losing my needles

Child's crown tutorial

2012-02-03T16:42:00.002-05:00

Today is a twofur! Since I had my felt out to finish up the Valentine's wreath this morning, I thought I'd go ahead and finish the crowns for the pigs and then I can pack up the felt and fleece. I don't think I'll do any more projects with them before I move. So I made these little crowns for the pigs, and then I had this stiff interfacing and yellow fleece staring back at me, and I thought, what the heck! I'll go ahead and make the boys some crowns. And I'm going to try to do a tutorial. Let me know if it makes any sense. (Oh, and can you see the corner of one of the place mats sticking up there in the back of the picture?)

So first I cut a zig zag pattern out of the heavy interfacing. (Mine is really stiff, it will stand on its own easily.) I did mine free hand, but it would probably be more even and uniform if you drew it out first.

Then I cut a piece of yellow fleece that would cover the crown. This is folded over, you need a front and back, so make sure that you have 2 pieces of fleece to one crown.

After that, I just set it all there together, and carefully cut about an eighth of an inch or so outside of the crown. I was planning on having my seam show, so I didn't need a large seam allowance. If you wanted to turn yours inside out so that there is no seam showing, then you'll need more. But that's just an extra step.

I wanted the crowns to be adjustable, so I sewed a strip of velcro onto either ends of the crown. Make sure that you have it on one end of side A, and the other end of side B!

After that, I sewed along the top and sides of the crown, about an eighth of an inch away from the edge.

Then I stuffed the interfacing into the cover. You have to work it a little bit to make sure that everything is flat.

After that, you sew the bottom edge together, same as you did the top, and then you're done! Easy peasy lemon squeezy as my son would say.

Happy Valentine's Day!

2012-02-03T12:42:00.002-05:00

OK, so first off, please don't be jealous that I have such amazing helpers at my house. It's how I'm able to finish so many things and have them all look fabulous! Hurley can measure and cut like you would not believe! (And he does it all while on the phone!) But now onto Valentine's Day. I may make a few more decorations, because I am putting off working on some other projects. (But I got the binding sewn on one place mat last night! Only 7 more to go!)
But I made this wreath to celebrate Valentine's Day this year. So far this is the extent of my decorations. But I have seen lots of cute things on Pinterest, and I'll maybe see about making some more. I don't know. I don't have a good space to decorate in my house. But I am starting to think ahead to the new house and decorating that.

Hence these guys:

This one will be for Olivia's room. So cute, and the fabric flowers- same as in her quilt. And I have to say, this was my first experience with Mod Podge.

And then I tried out these melted crayon art ones. Did you all know that I'm into Modern Art? Piet Mondrian is one of my favorites. So this is kind of right up my alley. This will hang in the boys room.

Once we move you can expect to see a lot of the transformations of the rooms in the new house. I can't wait!!! :) I'm so excited to have a space of my own, something that I don't have to worry about wasting time decorating nicely because we'll just move in a few years.

Late Christmas

2012-01-28T07:59:00.002-05:00

So yesterday Jana finally got around to giving me my Christmas present. I know, she's lame, because I only gave her "the best present ever" (her words!) the Our Best Bites cookbook. But it's OK, I forgive her tardiness. I mean, how could I not forgive a one month slide, when she and Colleen "made me a quilt" for my birthday a year and a half ago, and I have yet to see the finished product! :)
But she made me this "jelly roll" It is made out of bunch of Riley Blake fabrics that she got last fall when she went out to the Riley Blake headquarters as part of the design team for the Quilted Fish. It's lovely. I spent the rest of the day yesterday thinking about what I wanted to make with it. Part of me is tempted to make a Bargello quilt, since I've wanted to make one of those for a while, but I also think it would be nice to make my "headboard" out of it. I don't have a headboard for my bed, and I was thinking of making a quilt and hanging it above the bed to give it the illusion of a headboard.
She also gave me a cute wallet pattern, and these M&Ms. When I looked at them I said that I had the perfect person to give them to! (Cause I'm a joker like that.)

And here is what I have started to work on. I'm making a scrap quilt, like I had mentioned before. So far I know one thing for certain- it's going to take me forever! This is just a small amount of the fabric that I have to use, cut into 2 1/2, 4 1/2, 6 1/2, and 8 1/2 inch pieces.

I am working on this only because I hate sewing the binding onto things- especially small things like place mats, which is where I am with my place mats. The binding is made and ready to go on, I just have to pluck up the courage and do it!

Confession

2012-01-26T10:05:00.002-05:00

OK, so it's confession time. Sometimes I think in Facebook status updates. Does anyone else do that, or am I way too plugged in? (OK, the obvious answer is that I AM way too plugged in, but just humor me for a minute.)
For instance, last night it was 5:00, and the boys were fighting, Olivia was crying, I was trying to change laundry, and get dinner on the table. In my mind, I though, my Facebook status right now would be, "It's 5:00 and the world is falling apart." Fortunately, I had the sense, at that moment, not to hop right on the computer, ignore the falling apart world in my house, and update my Facebook status. I really do try to sensor myself, and not let the Facebook community know every time my children to any sort of thing ('cause I'm THAT Facebook updater- all about my kids.)
But am I the only person that tries to come up with clever status updates to describe the events happening in current time? Perhaps I'm just too much of a nerd who thrives on simulated human interaction, as opposed to real human interaction because I'm so socially awkward in real life. (Not that I'm any less awkward on Facebook, as my friends can attest to.) And on that note, am I the only person out there that thinks there ought to be a designated sarcasm font? Right there on your tool bar next to bold and italic. It would make my life so much easier! (And that is nothing to be sarcastic about!)

cake pops

2012-01-23T09:52:00.003-05:00

For Christmas this year I got a cake pop maker, and when I haven't been sewing, I have been making cake pops and donut holes. YUM! I recently did a shower for my friend Julia who is having her first girl after 2 boys (I know what that feels like!) And I made some cake pops for the occasion. After making them a few times, I think I finally have gotten the process down. First, you need to dip the stick into melted chocolate before you stick it into the cake ball. Then you need to freeze the whole thing. When they're frozen, then you can dip them in chocolate. This worked so well! It made for a beautuful dessert spread!

This week's finishes

2012-01-23T09:42:00.002-05:00

This week I finished my watermelon place mats. That binding was a pain! Mostly because the amount of white that the kit gave me to make the binding was only like 10 inches long, so I had a million 12 inch strips to sew together, in addition to the green ones, and then I had to sew the green to the white, and all of that before I was finally able to sew it on. Since it was on the bias though, it was not too difficult to get it to go around the curve.

And I finally finished the angry birds. Except that the boys both want crowns on their big pigs, so at some point I'll probably make those. I only made one of the big white ones because I ran out of white fabric. And of course, now there is the new orange bird, and the boys think that they need some of those too.

I have another set of place mats that need to be bound. The binding is already sewn, but needs to be ironed and sewn onto the place mats. Originally they were going to be birthday place mats, but I'm thinking I may use all except for the cupcake one on a daily basis. Olivia has figured out that it is neat to bang her fork on the table, and it's taking a beating!

Then I have one more project that I am thinking about starting, but I'm not sure about that yet, and then onto my scrappy quilt. After that I think we'll focus more on the packing aspect. We have finally agreed on a price with the bank, so now we have to see what the home inspection says...

Progress

2012-01-17T19:41:00.002-05:00

So I've made a little progress towards my UFO goals of 2012. But first, a non UFO, but it's OK, because it's not like it's a quilt or anything. But I made a wreath that I'll hang either in Olivia's room in the new house, or on her door. I made it now because I'm doing a baby shower on Saturday, and I wanted to have it to use as decoration. Some of the fabrics that I used for the flowers were from Olivia's quilt. I'm crafty like that. And then there is this:

I think that Jana and I got these kits and pattern about 3 1/2 years ago. We started immediately. There are 12 blocks, and they are kind of month themes, so we were going to do one block each month. There is a lot of applique and blanket stitching, etc. It was quite an undertaking. We got through the first few blocks, and then stalled. And eventually I picked it up again, and got through a few more blocks. At one point I'm pretty sure that I finished all of the blocks. I then sewed them all together. In one "cleaning out my sewing table" episode, I cut the borders. And there they sat. Probably for a year. Last night I sewed the borders on. This is going to be a big undertaking to quilt it too, but I hope to do that in the next month. It will of course depend on Jana's schedule, because I could not do this with out her mega quilter.

Speaking of Jana. I'm headed to her house in a bit, and hope to make progress on my watermelon place mats UFO. I bought that kit like 3 1/2 years ago as well. At this point all that needs to be done is the hand sewing of the binding. Hooray!

Next up, my birthday place mats. I have 4 done (excluding binding) and 4 more to go. One will be the special "birthday person" place mat, with a cupcake on it, but I still have to figure out the design for the other 3.

After that I'm going to have to go through my work space and see if there is more to be found. If not, I have an idea for a scrap quilt. I need to go through the huge bag of scraps that I have and decide which ones were stupid to keep, and organize them and cut them for my needs. If I get ambitious enough I may even use up all of my scraps. Because I'd rather move a quilt than a basket full of scraps. And of course all of this is brought to you by packing denial. But hey, we don't even have a closing date, and are not 100% sure what house we are going to buy. I just know that I have 3 1/2 months left on our current lease, and we have to be out by then. That gives me plenty of time to quilt instead of pack!

baby girl quilts

2012-01-11T15:04:00.002-05:00

So a week or two back, I was going through the mess that is my sewing corner, and I looked into a bag that had some of the fabric that I bought last year when I had my big splurge. (Something I do once a year or so, although I don't see it happening this year.) I started to love on it so much that I was trying to think what I could do with it. Since my favorite form of quilting is to make baby quilts, I was thought that I needed to have a friend have a baby girl. And then I thought- wait, I do have a friend having a baby girl! So off to work I went. I set out to copy this quilt that I saw on Craftsy, which was just simple strips on the diagonal, and it wasn't too bad to make, but I didn't know how many strips I was going to need, and ended up with several extra strips. So I was inspired by a quilt that Jana showed on her blog and copied the pattern. I had just the right amount of strips cut to make another baby quilt. I think that this is the one that I'm going to end up giving to my friend Julia.

So in case you were wondering what it takes to have me make someone a baby quilt, it really is mostly up to chance. I didn't feel like quilting last year, so none of my friends got quilts. I put so much effort into Olivia's quilts, that any friend who had a baby then didn't get a quilt. It really is a situation that I think, OK, I'd like to make a quilt, who can I make it for, and someone happens to be pregnant at that time. I have many friends that I would say are at the same level of closeness, and some have gotten a quilt from me, and others have not. It's all just luck of the draw!

2011 roundup

2012-01-09T13:59:00.006-05:00

So you'll have to excuse the quality of these photos since they were all taken with my iPod. When I take them there, it eliminates a step before I can post them to Facebook. And sometimes the camera is just not handy!
This is a quilt that I made for my sister in law. It is a memory quilt, in honor of the baby that they lost due to complications at 18 weeks. This was the tutu for Olivia's Olivia the Pig Halloween costume.

Here she is on Halloween. I couldn't find a red tank top, so I had to dye a white one red.

And finally here are the ties that I made for the boys, using this tutorial.

I also made those little hair clips for Olivia. My mom made a Christmas dress for Olivia, and the ties and the hair clip are made out of the same fabric as the bodice. We were all matchy-matchy.

Lindy's quilt

2012-01-09T13:47:00.002-05:00

So I never got a good picture of this quilt, which is a total shame, because it was a really cute quilt, but I made it for my friend Lindy who got married last year. It was one of the few quilts that I actually made last year! As soon as I get some photos uploaded to the computer, I'll post pics of the two baby quilts that I made this past week. I just finished the last bit of binding this morning.

I'm back!

2012-01-05T07:53:00.003-05:00

So last year I ran a marathon. That took a bit of my time. :) As a result, I just really did not do much sewing last year. Also, do you ever find that you do things in cycles? I sew a lot, and then I get tired of it, or uninspired, and so I move onto something else for a little while, and then eventually something pushes me, and I'll get back into sewing? I think I got my push this past week. I've been sewing like a maniac for the past week, but more on that later. First, a few of the things that I have made in the past month.
I found an easy pattern for Angry Birds, so I made up a few. I have intentions to make more of them, but up until this minute couldn't remember where I put the patterns that I had already printed out. I think I'll work on the beaks a little bit, to make them wider, but other than that, it's a pretty easy pattern, especially if you are comfortable doing a little free motion sewing.

