Thursday - Spicy

 

The adventures in organization continue! I threw a bunch of cake decorating tips into the dishwasher yesterday. Anna was really into cake decorating for a while. I was thinking that I might just take the tips to her in Virginia because I was never much of a cake decorator. At one point I bought a clever little frosting tip storage box to keep them all organized. I thought it might be in a corner lazy Susan cabinet where we put mixing and baking things. So I started to dig through that and found the hand mixer. It has been missing for years! Unfortunately, I threw out the beaters yesterday when I was clearing out the bottom drawer. Kurt offered to dig through the trash to find them, but is it really worth digging through the trash to find something that hasn't been used in years? I decided that it was not. 

So while I was digging around for the cake tip box, I pulled out a little tin thinking that would work for storing the tips. Imagine how surprised I was to find it full of Christmas cookies. It wouldn't be quite as surprising if we had baked any cookies this year. Those were the cookies we baked last year. Kurt said they tasted fine and offered to take care of them for me. 

Happy Thursday. It has been a long week, but next week will be a short one, so it all works out in the end. 

Wednesday - A Quickie

 The spice drawer was the perfect choice for a busy weekday. I didn't even get a before photo. Just filled up any empty jars from the overstocks behind and sorted the extra bits into a few jars on the side. There are some empty jars in the dishwasher, but so they will come back soon enough. Having all my spices in matching jars brings me joy. My kids would say it is my OCD shining through, but everything is just so much easier to find when it is uniform and alphabetical. How many times have I bought mustard powder because I thought we were out when it was really just hiding? Nobody needs that much mustard powder! I even added some of the homegrown spices that I grew this summer. I love using sage that came from my own plants. 

I hope that you are having a happy hump day. 

Tuesday - One Day at a Time

  

Being at work again every day is hard! I could really do this if work weeks were 4 days. 5 in a row is just so much! Trying hard to work ahead on grad school so that I can take the weekend off. Wish me luck! This is the bottom drawer in our kitchen. It is supposed to hold baking supplies. It usually holds anything that doesn't have another home. First an empty, clean and then a sort. 

Like things are together now, and a bunch of scary things went into the trash. I ordered a couple of clear bins to keep things sorted. That was a quick one. The spice drawer is on the agenda for tomorrow. Nothing is more fun than alphabetizing the spices!

Monday - Here we go again

The upstairs bathroom was next on the list. I am using a random number generator to choose projects, so it is just luck of the draw that I have already done thee bathrooms. 

We had this one redone just after the pandemic and I love the views. Right now the beach includes backhoes and dump trucks, but it is still nice to look out at the ocean. We had the contractor basically make to entire room waterproof and then put up a barrier free two sided glass shower. The goal was to make it as open as possible. The glass tends to collect hard water spots, and I go in every couple of weeks and give it a good scrub while I am in the shower. The philodendron is getting a little out of control. Maybe I can put a stake in it to get it to grow up a bit more than out? 

There is always the random stuff that collects over time to be put away and then an extra deep clean is in order. It shouldn't take too long to cross this one off the list. 

It is cleaner now, and the counters are clear for the moment. I out a little bin under the sink with the things that get used every day. 

Kurt grabbed a lattice for me at Lowe's this morning and I tried to get the plant to go up a bit. I think I was semi successful. He has asked for a palm tree instead, but those are harder keep alive, so I will stick with this one for now. It is conveniently close to the tub with a spray head that makes watering easy. All the plants that I used to keep in the front steps died terrible thirsty deaths. 

I will cross that job off the list and move on to what is next. This will be a long week at school but then next week is only 4 days for MLK. For weekend I will head to Virginia for a few days, so that will be a bit nice change of pace. I am not sure how long I can keep up with the daily to do lists jobs. I might have to change to weekends only when things get busy again. Right now I need to finish a 3-5 page paper about teacher perceptions of Common Core Standards

Sunday for the Slowdown

It was a long week back at school. It is cold which is unusual for here. Getting back into the flow of things again will take a bit longer I think. I am thankful to have a weekend, even a cold and rainy one. My slow stitching time today will be devoted to hand stitching the binding on my first ever quilt. If I get energetic, I might even try a bit more hand quilting. Hand quilting is not easy through high loft polyester batting, but we live and learn as we evolve in our quilting. I am enjoying the idea of turning my first attempt at quilting into a finished project. It only took a bit more than 25 years. 

