Recession Proof

Everyone has been talking about what the best way to get through a recession is. Some say one needs to be out of debt and have great food storage. Some say one needs to have a secure job. Some say that one needs to live in the right place. After researching all the best ways to get ourselves through the recession. Dave and I have decided to make some changes. First of all we're buying a tech support business from a friend that Dave has been running for a while. Then I wanted to have my own business too. So we looked into different types of businesses, and analyzed my likes and dislikes and came up with fish farming! When I was little I had a tank of Guppies passed down to me by Chelsea (for some reason, all the house pets eventually ended up as mine). Fish farming couldn't be too complicated. All I have to do is keep the fish alive, and sell them to restaurants, etc. when they're big enough.

So we bought our first set of fish eggs!

Those little guys will grow up to be rainbow trout!

Ha! Ha! Ha!

OK, actually those slimy fish egg looking things are grapes! :) Here's what they used to look like:

In May or so I hacked at a ginormous grape vine that probably hadn't been pruned in 5 years or more, until it was down to the bare branches. And we got about 3 cups of grapes from it.

I'm hoping next year it'll produce about twice as many. Granted I didn't pick them til this week, 1/4 had been eaten by...something, and 1/4 looked like they'd jump off the bunch and grab a saxophone and start singing.

Those are all the skins that the "fish eggs" are missing.

This morning I made grape jam! There's only about 1 1/2 cups of jam for 3 cups of grapes, but I think that's plenty for us for this year. I haven't tried it yet, but it should be delicious!

Expecting

What!? Me!? no.

However, Dave's parents have a dog that is. So we might get a "whoopsie" puppy in a few months. 17 or 18 weeks...that's about 4 months, right?

We don't know exactly what kind the puppies are yet. 1/2 pitbull for sure, because that's what the mommy puppy is (it was her first heat). So the puppies could be 1/2 beagle, or full pitbull, or unknown. I'm pretty excited!

Our landlady is a family friend of Dave's, so they'll allow us to have 1 dog. YAY!

Here's the mommy puppy (left) and possibly the daddy dog (right):

Artisticky!

So I'm designing some dresses that I'm going to enter into a contest. The winner gets to get 3% royalty of all the sales of that dress. I made a new blog especially for my artistic creations such as these dresses. So if you could, I need all the input I can get.

Criticism is what I need, good or bad, so don't be bashful. If there's something you don't like about them, let me know. If you prefer a different color, let me know.

Thanks!

The new blog is called Art I. Sticky. Clever, huh?

Big News!

Ha! Ha! Made you look!

What's that you say? I haven't blogged in a long time!? Shame on me!

We've had a lot of big changes lately.

First of all, we finally bought a coffee table for all the coffee we drink. It sits in front of our very ugly, comfortable couch in the living room. We got it for a whopping $25, and it has wheels on it! The top has pieces of slate in it, so need to worry about coasters.

We got a new fridge! Well, our landlords let us get a fridge that we picked out, and we get to take the price out of our rent—even better huh? Let me show you the amazing features it has:

The freezer has shelves, both in the door and in the…not…door…part.

The fridge has a light! …and drawers!

And it's bigger. Actually, it barely fits. Actually, we can't get the cupboards above it open any more. Hmmm.

Here's what our old fridge looks like. Yes, I haven't finished emptying it yet.

Last week I turned a year older. I got all sorts of wonderful presents to celebrate being 1 day older than the day before. It's really the best holiday ever. I think it should be an internationally observed holiday. The things that were perishable I don't have pictures of (helium balloons, twix bar, half-wilted flowers, and the pineapple upside-down cakes I made, yes, plural cakes) but here's everything else:

Dibs from the vending machine at work from my student employees who sang loudly to me.

Dave got me the flowers and a large pinata and a very large birthday card.

I made myself a pineapple upside down cake.

And then I got a plethora of gifts from Dave's parents:

Squirt, our hamster also got to enjoy some of the spoils of my birthday. I bought him a new wheel for sanity while I'm trying to sleep. Here's his new silent spinner wheel:

I've also been busy making rag quilts for friends having babies. This one was for our neighbor Risa, who moved to D.C.

This one is for our friend Michelle. Her baby shower was on Oct. 1^st, so I'm trying to finish it asap. *UPDATE*: I finished it on Saturday right before I broke my sewing machine (not un-fixable, but it had to go to the shop) then she happened to have her baby on Saturday as well, so I'm delivering it to her and the brand new baby today!

To cap it all off, here's a cute video from when we went to Penny's baby blessing.