"Happiness consists more in the small conveniences of pleasures that occur every day, than in great pieces of good fortune that happen but seldom to a man in the course of his life."
~Benjamin Franklin
I have never been so happy so see a refrigerator as I am today! I am so happy, I almost hugged it!!
After using the back-up fridge in the basement for the last 8 days, I was extremely pleased to have our new refrigerator delivered and set up today!! It's nothing "special"...no "ice and water in the door", no "French doors", no stainless steel, no special bells and whistles...just a basic fridge with an ice maker in the freezer. But it's mine and it's here. In the kitchen. Where it belongs! No more trips up and down the stairs just to get cream for my coffee, or milk for my cereal, or meat for a sandwich, etc., etc., etc.! It's here. It's running. It's cold. And it's now filled with our food! :) YAY for modern conveniences! :) Loretta
"On cable TV they have a weather channel - 24 hours of weather. We had something like that where I grew up. We called it a window." ~Dan Spencer
We are muddling through a horrible cold snap right now, here in West Virginia. Since Sunday, the highs have only been around 13-16 degrees F during the day and the lows have been around zero. :(
Too cold for a daintly little "Miss Priss" like Ginger! LOL
When we got her, the previous owners gave us a little pink coat that they had for her. Ya know how most animals HATE wearing clothes? Well, Ginger LOVES to wear her coat! In fact, if you put it on her, she doesn't want you to take it off. And if you show it to her, she tries to put her head through the neck hole and put it on! LOL
Since it's been so cold, I put it on her today before taking her outside to take care of her "bizness".
Don't you just LOVE that little bow on the back??? LOL The hood actually comes forward to cover the head, too, but I didn't use it.
Now, imagine if you will...this little 13.5 pound bundle of black, white, and pink taking off across the back yard towards a visiting deer...barking her lungs out! LOL If you've ever seen a Boston Terrier bark, their whole body comes up off the ground with the effort! It's quite comical to see!
The deer did vacate the property in a timely manner in response to the little, noisy, frighteningly-pink bundle. And Ginger turned heel, trotted back to the middle of the yard with her head held high and promptly squatted to do her "bizness" like a good girl!
My dad used to say, "They told me to 'smile'... things could get worse. So I smiled... and sure enough...things got worse". Let me just say, that we are just waiting to see what will go wrong next. :( Our coal stove hasn't been working right the last couple of months, so last week, Andy had to tear it down and replace a couple parts. It's been doing its job beautifully since then! Thank God, since we are having frigid, cold weather this week...lows around zero degrees F at night and highs around 14 degrees. :( Then this past weekend, I had to order a new foot control for my Husqvarna Platinum 775 sewing machine. I noticed a couple of weeks ago that it had a crack in it (it's plastic). I tried some duct tape, but that really didn't hold it. I ordered the new foot the end of last week, and it arrived today. Yay! Yesterday we received some news that we wished that we didn't want to hear, but it will be okay...God gets us through all kinds of trials. Then this morning, when I woke up and went downstairs for a cup of coffee, I noticed a weird smell. It took me a few minutes to identify it, but finally I realized that it was a faint smell of an electrical motor burning. :( It seemed to be coming from the refrigerator. I also noticed that there were a few drops of water dripping down from the freezer door onto the door of the main compartment. :(:(:( I checked and everything inside still seemed cold and the motor still sounded to be running. I went to my computer to have my coffee, but about 30 minutes later the smell was stronger. I went back into the kitchen and by now, the smell was so strong it was HORRIBLE!! It smelled like a skunk had died in my kitchen. AFTER spraying it first!!! :(
Yeah...that bad!
At that point, I unplugged the fridge and called Andy. He said he had smelled something unusual, too, but it wasn't strong enough at that time for him to tell what it was.
Luckily, we have a used fridge down in the basement that we use when we have company and need space for extra food. I went down and plugged it in and after an hour or so, I traipsed all the food from the fridge in the kitchen, down the stairs to the fridge in the basement. Many, many trips with a laundry basket filled with food. :(:(
So we got to go refrigerator shopping this afternoon. Our new Frigidaire refrigerator will be delivered next Wednesday. :)
As pretty as it was in stainless steel, our other appliances are white, so we went with white. Nothing fancy. It doesn't do tricks. It just makes ice and keeps things cold. And that's a good thing! :)
Katy, bar the door. I can't take handle anymore bad news or broken things for a while!
Now...I need some relaxation, so I'm going to my quilting room to spend a little time hand quilting....
“One thing they never tell you about child raising is that for the rest of your life, at the drop of a hat, you are expected to know your child's name and how old he or she is.” ~Erma Bombeck
Twenty-six years ago today, a very special person was born...my daughter, Erin. The problem with this fact is this...I don't know where the time has gone. How is it that she can possibly be almost as old as I am! (Well, technically, I'm 29...but she getting pretty darn close. In fact, pretty soon she'll be older than me!)
Come along with me on a trip down memory lane...
Yeah...that's a jolt for your eyeballs, I know. Sorry!
She's been a "daddy's girl" from day one...
