October Fest hat for a cousin.

A homemade soap dispenser.  No more leaking!

New lounging pants made from sheets.

Another October Fest hat.

October has been a very busy month.  Our little school has been invited to display art at the library!  Our art will be hung for November and December.  So... nearly 245 paintings, drawings and collages have been done and I've mounted everyone of them on poster board for display.  There are so many little details that go into something of this magnitude.  Releases from parents to allow the art to be hung; should we include first name and grade?  No?  Well, some get names and grades and some don't.  It's hard to imagine who'd be hunting for Nick in 4th grade... but you never know!  Once the art is hung, I will post some pics.  Until then, here are a couple of some recent activities.

Stained the fences, while Andre worked on the lawn

An owl hat for a little boy

A frog hat for a special Alaskan baby.

A four-day scrapbooking weekend in Santa Cruz

Forgot these pics of the grapes...
These are hanging in the arbor over the garage door.  We had to hurry and pick them before the mailman ate them all :)

The pears were huge and beautiful

Cooking the pears for the pear butter

Grape jelly and juice

Grape jelly

Pear butter

Pear butter

It has been a long and busy month... for someone who has never canned before, I've done quite a bit (for me!)  We picked nearly all the grapes (merlot, red flame seedless, concord, and just plain green) and made 10 jars of grape jelly and 6 jars of grape juice.  Then I made 10 jars of peach jam from our peaches and 4 jars of pear butter from our pears!  It was a bountiful crop in the orchard this year.  Now I need to make cute labels and get things ready for Christmas gifts!

Peach jam

Peach jam

In an attempt to keep up with technology, I've just received an IPad for a birthday gift.  At this point in time, the frustration level is fairly high.  Why can't I just have Skype like it is on my Mac desktop?  Why can't I find favorites, how am I supposed to remember all those crazy passwords?  I think a nice glass of merlot just might be the answer.  More another day when I can figure things out!

Home owners only 15 minutes and I'm already pulling weeds!

Living room and dining room.  Matching fireplace downstairs.

Kitchen

The shop!  The big selling point for DH.

Back of house and part of patio.  Can't see covered part...

School has already started and I am racing with the wind.  We drove up to Medford last weekend, signed the papers and paid the money for our new little house.  It was hard to tear ourselves away from it.  DH would like to move in right away and I admit... I am needing a new challenge.  Painting and decorating a new house is the perfect cure for my itchy feet!  The property manager feels that the house will rent quickly and she will be careful and find a GREAT tenant.

The  little island is several years old and starting to look a bit tired.  Since I've got black paint left over and it was standing still, I decided to paint it!  Started with washing and sanding on the 3rd, finished today (the 5th) with new pulls.  The bonus?  I cleaned out the drawers and filled a bag with stuff for the thrift stores!  The boyz are fair warned, stand still and you might get painted too!

Bought a couple of very heavy brass lamps (with shades) at the SPCA thrift shop.  While walking around with the lamps another lady wanted to check them out.  It makes you so certain that you are making the right choice when someone else wants your stuff!!  After bringing the lamps home, my neighbor immediately identified them as Stiffel lamps that are quite collectible!  Cleaned them up with some Brasso and they really shine.  I decided to surprise the boyz with a little modification to the shades for their apartment.  I added a little bling around the bottom of the shade and put something inside.  Hope they like them!!