Yard Sale - WOO HOO

So we are had a yard sale. Our neighborhood association is awesome and does a yard sale every year. The even advertise for it and stuff. Cool! Anyway I usually have a hard time parting with things, but if you have seen our basement - wow - we need no let go of A LOT of items. Since we bought our house our parents bring boxes of our things that we had stored at their homes. My mom brought totes and totes of old pictures, high school awards, old clothes, etc. and our basement is out of control..........

We are planning on finishing the basement to have more living space (hopefully within the next year) so we are really did our our best to put things on the yard sale. Now...for those of you that know me, you know that I like to be hyper organized and disorder stresses me out a bit - so trying to get ready for that yard sale was a major stress - but I have to say it was worth it in the end. About half of our things sold and we made more money that we anticipated. Plus all the neighbors that live on our particular street are doing another sale again in June so we may just put the things out that didn't sell again and see what happens!

Here are a few pictures of our stuff all out at the yard sale......

Here is the aftermath of what we didn't sell to be back on the market in June for round 2 of the yard sale.

Cardinals

Do cardinals mean that spring is officially here? I was out in our backyard watering our sad excuse of a lawn (we planted grass seed instead of sod to save some $$$) and I noticed we have a male and female cardinal that like to frequent our yard. I haven't figured out where their nest is, but they are so beautiful to look at and I love when they come to our house. The sad part is my camera can not zoom in far enough for me to get a good photo of them. I will keep trying, but for now I had to cheat and just show you a picture of one of the relatives of the cardinals that frequent our backyard.

CRAFTING

I love crafting - it makes me feel so free inside - so creative - and so inspired. It is also very different than the science work I do - so I enjoy the escape and taking time to exercise the other half of my brain a bit! Anyway - I haven't had much time to do it in the last few years. My fabric, buttons, ribbons, paper, and tools are all packed away in our basement - or should I say they were.......tonight I got them out and brought them upstairs into our "office". I am going to try and make a crafting corner where I can keep my things out and work on things at nights and on weekends without having to haul tote after tote out of the basement organize and then put everything back at the end of the day. I am totally inspired by Kelly Mccaleb - if you haven't checked our her blog you really need to do it. She also sells her artistic marvels on her ETSY page She is so talented and somedays I wish I was her!! Nicole and I love her!! Anyway - I am going to start taking some time to do crafts again - I will keep you posted on this, but for now....here are a few photos of two of the baby quilts I made before we left Oregon.

One was for my sister's daughter Rita......


and one was for Jon's sister's daughter Ava........


Hopefully more quilts and other fun crafts come!!

The Story of Stuff

This is a thought provoking narrative about consumption in America.
Happy belated Earth Day everyone, enjoy!
Link to STUFF VIDEO....

GOT IT TO WORK

We finally got the video Jon put together from our visit to the Radke's to work. We have just loved thinking back to all the fun we had with our dear old friends! Please pray for their family right now because their youngest son Samuel Jon is in the hospital being tested for SCID "severe combined immunodeficiency". WE LOVE YOU GUYS!!

A weekend of fun - SDSU and RADKES

Last week we took off for Brookings SD on Wednesday after work. On our way to Brookings our hit the 100,000 mile mark - and yes....I took a picture.....
I was asked to come back to SDSU and give the "Robinson Lecture" at SDSU. It was a great honor and felt so good to be back and see so many of my past professors, friends, and family. I had the opportunity to speak to 3 classes of students while I was there, but due to 6" of snow my talk on Thursday night was canceled and rescheduled to the next day in conjunction with a class I was scheduled to talk with. I am sad to say I didn't get my camera out and get a picture - but here is an image of the building I had all of my classes in as an undergrad.

We stayed with my parents and and had so much fun. My mom and I went through the cedar closet in the basement and sorted through old prom dresses and bridesmaid dresses to decide what to keep and what had to go. We also went to a movie shared a lot of laughs.

On Saturday we drove to Beresford SD to visit our friends the Radkes. Jon went to middle school and high school with Mike we feel lucky to still be close to them. We had a fun day with Mike, his wife Danielle, and their three kids: Will, Katelyn, and Samuel. We through there kids a little bit out of their normal routine and riled them up a bit - which produced great fun and some low moments for the kids. In any regard - it was refreshing to see them and spend time with old friends. Although Jon likes to claim that I am the "blogger" in the family (and sometimes writes as if it is me writing) he crafted the video from our time at the Radkes. You will all be able to tell this based on his play on Star Wars - (My first star wars movie was Episode I and jon is enamored and slightly embarrassed to say that I am probably the only person ever to have watched the series in chronological order).

Anyway - Enjoy the pictures from the weekend and the video.....
The video is still to come - it was processing for 24 hours and it is NOT THAT LONG - hmmmmm. Maybe my computer savvy husband can figure it out later tonight.....we are off to work.