One of Ariel’s Growing-Up Houses

Ariel and I went for a walk in her old neighborhood. This was her house that her parents renovated with a Readers Digest series of books. They had to move when she was still in elementary school because the conditions in the neighborhood weren’t conducive to continuing to live there.

It looks like the people who followed behind her parents didn’t have access to the renovation books. But there were still some blueberry plants in the yard that Ariel’s mom had planted.

Milkshake and Craft at Creative Culture

I found out about Creative Culture from my friend. She posted a picture of the fanciest milkshake I had ever seen. The place to get that milkshake was Creative Culture, a DIY craft studio and milkshake bar.

It’s a pretty slick business model. Though we went for the milkshake, we stayed for a craft project.

We chose to do string art, which was one of their more economical offerings.

First, we pounded in all the nails, then discovered it was difficult to put the string on, so we removed the nails and went section by section.

Our finished art.

The thing that motivated us to visit.

Finding a New Home for the Kenmore Sewing Machine

This was a tough one, but it had the best result it possibly could. My mother decided to give away her sewing machine. This is the sewing machine that she used to make my clothing and also the machine I learned to sew with. It’s super heavy in that industrial way before plastics took over. Just a solid machine.

I posted on a buy nothing group and got a fairly quick response from a mom who wanted it as her daughter’s first sewing machine. Her daughter really likes 40s style clothing and the mom had been teaching her to sew on her own machine.

Now both mom and daughter have their own machines and this Kenmore is off on a new adventure.