Finishing Fun

I just finished off Four Patch Surprise!  It only needs binding.  It isn't a large quilt, just a way to use up lots and lots of extras 

 Here is the back.  You can see the quilting a bit more here.  Smallish meander in the background with an alternating sort of linear maze in the four patches.  I think I can get another quilt loaded up on the frame, but I fear that I am almost out of batting.  I might just be able to piece together enough to eke out one more quilt before heading out to a store.  Wish me luck!

I haven't exactly been super active today, but yesterday I got more than my fair share of exercise during the Orlando half marathon.  It went even better than the last one even though my running partner seems to have caught the cold that I have finally gotten rid of.  We both felt good at the end though and finished 15 minutes earlier than our last race.   Not that we are super speedy by anyone's definition, but I was glad to be out there putting one foot in front of the other.  

Spring Cleaning

Fall in Florida feels a lot like spring did when I lived up north.  Beautiful weather is right around the corner and spring cleaning is in full swing.  Spring cleaning for normal people might involve mops and brooms, but for quilters it is so much prettier!

I am still digging into the orphan bin.  These monochromatic 4 and 16 patch blocks will go with a growing set of leaders and enders.  I'm thinking of choosing two or three colors to go together to make several quilts. 

I was thinking of maybe pink, teal and orange?  Maybe blue green and purple?  Or I could go complementary and do blue and orange together in one quilt and yellow and purple in another?  Each quilt needs 80 blocks total, 40 each of 16 patches and 4 patches.  I think I'll just work on collecting about 20 of each color while I ponder the choices. 
The main harvest though was LOTS and LOTS of mixed color squares.  With a bit of sewing and sorting I was able to bag up enough units for three quilts.  Those will be ready and waiting when I am in the mood for some power sewing.

Here is the backing for Running Zone, which I just realized was originally called running stitches.  A little of this and a bit of extra whatever came together for a creative and colorful smorgasbord.  Best of all, lots of oddballs are out of the deep stash.  The purple was part of Anna's toddler quilt.  The flowers and the border print were part of Sydney's nursery.   

Happy Firecracker Day!

I was happy to start the day today with my first 5K race in a VERY long time.  No fair lecturing yourself while you are out there getting it done though.  My good friend Meisje has been my running partner on Saturday mornings and we had such fun!  After that it was off to weightlifting with the kids.  I'm finally home again and showered (really needed that shower!).  Having already met my exercise goal for the day, I think a bit of quilting is in my future.  My very near future.  Stars and stripes anyone?

So Sad

I have been loving my new Nike+ app.  It has a nice reassuring voice that tells me I did a good job for running three times this week or that I have just logged my fastest mile ever.  I was nervous about taking my phone out without a shock resistant case, but I had one in my shopping cart at Amazon and vowed to just be careful with it until then.  Somebody should have told the dog to be careful.  During our morning walk, she took off after a rabbit so quickly that she broke the leash!  In doing so she knocked my phone out of my hand and sent it skidding across the concrete.  So sad:-(.  Lucky for me, we have had this phone for long enough that we are eligible for a new one and I can get the next version up for only $50.  Bad dog!

Running

 I've been meaning to start running again for a while now.  Every once in a while I go out and run with no particular plan in mind.  Being a somewhat goal oriented person, without a specific goal to shoot for, I wasn't making much progress.  So today, I went out and bought some new shoes.  Aren't they cute?

There is always a marathon/half marathon on Thanksgiving weekend.  It was my first marathon, and I've done the half a couple of times.  So with that in mind, I went out and found a plan to follow.  I've always been a fan of the Galloway method.  It is a run/walk plan that is not too stressful.  Then, because I have a plan, and therefore I should, I went out and ran.  I've got a running tab at the top so I can keep track.  Anyone else have goals and plans?

Summer Days

Yesterday was the first day that summer vacation was regular -- with no postplanning, no vacation, no holidays. It started with swim team at 8 am. Ryan had volleyball camp so Kurt volunteered to drop him off. I got a bit of a panicked call at 9:05 informing me that the volleyball camp consisted of Ryan and 50 girls. I guess volleyball is a girl sport at those ages around here. I can't think of a single school with a male volleyball team now that I think about it.
Then I started in on the summer cleaning list. I organized the Tupperware cupboard and tidied the kitchen before tackling the fridge.

