I'm Joining in the Fun

As I'm reading the blogs of other quilters, I'm finding that we have an awful lot in common in addition to fabrics and creativity! :) A couple of fun things I thought I would do is follow in their tagging games and start one here myself.

All That History

20 years ago (1986): I was ending my freshman year in high school looking forward to what were *supposed* to be the best four years of my life (yeah, right!).

10 years ago (1996): Married to Jim for three years now and moved back to Jefferson. Still trying to settle in. Working as an insurance agent and loving it until I find out in October that I'm pregnant with our first baby.

5 years ago (2001): Doing ALOT of adjusting to life as my mom has been gone a year or so and Will was born in November of 2000. Quit my job to become a SAHM (who'd a thunk it?!?!) And who could forget the worst day in US History on my MIL's birthday?

1 year ago (2005): Celebrating 12 years of marriage and the one year birthday of our third child...Afton Elizabeth! Still living in our small town and hating it...but learning to live with the life choices I've made which is a HUGE step for me (that high-end executive job still sometimes calls my name!) Facing yet another huge loss as my birthmother dies in a six-week time period from very, very aggressive cancer.

1 month ago (2006): We found out that our new baby will be another girl! Due in August, this brings our child count up to four (and enough!). And yes, we do know what causes pregnancy.

Today: A busy day full of accomplishment on my to-do list. I ALMOST have a clean house!

Tomorrow: Put together my Wizard of Oz baby quilt borders and work out the final details on the Round Robin that's due next week!

Tagging: I'll tag Jinx, Amy, Tina and Tracey...

The Decluttering is ON!

So far, this week has been extremely productive...

1) I've cleaned out all of the kids' rooms of any clothing that they either won't wear or is too small.

2) I've cleaned out our own closet of clothes that we either don't (won't) wear or are too small.

3) I've organized said clothes into piles of consignment or Goodwill.

4) I've delivered to consignment and Goodwill.

5) Brought back home the consignment "rejections" and posted them to my local Freecycle group.

6) I've cleaned out the kids' toy room and posted a HUGE bunch of videos on Freecycle and expect to continue with the toy downsizing today.

7) I'm giving the remaining Freecycle items on my list until the weekend...then I'm posting to a bigger group and expect to get rid of everything by early next week. (Yeah!)

8) I ordered the new drawers to put the baby clothes in and have sorted through them also. I will need to go back and resize once the drawers get here, but it could be a couple of weeks.

9) The most disappointing thing to my week??? Unfortunately, I haven't done ANY quilting this week and I am getting ITCHY ~ ITCHY ~ ITCHY!!!!!!!

10) My one bad moment...at the expense of all of the decluttering going on around here, I've let my clean kitchen and living room "go to pot" so to speak so will spend today picking up, sweeping and vaccuming them.

**STILL on my To-Do List**

1) Declutter the kitchen. I KNOW there is a TON of stuff I could get rid of out of my cupboards.

2) Clean the ceiling fan in the kitchen and the lights in the kitchen, dining room and bathroom.

3) Sweep and scrub the bathroom floor. Declutter the bathroom closet.

4) Clean off the tops of my built-in cabinets and declutter.

5) Open up all of the windows and put the finish coat on my remaining built-in cabinet so I can get the glass put in the doors and my dishes put away.

6) Go to Ace and pick out the new paint for Afton and baby's room. Then it's on to cleaning out her room of the furniture that's in there, removing the old border, priming and then painting!! Need to really get a handle on this before I get any more preggers.

Guess that's about it...I'm off to see what I can get done this morning and then I think I'm going to sit down this afternoon ~ irregardless ~ and get some quilting time in!

Little Did I Know...

when I wrote that last post just exactly how sad of a week it was going to be. On Tuesday, our beagle dog, Lucky, was hit by a car on the pavement just south of our house. Wink was in the tractor with Daddy planting corn and saw the whole thing happen :( We're pretty sure he was killed instantly from the sheer force of the vehicle so at least he didn't suffer. The poor girl who hit him pulled over and was crying so hard she could hardly see. We told her it wasn't her fault...We held a funeral for him in the afternoon when Wyatt got home from school.

Wednesday was my 24 week check-up at the OB. Things are fine...heartrate is good and I haven't had any out-of-the-ordinary problems this month so that's a relief. I am thankful for each day of this pregnancy, but I sure wish the time to have her would come so I could hold her in my arms and make sure she's okay. We're still undecided on a name...I told Jim the other night I really liked Austin and it fits all of my criteria (two syllables, doesn't end in an "e" sound), but it's traditionally a boy name (at least in our area). He liked it, too ~ but not sure if we want to go there. Addison is still my #1 choice right now.

