whirl-wind weekend.

This past weekend I took a quick trip up to Filthadelphia to visit my loves. Sweet T was in the school's musical and Ham is going to Utah all summer (which means I won't see him til August!). With all the activities, I forgot to take out my camera a lot buttttt I did manage to snap a few shots here and there.

(the boys longboarding)

(family after T's musical)

(an incredible feat of Barley's strength)

(precious Kieran!!! with the boys [so sweet!])

So there you have it. I had an awesome weekend. I didn't want to come home. I might've cried just a bit. (Ok, ok. I cried enough that my manager commented on my puffy face the next day at work. I can't help it. I wouldn't cry if I didn't love them so much and miss being with them. Oy.)

I'm not sure when the next post will be or what it will be of. (<--Am I not supposed to end a sentence with a preposition? Is that a preposition?) Hopefully I'll think of something to post soon, but until then...

lerv to the max.

jecca

Twenty-Three before Twenty-Four: SIX.

This sixth 'significant thing' was quite significant (...like mega). For some reason, I made this project over-complicated at times, and I had to set it aside more than once for the sake of my sanity. However, with coffee and the Fleet Foxes as my constant companions, I finally completed my sixth significant thing...

Barley's Knickers!!!

These knickers started out as a pair of Dickies' from a Goodwill in Langhorne, PA and a twinkle in Barley's eye. When I visited in February, I brought them home with me to start the transformation.

T-Diddy helped me out a couple times (thank you!) with measurements, because these were mostly a surprise. I also had just a few random measurements from Barley to work with. From those, I decided to cut off about 8" from the bottom of each pant leg. I deconstructed those legs and used the fabric from them to make cuffs.

After taking the front and back panels apart from the cut-off pant legs, I ironed the pieces and seamed them together to make a longer piece for the cuffs.

Hosh agreed to try on the knickers probably twice during the process. He's closer to Barley's size than I am, but let me tell you...he is NOT a fan of straight pins. I begged and begged him though a couple times and got him to help a sista out! After he tried them on the first time, I marked the inseams and slimmed the legs up a bit.

From the time I started these knickers, I knew I wanted to include a couple things, and some hand-stitching was one of them. Something about embroidery is really fun for me (I say as I look longingly at a current project featuring just that). I don't like patterns (I HATE patterns), so I don't use them when I stitch things. This first part ("Barle") took all of about 10 minutes.

The "Y", as you can see, posed more of a problem. I just wasn't happy with it the first two times I stitched it. (Yes, I tore out the "Y" twice before I decided I liked it.)

After I finished the cuffs and made (sort of) slits in the outsides of the legs, I pinned the cuffs onto the bottom. This was difficult...flat cuffs, curved pant leg. Ha.

This picture was taken in my car on one of my lunch breaks at work. By the middle of this project, I had a kit all put together to take back and forth with me wherever I was headed so I could work on it during my spare time. During this particular time, I was sewing on buttons. I didn't leave any of the original buttons on the pants.

The night before I sent the knickers on their way to Perkasie to find Barley at home, I put them on and took a few pictures, just in case this was the last time I saw them. =)

This is Nessie and he is way cooler than the Dickies' label that was there before I ripped it off. Also, this was copied from one of Barley's tattoos.

Finally, after over a month and a half of having these pants in my possession, the knickers are successfully complete and with their rightful owner.

Barley wore the knickers today (!) and sent me the following pictures as well as the following texties throughout the day. =)
Barley (10:24 am): THEY FIT GREAT

Jecca (10:28 am): Woot woot! I'm so happy.

Barley (10:30 am) Im so freakin sexy today. Holy crow.

Barley (11:41 am): These are so comfy!!! :]

Jecca (11:46 am): I slimmed the legs a bit. :)

Barley (11:47 am): Delicious

Barley (1:02 pm): IT SAYS BARLEY ON THE LEG!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Jecca (1:03 pm): You just now saw that. You're amazing.

Barley (1:05 pm): I just rolled up the cuffs to show the stripes on the inside and i saw it- lerrv lerrvv leerrrrrrrvv!
Soooo, there you have it--Barley's Knickers!!! They (ultimately) made me happy (even though they drove me insane a few times).

Lots of lerv to you, bloggy buds! Thanks for reading and following.

And lots of lerv to you especially, Barley. This Bud's for you. =)

*P.S.- I'm still taking suggestions for my list of significant things. There are at least 17 more things to do!*

Also, don't forget to submit your entry for my coffee contest! All entries must be submitted by Saturday and the winner will be announced on Sunday. Woot woot!!!

nose knows.

