Monday update

Went on our visit Saturday. Gram is not doing well. Sure wish she would ease all our worries and go live with my mother. Had a nice visit with my uncle while there.

I have lost 6 pounds so far! Feeling pretty good about that.

Uncle B. bought darling son a very good guitar while we were down there. Darling son is in hog heaven.

Dear hubby is on vacation this week. He is going to visit his mother up north tomorrow and come home the next day.

Saturday

This has not been a very good week. I didn't get as much sewing done as I would have liked. We had to put down our 15 year old cat Friday morning. Still really can't talk about it without getting choked up.

I'm doing okay on my diet. Started last Friday and I have lost 3 pounds. I am trying to walk every day, which helps, I'm sure.

Just waiting for darling son to get out of the shower and we will be heading down to visit Gram and Uncle B.

Kids had a good week at college. I think they are both going to have a good semester.

Wednesday afternoon

Over the weekend I got a bee in my bonnet about finishing up the dog bones quilt. It's almost all quilted. I want to have it finished for Saturday if possible because my mother is coming down and she wants it to give to a coworker.

Mom is coming because Grandma is in the hospital, again, because of pain in her hip. My uncle is flying in from California, so we are all going down there to visit on Saturday. Hopefully the two of them can convince Gram to move in with Mom.

I didn't get the best report from the doctor last week, so I'm trying to lose weight...again. I did it before, so I know I can do it. Need to exercise too. That will help.

Did some sewing on my day off

Yesterday I had a day off work for a check up at the doctor. I managed to get a couple things done. I had bought some flat sheets that I wanted to try and turn into waterbed sheets. The first set I tried to do this with I cut them too short! The second set I managed to do right. Here's a picture of them all done and on the bed, and yes, I made the double nine patch quilt!

This time I didn't even cut the sheets. I sewed the pockets on one of them at all four corners. I just used muslin for them. Then I sewed the bottoms together between the pockets. They fit just fine. I used two full sized flat sheets. They were a little bit big, but nothing that would make any difference, once on the bed. And so much cheaper than buying waterbed sheets! The two flat sheets were $7 apiece and the muslin was from my stash.

I'm not a big one for buying used sheets, like at yard sales or thrift shops. That said, I came across a yard sale that had a lot of linens. They were barely used and not stained, so I purchased a couple of flat sheets. I'm going to use them to make another set after I wash them.

Another project I finished yesterday was the apron for my friend, Lori. School starts next week and she's a lunch lady. She was tickled pink to get a new apron to start the school year with! I got a cream puff out of the deal, since when I went over to take her the apron, she had just finished making cream puffs. MMMMM. Very good. Except one of the things the doctor told me was to lower my cholesterol and my blood sugar. ugh. Gotta work on that because I really don't want to go on more medication.

I also gave my friend, Diane, the new set of bags for the outdoor game. She liked them. With both the bags and the apron, I gave them to my friends in reuseable shopping bags and told them they could start going 'green' now that they have a reuseable bag!

My kids are going to be starting/going back to college next week. I cannot believe I have two children in college! It's almost like a dream. I'm so proud of them! Darling son went to pick up his books yesterday and darling daughter will be going in a couple days to do the same thing.

My brother is doing well after his surgery. He went to the doctor yesterday also and got a good report. He can't return to work until next monday because he has a pretty long commute and the doctor doesn't want him doing a lot of driving yet.

I should NOT go to garage sales....

This morning, on my way to work, I noticed a good sized yard/garage sale going on. Not having time to stop on my way in, I thought I would catch it on my lunch hour. Lo and behold, what did they have but a vintage Singer sewing machine. It's a 'Genie' model, which I know nothing about, but the gal at the sale said it works just fine. And since it was afternoon and they were trying to get rid of stuff, everything was half off! They were asking $20 in the morning, so since I waited until later, I got it for $10. I was thinking of purchasing some magazines online for about that price today, so I just postponed that purchase and bought the machine. I'm anxious to get it home and see how it works.

I managed to get the apron cut out for my friend, but it's not sewn together yet! I may have time to whip it together before she gets to my house tonight, but I'm not going to break my neck over it. She knows she will get it, eventually!

I went over to her house last night and played a few games of 'Sequence' with her and her daughter and daughter's friend. I really enjoy playing that game. I'm going to go visit my grandma in St. Louis tomorrow morning and I think I'll take the game and see if she wants to play a couple games of it.

Darling husband has been working a lot of overtime. The last couple nights he has worked until 3 a.m. and has to do so again tonight, as well as work 8 hours tomorrow (Saturday). The check will be nice, but he's about worn out!

Darling son is going to the City Museum tonight with a group of friends. Darling daughter is going on a float trip this weekend. She finally got a call from the assisted living facility and will be starting work next week!

Quick Post

Not going to post much tonight because it's Monday night and I'm just beat. Last night I got a call from my mother that my youngest brother is in the hospital with appendicitis and is going to have surgery! About 11:30 he was out of surgery and doing well, but it was a restless night anyway. I worked today so tonight I'm just going to crash early.