Attended a small group of CCQ yesterday...and did something I shouldn't have. I made homemade Olive Garden salad dressing and the recipe called for raw egg. EGADS! Why do I do these things to myself?!?!? I didn't even think about it...made it up, used it on the salad and ate it. Can you spell S-A-L-M-O-N-E-L-L-A??!?!?! LOL I had a panic moment last night and had to call Barney for reassurance. He said not to worry...the risk is SO low...but if I start feeling sick to come in and see him. I looked up some info on the internet (my downfall of scaring myself to death) and found that symptoms usually onset anywhere from 6 - 48 hours afterward so I figure if I get to Sunday afternoon and am still fine, the risk has passed. BUT ...I definitely won't be that stupid again. Anyway, Mikki cleaned out her scrap bin so I came home with a BUNCH of blocks and stuff that I'm going to try and sort out today sometime.

I have a house to clean and stuff to prepare for tomorrow...my baby turned 2 TODAY!! And we're having a small family gathering for her tomorrow. I just can't handle a big blow-out like we're used to doing...I'm too fat and pregnant for that. So we're having a simple meal with cake and ice cream. She'll still have a good time.

I'm off to get started. Have to get most of my stuff done up today since ~ with travel time ~ I'll be gone most of the morning/early afternoon to Jim T.'s memorial service tomorrow. On that sad note, I did find out earlier this week that he did take his own life...something I had feared was probably the truth. Even with an education in your field and loving the job that you do...it's much easier to solve other people's problems than it is to solve your own :(

It's Going to Be a Sad Week...

On Saturday, we were so busy cleaning, that I didn't even take time out to go get the mail. This is pretty unusual for me because getting the mail is sometimes the highlight of my day! :) I am an information hound and it seems as though the things that come in the mail let me know some of what's going on in the world around us...like right now, we haven't started heavy-duty politic-ing...but it will be coming. And everyone and their dog wants you to have a credit card from their company. And how the mail order catalogs never seem to stop coming...

Anywho, Jim brought it in with him and I just happened to be having a conversation with him before we went upstairs to bed and was opening the day's mail at the same time. In there, was a letter to me telling me that my long-time therapist had unexpectedly died last Wednesday. OMG - what a blow. Jim T. was one of the best therapists I've had over the years...starting way back in high school following my date rape episode in 1986. I started seeing Jim back in 2002 when my J and I started having MAJOR marriage problems. And I do mean MAJOR including leaving with the kids for a week to try and get some things straightened out. Looking back, I realize that alot of it at the time was self-inflicted...I was going through my crisis of not knowing what I wanted to do with my life, but at the time thinking that what I was doing was NOT it. My J played a huge role in it, too ~ which he admitted after being in counseling for a year...we just weren't what we'd dreamed we'd be in high school but hadn't yet matured enough yet at the time to let go of those dreams and reaalize that we had grown to become different people.

Anyway, our marriage seemed to get back on track after about a year and a half of joint counseling and then I continued to see Jim on my own until last year in order to get help sorting out the feelings I had concerning the loss of my mom in 2000 and the subsequent loss of my family in 2003. There were a lot of negative things I focused on at the time, and Jim was one of the biggest proponents of making me turn that around and realize that I AM OKAY and it is my family's loss to decide to no longer have contact with us. Life got really busy last spring with the illness and impending death of my birthmother and Jim and I had just not had the chance to get back together. The last communication I had with him was a phone call he made to me after she died telling me how sorry he was and I was always welcome to come see him anytime. I guess ~ in reality ~ the fact that I didn't "need" him anymore should come as a blessing...not that I don't have periods of depression anymore, but he really gave me some introspect on how to deal with it. And for that, I am very, very thankful.

And now ~ the communities that knew him well ~ will have to endure the loss of a person who touched so many lives in such a short period of time on earth. It really was true that he was definitely meant for his profession. I pray for peace for his family...his wife, young son and daughter (Julia ~ who was adopted from a Russion orphanage and is just the neatest story) and his older daughter and grandkids. They will be who miss him most.

I am planning on attending the memorial service this Saturday and another on Sunday in Ames...to give tribute to a man who has changed my life for the better and allowed me to look forward to the future with grace and hope...Rest well, my dear friend...and may the Heavens be that much better with you there.

Disaster Pics

Well...I'll try it again today and see if Blogger will accept the photos of my messier-than-ever office space...