Then I did a little sewing for Olivia for Christmas. There were very few things that I made for Christmas this year. I made her this buttercup bag (free pattern found here)

And I also made her these hand puppets. These were made using the same technique as the angry birds, and were a snap to put together, once again, if you are comfortable doing the free motion sewing.

Then, a few years ago my good friend Jana gave me that cute star wall hanger, but I only had a hanging for Halloween and Thanksgiving, and Christmas, so I'm going to try to make a few more, maybe one that would be a good general one until I get one for each month. But I whipped this little guy up on New Year's eve, while the rest of my family was playing Wii (we still need a 4th controller before I can join in the fun and games...)

And then I started these the other day, and hopefully will finish quilting them in the next week. I have to remember that there are some things that are more important than sewing- like cleaning the house and taking care of the kids...

The fabric here is by Wendy Slotbloom, who is one of my favorite designers- I used her fabric for Olivia's quilts. I have more fabric in another line lying in wait for another inspired project, but it was looking at the fabric that I had of hers that made me want to start sewing again. Then I began thinking that I needed to have a friend have a baby girl so that I could use the fabric, and then I realized that I HAVE a friend having a baby girl, and how convenient that was for me! So yea for getting back into sewing. I have several other UFOs and my goal is to finish as many as possible before we move at some unknown time in the next 3-4 months.

Christmas sewing

2011-01-21T18:46:00.002-05:00

This year was the year of the apron for me. I made about a billion. This one is a hostess apron that I made for Nate's teacher. I also made aprons like this for my friends in the presidency. This is the hostess apron that I made for Cammi. We didn't have her in the name exchange this year, but she does so much for us that it felt rude to not think of her at Christmas.

This one was for me. I made a similar one for my mom. The top bib part of it can button off and convert into a hostess apron as well.

This is the quilt that I made for my new nephew Dylan. He was born just a few days before Christmas. I also made a car seat cover for him, but I forgot to take a picture of it.

This is what I made for my mother in law. I am slowly getting around to making something handmade for each person in Jesse's family. I still have his older brother's family, and father left. But I made this cute little quilt as you go braided table runner with 8 matching place mats.

And that wraps up the Christmas things. I have a few baby quilts in mind to make in the next few months. I'm waiting to see if there is any money left over from our tax return to buy some more fabric, or if they will be stash quilts.

For Colleen and Ashley

2010-11-17T15:02:00.002-05:00

This quilt my friend Jana and I made for our other friend Colleen. So she had her baby like 8 weeks ago, and we just gave it to her today. In our defense, she didn't find out the gender of the baby before hand. This one I made for my friend Ashley's baby boy. It was a lot of fun. I want a 60* ruler now, I borrowed Jana's.

Halloween aprons

2010-09-14T22:18:00.002-04:00

I made these aprons for my friends Jana and Colleen. They were belated birthday presents. They were from the same set of patters as the one that I made for Heather. I'm getting pretty good at making these.

Apron for Heather

2010-08-21T18:29:00.003-04:00

It was almost 2 years ago that we were on vacation with my husband's family and my SIL and I went into this little quilt shop that was in town, and while looking around she found a pattern for an apron, and asked me if I would help her make it. So we got home, and a while later we made it over to my local quilt shop to pick out the fabric. Then it sat. And it sat. Then last Christmas we went on vacation together again and we thought that it would be the perfect time to work on the apron. So I was in charge of bringing the supplies, and my SIL said she'd bring her sewing machine. Well, she forgot her machine. So it didn't get done. And it sat. Then a week ago or so, I was downstairs cleaning out my sewing corner, and I found this bag. As it turns out, it was just recently her birthday, so I thought that I would just go ahead and make one for her. At this point I have 3 kids, one being a newborn, and she is now pregnant with her 3rd, her next oldest being not quite 1 yet. We really are not moving in the right direction to have sewing lessons right now. It turned out super cute. She was very excited to see that I had made it for her.

A decorating idea

2010-08-20T22:10:00.003-04:00

So I've done exactly three things to change the nursery from Graham's room to Olivia's room. I put up a pink mobile, I changed the photo on the shelf from Graham to Olivia, and I hung up these dresses. I didn't really have anything special hanging from these hooks really since I put it up in the new house. I don't even remember what I hung from them when this was in Nate's nursery. But several weeks ago I thought how cute it would be to hang some dresses up there. The thing is that I have all of these super cute dresses, and all they do is hang in a closet where no one can see them. (Well, aside from when Olivia wears them to church.) So I picked 4 of my favorites and have them hanging here. (Well, when they are ironed that is.) This is the dress that my mom made for Olivia. It's not exactly her blessing dress, because she'll wear this dress that my mom got in Belgium that 4 or so of the other girl cousins have been blessed in. But I still consider this her blessing dress. She hasn't worn it yet, it's closer to a 3-6 month size, and I'm kind of waiting until her blessing day.

Look at all of the smocking, yeah, my mom's a rock star.

These little pleats came at my special request. I was thinking in bed one night before Olivia was born, and I thought about how cute it would be to have a dress for her with little half inch pleats along the bottom. So I talked to my mom about it, and she did it. Yeah, she's a rock star.

I was walking through Kohl's the other day, and I saw this on the rack, and I didn't really even think about it, but I decided that I needed to have it. Love it!

Look at the little bow at the top!

This is the dress that I bought online specifically so that she could have an impossibly cute dress to wear to church her first Sunday back. It's huge, she'll wear it until she's 17.

I love the eyelet work all along the skirt, and the white lining sticking out of the bottom.

I bought this dress I think before Graham was born. Like, I wasn't pregnant at the time or anything. It was super cheap at the Carter's outlet, and I saw it and thought that I should probably have it on account of how cute it was. It too is still too big for her.

I love these embroidered flowers.

The problem of course is that all of these dresses need to be ironed, and I'm sometimes slow to get down to do the ironing. Two of them, the white polka dot, and the pink one, she wears to church right now, so they get taken off of the hooks. I've started to replace the empty spots with other dresses that I don't love quite as much, but are still cute. Then of course there is this other dress that my mom brought back from Belgium. It'll fit her when she's two or so. I'll have to take a picture of that as well. It's got handmade Belgian lace, and is very beautiful. So much so that I have no idea when she'll wear it, but one day she will.

So what unusual ways do you decorate your kids' rooms?

A fun giveaway

2010-07-13T13:42:00.004-04:00

My incredibly talented friend Joan is hosting a giveaway on her blog- customizable Kidlets- stationary and more. You should go over there and check her out. I'm going to have her do my baby announcements for Olivia too.

Olivia's Second Quilt

2010-06-08T19:59:00.004-04:00

The second quilt that I made was much more simple than the first. I decided that I wanted to make a trip around the world after I was looking through old pictures on the computer, and saw a picture of a trip around the world quilt that I had made for someone else. I knew that I wanted the squares to be smaller, and of course, the quilt to be small. I found a pattern, and made it work. It was done by tube piecing, which I've never done before. It wasn't too bad though. The unpicking is minimal, so it was OK. It was hard to get it all even though, but at the end of the day, it's hard to tell. And my corners are phenomenal. (If I do say so myself.)

There is no ornamental quilting on this one. The borders are just too thin (I had only a certain width of the backing, which is the same as the other quilt, to work with.) But I did decide to quilt through ever single diamond, so it ended up being a lot of quilting anyway. But it was pretty fast. Of course, I could not avoid seams, so that was a bit annoying. Oh well.

Anyway, now she has her two quilts, and I hope not to have to hand quilt another quilt for a very very long time. My fingers still have not gotten over it!

Olivia's first quilt

2010-05-21T15:19:00.004-04:00

It is FINALLY finished. This quilt was the longest quilting project in the history of mankind. Or so it felt anyway. It didn't take me that long to actually make the quilt top. It was the quilting that was insane. I like the way that hand quilting looks, so I have always hand quilted the quilts for my own babies. I think it makes them a little more special. Even though I could easily quilt them very cutely on me own machine in an hour or so.
So I start hand quilting this one, and very quickly realize the error of my ways. The best way to quilt this was to quilt in a place where I was quilting through like, 3-7 layers of fabric, just on the top, so not to mention the batting and back. Then there was the batting. I wasn't thinking, and I didn't get batting specifically for hand quilting, so even when I got to the places where I was not quilting through an insane number of layers there still was plenty of resistance. I got more than one hole through my thumbnail as I was pushing this needle through. So good riddance- it's done!
But it's it so cute! Like, you need to understand that these pictures just do not do it justice. Here you can see the construction. I got this idea one night at like 11:30 while trying to fall asleep. I was glad that I was able to figure out how to do it. As Jesse said, there will be plenty of pockets for goldfish crumbs and spit up.

The flowers are separately quilted as well, and then attached at the centers. I think that I attached them sufficiently that they won't be pulled off.

You can kind of see the hand quilting. The thread was a very close match to the fabric. But you can see the blue marker where I marked the designs. (That washed off by the way.) I quilted butterflies, dragonflies, flowers and swirls into the border.

And this one shows the back. So it's pretty much just an all around cute quilt. No matter which side you're looking at.

So tomorrow I get to start in on my next quilt. It's going to be a trip around the world. I have a goal to finish it by the time this baby comes. I have a little less than 4 weeks. I can totally do it. It's going to be smaller than this one. (And much less involved!)

Adrian's Quilt

2010-05-21T15:16:00.001-04:00

Here is the finished quilt that we made for our friend Adrian who moved this past week. You can't even tell that I had to doctor it up! I really like the way that it turned out!

update

2010-05-19T07:25:00.002-04:00

So the baby quilt is the slowest quilt in the history of the world. I'll tell you all about why this little girl had better love it more than her mother when I'm finished, but for now I'll say I'm ALMOST finished. My poor little quilting fingers have really had it this time, and the thought of picking up a needle this morning is painful, but I only have about 2/3 of the final border left to do. Then I need to cut out the little flowers that I have already sewn, and then attach them to the quilt. Bind it, and all done. My goal is to finish this quilt by Friday night. Saturday afternoon my friends and I are having a mini-quilting day of fun. Last time we got there at lunch time, and stayed until 10 or so. Today we'll start at lunch time, and be home by dinner time. Anyway, I'd like to start in on quilt number 2 for this little girl. I'd like to do a trip around the world with the same fabric as the first quilt. It should be super cute. I'll post pictures soon!

Call me the Quilt Doctor

2010-05-08T20:39:00.003-04:00

So today I graduated from quilting medical school and performed emergency quilt surgery.

My friends and I have been working on a quilt for our friend who is moving. It is a picture quilt, so it's a little delicate. We've been trying really hard not to iron over any of the photos on the quilt, since that ruins them. We were doing really well, just one little nick. But then this morning I got the quilt out to sew the final border on, and I noticed that the same picture with the little nick- well, now it had a huge gash across the face. It was actually a good thing, because we were going to leave the little nick, but now we had to replace the picture, so it looked much better.

The major problem was that we didn't have any leftover fabric to make a new block. So I tried first to iron the whole thing off, but that didn't work so well. So I had to pick out the square. I was able to do it without too much unpicking. I hate unpicking seams more than just about any part of sewing, so I avoid it at all costs.

This is what the square looked like. Not acceptable.

I then turned over the ruined square, and I just pasted a new picture on the back side of it. It turned out quite well.

Then I had to sew it back into the quilt. It all was much easier than it could have been.

In the end, I managed to save the quilt's life. Recovery was quick, and it was in a box and out the door for our friend.

Now, we wanted to give it to her today, because it was the last time that the whole group would be together before she left, it was her son's birthday. The little technicality of the quilt not actually being completed, well, that wasn't all that important.

We ended up presenting her with the completed quilt top, and then this week we'll quilt it, and bind it, and then give it back to her. But it was nice to let everyone see the finished product.

Her reaction kind of speaks for itself.

This gives you an idea of what the quilt looks like. I'll post a finished picture when we get it quilted and bound.

Car seat cover pattern

2010-04-20T18:41:00.004-04:00

OK, so I have a word format of the pattern for the car seat blanket that I have posted about. I can't figure out how to translate that to this format, so well, if you want the pattern, (Confusing as it may be to read, I'm no professional pattern maker) Leave me a comment with your email, or if you have my email, email me, or contact me on facebook. Or if you know that I have your email, just leave a comment.

