Hello!

I'm still alive and well and wondering what I got myself into when taking this job. There are long hours, and the pace is fast, but I've been told that it does slow down eventually.

This morning, while I was still in bed, I made myself a list of things I needed to do - laundry, dishes, putting plastic up on the windows, etc. This job has been expensive for me - the plastic is not up on the windows and we had several storms and below zero weather already. About $25 of my CVS Care Bucks expired, and I have been eating out a bunch, because I haven't had any time to go grocery shopping. If I do this job again next year, I will have a bigger wardrobe to start so I don't have to do laundry as often, and I will go on a big grocery shopping expedition beforehand. I might have to sleep all week before, so I have a reserve of sleep. :)

Anyway, I eventually dragged myself out of bed and got ready for the day. I made the coffee and turned on the computer while I was waiting for it to brew. There was an email from my LQS talking about the SuperBowl sale. I had known about it earlier, but I had forgotten. I quickly called my Mom and the two of us trekked off to the shop. Well it isn't a long trek, since the shop is in the neighborhood. She had never been there. It was crowded, but we got to look at lots of beautiful quilts and touch lots of wonderful fabric. I didn't buy much - the kit I wanted she wanted too so I let her have it, even though I bought the book.

It was really nice to be able to do something fun for a change. Now I guess I have to rush around doing my chores and get ready for the next workweek!

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.

A Year in Review

I'm not making any goals for the New Year, because I'm not done with the ones for 2008. I'm sure you have been wondering what I've been up to this year, and were hoping I'd give you a recap so you don't have to slog through old blog posts. I'd be happy to oblige.

It's been a good year for me overall. There was some drama this summer with relatives which caused me to start a new blog, and now we aren't talking to each other anymore, but since we didn't talk before anyway, the repercussions are bearable. I'm happy we are finally getting a new president. The big issue that is worrying me now is the economy, but I'm young and healthy enough to work and have job(s), so we will be able to ride it out.

The photos that follow are the finished projects, as they appeared on my blog. A lot of my posts are about the Shakespeare in the Park which won't show up in the finished category.















So what's next? I'm going to quilt today and tomorrow, to properly bring in the New Year. I'll be working on the orange crazy quilt. It's been calling me the loudest lately.

Have a Happy New Year, and best wishes for 2009!

Danger!

My mother has taken up quilting, not sure if I've told you already. She doesn't feel comfortable with fabric / color selection, so I am the designated mentor. This is very dangerous for me.

First, she made a practice trip around the world quilt with scraps she had around the house. Hand quilted of course.

Then I took her shopping so she could make a sampler quilt for my brother. And of course, during the shopping, I bought stuff for me. She decided not to do the sampler, and do a TATW instead, so I had to help her reconfigure her fabrics. She finished the quilt, and we went again to the store so she could buy border fabric. And fabric for the next quilt. She's got at least two more she wants to make, but I was able to convince her to wait for the rest. I don't have the energy to pick out fabric for more than one quilt at a time. And yes, of course, I bought stuff for me. Again.

She is going to be making pillow cases for me out of extra bedsheets I have around the house. I didn't realize I was supposed to be finding uses for those.

So in this time where she has made two quilts, what have I been doing? Buying fabric. I might have been working on Shakespeare while she was working on her practice quilt, but I haven't worked on anything since then.

Besides Christmas shopping and fabric shopping, I've been trying to find more vegan recipes my daughter can reject, and trying to spend more time with her in general. We saw Benjamin Button this weekend. It was good.

Merry Christmas

I thought you might be getting tired of all the snow pictures, and would want to see our pretty sky. We don't have snow, although we did have rain and freezing rain for a while. We gathered to my brother's house this year, and it turned out lovely. My sister-in-law had the house nicely decorated for the holiday. I, on the other hand, did not decorate my house at all.

I tried to take unobtrusive pictures, so I stayed wherever I was sitting and used my stalker lenses. Unfortunately, a lot of the pictures turned out grainy. It is an interesting effect, but I'd rather not do that too often. And people were aware of the camera anyway. I guess next time I will have to move around and not be so lazy.