This was before.
And this was after.
I even cleared off all the notes and pictures and magnets from the front. While all of that was going on, Anna had a friend over to play which involved 11 year old drama. Sydney had several friends over and hosted a little marathon of Just Dance on the Wii, no drama necessary. Then she went to play outside, coming home with a skinned knee. Band-aids make everything better at 7. Kurt wanted me to "just check" on Ryan, so that involved spending half an hour driving back and forth through a detour and road construction so I could go and ask the lady running the camp if he was OK. He was of course, so I came back home to finish my fridge cleaning. There was a panicked message from one of the moms who had heard that Sydney got hurt and confused our trip to check on Ryan with a trip to the emergency room for stitches. That required a bit of reasurrance, but after the whole dog mauling incident I guess I can't blame her for worrying.

When all of that fun was finally over, I decided to enjoy a little fabric fondling. I had been wavering as to what to use for the "colored" blocks in Judy's June Mystery. Sydney had picked out the dark and light teal along with the background fabric, but I hadn't decided what I wanted to go with them yet. After pulling a bit of this and a bit of that I decided to use the fat quarter bundle of Girl Scout Fabric that I ordered in January. I got a bit of cutting done for that before it was time to go back through the road construction (no detour this time:)) to get Ryan again. I made yummy baked spaghetti for dinner prompting the kids to ask why I couldn't make good tasting stuff like that all the time. Clean up of the kitchen was followed by clean up of the kids and then bedtime. I made sure to get a nice early night so that I could get up this morning to run. I'm trying to get back into training mode again and Amy's post yesterday helped motivate me.
Speaking of motivation, did you know that today is National Running Day? So go strap on your sneakers and run a bit. I was out bright and early this morning and I'm going to feel good about it all day long.

Marathon Photos

My marathon photo CD came in and I thought I'd post some pictures. It makes me feel tired just to look at them. Aren't the girls cute at the finish line though? Ryan wouldn't come run with me, but the girls were pretty excited to get finish medals.

26.2

Today was the big day. Finally, my marathon. The weather was beautiful, just perfect really. Chilly at the 6:45 start and just starting to get warm by the finish. I ran with my partner Meisje for the first 18 miles, by which time she was running really strong and I was starting to get tired.
It was a double loop race, down by the river, over the causeway and then up on the barrier island before heading back over another causeway to do it all over again. The race was a combination full and half marathon with a separate 5K as well. The first loop was just packed with people, all running along at a good pace. We came up over the causeway at about mile 11 and the half peeled off for their finish. It must have been about a 100 to 1 ratio as almost everyone turned peeled off to the left. I looked ahead and saw one lonely little person going strait up ahead as we resisted the urge to turn and call it a day. The second half was a much lonelier loop, especially after I said good-bye to my partner. My other running partner Tom met up with me again at the last causeway and ran me in to the finish. I was not very talkative by then, but he kept my mind busy as we finished up the last few miles. Kurt was bringing the kids to see me cross the finish line, and when I got to the end, there they all there, waiting to cheer me on. The girls hopped up to run across the finish line with me and even got their own medals. I crossed over the line holding hands with Anna and I hope somebody got a good photo of us together, because it was a very cool moment. The announcer called our names and all three of us posed for a finish photo with our new medals on. I'll be curious to see me split times. I ran a good pace for the first half, but lost considerable steam as the race got closer to the end. I think my final time was about 4 hours and 35 minutes, although I forgot to stop my watch, so it's hard to be sure.