Running Dreams

2010-04-02T07:52:00.002-04:00

Last night I had a dream that I was running in a race, and it felt so amazing. I was running with a group of people, but they were holding me back, because I just felt so great while running.
I never thought I'd say this, but I think I miss running. (Remind me of that in 4 or so months when I start up again.)

oh the irony

2010-03-29T20:39:00.002-04:00

Well, it's official- I've lost my needles. I had them this morning to sew something up, and now I can't find them. So I'm no longer losing my needles, I am now lost my needles.

And what I made with it

2010-03-29T17:26:00.003-04:00

Thanks to a marathon quilting day with my friends Jana and Colleen I got the quilt top finished for baby girl. The first three of the block rings are pleats, which after I quilt it, I'll get a close up to see the effect. Also coming after I quilt it will be little flowers that I'll attach in the center of each block. They will be made out of the brown fabric with the pink dots, and if I ever get the brown fabric with the green dots that I ordered, that two.

Now comes the fun part- quilting it. Sounds like a mindless activity to keep my hands busy while watching conference.

I'm going to say it, I kind of wish that I had made all of the blocks look like the four that have the dark rings in the inside, and the light rings as the outer rings. I thing that would have been a better effect, but both Colleen and Jana told me I should do half and half. I honestly don't know which way I would have gone on my own- that's why I asked their opinion, because I didn't know.... I didn't feel like wasting all of the fabric to do them over again though. That is the problem with not having a pattern to work off of- you just don't know exactly what it's going to look like at the end of the day. Oh well. I still like it.

I also made another one of those suspended car seat blankets, and I promise to soon get the pattern up for those. Look for a give away on the family blog in the next weeks. I'm almost at my 200th post!

Look at what came today

2010-03-19T14:25:00.004-04:00

My fabric came today. There are still some others coming. The pink dots that sits on top of the green fabric has a matching green dot fabric that I had to get from another site. I had also ordered the top two fabrics, the smaller pink dot, and the pink and brown in the matching green. They were back ordered, so I may have to see about that before proceeding. I'll be fine either way once the first green dot comes. The big flowers is going to be the back, and the striped is going to be the binding. Imagine it on the bias. Anyway, I'm excited to actually start making this into a real quilt.

Oh, and you may notice that the smaller pink flower print matches the car seat blanket that I used. The quilt shop in town only carries this line in blue, so that's what I used.

car seat blanket

2010-03-12T13:57:00.003-05:00

A few months back I saw a picture of these car seat blankets on a blog, and it was linked to an etsy shop. When I saw it, I knew that I needed to make one. I always cover my infant seats with blankets, but sometimes they drag on the ground, or fly away, or do all sorts of things. This is designed to fit the car seat exactly without dragging on the ground, and it is fitted to the seat in the back to lessen the frequency of wind blowing it around. It has nifty little Velcro straps which attach it to the handle of the seat, keeping it in place.

And it's reversible. I'll probably use it on the flower side for the most part with this baby, but if we have a boy in the future, now I don't have to make a new one. (He will just have to look at flowers all of the time. :)

So there is one project for the new baby completed!

Winners creations

2010-01-30T20:21:00.002-05:00

I finally have finished making the prizes for the winners of the give away. Rachel is getting this cute little artist case. Added bonus- the cute flowers I added to the front. I was toying with this idea, and wanted to see how making the flowers would work, so I tried it on this. I came up with the idea one night in bed. That's where I come up with most of my quilting ideas. Mostly the ones that don't work out so well, but these worked just about as I imagined them. So as soon as I can get an envelope, and work up the courage to make it to the PO, this will be headed her way.

And this one is for Nanabear. If we have church tomorrow I'll try to remember to bring it there. I was pleased with how both of them turned out. And I love all of these fabrics. Of course, they were all in my stash, so of course I loved them, I picked them out.

Jana's Baby quilt

2010-01-22T11:56:00.002-05:00

My friend Jana recently had a cute as can be little baby. So my other friend Colleen and I got to work on this baby quilt for her. Now, we've known that Jana was going to have a baby girl for well, 5 months or so, but well, we had a hard time getting inspired by the fabric and patterns that we were looking at. Finally, about 3 weeks after the baby had already been born we went to the local fabric store again, and we saw this fabric line that screamed "Jana!" (It actually screamed it, it was a magic fabric with a voice box.)
*side note: I was talking to Jana on the phone this morning, and we were talking about the quilt shop, and the new fabric lines there, and she started to describe this fabric line to me, and how she loved it, but was so proud of herself for not getting it. So I thought that since the quilt was finished, but we had not given it to her, I thought it would be fun to get it over to her right after we had that conversation. So that's what we did.
Back to the quilt though. So we bought the fabric, but had no idea what we were going to do with it. So I was fooling around with simple patterns that afternoon before I was supposed to head to Colleen's house to start working on it. I came up with this butterfly square, and I thought, well that'll be cute. And it was. So we made the quilt. It actually didn't take us very long at all. Looking back there are a number of things I would change if I should use this pattern again, just so that it would be more obviously a butterfly.

We had extra fat quarters left over, so we pieced the back as well.

If you look back at the first square, you can tell how I quilted it. I thought it added to the butterfly-ness of the quilt. On the border I just did chains of flowers. So hope you enjoy it Jana's baby. It ought to keep you warm through this cold winter we're having!

The Winners

2010-01-11T10:25:00.002-05:00

OK, so since it took me such an insane amount of time to do the winners, I picked two winners, and they are:
Rachel B and nanabear!!!!!

Congratulations you two, please let me know if you would like the notepad or the coloring pad, and if you have any colors you would like the best. (And Rachel, I'll need an address to send it to, but we'll figure that out when the time comes...)

Nate's bag

2010-01-04T08:47:00.004-05:00

So I'm going to keep the giveaway open until this Saturday, since well, I haven't blogged in so long on this site, but in the mean time, this is I think the very last project that I have completed and not shared yet. It is actually the first I made out of all of these. I made this little bag for Nate to take to preschool. I'd probably make it a little differently the next time around. I made it with double sided extra weight fusible interfacing, and it just didn't work that well for how I was making it. I also made the bottom of the bag seams in too far, and should have kept them farther out, to make a wider bottom to the bag. Oh well, that's what happens when you sew flying by the seat of your pants.

100th post giveaway!!!!

2010-01-03T19:57:00.003-05:00

OK, I don't know that anyone actually reads this, but well, here I am at 100! I only started it over 2 years ago. I guess I got side tracked with the family blog.

Anyway, in celebration of making it to 100, I am having a give away. The randomly chosen winner will get a custom made note pad, or coloring pad, your choice.

The Notepad.

The coloring pad.

in order to be entered to win, just leave a comment with a list of 100 reasons why you think I'm awesome.

Just kidding, leave a comment stating one of your New Year's resolutions.

Happy Thanksgiving!

2010-01-03T19:48:00.003-05:00

So I made this in November, and well, I just have not been up to blogging. You know, few projects being completed, and no running. My doctor told me that I was not allowed to exercise with this pregnancy, so it'll be interesting come August and I'm allowed to start exercising again. But I do have goals--- Run a sub 30 5K in November, and then train to run the National Half Marathon in March '11. Even though this particular half marathon was the worst experience of my life, I'm really interested to see how it would be if I were not pregnant and trying to support another life.

But anyway, long story short, I made this cute little wall hanging for Thanksgiving this year. My dear friend Jana gave me the pattern, and the hanger for my birthday two years ago. Thanks Jana!

Long time no blog

2010-01-03T19:34:00.004-05:00

So, since I've gotten pregnant, I have been less than motivated to work on any sewing projects, and so I have not had much to share with you, but here are a few Christmas presents that did actually get made this year.

The first thing that I made were these art books for Nate and Graham as well as my sister Erin's kids whom we had for Christmas this year. I also ended up making one for Jesse's niece Meckenzie, but that one came later, and there is no picture of it.

There are plenty of room for crayons, or pencils, as well as a drawing pad.

I also made several of these note pad books. This one happens to be for my mom, but I also made three for the other members of the RS presidency, and earlier I had made one for the Enrichment leader that I worked with for a year, and was released.

Both of these came from a pattern book that my dear friend Jana gave me for my birthday this past year. Thanks Jana!

10%

2009-10-03T09:39:00.002-04:00

This week I officially have lost 10% of my weight since starting running. Yea me! Of course, the whole, not feeling like eating due to an upset stomach really helped things along. Now I just need to be very careful not to put it all back on with the traditional General Conference Dunkin' Donuts sitting in my dining room.

T-minus one week

2009-10-03T08:27:00.004-04:00

OK, so we are exactly one week out. One week from this exact moment, I will be headed down to Baltimore for my big race. Sounds pretty good right? Well, except for the last little snag. My training partner and I have been sick. I guess it's better that we're sick this week, instead of next, but well, how annoying. Our last week to train, and we have not been able to. I'm starting to feel better. This morning, I was feeling pretty good except for the desire to throw up at any given moment. But seriously, other than that one little thing, totally feeling fine. My partner is a few days behind me getting sick, today she has a fever. Her kids had H1N1, and were really sick for several days. I really hope that we are both well by the time the race comes around. It's just kind of frustrating because we did everything so right! We started way early so that we could go slow and avoid injury. We trained smart, and hard. We extended our longest run to 12 miles, so that we knew that we could do it. And now this. Urg..... Oh well, wish us luck for our speedy recovery.

I would also like to say....

2009-09-19T10:04:00.002-04:00

I would also like to say that I love Muse, and I am super excited to see Muse and U2 in concert in a little over a week.
Thank you, that is really all.

I would just like to say

2009-09-19T10:02:00.002-04:00

I would just like to say that today I ran 12 miles. 12 MILES!!! And I did well on the run, and I will still be a functioning human being for the remainder of the day.
Thank you, that is all.

Another doll quilt

2009-08-25T07:36:00.002-04:00

So I have had some rail blocks left over from Meckenzie's quilt for 3 years now. I did use some of them for a different quilt, but I still had more, so I thought as I was making the quilt for Meckenzie's baby sister, that I would do a doll quilt for Meckenzie while I was at it, and this is what I came up with.
This is Meckenzie's original quilt.

Here is the doll quilt.

Are you ready for this?

2009-08-25T07:22:00.003-04:00

So this is one of my favorite quilts that I have ever made. It is for Jesse's brother's new baby coming in September. And it's super cute, so watch out.

It all started by centering around that elephant print. I knew that I wanted to do prairie points, so it all just kind of went from there.

It's really hard to see the quilting, because I found the perfect color thread that blends in well, but I had a lot of fun with the quilting on this one. I did it on Jana's mega quilter, and it only took me an hour and a half to do the whole thing. That included sewing down a prairie point two different times, and having to stop and get myself unstuck from that, and also reloading the quilt to do the borders on the sides. I did those freehand flowers like I had done on a previous quilt. Plus there are little flowers scattered throughout the quilting on the main portion of the quilt.

The pattern that I used for those square within square blocks was a little off. The largest triangles were just too small, so after cutting all of them I had to cut some more, which left a bunch of triangles for me to make a doll quilt out of. So I made her a matching doll quilt.

Another star quilt

2009-08-15T22:04:00.004-04:00

So not that anyone reads this blog anymore, since I don't post very often. I'm guessing unless you have it listed on your blog update list, you don't come anymore.

Anyway, I did finish a new project. I actually have another one finished, but it's not given yet, so on the slightest possibility that this week Heather starts reading my blog, I'll wait until I've given her the quilt to post photos. But I'm just saying, it's stinkin' cute. So be prepared.

This quilt I made for my old college roommie Mary, and her cuter than cute little boy. It is another star quilt, and this is the 3rd one I've worked on. This time I did it different. Instead of cutting templates and piecing that way, I just stacked all nine fabric squares together, and made the cuts all at once. Then I sewed, and trimmed the excess. Super easy.

Unique tidbit about this quilt, it is a stash quilt. I didn't buy any new fabric to make it. Not even the back, batting or binding. But anyway, it turned out really cute, and I sure hope that it arrived at its destination today.