What a flippin' disaster area, huh?!?! Aw, well, admitting is the first step to a cure!! LOL

Speaking of which, I spent yesterday afternoon and last night gathering up all of my overdue FA paperwork (since December!!!) and inputting it into the computer, reconciling it from the monthly report and then filing it away. Happy to report that it is one BIG project that is now mostly caught up on. I think there might be a few more tidbits of paperwork out in the chemical shed that haven't been brought up to the house lately, but I'm going to attempt to get them some time today and be ENTIRELY caught up. This morning, I'm going to work on the FLOOR in the office and getting things up and off of it so I can vacuum (the ladybugs in here are driving me CRAZY!) in addition to getting the kids fed breakfast and back to working on their toy room.

I also went through the buckets of clothes in A's room, sorted them for consignment or saved for the new baby and those are ready to go. Anne came yesterday morning, too, to get clothes for Brandon and then she'll bring me back all of his too-small stuff so I can get that ready to go to consignment, too. Guess I'll be taking a trip there on Monday! Yay! More stuff out of my house...Now if I could just get the kids to give up some of their toys...

Off to work! It's going to be a great weekend!!!!

I Said I Would...

post some pics of a couple of my recent projects so here they are...





One that I had forgotten about but was definitely in my UFO pile was the "Quilt Shop" bag I started for a friend about three years ago. I am *so* stubborn that I got to the point of sewing the liner to the bag, didn't like the directions, and put it away in my WIP pile. DUH!! I really felt like a schlum when I finally finished it and sent it to her. It was my first effort at embroidery, tho ~ and I think it turned out pretty cute!

Then I did the next block for the Round Robin that some of the members of CCQ are doing. I LOVE LOVE LOVE Mariner's Compasses and just HAD to try this technique. You can't see it in the photograph, but it's a folded, three dimensional technique by Cheryl Phillips. She has alot of neat projects in the book and I hope to be able to put together a three dimensional Dresden Plate quilt from her book for the quilt show next year. It wasn't as hard as I thought and I didn't really mind using the templates since they came with the pattern and I didn't have to make my own.

I also promised I would post pictures of my office as a way to motivate myself to get it cleaned up. So ~ here I am ~ admitting my messiness and my let-it-get-way-out-of-hand-so-do-nothing-at-all attitude...

Whoops! Blogger doesn't want to let me post those right now...I've tried twice and it says "ok", but they aren't showing up so I'll have to try again later.

I am happy to report that I cleaned out all of my billing files and shredded the stuff from 2004 then filed my HUGE file pile of stuff from the last six months. Now to just be able to see the top of my desk again...

I Hate Clutter!!!

As much as I try to avoid making it, there's no doubt that clutter has made its home inside my house. It seems as though paper is the biggest thing that I can't seem to control...bills, magazines, mail, kids' school work, clippings, recipes, etc. I really, really need to learn to look at it once and then do something with it. Instead, it piles on my table in the kitchen until I think I can *find* the time...which never comes. And then it gets overwhelming and all I can do is look at it and sigh.

That's where I'm at today. The boys get out of school early and have tomorrow and Monday off for Easter/spring break so I am hoping to have at least two out of the next four days to DEclutter as much as I can. They really do a great job keeping Afton entertained and it would be really nice to get some of this stuff out of here so I can do some deep spring cleaning. Her birthday is next weekend...so I'm going to have to do something with the mess that I have...may as well be to get rid of it as opposed to just moving it around.

Unfortunately, this means no quilting for me...I know it is going to take ALOT longer than the time I have allotted myself so I may as well not even give myself any false hopes of getting anything else done and just focus on the task at hand. If I were really brave (not sure that I am...LOL), I would post some before and after pictures as encouragement. Actually, I may do that for my office portion since it would be really nice to see how it is through a photograph since it has just turned into a H-U-G-E junk pile and has been that way for quite some time. It is really a downer to come in here and work every day when I can't find anything!!

On the upside, I will post some pics of the current projects I've been working on as a little eye candy...just as soon as the batteries for my camera recharge!

The Terrible TWOs are Beginning...LOL

So Saturday, I took Wyatt and Afton with me to DSM while Wink spent the day with Daddy drilling oats. Wyatt was in need of a haircut and new pants. We did the haircut first and it was, of course, super busy so it took longer than I expected. I should have known how my day was going to go right then and there! Afton was into the suckers and the magazines and just would NOT sit still...the little stinker!! I even tried "locking" her in her stroller but then she just wanted to cry...so I spent the time we had there trying to talk to Wyatt and his stylist and chase her around the store. UGH!

