Embroidery Hoop Project - Success!

I made this. Yeah.

In my efforts to be more creative and more cost conscious, I ran across this tutorial for making a felt rendition of a house by Little Pink House, an Etsy seller. It's a great little tutorial and once I got to her Etsy page, I realized that this might be a cute gift for my secret pal.

Yes, I have a secret pal.

It's a lovely program at my church where you pray for daily and give little gifts to another lady over the span of a year (usually 1 gift a month). The gift isn't supposed to be costly or elaborate but something to let them know that you are thinking of them.

Anyhow, my secret pal is a lady who taught me many things over the years, including embroidery, and has lived in the same house near our church for over 50 years. I decided that I would make her house in "Little Pink House" style as my final gift.

Step one: Scout out the house -- this involved looking it up on googlemaps and driving by her house during lunch one day to snap a picture while avoiding the appearance of being a stalker.

Step two: Buy supplies. Now this is the part that was somewhat surprising to me. Why? It was really really cheap. I already had some background cloth that I spend maybe $1 on and the relevant thread. So I bought an embroidery hoop and several pieces of felt for less than $4. I did use a 40% off coupon, but that was used for an item costing $1.50...yeah. I have TONS of felt left over for several other projects.

Step three: Convert pictures to something that can be put into a 9" hoop and be made of felt. This took maybe 2 or 3 hours to get the proportions right. I used cardstock first to figure out the sizes for each part of the house and then once I figured it out, I cut the pieces out of felt.

Step four: Embroider. I basically followed the directions of the tuturial while looking at my pictures of their house to try and make it reflect reality to the best that a felt rendition can be done. (Yes, this picture makes me look like I'm 8 years old)

I'm pretty proud of my efforts. It took about 15 hours (I'm slow) over two weeks, which at my billable rate makes it worth about $3005. ;p

And one more time, the final product

(before I glued down the back and added "Est. 1950" to the top...

New Year, New Resolutions

Life has been getting in the way of blogging (a good thing, right?). HOWEVER, we have a few blogs coming up about our recent trips around the Midwest and our various creative efforts. This one is about financial planning and budgeting.

A little over 6 months into marriage, we've decided to take a closer look at our current and future financial situation. The short story is that we have a ton of loans but relatively high income.

Wayne is the type of person who likes to read up on all there is to know on a subject before just jumping into a plan and I'm similar, so we've read a few websites and books, etc. to figure out how we want to approach our finances. Through this process I discovered that I really want to destroy as much debt as fast as practically possible. Maybe it's because one of the books I've been reading is Dave Ramsay's "Total Money Makeover", a bootcamp style book on how to get in control of your finances instead of it controlling you. He basically says to take 12 to 18 months to eradicate all debt outside your mortgage. It's great because its practical and makes it seem within our grasp. On the other hand, it doesn't seem to contemplate people like us, who have the equivalent of a mortgage in student loans ;p. He also has another book, "Financial Peace," which Wayne has been reading and I think it gives a biblical perspective on how to get financial peace. I like Dave's writing style even though I am usually put off by a drill seargant type of training (he's not that bad). As a side note, we checked these books out of the library and you can probably do the same.

Anyhow, the whole thing has made us set the lofty (yet attainable) goal of becoming debt free by the time Wayne is through with residency. It's crazy to think about, and we will likely forego some(not all) vacations for this goal, but I think the freedom is worth it. We are also now making monthly budgets - which kind of sucks and is kind of awesome. I always thought budgets were impractical because they don't really take into account the expected but one time costs that skew your budget to seem like you spend more than you earn in a given month. Recrafting our budget on a monthly basis avoids the issue and allows us to actually get close or beat our budgeted expenses. Maybe this seemed obvious to ya'll but it wasn't to me.

If you are interested in reading some financial websites, here are a few that I read: The Simple Dollar, ChristianPF, I Will Teach You to Be Rich, Moneysaving Mom, and Get Rich Slowly.

I'm interested in hearing people's thoughts on budgeting, paying back loans, etc - so comment or email/fb/gtalk me.

