Life's a Witch

Today saw the floor of the garage...and the walls, and the little door that goes into the back yard. It was a stunning victory in my opinion. We had pulled everything out yesterday, and this morning we were doing the final picking and choosing and piling in the driveway, when a gentleman stopped by with a pickup and a flatbed trailer. He was randomly patrolling our little town looking for scrap metal to haul away. Guess who had a pile just for scrap metal? You're right! Us. We gladly let him haul away a big pile, plus he took some other items that were in the "Free to a good home" pile. It really diminished our work as far as finding someplace to take it, plus it gave him some income and recycled it all. Those are big selling points as far as I'm concerned.

Made some turkey stock today. Ended up with 11 pints and 8 quarts. I was going to stick it in the freezer, but I don't have that much space, so I'll be pressure canning it all in the morning in between shopping and packing for our camping trip. I need to get it all done before we go, or it will spoil.

I also finished the center medallion of the Lone Star I started a week or so ago. All that's left are the borders, but I'll wait until I get home to take care of that.

Pictures were taken of the newest Halloween quilt in my life. It's not quilted yet, of course, but I wanted to share with you. It was an easy peasy and went quick, but it's done. Good criteria for a fun time sewing with a friend. The first picture is of the whole top. The second is a close up of the center fabric. It's really fun! The name of the fabric is "Life's a Witch". The last photo is the Halloween quilt I did last year with my friend. Are you sensing a theme here? We are thinking that we might be able to make something else, but why bother?




I have to share a funny story about Monday. Remember the tarantula picture? Well, when I saw him in the driveway, I of course, whipped out my cell phone to call my daughter who was in the house to come out and see him. She didn't answer, so I ran into the house to find her. Well, she was in the back yard with her phone out to take a photo, laughing like crazy. Apparently, a young squirrel who lives next door had come over to get a drink out of our little pond. While he was standing by the pond, one of our chickens charged him and scared him and knocked him into the pond. Well worth missing the tarantula phone call in my opinion. She got to see the spider anyway.

I'm tired after a full day of being productive, so I'll call it a night.

I'll talk to you soon.

Always something to do

Whew! What a busy week so far! I guess my whole "new approach to life" system is really working. I've only not gotten up at the appointed time on a few occasions, and I have felt the need to nap every now and again, but all in all, I feel like I've been highly productive. I think I've gotten more done out in the garden in the past two weeks than I did all summer. I'm taking seriously the responsibility to minister to my garden so I can provide nutritious and fresh food year round. I ordered my winter vegetables on Sunday. Broccoli, cauliflower, Brussels sprouts and cabbage, and dug through my left over spring veggie seeds. Lettuce, spinach, spring mix, carrots, beets and radishes. I'm really getting excited at the prospect of gardening year round! Early this morning I went out and started tackling the asparagus bed. It was WAY out of hand. I got about a third of it cut down and weeded, which is a huge step for me.

This week is my husband's "forced" vacation from work. Sort of a use it or lose it vacation hours situation. He had until September 31 to use his last 40-something odd hours or lose them, so he's home. I've had some chores for him to do, and today we started cleaning out the garage. UGH! I believe I will get out there in the morning while it's still cool and do some work. There are a few more heavy things that I can't move by myself, but that's what he's for. I took some pictures of all the crap that we removed from our tiny little garage, but I couldn't believe how much stuff there was so I'm not ready to share those with you right now.

Friday, we're going camping with the whole family. Not just us (hubby, daughter, son/almost daughter in law). I'm talking mom and dad, sisters, their kids and grand kids. Something like 20 of us all camping together. It's always interesting, and always fun and we do it once a year. It will be 3 days of total chaos, and highly enjoyable. I'm taking a small Halloween stitchery project to hand quilt for a friend. She did all the work, and I'm just finishing it up for her.

