Busy Busy

I’ve been so busy I haven’t blogged about lots o’ stuff!

My grandma’s 80th birthday celebration was a blast!  I got to see all the Aunts and Uncles on my mama’s side, Grandma and Grandpa, and some cousins that I rarely get to see – along with their adorable kids, which is special, since mine are about grown!  My daughter got to travel to the party with me, but hubby and son both had to work, so it was a girls’ trip with my Aunt.  We snapped this photo of four generations:  my daughter, myself, mom, and grandma.  Absolutely priceless.

In other news…

I managed to finish two charity quilts in my mess of a studio by clearing a path to the machine and putting blinders on so I could enjoy a bit of quilting!

And my quilt studio almost has a cleared floor now, as all but a few things have yet to find a place. I don’t have near enough storage, so until I can get some more furniture or plastic organizers, a bit of stack and pile will have to do.

I’ve had such a response to my EPP bag, that I’m working on a pattern to sell, and of course, that means I am making another, so that I can put lots of pics in the pattern. I’ll sell the bag, too, I hope! That possibility is exciting!

And it’s time to start on two t-shirt quilts, which will provide one for my daughter, one to raise money for my niece’s senior trip, as it will be raffled off, and the pics of these quilts will allow me to get my website for t-shirt quilts published – finally!

Lots in the works! Busy, busy…and loving it!

Quilt Studio

When we bought our house ten years ago, we needed a room to dedicate to homeschooling. Not that homeschooling didn’t occur all over the house, yard, and everywhere we went, but we wanted a space for all those books (we used a literature approach), a computer, somewhere that ongoing projects could be accessed easily, and a quiet, comfy place to read. We choose to turn the bedroom at the top of the stairs into a loft by simply not having a doorframe and having only half a wall that overlooked the stairwell

It was perfect.

When I reached the end of my homeschool days, the room was still a quiet place to read, a guest room ( the comfy couch and/or an air mattress), and a sewing space, since I moved in a folding table for my sewing machine to live on.

And then it occurred to me that I could turn this room into a quilt studio!

So I’ve moved the wall of bookshelves downstairs, packed away the books for young children, gave away a ton of stuff, and painted.

Overwhelming myself

I am overwhelmed.  And it’s my own darn fault!  Why do I start a thousand things at once?  Because I come to a temporary impasse with one thing, and in my desire to stay productive, I go ahead and start something else in the meantime.

Ha.  

Not wise.

So now I have several quilts for charity and fundraising whispering in my ear to be done, a quilt top almost finished, a BOM quilt waiting for August and September blocks to be made, a table runner top half finished, several gallons of paint waiting for my quilt studio and half bath, furniture moving/rearranging involving three rooms that is half done, and boxes of stuff waiting to be transported for donation.

After doing a ton of cleaning, moving furniture, sorting through closets and other spaces, making paint color decisions and all the regular mom/wife stuff this past week, I am absolutely pooped and had a much less productive Saturday than I’d hoped!

I wish myself good sleep this weekend, because I am really going to need it this week!

But I can’t wait to get the work parts behind me so I can enjoy a dedicated quilting space and get back to quilting!  I haven’t quilted in a week!

So….look for some pics soon as the loft room that once served as a homeschool becomes a quilt studio!

 

Spring Break Happenings

I finally got to begin exercising again today, and boy does it feel great.  I had purchased My Fitness Coach for the Wii a couple of weeks ago, after reading some great reviews, but had pain in the area of my surgery from just doing the fitness test, so I had to wait awhile longer.  It’s been very frustrating recovering, because evidently when the Dr says it’ll take “a couple of weeks” to recover, he means that after a couple of weeks you won’t be needing pain pills for the pain you have just sitting on the couch – not that you won’t hurt when you get up off the couch and do something.  Surgery sucks.

Anyway, I have worked in the yard and not hurt, resumed all regular activity without pain, and even did a whole lot of painting over the course of 2 days without anything but some soreness not related to surgery, so I can finally begin to work my butt off again…literally 😀

I did my first workout with Maya today, for half an hour, and it was really the perfect amount, intensity and everything.  It was a good workout – but not too hard or too easy.  I’m going to walk or hike every day as well, and watch my body get back to normal!  Hubby is on board with me, and we are both motivated and excited to get back in shape (he isn’t as out of shape as I am).

It’s Spring Break around here and my dd and I spent the first 3 1/2 days of it with two of my aunts, uncle, and grandma up in Ohio.  The plan was just to hang out and visit, but that changed when a bunch of women congregated in a newly constructed home with white walls in which one aunt was unsure where to begin decorating.  We had a blast, but we did work hard!  We painted the kitchen, dining nook, living room and half bath, and shopped for curtains, rods, dish towels, cloths, heat mitts, and general decor.  It turned out beautiful!  We sat up until around 1 am every night and were up before 8 every day.  Some work was left for my aunt and uncle to do, but we certainly managed to get the bulk of it done.  We filled our bellies with wonderful home-cooked meals and laughed until we cried.  It was great!

One aunt and I tried to find a blue diamond letterbox, but it was a puzzler to which I just didn’t have the time or energy to devote brainpower to once the painting was underway…but I’ll try again on the next visit 🙂

I’m back home and still have a few days left of break, in which I’ll hammer out a fitness routine, do some scrapbooking, begin mailings for the postcard exchange I’ve gotten involved in and finish planting in the garden and do the spring flowerbed/yard maintenance. 

I do love being able.