I don't know about the rest of you, but certain smells have the power to instantly transport me to another time and place. I've noticed it especially as of late.

For instance:

The smell of wood and laundry takes me to Stanley-Land. I am surrounded by family, pups and love. Someone's looking for something. Someone's calling for someone they can't find. Mama's offering to make me something to eat, and I'm grinning from ear to ear.

The smell of winter is a wonderful thing. I could never describe it; it's impossible (but it's amazing). Whenever I smell winter I am taken back to my freshman dorm room at PBU. Renae and I are sitting, listening to music and "doing homework". I smell winter (because we keep the window open all year round). I tell Renae. She doesn't understand. We are bonded forever.
The smell of Vurt and cigarrettes puts me back in the presence of a dear friend. We are riding in the car, talking, laughing and probably drinking Starbucks. We make it a regular thing, because it's more than good in theory.

The smell of Polo takes me back to Sunday mornings as a child. My father wore Polo cologne and made cinnamon buns for us before church. I can't get enough of the smell. I hug him and bury my nose in his neck. (This technique proves to be most effective and is used later in life to identify and remember especially important people.)

The smell of grass mixed with a certain humidity in the air transports me to track practices after classes in high school. There's a whole lot of messing around and not a lot of practicing. I think I know everything about the world and how things should turn out. I am blissfully mistaken.

The smell of Comet cleaner takes me back to summer days of old. I'm sitting on the counter in the kitchen. Ma's slicing strawberries and sprinkling sugar over them. We'll have strawberry shortcake for dessert after a day in the sun at the beach.

Now I'm wondering about you, my bloggy buds. I'd love to hear about the smells that transport you to somewhere else. I think that sometimes your nose knows exactly where you secretly want or need to be.

Lerv, lerv.

february is american heart month.

In honor of the month, I decided to take a few steps toward heart health by visiting some of my dearest friends and family at PBU this past weekend.

Barley picked me up from the airport on Friday and my heart expressed its thanks by jumping nearly out of my chest and making it hard for my lungs to take in enough air. It felt like death was knocking at my door, but I know that feeling is just my heart's attempt at expressing such immense joy.

The weekend was full of love, fun, great music, great people, more love, some pain and more love. For the most part our adventures did not make it onto film, but here are a few moments that did.

The above photo and the photo below show the aftermath of an intense gummy worm fight.

So much pain, but oh so fun.

Barley tried out my knitting needles in his ear holes. They fit.

I cut the Stanley boys' hairs. (The usual.)

We went on a quest for Cadbury Creme Eggs for Barls. I think it's safe to say that he lervs them.

Stephers & Trev

Who even knows what they were laughing at?

T pierced Ninj's ears. Owwweee!!!

(I lerv this picture of T and Langs.)

The scissors I used for hair-cutting were utter crap, if you wanted to know.

Hammie's new cut was uber-cute. I'm not tooting my own horn because I just did what he told me to do...but HONK, HONK!

Jake is obsessed with large icicles, and on this particular occasion he retrieved one for his good friend Barls as well.

Hammie got super-sweet new plugs. They're squishie and make it look like he has nothing in. So cool.

(This photo is preciously ridonk.)

So, there you have it. The photos are really in no order whatsoever. The captions, I'm sure, are less than entertaining or even helpful...but that's all I've got.

Thanks so much to everyone who let me borrow stuff (Langs, Ninj, Ham, Krista, George), to everyone who let me "stay" in their room (Langs, Ray, Krista, Gwen Stefani), to everyone who gave me freakin' awesome music and helped me navigate my new Maccy (Barls, Ham), to everyone who encouraged/helped me to stretch my ears (Jake, Barls, T, Ham), to everyone who aided me in my pursuit of coffee (BARLS, T, Ninj, Ham) and to everyone who lerved me enough to forgive me when I left without saying goodbye (Stephers).

For now, Cass McCombs is calling my name along with a cup of coffee and my product knowledge manual for work. You can look forward to a couple new posts coming up this weekend hopefully. I've made a couple crafty things that I'd love to share. (1) My special gift for a special someone has successfully been delivered and can therefore be revealed. (2) A quick weekend project will also be posted if I can get the current owner to take some pictures of it. (3) I also have at least one more (probably 2) projects in the queue to get to work on and hopefully post soon!

lerv.