We headed out to a couple of shops after that to find Wyatt some new jeans. She was very good at both places until it came time to leave. And she is SO into babies right now and they were, of course, out in full force on Saturday, too. It's hard to convince her that all babies don't belong to her and she can't touch each and every one she sees!!! The funny part about that is...we went to visit some friends with a newborn on Monday night this week...and she barely paid any attention to their baby...even though I was holding him!!! I asked her if she was going to "love on" our new little baby when she got here and she gave me a resounding "NO"!!! LOL I'd finally had enough on Saturday that we just drove around until she fell asleep and then drove around some more for about 30 minutes so she could get in a little nap. Naps work miracles!!! LOL Our last stop was Target and I knew it was going to be a long one with the list of things I had to pick up...she was pretty much an angel while we were there. Sometimes she can be so funny!!

I love how her vocabulary is increasing every day and the way she expresses herself is SO cute!! Yesterday, while we were in the car, Wink and I were playing the "slug bug" game...if you see a VW bug, you yell "Slug Bug" and then you can smack the person in the car with you unless they see it too and yell "Safety". Wink got me a couple of times until I started paying more attention and when I yelled "Safety", Afton started saying it, too. And then she has the most wonderful giggle...

On Sunday morning, my dad called and wanted to see the kids so Wink and Afton went to his house to play for the afternoon. Wyatt spent the day with Daddy drilling oats again. I'm proud to say that I spent the afternoon quilting and got Gage's Peek-a-Boo quilt about 1/2 finished!! It is turning out so cute... but I ran out of blue thread so will have to pick some up at the quilt shop when I'm in Des Moines today. I'm heading down to have my summer pedicure (started wearing my sandals yesterday!) and have my hair cut and permed. I hope it lasts longer this time!!!

The rest of the week is busy as well...Wyatt has Cubs tomorrow night and then the kids are out of school on Friday and Monday for the Easter holiday. I wish we were going somewhere for the weekend, but the farmers are all starting in the field so Jim probably won't even be home for Sunday dinner. Oh well...such is the life of a farm wife...and early in means early out which is always a good thing...

Yay! A Great Day Yesterday!

It ended up being a very productive day yesterday. I actually arrived at CCQ before 10am (which is unusual for me) but I knew there was so much stuff I wanted to get done...

I took the things that I'd gotten in Kalona to share with the others and then did a quick lesson review with Mikki on paper piecing. It was easier than I remembered doing previously...the hardest part is just trying to remember that you have to flip your fabric after it's sewn to cover the numbered space that it's supposed to go in. :) I have two two paper piecing patterns that I'm going to try and get at least one of them done before the quilt show next fall...just as soon as I knock some other stuff off my ongoing list.

Speaking of which ~ I worked on my TICC yesterday. I did finally get the pattern revamped and the three additional blocks built for the top. I did get them sewn together but I didn't get them sewn on the quilt. I could see what it will look like anyway and I am going to LOVE it with the changes. Now to just get the bed measured upstairs and the two vertical rows added to the sides to increase the size to king...and we'll be all set to put the borders on. I'm hoping to clean the house up this morning and have some additional time to work on it this afternoon while Afton's taking a nap.

Pat couldn't make it down yesterday so I didn't give her the Wizard of Oz quilt. Probably a good thing since I don't have the borders on it yet. I could have done it yesterday (and had plans to if she'd been there) but I didn't even get it out and work on it since she couldn't come.

Guess that's about it for today...I'm hoping to have some free time over the weekend to take Wyatt shopping...he needs pants SO bad (although I did find out that G'Ma Kathy has some at her house) and he needs a haircut pretty badly, too. It's supposed to be gorgeous outside again with no rain on Sunday so I might plan a "picnic" type menu for dinner and we'll barbeque before Jim gets too busy in the field...

So far...it hasn't been too productive :(

Well, it's Wednesday night ALREADY and I have to say that my week has flown by too fast and I haven't felt like I've accomplished much at all.

Monday is a blur to me now (so much so that I can't even remember what I did that day...LOL). Yesterday, I took the kids to GG's in the afternoon so that I could work on paperwork for our tax appointment this morning. Yep, we're that far behind this year :( Usually it takes us two or three appointments to get everything done and finalized, but this year, we just procrastinated just a wee little too long and didn't get an appointment until today. It was a late night last night, but we got it all together. I'm happy to report that we had everything we needed, had a GREAT appointment and are expecting a refund that will not only pay our State Tax bill, but also give us enough extra to maybe purchase a new refrigerator. :) The ice maker finally breathed its last breath a few days ago and I am going CRAZY without any ice in this house. Yes, I know...you'd think I would be smart enough to buy some when I'm in town but I keep forgetting...LOL.