Oh, other resolutions include learning Mandarin, quilting, crafting, sewing, maintaining a gratitude journal and learning how to cook Indian and Taiwanese staple food items. :D

2009 Year in Photos

Engagement Portrait by James | cleveland, 02/2009

Wayne's Bachelor's Party at Dave's Lake Erie Beach House | cleveland, 05/2009

Wayne's Cleveland Going-Away Party at Horseshoe Lake | cleveland, 05/2009

Trial Photo Booth Session at the Fu's | atlanta, 06/2009

Our Wedding | atlanta, 06/2009

Wedding Reception #3 at Thomas House Backyard | nashville, 07/2009

Our First Apartment | nashville, 06/2009-12/2009

Chicago Roadtrip | chicago, 07/2009

Ginto & Nissi's Visit | nashville, 08/2009

Wayne's Surprise Birthday Party | nashville, 07/2009

Vanderbilt Commodores Football Game | nashville, 09/2009

Halloween Party at Our Apartment for International Bible Study | nashville, 10/2009

Thanksgiving Luncheon at Thomas House | nashville, 11/2009

Baking Gingerbread Cookies at Thomas House | nashville, 12/2009

Our First Christmas | nashville, 12/2009

Gingerbread Cookies!

On Christmas Eve, my Mom, sister and I made gingerbread cookies! (okay, Wayne helped too) Here is the recipe I used from Martha Stewart. I didn't have snowflake cookie cutters...or people who could eat 7 inch wide cookies, so they are stars! We also dribbled some icing made from just powdered sugar and water, which was a bit runny but did add a nice hint of sweetness. I'm planning to make another batch to take to work for New Years.

THEN, we made one mini-gingerbread house.

Since we didn't have frosting, we used Nutella. For those of you who don't know, Nutella is not a great glue in baking. It's tiny because I used dimensions from NotMartha, which was for little gingerbread houses that sat on the side of a mug. Well, ours was supercute but couldn't handle the mug. A short video of our attempts to rescue our house from demise is below.

So Crafty

I've been on a craft kick lately with the holidays and also just wanting to be able to do something creative with my free time, since I've always enjoyed making pretty things with my own two hands. So my first project was to make a ruffled felt pillow, which turned out pretty cool. It was pretty time consuming but only required a half yard of felt and some embroidery thread, which was less than $5. It involved mostly handsewing and just a little bit of machine sewing.

Since my parents are transitioning to Kansas City, Kansas, we have been living in their house and my mom is sometimes here in Nashville. As a result, I have an in-residence teacher on how to sew using a sewing machine- my mom :o). So far, my efforts have yielded two kitchen towels for a Christmas present for my sister. I've almost mastered sewing a straight line ;p.

Merry Busymas and Hectic New Year!

It's that time of the season again, where you don your festive red sweaters, eat Thanksgiving leftovers for weeks, heat your frozen hands and toes by the open space heater, scrap thick Winter Wonderland ice off your windshield, make charitable donations to needy causes like TJMaxx and Macy's, sing carols about nights that are mostly silent except the host of angels belting "Glo... ria" in 3 part harmony, get angry with loved ones, have your schedule so booked up with programs and functions that you don't even have time to shower or poop, and of course, wish it were May already. It's the most wonderful time of the year!

Okay, fine, I really don't hate the Christmas season that much. It's actually pretty fun. But it also can be quite stressful. Bindu and I have a tendency to be overextended as it is. Take that and add a dash of Christmas hecticness and emotions, and you get impatience, fatigue and overall less charity and fruits of the spirit. In the midst of all that it's hard to even remember that we are celebrating Christ's coming to earth as God's gift to save mankind.

Last week was (hopefully) the peak of the craziness.  Bindu was busy with work related projects and was on the road half the week (she said she was deposing people for a fraud case. I think she was disposing them in dumpsters). I was in the last week of my Emergency Medicine rotation at Vanderbilt, doing multiple shifts and cramming for the final exam (yes, we had a final exam, and a difficult one at that). It was the final week before our apartment move-out date (we broke our lease early to move into Bindu's parents' house since they have relocated to Kansas City for work), and we still had packing and cleaning to do. We were preparing for a Christmas party that we were hosting for international graduate students through InterVarsity. And, on top of that, we had to practice our performances for two different Christmas programs, one for church and the other for the Indian Christian fellowship. Yes, craziness.

