My eyes!

None of these fabrics were bought with any rhyme or reason behind them .... it was one of those days where I saw a sale and had to get something bright and pretty. Our local quilt store is suddenly closing due to the owner being ill, and everything in the store was on sale. So I got 3 yards of the yellow print, and then the rest are fat quarters. I dont know what I'll do with them, but one day I'll figure that out. Until then, these may be so bright that it'll hurt your eyes!

This store was also where I could rent time on the long arm quilt machine. I have two quilt tops that I was going to schedule time to quilt them. Now I either have to figure out how to do it at home on my machine (uhhh, yeah.. handquilting is out of the question for me!)... or find somewhere else I can rent a machine.

I guess while I'm pondering how to get these tops quilted, I can just collect fabric. After all I dont even really have a stash to work from!

Dancing and Working

The title says it all. I've been dancing and working. Whew ....

Wait a minute, that could sound bad. I haven't been dancing WHILE working ... or working while dancing or any combination of those. ha! I fear that if that was the case, I'd be one poor mamma! Unless the object of the job is to get paid to STOP dancing ... ha!

So I can mark something off my list of goals. My sweet hubby got me Dance Dance Revolution Disney Channel Edition for Vday! I was so tickled to get it!! (now, all of you can stop laughing!). It is seriously fun, though. And there's a workout section so that you can track calories burned, etc. I haven't done much from the workout section ... my goal is to get a perfect dance score! Little Happy has fun dancing on a Barney dance mat that was once Sunshine's ... and he jumps along with me as I dance.

Aside from that I've been working my usual 20 hrs a week. Not much time for crafty things lately. But I'm still looking for just the right pattern for the cherry fabric. And I know I want to make Happy a quilt someday too. I know the pattern I want to use for him, but not the fabrics.

Relay for Life stuff is fast approaching ,and taking up some of my daytime free time. After April I'll get back into regular stuff.

But then after April, it'll soon be time to plant some flowers and my little garden! We have sweet little raised bed flower/vegetable garden in our backyard. I'll need to get some more dirt and add to it this year. This past summer I didnt keep up with the veggies, and pretty much just scattered zinnia seeds everywhere ... and the bee balm sort of took over. I'm going to do something with that this year. :) Enjoy the picture from July 07 in my garden!

Love is in the air!

Yep, that's right ... love is in the air! And I'm not talking about sappy lovey dovey Valentines love ...... I'm talking secrect stash love!

I bought these 12 fat quarters at a wonderful quilt shop. I fell in love with the bottom fabric first. I love red cherry fabric... then the rest just sort of fell into place. I have no idea what pattern I'll do with these, but I'm enjoying flipping through magazines and websites for ideas. I think I have a good mix of dark/light for each set.

No matter what I make out of them, I'm sure I'll love it.

Polka Dot Parade

I finished piecing the Polka Dot Parade top .... now to decide on borders/binding and backing colors. Originally I had planned on doing a solid black border and binding .. .to tie together with the black center blocks. But now I dont know if that will work or not. It's bigger than I had thought it would be too!

All the fabrics are polka dot (except the white solids) ...and I love how that clashes with the squareness of the 9 patches. I used a cheaper white fabric and really could tell the difference between it and the nice Kona cotton I have used before.

Brain Age

Art by Happy - copyright 2008

I'm 33 years old and I love video games. I confess. In our house is a playstation 2 (and about 10 games), a nintendo gamecube and nintendo DS. And I play them all. And I'm the proud player that won 3 different Ratchet and Clank games. My latest love is Brain Age for the DS. Maybe by playing all these games, my brain age will become nice and young and supple.

Only a saggy 33 yr old would think of supple brains, cause certainly nothing else is supple. Now it's turned into one of "those" words ... you know the kind. The one that is normal, but when you say it over and over it sounds weird ... and when you write it it looks weird? Supple. Yep, weird.

So for Valentines day my husband already knows that he can get me either Flash Focus for DS OR jewelry and i'd be tickled with either of them. And secretly, I want want want want want Dance Dance Revolution Disney edition..... I mean, come on .. it would help me shed this last 50 pounds I need to lose!!

I've got some goals for the coming month.......

1. Organize the "office" part of our bedroom.
2. Get Happy's Scrapbook up to date!
3. Finish the polka dot quilt
4. Get the polka dot quilt and the batik quilt on the quilting machine at the quilt shop.
5. get Dance Dance Revolution Disney Edition.......
6. Whoooops..... delete number five for a while.... because secretly I want a Wii even more.
7. Lose 10 pounds.

