Bits N Pieces

Bits N Pieces is a blog post done by Miss James Bluebird and I just love the idea. Lately I started working another job during the day AND we just moved...again. This time we are renting from someone we know and trust and we are outside city limits so there are no pitbull laws! Yay! Plus this house is at least twice as big with a huge backyard with a nice big deck! Since I've been so absent I thought I'd share some Bits N Pieces of my last week or so. 

Lots of leaves, caffeine, yarn, moving/settling, AND a new haircut!! That I LOVE! I never gone this short and I've always wanted too and this week I got to cross it off the ole' bucket list! I always get to the point I want to just chop it all off but never fully get the nerve. I've been having to constantly wear my hair up for work and it was giving me horrible headaches and long thick hair is no fun to up everyday so it helped to give me the courage, and I am so glad! I never really  realized how much of a hassle it is to have long hair until I lost it. I chopped off a little over a foot and half and after some research have decided to donate it to Wigs 4 Kids.

Anyone else cross off a bucket list item recently?

Miss Bluebirds blog can be found here:

http://bleubirdvintage.typepad.com/

• The Ultimate Fall To Do List •

I really really love October. I love when you can start to feel the change in the air. It stirs up something inside of you. It ,also, makes me extremely nostalgic which is a nice feeling. Mainly I LOVE Halloween. I love that everything odd is accepted as normal. Most years I say I'm going to do all the amazing things that come with this season but rarely get anywhere close to finishing the list. So this year is THE YEAR! The year I am going to conquer the ultimate fall to do list! 

And here's what I'm gunna do:

• play as much disc golf as I can before it gets cold +

• find the PERFECT pair of boots (this has been a big thing I've wanted to do but haven't these last few years)

• go to the pumpkin patch +

• go to a haunted house +

• make halloween decorations + 

• give out candy (hopefully I'll get some in this new neighborhood, I've ALWAYS wanted trick or treaters)

• decorate my yard and tiny front porch in order to get trick or treaters

    • make the trash bag pumpkins and spiders that you fill with leaves

• take a motorcycle ride out to the Ozarks after the leaves change

• find those little orange fuzzy balls on fallen leaves

• take Houdini on a lot of walks +

• drink hot tea 

• have coffee with a friend on a patio snuggled in a scarf

• take Houdini to Pinnacle Mountain after the leaves change

• find my crochet rhythm (make my dads birthday present) 

• give knitting another try

• carve pumpkins

• have scary movie marathons +

• eat baked pumpkin as much as possible +

• paint my face like a sugar skull

• learn to alter jeans

• add some more homemade pieces to my wardrobe 

Real Talk • A Post on Loss

I was thinking the other day about how, for the most part, my blog lacks insight into my life. And I want you guys to be able to get to know me, because I want to get to know you! I'm going to make it a point to add a bit more about myself and what's going on in my life. And I've got something I need to get out, so I figured this would be a good way to start. Maybe some of you guys can relate. I lost my younger brother, Kyle, in a motorcycle accident August the 11th. He was the kind of guy that knew no strangers, made everyone feel like family and made us all laugh until we cried.

September 26, 2013

The first funeral I attended for someone other than great grandparents was in 9th grade for some boy that me and my bestie knew through mutual friends. And since that day I have lost about 10 people that I know and every time they get closer and closer to me; with these last two being a best friend and my brother. We lost our friend Adam a week before our wedding. It was one of the most emotionally challenging times I have ever had to endure. It is very odd to have so much good energy and excitement built up for one of the happiest days of your life and then get the news that one of your friends, who grew up with your fiancé, has passed. We're talking two very extreme emotions on opposite ends of the spectrum. I would become so overwhelmed that I thought I was going to burst; but I had an end game in sight. I had to get through this wedding. I couldn't afford to get off track, so I powered through the wedding and enjoyed our honeymoon. You could probably say I never fully allowed myself to mourn losing our friend. So of course, with the loss of my brother four months later a lot of the Adam emotions started to come on stronger.

When I got the call from my dad Sunday morning my mind didn't know what to do with the information. It kinda just froze; I wanted to laugh like it was a joke, I wanted to scream at the top of my lungs, I wanted to ask every question imagine able, but I just said okay. My brain was so confused it didn't know what to do other than pause and attempt to make sense of the information it was just given. Of course you always want someone to have been mistaken, not my brother. But that was not the case. My 22 year old bright eyes and bushy tailed little brother was taken from us. I was in a kinda shock induced numb state for what felt like months, when really I think it was about a week. I didn't want to talk about it, I really didn't want to talk at all. Tears flowed freely and I had no control of it. Like the sorrow was literally leaking out of my body. It wasn't a sobbing cry; they just flowed slowly and persistently.

