Hobbies at Home

I apologize for my 4 month absence on my blog, but I am back and in full swing! To start off again I am going to answer the most frequently asked question of late:

"So what are you doing these days?"

"I'm living at home, with my parents."

"O ok, doing what?"

"Well my job starts back in August, down in Charleston, so I am just doing whatever- mainly babysitting, cooking, and having time to finally do some hobbies"

"O what hobbies do you do?"

"Since I have some time on my hands, I am focusing on sewing, crafts, small construction projects, gardening, decorating rooms in the house and photography"

This is what my normal conversation is like with anyone these days. It is a little hard to explain in a 'I-have-a-few-moments-and-will-ask-you-about-your-life-conversation'. Not that those are bad convos, but it is just a little hard to fit in what I do now into them. Probably because in those conversations, people expect you to fit into their little boxes of what people usually do- med school, grad school, law school, married, work in an office from 9-5. Sorry I don't fit into those boxes...not yet at least- grad school: probably in the future, married: if God wills it, work in an office from 9-5: hopefully never, unless that office is outside/on the beach.


It is especially confusing when people ask me where I live or where I am from. Because right now, and until August, I will be living in Indian Land (yes, that is the actual name of a town- completely not P.C. but whatever), SC. It is about 10 minutes from Ballantyne, NC where my sister, brother in law and little nephew live. But come mid August I move back to Seabrook Island, 45 minutes outside of Charleston, to continue my job as a Naturalist at Barrier Island Environmental Education Center. (This brings me to another confusing area in the conversation- but I will expand on that in another post (with pictures!) ). They then ask me if I am from the this area and I go on to say politely, "No, I am from Madison, WI and I went to school at Wheaton College outside of Chicago". Little do they know that when they start this polite and culturally expected conversation, they will get a short life history to understand why I am here now.


But now we are back at the beginning explaining what I am doing with my life these days. My goal for the summer is just do things that I don't have enough time to do otherwise like construction, sewing, cooking and photography. And I need to say I get a lot of my inspiration from Pinterest! (confession: I am completely obsessed)  


So far I have been able to complete at least one project in all the areas! I sewed my little nephew Kai a shirt for his 1st birthday, I made a raised bed garden with trellis for Brian, my brother in law, I am the cook for my parents while I live at home and I took 7 family photo shoots for Father's Day- those pictures will be in another post.


So here are my projects so far :) :) 


CONSTRUCTION:{for those of you that are confused on how I got into construction, I really got a taste for this past spring when I built, with help of course, a snake cage for my pet ball python, Simba. A post will be coming soon to show that off- I am proud of my work :)! }


For Brian's birthday, Lani wanted to make him a raised bed garden. Well she wanted someone to make and couldn't herself so she commissioned me to make it. It was really fun and surprisingly easy to make. I just used treated cedar, a power drill, hammer and nails. The verdict is still out for the trellis, but that will either be simple wires or we will get a wooden lattice for plants to grow up.

For the corners you want to make sure that one end of the plank is on the outside of the touching plank, while the opposite end is in the inside. This ensures you have a square :)

 It was really easy to put together when you drill the hole first and then hammer in the nail. Obviously, you want the drill bit/hole to be smaller than the nail gauge or else it won't hold together.

The almost finished trellis frame and the completed garden bed. 

And that's it, the super easy raised bed garden. If anyone wants more detailed instructions, just let me know I will add it :) But here is where I got my instructions from: http://boyslife.org/hobbies-projects/funstuff/7222/plant-a-compact-vegetable-garden/ Now we just need to get the soil and pick out the plants. Pictures to come for sure!

And here there are :) We went to Lowe's and got the plants and almost finished before the rains came. But for the last 15 minutes, Brian and I worked in the rain, which was actually a welcome change from the high 90's and high humidity.

What we got:

the herbs- sweet basil, oregano, parsley, cilantro & lemon verbena

the veggies- tomatoes, cucumbers, yellow squash, and green peppers

That's it! Now all we have to do is keep them alive and wait for the yummy veggies! Lani can use the herbs already and you know I will be over there this week making something with that fresh basil ;) Now, I want one, but I guess I need a place I call home for more than a few months in order to have a garden...

SEWING:

{I also got into sewing this 

last spring when I made this apron}

So in Hawaii last month on our family vacation, I kept seeing this "HE>i" logo everywhere and kept wondering what it was. I wondered if it had any Christian basis to it or if it was just a Hawaiian abbreviation I was not familiar with. I finally looked it up on my phone after I saw the 20th pickup truck drive past with it on it's window. I was pleasantly surprised to find that it is based on the bible verse John 3:30, "He must become greater and greater and I must become less and less." (to learn more click here: http://hegreaterthani.com/pages/about-us) As I read more about this 'lifestyle company' that sells clothing, I decided to support them. I wanted to get little Kai a shirt from them but they didn't have kids clothing. 


So I thought I would just buy him a shirt and iron the patch I bought. Well then I found a tutorial on Pinterest on how to make a little kid shirt from an XL adult shirt and made up my mind. I was going to make it. Unfortunately, I didn't use an old shirt, nor did I have a real pattern. So I just used fabric and that was a mistake, especially for my first attempt. So instead of taking my 90 minutes, it took about 6 hours... haha I guess I just love him that much ;) Here is the link to the instructions: http://www.danamadeit.com/2008/07/tutorial-the-90-minute-shirt.html

 It is called an envelope neck, like a onesie, to make it easy for changing. 

 For my first attempt at this shirt, I say I did pretty good. Definitely room for improvements: like being able to attach sleeves! haha But Lani loved it and Kai looks super cute in it. I just need to hem it up some so it is not a dress on the Little Man:

  

{please excuse my messiness, we just got back from the pool with Lola/grandma}

COOKING: {I have always loved cooking}

After Kai's first birthday party we had a ton of veggies and fruit left over from all the party platters. So we bagged it all up and saved it for smoothies and stir fries and cucumber water! :)

 

 As part of my 'rent' I am the cook in the house now. So I looked up a recipe and made a yummy beef stir fry. I love tweaking recipes and so I substituted mirin (a sweet rice vinegar) and a normal rice vinegar instead of using a white wine as the recipe called for. As a result it came with a slight sweet and salty taste. Next time I will dilute the sauce a little more with some water and add in mushrooms, peas and maybe baby corn or water chestnuts.

It was really good and we have been having it for leftovers since :)

So basically this summer and to answer the question: 

"What are you up to now?"- I am creating. 

Which is great since we are creations and all we create hopefully gives glory back to our Creator. (of course, I had to throw in a tiny devo- this blog is called 'Light and Blessing' ;) )I am so happy and blessed to have this time to create- if you have any suggestions let me know! But I will be updating this blog all summer with my different projects so stay tuned! In this post alone I think I promised at least 3 other posts: my job as a naturalist, Simba's cage and the Father's Day shoots!