We got our post race massages and then I came home for a very long shower and a short nap. My feet are in pretty bad shape, and I'm not walking very fast, but I think I'm doing pretty well for someone who ran 26.2 miles this morning. I must say that I think this is my last marathon for a while. I'd like to focus on the halves next season and maybe (finally) break the two hour mark. It's good to have a goal, and I think I'd rather work on shorter distances for a while. Maybe it's one of those things, like childbirth, that you swear you will never do again. Then the memories fade and you think it wasn't so bad after all. We'll see how it goes I guess. This was one of the last Boston qualifiers of the season, and so marks the end of our running season around here. I'll see how often I get out and run without something specific to train for.

Not Enough Hours in the Day

I'm sitting here watching inauguration coverage on TV, thinking about all the things that I should be doing. The list goes on in a never ending cycle and changes little over time. However, some moments are bigger than the present, and I am not going to miss the inauguration because I needed to fold a load of laundry. Instead I worked on the quilt that I've been turning over in my mind since election night. It took me a couple of hours this afternoon to put the letters together, and maybe this evening I can decide what I am going to do with them. The finished quilt will be a wall hanging that can hang in the foyer.
I was still at school during the swearing in ceremony, so some of us gathered and watched together. My school is strongly conservative and my students, for the most part, are not happy to see a democratic administration coming in. I cautioned them all that we would not watch any of the coverage if they could not contain their negative comments. I'm thrilled to see a change coming and am full of optimism and hope that we will all see some real change in the future.

It was a crazy weekend, and I'll be playing catch up all week. I think I mentioned on Friday that I was going to be learning how to camp this weekend. The weather was not exactly ideal, but I made it through all of the required training without any frostbite. I must admit that I was feeling pretty sorry for myself after shivering through all of Saturday and thought about bailing when they started warning us about hypothermia as the day ended. I stuck it out though, and by Sunday it had started to warm enough that a few brave souls started to shed their outer layers. My lips slowly turned from purple back to pink and I started to feel better about life. I am now literate in 6 types of outdoor cooking (stick cookery, one pot, propane, dutch oven, box oven and advance stick cookery) and a wide variety of camping tools and paraphanelia. We were back about dinner time, tired and smelly, and I spent the rest of the evening unpacking and such. I was so hoping to come back to a clean house and neatly folded laundry, but the rest of the family was frantically busy all weekend with ice skating and OM and birthday parties. All the usual weekend fun. The house never does well with the usual weekend fun, so I spent my time on Monday afternoon putting it all back together.
We were off yesterday for MLK day and I took advantage of having an extra day to get in one more long run. I was still feeling horrible about bailing on my last run and wanted to get in just one more. Meisje was kind enough to bring her son to babysit, and we took off from here to get in 24 miles. We took two Gatorade breaks and one break to deliver Anna home from a sleepover, meaning the whole run took about 5 hours, but the running time was 4 hours and 16 minutes which made me pretty happy. I think it's only three more weeks until the marathon now, so I get to start enjoying the taper. I don't have any time goals in mind for this marathon, I just want to run a nice steady race and not lose time in the second half.
No nice afternoon nap followed the long run, instead I was getting ready for last nights Girl Scout meeting. Kurt scheduled his Cub Scout meeting for the same time, so we made it a combination meeting, his boys were learning about fun and games and my girls were practicing leadership skills. By the time we ushered all of them out at 8:05 last night, I was just about ready to collapse.

I'm off to a leader meeting tonight, cookie orders are due or I'd think about skipping out entirely. Next weekend is leader daughter camping and I am hoping hoping hoping that it warms up before then. Sydney has never been camping and I am not going to take her out into the bitter cold to freeze. The poor kid would never want to camp again.

Long Lost Friends

My old college friend Grant was in the area this weekend to run the Disney Marathon. He's been pretty busy theme parking it, but we went over yesterday evening to have dinner and catch up on old times. We brought the kids along to meet everyone and ended up at a Chicago style pizza place. Oh how I miss true Chicago deep dish pizza. When we lived in Chicago we had our favorite place and were frequent visitors. We looked hard for something equivalent when we moved down here, but never found anything close.