I feel tired already. :)

Settling down

Misty River Morning - photo copyright 2005

One of the things I love at night, is the sound of my son settling down at night in his bed. After I sing Twinkle Twinkle Little Star and a few odd verses of Lean on Me that I love (lean on me, when your not strong, and I'll be your friend .. I'll help you carry on.... Just call on me brother, when you need a friend, cause we all need someone to lean on)... I dont know if those are the "right" words to that song .. but it fits perfectly. Like, for Sunshine we always sang You Are My Sunshine each night ...and she was certainly our Sunshine. And Happy is our little Twinklin' Star ...and I hope he always knows he can call on me/us!

I'm rambling...

So, after I sing (wouldnt THAT have been shorter to say!)..... and I leave his room.... Happy will lay on his tummy in the dark and start talking softly. Some nights it is only a few minutes of talking and sometimes it is 15 min of talking! I love to have the baby monitor on (yes, he's 2 and I will use that monitor in his room until he's old enough to move it out himself ...and then I plan on disguising it and putting it back!).... anyway. I love to listen to him talking. He talks softly and has serious tonal inflections .... up and down, highs and lows. Sometimes I can understand what he's saying and other times I just hear the sound of his little husky toddler boy voice. It soothes my soul to hear him settling down and talking about his day. He sounds content.

Maybe we should all do that to settle down? At what point in life did we stop doing that, and started laying in bed in the dark and our thoughts whiz through our heads keeping us awake for hours? What if we just spoke out loud about our day, our feelings ...... and then close our eyes and go quickly to sleep? What a difference that may make!

I wonder if I would ramble during my settling down talk?

Progress

I've gotten five sets of 9 patches completed. I have some mismatched pieces left that I'll try and put together some way .... but there should be enough of the black polka dot to use as center pieces to pull it all together.

Sewing is relaxing. It's like therapy ... my hands and mind keep busy, and I make something pretty and useful at the same time. I mean, I could keep my hands and mind busy doing .... well .... I'm sure there's other things to do to keep my hands and mind busy and be productive at the same time. I just cant think of it. My mind's been too busy.

Men and their toys

You certainly dont want to get in the way of men and their toys.

For instance:

My son and his new train track ....

Or my brother and his train....

Boys and their toys, gotta love it.

Seeing dots

I've decided on this 9 patch pattern for the polka dot fabric. I'm going to try and have a black polka dot in the center of each 9 patch and then use a black fabric for a border or binding. I'll have a white square between these blocks.

It'll be bright and cheery .. just what I like.

Happy boy had a great 2nd birthday. He loved his presents, the cake, and the special visits from family and friends.

And I enjoyed watching him be a little big boy. Its fun to watch him grow.

M

I have polka dot fever. It's bad, I know. It has a mind of its own ... and obviously wants to be orange. Do these colors go together? Not really ... are they all the same intensity? Mediums? (well, except for the black which is definately my darks) .... Can I pull all these together into one quilt that wont burn someone's eyes??

We'll see.

Happy turns Two tomorrow. I can't wait!

Transformation!

"I'm turning Two ... what's it to you?"

You remember the sweet little boy of whom I sang the praises of for his wonderful year .... the boy that Santa bestowed good presents for?

He is turning Two.

The Transformation has begun.

Let me share with you the dreaded signs of Transformation To the Terrible Twos!

1. Tonight, while sitting on the floor watching Shrek Two .... his pointer finger was in his mouth and he was sucking it loudly. I say "Case, what are you doing!!?" (he's been so good at not putting his hands in his mouth for months!). To which, Case turns around and tells me "Eating.". I say "What are you eating??" (fearing that he would say boogers) ... but instead Happy says "Breakfast!" Then sticks his finger in his mouth and continues "eating". Hey... at least it wasn't boogers!

2. Tonight while Happy was sitting in the bathtub playing with some bath toys ... he suddenly scoonched (yes, that's a word) down in the tub, spread his legs apart a little bit ... looked down between his legs and proceeded to watch LOTS of bubbles float up from under his booty. Yep.... he took a Fart Jacuzzi and never even said Excuse Me.

See, the transformation to Two? It's a good thing I'm ready to handle it ... after all, haven't we all had a Fart Jacuzzi at some time or other? ha!

A year in review

This Christmas night, as I sat with our almost two year old son ... I started to tell him all the Good Boy things he has done this year that Santa will be bringing him gifts as a reward for being good.

What a wonderful year for Happy! Once I started thinking of this year of his, I was bowled over by how much he's changed. I think that this will be the year he changes the most in his life. As illustrated below:

This Year Case ....

1. Learned to Walk!
2. Then learned to Run!
3. Learned to go Potty!
4. Learned to talk in complete sentences (Open the gate! I can eat Cookie! I go potty! Daddy and Mommy Funny! I talk PawPaw and MawMaw!...etc.)
5. Learned to undress himself! Ack!!
6. Learned to throw trash away in the trash can.
7. Learned good manners .... says Thank you and Please!
8. Learned that when a camera is around ... to squeeze a cheezy grin and say "CHEESE!"
9. Learned about Santa and presents and Baby Jesus!
10. Has become such a big boy, no longer a baby.


