Puppy @ 6 weeks

Here's the 6 week old picture of the mini labradoodle puppy. I'm getting excited. Names??? Come on!!

Friday Quilts... on Friday!

It's really difficult arranging the One-Block Wonder blocks in a totally satisfying design. I'll change one or two and walk away.Since it's set up in the dining room, I see it every time I walk into the kitchen. Taking pictures really helps. Sometimes seeing the design in a different perspective makes certain blocks or colors stick out in a way that you didn't see when you were standing right in front of it. If your computer's picture program allows you to change the photo to black and white, it creates a great contrast between the darker background and the lighter patterns. Anyway, I thought I was done so I took this picture.

But when I looked at it on the computer, I decided that the reds and yellows needed to be tightened up a bit. So I changed a few more blocks around. I'm happier with it now. When I first started (see earlier post about this project), I was getting frustrated trying to blend the red and yellow blocks in with the yellow and light purples. I finally took the whole thing down and started over. Sometimes it's best to either walk away or start over. Now that I'm set on the design, I'll re-pin the whole thing into vertical rows and begin sewing them together.

Puppy?!

We're getting a puppy! We're getting a puppy! We haven't had a puppy in 7 years now! I know those sleepless nights are coming, but hey, it takes less time to house train a dog than it does a baby! It's only 5 weeks old now, and we won't pick it up for almost another month. It's a mini labradoodle. It will be about 20-25 lbs and knee high. I'll get updated pictures each week. Here is the first one! And "Dude" is NOT my choice of names..... open to suggestions here!

Mae's Day

Well, becoming a teenager should be a special birthday, so off we went to the beauty parlor. Mae was very patient for the long process of getting a body wave. Her only complaint was that with all those rollers on her head, it was very heavy. She said she thought her head was going to fall off. Her hair is so stick straight that it will be a miracle if the waves, such as they are, stay for long.


We swung by home and picked up Bill and Steven and went to the mall. We met the grandparents (in-laws) there. Mae had an entourage to witness the piercing! As if she needed the pressure. Actually, an audience never stopped Mae from expressing her TRUE feelings. She was pretty excited while I filled out the paperwork. We picked out basic 14 kt gold balls. You can never go wrong with the classics.


Barbara and I deliberated quite a bit over the placement. The shop gal would mark the spot on the earlobes with an ink pen, then stand back while we checked it out. She had to redo it 3 times. Hey, you only get this done once, so you might as well take the time to get it EXACTLY right. There won't be a second time! Part of the reason the shop gal had to redo the ink mark was because Mae was getting all trembly. The lip was going and she wouldn't let go of my hand. The shop gal asked if we would like to have them both done at the same time. Brilliant suggestion!!


Here we go! Mae was squeezing the life out of my hands.


There was a wail, and about 2 minutes of crying.


All done and no more tears. She said she was NEVER going to do that again! Off we went shopping for more earrings for her birthday present and then out to dinner. This morning I asked her how she felt. She reached up to feel her ears and said, "Oh good, they're still there!"

Friday

Okay, forget the Friday Quilts thing. I don't know what happens to the week, but Friday keeps sneaking up on me and I'm not ready. Today is Mae's 13th birthday. She asked for two things - a body wave and pierced ears. I'm too tired to go bring the camera in from the car, but tomorrow I'll put up the pictures. It was a teacher in-service day so there was no school.

Yes, she did cry during the ear piercing, but only for about 2 minutes.

Tidbits

If I were a direction, I'd be - East, facing the sunrise and the beginning of a new day
If I were furniture, I'd be - sewing machine table, surrounded by fabrics and notions
If I were a liquid, I'd be - mountain spring water, cool and clear
If I were a sin, I'd be - Sloth, no doubt about it
If I were a gemstone, I'd be - garnet or blue topaz
If I were metal, I'd be - pewter
If I were a tree, I'd be - Japanese Maple
If I were a fruit, I'd be - clementine
If I were a flower, I'd be - a daffodil
If I were weather, I'd be - the calm after the storm when the clouds break up and the rays of the sun filter through
If I were a musical instrument, I'd be - the cello, kind of running underneath everything else
If I were an element, I'd be - nitrogen, plentiful in the air and explosive in the right company (thanks Doc, it was perfect)
If I were a color, I'd be - a batik with reddish browns and touches of turquoise
If I were an animal, I'd be - cat
If I were a sound, I'd be - the whistle from the Andy Griffiths Show
If I were a lyric, I'd be - "the anchor holds, in spite of the storm..."
If I were a music type, I'd be - easy listening
If I were a perfume/cologne, I'd be - Clinique Happy
If I were a feeling, I'd be - relaxation, because you can only do that when everything is just right in your world
If I were a book, I'd be - The Lord of the Rings series, worthy of re-reading many times
If I were food, I'd be - mashed potatoes
If I were a taste, I'd be - vanilla
If I were a scent, I'd be - cinnamon
If I were a word, I'd be - quilt
If I were a verb, I'd be - creating
If I were an object, I'd be - driftwood like you find washed up on the beach
If I were a work of art, I'd be - a Frank Lloyd Wright house
If I were a piece of clothing, I'd be - jeans!
If I were a body part, I'd be - eyes to drink in the world
If I were a facial expression, I'd be - a Mona Lisa smile, is it for you or for a private joke?
If I were a cartoon character, I'd be - Scooby Doo, a goofy scaredy-cat who can rise to the occasion at times
If I were a movie, I'd be - Chances Are, a funny sweet romance
If I were a geometrical figure, I'd be - octagon, with different sides or aspects to me
If I were one of the 4 seasons, I'd be - fall
If I were a sentence, I'd be - 2 Peter 1:2 Grace and peace be multiplied to you in the knowledge of God and of Jesus our Lord.

