Nest curtains

You can't see it in the above photo but I made new curtains for my sewing room! The fabric is called Nest by Valori Wells. It's super soft Voile.

Here is a close up of the fabric since it was really hard to photograph in the window.

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Proof to those who don't beleive that we actually have two black cats. Most people who come over never see Piggy. Frank has banished her to under our bed. For about 5 years now. This is one reason we wanted to give him away. That and he started peeing on the bathroom rugs and towels. You will be happy to know that that has stopped now that we have moved away from the stinky neighbors!! I think this is proof that their filth really did mess up Frank. I can finally have bath mats in the bathroom again!! So back to Piggy...she is now out and about and sleeping near Frank and loving her new apartment:)

Emily's class had tea party and was allowed to bring one guest. It was nice to meet other parents and see her classroom.

There was several daddies in their uniforms sipping tea.

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A Gnome cake pan from Mary A! How cute is this?? And I had the picture of the mushroom weather thermometer that Kelly gave me on here too but I accidentally hit backspace and deleted it (blogger doesn't have a "undo" button). I already have slow Internet so I'll have to re post it on the next post.
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I had to end this post with a look at Emily's kindergarten photos.

Damn she's cute!

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As I'm typing this we are having air-raid sirens going off. I'm not kidding. Did you know that Schweinfurt was heavily bombed during World War 2? There were ball bearing factories here or something like that here.

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Some weird things that Ava says:

good bye: b-bye

sponge bob: b-bob

hot dog: d-dog

She's too cool to say the whole thing. Or too lazy.

Adorable @ last!

Is this not the ugliest ironing board cover ever?? I got this at Real here on the economy. I love that it's super sized (and now that i have my own sewing room again I can actually use it!). It came with an iron rest and this thingy that holds the cord up and out of the way.

But it's ugly...so I changed it from this...

by doing this...

To this....

To this!!!!! Isn't it cute? Even if it's not your style, you have to admit it's better than @ symbols! It's a little rumpled and not as tight as I'd like it but it works just fine. I followed this tutorial and found it to be so super easy. I didn't even measure the amount I cut off around the old cover. I just eye-balled about 1.5-2" all the way around. It doesn't need to be neat becasue it's on the underside. I used a 1/2" seam allowance and gathered the top part of the green fabric to fit the old blue cover (see construction photos). I have been wanting to change this cover since I bought the thing back in 2004!



Fabric is much coveted Heather Ross Gnomes on a light weight twill.

And below:

I had to make a baby one too for my sleeve board! Isn't it cute?

The after photo not the before.

Hello Gingy

12 more Half Eaten Gingerbread men. These things take forever to make!

I have my priorities straight when it comes to unpacking.
My sewing room comes 1st .

I made curtains for both bathrooms out of old Ikea curtains. I can see now that i didn't quite cover the window. Anyway, we have somewhat frosted glass in each bathroom but you can still see very well through them if you are outside! We also have rolladens but I like a lot of light so those only go down at night. When researching rolladens, I came across some interesting comments and facts on them (more Germans have rolladens than driver's license. they were developed during world war 2. ) . If you don't know what they are , google them. They NEED to catch on in America! From what I could tell, some places do have them but not many. They are not only a form of security, they can completely block out light and in the summer can make your house cooler. We could have used these when Jon worked 3rd shift before we married. I think 99.9999% of all apartments and houses have these on the windows. I have seen some ghetto looking apartments with rolladens. It's just standard here like closest are in America! I think about doing a post on the comparisons all the time. Germans have some cool things going on here but also some not so cool things like no closets and renting an apartment WITHOUT a kitchen. What?
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I realize that a post on the comparisons will probably only interest me (along with the huge paragraph above on rolladens).

When we visited the states, the only people who asked us about living here and seemed to want to hear about what it's like here were people who had visited Europe. Otherwise we got bored looks when we'd say, "did you know, that in Germany...." and I'm sure they thought we were bragging that we live in Europe.

Anyone else have this problem when they visit home?

And one of my awesome handmade going away gifts! Kara made this for me out of some of my favorite fabrics. I.LOVE.THIS. Notice the mushroom zipper pull?

I have more cool going away/birthday gifts to posts. Fun things!

Bracelet

Here is what katelyn wanted me to make her. I hope they are how she wanted it...She had shown me a picture of one she saw on etsy and voila! Here are two! Or close..it's leather with the cutest ribbon sewn on. The cute ribbon and the jewelry findings (right word?) are from dawanda (the European etsy) and the leather and red ribbons are from the store.