Grant is so much the same as when we were in college. Despite his new found interest in running marathons, he is exactly the person I remember. I wonder if I have remained just as stable over time? My life seems so different from college, but I'm sure beyond all the outside changes I'm just as similar underneath. It all seems like so long ago, and at the same time, I remember it like it was yesterday. Time is such a funny thing. Kurt and I have been together over 20 years now and will celebrate 15 years of marriage this summer. I still see myself as the same person I was in college though. Sometimes I'm shocked to look in the mirror and see a middle aged lady looking back at me!

Sydney was a little tired I guess and passed out cold before we were done. I can't blame her, it was probably 8 by the time we finished eating, and that is bed time around here. I never get tired of taking pictures of the kids sleeping in odd places. Some day I'll make each of them a collage and have it framed.

I spent the afternoon prepping a forensic science lab for tomorrow. It is on toxicology and I spent forever trying to cobble together the right chemicals. Despite the vast warehouse of concoctions at my disposal, surprisingly few of them are actually toxic. I guess it is a good thing that it is so hard to find poison.

Weekly running summary

Miles for the week 20.98

Miles for the year 42.73

18 is less than 26

My last long training run was 23 miles. It went so well, I was sure that 26 would happen just as easily. I should have stopped to consider a few small facts, I spent most of the week sick, preventing from running much this week, and I'm still not back to 100%. I was doing pretty well for the first 15 miles or so. Then I started to get tired. Really tired. I know it seems silly to complain about being tired after running 15 miles, but I still had 11 more to go! Meisje and I met up with Tom at that point and I kept plodding along, but I could see myself falling further and further behind. Then my legs turned into lead and I couldn't keep caught up on breathing. When I started to get nauseous and dizzy, I finally gave up and called it quits right before mile 18. No 26 mile training run for me. I still have 4 weeks until the marathon, theoretically I have time for another long training run, but both of the next two weekends are booked already so I'm running out of time in a hurry. Sorry for the quality on the picture above. It is a picture of a picture from the Space Coast Marathon on Thanksgiving weekend. It's been great to have friends to run with. I would have given up long ago if I was out there on my own.

I got showered and had lunch when I got home and then puttered around with some more double delight blocks. All of the double nine patches have been happily complete for a while now, but I'm moving along slowly on the rolling stars. There are a lot of points on that puppy that need to be matched. I'm not one of those "perfect point" people, but the mistakes in this one really seem to pop out. There is also a lot of bulk at the seems where the points meet, so I'm trying to work with that as well. Still, I'm just about to get it tackled. I was running out of pink and didn't have enough to cut the setting triangles, so I put in an order to connecting threads for some pinks and some thread. I had to add a couple of more odds and ends to the cart to get to the $50 minimum for free shipping. That came in yesterday and now it is washed and ready to go. I could get this puppy finished this weekend if I am very lucky.

I promised to take the kids to see a movie in the morning tomorrow, and we are driving to Orlando for dinner. We don't usually drive to Orlando for dinner, but there is a story there. I got a call from a long lost college friend of Thursday. Grant is in town for the weekend to run the Disney Marathon! I didn't even know that Grant was running, I never would have guessed it. I hadn't talked to him in almost 5 years, it was great to hear from him again. I'm glad he's better at keeping in touch than I am, he filled me in on the happenings of all of our old college friends, so it was a bit of a walk down memory lane for me. I'm looking forward to seeing him again and to meeting Sarah, his wife.

Slowly

I'm still plugging away on step 3. Normal Sunday activities got in the way. Exciting things like laundry and grocery shopping took up a large proportion of the day. We did get the tree down, and restored at least one room to some semblance of normalcy. I'm back to school tomorrow, but the kids don't start back until Tuesday. We've got a sitter coming, so they are all excited about that

Sunday running report:
Miles this week 21.75
Miles this year 21.75

Time Flies

Where has an entire week gone?
When last I checked in, I think I had just finished off the nursing home quilt delivery and was hosting my in-laws while waiting anxiously for the arrival of my dear husband. He stumbled in during the wee hours of the morning but still managed to be up before dawn due the the time difference. He brought a nice upper respiratory thing home with him, which seems to have missed all of the kids except Anna. (Also some beautiful sweaters for the kids I need to get pictures of still) I've finally downloaded pictures from the camera, and gotten some photos from Miss Sheila's memory card as well, so I'll share more of those tomorrow. Today I'll just zoom through the week and bring things up to date.

