Wednesday, June 30, 2010

book reflections

I started to read a new book, A Thousand Tomorrows, by Karen Kingsbury last night. I have to say, I haven't even gotten to the 4th chapter and already I have wanted to cry at least twice. Oh man. But, it's really good so I am going to keep reading even though I usually don't like to cry. I finished the book for book club and have wanted to start something new. When my Mom came up last weekend she had two Karen Kingsbury books for me and the covers had such a nice look to them that I just knew I had to start them right away.

So, we had the last session of our bible study "When Godly People Do Ungodly Things" by Beth Moore on Monday night. I have to admit I'm still digesting it all. This is literally the first study that I absolutely MADE myself finish every day of homework - until I got to the very end and I only got to day 4. Sometimes I feel like I can see what God is doing in my life and it's too much for me to handle, and I turn away. I see Him reaching out, trying to help heal me - and I turn away. Why do I turn away??? Shoot, I don't know! What I do know is that I am so thankful that He keeps trying. And that He loves me even though it's hard for me to accept it :)

Sunday, June 27, 2010

Who's afraid of the big, bad WONK?

All, right then, that would be ME! I have to admit that wonky = scary to me. So, for the vintage sheet quilting bee Evelyn chose wonky log cabin as her square of choice for June. I was kind of worried. I have trouble not doing straight lines. But, I think it turned out okay??? On the righthand side where the mustard-y roses are I had a thick piece of pink and I wish I hadn't cropped the pink and added the mustard, but it's done now. I think this type square is tricky to even out the colors with vintage sheets. Finished size is pretty close to 14X14 inches. So, my Mom came up to visit this weekend, and can I just say - SCORE! My Mom is the original junker and she has been keeping a lookout for sheets for me, and good thing! It's slim pickins up here sometimes, so it's fun to see what she finds for me. There are two flats of the far right top row sheet, and two flats of the blue/green multi flowers. I think I am going to save at least one flat of each of those for quilt backs. The peachy daisy print has a flat and a fitted, so I might save the flat of that one for back as well.
She also brought me some other fun goodies, as she always does :) I love this towel, after it's washed I'm so putting it in the kitchen, it makes me smile! And, this Vera tulip-y linen is like a runner, so it may end up on my table at some time. The colors are super brilliant, and it still has its tag on it.
And, what weekend with my Mom would be comlete without going to yard sales and the thrift??? She has only been up here once before and we didn't go to any sales then so I could tell she was just itching to check out what's here. I found some fun stuff and she found some stuff to re-sell. These are pretty much all pillowcases, except the lime strawberry fabric.

It was great to spend time with her and catch up. She loved seeing the craft house, and my stash of linens. All in all I'd have to say it was a good weekend :)





Wednesday, June 23, 2010

write!

Can I just say how thankful I am for the ability to write??? As far back as I can remember I've wanted to write. Like poetry, stories, journals......maybe even a book or something crazy like that! But, truly - what a gift it is to be able to express myself in the written word. I can work out feelings and feel so much better afterwards. And, it's so nice to encourage someone else possibly!

Sunday, June 20, 2010

shower decorations

Yesterday was the baby shower for Kristin, here are a few of the pics of the decorations: Very simple banner that I used my trusty Cricut to cut out, the just used a hole punch to punch two holes, strung together and voila. So easy. I didn't want to do just plain crepe paper, so I made these tissue paper flowers and Sherry and Nikki who helped me set up strung them onto yarn. Again, very easy but I think prettier than plain crepe paper.


tissue flower banner
So, basically it was the windiest day of the year yesterday so there are no tablecloths for that reason! I had originally planned to have each table be a different color, but no such luck, there was not a tape sticky enough! So, here's the food table, I apparently planned for a million people and made enough cupcakes to accomodate, heee heee :) Everything turned out really cute. I made Monster Cookies for the party favors, and let me tell ya - holy cow! They are full of chocolate! Mine came out pretty dark, I didn't use parchment paper but I don't see how that could have made them lighter? I think all that matters is that they are tasty, right?

Close up of the cupcakes. They were chocolate with rainbow chip frosting that I added blue food coloring to. I made the cupcake toppers, again with the cricut with the "new arrival" cartridge that Stacey let me borrow. Close up of the napkin rings. This was taken after the party so you can see what they look like. The turned out really cute. Really, really simple and only took a few minutes to wrap the napkins.


And here were the table toppers. The topiaries kept falling over because of the wind, it was kind of a bummer, but - had to just let it go! Found the idea here, not sure how I came across it. She made her topiaries with quick setting cement, which would have been tres helpful in the wind, but oh well.


topiarytopiarytopiary
topiary centerpiece All in all I think everything turned out fine. I hope everyone had fun, it was a great group of ladies so that always helps :)

Wednesday, June 16, 2010

holy catching up batman!

I feel like I have been "radio silent" for a little while, guess I didn't really feel like I had anything to say? Not that I've thought of anything profound, trust me - but thought maybe I'd stop neglecting my little blog. So, what's new?