 I have never been one to see dead loved ones at the funeral or to condone the ritual, but I had to see him. I went to the viewing not knowing what I was going to do. I had seen the first boy who died and he didn't look like the person I knew and I said never again. But something deep inside me begged to see him again. So I sat in the middle pews and purposefully put people in my way and eased into it. Every now and then I'd get a peek and something would just erupt inside me. Eventually I stood beside him and before they closed the casket for the last time I laid my head down on his chest and hugged him one last time. I had never touched a dead body before, the cold and emptiness were definitely unsettling but something within me found great comfort. 

A couple weeks later my sister and I got tattoos in his memory. We had the artist draw some  up that were comprised of a couple of his. And that seemed to help. I had my first and only dream with him in it the second night I had it and it felt like my sorrow had leveled out. But this past week or two it has been creeping back in  and I feel like I'm back on the downward slope. This pain is unlike anything I have ever dealt with. When I lose people it's upsetting, and I mourn; but then I move on. With Kyle I'm starting to believe this is impossible. The best way I know how to describe it is the cliche a "heavy heart". Like there is this weight that is constantly trying to bring me down. When I'm happy I still feel it lingering around and when I'm down I sometimes feel like its going to crush me. It's like something in the very core or soul of me has been shook up and changed and now I have to get used to the adjustments. And as of right now I think I'm okay with that. I'm prepared to carry it and him with me for the rest of my life if I have too. But maybe one day a ways down the road I'll be okay with letting it all go. I guess we will just have to wait and see.

Have any of you lost siblings? Has it gotten any easier for you?

Flaky Dog Home Remedy

Hello all! The cool air has really set in around here and I'm completely head over heels for it! We love and pray for the cool air, but as we all know with cooler air comes dry skin. My pitbull, Houdini, has had dry skin for a better part of a year now, he's super flaky but it doesn't seem to make him itchy at all. He was taken from us last year and kept in an Animal Shelter kennel for a week (a whole nother story). When we got him back his skin was flaky. The vets told us it was probably the stress and change/lack of diet and it would work itself out. Well it's become quite obvious that this isn't something that is just going to go away on its own; and with that cooler air coming in I wanted to try and tackle this problem before it worsened. I've tried a couple different dry skin dog shampoos, but those don't really seem to help. So I started looking for home remedies. I love home remedies, much like I love thrifty crafts. I love being able to solve a problem (or a craving) with things that I already have on hand. While looking I found a couple of different remedies, only one of which is something that I had, so I went for that one. OLIVE OIL.

 It said to add ONE TABLESPOON of olive oil to your dogs food a couple times a week for a shiny moisturized coat. And guess what?! It works! Yay! Instead of a tablespoon every other day I've just been drizzling a very small amount on his food just about everyday. (I'm not a very good schedule keeper so I do this so I won't forget my days.) I've been doing this for almost two weeks now and have noticed a huge difference in his dandruff. It is almost completely gone! AND his coat is super shinny and pretty! Houdini also has an odor that seemed to come around about the same time as his flaky skin, even though he isn't flaking anymore he still smells. So I'm still trying to figure that out and will definitely share my trials and errors with that too! I want to try some of the other dry skin remedies that called for oatmeal, tea tree oil and vitamin E. 

Have any of you ever battled with your pets dry skin or odor before?! I'd love to know your remedy!

(Be careful to not give your dog too much olive oil as it will most likely make them gain weight. If your dog is already over weight I would suggest trying out the other home remedies first. Also, I give my 80 lb pitbull one tablespoon, if you have smaller dogs DO NOT give them the same amount. I'd cut it in half at the very least. After posting this to Instagram a vet friend of mine told me that olive oil can give your dog diarrhea and vitamin E can be used the same way without the side effect)

Fall: Kay's List

Its slowly starting to feel like fall around here and I love it. If winter didn't follow fall, fall would be my favorite season.

Here are the things I love about fall:

•the crisp air

•open windows

•falling leaves

•helicopter seeds

•pumpkins

•bonfires

•Halloween

•bats

•nostalgia

•magick

•Halloween TV

•seasons priemer

•scary movies 

•the state fair

•piles of leaves

•the NEED to be outside

•scarecrows

•change

•school supplies

•hay

•blankets

•star gazing

•colors of leaves

•jack o lanterns

•hay rides

•did I say open windows?