Last Sunday, Anna was singing in church in the morning. Her friend Sierra was dancing, and so I went and dutifully snapped pictures of them being all adorable. Kurt's mom was nice enough to come with me while Kurt laid low at home, still claiming jet lag.

The afternoon brought a lovely Christmas open house. My mother in-law came along while Kurt took Ryan to a birthday party. I'm not sure why the only picture I managed to snap was one of Anna and Sierra again.

Monday was back to work for the first day of finals. I put my nose to the grindstone, determined to have everything finished and entered by the end of the week. Tuesday was a repeat performance, followed by Sydney's class party conveniently scheduled just 20 minutes after the end of my last exam. We pasted and glitter glued ornaments, and tasted lots of frosting on these adorable little "gingerbread" houses.
By Wednesday I was finished with exams and spent the morning finishing off the last dregs. Grade calculations, comments, that sort of thing. So by Thursday I was done. Anna's class party just happened to fall in the morning on Thursday so I was able to make that as well, and helped out with "winter" themed activities of ice-cream, insta-snow, and Florida snow men made of white slime. I forgot my camera that day, so no photos of the third grade fun.
Kurt and I both off then on Friday, so we went out to breakfast together, finished off the Christmas shopping and went to the hardware store to choose house paint colors.
Saturday morning was my scheduled long run of 23 miles! I tried to get out of it, but I have these persistent running partners who wouldn't let me get away with it. Meisje was only scheduled for 18, so we started at 5:30 with a 9 mile loop. We came back for Tom and he ran with us for the next 9 mile loop. After dropping Meisje off back at her car, Tom and I did another short loop to bring the total to 23. I was tired at the end, but still functional, much to my own surprise. I got back to shower and change while Kurt went off to buy paint.
The rest of the afternoon was spent painting the house. We're going to rent scaffolding after Christmas, so for now, we're just painting the lower part of the house. I'm off to paint. I've volunteered for the low down trim work while Kurt goes crazy with the big 18 inch roller. We'll see how much damage we can do in a whole day. Happy Sunday everyone.

Bone Tired

As promised, my ride to the OUC half marathon showed up at 5 a.m. on the dot. I am so thankful that I didn't have to drive that I never even complained about the early start. We timed things pretty well because we had just picked up packets, chip timers, checked bags and used the facilities when the gun went off. Actually I had just gotten my turn when I heard the gun and tried to hurry things along as best I could. Being a chip race, it didn't matter that we weren't first past the start. Meisje was kind enough to organize this whole road trip. Ashlyn did the same race with us last year, and Amy was along for the first time this year. It was a beautiful day for a race, just a bit chilly and overcast. I thought for a few minutes it was going to start raining on us at about mile 9, but it never materialized. Ashlyn and Amy both wanted to finish below 2:10 and Meisje was going to give the Galloway method her best shot to prove that it was a viable marathon strategy. My plan was to start running and see how things went, I still want to break 2 hours at some point, but having not run a step since my 2o miler last week, I wasn't sure today would be my day. Meisje and I stuck together for the first 7 miles or so, walking at each water stop, passing the others and then falling behind as we walked and then ran again. Meisje got some serious energy going and started to pick up the pace after the halfway point, doing sub 9 minute miles and losing time at each split. I decided not to try to keep up with her and dropped back as she powered ahead. I plodded along, keeping a steady pace as first Amy and then Ashyln passed me by. I finished in a still respectable 2:07:40, 4 minutes behind my pace last week, and last of our little group. Every one was pleased with their finish times. Meisje came in at 2:03 something, just 15 seconds off her PR time, despite having walked every mile. Amy came in at 2:05 something with Ashlyn shortly behind at 2:06 something. We even had time to stop at McDonald's on the way home! I have developed a habit of stopping for unhealthy food on the way home from races. Something about the hot grease and salt just hits the spot at those moments. People wondered a bit about the four of us in our sweaty race gear with medals around our necks. Let them wonder! A marathon medal can only be worn for a short time, when the race day is done, it is left to hang as a dusty reminder of races past.


