What a Year

Remember when I had a blog?  Needless to say, life has run away with my brain over the past six months or so.  I have at least four unpublished drafts that I started and then stopped.  Those memory verses I committed to doing?  Total fail.... I send heartfelt apologies to anyone who was actually following those with me.  Recently I visited my family and my cousins pointed out that I haven't been writing and encouraged me to start again. Thanks, cousins.

So HI! I'm back. For now... This post is just to catch everyone up. :)

Is 2013 over yet?  This year has been a truly crazy year.  Totally awesome - but crazy.  I just want a breather.  I just want a routine and for life to be a little boring for a while.

I think I started flaking out on the blog around the time I started my level II OTA fieldwork rotations.  First I did eight weeks at a continuing care retirement facility.  I loved it!  My clients were sweet as pie and even those that weren't were endearing.  Then I did eight weeks at an outpatient pediatric facility and loved that too.  The kids made me laugh, my instructor trusted me to lead sessions, and by the end of it I felt like I could actually do this job!  Those were very busy but enjoyable months.

During my pediatric rotation we started looking at houses, not expecting to find anything we liked right away.  A few weeks later we found THE house for us, and because of the market in Austin, we jumped on it right away.  We closed on the house the week after I finished my fieldwork.  We love our big bonus room over the garage with vaulted ceilings.  It's the perfect lounging room!  We also rather enjoy living near the high school and hearing the football games and marching band practice.

Shortly after we bought the house, my mother-in-law and nephew came to visit!  Tyler loved playing in the sprinklers and Debbie enjoyed checking out our new place.  

We went to Lowe's...

 Debbie and Tyler also were around to see me graduate!

A few days after they left, my mom came!  We painted a lot.  I finally got my green room.

The next thing I knew, we had a dog.  I'd been wanting one to train to be a therapy dog, and this sweetie fell in our laps at just the right time.  Who could say no to that face?  If only training could happen overnight.  Stanley the cat still rules around here though.

My name is Elsie Margaret Houdini Thompson!

Once I felt sufficiently settled, I spent my energy throwing a big housewarming party.  I was so excited to have SPACE to have more than six people over.  So I threw a party for 30!  We had a great time, even though it rained.  We needed it so badly here in Texas that we were thrilled with it. After everyone left, we got 5 inches that night. Praise God!

Our home is officially warm.

After all this, I felt like I could finally focus on taking my certification test to become a COTA and find a job.  I scheduled my test for October 10th and started studying.  And immediately, life took another turn when I got the phone call.  We've all had that phone call that changes our lives, and if you haven't yet, then you will.  My dad called to tell me that my Papa Jack was at the hospital after falling unconscious.  We rapidly learned that he had suffered a massive stroke with damage to multiple areas of his brain.  My family opted for no life support, and he was moved to hospice where he passed on to Glory two days after his stroke.  If you don't know about my grandparents and how special they are to me, they were the subject of my second blog post.  So I rescheduled my test and booked a bereavement flight to North Carolina to be with my family.  My entire family showed up from all over the country, as far as Seattle and Hawaii.  It was a blessed week, and because of the timing of everything else I was still jobless and available to stay with my grandmother an additional week.  Spending quality time with my grandma in my favorite mountains in the fall was a gift.  I miss my Papa fiercely but know that we will meet and hug and laugh again.  Because my Papa loved and served the Lord with all his heart, I know he is safe and dancing with the angels.

Cruising in the Bahamas with my grandparents 2002

My last picture with both of them. Christmas 2012. Matt and I left from there
to go to the Biltmore Estate after my grandparents eagerly bought tickets for us.

Grandma and I at the Memorial Service

Papa loved these mountains, and so do I.

I came home after an emotional couple of weeks (or months, really) to face my test.  I found out two days later that I PASSED and am now a licensed Certified Occupational Therapy Assistant. I have letters after my name.  My next task is to find a job where I can use those letters!  I have so many other things I'd like to share with everyone, but I'll have to save them for the next posts - which I will do. For real.

