My Craftiness

This is the long awaited post. Maybe by only my sister... but still long awaited by Leslie :)

Today, yes today, it is warm enough that they have opened the door and I have internet in my house! To celebrate, I am posting this.

Here is what I gave Leslie and Hannah for Christmas. I bought cardigans at Target and embroidered on them. Here is the back of Leslie's:


This is the front of Hannah's, sorry the picture is not on here straight


The front of Leslie's:


I tried to make leslie's look like a mum flower, I thought it turned out well. I want to make one for myself now!


Last time I went home, the end of January for Whitney's wedding, I finally picked up my kitchen hutch. I absolutely love this piece of furniture. It was a gift from my parents for our wedding. They found it at an auction. I store all of my china in it and other breakables


Since we got the hutch we had to move the armoir into the 2nd bedroom. Ryan's parents gave this armoir to us, we love it and it is so beautiful! I put on top the teapot and platter that Ryan made for me and used when we proposed to me. The flowers were used in my wedding, I saw tons of flowers left over from my wedding sitting in my mom's house. I decided to take some and use around my house.


Here is a big project that took quite awhile. When we moved in we did not have very much privacy. For some reason Pat and Veronica did not have blinds or anything over the wide open windows on the doors. So, I bought some fabric from hobby lobby and made my own curtains. This was a first for me, but I am happy with how they turned out. I picked a fabric that would contrast well with the yellow walls and bring it out as well.


I was not sure how to do it, because I wanted it to cover the entire window at night, but I needed to be able to move it a bit to let light in during the day. I opted to sew a ribbon on the back and i just tie and untie it when I want.


With the little bit of leftover fabric I had I made tieback for the curtains in the living room. I bought these brown curtains from walmart.



I did not have enough for the loan curtain by the kitchen, so i picked a funky fabric my sister gave me :)



The next is an idea my friend Callie sent to me. She is SUPER crafty herself. The most talented crocheter I have ever seen! She crocheted me a miniature horse ornament for Christmas, hopefully I can post that soon, it is so amazing. So basically these are embroidery hoops (total of $3.50 for these three) and some fabric scraps my mom gave me from the discontinued fabric from louis shanks.


I hope to add some more, I wasn't sure how many I would need when I was at the store. They are so inexpensive and they look really neat! I love the textures of these fabrics so most likely I am going to add more!


I do have more crafts that I have made that I will someday post. For now, I hope this gave you an idea of how I keep myself busy out in Gainesville. Now the job is taxes, definitely not as fun as crafting!

Valentine's Day

This Valentine's Day was a wonderful day. As you know it is our first as a married couple. On most Sunday's Ryan and I make a good hearty breakfast together. This Sunday Ryan woke up early and went to the store to get me flowers, knowing I wouldn't wake up until he got back. So he made me breakfast, cinnamon banana pancakes, fried eggs and bacon. It was amazing, he even set out the china! Then we went to church and came back home. That night he made me dinner. Above is him cooking :) Here is the bacon wrapped asparagus he made, yum!


This is a picture of my gift to him. We did not have money to buy anything so I thought of what I could do without spending much money. I made sugar cookies for him and a valentine that won't just go into the trash. Growing up my siblings and I would make valentines for each other with paper and construction paper. I decided to embroider on natural, unstained cotton my message to him and then with fabric make the outside of the card. The outside is brown with a big heart on it.


Ryan ate the "N" so we moved the letters around and well... apparently I love Ray now... weird.


Here are my flowers :) I am a very traditional girl... therefore, I love flowers. I had to decorate the cookies on the table because Ryan was working his magic on the counters.



I was obviously feeling festive with the red shirt and white cardigan. The meal was amazing!


And my lovely husband :)


Here is that magic I was telling you about:


So overall, it was a great day. I hope yours was too!

