Getting things done

Look at this! 2 days in a row. lol. I guess if I do all my computer stuff all at once I'm in good shape. :)

Yesterday was a busy day. Started off doing regular Monday chores, changing sheets, taking out the trash, etc. I pulled some chicken backs and wings out of the freezer and started some stock so I'd have enough for Thanksgiving. I'm always amazed at how much stock I use with that meal. It's still bubbling away in my crockpot. I let it simmer for 24 hours before I strain it and can it. It makes the house smell so good! The next item on the list was working on a quilt repair. I'm so close to being done that I can almost taste it. 5 more patches to replace and it's finished. I'll do that today. I worked on it 2 hours yesterday. Then a lovely neighbor came over with his wood splitter and we worked for an hour on one of the piles of wood to get it split and stacked. He and his friend split and I stacked. We got quite a bit done, 3 stacks 4 feet tall and 9 feet wide. That got us about halfway through one of the the 3 piles of wood in the backyard. I guess we had way more than I thought we did. I need to get the ax sharpened next time the scissor man is at the shop. We still have a long way to go. Now that DH is only working one job, he'll have more time to work on the pile, but I thought I'd get him started.

Next I worked on a Christmas gift for a while and then it was about time to start dinner. DH had to work late last night, so I cooked a nice meal just for me which I think is always weird. But he has to come home sometimes and having a nice plate of food waiting is the best welcome home.

After that, I switched over to working on the shop sample for the Civil War Tribute quilt block of the month. I volunteered to make it since I can't afford to sign up for the BOM. I make it, I keep it. Those are the new rules. I made 2 blocks last night which was all of month one. I'll cut out month 2 this afternoon and work on it this evening. I put my handcrank on the coffee table and sat in front of the fireplace while I worked. It was nice. Our very first fire.

Cold front came in. It's 38 degrees right now. Lucky for me I have a cat in my lap.

I need to get busy. I'm going to finish that repair job, meet with another client about baby bedding and start cutting down the asparagus ferns. My gardening book says to cut them down when they turn brown in the late summer/fall, but they never do. I guess November 17th is late enough. After that, it will be Civil War blocks and maybe I'll dig through my own pile for a quick project and get that taken care of.

Have a great day!

Flying through the holidays

It certainly has been a while. As fast as I thought life was speeding by at the first of the year, it's certainly picked up it's pace. The last 3 weeks have been filled with making samples for our "Quiltapolooza" at the shop. I don't have pictures yet since everything was top secret. The event was yesterday afternoon and was a great success! We had twice the amount of folks there than we had at our first one. And the biggest surprise was revealed. We've acquired the space next door and are expanding our shop. We'll have a really nice kit cutting and storage area, plus a classroom to seat up to 20, which is amazing. Our old classroom will become notions, patterns and books and the rest of the new space will be for fabric. It's all very exciting. I'm also the "internet marketing director" which means I'm the only employee at the shop who knows how to use Facebook and Twitter, so I've established accounts for the shop.

Personally, I'm trying to keep up with things and stay ahead of the holidays. I'm using the FLY lady system, which is awesome. She has a program "Cruising through the Holidays" in which you imagine that you'll be going on a 3 week cruise starting Dec 1, and you need to have everything ready for Christmas before you go. It's a 15 minute a day task and it works.

My son and his wife have moved to Seattle and have both found jobs. My son got his dream job at Nintendo, something he's wanted since he was 4. We're all happy for that. C is doing amazingly well in college, and has been told if her grades stay where they are through the end of the semester, she'll qualify for the Honors Program, which is awesome. We're VERY proud of her.

Today, I catch my breath and try to prepare for the week. I've got a really busy schedule besides working, so I really need to be on top of my game in regards to laundry, household chores and meal plan/prep. It's so much harder when I don't have someone here to help me out. I can't just text C and tell her I'm running late and would she start dinner.

Off to chore land, and then I need to make stock for Thanksgiving, finish a repair job and load a quilt that I'm basting for hand quilting. Besides decluttering my utensil drawer, changing sheets, blah, blah, blah. :)

Oh, I'm also working on (in the evenings) a crocheted rug for the living room. It's so chilly in there in the winter, I'm hoping it will help insulate the wood floor a little. The dog likes it.