Going to try and get that apron done before Friday! That's when our girls' night is.

My feet hurt!

...because I worked at the chicken dinner at the church today. Here's a picture of my dad and brother (the two in hats, I don't know who's in the middle). They were dishing up noodle for one of the three serving lines at the dinner. I usually make mashed potatoes, along with a couple other gals. It's quite a production, this dinner. But it is a big success and the church benefits from it. By no means did I work the hardest there today. Even though I was back by the stove, I was in air conditioning. The chicken fryers were outside in excessive heat and the take out line servers was in the garage sweating it out.

I have been organizing my sewing room. I bought four of those three drawer wheeled carts and have transferred material into them. I'm slowly getting everything into uniform containers, instead of it all being in different shaped tubs. These drawers are clear, so I can see what I have, to some extent. I'm about halfway done organizing. I need to get about four or five more carts. They aren't cheap, so I can't just go buy them, but I can pick them up one at a time each paycheck.

My daughter has the room right next to my sewing room upstairs. She and I share a cable for the television in her room and my room. Well, she hasn't been able to get her television to work properly since she rearranged her room and asked me to look at it. In the mean time, the tv in the sewing room went fuzzy on me. I decided to start small...I thought I would change out the splitter where the cable comes up. I got zapped! There is a small current of electricity that runs through that cable wire, enough to zap me and make my hand sting. The splitter was bad, and once I replaced it, the tv in the sewing room worked fine. Her television, however, still is not working properly, so I thin it might be another part, but I just didn't have the energy to check it out today. Those rooms are not on the central air conditioning in the house and even though there is a window unit, it was unbearably hot up there. I will try replacing that other part another day.

Darling son is visiting my mother this weekend. He went with my brothers (not the one pictured) to a concert in Chicago. He took the train up there and is coming home tomorrow. I miss having him around!

Darling daughter is spending a lot of time with her boyfriend. He had his son this weekend and I was hoping they would bring him over to swim again. They had other plans, though. There's still a lot of summer left.

Darling hubby has worked overtime all last week and yesterday. He worked 12 hour days all week in this heat. Today is his only day off. He was just beat. This heat really drains a person.

Monday afternoon

Is this the most annoying fabric ever? Hee hee. I found this today and I think that's what I'm going to use to make my friend an apron for the school cafeteria! The kids will love it, especially the little kids, with all the bright colors!

My day is going okay today so far. Darling daughter is going to put a turkey breast in the oven for me around three, so that will be ready when I get home from work. I really want it to make sandwiches with. One of the restaurants in the area makes a grilled sandwich with turkey, grilled onions, and blue cheese. It's good at the restaurant, but I can actually make it better than they do because the restaurant uses lunchmeat pressed turkey breast. That's what's for dinner tonight.

I think I might be getting back in the groove with my sewing. I made those beanbags last night and just have to sew the edges shut on four of them. Tonight I'm going to try and work on that apron. These worked up really quickly, and even stitching the edges closed went surprisingly fast.

I found a different fabric to use on the wall hanging for my mother. I was not completely in love with one of the main fabrics of the background, so today I found a different one to use. It's not striped, which is what is recommended, but it has some wavy movement almost like flames, that will create the illusion of stripes. I want to start on that wall hanging as soon as I'm done with the aprons and beanbags. My friends and I get together in less than two weeks and I want to have them ready to give to them by then!

A productive Sunday

Today I did some sewing. I cut and sewed a set of eight bags for the bean bag game. I even filled four of them with the dry corn and closed them up. The other four are filled and pinned. Tomorrow night I should be able to finish them up. I have a brand new reusable shopping bag that I'm going to give them to my friend in. Gonna try and get her to 'go green'!

My other friend works in the kitchen at the school. She needs a couple new aprons, and has a pattern that she likes to make them with. I copied the pattern a few days ago and I'm going to make her a couple fun aprons. I think I'll get some whimsical kid fabrics to make them with.

Darling daughter is not home very much anymore. She spends a lot of time with her boyfriend. I barely see her. It's kind of got me down a little. I don't see much of darling son, either. He is always gone to one of his friends or to some music thingy. I know this is the normal progression of things. It's just a little bit of a downer. And top it off with my age, and maybe we are talking a little hormonal... Poor hubby....

Mom wants a wall hanging for her office. She says it's dark in there because she doesn't have a window and she needs something bright to make it happy. She found a pattern in a magazine she likes, so today I went and bought the fabrics for it. I pressed them and have them laid out upstairs in the sewing room. There is one piece of material that is questionable whether or not it will work with the design. At any rate, I can start without making a decision about that material. I need to do something to jump start my creativity. I have been in a funk for way too long!

Today darling hubby grilled some ribs. We had corn on the cob, twice baked potatoes, and a tomato and feta cheese salad to go with them. It was a really good dinner. He has to work 12 hour days all week this week.