Everything Carma…

Over Labor Day weekend we got a chance to enjoy the remoteness of the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness (BWCAW). Here are some fun facts about the Boundary Waters because lets be honest most of you have never heard of it. It’s huge: about 1,090,000 acres and 1,200 lakes, with 80 entry points, 2,200 campsites It’s unique: most of it can only be reached by paddling (aka: no roads and few trails) It’s cool: was formed by glaciers, heavily forested,  [ Read More ]

Oh wonderful scraper thingy, What an amazing dingy, Makes my non-stick pans so cleany, Can pick up spaghetti stringy.   Flips my grilled cheesy, Lifts up my choco-chip-cookie, Never use it for the George Foreman any, That grille is just way to messy.   Oh what an amazing dingy, Little George Foreman scraper thingy.  

Jared bought me the game Agricola for my birthday and we played it last night for the first time. Wow it was really fun! I liked how the game had a limited number of rounds unlike Settlers of Catan which continues “indefinitely” until someone wins. It got down to the wire and I really had to decide what actions I was going to take to get the most victory points with what I had. Some other things I liked were  [ Read More ]

In Rochester, MN we are having kind of a hard time finding hiking trails that are less than 4.5 hours away. Now when I say hiking trails I mean DIRT, single track, not paved bike trails (Rochester has paved trails galore). However we did find a haven over at Whitewater State Park. It also has the only semi-decent swimming beach I’ve seen so far in southern Minnesota. The trail we took wasn’t actually on the map, but it felt like  [ Read More ]

So the pattern I bought for Jared’s stocking included two other designs. Of course why would I only make one X-mas stocking right? I went a lot faster with mine which was a good thing and a bad thing. I am master of the heel and toe, but I discovered that I still have a long way to go with getting even tension on the fair isle (patterned) section. So my stocking ended up being a little fat. I had  [ Read More ]

This Christmas stocking for Jared was my first real knitting project. I have a tendency to pick something I want to make (despite my lack of skills or understanding of difficulty) and just do it. This was definitely one of those projects. I used circular needles so that I could knit continuously around and avoid having a seam down the back. There was considerable time spent re-doing the short-row heel and toe. Those areas took some extra attention because I had  [ Read More ]

I really am not sure what gave me this idea. Oh, yeah, it was probably because crepes are super delicious and I come up with any excuse to eat them. Nevertheless it was a true experiment. I originally looked for food coloring spray hoping that I could kind of do an airbrush thing with my stencil. Turns out though I couldn’t find it in any local stores and I didn’t have time to wait for shipping. So instead I grabbed  [ Read More ]

There are some little hidden gems in Indiana. Turkey Run State Park happens to be one of them. While hiking through this little canyon you can’t help but think: How the heck did this get in Indiana? So many parts of this hike remind me of southern Utah…except the green, green, and more jungle green, that is purely Indiana. All of these pictures are from Trail #3 which is rated “very rugged”. The rating system in Indiana always makes me  [ Read More ]

When you need a new purse don’t buy one, make one! I found this cute pattern online for free from made-by-rae.com. Here is the link: http://www.made-by-rae.com/2009/02/free-buttercup-bag-sewing-pattern/ The pattern is just a quick download away and it is already formatted to print. It was so simple to make and I even did some of my own alterations. I added some backpack type strap inside the handle for better durability. I also added a zipper (don’t laugh it was my first attempt at a zipper,  [ Read More ]

For every birthday and holiday Jared’s aunt sends us these fun drawings that his younger cousins make for us. So after receiving a new set of drawings I decided it would be cool to send them some drawings in return. I used to draw all the time in high school and quite often in college as well, but my colored pencils are ill used of late. I found some pictures of the girls on facebook and decided to turn them  [ Read More ]