I'm taking the Make Two Challenge

If you've been reading my blog for a while you know that I'm obsessed with Ana White's blog. Yesterday she challenged her readers to take the Make Two Challenge.

I already have a project all picked out to make for my nieces this Christmas so it was the obvious choice.

Isn't she glorious? Don't worry. Their mom already knows and they can't read so the Christmas surprise is safe, but she's fabulous.

I'm pretty excited about building something that's entirely about fun. And pink. It's called the Dream Dollhouse and you can find the plans over on Ana White's blog. The dollhouse is designed to be scaled for 12 inch dolls. If anyone in the area needs assistance or access to a miter saw to make their own I can hook you up.I'm really excited about making it. I don't get to paint a lot of things pink.

I hesitated a bit when it came to actually committing to the challenge though. Money is tight around here and we certainly have other demands on our finances. Then I got a call from one of my oldest friends and we talked about tithing. I don't belong to a church and certainly don't tithe on a regular basis, but tithing is just another way of expressing trust in God, or the Universe, or whatever higher power you believe in. If you believe in something that will make sure you have enough there is no reason not to give to those who have even greater needs than you do. That's why I'm taking the challenge. I have faith that there will be enough and that my generosity can make sure that is true for someone else. 

Can you say that in Deutsch?

I've been trying to come up with a name for my business. I want to make attractive home interior objects, but I want to make ones that are fun and playful and maybe even a little absurd. Ones that I love and think are funny. Ones that make your friends ask about them and then make you seem smart when you explain them.

Think butcher diagram piggy banks.

Okay, maybe that one doesn't make you seem smart. But it does make you think of bacon. 

I'll be posting all kinds of fun stuff on here as I get them created, but I need to officially name this little venture. I've been thinking on this for a while and I've gotten some options, but I'm just not sure about any of them. I'm sure about a couple of things. I want it to be German or play on a German word or phrase, I want it to reflect my playful, silly, nonsensical, witty nature, and I want it to be a pretty sounding word or words if at all possible.

So far the top suggestions, in no particular order (or maybe reverse alphabetical now that I've finished the list), have been:

Papperlapapp: which according to my friend Casey is a slang term and is a "synonym for Quatsch, or like what you'd say to someone as like 'whatever', 'nonsense' or 'pish-posh'." I trust her because she speaks German fluently and online dictionaries agree. I wasn't sure of the pronunciation until she told be she went to a bar called Papperlapub.

Lächerlich: Which is more like ridiculous or cockamamie. I really like the way it sounds, but I don't think most people wouldn't have a clue how to say it.

Ausgelassen: this one has tons of definitions including "frisky," "larksome" and "rambunctious." All of which fit what I think I'm doing.

Thoughts? If you have any great ideas I'd love to hear them, especially words or phrases that play on German ones. It doesn't have to make literal sense, it just needs to invoke the sort of mental and emotional response I'm going for. I want to get this decision made by the end of the week so speak now people. As an incentive, whoever comes up with or inspires the name I choose gets a special custom object I create for them. Trust me. You want it to be you.

Thanks.

Oh, and I'm planning some more Before & Laters over the weekend. Big things are about to happen at the Parsonage and I'm planning to document the process.

Before & Laters

The hubs and I have been living in The Parsonage for almost a year now. We've done some work, but not as much as I expected. A lot of it still looks like someone else could live there. We're on a bit of a mission to change that and we're getting there...slowly, but surely.

In the interest of providing some motivation to work on it and to improve the overall quality of my blog I've decided to begin to document the current state of things in The Parsonage (yes, I absolutely must capitalize both every single time I reference it). Since we don't exactly have "Afters" I've decided to reference them as Before & Laters. In addition to the rooms just not being done I think "After" has a sense of finality to it that I just can't see making sense for us.

These will go on for a while and hopefully become more impressive as we make progress on the house. I figure we should start as the beginning so the first room up is the dining room. We took it on shortly after we bought the house in a mad rampage to get it done before we hosted Thanksgiving. In three weeks it went from this

 

to this.

Maybe not exactly this. I'm pretty sure we waited to put up the Christmas tree until after Thanksgiving dinner.

At the moment it is mostly serving as a craft/storage table in the center of our house, but I didn't promise Before & Nows. I just said Later and this picture was taken later than the preceding one. Hopefully I'll have an even later Later to add soon with awesome photography and everything.

Next Up: The guest bedroom