Happy 4th

It's the 4th of July everywhere, but for those of us in the US it is Independence Day.  After finishing the paint on Sydney's room, I am settled on the couch trying to finish the binding on Goose in the Puddle so that we can use it to sit on during the fireworks tonight. 

Happy Easter

 I hope everyone is having a relaxing and rejuvenating Easter Sunday.  I tried sneaking into the sewing room first thing after the egg hunt this morning but was pulled back into a round on house cleaning that lasted until lunch.  Hopefully that silliness is over and I can get back to my little hideaway soon.  I put yellow sashing strips on two sides of my green crumb blocks to give them a less formal feel than a lattice and cornerstone treatment.  I think I still need to randomize the rotations a bit more.  After that I pulled all the cheddar bowties out to see how close I am to getting that one done. It has been ages since I finished anything and I am starting to feel that there are too many irons in the fire. 

Yesterday we went to a HUGE Easter party that a good friend hosts every year.  The kids have all been looking forward to it for ages and were so excited to get all dressed up and smash confetti eggs on all their friends.  I've been sweeping up leftover confetti all day but the kids are already looking forward to next year. 

Happy New Year!

Every year, the kids want to stay up until midnight to welcome in the new year.  This was Sydney at 7:30.  I don't think she is going to make it.  However, congratulations are in order, see the ribbon on her finger?  She says she is engaged to a very nice celebrity from TV.  

Give Thanks

Today I am thankful for family.  We spent the day together celebrating and visiting and watching old home movies.  Nothing makes you feel older than looking at the babies in you wedding video and hearing about the babies they have had.  We combined Christmas with Thanksgiving today so the kids were all on santa behavior.  The men are playing golf in the morning and we'll all see a movie in the afternoon.  Sydney has taken a liking to the corn hole game that her cousins got as a gift so I am seeing a lot of that in our immediate future. 

Happy November

It is so hard to believe that there are only two months left in the year.  It is time to look at my "to do" list for and figure out what can be crossed off and what should be carried on to next year.  First though, is design wall Monday.  I have made 20 of Amy's Block of the months so far.  I'm not sure if I want these to live together as one quilt or if they need to be separated into the two quilts I had planned yesterday.  Hmm, I'll have to let them sit there for a while and see if they gel.  Until then, go over to Judy's blog and see what everyone else is up to.   

Here is the beginning of Trick-or-treating was last night.  With Halloween falling on a school night this year, we were all out right after dinner hoping to make it around the block before it got too late.  This is the mass of kids that started the night, but soon they split into two groups.  Surprisingly the girls took the lead while the boys brought up the rear. 

Each year our neighborhood gets a little more festive and involved.  Big foot made an appearance this year, amazing the kids with his hugeness.  We took turns sitting out in the driveway with a fireplace, making s'mores and handing out candy.  Other families sat out in lawn chairs drinking wine and handing out juice boxes.  All the festivities stopped at 8 on the nose as everyone packed up and headed to bed.

Happy 4th

I hope everyone in the US is having a happy holiday. We were at a neighbors pool party and barbecue this afternoon. The kids had lots of fun swimming and water sliding and playing soccer. We had planned to go north to watch the fireworks like we do every year, but it is very rainy right now. I'm sure it will stop eventually, but it is a bit of a drive and then you have to park and walk quite a distance and it just doesn't seem like much fun in the damp. Honestly, after just getting back from a trip, I'm not in a hurry to go anywhere right now.

I managed (eventually) to get square root onto the reassembled frame today. Ask me how many ways there are to incorrectly load a quilt onto a frame-- I am now familiar with them all! I don't know why I found it so difficult to get everything going in the right direction. Maybe my mind is still on vacation. I think all is well now. I'm watching Wipeout with the kids right now. Some actual quilting will done as soon as they head to bed. They've made a tent in the toy room and are planning to sleep there as consolation for the missed fireworks.

Last Post of 2009

The rest of our trip was very nice, but Kurt's brother didn't know the password for his wireless network so putting up a blog entry wasn't possible. Ryan has a great time playing with his cousins on both sides of the family and told us that it didn't quite make up for not having a brother but that it was still pretty fun.
Anna decided to have a little New Years Eve party this evening and invited her friend Sierra over. She was impatient though and most of the festivities occurred at about 4:30. We had sparkling grape juice as well as ginger ale which the kids all thought was pretty fancy. They all wanted to stay up late but finally gave up about half an hour ago. Sierra and Anna went over to her house though, so they may be having better luck with being night owls.

I still haven't figured out how to do one of those fancy picture collages with all of last years projects, but I worked on a list during the car ride, so maybe I'll make that post tomorrow. It is almost time for a new year here and I was trying hard to finish off a few loose ends today.


I will definitely be doing a UFO a month again this year and will be sure to put it out there as an official challenge if Amy doesn't beat me to it. I saw that she is doing a BOM this year so I will have to add that one to my list. In between finishing the unpacking and laundry today I pulled out one last UFO from last year. Double Delight has been languishing without borders for quite a while. I did a thin strip of yellow and then a wide band of blue. I tried some square in a square cornerstones using extra nine patches, but as I look at the picture, I think they stand out a bit too much, maybe because I used different greens. It is done though, which is better than not done. I'm going to keep it as a flimsy for a while and do a batch of quilting at some point when motivation strikes. I keep toying with the idea of investing in a handiquilter, but it is just a fleeting thought for now.
Lizzie is settling in nicely now that we finally have her home again. She has become quite confident and very much enjoys being outside. She enjoyed meeting all of the big dogs during our travels, but seems to like having our undivided attention as well.