I didn't get to post on the 15th but on that day I turned the big 39!!!!! I'm always so shocked at the numbers each year and how they keep sounding older and older (I realize they are "older" each year but 21 doesn't sound old! it's only now in my late 30's that they are sounding really old!). When I was in my early 20's, 30 sounded ancient !

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Emily after her first day of school and 1st bus ride. She was pretty excited about the whole day although she cried when we dropped her off.

And below is Emily rocking her school uniform!

You can wear blah and still be cute!

Ava is totally adjusting to the move as you can see. Not acting weird at all. That's two potty's and a scarf; perfect for watching t.v.

And this scene made me so happy. My girls playing outside on OUR patio. We may have a view of the neighbor's comings and goings but still, it's our patio and I can stay inside and sew!

We just received word that we will get Internet and phone on November 4th!! Keep in mind that we ordered it on October 7th and I've been in this apartment since October 13th without it. We were also told that since the area we live in is at the tale end of our town (meaning less populated) that our DSL bandwidth will be 384 kbps! Instead of the 6,000 kbps that we are used to in Stuttgart. I don't know anything about bandwidth but Jon assured me that is almost as slow as dial up and almost not worth it. So you might be asking how I am able to post on my blog right now with no Internet (because I can't do this at the library)? Well, my awesome neighbors above us are "sharing" their Internet till we get our own!!! How cool is that ?? I don't even think she knows how much this probably saved our marriage or my sanity. And my neighbor told me that the Internet providers told her the same thing about the speed and she sees no problem and I haven't either while I've been using hers.

We've moved in

I've got no photos to post because I'm using a public computer at the library. Someday we'll get internet...and a phone... We've moved in and are getting settled! It's so beautiful here. I love it so far. The bases are SO close and I've not been missing anything except friends and the store. I've actually been sewing! I squared away my sewing room 1st of course:) I can't wait to show what I've made. The items were requested (katelyn, Aunt Karen) and I'm so happy to have them out of the way.

Emily has had a little bit of a tough time adjusting. Just weird small things. Ava is fine though! Emily started Schweinfurt Elementry today and guess what? They wear uniforms!!! WTF?? Why didn't I call and find this out?? Becasue I would assume that all military elementry schools in Germany would be the same that's why!! But noooo, they aren't in so many ways. I bought her new school clothes!! Crap! I had to go on Oldnavy.com and quickly order uniform stuff becasue the PX only had crap brand polo shirts that after I washed shrunk to belly shirts which aren't allowed by the way:) She will have student-wears-what-they-want day 2 times a month so she'll be decked out in all her new clothes!

That's all....oh, I had to call the IRS on my cell phone (becasue we have no phone) and I ran out of minutes and the phone hung up on the lady. I spent about $35 on a call to the IRS. Yay!!! I had just loaded the phone with minutes....anyway, I'll post when I can.

Ludwigsburg Palace Pumpkin Patch Year 6

Once again no crafting stuff. Sorry:( I hope I'm not losing anyone!

I'm in limbo between two apartments and can't sew at either.

So Saturday we were able to squeeze in a few hours at the Pumpkin Festival. This years theme is under the sea

Ava is looking at some geese in these photos. When we made her leave that area we had serious melt down. She wore her voice out (it's now scratchy and smoker-like) from screaming.

You can see lasts years visit here and 2008 here and here and here.
Check out this collage of Emily.

Last night was my going away dinner and I got some good going away presents! They are awesome! Kelly took photos so I'll have to get them from her. My friends know me so well...it was lots of mushroom and Gnome stuff! Plus fabric and handmade stuff. I'm really really shy about expressing thanks becasue it never feels like it's coming across right. Just know Kara, Josanna, katelyn, Kelly, Mary and Heidi, that I was so happy you all took the time to have dinner with me at my favorite restaurant and I love and appreciate the time and thought that went in to each gift.

This and that

Hanging door stopper from Martha Stewart. I looked and looked but couldn't find the original pattern online and since my stuff is all packed up I couldn't scan in the one I printed out. I made this years ago so Emily wouldn't smash her fingers in the door. I used cotton velvet and organza ribbon. Next time I would use something else for the ribbon since this is so thin it makes a good tight not if you're not careful!