OH! Monday, I went sewing with one of my good friends. I went to her house and we made matching Halloween quilts. It was just an easy one this year. Last year we did a BQ pattern with a really cute Alexander Henry print. I'll post photos tomorrow. When I got home, hubby came out to help me unload all my sewing stuff. He stopped on the driveway and called me over and this is what I saw. We made sure that I hadn't run him over when I pulled in, and watched him for a while, before we went on our way. He was pretty big and just beautiful. Not that I'd play with him or anything, but he was quite impressive.

I guess that's it. I'll post quilt photos tomorrow.

Busy Doin' Nothing

I'm sitting here trying to figure out what I've done since Tuesday when I last posted, and quite honestly, I can't think of too many things, but I know I've been busy. Wednesday, I went "into town" (I live out in the sticks) and did my grocery shopping at a market I had never been too before. It's called Whole Foods and it's a hippie paradise! Organic produce, all natural products, the nicest cheese counter I've ever seen and the deli! Oh my! Needless to say, I was in there awhile and it's about an hour away from home, so that pretty much ate up most of my day. Then there's the coming home and putting it all away. That took some time. We had to "ooh" and "aah" over all the cool stuff that I purchased. Pink salt was one of the highlights of the show and tell.

I did work in the garden before I left that day and finished up weeding and clearing out another bed. I only have one more "standard" bed to clean up. It's 8 x 4. Then I have a 25x4 asparagus bed that I need to get up close and personal with. It's in sore need of a weeding and putting to bed for next year. Also needing some quality time is the half bed (2x12) that is currently growing peppers. I can wait on the okra bed for awhile, it's doing great.

Thursday I worked at the shop die cutting kits and visiting with the ladies. That's always fun. Then yesterday, I spent most of the day catching up from Wednesday and Thursday. Cleaning off the flat surfaces in the sewing room and putting things away. Going through the mail and filing things. I did make a potholder to go with the apron that I made and got it all ready to be shipped off. I can't wait to get mine back!

I delivered a quilt to a friend of mine yesterday morning for another friend who has been diagnosed with returning cancer. A party is being thrown for her today, but I'm not able to attend, so I dropped the quilt off early. I collected signatures from her family and friends and then put them all together for her. It's just a lap size, but it's bright and cheerful and I hope that she likes it.

Today will most likely involve me finishing up the Lone Star that I've been working on all week. I'll have to see what Scifi movies are on today and get busy. Maybe it will be another big critter day!

Big snakes and aprons

It's already 8:30am, and I need to report in for what I did the past two days. I know what you're thinking, that I didn't do anything, but you would be wrong! Sunday was great with everybody gone for most of the day. I popped in a DVD of "Python 2" and got to sewing. My future daughter-in-law and I are aficionados of really bad Sci Fi movies, focusing on the "big critter" genre, such as "Frankenfish" and "Sabretooth". I also like the zombie movies, having a soft spot in my heart for the crapfest known as "House of the Dead". We call that one "Zombie Party Island". Anyway, Sunday is my day of rest, when I do no laundry or any other heavy chore and I get to sew on what I want, not a client quilt. I'm involved in an apron exchange with my sewing machine group online. I'll get into that later. Sunday was my day to make my apron. They are supposed to be vintage aprons, so I begged, borrowed and stole (well, bought) a couple of "retro" patterns and my mother supplied me with some (I now own 14 apron patterns) until I found the one I wanted. I used a couple of pieces of fabric from this really cute line called "Katie Jump Rope" and it turned out way cool! The model is my daughter who requested that I crop out her head. So I did. I made 9 yards of 1/4" bias tape for it, and surprisingly really enjoyed the whole process.

Yesterday I got out before it got hot and did some more much needed yard work. I remembered to take the before shot this time. This is the very first garden bed ever built here. It's in it's second form, as the first one was built with scrap lumber and quickly fell to ruin. It's a 10 x 5 bed made with 2 x 8's. My loving husband is great about building me things once I make a plan and purchase materials. This is it's 7th year, and the Bible speaks of letting your fields lie fallow every 7 years. So, for the next year, I'll be using this bed as my composting area, using the trench composting method. I'll (husband) will dig out a 1-2 foot trench and all compost fodder will be thrown in. The trench will be covered when it's full, and then we'll move over and dig another trench and start the process over. It will be used in this method until next fall, then we'll pick the next bed. We seem to build one new bed a year, so we'll just rotate through the garden area. After I weeded and loosened the soil, the chickens helped me out by eating all the bugs. I'm sure they ate some that were helpers, but I know they ate some that I didn't want around.