Let's hear it for training partners

2009-06-07T20:14:00.002-04:00

So I have started to train for the half marathon that I am going to run in October. I know, most normal people don't need 5 months to train for a half marathon, but I do, and thankfully, so does my training partner. It happens that my training partner is my RS president, so it's nice for us to have this as we have been working together. This week we were up to 4 miles. I have done 4 miles in the past month or so, but it was before I was sick, and it was on a treadmill. I have decided that I am a treadmill runner, not an outside runner. On Saturday mornings when we go outside to run together, it's just awful.
And that brings me to my topic today. I now realize the importance of having a training partner. It is so motivating to have someone depending on you. I need to do my mid week runs so that I'm not so out of shape for my weekend runs. And, well, I would so wimp out on my weekend runs if it were not for Cindy. I would be walking through half of it. And it's obviously just because I'm too lazy, and don't want to run anymore, because as evidenced in the fact that I did complete the runs, my body was able to complete the runs. I saw a quote in runners world that was to the effect that battles are only won when you listen to your body, not your mind. It's all about what I have learned from Dean Karnazes, when your mind says no, see what your body says.
So yeah, the moral of the story is, I'm so glad for Cindy, and how she keeps me motivated, and keeps me going. And if you are going to train for something- get yourself a training partner!

Nate's big bed quilt

2009-05-12T20:12:00.004-04:00

So, 2 years ago or so, all of my quilting friends finished their first baby quilts, and decided that they needed to then make big quilts for their kids who were moving up into big beds. They all had their second kids before I had Graham, so they were moving their kids out of cribs sooner. Anyway, since I didn't really have much else going on, I went out and bought the fabric for this quilt. When I was growing up, my mom made a log cabin quilt for each of us kids, so this is kind of like my legacy quilt. It was the pattern the my youth dictated that I make.

So I got the fabric, and started to cut the strips that I needed. Then well, life got busy. We were about to move, and I was about to have a baby, and well, it was just not a pressing issue. So it sat in a bag for a long time. Then sometime this winter, we decided that we were going to get Nate a big bed for his birthday. Well, that meant breaking out the fabric that I had started cutting, and get going on it. So within a few days it seems I had all of the blocks done. Then well, you all know the saga of deciding on the pattern I put them together with, and the result. Well, at that point Jana's mega quilter was broken, so I could not quilt it, and there was really no rush, because Nate's birthday is not until June. But then Matt and Melissa moved in with my mom, and she had a mattress she needed to get rid of, so we took it, and Nate got his bed a little early. One problem was that I didn't have the quilt finished. But Jana got her machine fixed, and she called me last week and told me that her machine was open and I could use it.

Let me tell you about the mega quilter. Well, I want one. Except I want like a 26" arm or something. Jana's is just a small size arm, so there is only about 6" of quilting depth. But that is more than my machine has on a quilt this size. (My machine has like, no quilting room on a quilt this size.) Anyway, it was totally fun, and easy too.

So I got it quilted, and came home, and did my borders, and got the binding done. Except that while I was sewing the binding on, something spilled on it, and it smelled really bad. Not that much fun to quilt on.

I took Nate to the fabric store to find some back fabric a while ago, and in an effort to pick something that wouldn't be too 3 year old, we picked these stars. (As opposed to a novelty print.) Anyway, Nate loves the stars fabric. I put his quilt up on his bed, and he went up to see it at bed time, and he got all sad, and said he only loved the stars, so we had to flip it upside down. Little monkey.

So I think that's it. There is the long story of this quilt that I have been working on for a million times.

I did it again!

2009-05-03T21:00:00.002-04:00

So on Saturday night I ran another 5K. This time they sent me an email with my results, and I was actually a bit surprised. I knew about my time and pace. I ran a 32:40 which put me on a 10:30 pace. I had the exact same pace for all 3 miles. I wanted to slow down at the end, but just couldn't figure out how. (And my shins are still thanking me. I run on a treadmill, so it was quite a shock.)
Anyway, so they sent the results, and in my age group there were 99 women who finished, and I finished 44th. That by the way puts me in the first half of that group. Who would have thought I would have been in the first half? Crazy huh?
Anyway, I've mentioned it before, but I signed up for the half marathon in October, so I guess I'll keep on running. I need to make sure that I get out and run outside to train sometimes. You know, so that I don't break my shin bones.
So that's it. I just read that email and was shocked at my standing, so I had to share.

It's Christmas in March!

2009-03-20T21:32:00.002-04:00

So last November I bought a kit to do this Christmas tree quilt. I saw it hanging in up in Needles and Pins and I loved it. I never got around to making it last December (wonder why?) and so it has sat on my shelf in the bag since then. I thought I'd try to make it for the next holiday. Well, then our ward is having a talent show tomorrow, and I said that I'd display a quilt. Ok, well, the problem with that is that the only display worthy quilt that I had on hand I had just given to Natalie for her baby. So I figured I had other wall hangings that I could do if I couldn't throw something together in time, but that I would try something. I looked through my stash, because another requirement was that I was not allowed to buy any new fabric. So then I thought I'd try this. It was actually not too bad to do, just three different sets of strips.

I quilted it in a silver thread, and that was a mistake. It looks nice, but it broke 4 needles in the process, and broke about a billion times. Then, since I'm such a glutton for punishment I also decided to use the same silver tread along with this variegated holiday thread to do a hand quilted embellishment on the border. I didn't think I would ever finish it. Both of these threads are difficult to work with individually, but together, wow. Shoot me now. But I finished. I even put a hanging sleeve on the back of it. Something I've never done before. I don't have a place to hang it, or something to hang it with, but maybe one day in the future I will. It's kind of a weird size. Too small for a lap quilt, but still kind of large.

So anyway, that is my latest quilt. I just finished the binding tonight, just in time for the talent show tomorrow.

Another quilt

2009-02-27T14:14:00.003-05:00

So the last quilt that I made for Ashley was a hit at the shower, as they always are. But one girl in particular was oohing and ahhing over it. She is having a baby shower tomorrow. It is someone that I didn't really know until I was called to be the Enrichment counselor, and she is the enrichment leader, so now I work closely with her. Anyway, I like to make quilts for people who I know will appreciate them, and I know that she will. She was also commenting on how much she likes stars for babies. I had quilted stars into the quilt for Ashley. So when I saw this pattern I thought of her. She's having a girl, and I wanted to use some more funky fabrics, so this is what I came up with.

I decided to quilt flowers into the border, and on the center square. I was very pleased with the end result since I did it all freehand without drawing it on first.

Oh, and did you notice that this is the same pattern that I made that little pillow for Nate out of?

A Title Change

2009-02-20T16:27:00.003-05:00

So I finally did it. I finally went and changed the title of a post ages ago that I made. It was titled something like A misbehaving apres-midi. Except, not exactly that. Look at my tracker on the side, and you can guess what the real title of it was. Anyway, that is how most people who don't know me find this blog, sickos out looking for something less than wholesome. And I just don't feel comfortable supporting that, so I decided to change it. I'm sure that the people who found it were quite disappointed to find that all that had happened was Nate dunking the baby toys in the toilet while I was taking a nap on the couch with infant Graham. Anyway, hopefully that will put a stop to it. Whew, that feels good, and is long overdue.

Afternoon Project

2009-02-20T16:18:00.004-05:00

So I was supposed to baste and start quilting a quilt that my mom made for my grandma today, but I can't find my basting spray at the moment. I know that I just bought some, but I don't recall where I have placed it. So instead I picked some fabric to start working on this cool star quilt that I saw in a quilting magazine. If I had seen this pattern when I was making Nate's baby quilt I would have done it. It is just about exactly what I was looking for.

Anyway, as I had my fabric stash out Nate saw this yellow rainbow striped fabric and claimed it for his own. In fact, he said he would trade it for the big log cabin quilt I made for him. So I set out to start cutting some of the pieces. It is a template quilt, so it takes a while to get all of the pieces laid out right before cutting them. But I did it. And then I knew that Nate was not just going to let me take the blocks away, so I had to make them into a pillow. I guess I'll have to recut these fabrics to put into the actual quilt. Anyway, it's a cute little pillow and Nate seems to love it. So that is how we spent our afternoon.

And the Winner is.....

2009-02-03T20:34:00.003-05:00

And the winner is Starlight! It was a crowd favorite along with barn raising. And to back you up Nat, Stained Glass was one of my early favorites. Now, I can't just do a quilt like the instructions say, because I'm a dork like that. This quilt actually was one of the first quilts that I have made from a pattern in a very long time. Mostly I just look at a quilt, and am too cheap to buy the pattern, so I figure out one myself. Anyway, back to the point. I kind of changed it up just a tad. Maybe you hate it now, but I like it better, and that's what really counts. Jesse finally helped decide on this pattern because one of his favorite Muse songs is called starlight. He asked if we could make it a musical quilt, but finally settled on that being the quilt's theme song. (Something every quilt needs, right?) Anyway, so now I need to put the borders on. Sisto's was having a sale last weekend, so I got some border fabric. Then I still have my 50% off coupon at Needles and Pins, so I can get the backing, and a 40% off coupon at JoAnn's will get me the batting. Not too bad.

ps. And don't mind the cat. Any time I put a quilt on the floor at all, Lizzie (and Graham for that matter) take that as an invitation to walk all over it.

Which do you think?

2009-01-27T14:07:00.005-05:00

Ok, so I am making this log cabin quilt for Nate for when we move him up into a twin size bed. All of the blocks are made, but I need to decide which layout to use. I went ahead and laid out several different ones that I thought I would like, and now I need helping choosing which one is perfect. So comment on which one you like. If there is one that you think the blue and green ought to be switched, you can say that too. Tell your friends to come and vote too. I need a lot of help.

All Sevens

Fields and Furrows

Stained Glass

Cross Hatch

Whirligig

Starlight

Starburst

Barn Raising

Thank You!!!!!!

Another quilt

2009-01-12T21:48:00.006-05:00

So last week I whipped out a quick quilt for my friend Ashley who is having a baby. (Any time now, I ought to call her and make sure she hasn't had it yet....) Anyway, it's a version of a pattern that all of my quilting friends are making right now. I liked it so much that I may make a full size one one of these days. You know, when I have a few hundred dollars to just make a queen size quilt just for fun. :) I love the backing fabric, it is swimming monkeys. Some play marco polo, some are doing synchronized swimming, etc. It's really cute.

Did I Mention This?

2008-12-22T21:31:00.002-05:00

So our neighbors moved out a month or so ago. The ones to our back. The ones that like to party. The ones that are a little sketchy. Their house was on the market for a while, but then it no longer is, and no one has moved in, so I'm guessing it was a bit of an unfortunate situation that they have left, which stinks for them, because they were nice people. So yeah, they are gone. So we'll see how long it is before someone moves into that house. I'd imagine that it is not very nice inside, or so I have heard from a different neighbor. I just don't imagine that you spend a lot of time cleaning up after yourself if you have been evicted.
Oh well, I need to go and hide some presents and then I can go to bed. Yea!

Spreading the Holiday Cheer

2008-12-16T14:35:00.002-05:00

So today I had to go to the post office. I know, yikes! But as if that were not enough, I had to go in a "wintry mix" and bring both of my kids. I also forgot the small stroller, so I had to heft out the big double one. So we make a run for it and get to the post office, and the outer lobby is totally full. But this guy helped hold the door open for me, and then took pity on me and asked if I wanted his space in line. So I graciously accepted, and he went to take my space in line, at the back, like 5 people back or so. Of course, they could not get more than one person working the desk at a time, so the line took FOREVER to move at first. I think we stood there for a good 15 minutes before the line moved at all, and then it moved more steadily. Nate and Graham were little angels for the most part, but then when we got to the front of the line both of them started to get antsy. So today I am grateful for the nice young man who gave me his spot in line, because it turned out to be the exact length that my children could handle the post office today. Merry Christmas to you random stranger.

Twilight

2008-11-25T08:46:00.002-05:00

Well, my friends and I went to see the movie last night. It was of course a Monday night, the only school night for the kids in this county this week, so no one was there. I thought some parts were kind of annoying, but on the whole it was a good movie. I was especially anxious to see the Meadow scene since I'd heard so many terrible things about it. Hello Sand Art. I'm excited that they are going to make the next one. Some people have said they need to get on with it so that the actors don't age, but let's face it. They didn't start with 12 year olds, so the aging that any of these actors do is going to be easily covered with make up. The Jacob character on the other hand... we'll that's going to be a problem. It'll be interesting to see how they do that. It seems to me that Edward was supposed to be pretty tall too, and he wasn't that tall in the movie. We'll see. So yeah, good movie. Go see it if you have not already.
In other news, is anyone else really annoyed that Harry Potter is not coming out until July now?!

Are ya kidding me?