And he's a good boy. I'm proud of him. And I think that Santa will agree.

Merry Christmas. May all your years be as rewarding as Happy's Year has been!

The windows of this house are panes of a soul.

They show the heart of the home that was.

The porch of this house is the sole of the home,

that shows the love that was.

Where time left this home, it's easy to see.

Dusting off the porch, sitting in a sturdy chair ... waiting for a visit.

Although this home and the soul within is long gone,

tis not forgotten.

Happy Face

Well, I pestered my MUCH older brother (hehe) to send me this picture. He and his son (my darling handsome nephew!!) were riding fourwheelers along the banks of the river recently, and my brother managed to create this great smiley face. I just love it!!!

I had ridden back there with my son and my mom recently too ... but all I did was take pictures of the flowers and trees and water. I didnt do one thing creative!

I love this picture and hope that you all do too!

M

Ready to quilt!!

My batik quilt top is completed. It finished at approximatly 64 inches x 64 inches. I will probably do the dark blue for the binding to tie the colors all together. It will be a nice throw size quilt for using in the living room on the couch.

Here's another picture, with two things I "made" . Which do you think I'm proudest of? :)

Year of Quilting

I was working on putting the final border on my batik quilt, when I realized that if I can really hustle and get this one quilted .... then I'll have done 3 quilts this year! My first year of learning to quilt. I think that's great!

I don't have any unfinished quilts or projects lurking in the closet. I do, though, have a bag full of polka dot fabrics that I'll keep adding too and then I'll make a bulls eye quilt with that material. I also have started a great stash collection that is organized into strips, squares and bricks ( http://www.quiltville.com/)

Another planned project is to make a full size or queen sized quilt for Case that has lots of stars all over it. I'm not sure the exact pattern, becuase there are so many out there with stars! I think I want a fairly simply quilt ... not too many colors... just a dark and light contrast maybe.

Here are some pictures of the quilts I've done this year!

Conversation with a Two Year Old

While putting away dishes from the dishwasher, I had an interesting conversation with my almost two year old son. It went something like this:

Case was reaching for a plate, and squeezed out a loud Toot!

Mommy says "Case, you tooted, Please say excuse me."

Case continues trying to pilfer in the dishwasher and ignores me.

Mommy says "Case. Say Excuse me."

Case looks at Mommy with his big brown eyes and very graciously said, "Excuse you Mommy!"

:)

Miss Michelle and the Fabric Store

Well, if I'm going to be the oldest (well, third oldest) person at work .... and they do call me Miss Michelle....(which is what I call older people!) ... then I'm going to relish it.

:) So Miss Michelle went to the fabric store today. Hancocks has Kona Cotton (which I love to use for quilting) on 40% off sale. So I got a nice red and blue solid to use for the border for my batik quilt.

I still need to decide how wide the two different borders will be. I'm thinking of a thinner blue border, and a wider red border and hopefully will have enough blue left over to use as binding.

Living life

It's been a while since I updated my blog. Just been busy living life..working three jobs (two from home and one 4 nights/week at a retail store) and volunteering for the American Cancer Society.

Here's a few things I've learned lately:

1. The difference between me and girls in their early 20's is only skin deep.... you see.... the tops of my feet are hairy and theirs are smooth. I dont know if I'm so old that I grow hair where I never did before ... or if I'm just so old I dont care if there's hair on my feet!! Needless to say, after I noticed that ... I came home and got out the weedeater and whacked that offending hair off the top of my feet!

2. My legs aren't as young as they use to be. I've worked retail before. I wasn't this tired after working retail in my 20's. Now I have comfy shoes that aren't cool, and my feet still hurt. I come home after work, take 2 advil and play on the computer for a bit and hit the sack. I swear, those girls at work are going out after working and wearing cute shoes all the time! ha!

3. The crock pot is my best friend. yep. Sorry girls. You've been replaced. :) As long as Hubby doesn't get tired of having pot roast once a week, he's getting it. I actually put a pot roast in the crock pot this morning too. It's good. It's healthy. It's easy. And we all get a hot meal without me having to cook for an hour before I go to work retail and hurt my legs and hairy feet. :)

4. Working three jobs makes it hard to quilt or paint! But I really am just waiting on a first check so that I can go and buy some border fabric for my batik throw quilt. :)

I have to give a Memorial Speech this coming Sunday. I'm nervous. Do you think I could just ask them to all shut their eyes and pretend I'm not there? Or could I just post a blog on the presentation screen and let them all read my speech instead? :)

Later!
M