Tomorrow, I'm heading out the door to CCQ and hope to get my TIC top completed. I haven't even unpacked anything out of my bag since I got home from my class on Sunday, which ~ in an odd sort of good way ~ means I won't have to spend the rest of tonight repacking it to take tomorrow. :)

Wink had his kindergarten health check-up today and everything seems to be in "working" order. :) He was having slight problems with the eye test so we're going to make him an appointment to have a regular check-up at the optometrist's office. I'm not too worried about it, tho...he's always passed at his ped's check-ups. They took blood for a hemoglobin check and I thought he was going to have a little "freak-out session" when they said they were going to stick his finger...but all was well once it was done and he thought it was really neat to see the blood go into the little tube. :)

The rest of my evening has been spent cleaning up since the house has been totally ignored while I worked on paperwork and I'll be gone again tomorrow. Whew! What a week it's been already :)

What a totally AWESOME weekend!

Barb, Sharon and I left about 9am on Friday morning for our weekend trip to Kalona. We stopped in South Amana along the way and shopped at a really neat little antique/gift/fabric shop before eating lunch. Traveled further east and shopped in a very nice store in Coralville, another in Iowa City and then headed to the Ben Franklin in Iowa City where we were not sure what we would find. OMG - what a treasure trove!!! Absolutely gorgeous store filled with only first-quality quilt shop fabrics, TONS of samples, patterns, books, galore... It was VERY, very nice. Of course, we were time limited so only had a few minutes to shop around before heading over to the U for Barb's daughter's graduate student reception. We ate dinner at some little restaurant across from campus...nothing special really, but it was good. The food was a little pricey on the dinner menu ~ $23 for a plate of pasta ~ but we lucked out and got there early enough, they let us order from the lunch menu instead. Headed out to Kalona, checked into our hotel and headed to the evening presentation. Whoops!! I thought it started at 7pm...it actually started about 6:15 so we missed most of it. We caught just the tail end, tho and got to view some really beautiful quilts.

Woke early the next day and watched an Amish family pull in to the grocery store next door with their horse and buggy. In our area of the state, there is no Amish or Mennonite population so it's kind of neat to visit somewhere that the culture is different. We had "continental" breakfast at the hotel and then scooted downtown for a garage sale that we had heard about that was to have quilter's stuff. We HIT the jackpot!!!! We were the first ones in the door at 8am and all three of us got some absolutely fantastic buys. I came home with some sets of blocks (Grandmother's Flower Garden, Goose Tracks (I think), some sort of applique blocks that are similar to a Dresden Plate but aren't), a few new books (50 cents to $1 a piece) and a few new cookbooks. Barb picked up a whole new library for herself for $12!!!!! And Sharon got a little bit of everything. It was awesome!!

We shopped some stores following the sale since our morning meeting didn't start until 9:30am. I found the fabric that I'd been looking for that I was short (3 - 3" squares!!!!) on my Triple Irish Chain Colorwash. I think someone was looking out for us that day!!! That fabric was probably all of three years old and I NEVER thought I would find any more.

The meeting went well...great vintage show and tell in the morning, a fun tour of the Basket Quilt Exhibit in the museum, AWESOME lunch by the local church ladies with a yet to be identified chicken casserole that was really YUMMY, and afternoon basket quilt show and tell and identification. We even got out early and had time for more shopping!!! LOL We headed back to the Interstate and stopped at an antique/garden shop, a local Goodwill store and then the maternity store at the outlet mall on the way home. Got home early enough to enjoy the evening and prepare things for my TICC class yesterday afternoon.

Speaking of which, I got to be the 'anal' one in class yesterday. I absolutely HATE this pattern (Colorwash Irish Chain by Heatherworks)...I think it's written confusing and is difficult to follow. I also hate the way it's written so that when your top is finished, it's not symmetrical and looks like you've just decided to stop building it and put a border on. So ~ in my analytical way ~ I had to sit down yesterday and figure out how to rework the pattern so that my top WOULD end up being symmetrical. Of course, this meant that I had to frog off the last four or five rows, cut two of the "background" square in half, and totally redo those removed rows to make them go on the top of the quilt...but it's been sitting for two years in my WIP pile...what's a little more work?!!?! I guess the plus side is I KNOW I will like it much better done this way and won't have to roll my eyes at it every time I look at it on my bed. I'm hoping to get the top done this week...we'll see... LOL

Otherwise, everything's been going great. The baby is moving more now so I have been worried less. She can be an active little fart!!! The boys have soccer again tonight and tomorrow night (Wyatt's first game!) and tomorrow is Jim's birthday so I'll have to spend the day making him a cheesecake since that's his favorite. The rest of the week is pretty busy but uneventful...tax appointment on Wednesday, kindergarden health clinic, CCQ...

Here's to another great week!