Stay busy out there!

peace

photos of things

It has been brought to my attention that I no longer post photos on my blog. I'm working on the whole "uploading from my phone thing" but in lieu of that, I took some photos with my actual camera this morning and will now post them for all to see. :)


This is my quilting machine set up. It's my new baby. I have quilted a lap quilt on it already, but I forgot to take a picture of that. I'll do that later. The frame is a Handi Quilter frame and the machine is a Juki TL98Q. It's a mid arm quilting machine and I love it. I've been baby-ing some tendonitis this week. In my efforts to get everything set up and ready for the machine to arrive, I sorta over did it. Luckily I already had a quilt loaded before it got too bad, so I at least got to play Monday afternoon. I'll be buying some more batting and loading another this weekend. I have all these quilt tops, some even with backings ready to go. AND NO BATTING! It's a tradegy.

This is "the Grotto". It is the time sink in my back yard. You can see that I have planted some lettuce up in the bio filter that my nephew and his friend put together. The neighborhood squirrel likes lettuce. I supervised the bio filter project. Rocks are heavy. The filter was the first structure added to the sad little pond. Then my nephew and my son dug out the flower beds and trimmed the crepe myrtle and pruned back the trees. They even did the rock border for me. We spread the mulch and then I couldn't find anything to plant. Too early for fall/winter plants and too late for summer plants. So herbs in pots and a bird house are the decoration right now. The next project is cleaning up the dog run that you can see behind the pond and painting the bench swing. We're working out from this corner.

Still attempting to learn how to upload photos from my phone. Bare with me

Something weird...

Something weird is happening to me. I thought that when C left for school, I'd be huddled in a quivering mass in the corner, waiting for a phone call or email. Amazingly enough, that hasn't happened. Sure, I get sad every once in a while, and I certainly miss her. With text capabilities and the ever present Facebook, we're in pretty close contact on a regular basis. We even watch tv together occasionally. I know in my heart that I did a good job raising her (or her raising me..whatever). She's smart, she's responsible and she makes good decisions. I also know that her campus is small and sort of set apart from town. She's on an island off an island...so yeah, not a lot of traffic coming and going, so she's pretty safe. I find that I don't worry about her physical safety and she's made some good friends. So it's almost like all those years of worrying and protecting have kind of come to an end. Don't get me wrong, I will always worry when my kids travel, or go to a new place or just are gone from me. I'm their mom after all, and that's sort of our job. But I'm confident that she'll be fine. And in knowing that, I'm free to get back to me. Like I took a 22 year hiatus from the Deb business to raise the next generation. So, maybe, now back to Deb. I'm putting together my own outfits, for instance and enjoying it. I bought LIP GLOSS. For myself. Without asking the lady next to me if she thought it was a good color for me. And I like it. I'm deciding what to cook. What to watch. What to do. When to eat. I always used to ask her and we'd work out something that was good for both of us. Always working together. And I'm SO glad for those years we were together. I will cherish them always. But I taught her to compromise and share and get along when neither of us felt like it. Valuable life lessons.

And now that I'm here by myself a lot (DH works two jobs, 70-80 hrs per week) I'm able to see what needs to be done around here. Before I was her caretaker. Now, I guess, I'll be the caretaker of the house and the yard more. I can devote more time to these things. I feel like I have the time to putter in the garden for a few hours and not have to worry about fixing dinner at a regular hour since I'm the only one that's home to be fed. Things like that.

Yesterday, I made laundry detergent again. I've been meaning too for a month or two, just never had the 15 minutes it takes in one lump. So I jumped on it yesterday. Today, I'm making and canning apple sauce and also some green salsa. I've got 6 pints of apple sauce processing now, then the salsa will go in the canner. That makes me feel happy. I'm also contemplating removing a piece of ugly furniture that I've had for at least 15 years. It's the last item leftover from my last marriage and I'm very excited about ridding myself of it. I've also been working through the piles of stuff in my sewing room. I took everything off of my work surfaces (ironing and cutting board) and while they're still piled in there, I can now work in there. And I'm making a dent. Slowly, but really it took a while for it to get bad in there. I can't expect to get it all finished and out of there in 2 days. I'm almost to the point where I can start focusing on making items for sale on etsy. That's exciting. I will finish some fall placemats that I started this time last year. They've been in the pile. Maybe this is what my new life will be. Focused, a little more relaxed and a little more time spent caring for me.