I took these photos as the movers were packing our stuff so they are a little blurry and not so pretty but you can get the idea of what it is.

Below is some of the fabric I got at Joann's while on vacation.
Below is Swiss dot (joann's calls it a flocked dot) in yellow, blue and pink dots. I love this stuff! I wanted to get all the blue they had to make curtains for the girls room but at the time I had no idea what kind of windows we'd have in or new place or if the blue dots even match the baby blue velvet curtains they already have.

Below is a woven plaid.

Below is a rayon I think. It's like a chiffon or Georgette. Thin and flowey and beautiful! I saw it at one Joann's but didn't buy and then couldn't stop thinking about it so I had to go back and get it!

Two more plaids below but these have stretch and are solely to make pj shorts for myself.

Some pom pom trim in two yummy colors.

So we are moved into our new place and just received government furniture today in the old place right after this picture was taken.

Old place above,
New place below.

I am so in love with the new place. We live behind one of the bases so I could walk to it if I wanted. I changed the rooms I had designated for the sewing room and master bedroom. I started thinking about our master bedroom window having parking spaces below it and people scraping ice or snow or shutting doors in the morning and I'm such a light sleeper. So I switched and I'm so glad I did.

Either we have a lot of kitchen stuff or the storage space in the new place is small becasue I filled all the cabinets and we haven't even brought over the food yet! I'll have to get another shelf to house the cans and boxes of foods.

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Below is Emily & Emilee exchanging photo albums they made for each other. Emilee and her family also moved at the same time we did but they went back to the states. We will miss them something awful!

They are really cute and both girls did a really good job!

I'm itching to get our new place situated but we still have stuff to do in our old place. Jon is steam cleaning the carpets as I write this. Ava has been sick through this whole move and now I have a cold.

We Got Keys!

Today we drove to Schweinfurt to check it out. We got our new mail box address and unexpectedly an apartment!! We got key's!!! We are off post but in government leased housing. This means that the U.S. government has leased these houses (apartment complexes) from the Germans and then "rents" them to us. So no landlord to bother us and when we have maintenance that needs to be done, we call the maintenance people on base just like if we lived on base.

I have to point out that this is not our furniture and it will be gone by the time our stuff arrives! It's government furniture that any one who has lived over here will recognize! Our furniture will be there on Thursday of this week! Ya whoooooooooo!
click to enlarge
The complex has 6 American families. We are on the 1st floor (score!) and have a huge yard. It's 3 bedrooms and two bathrooms (a total of 2 showers, 2 toilets, 1 bath and 3 sinks). Our laundry room is in the basement but we're on the 1st floor so who cares???

The above is the huge bathroom. It has a tub and a stall, a toilet and two sinks.

All the rooms look way smaller than they actually are. I need to take pictures with a wide angle lens. The above is the "master bedroom" which will be the girls room.

Above is our room.

The 2nd bathroom with a shower stall.

And my sewing room!! Finally a room all my own! It's been about 5 years since I've had my own sewing room.. and damn it, I deserve one! This apartment is about 110 sq. meters (1184 sq. feet) and our current place is about 80-85 sq meters (860-915 sq feet) so it's a lot bigger:)

The back yard! I pieced two photos together so you can see just how big. This is our unit on the corner and our yard is all the way from the left to the divider on the right. I'm going to have to get some kind of temporary fencing. I'm not into sharing my yard with neighbor kids and I'm not into my kids sharing other people's yards especially when there is a swing set next door that will be tempting!
So far I love this apartment. I'm closing my eyes to a number of things (the linoleum flooring, the laundry being in the basement, etc) and we're trying to not think about how dirty the entry and stairwell were. Or how dirty the laundry room was. Or the trash can area.... or the patio next door..

please oh please let us not have "douche bag neighbors" as Jon said earlier.
We are 10 minutes away by car from Jon's work, Emily's school, the PX, Commissary and everything else! Emily may ride the bus to school.

Above is a new line of fabrics we just got in. It's called Pure by Moda. It might have more than that in the name but I'm not sure. I can totally see a quilt for a master bedroom for a guy or a couple where the guy cares if there is flowery stuff in his room. I am in love with the tiny polka dots and tiny stripes.

And Emily after school the other day. Wearing her Johnny Appleseed pot hat. She's wearing a pot hat...it's an upside down pot (you can't see the handle from this angle). I've been looking forward to her bringing her art and other projects home.