Thanks to Doc, Teri, and Driller for this little exercise.

One-Block Wonder- Continuing on

I couldn't go to bed last night with all those blocks laying on the floor. I did the best I could to get them back in the way I remembered. It was very aggravating!! Oh, and I pinned every ding-dang one of them to the flannel this time. Try falling off now!
It's impossible to stop messing around with them!  Probably 20 blocks have been moved although it's difficult to tell which ones. I will be leaving it up for a few days before I start sewing them together. Every time I walk by, I examine it. I've already moved 4 of the blocks this morning.
I think I like the previous picture better. I'll have to go move a bunch to get that little bit more of black over on the right.

Friday Quilts (on Sunday)

Okay so the blocks are all pieced together and it's time to put them up on the design wall. Oh, but I don't have a design wall. My so-called quilt studio is the dining room! I taped a flannel blanket to the china cabinet, and that will be my design wall. The blocks will just kind of stick in place on the flannel and I can move them around if I want to change their position. 

Here is the stack of over a hundred of the hexagons. They are kinda sorta separated into reds, yellows, purples, and black backgrounds.

I have started putting them up on the design wall. They will kind of flow into the next color if I can place them well enough. There are so many blocks that there is alot of moving and switching around going on. The color isn't showing up too well here - I think I forgot to adjust the photos in IPhoto, sorry. Or maybe I forgot to use the flash.

I'm getting there. This is pretty time-consuming because after you put some up, you find another one in the same colors and you have to make a place for it. Then you have to find some blenders to help it flow on to the next area.

Shortly after I took this picture, I put the last block in its place down near the bottom. I walked around the table to pick up the camera, and Horror of Horrors! The dang blanket came loose and all the blocks fell on the floor! DOH! 

I'm so crushed. All that time spent arranging them just so. I had to walk away. Just turn my back and walk away. Sigh. I need a real studio with a real design wall. I need a million bucks.

Friday Quilts

I didn't forget! I just didn't have the camera handy. I will put the One-Block Wonder project that's in progress up tomorrow. I'm in the design process now - the blocks are pieced and pressed and separated into various color dominance groups. This comes together as kind of a color wash, impressionistic kind of thing. This isn't a traditional quilt by any means. For those who think of quilts and grannies in the same breath, it's a whole other world out there now. The things that are being created these days are amazing. So, pictures tomorrow.

Dishwasher update

Good news, they are sending a replacement in 5-10 business days. With an installer! I didn't take the call so I don't know if I have to pay the installer or not. My fingers are crossed. I'll try to stay off my high horse until I know for sure.

Thursday Dumps

Contrary to popular belief, I do not watch soap operas and eat bon-bons all day. But any day now, I may just lock the door and walk away. Then we'll see how things take care of themselves magically. And by the way, asking someone to do a chore is not nagging. Waking you up for school at the time you asked to be woken up is also not nagging. Asking you to let me know when we are out of something so I can pick it up at the store before the next day when you want/need it, is really helping yourself, not me nagging you. And telling me that a problem exists that I have already told you about several times just tells me you weren't listening to me. It also tells me that it was never a problem to YOU until it affected you directly.

Sorry, I'm down in the dumps today. I wish I could just pack up and go visit my mom and dad.

Missing paintings

Oh, about the two paintings I took to be framed properly...... Bill noticed they were gone about 5 minutes after he got in bed. I knew I should have taken the nails out of the walls. He said it looked like there was a big bug on the wall. Then he gives me grief... all serious, "I hope you didn't throw out that one frame. It was really old and original." For a split second I thought, "Oh crap, I shouldn't have thrown it out!" Then I remembered that it never fit the painting and it most definitely was not old at all. There was a remnant of a price sticker on the side on the back. He's so bad! And so observant. This time.....