I think this is the start of a beautiful friendship....

Back to the Future

I've started reading this magazine, Mary Jane's Farm, and when I read it, I get nostalgic. But for what? I grew up on Air Force Bases and none of my relatives were farmers. I get the same feeling when I watch a Western or see a quilt book with quilts from the Civil War and I wonder what is it in my wiring that makes me wish I was a pioneer farm woman. Sometimes I look around my home and I think that if I was, there'd be more crocheted rugs on the floor and the spiderwebs in the corner would be gone and my home would be warmer and cleaner. I wonder if I'd be considered lazy or if I could keep up. Sometimes I feel that I have no direction, that I just ping pong around with great ideas and lots of lists, but that I never see anything to it's fruition. I want to change that. I need to change that. It's an exciting thought and an exhausting thought. But what a difference I could make around here. The yard would be mowed and the garden beds weeded and neat. The house would be painted and repaired. My family would have an oasis away from the outside world.

It's a thought...

Camping and Copperheads

Hi All,

welllll, the camping trip was last weekend. You know, the big camping trip with 4 generations and we all have a great time and plan for next year's trip? This one was cut short by the copperhead bite I received on my left ankle Friday evening. It was about 10 minutes to midnight and I was walking back to my tent with my daughter. I must have pissed him off just right. He got my ankle right on the inside bone.

Mom and Dad bundled me into my sister's van and DH held his hands around my leg sort of like a tourniquet. We drew around the initial swelling and bite marks with a purple sharpie and time stamped it. 11:52. Into town we went, Mom holding out her cell phone until she could get a signal and then calling 911 to direct us to the nearest hospital. Luckily, it was only a 10 minute ride away. I was in the er within 25 minutes of the bite. Tetanus shot administered, iv line set and ready to go. They observed me for an hour or so, marking the advancing swelling before finally deciding to give me some antivenin. Up to this point, I'd not had any pain meds and the pain was an intense burning sensation. I finally asked for something and they decided on Demoral. I typically don't even take aspirin. 5 minutes in I started to feel lightheaded and ask DH to go get the nurse. My blood pressure tanked...like 77/40. Stopped the antivenin asap, flipped my gurney upside down and began trying for another iv line in my right arm to administer fluids post haste. That was a little scary. After I was stabilized, they called the ambulance crew in to transport me to a bigger hospital in case I needed any more emergency treatment, like a fasciotamy. The local er just wasn't set up for this sort of thing. Off to Ardmore we went. Another er, more bloodtests, oxygen and then admited to a room around 6 am. Lots of signing things, questions, pokes and prods and I was finally able to go to sleep around 7. They released me around 4 pm that day (Saturday) at which point we stopped and bought crutches and returned to the campsite to pack up and head home. My foot, which had sort of stopped swelling in the hospital bed began it's creep of fluid up my leg and the pain was pretty intense. We had both driven our vehicles to the site as we had a child and lots of equipment with us. I drove the truck home, 100 miles since my car is a manual. No shifting for me, that's for sure.

Since then, I've been either on the couch or on the bed. I've been trying to hobble around. sometimes it's fine, sometimes it hurts like a son of a bitch. Missed work all this week and don't have to be anywhere until monday at 9. Then we go down to Galveston, Tx to deliver our youngest to college at Texas A&M, Galveston. So glad it wasn't her that got bit.

That's my story and I'm sticking to it. I'll try to keep up with posting until I'm healed so other people can compare stories. I had a really hard time finding any sort of information on recovery time and what type, if any tissue damage I'm going to be looking at. They've got all the medical stuff, but no after care. I guess they just clear you and send you home, but no one really documents the recovery time.

peace,

Deb