Tuesday, January 29, 2008

Quilting Storm...

Its amazing how a little motivation (even if its a bad motivation) can make you get a lot of work done. I have surgery scheduled on Monday for my foot to remove an excess bone, re-attach a tendon and to relieve some tension on another tendon. I will be in a cast for about 6-8 weeks afterwards and, of course, the cast is on my right foot which I use to operate the foot pedal of my sewing machine. I could probably learn to use my left foot in the interim, but I've been sewing like mad to finish up as much machine sewing as possible on my quilts.

My husband's co-worker is having twins sometime between February and March (she's due in March, but twins are usually delivered early), so I have not one, but two quilts that I need to finish up ASAP. This past weekend I think I was sewing just about continuously. On Saturday I was able to completely finish up sewing the quilt top to one of the quilts. I had previously sewed all the rows together, but I had to add a small 1" border (solid color) around the inner pattern, and then I had to add the border, which was two rows of alternating 2" squares. Amazingly though, I was able to finish it completely in about 3 hours.

On Sunday, I was able to piece together all the squares for the second quilt into rows and press them. I know it doesn't sound like much, but I didn't really get out of bed until 10am and then had to do the usual Sunday chores (grocery shopping, cleaning, and laundry). Then last night after work, I put all the rows together in about an hour and a half of pinning and sewing and more pinning and more sewing. I'll have to press it all tonight and start on the borders. Hopefully I'll be able to make a run to the fabric store sometime this week after work so that I can get the batting and the backing for the quilts. Once I pin the layers together I can sew the binding onto it and the machine sewing will be done. Whew!

Anyway, I know I've said that I'm going to put more pictures on here, but I just haven't gotten around to getting the pictures off the digital camera. I think I will need to convince my husband to get everything hooked up again so that I can download the pictures (that should be a nice "easy" project for him - haha).

Wednesday, January 16, 2008

ROUSs

I think one of my all-time favorite movies is "The Princess Bride". The jokes are hysterical and the more times you watch it, the more certain things get ingrained in your head...

"Hey Fezzik, are there rocks ahead?"
"If there are, we all be dead."
"Stop that rhyming now I mean it!"
"Anybody want a peanut?"

One of the cheesiest parts is when Westley and Princess Buttercup are in the dreaded Fire Swamp. No only do they deal with explosions of flaming gas, and "lightning sand", but there are also the fearsome ROUSs, or Rodents of Unusual Size.

All of it is completely made up for the movie...with the potential exception of the ROUSs. Today on CNN there was an article about a "super rat" that was the size of a small car! Now that ROUSs are known to exist at some point...maybe there are pockets of flaming gas in swamps. :-)

Thursday, January 10, 2008

My cat... the world traveler

Since my husband and I moved into our house two years ago, my cat, Ellie, has absolutely loved it. She has lots of "channels" to watch during the day while we're at work, which keeps her from getting bored and chewing wires. We've figured out there are four different channels that she likes to watch. There are:
  • The Foyer channel where she can see all sorts of activity directly in front of our house.
  • The Library channel where she sits on the windowsill (usually in the sun) in the front room of our house and can really see lots of activity up and down the street.
  • The Kitchen channel where she can check out our backyard and the neighbors' house. She's actually a very, nosy kitty and likes to stare at the neighbors.
  • The Upstairs channel, which we think is her favorite, lets our cat sit in the sun for 90% of the day and she can view all cars coming into the neighborhood. She is also eye-level with a bunch of trees so she can bird watch all day.

