Fishing

These were taken only a couple weeks ago with my dad's Minolta, but they look so strange. Everything is brown in these pictures, but since these were taken, everything is now turned lush and green. My parent's place back home extends down to the creek, so we spend the afternoon fishing. Rand, my sister, and her boyfriend fished, while I photographed. 

I was really determined to get some close detail shots, and some photos with a clear subject. I'm talking about something here I really know very little about, but I'm trying to get better, and I'm kind of happy with some of these. I took it for granted while I was growing up here, but this place is really beautiful.

That fish got thrown back, don't worry. To get out to the middle where the others wanted to fish, I had to wade out in the water wearing my mother's rain boots. They sprung a leak at some point, and I had wet feet all day. And look at my sister, working that fishing line with her nails did! She's twice the woman I'll ever be. 

High Five for Friday

Teaching keeps me very busy, so this little blog has been abandoned for few Fridays.  So here's several week's worth of highs combined into one Friday's Five post.

1. Two weeks ago was Teacher Appreciation Week.  I came into the school to find my classroom door decorated!  TAW is pretty much the most amazing week of the year.  I love my job!

2.  This past week my finger swelled up for no apparent reason.  That is my spray painting finger, but it's never happened before.

3.  I finally broke down and went shopping for new shirts.  Shirts are usually the last things I buy, since it's easy to keep wearing old ones for forever, without noticing how ragged they have begun to look.  The Loft was having a sale, so I went for it.

4.  My sister's college graduation was this Thursday. I'm so proud of her! Immediately after this picture, our whole family went out for all-you-can-eat ribs.  It was a great night.

5.  Remember the Joplin Memorial Half I had planned to run?  That didn't end up happening (don't ask...) but I'm hoping to run the Go Girl Half in Columbia this weekend, instead.  One of my first graders made me this 13.1 sign for my car.  Way better than a store bought one, I think!

Well, this was my week off, so I'm hesitant to say "Cheers to the weekend!"  I am getting closer to summer vacation, though...so cheers to the weekend!!  Let's go to Silver Dollar City!

My Drop Cloth Curtains Part 2

Good morning! Remember yesterday when I decided I would try to make my own drop cloth curtains? If not, you can read about that here. Well, I spent the day trying to figure it out and make it work for my windows, so now I have a finished product to share.

Verdict: I like them! They took some work (more on that in a minute) but they were definitely the cheapest option, and I really just like how they look. I hung them as high as I could to where they would just brush the floor, and they ended up being only four inches from the ceiling. I used the 6' x 9' drop cloths, and I cut them in half. This saved me some money, and they still cover the windows for privacy.

Before we get to the details, let's look back at what I was covering my windows with before:

To be fair, these shades started out looking okay, and they looked great when they were open. But over time, they began to sag, and eventually the springs broke and the rod warped, so you had to take them down and manually roll them up if you wanted to let any light in. My husband, who is a vampire, didn't see the problem with this. However, I needed light.

The drop cloth curtain tutorial has been done many, many times, so I'll give you my short, sweet version along with a few things I learned. My windows are 52" across, and my ceilings are 9' high, so I bought one 6' x 9' drop cloth for each window (at $10.98 a piece at Lowe's) and cut each one in half.  This made my panels 3' across, and each window only cost $11.00 in fabric, which is much better than any of my other options. I don't have as much flowy fabric on either side of the window, but I don't really care about that. As long as they cover the windows at night, I consider that to be enough fabric. 

A few things I noticed:

• I accidentally picked up one drop cloth that appeared to be pieced together from leftovers.  I had to make an extra trip to Lowe's to exchange it, so watch for that.
• I didn't have any fabric softener, so I just washed each drop cloth twice with detergent and put it in the dryer. I think they came out soft enough.
• Iron twice. Once I got into a routine and some good TV shows, this wasn't too bad. The crisp, ironed look definitely makes these panels look so much better.
• Since I cut my panels in half, I used Stitch Witchery to hem the edges I cut. I got my iron hot and steamy, and it was so much faster than I could have sewn it.
• Washing and drying cause some of the original stitching to come loose and fray, so I had to spend some time cutting off the parts that looked yucky. It wasn't enough to need more sewing, but it would have looked like fringe if I hadn't cut it off.
• The canvas color is making my BM Moonlight White walls look much more gray.
• I'm wondering if I should "train" my curtains to fold a certain way (by tying the way I want with ribbon for a while) or just let them fall like this.  I think it's kind of nice and casual.

So that is my drop cloth curtain story. Nothing fancy, but once again, this idea is a pretty brilliant way to get some inexpensive, nice looking curtains.  And this means I'm almost ready to share my living room tour!