Ridiculous

I know, it has been over a month and there has been no post from me, not even a word or a picture. I have no excuse, other than the bitter cold weather. I have not been busy, I have been at home, enjoying married life with my husband, working on crafts, cleaning and taking walks on the ranch.

Here is why this blog is not frequent in the winter. Our house sits across the street from the barn. Our internet source comes from the office which is in the barn. There is a large garage type door that closes the barn up when it is cold. Our house sits at just the right angle so that when that door is shut, which now it is always shut, our house cannot get the wifi. Therefore, to get the internet connection, we must come down in the cold to the office... and right now I am sitting in our little honda outside of the office. So you see that it is a big pain to come use the internet and if I do come down to use it, I only want to stay here for 20 min tops. So, surfing the internet is no longer a past time for Ryan and I. It is merely a tool, only used when needed.

Also, the foot of snow that we had on the ground has definitely slowed my use of the internet.

So if you are wondering why I am raving about this.... My sister posted on her blog and made a comment about how I do not post very often, so this is my reply :) I know she is trying to gently nudge me on because she wants me to post about my crafts and such. I have taken pictures of them so hopefully you can see them soon.

Until then, enjoy the wintery weather, I am going for a run in 35 degree weather, I love it, you don't even break a sweat!

Grit

The Rushing family has a new addition :) Our Christmas gift to ourselves was a new dog. He is a miniature Australian Shepherd. We have named him Grit. We picked him up from Albion, OK. It was a long 3 hour drive and the breeder was a bit shady with a million dogs. Thankfully she did not breed this dog, and he has proved to be the perfect fit for us.


He is becoming more confident in himself. We live on a ranch without fences for dogs, so his lifestyle is a bit different than most dogs. We have to train him to be loyal to us and to come when we call. He is becoming more and more loyal which is wonderful.


He enjoys playing with our adopted blue heeler named Blue. She treats him as her pup. He tries to show her his stuff, hoping to impress her, yet she just treats him like a little kid rather than a prospect male, ha! Blue is owned by Ryan's boss. They moved off the ranch so she stays on the ranch with us. Grit is enjoying his new life, and we are enjoying him!

Stockings

It has been a crazy crazy time for the Rushing household, but what else would I expect being a Rushing wife?! There are many reasons why I have not posted lately, and many of you know why that is. I thought I would post this really quick because if I don't I will not post it until after Christmas and this is quite a Christmas-y post.

It is mine and Ryan's first Christmas together, our first Christmas no longer being under our parent's roofs, eventhough we thankfully get to be there with them! So I thought, we need stockings!

I brought Ryan with me to the fabric store. This was quite an experience for him, I was not sure how he would take it, but apparently it made a huge impact in his life. While I was looking at fabric, Ryan was looking at sewing, quiltting and craft books when he found one with an old lady on it with the title "still stripping after 25 years." It was unbelievable. Apparently "stripping" is a term used for quiltting in that they strip the fabric... but wow, did she not know?!? Ryan proceeding to take a picture with my phone and send it to all of our family. He later shared it with our small group at church. I mean, this trip to the fabric store greatly impacted him.

Anywho, Ryan did help me pick out fabric, he is a wonderful husband :)

Also, we moved out of the trailer! We are no longer trailer trash! I will have a post to follow about that, there is just not time now. But here is a picture of our stockings that I made hanging in our new living room.


Sadly, we do not have a fire place, but I am not complaining! I love having normal plumbing and a dishwasher!
This is my stocking:

And here is Ryan's:

And the inside is full of cookies! Because there are always wonderful goodies in stockings!

Hope you like them! Merry Christmas!!

Big night in Pilot Point

This post is mainly for my sister, Leslie. I know that she will get the greatest level of enjoyment from this post :)

Yesterday was Friday. Ryan had just finished work and we were sitting down for dinner when I got a text message from a friend named Amanda who is in our home group. She was asking if I would like to meet her half way and hang out. (she lives in Denton, which is where our home group is, and we live in Gainesville about 40 min away). It was going to be a girl thing, but the guys agreed if her husband and Ryan came they would come, neither one wanted to be the only guy there.