2008-11-12T07:06:00.002-05:00

So Dish Network was very prompt at getting us a new receiver. We got it set up, and shipped our old one back, and life was back to normal for 4 days, aside from Nate still from time to time mentioning that he can't watch Wallace and Grommit. Then came this morning. I turn on the tv and the same problem has occurred. I call Tech support, and they are going to send us a new receiver. If I have the same problem next Wednesday again, well, I'm going to march down to the dish network office and demand answers! It just seems kind of fishy for it to be a coincidence, ya know what I mean?

Life's annoyances

2008-11-11T20:29:00.003-05:00

Does anyone know how to get super glue off of fingertips?
On the other hand, don't thieves usually put superglue on their fingertips so that they don't leave prints? This could have possibilities...

My New Weight Loss Plan

2008-11-09T09:22:00.003-05:00

So, after I ran my 5K, I pretty much stopped running. Jesse was getting ready for his half marathon, and so he was taking all of the running time, and well, I just really don't enjoy running THAT much. So I gained back all of the weight I had lost and more. So just recently I started running again when I saw that I had reached my heaviest non-pregnancy weight. My new plan was not to lose x amount of weight, it was not to run in such and such a race. I do still have those goals, but my new immediate goal is to lose one pound a week. That's it. That's all I have to do in order to achieve my goal. So far I lost 2 lbs the first week, and 3 lbs this week. (So the next 3 weeks are free since I'm already up 3 lbs. )
I figure that the Baltimore Running festival is a year away, so if I can keep this up for a year, I can lose 50 lbs while training for the (half) marathon. So there you have it. All I need to do is keep losing 1 lb. I found that it is actually quite motivating. I can still have the occasional treat, but it does keep me thinking, if I eat this, is this what will push me over my 1 lb weight loss. If I don't run today, will it keep me from losing the weight. I'm hoping that I'm still 10 lbs away from plateauing, but in all reality, I am only 4 lbs away from the point that I always have trouble going under, and that motivates me even more. The last 10 lbs came on quickly and recently, so those will the the first to come off, but the next 40 lbs have been there for many years, so I'm really going to have to work on those. We'll see. Hopefully by having this goal in mind I will keep things in check this holiday season.
Speaking of Holiday Season, and weight loss, the only nice thing about Christmas coming right after Halloween is over is that the Christmas candies are already out. Yesterday I went to the grocery store, and they had candy cane Hershey's Kisses out. Those are the best Hershey's Kisses in creation, followed closely by the coconut ones that come out at Easter. It was bliss to find them. I can start nice and early this year.

Technology

2008-11-05T09:09:00.003-05:00

So 20 years down the road some things are going to be very different around here, and our kids will never be able to comprehend how hard we have it these days.
For instance, they will not be able to comprehend having to have actual discs to listen to music or watch movies. They will not know the heartache of having to learn to refold a map. (and read it on your own.) I think mostly thought, it's going to be television that will be different. They will not know about having to wait patiently for your favorite show to be on, and then actually being in front of the tv at that specific time. I think that "on demand" is the future of television, and it's going to change how we watch tv, and what we watch. I think that out of all of the advances in television, the most life changing one has been the invention of the DVR, or TiVo if you will. It's one of those things that once you have it, you do not know how you ever lived without it. Nate has had this luxury his entire television viewing life. He doesn't really understand when I tell him that he has to watch a certain thing at a certain time. Or when he wants to watch an episode of Curious George that was on yesterday, but we didn't record it, it's hard for him to understand that he can't watch it again. It changes the way that you view things too. I think that it is turning us into a very inattentive society. Think about it, how many times have you been listening to the radio, or watching a movie in the theater, and you missed something, and wanted to rewind? It happens to me all of the time. That is because I can rewind live tv.
Well, it is because I COULD rewind live tv. This morning I was sadly informed that my dvr has died. Apparently there is no hope for it. Now, fortunately for me, since it is a dvr, and owned by Dish Network, and the such, they will just ship me out a new one free of charge. BUT IT WILL TAKE 3-5 DAYS!!! Oh, the humanity of it all. How will I survive? Mostly it's sad because Nate has been asking to watch a movie that was recorded on the dvr, and now he'll never have that movie again. (Ok, so that is maybe a little dramatic, but you get the picture.)
So there is my sad story. Mostly it'll be a pain because Nate will continue to ask to watch things again and I'll have to say no. (Ok, so it's only a pain because of the whining, I guess it does have it's upsides.)

ps. Before you send me your condolences, and the such, I guess I should mention that I do still have the ability to watch live tv. It's just the dvr features that are broken.

I voted

2008-11-04T18:25:00.002-05:00

I did my civic duty and voted today. I did it after spending the day at my mom's house, so I figured that by the time I got there at 6pm the lines would be out the door. As it turns out, even though I live in the second largest city in Maryland, I still live in the boondocks, and there are no lines out here. I didn't stand in line for even a second. I guess I'm up for a boring evening of waiting for the results to come in. Maybe I'll go to bed early. It'll be midnight out here before all of the polls even close, and that's past my bedtime, so what's the point. I'll turn on the news in the morning.

Project Recap

2008-11-02T08:44:00.004-05:00

Ok, so the past week has been a very busy one. It seems that I have been working on projects left and right, but I finally finished them all. The biggest thing that I have been working on was the proton pack for Jesse's Ghostbuster costume. The one that came with the costume was a blow up thing, and it looked pretty lame. So he gathered some images from the internet and I thought that I could make a fairly decent representation with some boxes, toilet paper tubes papier mache and duct tape. It took a lot of thinking about how to get things to work together, and at the end of the day, I probably should not have even bothered with the papier mache and just stuck with the duct tape, but it all worked out ok. There are some parts that don't stay together well, like where the hose for the blaster attaches to the base, but it does pretty well. After it was all finished, I cut some slits in the back and stuffed a child carrier backpack into it. That was actually the hardest part of the whole thing.

Another project was this pinata. This was also a papier mache project. It was a huge hit. Nate helped make the face, and that is why the nose is on top of the eyes. We made this for a party at Nate's friends house. It was actually a great party and pretty much all of Nate's friends were there, and more importantly, pretty much all of my friends were there. Now that most of the kids are in preschool it has been really hard to get a large group of us together. The kids loved to hit the pinata, but I made it a little bit too strong, and it took forever to break it. I guess that's better that it breaking on the first hit though. I've never made one before though, so I had no idea how thick to make it.This is the wall hanging that I managed to finish. Jana gave me the pattern and the star hanger for my birthday this year, and I finally managed to get it done a few days before Halloween. She also gave me a pattern for Thanksgiving and one for Christmas, we'll see how fast those get done.And lastly, this is the quilt that we made for Colleen. This is just the top, Jana is going to quilt it on her mega quilter. Something like this ought to take her like half an hour. Colleen had a little baby boy a few weeks ago, and in the tradition of my quilting group, we made the baby a quilt. I sure hope that right now is not when Colleen decides to start reading my blog.

So on top of all of those things, I have done a little baking for the Witch's Tea Party that Jana had on Halloween Night. It was a lot of fun to just sit there and invite people up for a nice little treat.

Next month I have some holiday sewing to do, both as gifts and I got this kit to make this really cool Christmas Tree hanging. But no proton packs to make, so that makes life a lot easier.

I missed it!

2008-10-24T15:18:00.002-04:00

So this past week I celebrated my one year anniversary in the blogging world. It came and went without me even noticing it. I should have had a party or cake or something. Oh well.
I have been quite busy this week. I have been working on many different projects, and it has been keeping me quite busy. The main one that I have been working on this week is making a proton pack for Jesse's Ghostbuster Halloween costume. I've actually put a lot of work into it. I think I may be almost finished. I just have to figure out how to make it into a backpack. I may make an opening and place a backpack inside of the structure. I still have lots of spray painting to do.
I also have been working on a pumpkin pinata. We have a Halloween party to go to for Nate's playgroup, and I am going to bring a pinata. How fun. I saw one at the party store, but then I thought that I could make one for cheaper. (And so far all I've spent is less than a buck on orange crepe paper, everything else I've had at the house.) I still need to let the top dry and then figure out how to connect it securely to the top, and more importantly get some strings in it that will not break when you make it hold the full pinata.
I also have a quilted Halloween banner that I want to make. My friend Jana gave me the pattern and cute hanger for my birthday, and I have the fabric, I just have to make it.
I also want to make a ghost costume for Nate. He picked out a race car driver costume earlier this week, but now, it true Nate fashion will have nothing to do with it. Some kids you can't get them to take their costumes off. I can't get my kid in anything that is not normal clothes. Oh well.
I have already finished a Halloween pillowcase. I made it for Nate, but in true Nate fashion, he will have nothing to do with it since it is not his normal Thomas pillowcase. Oh well, it's on my bed now. Fortunately we have an odd number of pillows on our bed.
So that's what we've been up to. As soon as I'm done with it all, and have a second to breathe, I'll post pictures of all of the finished products. I have to be done with the proton pack and ghost costume by Tuesday night, and I have to be finished with the pinata by Wednesday afternoon. The other banner, well, that's just a wish, but the later it gets, the less time I'll have to hang it up.

Crazy Mrs Louise

2008-09-28T20:58:00.002-04:00

So, every time I say or think that, I always am reminded of Beauty and the Beast, where LaFou says "Crazy old Maurice, he's always good for a laugh."
But anyway, on to my story. So when we first moved in, we were warned about Louise. She is harmless, but into everyone's business. I was warned about her looking into your windows. Well, it took her 10 months, but she finally got around to looking into our windows. Mostly she comes up onto our deck and looks into the sliding glass window. She likes to see if Nate is there. Every time she does it, it scares the snot out of me. One time I was putting Graham down, and I came downstairs and she was at the door. All I saw out of the corner of my eye was someone on my deck at our door. She does it all the time now, like, at least once a day, and every time- scares me. When she did it on Saturday it scared Jesse. I am thinking that I need to leave the blinds closed, but then she may ring the doorbell. She has done that before, just to see if we are home.
Oh well, we may move soon anyway. The landlady is raising the rent, and we're still deciding if we want to pay that much. On to the eternal search for a place to rent. We'd move next to Jesse's work, but then we'd have to register our cars in Virginia, and we don't think that either car would pass inspection, so that may be more expensive than it's worth. OH well. We'll keep you posted.

How did I miss this?!

2008-09-20T08:00:00.003-04:00

So I just found out that yesterday was international talk like a pirate day? What a sad thought that I missed it. Do you know how often I would have said argh matey! if I had known? Oh well, mark it on the calendar for next year.

In other news, Jesse was canoeing with the scouts yesterday, so I was all alone last night, so Jana came over and we watched Made of Honor. It was a cute movie, and only just a little unrealistic that Patrick Dempsey was supposed to be in his early thirties.

Problem Solved

2008-09-16T09:55:00.002-04:00

So if you ask anyone on the street the major downside of Harry and David truffles, they will without fail respond that it is that they do not sell just the mint truffles by themselves. It is universally acknowledged to be the only downside to the heavenly confections.
So come with me on the journey to Costco last night. I noticed that right next to the Halloween costume aisle they had the Christmas chocolates out. It is my favorite time of the year, so I walked down the aisle and checked out what they had to offer this year. And then I see it, a large tube of Harry and David truffles- Harry and David MINT truffles. The whole tube is dark and milk mint truffles. It was as if my unwritten letter to Harry and David themselves had been magically read. What a glorious discovery it was.

I Did It!

2008-09-06T11:26:00.003-04:00

Well, I did it. I ran my race today, and it wasn't so bad.

Here is what I saw on my run:

1. rain

2. a lot of people passing me

3. rain

4. A Cow farm (It smelled great)

5. rain

6. more people passing me

7. The Cow farm again (smelled just as good the second time around)

8. rain

9. A dead bird (sad, and gross)

10. rain

11. My little boy cheering me on (yea!)

12. rain

13. my Husband cheering me on

14. the finish line!!!

15. rain

And here are some of the things that I learned while running today.

1. It's not too bad to run in the rain, but totally important to have a hat.

2. I CAN do it, and run pretty much the whole way. I only walked for like 50m at the water station at the half way point.

3. 5 year olds can kick my trash.

4. It is very important to go potty before you start running. Especially if you have given birth twice. We'll just say it's a good thing it was raining today and leave it at that.

5. Nothing lifts your spirits like a smiling soaking wet 3 year old cheering for you.

6. When you take a shower and start out wet, you feel entirely too wet by the end of the shower.

So there you have it. It wasn't raining that hard, just steadily. It was nice and cool though. I ran it in about 38 min which is much faster than my goal time of "finish." It's a nice starting point that should not be too bad to work from. So yea for me! And thanks to my family and Father in Law for coming out in the rain to see me run.