If you have more than one RSC25 project in the works, or have a few ongoing projects from years past, these tracking sheets are a great way to keep track. Stephanie makes them for us each year and there are several formats available depending on whether you want to use them electronically or print them and go analog. 

Rainbow Scrap Challenge Tracking Sheet in word

Rainbow Scrap Challenge Tracking Sheet in PDF

Rainbow Scrap Challenge Tracking Sheet in pages

I randomly drew the powder room as the next project on the "To Do" list. Honestly I thought it was in pretty good shape. It is just a half bath on the main floor that doesn't get used much. I keep some extra guest towels on the back of the potty. 

Then there is a little corner shelf for sunglasses, sunscreen and TP. Kurt has decided to turn old TP rolls into fire starters and so I will donate these to his new craft project. 

It was quick work to sort through the sunglasses and sunscreen. I am not sure who thought that bug spray, aloe and lotion should all start living in there, but they got moved out. There were some sad and broken sunglasses that have gone away. I really need a few matching containers that are slightly larger to hold those, so I will keep my eyes open. I am not much of a shopper, but maybe something will turn up. 

Then it was just a quick scrub, wipe down and polish to make everything all shiny. It was a quick one today, which is good because my first assignment for statistics is an essay that needs a bit more work. There is a group chat for the class and the professor seems to be fairly strict in her grading. Honestly, I thought I would be doing some math, but so far it is not that at all. 

It Never Ends

I always know that I am starting to get overwhelmed when I can't remember all the things that need to get done. My routine is pretty stable, and I can usually manage to get by with a simple calender and maybe a shopping list. When life starts to get a little frantic, things start to slide. Then something doesn't get done, and it makes me crazy, and I start to feel overwhelmed. I told one of my classes today that I was starting to feel fragmented, a clever student suggested that when you defragment your hard drive, you throw out all the stuff you don't need any more. Of course he thought chemistry was one of the things we should think about deleting!
Sometimes I react to stress by getting my act in gear and powering my way through the list. Sometimes though, I try to ignore all of the things that aren't getting done. Denial never seems to do the trick for me. I just end up getting more frazzled. So here I sit posting to my blog, wondering if I'm going to get the lab reports graded and put together a power point, or just hope I wake up early enough in the morning to get something done before car loop duty. On the bright side, I have managed to power my way through 7 loads of laundry this evening, so I can cross that one off the list.
As busy as it is though, it is all good stuff. I'm happy to be able to do all of the things I do. I am satisfied with the big picture and the major life decisions, and that should be enough to help me get through the day to day. It's easy to forget about that in all of the minutiae.
My nephew Zach is getting better again. The antibiotics seem to be working, and if he continues to improve, he could go home in the next few days. I think it's been over three weeks that he's been in this time, and I'm sure it must seem like an eternity to my sister. I wish I lived closer so that I could help out.

How many UFOs is too Many?

I like to think I don't have any UFOs, just lots of WIPs (works in progress). I like having something in each of the different stages of completion so that I can work on what I am in the mood for; appliqué or hand quilting in front of the TV, serious chain piecing if I have time in front of the machine.... you get the idea. But I have trouble justifying so many things left undone. Starting something new is always more fun than finishing. I have finished the blocks for three quilts that sit as blocks in baggies! That may not seem like a lot to some of you, but I only finished 8 quilts all of last year! So, in order to satisfy my need for variety, without becoming overwhelmed with guilt about projects not finished, I'm going to try to have only one quilt in each stage at a time.
Now I just have to assess my WIPs list and see where I stand.

First finish for 2008

I pulled the girl scout quilt out yesterday and got it quilted. My troop made this as part of a learn to sew badge. I think they did a great job! We worked on tying it, but with 8 year old attention spans, I thought they could use a little help in the finishing stages. We have had trouble deciding what to do with it. Everyone has a special relative or friend they want to give it to. I quilted loop-de-loops in the center and a simple meander in the border. I finished sewing the binding down this morning while watching the Rose Bowl Parade.