After the gardening, I worked on a client quilt for most of the day, then made some Halloween pillow shams for the living room and folded laundry.

A good day!

Busy, busy bee

Yesterday marked the first of many very busy days, in which I get things done that should have been done long ago. After I slept in by 45 minutes, I got up and chatted with my friend online. Very productive start, right? Then I started reading one of my emails that's a newsletter from one of my very favorite seed companies. All organic, no hybrids, lots of rare and heirloom plants. Then I felt guilty about not having worked in my garden in like, forever. I went outside and harvested okra and peppers and noticed what a mess my empty beds were in. At that point, I got very motivated and grabbed a pitchfork and turned and weeded a whole bed! Next week, this bed will be amended and planted with 300 onions for next year. Good start, only 4 beds to go (for now). The other 3 are still growing stuff. Then I had to decide what I was going to do with all the okra and peppers I brought in, so I decided to pickle them. I used a new recipe, so we'll have to see how they turn out. Quite proud of myself at this point.

Chores are done, I'm cleaned up, what's next? I wander into the sewing room and remember that I'm supposed to be working on a client quilt. I'm supposed to be turning these piles of fabric into a Lone Star. I'm using the Quiltsmart product, so it's MUCH faster than doing it the old fashioned way, but it still takes a while.

We had an old friend that we hadn't seen in 3 years over for dinner. He periodically re-emerges in between wives. We figure we have 6 months of contact and then it's back underground with a new wife. So we grilled some dinner, drank some beer and listened to him play some Johnny Cash tunes on his guitar. A good time was had by all.

This morning started clear and early with the sound of our neighbor vomiting in his driveway about 6 am. Now, I've been awakened by lots of sounds: Lawn mowers, trash trucks, children, even an Opossum in the hen house, but this one was most likely the most disturbing. After that, there was not much use for sleep. Today was the annual Fun Day on our town square. We live about 1/2 a block from our town square. Fun Day starts early with a drumline and the high school pep squad. Yeah, okay, I'm up now.

One of my friends and I had talked about going to get firewood today. We live in an old house and have no central heating or air. Window units in the summer and fireplaces in the winter. My "before woodpile" is on the left. Not so much. Maybe enough for a week or two if we're careful. He came by and he, my husband and I went out to another friend's place to cut up a pecan tree that had fallen over. Here are my "after" woodpile(s).

Lots of work involved in that little outing. We left home around 10am and arrived back around 3. We had to stop and pick up some paint on the way home for another project. We unloaded and stacked, then I grabbed the shower first (very sneaky of me) and cooled off. It was only 85, but man, was I worn out. My hubby is napping on the sofa as we speak!

I think that might be all I will accomplish today. I did fix some leftover fajitas for dinner, and luckily my daughter is staying over someone's house this evening, so no formal dinner will have to be fixed. Thank goodness. I think I might be able to squeeze a nap in before bedtime if I'm lucky.

Maybe I'll have another productive day tomorrow. I can only hope. I really like the feeling of getting stuff done.

Let's keep it up!

Consistency is everything

Well, so much for my thoughts that I would post everyday. Although, I have been quite productive in these past few days. Took my daughter shopping on Sunday for the "perfect" shirt (we found it) and the rest of her school supplies.

Monday, I worked at a friend's quilt shop, using the die cutter to cut out quilt kits. The owner needs some one dedicated to doing only that while they're there, and I have the occasional day where it works out for me to go in and do it. It's a great system. While I was there, a sewing buddy stopped by to show me a quilt top that she put together on Friday. I didn't get a picture of it, but it's really cute. She stopped by on her way to drop it off at the quilter's house. Then she snuck out to my house and dropped off a big ole' crow to put in my front yard for Fall/Halloween decoration. We both suffer from the Halloween Crazies. It was a nice surprise to come home to after work!