Being introduced to her older brother. Yeah...she wasn't impressed, as you can tell. LOL
About 3 months of age...
Nine months...
She was ALWAYS up to some kind of mischief...
And did I mention...she's daddy's girl???
Preschool...
Kindergarten...
Wasn't she CUTE!!! :) And, yes, thank you...I did make that blue velvet dress for her! :)
And now, we will fast-forward to the day we took her off to college...(because all the pictures between kindergarten and college are sitting in shoe-boxes, completely unorganized!!)
Oh...did I mention...daddy's girl???
Erin becomes a mom, herself...and dad's right there with his baby girl!
College graduation...
And last, but not least...2 months ago at Thanksgiving time holding her friend's son...
She's a beautiful young lady, inside and out! I love her dearly and am proud to call her my daughter!
"Often, we are too slow to recognize how much and in what ways we can assist each other through sharing such expertise and knowledge."
~Owen Arthur
If any of my regular readers out there own a Pfaff 7560 or 7570 and actually USE the embroidery part, could you please contact me via EMAIL. I have a couple of questions and would like to talk with you about them.
To email me, click on my name in the "About Me" section...which is usually to the right of the main blog post. Thank you in advance! Loretta
"I like to make the mundane fabulous whenever I can." ~Rufus Wainwright
I realize that I've been very quiet on this blog lately. It's been eight...oops, nine...NO...TEN LONG DAYS since my last post. (I feel like I'm at Confession, "Forgive me, Father, it's been ten days since my last confession..." and I'm not even Catholic! LOL [No offense intended to my Catholic readers/friends.] )
Anyway...back to what's going on around here...
A couple of weeks ago, my work shift changed from 3PM-11PM, 3 days per week, to 11AM-11PM, 2 day per week...(plus whatever other shifts I pick up to help out with the short-staffing at work.) I have worked 8 hour shifts for the past 20 years, so my body and mind have been gradually making the change to 12 hour shifts. I can truthfully say that last Tuesday was the FIRST day that I felt "normal" with the earlier rising and longer shift.
The GOOD part to the longer shift/fewer days per week is that, "in theory", I get more days off! WooHoo! (Until I go and mess it up by agreeing to pick up extra hours on my "days off".) But...I'm a sucker. 'Nuff said.
Here it is, the 17th of January, and I have two three goals to try to fulfill by the end of January...
First, I'd like to get the commissioned Dresden plate quilt finished hand-quilted for my friend/client, Diana. I am currently working on the lower half of the LAST ROW, as you can see in this picture.
I've had this one in the frame since August or September, and am ready to be done with it and move on to the next quilt! (I get that way after I have a quilt in the frame for a while...ready to move onto the next...)
Second, I'd like to get the blocks finished for the "Easy Street" quilt. Other people who were doing the mystery have their quilt finished and QUILTED already...and slow-poke me is still pluggin' away on the blocks.
To get these two goals accomplished, my plan is to complete ONE block/day (on my days off as NO quilting gets done on my work days anymore) of the "Easy Street" quilt, and then spend all other quilting time on the Dresden Plate quilt until it is finished.
It's hard when you have a piecing project and a quilting project going at the same time because time spent on one is time taken away from the other. Mary Kay Ash used to say, "you can't chase two rabbits at once and expect to catch either one." I think that works with quilting/crafting projects, too. :) But, since it is soooo like a quilter to have multiple projects going at once, when it gets down to the finish line, I just have to set goals for myself.
And, last but not least, my third goal is to get the binding changed out on a quilt for a client. I met this lady through our local quilt shop owner who referred me to her. The lady has some vintage quilts from the '30's/'40's that a family member had made. However, the bindings were not put on properly and need "repaired", aka "removed and new binding applied". I have the first of three of these quilts here, along with the fabric for the new binding. I had told her I thought I'd have it done by the end of January. Let's see if I can make it...
Now, let it be known that when I take on an order from someone I tell them UP FRONT that it will get done when it gets done, but I try to give them an estimate of when that will be. NOT ONE of my customers has ever put pressure on me to get the quilts done faster, but I know that I have so many more quilts that I want to get done but can't till I get my current ones done. So the pressure to get things done in a timely manner is ALL ME...not my wonderful customers!
So...for today...supper is in the crockpot...making it easier to spend time quilting...
One more thing before I go...today I received a DVD in the mail that I had ordered...
...Season 1 of "Call the Midwife"...I've not seen any of these episodes, yet, but I've heard such good things about the PBS series!
I'm going to go put together one "Easy Street" block and then get settled in with my new DVD while working on the Dresden Plate quilt...(this way I'll be ready for Season 2 when it begins in March!!)
I'm moving much more slowly on it than other participants are. Many already have the tops completed! Whew! I'm finding the blocks going together slowly, though I did find a way to chain piece portions of them, getting the construction time for one "A" block down to about 25 minutes.
There are 4 different "units" required to finish this quilt: 4 corner units (done), 12 setting triangles (done), 16 "A" blocks (3 completed...number 4 is on the sewing machine as I write this), and 9 "B" blocks (0 completed).