Well, the only problem is, there are not many good meeting spots half way between Gainesville and Denton. There are no Starbucks or very good restaurants. Yet, I remembered that there was a dairy queen on the South side of Pilot Point. So we decided to make that our meeting destination. Ryan and I packed up and left and I talked to my sister, leslie, on the way there. We pulled up and noticed a lot of trucks in the parking lot. Lots of trucks is very normal for where we live, but they all had dog crates in the back and these crazy tool boxes. Then we noticed a circle of high school boys in camo talking outside. We just thought they were trying to look cool. When we got inside we noticed a large group of older men in camo sitting around the tables talking. We decided to wait for our friends on our tailgate in the parking lot though. Once outside we realized that all of the trucks had dogs in crates in the back. We could here them all wimpering, wanting to get out... it was pretty cute.

Then, an older man walked out and changed out of boots into these big mud boots that go up to your hips (kind of like waders, but they clip to your belt. they looked like chaps, ha!). He went inside and another guy came out and put his on. Ryan and I were like... did they go hunting or something? I started thinking well... it looks like they may be about to go hunting. Yet, it was pitch black outside!

Next, everybody got up and went out into the parking lot. They were all gearing up, putting on their big boots, all of their crazy gear, and they all had huge head lamps on their hats. They all got their dogs out and put light up collars on them. Finally,a guy came near us and we asked him, what are y'all hunting for? He replied ever so eliquantly, " Coons."

I am not sure if they are in a club or what. They had ring leaders that were guiding certain groups and they were hitting different spots around the area. There's nothing better than goin' coon huntin' on a friday night in pilot point!

We were really hoping our friends who live in the city would be able to see the sight we saw, yet they didnt get there until all of the coon hunters had left!

Sadly, I do not have any pictures, I thought it would be really weird if I just starting taking pictures... and I didnt have a camera :(

Our Halloween/Reformation Day Camping date extravaganza!

This Halloween/Reformation Day, Ryan and I decided to have a small adventure. :)

Ryan had to work in the morning, I helped him bathe all of the horses, and we were finished by lunch time. The day was absolutely GORGEOUS! So we drive about 20 minutes south to Lake Ray Roberts State Park. We found a nice camping spot and made a camp fire. We made hot dogs and smores! Ryan took some time before we left and made me a camping "Mix tape."



On the way to the park we stopped at a small grocery store in Pilot Point. I looked at the aisle sign and saw something that I just had to take a picture of. Apparently, Catsup is another way to spell Ketchup for some people. I think they just don't know how to spell... but you can decide that for yourself.


This is a picture of the goods!


We were super excited about the smores... and chocolate. I think Ryan and I have spent quite a bit of time together. I told Ryan to look excited and he made the exact same face as me! Ha!


I had to post this picture of Ryan's manliness. He wore his "Al Boreland" shirt. (he calls it that!) He had quite a bit of fun with that hatchet!


I don't know if you can see this picture, but it was a crazy big Daddy Long Leg spider. Thankfully he got out of the pit before we got the fire started.


A major reason Ryan wanted to go out to the park was so he could smoke his pipe out in the woods. Our new home group leader, Bo, is an avid pipe smoker and he taught Ryan the right way to do it. We picked out some pretty great smelling tobacco.


The leaves in the trees looked like they had catepillars eating them!


This is me smelling Ryan's tobacco. He has one called Professor's blend and the other Saddlemans. He said he felt cheesy for buying Saddleman's, but he said it just smelled too good.
Notice, the Bible in my lap. We feel that the Bible goes well with wine and pipe smoking :)





I hope you guys had a loving Reformation Day as well! We had a great time celebrating! We even met a couple and talked for about 2 hours over a camp fire about the Lord! Hopefully they will know Him soon. God bless!