Growing up in St.Louis the topic of earthquakes isn't the most popular. Usually Cardinal Baseball, Beer and some other sports and such. However these past few days it's been earthquakes. And until this past Friday..I had never felt one. And now can say..I'd prefer not to again.

I'm sure many of you saw the news reports about the early morning quake. For me it was honestly scary. I woke up to our bed shaking like crazy..mind you this is a BIG HEAVY bed, the walls shaking, windows rattling..it was crazy. We woke up the kids..and as Scott was Peso continued to bark until they were all out of their rooms. We headed down the stairs quickly and got to a safe place all the while wondering what on earth was going on and could it seriously be an earthquake? We are both aware of the area we live in relation to the New Madrid fault line but the reality of everything shaking was a bit intense. Needless to say we were rattled. And more so when we didn't see any of our neighbors lights turn on. Then we had the scary thought..was our house settling as we do sit high up and our neighbors do not. We're we sliding off the side of the ground our house sits in. After a few minutes of Scott watching for more house lights, me feeling like my heart was going to pound out of my chest we sent the kids back to bed. When we got back in bed I thought to turn on the TV and sure enough. Breaking news about an earthquake that just hit around a 5.4 and people calling in and all sorts. We felt better knowing it wasn't our house but not so good about an earthquake. Scott mentioned..maybe it's good we do have earthquake insurance.

Later that morning while sitting on the floor feeding a baby the floor started to move, the walls shake and windows rattled and I got this feeling the floor was going to buckle. Just my overreaction. But I jumped up ran to the window and looked out to see everything shaking. Or maybe it was me!LOL Peso came running to find me with a look like..are you okay? He's a good dog. I was rattled up again as the china cabinet was shaking, the same things that fell earlier fell again. I called Scott and he was driving and didn't feel it. Once again the TV station broke in that we had just had a 4.6 aftershock. GESH!

I didn't sleep well Friday night. Not sure if it's because of the French Kiss martini I had at the new Martini Bar with my friend Tammy or that I was unnerved waiting to be woken up again by that scary feeling. In fact..I was close. But I wasn't woken up until last night about 12:40 am. Only this time when I woke and reached for Scott he was not there. I got really nervous and realized he had fallen alseep on the basement couch. So I ran to go check on him to find it had woken him up with a big jolt and he too had felt it all as well. I believe it was around a 4.6 again.

So here's my thoughts.. I don't like them!LOL

And onto the last topic of the day recycling.

We have a new trash service in our area that offers recycling service with our trash along with a HUGE can to collect it in. We had been recycling papers and cans and I had wanted to do more. But the service was an additional cost at the time. Now with this new service about 70% of our trash goes into the recycling bin and it's clean too. It seems almost everything fits the parameters..but what I'm baffled about is how we can put it all into one container and it get properly sorts. Anyone know how they do this? It's really odd and they use a "normal" trash truck. But anyways..with this recycling effort..I've started noticing more things that I can reuse for scrapbook projects. I've always saved gift boxes or little containers that are different but I've normally overlooked the ordinary.

That has all changed..as this is what I made for a current holiday call for gifts for neighbors using none other than...yes...a PICKLE JAR!LOL




Granted the pickle smell is gone. After a good cleaning I wrapped the jar with felt that I had first stitched on. Then added the adorable SEI paper. The tag I layered onto cardstock, trimmed out, added Doodlebug rubon, stamped the circles using the end of an eraser and then the Making Memories new felt shape that I tied with DMC floss. I then tied that onto the jar. For the lid I used my Cricut to cut the top circles. Detailed with a pen. I cut out the presents from the SEI paper and used foam dots to adhere to the lid for dimension. This would make a fun way to give a dry cookie or muffin mix or even fill with some cute socks and candies.

So that's it for today..the weather is beautiful..now if the earthquakes, aftershocks and all the rest would go away!!!

Julia