Mini Blinds to Roman Blinds at Dad's

There are some gorgeous picture windows at my Dad's house (now owned by the 4 of us kids). 

They face the east so in the morning when the sun rises its extremely bright and it heats the house up for the rest of the day.  They needed some blinds but regular mini blinds just wouldn't be good enough.  Jake offered to buy the supplies to make some Roman blinds out of mini blinds. I did the work.   Real Roman blinds are expensive, especially for windows this size. 

Before

After

“My body is my journal, and my tattoos are my story.” - Johnny Depp

I ♥ Pinterest.  Since Dad died I have been wanting a memorial tattoo.  Something to remind me of him whenever I'm hurting.  I knew I would put it on the inside of my right arm so I would see it all the time. (I'm right handed).  While mindlessly wandering Pinterest last week I came a cross a pin of a woman's wrist tattoos with her parents' signatures.  I instantly knew that was the tattoo I'd been looking for.  I remembered seeing a card Dad had given me for a birthday a few years ago.  I couldn't remember exactly where I'd seen it and I worried I might have thrown it out.  The next day I went through our entire filing cabinet.  It wasn't there.  Then Thursday I remembered I still had the tote of loose pictures, papers, cards, and memories in the camper from when we were at Amber's looking for pictures of Dad for the funeral.  So at 10pm in the freezing cold and knee high snow I grabbed a flashlight and trudged to the camper to got through the bin.  I nearly hyperventilated when I found it I was so happy and relieved I hadn't thrown it out.  Friday I called and made an appointment and had my tattoo done on Saturday afternoon.  A little less weight on my chest...





 

** Zoom was Dad's nickname for me since I was a baby.  The story is - when mom went back to work after I was born he could never keep up with me or catch me when I was in my walker - hence "Zoom"  He used to tie my walker to the bumper of the car he was working on in the garage (he was a mechanic) so I couldn't get into too much trouble :) **

My little grocery shopper

Danica is such a good helper.  She LOVES helping with the shopping.  She helps push the cart and gets things off the shelves and puts them in the cart.  She even likes to get in the cart to help unload it onto the belt when we check out :) We did however miss the cart with a jar of pizza sauce near the front door.  "CLEAN UP AT THE ENTRANCE"  Danica bent down and pointed - "Uh Oh!"  Mommy was a little red in the face.

Winter has finally arrived.

Snowpocalypse 2012

I plowed 3 hours ago.... Can you tell?

Our Princess is 2!!

Its been a day...

At 10 o'clock I started getting Sawyer motivated for school.  It takes him awhile to accomplish anything.  I made him and Danica lunch and washed my hair.  I started putting my make up on when someone knocked at the door.  It was the mailman to tell me he just chased my steer and ram from the neighbors house all the way to ours and instead of turning into the driveway they kept right on going.  In the process he let the cat in the house and both dogs out.  I grabbed a hat to cover my soaking wet hair and ran out to the 4-wheeler to chase the animals.  After following them to the next corner they finally turned and ducked under the fence.  By now we were already 15 minutes late to pick up Sawyer's friend and leave for preschool.  I rounded up both dogs and tied them up and ran a brush through my hair.  Grabbed my purse and put the kids in the car to head off to preschool.  On the way down I realized I didn't have my debit card...and I still have no idea where it is.  I grabbed a few groceries after I dropped off the boys and took Danica up to a friend's house so I could walk the fence line to get the fencer running again.  I grabbed Ryan's gloves, the fencing pliers, insulators, and a piece of barbed wire because I figured the line would be broke somewhere and I sure as heck didn't want to have to walk all the way back to get some once I got out there.  The snow is too deep to take the 4 wheeler around especially with the plow on.    The deer are forever ripping up the fence in the corner of the field so I wasn't surprised to find a mess.

 

I untangled the bottom two wires and spliced the top one back together.

 

Snow up to my knees....should have put snowshoes on my Christmas list.



Only two posts down and another broken wire. This one I pulled so hard on the wire I was splicing that the wire broke and I had to start over. Very frustrating! After this one I would have been out of wire but the last time I fixed this corner I left an extra piece hanging on a fence post. Thank goodness too because this was just the beginning of broken wires on that back line.





There was 5 broken wires total.

At the furthest corner the insulator was broke off. Thankfully an easy fix because I was exhausted and sore and still had a ways to walk in that snow.





The second half of the fence just needed tightening in a few spots where it was sagging. After moving around some plugs and wires in the chicken coop I got the fencer plugged back in. (excuse the shakiness...I was out of breath and tired)

Music to my ears...