Fall in Texas - Lost and Found

Fall in Austin is really more like Spring #2.  The temperature becomes more tolerable so you get back outside, rainfall increases (hopefully!) and if it does then the grass greens up and wildflowers bloom.  We might get a few days of cool crisp real fall-like weather, but not much until later in November or even December.  The weather is gorgeous here, but we do miss real fall and the trees changing colors.  So yesterday we went with some buddies of ours to find fall!

Lost Maples, west of San Antonio, is one of the few areas that has numerous maple trees in the area.  Maple trees mean fall colors!  We had a fun 3.5 hour road trip down and back and a 4.6 mile hike through the park.  We were famished after the hike and found a delicious small-town BBQ restaurant as soon as we were done.  We love Texas Hill Country and Texas BBQ.

Halfway through the hike we had a steep climb up the side of a mountain.  Yes there are mountains in central Texas - or very big hills!  When we got to the top I was thrilled to see a view not unlike back home in areas of the Appalachian mountains.  That is part of our trail to the right of the river - really steep climb!

The maples were just beginning to turn pretty colors.  In another week they should be looking really great!

Hubs has enjoyed working on his photography skills!

I love fall!

Changeable Seasonal Wreath

One of my first Pinterest discoveries was this wreath.  It's simply burlap strips wrapped around a styrofoam form.  Three loops are placed on the wreath for you to connect different decor to it, so you can change it throughout the year!  Genius idea.  (My input on her tutorial is that painting the form black is an unnecessary step - white is fine!)  

I have a new love for felt flowers. My first wreath was for the spring.  Tutorial for the spring pom pom flowers.  These flowers were really easy and all you need is felt, something round for tracing, scissors, and a hot glue gun.

I switched up the flowers over the summer for the 4th of July!  These flowers were prettier, made a bigger statement, and were a really big hit.  They were also very easy.  Same materials required.  Tutorial here.  The only thing I did differently was hot glue these little gems in the center instead of a button.

I'm so excited that it's fall. I absolutely love fall decorations.  Maybe even a tiny bit more than I love Christmas decorations!  Here's my fall wreath and  Here's my inspiration blog.  I did change a few more things on these!  See below.

First of all I needed bigger flowers than this tutorial made.  So using a 12 inch long piece of felt, I drew out 4 big petals - roughly 1 3/4 inch high and 3in wide.  

I found it easiest to line the top of the petals with the ruler and to mark the width of them about halfway up from the bottom.  This got me the most evenly shaped petals.  Do slightly less than 3in to get the nice slopes on each end, you can see my dot is just shy of reaching the 9in mark on the ruler.  See my random dot in the middle there?  Am I really confusing you yet?  I am not skilled enough to cut evenly without a line so I draw it all out with a pen.  To avoid the pen marks on your flower, just cut right below the line.

To do the center part I used the same system but made them about 1 1/2 inches in both height and width and I used the shorter end of my felt sheet, so only about 8 inches long. 

  
If you don't have any sewing skills like me then the next part is tricky. If you have needle and thread skills then this next part is cake.  Weave your near matching colored thread in and out along the bottom.  Keep it pulled tight and then stitch together the ends so that it becomes a circle and completes your flower!  You really want the smaller piece pulled together tight so you have somewhere to stick your button or whatever you want to put in the middle.  If you have no needle and thread skills like me, I found it easiest to use a doubled up piece of thread that was only a little longer than the piece of felt I was working on.  Don't make it too long or it will become a knotted nightmare.

Weaving the thread, but keep it scrunched up tighter than this!

After you make your big petals and your smaller petals, you can either stitch them together or use hot glue like I did.  I want to use needle and thread as little as possible.  Here are the three pieces you'll be putting together.  Notice how a hole in the middle of the the larger flower is fine, but you want to minimize it as much as possible in the smaller flower that will be on top.  Just keep stitching it up like crazy!  It can be a mess, just cover up your crazy stitches with a cute button!  

To finish it, hot glue or stitch a clip onto the back that you can clip onto your wreath.  Using clips lets you move them around easily and put them on whatever you want!