fetching wood

dad and i share shipments of wood every year. we get it from the indians and pay half each. we keep it at his house because it is easier. so, we have to go fetch wood every few days for the fireplace. owen loves this and looks foward to coming to help. it is pretty fun.
the dogs are coda and winston. douglas' babies. owen loves them.

less of a man

fred had a vesictomy last year, but he has too much testosterone still so we have been having problems with running off and peeing everywhere, so yesterday i took him to have his ball cut out. yep, fred had a neutering. he is no longer a real man but today you would have thought it was what he wanted. he was playing with ahna and having fun all day long. who knew he would be happy over this..............

rental boat

i fininshed this boat today- total redo for a rental company in town. i made it a more functional design for extended use and took as much of the stitching out (first places to go with heavy use) but kept a nice design so it doesn't look plain. turned out pretty nice.
yes, again, all welt lines line up perfectly.

what is this you say? well, it is a fully enclosed treadmill cover for outside. why do you need this? to keep out all weather and protect your treadmill when storing it outside. also, note the zipper. it goes all the way from one end to the other as to not have to take the whole thing off. you can fully unzip it, let it fall to the side, do your workout and never have to move the treadmill. now that is a great cover. yep, we are full service.

juvinal hall

so these are my children with behavioral problems. jule can't seem to stay on green at school and doesn't seem to need to listen to directions or turn in his homework (which he does and puts in his backpack every night.) last night i worked until 10pm. during this time, mike called because our landlord (and friend) dick palagyi called and said a friend had called him to tell him about kids in the yard knocking out headlights on cars. he didn't think my kids would do this, but was calling to check into it. owen admitted he and davis (his best friend,whose parents are wonderful and he gets raised well also) took a hammer and knocked out the headlights on a suburban and dicks 67 camaro out back. we keep an eye on them, and hammering is normal because he usually builds out there. so, i was totally floored to learn that this was what they were doing. so, being the mother i am, i called my police friends. the boys were visited by the lake havasu police department at the house last night and the head sheriff of san bernadino county this morning (which talked to owen for 15 minutes). they made a big impression on him. the boys learned that juvinall halll is kid jail and that is where kids go that break the rules. owen was given 3 choices. 1. get a ticket and see a judge which would send him to juvinall hall, 2. go straight to juvinal hall if he can't seem to be good and there is no hope, or 3. let mom take care of it and work off the damages and be on probation. he chose #3. so, the boys spent the day cleaning up the yard at work from 9:30 this morning until now, we will leave soon. i had them pick up all cigarette butts, dog poop, foam scraps, wood chips, anything and everything that was trash. i also made them do the car lot next door because we ran out of trash to pick up. tomorrow they will do the yard at home and the house if the yard runs out of things to do. hope they learn their lesson. ian, on the other hand has been spending the day having fun with my friend terry because he can be good, do his homework and turn it in and not vandalize property. at least i have one out of three behaving. oh, he also taught himself to make omlets so he has had one every day this week.

yet another happy fisherman

yes, all welt cords line up, as always, cause we are good at this.
the before on this boat is horrendous. we did the carpet and upholstery. i changed it up quite a bit to clean the lines up and make it more efficent to clean. it looks really nice.
captains chair and fishermans chairs match eachother and came out nice as well.

Best Friends

Owen and Davis are best friends. their birthdays are 2 weeks apart and they are so connected to eachother. they spent the day together monday since it was a holiday. davis came to the shop with owen (they are in their fort, the shell club, which, by the way, costs 10$ to enter if you are not a member) under my table. it is the dogs bed but they took over the spot. they spent the other half the day at davis' house riding bikes and jumping on the trampoline. they are the two popular boys in their class and their favorite recess past-time is "letting" the girls chase them. they only do this if they are together though. owen also informed me that he wants a limo when he is old enough to drive so he can put all of the girls in it and drive them around. crazy boys.....................

heart attacks waiting to happen

jule douglas looking so cool at the skate park
yes, this is my youngest son riding his bike down the picnic table going up the stairs.
owen and jule doing laps to and from the "bowl".

owen getting up speed for the bowl.

willys car

this has been a 27 year project for our friend willy. we have been working on the upholstery for him. he built this car and has been trying to finish it, but is the biggest perfectionist i have ever met. everything must be absoulty perfect, so everything has been done more than once for one reason or another. all we have left to do is the rear door panel at this point. i will finish that this week.