Now it's off to my High School Reunion.

Plus....

2008-09-04T08:11:00.002-04:00

To top it all off, we could be meeting hurricane Hanna on Saturday. So I could be running in the remnants of a hurricane in addition to being sick and having a bad knee. Fun Times.

Bad timing

2008-09-03T09:51:00.002-04:00

So I have my race this Saturday. Unfortunately last Saturday I went running with my new shoes (I love them) but my knee had been hurting before I left, and then it really started to hurt after I got back. (My feet on the other hand, were feeling lovely.) So all afternoon on Saturday and Sunday and Monday I was limping around because my knee hurt so badly. So my legs are feeling better by now, but another complication has come up. on Sunday I awoke with a cold. So now I feel miserable. I don't know what I'll do come Saturday if I still feel this rotten. I guess that I could walk it and still do ok. It's not that long.
In other news, last Saturday Jesse ran 10 miles. So he's well on his way to doing the half marathon. Good for him.

I'm committed

2008-08-20T21:28:00.002-04:00

No, the inevitable has not happened, I have not been sent to the loony bin. Instead I signed up to run the Frederick Fair's 5K. It is in just over 2 weeks. And there are no refunds. It will be my first race in 10 years. The last time I raced was the turkey trot my freshman year at college that Mary talked me into running. Today I did just under 3 miles. I know that I'll at least be able to finish it, and I should be able to run most of it. I'd like to be able to run the whole thing. We'll see.

No More Pain

2008-08-11T21:34:00.002-04:00

Ok, so not so much NO more pain, but today I did 2 easy miles, and it was my calves that hurt, not my knees. So I figure it's a good thing when my muscles hurt, and not my joints. So I'm sure that all of you are really tired of reading about each time I go running, but well, right now, that is the most exciting thing in my life. Plus, it gives me a bit of accountability. So if one day I stop writing about about running, all of you need to start asking me if I've given up. One day I'll have to get creative about it due to the cold, and I don't want to take the kids out in the cold, much less me run in the cold. Oh well.

Oh, the pain

2008-08-09T20:56:00.002-04:00

Ok, so yesterday I tried to do a speed work interval run. By the end of the work out (yes, all of 10 minutes of it) I was limping as I ran. Not an uncommon thing these days. I'm thinking that perhaps I am over-training or something. Or, I'm just fat and this is what happens when you put too much weight on your knees. Anyway, I'm hobbling around, and today when we tried to run it was just comical. Jesse looked back at me after he took over stroller duty, and he decided right there that perhaps we should walk the rest of the way.
BUT... I am not done. I am going to take it easy, perhaps ice my knee every night or something, I don't really know the rules for this stuff. I just know that I cannot give up this early in the game, I just need to change the game a little bit. In case it is not painfully obvious to the rest of you, pretty much after the first week I decided that I will never be ready for the half marathon in October, so I'll have plenty of time to get into shape so that I can train for that. Who knows, maybe I'll go all out and do the marathon next year.
Of course, Jesse plans to do the half marathon this year, and then wants to do a spring marathon, and then do the JFK 50 in the fall. But that's ok, Colleen said that she would try not to get pregnant again, and she would run it with me next year. What a good friend she is.
So there you have it, I can hardly walk up and down the stairs, but I am not deterred. I still plan to have regular exercise in my life.

Keep on Running

2008-08-06T20:54:00.003-04:00

So this past week has been difficult for running. There have been a lot of last minute things added to my schedule, and that has made finding time to run difficult. Then on Monday I tried to run, and Graham screamed the entire time, so that run was cut short and was more frustrating than fulfilling. But today I went out again without the kids. At first it felt like I was starting from scratch it hurt so much, but I ran through it, and it got better. The second lap I ran a little faster, and did a few sprints at the end, but through most of it I was kind of limping as I ran. I'm trying to find that fine line between training to strengthen my body and not over training to hurt my body... It's always a fun place to be. So I'm still here running. I'm not great yet, but well, I'm still trying and that is what is important.

New Quilts

2008-08-06T20:39:00.004-04:00

So, as Jana requested (ages ago) here are pictures of the quilt that I made for my friend Dessi's new baby. I recently helped her make her first quilts- 2 twin size quilts for her twins. (What a first project!) Anyway, it took about a year to complete, and she was saying that she wanted to make a quilt for the baby, but was thinking that her husband would not be too happy if she started another quilt. So I stepped up to the plate. It turned out super cute. All of the pinwheels are little flappy things, so that's fun. Plus, I'm getting pretty good at my free motion quilting.

This other one I made a while ago, with some fat quarters I had lying around. I just got around to photographing it today. I think I may try to sell it. Anyone interested? :)

Demoralizing

2008-07-29T20:49:00.002-04:00

So there you are running along. You are approaching the end of your first mile. Here comes one of the most beastly hills on your path. It is still at least 85* and quite humid at 7pm. Sweat is pouring down your face making your eyes sting. So you start up the hill. You WILL beat this hill. No walking! When a little voice from the stroller you are pushing says: "I wanna go fast mommy!" Not, I wanna go fastER, put he just plain thinks we ought to get to FAST. Kids.
But I did 3 miles today! In addition to the 2 miles I walked yesterday I'm already up to 5 miles! Tomorrow is a well deserved day off.

One week down

2008-07-26T15:24:00.003-04:00

Well, I did it, I made it through my first week as a runner. I logged 9.5 miles this week of running or walking. At this rate, it would take me a week and a half to run a half marathon. :)
I think I can keep going next week. I'm still a little motivated. Next week I want to run in the double digits. I've decided that even though I am slow and I need to walk, that I can call myself a runner because when I want to stop, I keep on going; when I feel like I cannot go any farther, I push myself to do it anyway.

Getting a little more sore

2008-07-25T16:36:00.002-04:00

We ran again last night. It was ok. I didn't feel as good after this run as I did the night before. I think that is because we ran a longer hill than is here in my neighborhood. Also, the kids were with us, and Nate isn't so fond of this. He wanted to go and play at the park more than he wanted to ride in the stroller. Also, he thinks that he should be able to run as well, so he never really wants to run. We did ok though. I think that today will just be a walk, and then on Saturday we will try a longer run. We'll see how I'm feeling. I hope that it only takes another week or so for my body to get used to this and stop being so sore all of the time. In the morning I can hardly walk down the stairs. A bit scary when you think that I am carrying Graham, and well, we all know how good I am at going down stairs...

I did it!

2008-07-24T07:35:00.002-04:00

Well, last night was a running night. Jesse had a thing at work, so he was not able to leave until 6, which meant that we could not go running together since there was no way that Graham was going to be able to stay awake until 7:30. So Jesse sent me running by myself. So I thought that I wanted to see if I could jog an entire mile. There is a loop that my house is on that is .9 mile. So I set out, and I did it! And not only did I jog the entire loop without walking, I went for a second loop. I had no intention of jogging the entire second loop, but when I got to the hill where I thought I was going to walk, I thought, you know, I could run a little bit more, it's not like I'm on my death bed. And then when I got to the top I was about at the end, but then it was down hill, and it's easy to run when you're going down hill, so I kept on running, and then I was practically home, so I just pushed a little further. So I ran about 2 miles last night without stopping or walking. I was so proud of myself. And it only took me like 20 min. I don't know for sure how long it took because I forgot to time myself, but all the same, not too bad considering I don't think I have run 2 continuous miles in the past 8 years. Of course last night it was about 15 degrees cooler than it was on Monday night, and than it will be for the next month. That helped A LOT! So we'll see there could just be a runner in my after all.
Today my biggest complaint is that my back hurts, but I think I'm going to have to deal with that for a while longer. I have a lot of extra weight that I am carting around and that strains a back. I'll have to sit in the massage chair every day for a bit.
Also, for those of you runners, or ex-runners or wanna be runners, or people who just like to read a motivational sports story, the thing that gave me the desire to push through and run the whole way was reading the book, Ultra Marathon Man by Dean Karnazes. It's a pretty good book, and you should check it out. It really makes you think about the limits of your body and perhaps that you are being a little bit wimpy.

An Altercation

2008-07-22T22:14:00.003-04:00

Ok, so today I did something I am ashamed of. I lost my temper with a child who vandalized my satellite dish. He was just a kid, maybe 5 or so, but I yelled at him, asking him who his parents were, and that they were going to have to pay for it, other things that I should not have put on a 5 year old. As it turned out the mother was near by. So she started yelling at me for yelling at her kid, and we went back and forth for a while, and pretty much I came away feeling awful, but all pumped up at the same time.
The problem was that this kid had like, hung on the arm of our dish, and had broken it, so the whole thing is going to have to be replaced, and I was thinking of what that was going to cost me. So I went in and called the police so that I could file a report. I didn't even know who this girl was. But she had been talking to my neighbors behind me, so I talked to them, and apologized for being such an obnoxious brat in public, and they were talking to me about how she is a bit of a bad parent, and on and on, and how I didn't need to apologize to them.
The thing is that my friends were here for quilting, so Colleen got in her car and followed her home, so that we could find out where she lived, and then I got more info from my neighbors. Then when I was out there taking a picture she came back and we had a civilized conversation where I apologized profusely for the completely inappropriate way in which I had acted. Anyway, it kind of ended better, but I had already called the police, so yeah. They came, and took a report. This way in case I needed to take an action later on, it would be ok.
Of course, the moron that I am, we don't have renter's insurance. It has always been on my to-do list, but never got done. You can be assured that tomorrow I'll be on the phone with State Farm. I called Dish, and they were going to send someone out, and it was going to cost me upwards of $300. And $99 of that was just for the visit. So I called these other people, who Dish contracts out to anyway, and had come out to fix our reception a few other times, and they were going to do the whole thing, visit and equipment, for $100. Plus, they were going to be here earlier.
Anyway, it's the first time I've ever done that, and I feel bad about it, and totally embarrassed. On the other hand, it made for quite an exciting quilting night. Jesse is at a movie today, so he's going to be excited when he gets home and sees that. I sent him a pic message. THe movie should be getting out any minute now...

Running for Non-Runners

2008-07-21T21:53:00.002-04:00

Ok, so at BYU, there is this class called Swimming for Non-Swimmers. I always thought it was a bit of a humorous title for a class, but none the less, knew that I belonged in that class. I never did take it though. I think of it though as I start the next goal in my life, and that is to finally do something about all of the weight that I have gained. Jesse and I are finally putting good use to the jogging stroller; we are going to start running together.
When I graduated from college some 6 years ago I was a nice size 7. It was great. I really enjoyed looking at my flat stomach in the mirror, and well, I was happy about my body. 5 years of marriage and 2 babies later, I am tipping the scales at a tidy size 14. Yikes! How did I ever let it get this bad? (Well, the answer to that is that I am a world champion at being lazy.) I always think, I need to start a diet and start exercising. I even joined the YMCA for a while a few years ago. But money gets tight and so a family gym membership is not in the budget this year, so what is a mother of 2 supposed to do? Graham is still quite needy and has not mastered the art of self entertainment for more than a few minutes at a time. I got the jogging stroller, but then Graham started waking up early and taking an early nap, and Nate started waking up late. So these days Nate is just waking up when Graham is ready for his nap. I know, all weak excuses.
But then Jesse and I decided that we were going to run together when he gets home from work. It is by far not an ideal situation, but it's just about our only option.
The only problem is that I am what I would call a non-runner. It's not that I have never been a runner before, but I don't know that even when I was a "runner," I was actually a "runner." I ran cross country and track in High School, and that was ok. I wasn't really any good at it. Then when I was a freshman in college I had a great roommate who was always up for a run. Mary and I would go running regularly at 11pm or later. But then by Sophomore year we only got together a few times to run, even though we only lived 3 doors apart. And then I just kind of stopped running. I was still active, I would walk to and from campus a few times a day, and stuff like that, but that was the end of my running career.
Then I had Nate and well, running was just not an option for me, my body had forgotten it, and rebelled. I was officially a non-runner. When we joined the Y, I did the bike and the elliptical, not the treadmill. And that brings us to today.
So today was day 1. I was supposed to have quilting tonight, but it got moved to tomorrow night, so we moved our first day up to today from Wednesday. I was a little worried. I told Jesse that he had to run with me, no matter how many times I needed to stop and walk. On my previous attempts I came nowhere close to running a mile. I walked most of the way. Today, however, was different. I had found what I lacked before, a running partner. Just having someone there to witness me being a wimp was enough to motivate me. Today went much better than I had anticipated. We kept a slow easy pace, and I was able to run for much longer and farther than I had ever done before. We did well enough that Jesse talked about signing up for the half marathon this fall. The initial goal is to be in good enough shape to run the Baltimore half marathon next October. Maybe if thing go really well to run the marathon. I mean, what better way is there to get into shape than by training for a marathon? So I don't know about this year, I guess we'll have to see how long it is before I can do a mile without stopping.
So here I am, thrown into a sport I used to semi-enjoy, because let's face it, the only reason I did CC and Track was because it was a family tradition, and no one got cut from the team. We'll see where this takes me. Perhaps it will be easier than I think, and I'll be able to run a half marathon in 3 months. Crazier things have happened. At the very least, I can hope to get into a healthier lifestyle, and maybe lose a few pounds.