•pumpkin pie

•hoodies

•leggings 

•scarves

•baking

•fresh mowed lawns

•hammocks

•bike rides

•Carmel apples

•candy

•haunted houses

•cob webs

•trash bag pumpkins and spiders

•Halloween stores

•walks with the hubs and my Houdini Doo

(Since its not quite fall yet I don't have any pics on my phone, all of these are off a Google image post. So they ARE NOT MINE. I hate to post a post with someone else's pics but I really wanted a fall post, maybe I'll change them out if I get a chance to be on the computer)

Never, never, never give up : My new sign

Martian Child inspired pallet wood sign

I love John Cusack, so of course I absolutely adore Martian Child. Since the first time I heard David and Dennis's exchange

"When you're here at home it's okay to be from mars but when you're out there with the rest of the earthlings,you know, you gotta play by earth rules. But what we will never do is never, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever give up; Winston Churchill said that, I think."

I feel in love with the saying. For some weird reason it didn't even come to mind while I was searching for a good short quote for a pallet wood sign I had been wanting to make awhile back. Since I couldn't find a good enough quote I kinda lost inspiration and set it to the back of my mind to let it work itself out. Phillip and I were watching a movie (which one i can't recall) the other day and someone had the quote "never, never, never give up" written on a block on their office desk, and it dawned on me that's the perfect quote for my sign! and my inspiration was back! Since I wanted it to be a short quote I used the original over David's "never, ever, ever..." but to keep it like the movie I added the "I think" to the end. I looked up some fonts, drew it with pencil and then painted over the pencil markings. I may go back at some point and add some flowers or design around the letters. Oooh! Or I was just looking up some coffee filter flowers; I could make some to put around the sign rather than adding to the sign itself. Either way I'll share it with you guys for sure!

I'm totally in love with it. It goes really well in that corner, which is in our living room. It's a great little reminder to keep on keepin' on when life gets tough :)

(We currently do not have the Internet, I blog from the blogspot app, which is starting to improve but hasn't added hyperlinks to its abilities yet. Therefore I can not share any websites with you here like the really cool website I found where you can type in whatever you want and preview it in their fonts, so you can see the font to imitate without having to download the font. I do however have a Pinterest account and I'm always pinning my inspiration, so for the time being you could follow me on there if you like! I love meeting fellow DIYers! I also have an Instagram account, the links to both accounts are in my profile! I hope to see some new friends soon! Thanks for stopping by!)

DIY: Hanging Mason Jar Planter!

I think it's safe to say I have a problem

I can't stop buying plants, and here lately it's been house plants. So I've had to come up with some creative ways to place them around our home. We have also been very broke, so I've had to come up with ways to do it with things I already have on hand. A get a sense of pride when I finish these thrifty projects, and I think this one is my favorite!

And this is what you will need to make it!

A small plant (of course)

A piece of wood

A drill with a bit

A mason jar

Wire wrapping supplies

Marker

First you need to decide where on your board you want your jar to hang from

Mark two dots where your going to drill your holes. I marked mine right under the lip of my jar towards the middle so that the jar will cover the holes

And then drill your holes!

Now is time to prep your jar for planting. I didn't have any potting soil and I knew I needed some filler of sorts so I picked out a buch a pretty tiny quartz stones in our yard and put them in the bottom of my jar. It looks cool and will also help with drainage!

Now stuff your plant in the jar, doing as little damage as possible to the roots

Now it's time to wire wrap!

I used 20 gauge wire to wrap around the jar twice and cross the ends in the back  (make sure you leave a few inches of wire on either side)

Grab hold the cross (as close to the jar as possible) with your index finger and thumb

And then turn your hand upside down so that your thumb is now on top, crossing the wire 

And then twist it a few more times

Now your ready to attach your jar to your board, we are going to do that by putting the wire tails you left through your drill holes and twist then together in back like an action figure is tied to it's box

Then turn your board around

And twist the wires around each other like you did before

I twisted mine all the way to the ends and then coiled up the two wires twisted together

I had 20 gauge silver wire and a flimsy 16 gauge bronze wire, I wanted the look of the bronze but doubted its ability to hold the jar, so I used the silver wire and then covered it with the bronze wire for looks. I made one loop 

And wrapped the jar pulling the last wrap around through the loop and pulled it back the opposite direction making another loop and wrapped the last few inches around the back

And now you have hanging mason jar planter!

I attached a hanger to the back and hung it up in our living room

I'd love to see what you guys do with your mason jar planter!!