Also on Monday at work, another sewing buddy stopped by to see me and brought me a gift. She's cleaning out her sewing room, and since everybody knows that I take scraps and leftovers, she brought me a few things. 3 large bags of fabric. Good fabric. Fabric that I will use. In a move that is almost unheard of, I had my hubby stop at the store on the way home from work and I bought 3 clear sweater boxes to sort the fabric into instead of just setting the bags in a nook in my sewing room to sit and get dusty for weeks before I put it away. And then I used them! Yesterday say me pull it all out, sort by color and file it away in see through boxes and stacked on a shelf.

In my quest to start finishing things and be more organized, I'm having to look at things differently. I bought a pattern box (a cheap one not the fancy one) and got all the patterns off of my cutting table where they get knocked into the floor at least once a day by at least one of the cats. Yesterday, I replaced the broken toilet seat (4 months old) and the ripped out shower curtain (6 months). Small expenditures, to be sure, but something that I knew needed to be done, but "never got around to". It's an amazing thing.

Yesterday, the weather took a turn for the better and a cold front came through. I woke up to 61 degrees and did a happy dance! It seemed that everyone was in a better mood. I was for sure. Even the chickens seemed to be enjoying themselves just a little more than normal.

I have to get to work on a client quilt. Talk to you soon!

Blogging about nothing

Hi All!

So, I decided to start a blog. I told my lovely daughter and she responded with "but you don't ever do anything!". Hmmm. I'm awake at least 12-16 hours a day. Surely, I fill that time with something. I run a house and care for critters. I run a small business from home. I quilt. I homeschool. I garden. I do LOTS of things!

I'm trying to get my life a little more organized. I tend to say "I'm going to do this....next week", so consequently there are a lot of undone things in my life. Hopefully, by documenting my intentions and my actions, there will be a higher level of accountablity and completion. Perhaps my time management will improve. Maybe I can accomplish all those things that I sit around thinking about and planning out, but never do. It'll be great! I hope.

The first item on my agenda was implemented this week. I have a good friend who gets up at 4:30 am every day, takes his dogs for a run, then hits the gym by 5, at his first job by 7 and his second job by 6 (3 days a week) and still has time to meet me for lunch on Saturday and go to Temple. Hmmm, I'm usually up by...let's just say 9am for the sake of this post. Then, I get some coffee and read my email and maybe shower by lunchtime, then try to get stuff done in the afternoon between lunch and my naptime. To be honest, I do accomplish a fair amount of things in that time frame, but not quite enough to do everything I should and some things I want. So I decided that I would start getting up at a "normal" hour. Keep in mind I work from home, my daughter is homeschooled, and my husband's work schedule is very fluid so there's no "real" reason to get up. No breakfast to fix, no kids to shuffle off to school, etc. I set my alarm for 7:30am. *GASP* I have managed to get up everyday this week when the alarm goes off. Of course, now I have to be in bed by 10:30, but hey, small price to pay for increased productivity. I haven't even taken any naps! Today, I slept to 8:15, but I was up later than normal watching "What Not to Wear" with my daughter.

So far this week, I've completely pieced two full size quilt tops and am working on two others that are in various stages of completion. I did so much rotary cutting that my wrists starting giving me the "you need to stop for a while" signals which I actually obeyed this time. No cutting yesterday, so I sorted through a tub of scraps and threw out some icky stuff that I can't use in my quilts and color bagged the rest. That's on top of the normal day to day running of the house.

I will figure out how to put photos in my blog and post the two quilt tops that I did this week, along with whatever else strikes my fancy.

Thanks for listening!

I figured it all out! The quilt top on the left is a "Just Can't Cut It" with a really cute beach scene. The one on the right is the ever present "Turning 20".