Last week Thursday my "sister" Jeannette, her husband Nate, and kids came to visit just over night. It was great. Jeannette and I have been friends since I was in 3rd grade, so by now in our 30-somethings it feels more like we're sisters. I was seriously cracking up at her kids, they are pretty much hilarious! I don't have kids so the things that might be mundane kid stuff to parents are frickin hilarious to me! Like their fascination with monkey bars, my couch, the penguin game, pop tarts and pretty much everything.

This weekend is the baby shower I'm giving for Kristin. I just hope that it's not a flop. I will post pictures as long as it actually looks cute and not cuckoo! I'll just say that it's going to be very colorful! I am baking cookies for it that I seriously can't wait to try! Friday is baking day this week, cupcakes and cookies. mmmmm, delish.

So who else is going to see Eclipse opening weekend??? Jan bought tickets today for a group of us, I can't wait! There is a midnight showing her the night it opens, but not only is it already sold out but I have to work the next day so we're going that Saturday after it opens.

Okay, so confession time: I gained 4lbs!!!!! Gasp. Shocking, I know. I didn't make it to spin or the gym at all last week and dang have I been diggin on the sodium! I'm back on track now, though (the shower is exempt I've decided) so it's all good. I've realized that where I am now weight-wise is where I was like ummm 5 years ago and realized I had a problem and started going to Weight Watchers. Then, my Grandpa passed away and I'm a comfort eater.....life got stressful, yada, yada, yada gained 35 lbs....oops! So, what I lost was just really the extra, extra junk in the trunk. Now, the real challenge begins I think. I'm up for it though, because one of the things on my bucket list is to be comfortable in my own skin! I just did a very interesting swap bot swap that was an email swap of 15 things from our bucket lists. A little early to think of it, I know. But, really having to think of the things that I want to do that could be tangible was kind of a renewal of my resolve. In honor of that I went to spin last night and tonight even though pretty much I would have rathered to go home and watch Lost.

Okay, confession #2: I am a little bit addicted to the show Lost. Perfect timing since it just ended, right? Hee, hee. My friend Savannah has the first 4 seasons on DVD so I've been watching them all consecutively. I've decided that's really the only way to watch a series. Who wants commercials and a whole week in between shows?? Oh, yeah and since I don't have cable it's kind of the only way I watch shows :)

Sunday, June 6, 2010

quilt therapy

Okay, so I'm stuck a little here:

new quilt

Can't decide whether I like a thicker border or thinner??? I'm leaning towards thicker. Or maybe even in between? I know that once I factor in the seam allowances and once the binding is on the edges it won't be quite as wide as it is just laying there, but really I can't tell. Here's what the thin might look like, I didn't take a pic of just the wide.
new quilt I sometimes think that this is the hardest part, deciding how to arrange and size everything! I'm liking the overall look of it, though. It's going to be a little hard to give it away, but I think she's really going to like it :)
June
June was trying to help me decide, but it's a lot of work to think sometimes! Ignore my flip flops!
June
Here's another picture of my sweet girl.

Tuesday, June 1, 2010

ixnay on the oviemay

Okay, just a quick little update on the quilt, I think it's coming along nicely. If I had really pushed myself I probably could have been done with the top by this weekend, but - frankly I just didn't. It was an extra long weekend so I did a fair amount of lounging :)
new quilt
Okay, so I ixnayed the strawberry squares for the corner squares and instead did appliqued flowers. Um, the inspiration quilt had flowers on every middle square, but was just a table topper so I thought that would be just too much but I still wanted to try my hand at applique. Here's the thing: sometimes maybe following directions would be a good thing. My mom was laughing at me because she was like, you're just jumping right in without even thinking about it, not taking a class, or getting a book. Technically I do have one book, it's not very in depth, but still. The thing is, it doesn't really occur to me until much later that maybe it would have been best to consult a book or some directions. What does this have to do with applique? I sort of winged my squares and whilst I don't think they are terrible I do think that if I had consulted a book and did the whole iron on adhesive thing maybe mine wouldn't have turned out quite so puckery. eh, oh well :)

I'm getting a little nervous about quilting it once I've made the quilt sandwich. Is it normal to get knots in my stomach and a little sweaty??? That's what happened with the first quilt and also even with the tiny kindle cover I made for Jan.

In other news, I rented the lamest movie I've seen in quite awhile "Leap Year" - I knew it might be lame and still rented it anyway. I did laugh at a few parts, mostly the Irish dudes and the way they would say things. I also rented "Valentine's Day" - um, what I have to ask is did anyone ever see "Love, Actually"? If you did then you've basically already seen "Valentine's Day" and you should save your money. Unless of course you really just want to watch Ashton Kutcher - then by all means, rent away. Sorry to be so snarky, but I really think that writers in movie world are running out of ideas. Actually, I think they ran out of ideas probably like 10 years ago. But, they still want to make movies so they change it up a tad and call it good.

Tomorrow it's back to work after, let's see, 5 days off. I don't know if I even remember how to do my job - lol, jk!