techno Deb

So, I'm attempting, still to circumvent my camera and load pictures another way. I don't have time to sit and mess with my phone to get it configured with Blogspot. Each time I try, it tells me that the system may be down and to try again later. I just don't have that kind of time. So, today, I popped the micro sd card out of my phone, put it in the adapter and plugged it into the computer. I will now try to upload straight from the micro sd card without having to upload them to the computer. Poor thing has too much crap on it anyway.

Here goes nothing. :)
Holy Crap! It worked! That's excellent!

Ok Mom, you will now get to see pictures that everyone else sees on Facebook. :)

This is the Grotto. Or part of it. I took this after we painted the bench, so that's really what I was photographing, but you can see part of the Grotto.

Anyway, it's not even 7am, but I've been awake since 4. Thought I'd have time to mess around with the photo thing.

Gotta get busy.

peace,

Deb

Thanks were given

I hope everyone had a great Thanksgiving. Ours was very nice. C was home for the holidays. I had her from late Tuesday night til Sunday afternoon. Now she's back at school and taking her finals. I can't believe that her semester is almost over. Time just went by so fast. So now, what I need to do before she comes home in 2 weeks is quilt all the tops that I need quilted by mid December. I have my quilting frame set up in her room and I promised her that I would remove it during Christmas break. Having it in there for 4 days was not a big deal, but 4 weeks...well, that's a different story.

I didn't get much done while she was home so today I've got to hit it pretty hard. Already working on the daily & weekly house chores, but I also need to baste 2 quilts for hand quilting for a friend. I can do that on my quilting machine. It will give me a chance to practice loading/floating a quilt top. I'm still pretty slow when it comes to getting the quilt actually loaded on the machine. Then I've got a flannel quilt top that's just for the living room, but we sure need the flannel quilts in there over winter. I'm also working on some baby bedding for a friend of Chris'. She used to manage a Starbucks, but has since left to be a stay at home mom. She's due in February, but the dr says that the baby might come by Christmas, so that's a priority.

My son starts his dream job today at Nintendo. He's wanted this since he was 4, so that's not a bad deal. I'm so happy for him. :)

Well, I guess I should get away from this electronic stalling machine and get busy. Laundry to fold, trash to take out and a kitchen to straighten up. A cold front came through yesterday, so I need to clean the fireplace and bring in some wood as well. And I'm sure a bunch more stuff that I've forgotten.

Peace,

D

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....