I got home in time to shower and kiss Kurt goodbye as his ride came for the airport. He'll call us from his layover, but I think it will be too late by the time he arrives at his destination to talk. I was carpooling to the birthday party, so we all pulled out at the same time as Kurt and his coworkers. It was a bowling party at the air force base, so we allowed extra time to go through security and get checked in properly. The birthday party was as calm as any gathering of 17 young children full of soda, pizza and cake can be. I was drafted to help out, and so did quite a bit of scurrying getting shoes, lining up lanes, distributing food and such. It is amazing how many children will burst into tears when faced with a dismal bowling score.
We are home again at last, full of birthday party food and wondering if we should try to eat a nice healthy dinner. I'm voting for pajamas and a good snuggle in a warm bed before it is time to put the kids to bed. Then I'm going to enjoy a nice hot whirlpool bath and try to get my tired legs energized enough for a new day.

Repetition

I bet you are all sick of hearing the same thing by now, but here are the next two nursing home lap quilts. I'm begining to lose track, but I think these make 35 and 36. They keep coming in and out for bindings and labels, so they aren't all in one place for ease of counting. I do know that Miss Sheila picked up another kit this afternoon before I got home and after that, there are only two more kits left in the box. I think I see a glimmer of light.
I've got another half marathon in the morning. This one is in Orlando, so I have a ride coming at 5 a.m. I'm bringing a pillow in the car! I don't have a long run scheduled this time, so I can just do the 13.1 and then quit. Kurt is leaving on a jet plane at 1, and Anna has a birthday party at 2. I said I'd stay and help out, so that means everyone is coming along. Kurt had scheduled an OM meeting for Sunday, but I made him cancel it when the other coach couldn't show up either. He let me know at 4:30 that there was a work party tonight that we were supposed to go to tonight. I tried valiantly to get a sitter, but that isn't easy to do on such short notice. He went alone while I snuggled up in flannel PJs and finished my quilts. I've got everything ready to go for morning, so I think I'll call it a night. I know there is another quilt-a-thon this weekend, I won't be able to play along, but I hope some of you are.

2:03:55

Not quite the 2 hours flat that I was hoping for, but the half marathon went very well. I chose the my goal time based on the fact that I thought my PR was 2:03 at last years OUC half. Miesje corrected my though, and after Googling myself, I realized my previous PR was 2:07:31, so I feel much better now about the 2:03:55 than I did at first. In fact, 2:03:55 is a new PR, so yea for me!
The first half of the run was perfect. Slight tail wind, good even pace, beautiful views, I was feeling great. Miesje, one of my running partners met me at the turnaround and we headed back down. A true friend is one that will wake up before dawn to come and keep you company for a race she isn't even running. Thanks Meisje for the run, it was much more fun with company. We were hit almost immediately with a HUGE headwind which followed us almost to the finish. I could see the time slipping away, but there wasn't much I could do to make it up. I came in for a strong finish and took a short break to enjoy the post-race food and festivities before heading off on the south loop for the full marathon. Meisje and I were planning to run down to meet Tom who was gunning for a Boston qualifying time. He's much faster than us, obviously. We met up with him somewhere between mile 16 and 17 for us, which would have been about 23 for him. I kept up for as long as I could, but the miles had taken their toll at that point and Meisje was left to run him in to the finish. Unfortunately he had the same issues with slowing down at the end that have plagued him in the past, and missed his mark by just a few minutes. It was so painful to watch him work so hard and get so close while still coming up short. He started cramping up just after crossing the finish line and had to have help from the medics to try to get past it. Luckily, his vitals were good, so we avoided another trip to the ER. Meisje had heard a trick about eating mustard to get past cramps, so we got some of that on the way home. I don't know if it helped, but the cramping seemed to get better after that.
Tom's wife Sheila was there with a camera, so I'll add some pictures when she sends them them to me. Except for the part with the paramedics, it was a lovely day, good weather, 20 miles logged and the company of good friends. I don't know how anyone could need more than that.