Dishwasher, Part 2

Well, I faxed all the info to Bosch last Thursday and haven't heard a thing. I called today and gave my "file number". Good news! They recognized that I had a file on record. That's a good sign, right? So after a minute the gal says that the file is waiting for the manager's approval. I asked how long that was going to take. She says it will take up to 72 hours from last Thursday. Heh. Okaaay. Then she says if I haven't heard from them by tomorrow afternoon, to call them on Wednesday. After I hung up I started thinking about warranties. I haven't read the fine print, but I will bet that we have to pay for installation of the replacement machine. Is that fair?! For a dishwasher that only worked for 3 weeks? We'll see, but if that is the case, I won't be so nice about it. That's just not right. It's their defective machine! I better go read the fine print before I get hot and bothered.

Sunday scramble

Well, Bill was out of town for a few days this past week. He'll be back later tonight. He had a company golf outing at Sea Island, Georgia. Yeah, I know, it's a tough job! It's the second time he's gone on this outing - at least he didn't call me this time to ask me what he's supposed to do with the butler that came with the room!! Anyway the kids and I managed just fine without him, surprisingly no little crisis happened. Usually something breaks when he's not here, like the hot water heater or the power goes out for more than a few hours. I usually do try to do something "major" when he's gone, just so he's not bugging me about it. Thursday I took our two favorite yard sale/antique shop paintings to Michaels and picked out frames for them. They'll be ready in another week or so. We'll see how long it takes him to notice they are missing from our bedroom wall! Surely not too long since they framed the window and the nails are still there! I also took this time to scrub down our shower, re-stain the grout then seal it. I try to do that at least once a year - the staining/sealing part, har har, I do actually clean it more often than once a year believe it or not. I also ransacked the entire house for books and videotapes that we don't like, want, or need anymore and took them to the book drive on Saturday. 15 Bags/boxes of them! Unfortunately it doesn't seem like I made that much of a dent. Oh well, I KNOW I took them, so therefore I get to feel like I made progress!

Friday Quilts

I didn't forget!! I've been working off and on this week on those One-Block Wonder hexagons. As it turned out, each of the 6 strips yielded 18 triangle sets for a total of 108 hexagons. Ugh. I really do NOT like doing projects with big numbers like that - it just makes it seem like a daunting process. Who wants to think of piecing together 300 triangle sets or 540 4 patch units?! Really, it's enough to make me, at least, not even want to start!! Here's my little secret - I break it down into how many I can piece together in 10 minutes or 20 minutes. Then I don't feel like I have to sit and sew for 5 hours straight, after all, this is my hobby, not a job! I have pieced together the hexagons of 3 of the 6 strips. I'm halfway through! Well, of this part at least. There are the two large stacks waiting, and parts of the third set spread out next to my sewing machine.

Now that I have so many already pieced, I am able to divide them up into groups. There is a predominantly yellow group, a red one, a bluish-purple one, and the rest are mostly black which makes them the background "filler". You have to have the background hexagons to ground the others, it gives the eyes a place to rest. Each one of these hexagons is almost like a mini work of art.

I ended up with about 2-3 inches of fabric at the end of the strips after cutting out as many triangles as was possible. If there was any color to that section at all, I cut small triangles out. I pieced these together and they will be part of a quilted wall-hanging for my parents (I tend to work on more than one thing at a time). 'Tis a special request with a specific place already waiting for it in their new home - right above the fireplace. It will be an appliqued bouquet of flowers of some sort, fanciful and colorful. These few mini-hexagons will be some of the flowers, I think.

Here is a close up of one of the "flowers". Isn't it neat?!

Waiting...

About a month ago we decided our old leaky dishwasher was due for replacement. Bill obviously had money burning a hole in his pocket, because he got all generous - "nothing but the best for you, baby." I would have been okay with almost anything, but did ask for a stainless steel tub this time. Bill suggested a Bosch because "they" gave it great reviews. (Do you know this "they" group? Do you or someone you know have a "they" that they refer to frequently? "They" said it was a great movie. "They" said that restaurant wasn't good. Almost anything can be can be checked out with what "they" think. Oh, and "they" apparently have no names!) Well, to make a long story short, we got this super-de-duper Bosch dishwasher that does everything but windows. After about 10 washes, the thing stops working. Won't turn on. After a couple of calls on Friday, the manufacturer says they'll send someone out on Tuesday (today) to figure out what is wrong with it. Meanwhile, after hand washing dishes Sunday, I open the dishwasher just to see if it will turn on (I simply cannot leave well enough alone). It turns on all of a sudden and won't turn off. The cycle runs and leaks all over the floor. Great! Now what?! So the guy came today and took a good look - turns out the frame of the dishwasher is out of whack (my term), and that is what caused the problem. He recommends a replacement dishwasher and says Bosch will be getting his paperwork tomorrow. So all I have to do is wait..... hahahahaha. Lets see how many more phone calls it will take.