Test of a marriage -one of many.

Last night before Greg got home from work (11pm) I'd cleaned up the living space and then started a sort of the overwhelming stash of scraps. In making all those pillowcases and quilts for the Give a little Get a GO contest we had several bits and pieces left over. Add to that the bits and pieces we already had... and In Oct. my Aunt gave me a box of scraps that someone dumped on her. There were boxes full, drawers, piles and an overflowing 18 inch rough tote that the cats thought made a nice bed. I tried to Vacuum - and little strings and floatsom would get sucked up and pull out bigger pieces. I stubbed my toes and smacked it with the door.... it had to be dealt with. So in walks Greg.. and my clean floor was covered in little piles of color. We sorted for another 3 hours. Today I envisioned this easy task of slicing and dicing this mess into a manageable pile of usable beauty. 6 hours later my head is pounding, we're both grouchy and we've only tackled the printed reds. The solids are still just one heaping pile of solids! A couple more headache pills, supper and a little time apart... we're resorting one color at a time by the way it needs to be cut. This is getting that bigger stuff out of the way and leaving the little pieces sorted by how it needs to be cut up on the GO cutter. I think it's working better. I have a bin full of Fat Quarters and have marked things out by 1/4, 1/3, 1/2 and 3/4 yards. Anything we thought bigger than a yard is still sitting in it's own heap to be labeled later. I still think we are days away from tackling what I'd thought would've been done in a few hours. So Greg's at the store... he's taking his sweet time and I'm wondering again why I started this mess... surely I could have crammed those bins under something out of the way??

UPDATE: Greg's home and He BOUGHT more FABRIC! Am I having a stroke? I think I'm having a stroke... breathe, remember to breathe! *wheeze, huff, wheeze*

Thankful

I am super Thankful for my blogging friends. With the surgery, the cold, the pneumonia, and whatever it was I had this week... I would never be this far along for the groups Christmas/End of Year celebration. I wanted to share with you something that happened this week. A previous client who has really struggled with a number of poverty inducing issues returned to the OARS program this week. While we are a non-judgmental program, and practice empowerment it is still humbling to stop in and say "hey, I'm back" It's kind of like going to a parent and saying Yeah, my life is hell again and I don't know what to do. We chatted away and then she asked "Will we be doing the Christmas giveaway again? Our house doesn't have enough blankets." WOW. I've got several tops together but ran out of batting. One of our Quilt Group members is getting a long arm in the next week or so and she's offered to quilt them as practice as soon as I come up with the batting! ISN'T THAT GREAT!! I also discovered that our Walmart marked the cotton batting as the same price as the polyester!! So I'm buying a king size every week.

Good News!

Hello all!

I recieved an email the other day telling me that I was a WINNER in the FALL into FALL giveaway over at GreyCat - The double wedding ring little quilt. Woo-hoo!! She's also going to be having a double wedding ring quilt along starting after the first of the year. I'm very excited about this.

I've had a touch of pnemonia lately - that cold that was just annoying the heck out of me, turned out to be a little more than I thought. I've almost completed round one of antibiotics and will likely do round two as well. It's got some side effect doozies but I'm managing. I've not sewn lately - not done much of anything. I've been getting after myself - Chrismas is about 8 weeks away! I don't have a plan for family gifts - although I'm toying with the idea of gift baskets of those needed every day items like cleaning supplies and food staples. I'm worried that screams cheap but my brother is in college and my parents just don't need anymore nick-knacks. Greg is not being any help on planning for gifts for his family. I think he's still a little upset with me. I was not well enough to go to the Kansas City Quilt Expo last friday. We'd both taken the day off and I spent the day in bed. He fully understood that I was ill and couldn't help it but his disappointment was palpable. So we finally broke down and upgraded our cell phones and added the data plan. New electronics - kind of an anniversary, I'm sorry and Birthday all rolled into one. They arrived today and he's pecking away on his phone trying to connect to the internet while sitting directly in front of his computer. He just yelled "booya" - I'm assuming that's good? I swear the man will not be totally happy until he is able to have a chip implanted in his head that allows him to be the computer so he's never offline.

More good news: I got an email yesterday that the Local programs that have hosted the Christmas help program have decided to go ahead this year - that is such a relief. I'll still be hosting my annual holiday BINGO for my clients though.

GOODIES!

