas!

146 Comments / June 17, 2011 June 17, 2011 / Around the House

Holy Cow, it’s been rough to sneak in any blogging these past few weeks. Nothing fun happ’nin around here. No fabric or needles. No cooking. No fun making o’ much. It’s been a big week here in the reconstruction zone though. I’m thinking we’re turning the destruction corner and now things are starting to be put back together. We had to have a few cabinets re-made and they were installed on Tuesday. Then, the appliances arrived on Wednesday. WooHoo! (Although the WooHoo was tempered a bit by the almost all-nighter that we had to pull between the two deliveries to get the drywall and electrical stuff ready — we’re still tuckered out!)

Anyway, new stove — look! It’s shiny and dusty. I just wanted to get a picture — it will never look like that again. ;-( We’re not really cooking with gas yet — there’s a little complication with hooking the gas up, but I’m sure it will be solved … sometime. Haha.

In the meantime, I thought we’d have a little New Stove contest. I had a choice of knob colors on the new stove. It was like having a little angel and devil sitting on my shoulder screaming at me. Did my wild side prevail?

Or did my conservative tendencies win out?

If you’d like to throw your guess in the pot (by, say, Saturday, June 25th at midnight), I’ll take all the correct answers and have a little drawing. I’m thinking the prize will be a charm square pack of Bonnie and Camille’s new fabric line, Ruby. (It’s been ordered, but not here yet — I’ll ship it to the winner as soon as it arrives.)

So. Whatddyathink??? Red knobs or black???

XOXO,
Anna

Month: June 2011