Hurry Up and Rest

I was able to schedule a day off today. The plan was to take College Girl to school, but she wanted to go yesterday. So we woke up early Saturday and trekked her off to school before work.


Today I am trying to relax, and catch up on all the housework that has been waiting for me. I have a big stack of library books I checked out that keep coming due, but I have no time to even look through them. I think I should probably return them all at one time, and get them later so I don't have to worry about late fees.



And it snowed again, so I have more shoveling to do.

Last week, my other job called. The one I work at during the spring and the fall. The prep work for the spring project starts this week. I'm sure it is a crazy move, but I said yes. I'll have to work it in with all my free time. LOL

I know this post sounds awful stressed, but it is a good stress. I am enjoying what I am doing so far, and I do enjoy the other job as well. And I especially like having money to pay the big bills that are coming in, especially my VISA bill from my free-after-rebate splurges during the holidays.


And my week hasn't been completely non-quilty. I won these fat quarters over at Carolyn's Ohio Quilter's Journey. Thank you so much Carolyn. They are so bright and cheery. I'm going to leave them out so I can look at them, and imagine the fun I will have quilting in the summer.

Working

I've been working on a new job lately. It is another temporary / seasonal assignment. I'm brand new and I am in charge of an office. Last week, I was there from the time the office was opened to the time it was closed. Came home, went to bed, went back to work again. All week. There are three other employees. One of them just found out she is pregnant and isn't feeling well. She took a sick day. The other one has family issues, and wasn't able to attend any of the training, or the makeup training. I had to try to train her in between all the regular work. She also took a sick day. The other one has prearranged commitments that keep her from working two days every week.

This week, I am getting four new employees. Yeah, I guess we might have been short staffed last week!

I'm not sure how I'm going to handle all my new found free time if / when I get it. I know the laundry and dust bunnies, and the bed, and quilting will all be competing for precious minutes.

Crazy Orange

Bear Picnic wanted to see a closeup of the quilt I had on the door. I'm happy to show you. It is no longer on the door, but it is on the wall in the bathroom. One day I am going to make a quilt for the kitchen too. My goal is to have at least one quilt in every room and hallway! The background is pieced in alternating colors.




The circles are appliqued on, and I did a chain stitch using crochet thread around each of the circles, thinking I might be able to make the circles look rounder. I wasn't successful in that attempt, and don't think the embellishment actually added anything, but since it didn't take anything away, I'm not taking it out. It has the lovely checkerboard border that I always like. Overall, it isn't my favorite work, but I do like it and it was fun to make.



Just to show that I wasn't showing this to get away from showing quilting progress, I made three crazy blocks over the New Year holiday. There were lots of hard decisions to make. I started out with the simple oranges that came as a kit, the same ones I used for the pumpkins - but they looked too similar to me. The inspiration quilt was mostly orange with some yellow highlights. I added other oranges to make it more interesting, which includes fabrics that I am told are African. It's the fabric that has black and green in it. Both of the pieces I used are different parts of the same fabric. The other African fabric is the orange with the shiny gold in it. I used a very small piece in this block so you'll have to look at the closeup if you want to see it. I got some from a quilt show, and have been trying to think of good uses for them. I also added shiny metallic fabric, and a velvety one. The yellow fabric with the flowers is an old dress of my mother's. That dress or fabric was actually purchased in Africa. I also added black as an accent - I hope I don't regret that. Since I wasn't using scraps, I had to decide what size and shape to cut each fabric. I'm having fun with it.