Traveling to the Land of Farm Animals

OK, so I've been looking for a tutorial online on how to make a sweatshirt cardigan. I asked my sewing buddy Rachel if she could help me find something and she sent me a link to this pattern. (Which is perfect for what I needed!)

And ya'll, it just took me straight back to the early 90's!!!! Look at their hair! Better yet...look at the scene behind them!!! That wreath on the wall reminds me of the punched wreaths I used to make out of little scraps of fabric with a screwdriver. Heart-shaped ones, no less. I gave them as Christmas gifts one year. I cough just thinking about the dust those babies attracted on someone's wall.

And that got me to thinking about our college apartment. My roommates and I had quite the 90's country abode, let me tell you. We frequented craft shows and collected all manner of country goodness along the way.

Our kitchen and dining room (if you can call the table area of a 2 bedroom apartment a "dining room") was done in cows. There was cow and cowprint accessories on every square inch of that poor little kitchen. One morning at breakfast I counted 70 something cow items. My only contribution to that room was a cow magnet on the fridge. I still have it too. When I got married a few years later I was clearly too sophisticated for something like cows in the kitchen. I had pigs instead.

In every window of our apartment (that would be...3) we had a balloon valance. Now these were made by hanging a length of fabric from a spring tension rod. Then, you put a spring tension rod on the bottom of the fabric and tucked it up underneath. And last, you stuffed the whole thing with plastic Wal-Mart bags so it was puffy. Oh, they were fine.

Our living room was done in American flags. We started noticing some flag stuff popping up at craft shows and we declared that they would be "the next big thing." So we had Americana pillows on the couch, little flags stuck in all the ivy plants, a flag picture on the wall, etc. Then the Gulf War broke out and you couldn't walk past a booth at the craft show without seeing a flag. We were country when country wasn't cool--so ahead of our time.

And talking about the living room reminds me of our end tables. My roommate Molly procured these huge wooden cable spools for us and we used them as end tables. When we realized we had one more than we needed we all helped take it to Molly's truck so she could take it home that weekend. Well, it was far too big to carry so were letting it roll down the sidewalk and walking behind it. Did I mention it was really hilly where I went to college? The thing was starting to get away from us and giving us splinters trying to hold on to it. It was then that I uttered quite possibly the stupidest phrase to come out of my mouth all through college:

"Ya'll just let go and I'll go down to the bottom of the hill and catch it."

I'll let you soak that statement in for a minute. My roommates didn't think twice about my statement. Obviously, none of us had learned anything in our physics courses.

That sucker picked up momentum in a way none of us could have ever predicted. And things started to move in slow motion for me. I first saw one of my roommates get a horrified look on her face and rush over to try and put her foot in front of the spool. It kicked her back a mile. Then, I came to the realization that I was standing in front of a guy's pick-up truck who lived nearby in the apartments. The spool was headed straight for me and the truck. Still going in slow motion, I became aware that the owner of the truck was watching us from his second story window.

That spool HAD to be stopped and I was the only one to do it. I don't remember much else except that somehow I launched my body at that cable spool and somehow, we both came to rest about 2 inches from that truck.

I still have a scar on my left wrist. I don't really have a moral to this story except to say: don't underestimate the importance of bringing those physics lessons to life. Reading it in a textbook didn't do it for me.

But back to that 90's decor--it was divine. My mother-in-law had a goose kitchen which I remember LOVING. What awesome 90's decorations did I leave out?

Cause I seriously doubt any of you have a story to share about stopping a huge wooden cable spool that was rolling straight towards you downhill.