Build Up

It's not a craft, but it took two hours and two people to assemble so I think it's worth mentioning.  My dad gave our daughter this playhouse for Christmas.  It was too big to ship, so we bought it locally.  When I went to pick it up, the box wouldn't fit in my tiny car.  When I took our other slightly bigger car, it still wouldn't fit.  So, the loading guy helped me crack open the box and put all the pieces in the car, and I crossed my fingers I had them all.  They've been stored in the basement since right after Thanksgiving.  We decided it was time to get them out and set it up.

It'll live in the living room until the snow is all gone, and then the house - and its picket fences and mailbox, not shown - are going outside. She'll see it for the first time tomorrow morning, and I'm pretty sure she'll love it.  Whenever we go somewhere that has a little kid playhouse like this one, she goes in and plays in it until it's time to go.

Dinner tonight was lentils and sausage from the Allrecipes Slow Cooker & Casserole cookbook.  It's a very simple recipe with lots of flavor.  The lentils came out a little firm though, so next time we'll cook it on a higher setting.  Although next time won't be for a while - it filled up the entire crockpot and we'll be eating it for days...

We never made it to the craft store today.  This morning we stopped in for a bang trim (THANK YOU to my salon for doing these - and child haircuts - for FREE) and then stopped on a couple other errands.  Dear daughter was in an "I'm almost two, so I'll act like it" mood, so it wasn't much fun.  Once I finally got her fed and napping, I got all the rest of the squares cut for her quilt.  A friend called and asked if she could borrow my serger, so I took a break to get that out and working.  A word to the serger newbies, like me - when you take the thread spools off, clip the thread a LOT farther away from the first eye than this:

It's practically impossible to tie secure knots onto this short length of thread.  I ended up just stripping out the first one and totally rethreading because it was less hassle than tying the next thread on.  (If you've ever tried to thread a serger, you understand why you don't rethread it every time you change the threads.)  Anyway, it's all up and working now and ready for my friend to pick up.

And NEXT time, I'll leave the threads longer.

I know I'll be at the craft store tomorrow, so I'll pick up some batting and see if I can find a fabric suitable for the setting triangles for my daughter's quilt.  None of the things I already have seem to suit, and I've gone to too much trouble to settle at this point.

Oh, and kitchen window?  You and your pal Winter Sun are on my list.  I don't think I have anything to make a longer curtain with, save thread, but as soon as I'm allowed, your days of glaring at me while I make lunch are OVER.