Aside from watching TV, Ellie is a world-class traveler. She has visited more places than I have even and she doesn't even need a passport. On a daily basis, she can visit the "Antarctic", the "rainforest", the "Sahara", and "Florida". Once in a while she visits the "Salt Flats". These need a little explanation, so here goes:

  • "Antartic" - my husband loves to keep our house cool, so just about any room besides our bedroom and the bedroom upstairs (which has full sun all day) is freezing cold. Ellie spends as little time as possible in the "Antartic".
  • "rainforest" - this is essentially our bathroom in the morning. The fan doesn't do a great job exhausting so we have plenty of humid atmosphere in the bathroom when we shower in the morning.
  • "Salt Flats" - this is our basement. The few times Ellie goes down there, she no longer is a black cat. She becomes a gray cat from all the concrete dust.
  • "Sahara" - this is her litter box...enough said.
  • "Florida" - Ellie loves the warmth and in our bedroom we have one heat register that dumps out a lot of warm air and during the cooler winter months, we can always find Ellie snuggled up next to the heat register soaking up all the warm air. I think this is her favorite place to visit.

Besides those places, around Christmas Ellie is able to visit the "Canadian forests" by hanging out under our Christmas Tree.

Wednesday, January 9, 2008

Weird Things

Last night, my husband and I decided to go out to dinner at the local Macaroni Grill (thanks, Laura & Larry) because neither of us really felt like cooking and we wanted to go to the bookstore afterwards to return/exchange a few books. While we were sitting eating our appetizer, I happen to notice that there were a lot of same-sex couples coming into the restaurant. I mentioned it to my husband and he asked how I knew that they were couples and not just friends, and I replied that "friends" do not make out at the reservation desk.

This led to a funny little story that my husband's co-worker had told him earlier in the day. My husband's co-worker and his wife are expecting twins this spring and had their first Birthing class earlier this week. Sitting around the room were lots of pregnant women and their spouses, sisters, mothers...basically their "support" people. One couple came in and everyone assumed the two were sisters because they both looked exactly the same and were "incredibly hot" according to my husband's co-worker. At one point, everyone had to give a little speach about who was with them, what they did, etc. of which everyone basically slept through other people's speaches. When it came to the two women's turns, the pregnant one stood up and said her name and then said that she and her partner were really excited to have be having the baby. As soon as she said "partner" everyone's undivided attention was on these two women. At the end of it, my husband's co-worker said to his wife, "Its unfair. Why do all the hot ones have to be lesbians?"

Tuesday, January 8, 2008

Ramblings

Last week, my minor cold ended up being a royal pain in the butt and turned into a significant cold. I ended up going into work for half a day last Thursday and took the afternoon and Friday off because I was sick as can be. I'm still not up to par, but at least I don't have to take cold medicine 24/7 (I just have to take once a day to keep my symptoms at bay).

I did get around to finally starting to cut the fabric I need for one of the baby quilts I am making for my husband's co-worker. His co-worker is actually having twin girls, so I have to make two quilts. Unfortunately, I don't have any pictures to post yet. I have lots of pictures taken, but the camera isn't currently hooked up to the computer so I have to figure out how to get the pictures off the camera.

Just before Christmas, my husband and I got a GPS (we ended up with a TomTom) which is the best thing to have. We used it extensively on our trip to Florida and we didn't get lost at all. So instead of the digital camera being hooked up to the computer, the GPS is now hooked up which is why I don't have any pictures. I'm hoping to try and get the pictures off the camera tonight, but it may take a little convincing to get my husband to crawl under the desk and hook up the correct cables.

Thursday, January 3, 2008

Back from Vacation

Now that the craziness of Christmas is over, I actually have some time to breathe. My husband and I got back from vacation earlier this week after spending 5 days in warm, sunny Florida. The entire time we were there, the temperatures were between 80 and 85. It was awesome! We also got to see the Philadelphia Flyers play against the Tampa Bay Lightning. It was a pretty good good with a good fist fight only a few minutes into the game. :-)

Unfortunately, I did end up getting sick the day we left Florida. I'm glad that I'm sick now versus being sick while in Florida, but I would much rather not be sick at all.

Before going to Florida, I did get a chance to get some fabric for the quilt top for our bed. The fabrics are absolutely gorgeous, and when I get a chance I will post a picture of the fabrics on here. I also got most of the bindings sewn onto my sister-in-law's baby quilts, so those are almost done. Now I just have to wash more fabric and cut it so I can start the next baby quilts.