Darn Utilities... but we are winning!

Last month our gas bill was the highest we've ever had in this house. Then we got the power bill, it was over double normal. We couldn't figure out what happened. So our goal for the month was to really cut back hard and see if we can get them down. So here's what we did for gas, it provides our heat, hot water, and dryer. We started by reprogramming the thermostad. It already lowers at night and kicks back on before we wake up and then kicks off again while we are at school, but we went ahead and lowered it 2degrees during the day and 3 at night. We put an extra blanket on the bed, wear hoddies more, and put Garrison in a sleep sack over his pjs. We went through the house checking for air leaks and sealed a few as well as put new weather stripping on the front door. We started washing all of our clothes in cold water (except sheets-hot to kill dust mites, diapers-hot, and whites-warm). We also turned down our hot water heater, started rinsing dishes in cold (the dishwasher washes them in hot why waste hot water rinsing), taking slightly shorter showers, and just generally trying to conserve water. We hang dry all our clothes in the basement except whites and diapers, there are just too many little things to hand, and diapers would take forever to dry. These changes really weren't enough that we noticed. They really were pretty small. BUT today we got our gas bill and we cut it by over a third even though January was colder than December. I'm pretty stoked to actually see a difference. The power bill hasn't come yet be we already figured out where the problem was on that. Justen used to unplug Tias heat mat and the sheep water tank heaters on warm days and at night. Well, in Decemeber he left them on the entire month. So we know power will be better just from that, but we've also made a few little changes there and we shall see how it goes. Isn't it nice when you see results from something you do. We are not only getting our bills down, but we are conserving energy which is always a good thing.

Christmas in Oregon

Well, we made it to Oregon. We got here early afternoon on Christmas day. We had a crazy day of traveling and then hurrying to wrap presents because everyone had waited for us to open presents. It was lots of fun and Garrison is loving all the fun of having his cousins with him full time. He woke up many many times last night and each time he would wake up saying play, anna, play, oma, play.... the overriding theme was, "Mom, Dad, GET UP I WANT TO PLAY!!!" We are all pretty worn out today. Hopefully the next few days we can take it easy and catch up on some sleep.
Garrison and Justen opening presents


Garrison playing with the see and say treehouse toy with Great Grandpa Wales (my mom's dad)


Garrison is having a BALL with his cousins....


He has no fear of strangers, he climbed right up on Uncle Ben's lap. He has also decided that Uncle Ben must be the softie nice uncle. The minute Mom or Dad says no, you hear, Uncle Bum... (he has started saying Ben very clearly now but it was so funny at first when he didn't say it quite right).


And this morning before church we took a few pictures of all three grandkids for Opa's picture frame he got for Christmas.

Sewing in December....

I got a lot done this month. I never seem to get as much done as I'd like to but at least I got more than nothing accomplished. This month my main focus was on Christmas presents. It was a lot of fun for me making things for folks to enjoy, that is always one of my favorite parts about Christmas. I'm also happy to report I love my new sewing machine. Now I will say its walking foot stinks compared to a pfaff, but I love everything else about it. So here's what I got done with my sew along group for this month.
Started off with a couple more pairs of soft soled shoes. I really love these things they are so cuddly and warm. These were made with the bamboo velour I low water immersion dyed last month.


Then I did a set of matching mother/daughter aprons. All I can say with these is I HATE BIAS TAPE!!!




Then I did matching father/son pjs for Garrison and Justen, it's John deere Camo. They are pretty fun and Garrison LOVES his matching pants. He kept asking for them this morning even though they were in the wash.



Then I did a couple of All in Two cloth diapers, these are some of my favorite design yet. I can't wait to make a couple more.




Then I made a roll of "unpaper" towels. So they are the same size and fit on a paper towel roll but you wash them. They all snap together with poly resin snaps. I was pretty darn excited to make these.


And then some matching scrubbie cloths to go with the unpaper towels.


And finally I made my brothers some Organic Bamboo Velour pillowcases and hand dyed them "gunmetal gray". Because shopping for them is hard but everybody needs a luxury pillow case so they can feel like they are sleeping on a cloud, right?!?

A tired Christmas.

That is the only way we could figure out to describe how we were feeling tonight. Justen and I are just plain old worn out to the point that we can hardly even tell that it's almost Christmas. There are no halls decked, no cookies baked, and no music playing. I'm not even sure if I feel sad, pitiful, guilty or just plain old grinchy at my lack of Christmas spirit. We don't have a tree up and tonight decided we just aren't going to put one up. We are just to tired. Luckily Garrison is to young to know the difference.

Now don't get me wrong, I love Christmas. It's usually such a magical time of year. But this year we've just decided to admit defeat and go to bed early. I think this last week we've been in bed at 6:30 every night until tonight. We've had FFA activities the last two weekend in a row, and have them tomorrow, Monday and Tuesday after school. I've had two state accreditation things going on in the last two weeks, not to mention a host of other crazy things happening at work. And you may wonder why on earth would I blog about such an utter failure and defeat as canceling Christmas at our house, well the answer is simple. I'm to tired to get out of bed and go do anything else and to frustrated with myself to quit thinking about it.