Barb of Bejeweled sent me a package jammed full of goodies for my holiday giveaway for the women in need that I work with! I can't thank you enough for your help Barb. She had her classes make an extra bag and threw in some of her lovely towels and a couple of extra bits of fabric.
This is so exciting. For the past few years I've hosted a BINGO game at the end of the year for the women in my program to ensure they got something for Christmas/holidays as they've so little to work with every month. This year is going to be even tighter as a couple of our standard helping programs have ended. So I've been making up a few things in sets of 10 and others have been kind enough to offer their assistance. Many thanks to them!~!

I've been under the weather this week. There's a cold or virus going around so of course I have it. I neglected getting my flu shot earlier and I over slept yesterday and missed the one at the Hospital. I took last monday off to celebrate our anniversary and ended up spending the whole day in bed. (not in the good way either) BUT we will be going to the Quilt Expo on Friday in Kansas City. I've been taking my mucinex and my fish oil so hopefully I will be up to going!

WINNER: Fall into Fall

Random.org spit out #111... the prize goes to MS MUFFIN! Who I might at was very motivated to win and took me up on the leaving several random messages on many days! Hope you enjoyed that plum cake the other night!

Travels

Greg and I went to my cousin Chances wedding this weekend. It was a lot of fun - Chance is a laid back, quiet, reserved type guy to me and his new wife was a finance major. I imagined a traditional tedious wedding. NOT AT ALL. They were a lot of fun. The married in the park, danced down the aisles and the night was filled with laughter and fun. They had cupcakes and a candy table. Greg and I discovered that we haven't danced since our own wedding 14 years ago and although we tried a couple of different dances we were mostly stiff trees out there, rooted and wiggling a little. We spent the night at my brothers house where he lives with his girlfriend and her roommate. I discovered I was not smarter than the shower - For the record- Greg couldn't figure out how to turn it on either. I had to get dressed, go find Annie and have her make the shower work. Anyone ever see a shower that turns on by pulling the ring around the tub spout? I'm talking about where the water comes out. It was odd. Mom and Dad took us out for lunch to the HuHot. Mongolian BBQ. I'd never experienced anything quite like that. You go through a salad bar style set up selecting your raw meat, noodles, veggies and sauce. Then you hand it off to a guy who tosses it on the wheel shaped grill. They play around with it a bit and then slide it off onto a plate and hand it back to you. We ended the meal by making smores at our table. And that was way cool!

On our way into town We'd stopped at the local quilt shop. Now I've been hearing a lot of good things about this shop for the past couple of years. We spent about a 1/2 hour in the shop and I just wasn't impressed. Yet I'm fond of some shops that others wouldn't ever stop at again. So what makes a good shop? Is it personal preference or are there specific factors that you look for?

For me I like a friendly staff - I think I should be greeted moments after entering. Even a "I'll be with you when I'm done here" is okay with me. I usually don't need help, I'm browsing but I like to know the shop staff know I'm there. Lighting is another big factor for me. If it's low light and I feel like I'm shopping in the gloom, I'm not going to like the shop. I like a nice variety of selection but if there is so much crammed together that I can't see things or I'm tripping over stuff - I'm going to be irritated. I'm a big girl and I dislike feeling squished or trapped. Most of the shops I've been too have similar fabrics in about the same price ranges. I have a wider, cheaper selection online but then I can't feel the fabric or see the subtleties of the fabrics. What is your favorite shop and WHY?

Who'd like to play?

Today was an eventful day. Woke up (a little late) to NO WATER. Last night our super terrific water department tried to do a scheduled project to our 100+ year old water mains and the cap blew (happens frequently) so all schools, restaurants were shut down and other business on limited service. boil orders go into effect and well you get the picture. So I bathed in bottled water with one of those aveeno face scrubbers as I couldn't find a clean wash cloth anywhere. Well hows that for too much info? So I felt scuzzy all day long and let me tell you when you haven't had a GOOD shower and your client hasn't had a good shower and you are both cramed in a tiny little interview room -- it would have been a good idea to leave the door cracked open a bit. Yick. Finding lunch was a challenge. Ended up at the gas station with a bottle of pop, chips and heat up sandwich. Cost $8. The rest of the day my clients didn't show - so I just felt sticky and miserable and wasted time while battling heartburn. Did I mention that you can't flush the toilets when you don't have water? There were calling chains to find a nearby working toilet. When G. picked me up to go home he hands me a chain mail letter. OH FOR GOODNESS SAKE! I'm having horrible thoughts at this point about how much worse this day can get. I open the chain mail and out pops fabric! SWEET> It's the purple charm quilt chain mail. You send 2 six inch squares to the top person on the list and to the 4 people you invite to join in. So I'm not taking any chances here - my luck is precarious enough! Who would like to get fabric squares and join in?? I need 4 people.