Friday, December 28, 2012

Cell Phone Pictures

We don't have much of a camera and we don't have a lot of things to photograph anyway, but I found several pictures between our two phones that were worth the time to save.

---My favorite guy in the world who is sitting on the couch he so sweetly got delivered to our house---

---I'm working on this one!---

---A rag quilt I made for Mom and Dad---

---I really, really did it! :) ---

---The colorful tool boxes in our shop---

---The pile of Amish hats at the Amish wedding---

---The most adorable onesie I found this summer and didn't know who to buy it for---

---The coolest quilt I have seen in a while---

---The mud wasp nest I found on the fan in the spare bedroom of our house--

--- Some of my favorite flowers and they dry beautifully---

Tuesday, December 25, 2012

(Although They've Been Married For 5 Months)

These two
tied the knot.

The big day came.






The musicians played
 and the wedding began.
 My poor dad had to give his second daughter away. 
This picture is so sweet!

The little girls got a wee bit tired.
  Kaylee and I sang one of Lanna's favorite songs: 
"All Heavens Declare"

Micah and Lanna stood there.

They said some little words,

and had a little hand shake,


and then a little kiss,

and made a really BIG commitment!

It was just after they were officially married that Kaylee and I gave each other a big high five. 
It was loud.
 The effect was perfect!

 Some of us walked down the aisle quite happy,
and some of us walked down pretty sad.

Then there were pictures to take.


Three brothers

Three sisters




 Lanna's side of the family


Micah's side of the family


The whole bridal party

Ice cream sundaes were on the menu, so we didn't waste much time!





And then, sorta just like that, they were off!
Love you guys!

Monday, December 24, 2012

How To Clean a Shop Floor in 34 Easy Steps

1) Find a Holiday- Christmas Eve would be a great example!

2) Convince your husband and employees that no one is working that day.

3) Come in on Saturday and clean. Everything. All over. Work benches, tools, floors, lifts, tool boxes.... Shelve excess parts that have laid around for a while. Sweep. Clean. Organize.

4) Sleep in on Monday morning. Just a tad. And then go to work much later than you normally would, say about ten o'clock.

5) Organize some more; Clean a little bit more.

6) Wait for your husband to finish talking to a customer. Then get his help to move several large items, like transmissions and such, onto the lift. Raise it high.

7) Remove the truck from the other side of the shop and then refill that bay with all the things in your way, like tool boxes and welders and trash cans.

8) Take a quick trip up to the bulk food store to buy some energy food- like chocolate milk.

9) Realize that the waste oil burner is almost out of oil, so bring in another 55 gallon drum of antifreeze/oil mix. Bucket by bucket, refill the two barrels: the badly mixed barrel and the completely-oil barrel for the furnace.


10) Clean up the mess you made on the floor when you didn't quite get the bucket under the barrel spout in time and then the other mess you made when you accidentally let go of your bucket and the drum knocked flat on the floor.

11) Clean all the five gallon buckets that you used during this part of the project.

12) Hug your husband.

13) Find your five gallon bucket of Spray Nine- your amazing cleaner that costs 55 bucks a bucket.

14) Hose down the floor and dump said cleaner all over, kind of as if it was free.

15) Scrub with a large broom.

16) Grab a bottle of dish soap and just walk all over, drizzling the stuff. Just like a little kid would do when Mommy isn't looking.

17) Go find your husband and smile sweetly, and then ask him to start the pressure washer.



18) Use it for 30 seconds.

19) Go find said husband again and tell him that it ran out of gas.

20) Watch him open the gas tank and observe that it is full of nice clean fuel.

21) Get him tools as he proceeds to remove the carburetor.

22) Sit down on top of the pressure washer and rest while you hold your finger over a line of fuel that keeps wanting to spurt everywhere.

23) Happily hear it start back up.

24) Smile at your husband and tell him you're thankful for a mechanic.

25) Shut the thing off and rebolt the engine to the cart thingy.

26) Study the thing in dismay when it refuses to restart after the re-bolt process.

27) Take it all apart again, clean the carburetor again, and receive a lesson on how a carburetor works.

28) Restart it but don't rebolt the engine. Just leave it as is.

29) Skip the smiling and the thanking.

30) Pressure wash. For two hours.



31) Run out of gas for real.

32) Quit. It looks a lot better now anyhow.

33) Know that that job won't need to be done for at least another six weeks (and might not get done for three months).

34) Be happy. :)

Wednesday, December 19, 2012

My Mirror

You may think this weird, but this has made me happy.

It's not because I can smile at myself now. I'm not that weird!

It's just that I can see that I have no grease on my face and that makes a big difference in my world at work.

See how wonderfully my $10 were spent?


Now when I need to go run somewhere, one quick glance can tell me whether I'm starting to look disastrous and kinda like a mechanic or whether I still look like a normal person without grease smudges on my nose.

Why didn't I do this before now?!




(P.S. My flash does not turn off on my camera, in case you wondered. :) )