Happy Thanksgiving

I hope everyone had a wonderful weekend. We had a relaxing time staying at home. We went to share the Thanksgiving meal with our neighbor, but otherwise spent time as a family. I managed to burn the pies by moving them to the bottom rack to make room for the back-up turkey, but I guess there are worse things than burnt pie. Sydney had a ball playing in someone else's toy room and had be drug out at the end of the evening. Pirates and star wars are the little boy versions of princesses and ballerinas for dress up clothes.

The kids decided to have a swim after dinner even though it was really too cold. They all warmed up afterwards with hot chocolate and lots of whipped cream. (I'm not sure why the picture is sideways, we got a new camera and I'm still figuring it out)
I did a bit of shopping with the same neighbor yesterday, starting bright and early at 4 a.m. For those people outside the US who are unfamiliar with Black Friday, it is the traditional begining of the shopping season. Retailers try to lure people out of their toasty warm houses in the wee hours of the morning with promises of ridiculously good deals on various consumer goods. We weren't up quite early enough to nab one of the $348 laptops, but managed to find a few bargains and still be home again by the time everyone else was awake.
I'm off tonight to the pre-race pasta dinner. It will be an early night before tomorrow's 6 am race start! They move it up earlier every year, trying to get the finish in before the heat is too bad. I hope it is cooler than last year, a lot of people only did the first half because they were too warm at the turnaround to finish the whole marathon.

28, But Who's Counting?

This is Lap Quilt number 28! I stitched the binding down on number 27 last night while we corrupted the children with Monty Python and the Holy Grail. The black and taupe four patches are from Goodwill shirts, and the gold print is something I had in the donation box. Kurt suggested the gold border to brighten it up a bit. It is spray basted, maybe I'll be able to get it quilted and bound while the kids have their baths and showers tonight. I have a variegated gold thread from Connecting Threads that should do the trick nicely.
We had Odyssey of the Mind this afternoon, and since we have it at our house, I spent some time clearing the dining room out again and moving my sewing things back into the guest bedroom. My parent-in-laws are coming through in a couple of weeks on the way home from a cruise, so I'll have to find out if they are staying over night to find out if I need to move everything out of the guest room and into the laundry room where it is supposed to live. There was an option to build our house with an extra room upstairs next to the toy room. Sometimes I think about how nice it would be to have a Studio where I could leave everything on a permanent basis. Maybe I can turn the toy room into that when the kids have outgrown toys. (It could happen;-))
Today was a lovely and relaxing Sunday. I didn't run this morning, and so relaxed with the Sunday paper. We spent a good bit of time outside playing, the weather was just about perfect. The kids cleaned the toy room with a minimum of fuss and then I took Anna out to buy a couple of new pairs of jeans. It's been so cold for almost two weeks now, that they have needed long pants every day! Very unusual for us, and we just didn't have that many pairs of long pants. I went for a run right after OM ended (just 6 miles), and got back just in time to shower before dinner. We're watching Kung Fu panda again now, getting ready for baths and bed. Not a bad weekend at all.
DARN, I just looked at the quilt picture and realized one of the four patches is rotated! Oh well, it is too late now to do anything about it. I'll call it a humility patch and move on with my life. I've always found it funny that anyone would feel the need to deliberately make mistakes in a quilt. Mine have enough naturally occurring mishaps.