Here are my 3 completed blocks, one corner unit and one setting triangle, so you get the gist of the quilt:
Several people on the Quiltville forum have commented about my "black" fabric, but that isn't black...it's a dark, chocolate brown color. Here's a close-up...
Hopefully, you can see the color a little better in the close-up. It's a very pretty, rich-looking brown! I don't have very many browns in my stash, so I had to purchase this one for this quilt...the only "new" fabric purchased for this quilt. All of the rest of the fabric came from my stash!
On Sunday, Andy & I went to see "Guilt Trip" with Barbra Steisand and Seth Rogan. What a HILARIOUS movie! I was literally laughing out loud in places! But there were some poignant places in it, too. All in all, a good movie! I think this movie was written for the both of them, since they both played their parts so well! :)
Saturday afternoon I was up in my sewing room with the TV on, stitching away on my Easy Street mystery quilt blocks. Andy was downstairs in the living room working on our coal stove, trying to replace a part on it, when all of a sudden I heard "boom". Not a loud "boom"...just a "boom". I thought to myself, "oh no, something has exploded in the stove" and was afraid to go down and check it out. No sooner could I think these thoughts, then Andy calls my name. I muted the TV and asked "what?" He replies, "ya wanna come outta there and play nurse...a car just rolled over in the street!"
HOLY CRAP-A-RONI!!
I ran downstairs and outside and saw my neighbor from across the street (who is a volunteer fireman) also running out of his house. There...in the street...was a car on it's side. The driver was climbing out of the passengers door. Three teenagers from a house up the street had been outside in their yard and were already on the scene. (They can obviously run faster than us old people! LOL)
After ascertaining that there were no other people in the car, we saw that the driver had a pretty good gash on his forearm that was bleeding. I ran back inside the house, got a couple of clean kitchen towels, grabbed a coat (I had noticed that the driver wasn't wearing a coat and had on a short-sleeved T-shirt and it was only about 40 degrees F), and ran back outside. I offered the coat to the driver, but he was able to reach back in through the broken driver's window and get his out of the driver's seat, where it had fallen. He did accept the towels and applied pressure to the gash.
At first, he didn't want to go to the hospital with the EMT's/ambulance that arrived, but the police officer and I convinced him he needed to get the wound check out as it looked like it might have glass or bits of asphalt in it.
For whatever reason, as the guy was driving down the street, he sideswiped a parked car, pushing it up onto the curb about 12-18". He hit it so hard that he broke the back axle of the parked car, thus causing the rear tire to turn outward. You can see it in the bottom picture. One of the bystanders...and later the police officer...went to the home of the owner of the parked car, but there was no one there. He did arrive home shortly thereafter....what a surprise he got...and not a pleasant one, either. :( I really felt sorry for him. He's young and I'm sure was not prepared for something like this. :(
The trouble with being a nurse is that you are ALWAYS ON DUTY....just sometimes you don't get PAID for it. LOL
"Every man is a fool for at least five minutes every day;
wisdom consists of not exceeding the limit."
---Elbert Hubbard
Ihave been working on steps 7 &8 of the "Easy Street" mystery. Both clues came out within a couple days of each other, so I don't remember which parts belong to which clues, but I'll show you what I've go accomplished so far, anyway.
These are the 4 corner blocks that will be the corners of the quilt:
Because the blocks in this quilt are "on-point", you need half-blocks to finish out the rows. Here are the half-blocks I have made so far:
I have five made so far...I need a total of 12. I don't know if it's just me, or what...but these seem to be going together VERY slowly for me. :( I lay out the pieces for 3 half-blocks at a time and then sew them together row by row. Since I have about 5 fabrics of each color, I'm trying to keep from having too many of the same fabrics in the same area.
Does anybody have any ideas how to speed up the process? I'm open to suggestions as to how you are putting yours together and keeping it scrappy.
And this isn't even a DENT in the making of the actual quilt blocks! I'm beginning to feel very overwhelmed and am losing interest. UGH! :(
Onto another subject...
Yesterday, I did some couponing at Walgreen's and this is what I got...
I got $39.67 worth of product for $8.23 out-of-pocket, but got $13.00 back in Register Rewards, making this a $4.77 moneymaker!
I know, I know...why am I buying prenatal vitamins and infants Advil when I'm not pregnant and don't have a baby??? Because I know someone who IS pregnant.
Yep...that's right, Folks...we're gonna be grandparents again! Our daughter-in-law, Trinity, is pregnant! :) She is due this July so these items will be passed along to her! :) (I think I'll save that REDLINE energy shot and give it to my son AFTER the baby is born! LOL He'll be needing it! As much as the new mother will NEED it, she won't be able to have it because of the caffeine!)
And here's one last thing...
I've told you in previous posts how much Ginger loves playing with her bed. The other night she was spinning around in circles with it in her mouth. She stopped when I tried to get a video of it, but I did get one of her shaking it back and forth. (BTW, the orange/red thing you see in the video is NOT blood...it is the price sticker on the bed's tag.)