Not Quite a Quilt

Anna is doing a school project called Holidays Around the World next week at school. She chose China to research and wanted a Kimono for her costume. We picked out the fabric and she cut out the pattern last weekend and today I sewed it all together for her. She's been at ice skating rehearsals almost daily lately so I'm glad she got an early start on this. If I were a really good mom we would have done all the sewing together, but I chose to just get it done instead.

Kurt and Ryan were Cub Scout camping for the last two days and seemed to have a very good time despite quite a bit of rain. Apparently 8 year old boys think it is really cool to play badminton in a downpour.
We've been obsessed with the school rezoning thing lately, but I think have finally decided to give it up as a lost cause. I'm pretty sure things will turn out exactly the same despite all of the work we've put into it, and a couple of quotes in the local paper. I'm trying to just let it go, but it is easier said than done. I guess the momma bear in all of us gets riled up when somebody starts messing with our kids.
Just one more day of classes for my students before finals start on Tuesday. The main thing that means for me is that absolutely everything has to get done immediately. I'm starting to get all the loose ends tied up and am hoping to have a fairly relaxing time of it once exams actually start.
Santa is coming soon -- he is bringing Kurt and I a new camera so I'll be sure to post lots of pictures of our new family addition. I put my foot down for a long time about the whole puppy thing, but I am almost looking forward to it. Almost.

Full Day

We started yesterday at a neighborhood barbecue/pool party. There was a water slide and the kids had a blast. We had to drag them away so they could rest for a bit before our trip to a Cocoa Beach Park.

We go every year to play in the fountain, listen to the symphony and watch the fireworks. We met up with several friends including my former running partner and her family. (We used to do a long run every weekend until she got tendinitis and I got really lazy.)
Sydney had the most fun of all. She is still at that stage where everything is exciting and fabulous. She took close-ups of everyone. Here is her picture of the two of us.
She gave a running commentary on the fireworks. About halfway through she figured out that why they were called fireworks and thought that was hilarious
Anna had a terrific time playing with her friend Sierra, and Ryan was sword fighting with two boys who were part of our group.
Happy 4th of July!

Giveaway

I've been skipping over giveaways lately to give other people a chance, but this one at Sew Fun Quilts looked like fun.
Happy 4th of July! We have a neighborhood pool party to go to this afternoon and and then tonight we are headed out to watch fireworks and listen to the symphony. I hope it doesn't rain.

Happy New Year

Welcome to 2009! I hope everyone made it safe and sound into the new year. I celebrated the holiday in solitude as everyone else in the house was fast asleep. I turned on the TV to watch the festivities and happily cut out the first step of Bonnie's new mystery. I decided to build the quilt around a stack of shirting fabrics that I have been collecting for a while. They are fairly historic looking, so I was trying to find other fabrics that look less modern. Not having much of a stash of reproductions made it a little hard. I found several blues and greens that worked, but have almost no pink that didn't look too little girlie. I found a couple of reds that worked well, but I don't know if I want to do another red white and blue quilt. I don't have any browns, so I'll use the greens instead. Fortunately the first step doesn't use any of the pink/red, so I can save that decision for later. It's good that the mystery comes in steps so that I don't have to figure everything out all at the same time. I had everything cut out and organized into nice little groups of 10 last night right after the ball dropped. I've been cleaning and organizing this morning, but sat down and chained a set of 10 through the machine to get an idea of how the colors will look together.
Yesterday afternoon I organized a group of friends to go see Twilight together! I've finished all of the books now, so it seemed like a good time to see the movie. I'm glad I read the book first, it has the same plot and characters as the movie, but so much more detail. It was nice to get out without the kids and spend some time with grown ups for a change.
As far as new years resolutions go, I am going to break down my goals one month at a time. So here's the plan for January:
The WIP I am going to tackle this month is Old Hurricane Road, my version of Bonnie's last mystery. It's been finished for quite a while, but got put away when the Girl Scout quilts took over. All three layers are ready, it just needs to be basted and quilted.
As far as the house goes, I'm going to pick one room each month to focus on. Maybe then I won't feel like I have to tackle the whole thing at the same time. So January is going to be the kitchen. We've been in the house for almost 5 years now, and all of the cabinets could use a good dose of purging and organization. I also want to get some sort of pull out drawer/organizer to put under the stove top for the pots and pans. I got a start this morning by pulling our everyday dishes and rotating in a set that used to be our "good" china. Our old dishes were getting pretty tired and chipped, so I threw them in a box for the garage sale. We have a disaster drawer that keeps the kids stuff, I'll look at that again, as well as going through the pantry and fridge. If I finish all of that and have time, the baseboards and grout could use a little attention.
The marathon training is still in progress on the fitness front, I think I only have one more long run left before the taper, I should check on that.
So that is enough of a plan to get me through January, I'll think about February when it gets here. Now I'm going to go through the mystery quilt ring and see who else has joined in on the mystery.