Sunday Part 2

So much happened yesterday that I wasn't able to fit it all into one post. I forgot to give the details on the VERY LONG 17 mile run that started the day. My running partner Tom went with me, even though he had done a 15 K race the day before, he is a real trooper. I have decided that it doesn't matter how far I have to go on a long run, the last 3 miles are always painful. I did 15 miles two weeks ago and was happy for the first 12. Yesterday I had 14 good miles and then hated every step of rest of the run. So I guess if I want to have a happy marathon in February I'd better make sure I train up to 29 miles ahead of time!? Well, I was pretty tired for the rest of the day and would have loved to have curled up in bed for a power nap. Instead, I took a whirlpool bath and then took Sydney out for a special mommy-daughter lunch.
That got us back in time for quilting, which I told y'all about yesterday, it ended at 4. Girl Scout roller skating started at 4:30 and so I drove 4 singing 9 year olds and Sydney down to the roller-rink and did the usual girl scout leader supervision thing. I was mostly just hoping I didn't have to put on skates myself, because my calf muscles were still protesting the last three miles of my morning run. Miss Sheila brought her own skates, which let me off the hook for actually having to skate.
This is the first year that Sydney has been old enough to go, and she had a blast! Her daisy troop didn't want to go because they thought the girls weren't old enough to roller skate. Sydney obviously disagreed. She put on her little helmet, and borrowed a pair of my socks, and she just went to town! Whatever she does, she does it with enthusiasm. I have to give her credit for that. I was surprised that she didn't fall asleep in the car, but she was mostly passed out on her chair at the dinner table. She did wake up long enough to tell us that it was the best night of her life.
Today was a normal day at school. We are talking about hair in forensic science and valence shell repulsion theory in chemistry. Academic team met at lunch and then I came home to try to get nuts and candy sales figured out before the 5 p.m. deadline. The kids got home with reports about then ins and outs of their days, and after homework they let me have a few minutes at the sewing machine. I got three of the completed quilts trimmed down and the bindings attached. They are all looking great! Miss Sheila is going to hand stitch the bindings for me. I don't know how I'd survive all of this without her.
We had a Service Unit Team meeting for Girl Scouts tonight, and it was a potluck for which you were supposed to bring baked goods to share. Not being able to fit any baking into my recent schedule, Sheila did the baking for both of us. I've just gotten back now, and am wondering if I'll pull out some papers to grade or just collapse. Collapsing might win out, I can always power through some lab reports in the morning because Pascal, another of my running partners wants to run in the evenings this week because her mornings are too hectic. I guess I can understand how that could happen.

Experimental Quilting.

I had some 6 inch squares that I got from Amy during the giveaway for her 100th blog post. I pulled them out last week while I sat at the kitchen table watching the kids do homework and started messing around. Somewhere in the back of my head was an episode of simply quilts where they made a stack of equal sized blocks and cut through them all at the same time. One of the patterns was a puss-in-the-corner block which should have been pretty straight forward. I decided to try a diagonal version, but didn't bother to look up specific directions, although I know they must be out there somewhere. They sat "seasoning" until I was looking for something to putter around with this weekend.
I lost some size in the seam allowance, but squared everything up to 4 inches. I'm not sure what the pattern is called, but I thought it was a nice cross kind of block. Encouraged by the ease, I whipped up a few more. The measurements shifted a little as I went along, but they all squared up to the same size in the end. Even though it might cause a little wasted fabric, it certainly made the cutting fast.
I alternated them with some teal blocks from my 4 inch block box and found some border fabric to go with them.
Kurt and Ryan were gone on a cub scout camping trip, so I spent the wee hours of the evening of Saturday putting them together to make another nursing home quilt. I just finished up the quilting in a simple straight line pattern and stitched on some purple binding. Usually I just throw my "experimental" blocks into the orphan drawer, it was fun to turn these into a finished project.
Ryan and Kurt came home on Sunday morning covered from head to toe in filth and mud. It stopped raining eventually on Saturday, but left the ground so saturated with water that they couldn't step down without sinking in. They had lots of fun though, and after baths and laundry all was well again. Then the afternoon was our next OM (Odyssey of the Mind) meeting. I kept Sydney entertained while the kids practiced building structures out of straws. Ryan worked for a long time on his, and came up with this cube that worked very well.
As soon as the meeting ended, I headed out for my long run. 15 miles was on the schedule for last weekend, but I missed it while we were out of town. I made that up last night with Tom who is doing the full marathon Thanksgiving weekend and had 20 on his schedule. The first 12 miles or so went pretty well, but then I started to get tired. I walked a lot during the last three miles, but made it home before the kids were ready for bed. I managed to get a shower before collapsing into bed and woke up this morning with tired legs and really scary hair.