We have decided we are going to do a few things to celebrate the season, but it is definitely not going to be the same. We are doing our annual Kash for Kids drive at school where we do a sub for santa thing for some families in our area. I love doing this, it is so much fun. We gather money and food all through December and then tommorow we go shopping for their gifts and dinner. Then next week we'll wrap and deliver it. It's such a great thing to see my high school kids be so giving. My classes alone have raised over $800 so far this year for the project, and as a school we are approaching the $30,000 mark (at least that's the rumor I heard today). It's wonderful we are able to pay for kids braces, and glasses and lots of other great things in the community. Justen and I also have our own little service project going that we decided to do last month, but it's a secret so I can't share, but it's been pretty fun for us too. So a little service helps it feel more like Christmas.

Of course we are doing the whole gift thing, not that it's all that important. This year we don't even really care about that much. We just aren't into "things". Now if someone offered to clean my house or bake me some christmas cookies (German ones of course) I'd probably get pretty excited (or say do my scrapbooking for me). But every time someone asks what we want for Christmas I can't come up with much of anything. Now part of that is because we've been very blessed this year and don't need anything, and wants just don't seem all that important when there is so much need out there. But part of me just doesn't care. I'm to tired to put much thought into anything at this point. I'm actually most excited about a few of the projects I've been working on for other folks, although some of you may be getting your gifts in January at the rate I'm moving. Garrison will get a few toys that we bought last year at the day after sales, but we're not even sure we're going to bother wrapping them. Besides if we wrap them we may have a repeat of last year where he chucked the toys and played with the paper and boxes.
Now I know Christmas is suppose to be about Christ. But somehow without all the other traditions I just can't seem to see it. We discussed in one of our Sunday school lessons a couple of weeks ago that when people's basic needs aren't met they can't focus on things of the spirit. Well, we were talking about things like food and shelter, but I'm starting to think that applies to our physical and emotional stress levels as well. I feel that if I could just find a way to clear everything else out of my life, the spirit that comes with Christmas would have room to come in.

So we have resigned ourselves to having a low key non-christmassy December. We are hoping to get to the live nativity pageant in West Weber next week, but with my luck a water main in the greenhouse will burst and I'll get called in to go deal with or something else similar. That's just the way this month has gone. At least next week we are flying to Oregon, so we can look at my parent's tree and eat their cookies and at least feel a little like Christmas does still exist. Of course we'll probably end up stuck in an airport because our plane can't take off and be stressed to no end by the time we get there, but hey at least there will be cookies on the other end. Oh, I so hope there are cookies...... and maybe a little time to recuperate from life and find Christmas.

Snow Day

Today we had snow. Lots and lots and lots of snow.... it just kept coming. So Justen and Garrison went out to build a snow man. I've got a sinus infection and just didn't feel like helping, but I went out long enough to snap some pictures. They had lots of fun.






I've been working on reorganizing Garrison's diapers because they finally outgrew the laundry basket on the floor of his room, so here's how I figured out to organize them. Hopefully this will make it easier to find things. Pockets and all in ones are on the top shelf, bamboo and cotton fitted with wool longies and covers on the second shelf, and covers, wetbags, and doublers on the bottom shelf. Getting this shelf put together and organized has been my project for the week.

Justen couldn't be more Proud!

Yesterday we had a very interesting experience. We were putting some things away in the spare bedroom when Garrison started getting really excited about something, followed by upset because we couldn't figure out what he was saying. We finally figured out he was saying FFA coat, but told him there wasn't one. We thought he was talking about the FFA hoodie Justen brought him back from back from Nationals. Well it turns out his insistance about FFA Coat was the one he saw on the shelf. He pulled it down and put it on, with a little help from Justen. He then paraded around the house in it. We tried to get him to take it off to go to town, but that just turned into a huge tantrum, ending in Garrison running down the hall clutching the jacket and hiding in his room with it. It was pretty funny.



And this is Garrison loving his new kitchen. Every time I cook he brings up a chair to help me. Well it wasn't a problem until he decide that the toaster oven was a his size version of my appliances. At first it was cute then when he started shoving stuff under the element that I didn't find until I smelled the burning we decided it was time he needed his own appliances that couldn't be plugged back in. He loves it. All he has wanted to do all day is play with his kitchen. It was especially fun when he started stealing stuff out of my kitchen to stock his. We probably should have waited until Christmas but we told ourselves it was a safety thing. ;) It is a safety thing but it turns out mom and dad have no patience for waiting for Christmas any more than kids do! Besides, he's to young to know we cheated, or at least that's what we are telling ourselves.

Sewing my way through Novemeber.

I got a lot done again this month. Sadly I didn't get everything done I had planned but I still got a lot accomplished. Some of my sewing projects this month were following along with my sewing group, some were just ones I wanted to do. I have a HUGE list all ready for December and I am racing to try and have it all done by Christmas. We shall see how far I get. So these are my projects for November:
Started off with some baby legs- love these things for quick diaper changes around the house or extra warmth at night.


Then I FINALLY got my batch of daycare diapers done. These are stuffable AIOs (All in ones that can be stuffed for extra absorbency). There were a total of nine but only 8 made it in the picture.







Then I made a bunch of recycled wool longies (pants that act as waterproof diaper covers) out of old sweaters. The top two turned out to small, and the bottom one had to get hemmed up a bit.


And an action shot of my new longies on Garrison



Of course my soft soled shoes:

And then another pair


And finally, I finished up a pair of Father / Son matching PJ pants.



And not sewing related, but I played around with dyeing some wool yarn this month. Didn't work exactly as planned, probably because I was using food coloring instead of acid dyes. I also started crocheting a pair of longies for Garrison but those will probably be done around the time he has a prom date. And then I also played around with Low water immersion dyeing some bamboo fabric. It was my first try and I learned alot. I'm going to try swirl dyeing next.