Correction

2008-07-01T15:40:00.001-04:00

It was the neighbors behind us that called the police about our door being open. I talked to him today and he told me how his wife was very concerned about our door being open. Well, how nice of them. I never said they weren't nice people.

Neighbors Revisited

2008-06-29T19:11:00.003-04:00

Ok, so I have blogged quite a bit about my neighbors here. Today I want to take the opportunity to update you on the goings on of our neighborhood.

First of all, our neighbors right next door to us are moving by the end of the summer. We are quite sad about that since they have been great neighbors.

Second, the people here really are quite nice to each other. For instance, on Saturday I was draining Nate's pool, which is like a 50 gallon thing. So there was a lot of water, and it was draining for at least an hour. During that time, our neighbors behind us (the ones who like to party and have a foul mouth,) and the neighbors next to us (the ones who are moving) both came over to let us know that we had water running from our deck. So how considerate.

Also, we went camping this past weekend, and me, being the space cadet that I am, forgot to close the door. I didn't forget to lock the door, but I did forget to close it. I wasn't sure that Jesse had his keys, so I didn't close it, and then we drove off without looking back. (Which is of course weird, because as we got into the car to pull out we were looking right at the open door, but just didn't notice it.) Anyway, when we got back on Saturday afternoon we found a note inside of our door saying that our neighbors were concerned that we had left our door open, so the police came by and locked it. It was probably Mrs. Louise, the old lady who lives to the other side of us, and is kind of a neighborhood watch. She I'm sure noticed that we were packing up, and then noticed that my car was gone, and then as she repeatedly went out to make sure that he car was locked, noticed our wide open door. She is observant like that. When I'm gone for the morning she always asks me where I have been, and when I leave she asks me where I'm going. She's nice, but in the early stages of Alzheimer's I believe. So we do have neighbors who are concerned for our well being.

Of course, there is always the other side. Mrs. Louise, whereas she is very nice and friendly, is a bit of a crazy driver. I guess there have been incidences. Well, we had one of those on Friday as we were packing up our car.

Yes, she knocked over the first section of our fence. I didn't see it, but Jesse was looking out the door as it happened. Apparently, she hit it, and paused for a second, and then just kept on driving. I haven't seen her since it happened, so we'll see what she says next time we see her. I'm just glad that I don't have to deal with it. I called my landlady, and she kind of laughed about it. She used to live in this house, so she is familiar with Mrs. Louise and all of her crazy antics.
Oh well, so this one goes out to all of the neighbors. Thanks for the concern, and keep on being crazy. It gives me something to blog about.

Project time

2008-06-19T16:20:00.002-04:00

I made a quilt for Enrichment this month. We were having a service auction where we could bid for things that people had made or things they could do for us. I made this cute quilt. I needed practice doing a meandering stitch on my machine, so I thought this would be the perfect opportunity. I think it turned out just fine.

Potty talk

2008-05-24T19:33:00.002-04:00

Ok, so readers be warned, this post is all about the bathroom.
So this morning we went to go and see the new Indiana Jones movie. Which BTW, is pretty good. The only complaint that I really have, aside from ***SPOILER ALERT**** the whole alien thing ***END SPOILER ALERT*** is that the entire second half of the movie has water noises in it. This is unfortunate if you happen to have to use the bathroom.
So that brings me to the end of the movie. I went to use the restroom after the movie was over, and there were lids on the toilets. Which, in a normal restroom you would not expect any of the lids to ever be down. However, these were automatic flushing toilets. So the sensor will only go off if you close the lid. I immediately saw this as being the best idea to ever come to the public restroom. There are several problems that I can see are eliminated by employing this idea. First of all, the toilet will not flush until you are ready for it to. Always a plus. Also, those auto flushers are pretty powerful, so there is always a considerable amount of spray, and that is also eliminated. I feel pretty strongly about putting the lid down when you flush in any situation. When you flush the toilet it sprays teeny tiny little toilet waters all over the place- think about that the next time you brush your teeth. Anyway, here is a public restroom where I do not have to feel like I was covered in poo water by the time I exited the stall. So yeah, that only leaves the problem of the jerks who do not close the lid and cannot figure out why the toilet is not flushing.
Anyway, sorry of the nature of this post. But, it's my blog, so that's my right.

TV time

2008-05-08T18:42:00.003-04:00

So here is the best quote I have heard on a tv show in a long time:
"I am polymerized tree sap, and you are an inorganic adhesive. So whatever projectile you launch in my direction is reflected off of me, returns on its original trajectory and adheres to you."
- Sheldon on "The Big Bang Theory"

More complaining

2008-04-24T16:27:00.002-04:00

Ok, so as you know, I have some interesting neighbors. Now that the nice weather has arrived, we spend a lot more time outside, and so do our neighbors. Especially in the evening. We play in our back yard, and they sit out on their front porch. That is a common thing to do around here, just sit on your front porch. I can understand people who live downtown doing that, because there are always cars driving by, and probably interesting things happening. However, for all intents and purposes, we live on a court. And like a court without the circle. It's really just a shared driveway. Really, not much goes on down here. Anyway, our backyard borders their front yard.
So there have been several times as we have been outside or as we have had the door open that we can hear them talking. One day, and I don't think I'll forget this one in a while, I was inside and I heard one of my neighbors cleaning out her car, and her 5 year old was with her, and she started yelling at her kid, and she said at one point, "you'd better watch your (and at this point she inserted an unpleasant word) mouth." So it's a big case of do as I say, not as I do over there.
Anyway, as we were playing tonight, our neighbor had a visitor, and she and he were sitting on their porch talking, and talking rather loudly (They are of the talk loud enough so that everyone within a mile radius can hear you variety.) Anyway, so she is using some very unpleasant language, like really bad stuff, and using a lot of it. To give you an idea, within just a few minutes, I was thrown straight into an R rated movie. Now, I don't want to hear that stuff, but I especially don't want my 3 year old to hear that stuff. He repeats just about everything. Anyway. I just am sad that common courtesy has exited from society these days. So I guess that's just one of the fun things about living in this neighborhood. Oh well. Life goes on.

Chaps my hide

2008-04-21T19:38:00.002-04:00

So today I was driving by my local fire station. This is the same station that I bought a Christmas tree from last year. It was a little more expensive than I had wanted it to be, but I figured that it went to a good cause, so it would be ok.
Today I found out what that "good cause" was.
Was it a new fire truck which literally costs a million dollars? Was it new gear for the fighters, which costs $100,000 per fighter? Was it new tools? Was it for training for the fighters?
Close.
It was for a new sign in the front entrance. You know, with those television screens like you see in sports arenas- on both sides! This sign is probably the nicest one in the city now. It has the one at the mall beat by a zillion miles.
So seriously- this is what you are going to use my money for?
Now, I like giving to charity. It makes me feel good. I wish I had more money so that I could do more. However, I also feel like I want to stipulate where my money goes to. Has anyone seen Stranger than Fiction. Where the Maggie Gyllenhaal character only wants to pay taxes if they go to the things she agrees with? I kind of feel that same way, except that I pay all of my taxes. But I don't want to give to BYU these days because I want all of my money to go to scholarships, not to building new sports plexes. Ok, they could use my money to make the buildings up to the new earthquake codes too. But not new sports buildings that affect the people who only see college as a segue to professional sports.
So I guess that makes me only a sort of good person. I'll give, but only if I can be judgemental about the things that they do with my money. BUt isn't that kind of my right? If I had stock in a company I would get a say in what they did with the company wouldn't I? (Once again, I am getting this information from a movie- Mr Deeds. I'm in a movie mood today aren't I?)
So that's it. I just wanted to complain about how the fire station used my money, and say that next year we will not be buying our Christmas tree from them.

A Love Story

2008-04-21T09:46:00.003-04:00

So I don't recall the first time I ever had a Harry and David Truffle. I do recall when I fell in love with them. It was last summer. My mom had some at her house and I had a few, and decided that out of all of the vice foods you can have, (is that a valid phrase?) this is one of the best. I was at the time living with my in-laws, and about to go crazy. So one day my sister in law and I were at the outlets and we decided to stop by Harry and David. They had truffles on sale, so I picked up a few bags. The sales lady mentioned that they freeze really well, and I said, freeze them? Are you crazy? Aside from the fact that I was pregnant, and starting my latest phase of stress eating, (which has lasted almost a year now- yikes!) I was a little concerned that if they got put into the freezer where I was living, they would be eaten by someone other than me. It's not that I mind sharing food, it's just that these are well, Harry and David Truffles. I grudgingly shared them with Jesse with a firm warning that if he ate more than one at a time they would be hidden from him. These are not the kind of food that you snack on. This is not like when I grab a handful of Hershey's kisses to eat while watching tv (can anyone guess why I have put on so much weight in the past 5 years?) These are to be savored. Just last night I had one, and then Jesse offered me something else to eat, and I turned him down because I still had the glorious taste of truffle in my mouth and was not ready to end that.
So anyway, we went up to the outlets this past weekend, and stopped by good old H&D, and picked up a few bags of truffles. (One of them did make it into the freezer this time.) And there you have it, my love affair continues. They stay upstairs, because I'll be honest, these days I feel like stress eating all day long. Mint ones are my favorite, and I am always saddened by the fact that they do not sell bags of just mint ones, however, the mixed bag that has mint in it makes all of them taste a little minty. So that is nice.
So your homework assignment is to go and procure yourself a Harry and David Truffle if you have never had one. It always leads to good times.

Lizzie

2008-04-21T08:24:00.003-04:00

So yesterday we came home from church to find that Lizzie had left us a little surprise. As it turned out, Jesse had left the door to the storage room closed last night which is where her littler box is, so she could not get to it. As a result she had to do her business elsewhere. However, smart cat that she is, do you know where she picked to be her make-shift litter box? Our bathroom, right in front of the toilet. What a smart cat. If only the lid was up... Meet the Parents anyone....?

Duckie curtains

2008-04-14T10:59:00.003-04:00

So a month or so ago I decided that I really needed curtains in the baby's room. I would rock him in the middle of the day, and the sun would shine right through the blinds and into his eyes. After shopping around I figured that with the coupon I had, I could buy the fabric and make the curtains for much cheaper than I could buy them pre-made for. Also, they would be a cuter fabric than what I could buy. So I went to my local quilt shop where I had a coupon for 50% off one cut of fabric. That was a pretty good deal for me since I wanted to buy 8 yards of fabric. I went to JoAnn's and I bought some backing fabric (once again using a 40% off coupon) and then I got to work.
I have decided the curtains are not fun to make at all. They turned out ok, and looking at them from a distance they are fine. It's only when you look closely that you notice that one panel is longer than the other, the side hemming is a little crooked, etc. etc.
But I was proud of myself. I had never attempted curtains before, and lined ones was a pretty ambitious way to start.
So that was a while ago. I just now got the pictures up.
In other news, Nate has been falling out of bed lately. It's unfortunate because we just moved his bed to the other side of the room, so the side of the bed where he is used to having a wall now is just empty. It's a good thing it's not a long fall. So now we either need to turn his bed around, or we need to put a rail up. I'll let you know how things pan out.