Overall, we survived it well, with the grace of God. Bindu's depositions went remarkably well, and the ones scheduled for this week were delayed until next year giving her unexpected down time. I was able to reschedule a ER shift and did well on the exam. The move went smoother than anticipated and the guy who did the move-out inspection was very generous. Bindu's mom came back from Kansas City last week for work reasons and helped quite a bit with cleaning, Christmas party preparations, and cooking so that we didn't have to. Binu came back and helped make the performances stuff happen as well as take of of logistics. The Christmas party for the international students went well, and so did the two Christmas programs. And we weren't exhausted at the end of the week. Praise the Lord!

Now onto Christmas week. My rescheduled ER shift on Monday was full of interesting cases (unfortunately for the patients) -- a man who fell 8 feet through a metal roof, breaking both arms and receiving a deep 25 centimeter cut on his scalp that bled profusely; an old lady with an acute devastating stroke paralyzing half her body who received tPA in an attempt to bust the clot and reverse the damage; two industrial works who received minor hydrofluoric acid burns, a nice old lady who suffered an esophageal perforation after an endoscopic retrieval of a shrimp stuck in her throat went bad (she had crepitus on exam, which feels like rice crispies under her skin, and air around her lungs, heart, and liver on the CT scan). Yesterday, I got to ride along with a helicopter ambulance and assist with an unsuccessful resuscitation of an 18 year old in a car accident. Today is my first day off. We are planning on making a trip down to Atlanta later this week to see my family for Christmas. We still have to do some last minute gift shopping that weren't done last week. And we're looking forward to Bindu's dad getting back to Nashville on Wednesday morning. Overall, it's looking to be a better week, and I'm hoping the 4 hour roadtrip to Atlanta will be good 1-on-1 time for me and Bindu and that the trip will go well.

I'll leave you with these beatiful lyrics from the hymn "I Cannot Tell," which Binu (Bindu's sister) sang this past Sunday for church. This is why Christmas is really about. To the tune of "Londonberry Air" or "Danny Boy":

I cannot tell why He, the King of Heaven
Should leave the peace of all eternity
Why God Himself should lay aside His splendor
To leave the Father's side and come to me
But this I know: our silence filled with singing
And all our darkness fled from heaven's light
When Christ the Lord, so human, yet so holy
In love was born a child for me that holy night

I cannot tell why He, the Joy of Heaven
Should give Himself to suffer for my sin
Why Holy God should love me in my shamefulness
Why He should die to draw my soul to Him
But this I know: that Christ the Lord is risen
And praise His name, He's risen now in me!
Because He lives, I'll rise to life eternal!
He took my guilty heart, and I'm forever free!

I cannot tell when He will rule the nations
How He will claim His loved ones as His own
And who can tell the holy jubilation
When all His children gather 'round his throne
But this I know: all flesh will see His glory
And skies will burst as all creation sings
The Son will rise on one eternal morning
When Christ, the Savior of the world, is Lord and King!

Persimmons!

This week Wayne introduced a new fruit to me: the "Fuyu" Persimmon. Soooo awesome! It looks like a tomato, however, you can bite into it like an apple. It's consistency is somewhere between an apple and tomato, and when ripe, quite sweet. It's like eating candy, except healthier (maybe).

Apparently, there is another type of Persimmon, the "Hachiya" Persimmon. It's a lot more gooey and you basically have to eat it over the sink. If I get a chance, I will definitely be trying this type as well. Since its so mushy, it can be made into a persimmon pudding.

If you want to learn more about persimmons, check out Wikipedia. According to its article, eating unripened persimmons may be dangerous. Eat with care.

Where can you find persimmons? We got ours from Costco, but I imagine most grocery stores will have it, especially ones like Whole Foods, Trader Joe, etc.