Finishes for 2007

1. Paige’s Shoofly quilt – This quilt was the result of my sister deciding last Christmas that she would buy the fabric and I would help her make a quilt for her daughter after Christmas. I should have known that it was an ill fated venture when my cell phone rang as I was crossing the finish line at a 5K (I set a PR!). It was my sister at the fabric store asking how much fabric she needed to buy. She didn't want to make anything complicated, just plain squares, set on the diagonal and tied. We started the day after Christmas, and she honestly thought we could finish it all the same day. With both of us and Mom all sewing away, we almost made it by midnight! At the end of it all, she said the one thing she had learned is that making a quilt was much more complicated than she thought, and she hadn't known what she was asking me to do when she came up with the idea. So with the leftover fabric, I made this companion quilt for Paige's baby dolls. I really enjoyed the colors.
   
2. Mom’s T-Shirt quilt I don't have a picture of this one because it wasn't quite done when I gifted it. Has anyone else ever wrapped a quilt to put under the tree with the safety pins still in it? Mom loved my t-shirt quilts so much that she sent me home with a stack that I turned into a quilt for Christmas. I finished tying it when I came back for our next visit.
   
3. Zach’s Shining Star - This was a new baby quilt for my nephew who was born over Easter. I used Bonny's pineapple star for the second time. I love how quick and easy this pattern is, and it looks so complicated! Finishing the quilting on this finally drove me to get a new sewing machine.
   
4. Turkey Tracks Table Runner - I started this two Thanksgivings ago , but got bogged down trying to get it quilted. I got a lot of loose ends tied up when I got my new machine. I used a pattern from Quilt in a Day which was in the Egg Money Quilts book.
5. Block Party Quilt - Calling this a finish for 2007 is cheating . I finished the quilt in 2001 but had trouble getting it quilted on my old machine. It's really ugly, but it makes a great picnic quilt -- it doesn't show dirt!
6. Purple Beauty - This one was based on Bonny's Blue Ridge Beauty pattern. I made it in purples for my oldest daughter. I was working on hand quilting but gave up and finished it on -- you guessed it, the new sewing machine.
7. Spice Meadows - This quilt is currently hanging in the family room. It is from a kit I got the day after Christmas last year on Joann.com. I added 9 extra blocks to make it king sized. My husband says the asymmetry makes him crazy.
8. Road to the Marathon - I had been planning this quilt for a long time. It represents the races and training I did to prepare for my first and second marathon.

New Years look back

So here is the list I started with for 2007. I just figured out how to edit HTML so I could strike out the ones that are finished (say yea for being technically literate!). The last three I consider to be long term works in progress. There are no deadlines for those. So of the list of 15, I only finished 4 this year. Of course, I did other things that were not on the list, but that doesn't solve the problem of making the list shorter. So I need to assess the 8 things in the middle of the list and see where I stand on those. In addition, I need to add the new projects I started this year but did not finish (yet).

1. Spice Meadows
2. Hand quilting on Anna’s purple beauty
3. label green and yellow nine patch
4. free motion quilting on block party quilt
5. embroider names on blue baby quilt
6. Sampler quilt
7. Dresden Plates
8. orange and teal pinwheels
9. patriotic log cabin quilt
10. Buttons and Bow Ties
11. green and purple BOM stars
12. Doll mini hexagons
13. Hexagon Charm Quilt
14. Dear Jane at Sea
15. Elm Creek Sampler

I was up until 2 last night organizing and sorting. I always get the urge around the new year to start everything tidy and fresh. I got some more ties cut down for my bowtie quilt. I have a system down now. First I rough cut 5 inch squares of interfacing, which I iron onto the back of the opened ties. I've been getting three squares per tie and saving the rest for smaller bits later. Then I rough cut the squares and size them to 4.5 inches. I tried cutting out the squares first, but the silky fabric was really stretchy. I'm using a dimensional bowtie pattern, so each block takes three squares of "bowtie" fabric and two of background. I'm not sure yet how I'll set them. DH insists that the colors are all too busy and don't go together so they need to be separated by some solid squares in black or navy. They look more like bowties on the diagonal, but I also like the secondary patterns when they all form circles. So many decisions......