Just so you know

2008-03-26T08:15:00.002-04:00

Just so you know, when you come to my house, you have to be really careful when walking down the stairs. Yes, I'm a dork, I fell down the stairs again last night. Not carying anything, not doing anything tricky, just plain old walking down the stairs. Apparently I need to get down, turn around and go down backwards on my hands and knees as going down forward is not a skill I have mastered yet.
On a happier note- Nate has not started singing along to the heavy metal music that goes along with Jesse's video game that Nate likes to play. Yea.

sisters

2008-03-23T20:51:00.001-04:00

So my sister is in town, and she has her kids with her. One day I was talking to her 4 year old daughter, and I said, "did you know that when we were little, your mommy was really mean to me all of the time?" And she thought about this for a minute, and then she said, "oh, so you were sisters then?"
That is a girl who does not need a little sister.

Memory Lane

2008-02-29T08:38:00.002-05:00

Well, since Katie and Mary have reminded me of the walk by, and then Maris did her blog about favorite childhood memories, I have decided that it is time to reminisce.
Freshman year we had a lot of good times. We were 6 strangers put together by chance, but stayed together by choice. (Ok, we didn't actually stay together as roommates- but we did stay friends.) One of the best things that we did freshman year, aside from pull down our pants in front of missionaries, was the walk by. I don't remember how it started or why we thought of doing it, so you who will remember will have to help me out on the details that I am foggy on. But it was a Sunday afternoon, and there was nothing else to do, so we thought we would start calling random numbers in the BYU directory and see who we found. We only called numbers that we knew were in boys dorms. I guess we wanted to see these guys without actually having to meet them, so we asked them to walk by our window. Our big kitchen window looked out onto one of the main roads, and there was a grassy spot by it, so it was pretty perfect. So we called probably half a dozen guys and scheduled them to walk by. And that's it, we just wanted them to walk by our window.
Some of them came prepared with songs and what not. I guess when we were done with them we called out the window and dismissed them. We sat with the lights out in our kitchen peeking through the blinds at those people who had showed up. One group was singing to us while the rest of our ward started walking by headed to ward prayer. So of course, the whole ward, even the bishopric knew that we were the home of the walk by.
Anyway, this does no justice. It's hard to tell a good story when your kids are distracting you.
So one more story for this time. This came junior year. We hung out all of the time with this one apartment of boys, and they were kind of our standing weekend plans. One day however, they decided that they wanted to take dates out. So they were all gone one night, leaving us high and dry. So we decided it was prank time. We got someone who worked in the office to let us into their apartment. We went to the laundry room and got some lost and found clothes and we stuffed them with newspaper and made people. They had blown up rubber gloves for hands, balloons with glued on yarn for hair. We then positioned them so that they were making out on the couches in the boys apartment. We had I think 2 couples. We put on some great disco make out music, and put up a bunch of decorations. I think we even had a disco ball up and streamers. We put up a sign that said welcome to the love shack. We were really hoping that the guys would bring their dates back to the apartment. I don't know if they ever did though.
We did get caught though. One of the guys did not go on the dates with them, and he came home while we were in his apartment decorating. He thought it was funny though, so he kept quiet for us. The guys of course knew that it was us that had done it and it was all fun and games. But that is certainly one Friday night out of my life that was not wasted.
So there are some memories. I figure that these blogs are an imprint in the world, and a pretty easy way to record what my life has been like. I always liked hearing the crazy things that my mom did while she was in college, because it reminds me that she did silly things that you would never do if you were not in college, just like I did. So maybe in the years to come (especially if I ever have a girl) I can share some of my favorite memories that will remind her that she has a legacy of doing stupid silly things while in college. So it's just a little diversion from the norm, but you get what you pay for.

Past projects

2008-02-24T19:03:00.005-05:00

So it's project recap time. This first picrture is one of the valentines that I made for Nate's valentine party. We were having a little party for the kids in conjunction with one of their birthday's. The emails were flying around about celebrating V-Day, and putting out valentines for all the kids, and some of the other mom's were complaining a little bit. Well, it has long been the joke in my group that I am a bit of an over achiever. It started when one day when we were still a new group that I mentioned at night Nate only ate on one side, so I pumped the other side while he was eating. Well, they were all amazed at that, but the only reason I had said anything was because I had heard the idea from someone else at the group. So then they found out that I quilt, and they joked that I would quilt while I was nursing, and there soon became a long list of things that I did while nursing. (ps, I tried the quilting while nursing thing, just to see how it would work, and it doesn't.)
So here I am nursing again, and the jokes have started again. So Amy makes a comment that she is sure that I am going to make some quilted valentines while I am nursing. And that got me thinking, wouldn't it be hilarious if I actually showed up with quilted valentines? It wouldn't be so hard to do, just fold some fabric in half, I can quilt on my machine, and I even have a free motion foot, so I could do more than just straight lines. I cut some hearts out with my sizzix die cutter, and voila! Quilted valentines.

This one is a placemat that I made for my mom for her birthday. I got the idea from my friend Jana, who makes cute placemats, and I looked at them and thought, I could do that. Plus, each week when I go to my mom's house she has out these old woven placemats that are coming apart at the corners, so I figure she could use some new ones. When we celebrated her birthday I didn't have them all done. I had just decided to make them earlier that week, so by the time Saturday rolled around I was finishing binding the first one that morning. So she opened it up, and it was ONE placemat, and of course what do you do with only one? But I promised her that more would come.

Also, that morning I had wrapped the gift, and Nate saw it on the table, and he of course wanted to open it because it wants to open all gifts. I went to take the wrapping paper upstairs, and I thought, if I leave that on the table, he will probably open it, but I still left it on the table. Sure enough, as I was feeding Graham a few minutes later, I start to hear a rip rip from the other room. I just taped it back together and gave it to mom anyway. I figured it gave it character.

I've been tagged

2008-02-22T20:04:00.003-05:00

Ok, for the first time in my blogging history I have been tagged. It's a reading thing. It's a good thing I read.
Here are the instructions:
1. Pick up the nearest book (of at least 123 pages).
2. Open the book to page 123.
3.Find the fifth sentence.
4. Post the next five sentences.
5. Tag five people

The last book that I read was Harry Potter #7, and that was pretty close.
Harry, Ron and Hermione looked at one another.
"A surprise apparently! You were not aware then that Dumbledore had left you anything?"
"A-all of us?" said Ron. "Me and Hermione too?"

As for who I tag, I don't know about 5, but I do tag Jana, cause she always has some sort of fun book that she is reading.
Plus, she introduced me to a very funny blog today: stuffwhitepeoplelike.wordpress.com
Check it out. It's hilarious. it's free, so you get more than you pay for.

More on my neighbors

2008-02-22T19:49:00.003-05:00

Ok, so one of my favorite past times is to watch out my dining room window. Not much really goes on out there. I do look out onto the parking lot of the naughty kids school, and a week or so ago an am-blance came to the school and I wondered if someone had smuggled in like a shiv or something.
My neighbors also are unusually active for it being the middle of the day, and there are always people coming and going. These are the ones that I'm pretty sure do drugs in their shed, yet must be ok people due to the decorations that sometimes appear at their front door.
So today I was watching out my window and these two skinny white kids show up. It seemed like they were expected, but they seemed awfully out of place. They were wearing pseudo-suits, and carying books. They seriously looked like impostor missionaries. Anyway, as they show up and were trying to get in the door I had a movie moment. It was one of those moments where you want to scream to the screen- Don't go in there! They did go in (and I have to say, they kind of looked surprised that they got in.) and I suppose they are ok. I never saw them exit, but it's more of a hobby than a full time job, so I wasn't really paying that much attention to watch for them to leave.
Anyway, it all just felt a little Rear Window-ish. But now it's time to go and put the crazy one to bed, so it's a little scary today, but you get what you pay for.

Happy Shrove Tuesday

2008-02-05T20:02:00.000-05:00

Well, I am not Catholic, but I sure do love it when Shrove Tuesday comes along. Today was a little bittersweet. I love to have donuts on this festive holiday, but today I was reminded of a very sad even that happened a year ago this month.
Jesse and I were planning on going to his parents house that day, and we were leaving town sometime mid-afternoon, and we saw a large plume of dark smoke from down the street. It was such that we knew at once that a large building was on fire, and it looked like it was coming from this little shopping center that had several stores that we had gone to. As we were leaving town we commented that we hoped that it was not that particular shopping center.
That night on the news we saw that it was indeed the shopping center down the street from us. It was the place where we went to Quizno's and most importantly, it was the place that we went to Dunkin' Donuts.
The Dunkin' Donuts had burned down.
It was the saddest day ever.
And so here I was today, faced with the desire to obtain some Dunkin' Donuts, and instead of going 1/4 mile down the road (I can see the empty burned out shell of the shopping center from our new house.) I had to go half-way through town to get some. It wasn't so much the drive that was bad, it was just the sorrow of losing something like a good friend that got to me.
So there you have it, a bittersweet day for us. We are excited for the day that they rebuild the shopping center. It has been almost a year, and it is still just a frame. Oh well, I guess I'll survive until then, and it's probably nice not to have the temptation that close. So that's it, it's not the key to universal happiness but you get what you pay for.

Update

2008-01-25T14:23:00.000-05:00

Well, here is a little update on my fall yesterday. After it happened, pretty much my whole body hurt. I hit just about every appendage I had. Today I am not as sore as I thought I would be, but my neck hurts a lot. When I fell my head flew back, and I hit the back of my head on a stair. My bum hurts a lot too. The most annoying part was that I woke up this morning with vertigo. It's much better this afternoon though. Anyway, I guess that's it. I'm just in a bit of pain today.
On a completely different subject. Lizzie is not a cat to come and sit on your lap. In fact, she has not done that in over a year. Right now, as I have a computer on my lap, she decided that it would be a good time to come and start being a lap cat. Silly cat. Oh well, you get what you pay for. (And we didn't pay for her.)

Am I a Freak?

2008-01-24T20:07:00.001-05:00

Ok, so the obvious answer to that question is, yes, I am. However, I will tell you the reason of the day.

So I was lying on the floor with Graham one day, and he was lying on one of his quilts. As I get down to take some pictures of him I see this stray thread on his quilt, and my first thought was- how cool, that thread is a perfect ampersand. My second thought was- if I take a picture of that, I can write about it in my blog. So there you have it. You probably have to click on the photo in order to see it big enough to actually see the thread, but well, what can I say, the ampersand is my favorite symbol. So I know, it's a bit random, but you get what you pay for.

Oops, I did it again

2008-01-24T16:21:00.000-05:00

Well, today I fell down the stairs again. This is the 3rd time in about 4 months. This is also by far the worst fall of them all. Thankfully none of the falls have been that bad. Just leave me quite sore. I'm also glad that I am no longer pregnant, so that is not a danger.
The last two falls have occured on my basement steps. I believe they may steeper than a normal flight of steps, but for sure the carpet on them is slippery. My foot slips while walking down them on a regular basis. I am quite excited that we finally got a railing installed, but all the same, when I am carring the laundry basket downstairs, a railing does me no good.
Anyway, I just a little battered today, and I hope it doesn't hang around. I took some of my left over post-partum pain meds, so we'll see how well those work. So that's it, it's not world hunger, but you get what you pay for.

My Christmas Projects

2008-01-14T20:20:00.000-05:00

Ok, so I have officially started a new family blog, so this one will have fewer family stories, and will be more my random thoughts. I will also share some of my projects that I have worked on, you know, on account of it being called losing my needles.

This Christmas I found a pattern by Art to Heart called Glad Tidings I think. Anyway, I was attracted to it because it had a pattern for an Advent calendar. I didn't have an advent calendar, and I really wanted one. This one was really cute, and it was a nativity scene to boot. So I was pretty happy about that. I think it turned out pretty cute.

In this pattern book there was also a pattern for a wall hanging called a button up quilt. Obviously because there were buttons and stuff. Anyway, I was totally ambitious this winter, and in addition to having a baby at the start of December, I decided that I was going to make this for myself, and as a Christmas present to my sister in law Heather, since we had her family for Christmas this year, and also one for my mom. I think that they turned out pretty good. (Of course I am going to say that though, since I will probably not post the results of something that I totally messed up on.)

The last thing that I made was a little tiny quilt. I put it on the table, and it was just a tiny nativity quilt.
Anyway, they were actually pretty easy to make, it was all iron-on transfer stuff, so that was nice. Plus, when you make a bunch at once, it really is not that much more effort than making one. So there is my latest project that I have worked on. I think that I may start working on a stocking for Graham. I need to order 2 more so that I can make new ones for Jesse and I so that we can all have matching stockings. I could easily do that by next Christmas. Anyway, when I finish that, I'll let you know. So that's it. My blog has officially taken a turn, and is perhaps more of what I intended it to be, and as always you get what you pay for.