Charm & Whimsy

Mini Extreme Home Makeover on our street.

Hello again! It's been awhile and there is so much going on. Been working on so many things at home, work and in little old Redwood Village, San Diego (our neighborhood).

The big thing to share is the recent volunteer community project that took place in my neighborhood. It was a beautiful day and we changed someone's life. It was fantastic.

Linda is our neighbor across the street. She is an 81 year old widow on a fixed income. She is going blind and both she and her house needed some TLC. Our neighborhood council (led by a selfless, community-minded superstar - Anna you rock!!) organized a mini Extreme Home Makeover. In 6 weeks, donations were gathered, materials were purchased and neighborhood volunteers were signed up.

With approx 50 volunteers over 2 days we patched cracks inside and stucco outside, cleaned up her yard, reglazed windows, installed security features, took care of 3'x5' bee hive in her back wall (with Africanized honey bees aka killer bees no less!) painted inside and out, installed a new fridge, stove and lights among other things. It was great! Here she is after all was said and done in her "new" living room.

If you're interested in helping someone in your community there is an organization called Rebuilding Together that does similar projects. There may be a local chapter where you are and you can help improve someone's life :)

Little owl cupcakes and a clean garage, life couldn't be better!

I was a machine last weekend and I got an incredible amount of stuff done.

• Finished a child's hat that I started at least a year ago (I needed my #4 needles for another project). Unfortunately, it isn't actually finished...I just ran out of yarn. Which stinks because I had bought it on sale and don't have anymore. So - will need to figure out what else to do with it or unravel and make something else.
• Crocheted a swatch for a coat I'm planning to make. I probably won't end up using this yarn because it became too fuzzy and pilly in the washer (washed and dried it 3 times). Although it was wonderfully soft after washing. I have two other yarns I'll try for this project. I'm typically not a big swatch-maker (I like to dive right in) however, this will be a large project and I don't want to spend all the time making it and then not be able to wash it because the yarn doesn't hold up well.

            

• Baked and decorated little owl cupcakes for Austin's 1st birthday (cute little guy that belongs to our lovely neighbors). The cupcakes on the right were the first ones and you can see the "hair" is distinct. The cupcakes on the left were the last ones and the frosting in the piping bag was so warm from my hands and the heat that day that it was melting as I was piping it. No discernable "hair" on those unfortunately. I'll post a tutorial later. These came from the super-fantastic book Hello, Cupcake! . You need to go buy it if you haven't already.

            

• I wanted to try a soft boiled egg. Mostly because I wanted to finally use one of these cute egg cups I bought ages ago (originally purchased to make pincushions out of them). First one was WAY too runny. It grossed me out (3 minute egg).
  
   
  

• Next one was a little over cooked (7 minute egg) but that was better than undercooked in my opinion. Still a tasty breakfast complete with tomatoes from our neighbor's garden. Delicious! 

   

• Cleaned out the garage (who knows why I had to do this on one of the hottest, muggiest days of the year). It's so lovely in there now. I'm such a freak I even dusted and cleaned all of the shelves and items on them. 5 hours later - it looked like this:

             

• You may wonder where the clean garage is as this pictures looks like we have a really cluttered garage. However, it is all very ordered and organized by category, paints on the lower right shelf, crafty supplies on the middle right shelving system, wrapping and ribbon station in the back left corner, etc. The back door couldn't be reached due to a mountain of stuff and now it's clear. The front of the washer/dryer was a disaster and now it's clutter free. We park our car in here every night. Our house is only 700 square feet and this is our only storage (no attic). Ok and we have a lot of stuff.

• After cleaning the garage, I was so jazzed about seeing the front of our washer/dryer that I did 6 loads of laundry (??!?!??!).

I'm tired just writing all of this down...