While the sewing machine is away....

....the Lumplings don't play!

I broke my beautiful new sewing machine.

Something about screwing up the timing. So she is off at the repair place to get her inside bits tickled.

The lady at the sewing machine store was so sympathetic, she didn't even accuse me of machine abuse once! She even petted the sewing machine and told me how sorry she was that it wasn't working.

This lady obviously understands the bond between a girl and her machine.

I do have some Lumplings done, just not too many of them have baby Lumps. I will still launch a new herd for adoption sometime in the next couple of weeks.

One more day of school left!

Today was award day at Finn's school. He came home with awards in Computer, Language Arts, & Music.

We are awfully proud of him!

Happy Mama Day!

Hans & Finn surprised me with breakfast in bed.

Complete with fresh roses and mint from our garden.

I've never been so coddled!

Finn made this tile for me at school. The green lady is me...maybe with a perm? Check out my giant flowers!

Ella went into panic mode this morning when she saw Finn hand me a gift and wrapped up a shiny marble in Hello Kitty paper for me. She also drew this picture of wild sheep and their kitty. Um, I think the kitty is the one about to fly into the sun.

Tea Towels & rosy woes

I'm a bad blog mama, that's for sure.

I think about making a post daily...but then I get distracted by pretty things, like my roses here!

Unfortunately, that Easter Freeze wiped out the blooms from my large rose bed in the front. Usually we would have hundreds of hot pink blooms right now, and I really mean hundreds, cars slow down in front of the house during the first bloom, people come to a sudden stop when walking by and ask about the type of rose bush.

A portion of the rose bed from last year in the first blush

But now, there are only a few little blooms. The bushes are not dead, and for that I am grateful, but oh how I miss the blooms.

When I'm not cursing Jack Frost, a whole lotta needle threading has been going on.

I adore travel tea towels, but I need something more absorbent in the kitchen for drying hands after washing. So I took these mint vintage towels, then I cut up some of my older terry cloth bath towels that had a few worn spots and smacked them together.

Well, maybe I didn't actually "smack" them, but I sewed them together like a pillow case and then did an extra stitch around the edge after turning them right side out so they won't warp in the wash.

So now I have pretty towels for drying my hands than I have been obsessively washing.

It's all about the pretty. And maybe the washing.

All of my efforts to give love to my kitchen didn't prevent me from dropping one of my favorite bowls last weekend. Later that same day I dropped one of my Smurf glasses too, but luckily that one didn't break.

Oh, the horrors if a Smurf glass breaks.

You understand, right? Right?

Smurfs!

small pleasures mine

Tallulah Bankhead: "Why, it's as easy as ducking for apples."

Dorothy Parker: "Hah, change one letter in that sentence and you've got the story of my life."

Our new little fat belly tea pot has a brilliant strainer hiding in the spout, keeping the pesky leaves out of the cups.

Hans and I have been so thrilled with watching the tea leaves dance about that our eyeballs are floating from drinking so many cups.

Now I need a good source for loose leaf tea that we can afford given our million cups a day habit!

More small pleasures this week include sending off all of the Lumplings, making a new flower bed and moving my heucheras to a more friendly spot in the garden, walking the Renn Fest, Rocky Road ice cream, installing a new ceiling fan (can never have enough in Georgia!), leaving the windows open to enjoy the breeze and planting my rear end on the sofa sewing more Lumplings while watching _How Clean is Your House?_ on bbc america.

All in all, a near perfect week for me!

Do you remember the first time you realized that you lift another human?

The knowledge has gone to Finn's head and Ella is never safe these days! I'm waiting for day that she turns around and picks him up too.

Dover with love

Did you know that if you sign up at dover publications they will send you free clip art every week?

Everything from vintage luggage labels to holiday art from their famous clip art books.

Dover has been a constant in my life, and I love how they still sell the same coloring books that I had as a child. I'm looking forward to getting new copies of my old favorites for my munchkins.

oh my goodness

Hobo here was the love of the adoption and I had the most requests for her. She went super fast! I love her frilly ruff; it's a bit of trim that I've been holding onto for a long time, waiting for the perfect time to cut it. I think Hobo wears it well.

Finally got the website up and running about thirty minutes past when I needed it to work!

But new Lumpling parents were determined and adopted the Lumplings that could be seen, all of the other pictures had that lovely little red x.

I'm so sorry for any troubles that this caused anyone trying to get into the site for adoption today. After today, I'm having a stern talk with the ole website, and put the fear of Lump into it!

website woes

I just found out that the "shop" page on the amy rue website isn't working!

I'll try to fix it...not sure what is happening!

I'm still working on this. Trying to get the website published.

So sorry for all of the trouble!

*update* I'm republishing the entire site, and I think that it's working...toes crossed... The lumplings are going to be tardy today.

sigh.