yep, ian is so cool. he said he needed a cool look on his face to be in such a cool car.

yesterdays adventures

mike and i made this bimini yesterday. he bent the poles and i did the canvas. my stripes do not have raw edges because i french seam my stripes and all sleeves line up exactly. it turned out really nice and the customer was happy.

stress.

non-payment is a serious issue if you are a small business. it can make the month, break the month and break the business if you are not fortunate enough to be able to make it up. the economy is suffering here at the moment because housing is down. the town thrives off of home sales and construction. scary times man. i am busy, luckily, but am suffering from a major non-payment. most other shops i have spoken to haven't had work this month, and are struggling to keep their doors open. i am in a better situation than that, but it is still scary. i hope the market turns back around. i am not sure if we can handle a depression.

lets go fly a kite............

ians super-cool dragon kite. the boys had the best kites at the park yesterday! all the other kids were watching them fly them and were chasing them with the boys.
ians group of on-lookers.
we have a kiter down- kiter down (reference to so i married an axe murderer.....) the kite hit him and they were grounded, he he.
don't the lights look like an antenne on owens head?
Jule trying not to let his go too far.

my family at work

owen and ahna sharing a seat mostly because ahna refuses to give hers up. no, she is not spoiled at all. (no, they are not driving like this, we made her move so all were safe........)
Jule trying to save his pie from the crazy dogs in the car, which were winning the battle at first.
mike hard at work recreating cushions for a couch.

yep, we are sideways!

owen, sophie and i hanging out on the couch last night. we went to sleep there for a bit also. it is very cozy next to the fire place.

the kids..............

we picked up douglas' boys this morning to come to the shop. they were so excited to get to come with us. we had jule, owen, ahna, sophie, coda and winston in the van. it was quite the site to see driving down the road. we have sophie for the weekend and fred stayed home with ian today. coda and winston had a blast at the shop. we were very busy so we had lots of people for them to say hi to. jule, owen and ahna kept them playing all day also. they stayed for 7 hours, then were very excited to get to go home. they got right in the van and went straight to their fence when they got home.

my new employee

this is josh, my new employee. he is working out really well so far. he is installing a custom headliner in a baja bug. fun fun fun.......................

bad mothering

yesterday afternoon i got a call from the school nurse, nothing unusual, i hear from her regularly with all 3 boys at the same school and ian hangs out there when he has his breakdowns. so she has ian in her office, also, as usual, and he was having a breakdown. the lunch ladies had run out of salads so he wasn't going to eat anything else. he broke down crying because he couldn't have salad and had to see the nurse. i get yet another call an hour later to talk with ian out of ears range. he told the lunch ladies and the nurse that he hadn't eaten for 3 days because the school was always out of salad and we don't have any money or food at home. the nurse wanted to make sure we were okay and let me know about the programs available to us. my kids are probably the best fed in the town, they always have food and i did give them lunch money. it costs 40 cents for lunch. i made their lunches tuesday and i cooked their breakfasts monday and yesterday. they had cereal and yougart tuesday. not only that, but ian comes home and makes himself meals in the afternoons after school. usually vegetable soup or pot pie, sometimes eggs. he is so not starving. i let the nurse know she was being taken advantage of and that ian is more than capable of making the choice to eat what is available or to go hungry. i could have died. happy bad mothering for me.

and finally............... liels quilt

i have finally finished liels quilt. it turned out really cute so i hope she likes it. i will ship it today! it is raining and storming here.

more rain

yet more proof that it really rained
looking into my shop from the back yard. yep, we are a mess. production takes quite a bit of organization.

some pictures for you

i like this chair. we just finished it for a customer. it is for her nine year old daughters room. i would like it for me though! this is me doing liels quilt. yep, i am sideways. pretty amazing isn't it?
mike and fred. they are two of a kind.
Jazmin at the shop. she did homework and kept up with friends on vacation.
it is raining here! pretty amazing guys!

happy new year

we were invited to a party for new years eve, so we dressed up a little for the occasion. no one is really dressy here.

Jazmin and mike ready to go and party! i was asleep by midnight and had to be woken up to celebrate. i must be getting old. we spent the day today at work (and yesterday too), we did not take off for new years. it was a great day to work as people were not out and about so we got quite a bit done. yeah!