"Isn't it a breakthrough that I'm a sailor? I sail? I sail now?"

So, I am officially sailing into blogdom. Very, very slowly. I cannot for the life of me figure out how to get breaks in between certain sentences, so be patient.

Brent flew out to SD today, so I have been having a ball today.

Here are a few things that have been happening at :

Last night while we tried to give these away (we had maybe 7 kids...)...

Brent put up these:

Delish! Now the public school bus that parks outside our house every morning won't ever see me in my skiivies as I dash downstairs to feed the dogs.

So, while Brent put up our luxious new faux wood blinds (we will not be revealing where they came from and yes the drapes are temporary - I realize they are a bit obnoxious.) I played with this:

...my new camera. Yes, the box contained a graduate course's worth of information for the operation of my newest pal - my Cannon Rebel. Finally took it out of the box after a month.

Thanks Brent - one of my all time greatest birthday presents. I plan to bring it everywhere with me. At first I could only find the manual in spanish. Nice. Especially since the manual is about 4" x 4" and it is printed in 2 point font. Then I remembered I had been intending to read the manual for a month and scavenged it from a pile in my bedroom.

After an hour:
15 minutes to attached the strap

10 minutes to put in the mini disc

20 minutes to work up the courage to attach the lens

10 minutes of handwashing

5 minutes to take off the lens cap

... I discovered you can be a total inept bobo and still take a semi-interesting picture like this:

This a sham decoration I have in our living room - and, yes, those are spray painted branches from the yard (I heart spray paint) and old coffee beans.

Or, you can take a picture of a sad little creature, banned-from-the-living-room-so-he-doesn't-scare-little-trick-or-treaters like this. Bentley was barricaded in the basement. His level of naughty warrants two levels of barricades.

So once I realized that this camera is actually a very fancy point-and-shoot I took some pics of what we/I've been up to lately.

This is a little dresser from Unique I bought for $14.99, threw into the Focus and hauled home. Last weekend I spray painted it and antiqued it.

Notice how jazzy it looks (I know, it needs different handles). Look below at the lovely details, such as the antiqued knobs.

This will house our computer bags, my purse, etc. in a more fashionable way.

"A vacation...from my problems."

An apt way to lead you into what I was up to today (thusfar). Lucky Brent. He will get to see the wierd stuff I have been doing all day while he was gone.

I decided a vacation from my own problems was needed so here is what I did:

By the way, that little item in the front is a scrapper's best friend. Probably the greatest hand-held scrapping tool of all time. A mini-sander.

I created this (note I had a bit of a barn fetish today):

Please know it looks better in real life - that is if you like scrap book paper barn creations framed in thrift store picture frames.

And next...the 'piece de resistance'

I hired a 5th grade neighbor girl to paint this:

Actually - I painted that. As I hung it up and stood back to look at it, I realized that it did not quite have the 'look' I had intended and it indeed looks like a 5th grader painted it. And, I as sit here, I realize it it going to be quite the shock for Brent as this is now hanging above the bed in our bedroom.

What a lucky man that I am such a talented artist and so precise when hanging things.

At least I did a good job with this:

A scrap page of our first Thanksgiving here at Echols (picture is flipped - awesome).

Below is proof that I am caring for our dogs - Oscar prefers the cool stream of 'fresh' water fromt the bathtub.

Check out that tongue.

Oh, and he says 'hello' to all his fans out there. He is having his own personal lickfest '09 right next to me while I blog. Mmmmm - licking sounds.

Brent - you better have had a margarita for me.

Hello family!!!!!!!!

"Oh, it's the fam!"

Hey y'all - miss you lots. See you soon - hopefully at Christmas. That is, if we don't have to mortgage the house in order to buy tickets to fly out there.

- KO