Well, almost 3 years since my last post, not counting the post about Felix.  Wow.  The last I told you, I had just landed a new temp job that had a lot of hope of turning full-time.  Well, it did that and more.  I am now a 3 year employee of a major insurance company helping people recover from car accidents that they are injured in.  I love every minute of it.  It is the job I was meant to do.  So, when the company decided to close the building that is 45 minutes from my house and move my job to a building that is 1 1/2 hours from my job, I accepted the offer and the commute it brought.  I now commute 75 miles to work and 75 miles from work 5 days a week.  Which means I have very little time for anything else in my life. 


For example, this week we got our first major snowstorms of the season - which extended the commute to 2 hours each way.  Then, Tuesday night, I decided to bypass all the slow traffic on the freeway and take an alternate route home - except I got lost and added an hour to the commute just getting back to where I started.  Then, when I got to the next major town and decided to stop for dinner, I came out of the restaurant to find I had a flat tire.  At 8:30 PM in the middle of a major snowstorm with slide-offs all around me....yeah, that was a wait for the tow truck to show up to change the tire for me.  I got home at 10:30 PM Tuesday night, just to have to buy 2 more tires to replace the flat before I could go back to work on Wednesday.  And that was when our dog got sick and needed a visit with the vet - which means I was in late Friday after that appointment.  So, in order to make up all this lost time, I was working until 7 every night this week, plus the now 2 hour commute got me home by 9 if I was lucky.  Nothing, and I mean nothing got accomplished at home this week.


Needless to say, I haven't really had the time to keep up on the blog.  We're hoping to move this spring closer to my job, as we have decided that my job is the one to focus our family toward as it has the most promise of being the bread-winning job in the household.  Once we move, my husband is planning to change jobs as he is terribly unhappy in the one he's had for the last 10 years.  I don't begrudge him that as he's had to hold that job to get us through my unemployment years.  He deserves to find a job that fulfills him like mine does.


We also lost my mom in September of 2012.  I still miss her every day.  She was my best friend and my biggest supporter of my handwork.  I've finally gotten past the stage where I pick up the phone to call her before remembering she's not there.  But the holidays are hard.  Very hard.  And so very different now.


So, all this to say I'm still here.  Still working on my many UFOs.  Just not really posting about them right now.  I'm keeping the blog around and hoping that once we move things will get a bit more home-sided than work-sided.  But, we'll see.  In the meantime, if anyone is looking for me, just comment and I'll get back to you.  Thanks for understanding.

I will miss you Felix

 

I'm so sorry we couldn't do better by you.

 

Please rest in peace dear sweet boy.

 

2008 - 04/24/2013

A Quick Drive-By

Just a quick post to let you all know that yes, I am still alive. The last few months my time has been eaten up by Christmas preparations and job searching. I'm thrilled to announce that I have now landed a temp job and the trainer is so impressed with me that she's finagling a way to get me hired in full-time! Woohoo!!! However, now my time is being sucked up by the job. Oh well, sooner or later I'll get back in the groove of things and have the ability to function on less than 8 hours of sleep....until then, the blogging will have to suffer, I'm afraid.

Thank you to those of you that have been worried about me, you are so sweet to think of me. I'm still here, just busy running around in the background for a while :)

Tomatoes, tomatoes...

It's been getting a tad cold here overnight lately....like, below freezing. So I decided I should pull all the tomatoes off the plants before they freeze there. I filled 3 mixing bowls of green tomatoes!! Now, of course, I have no idea what I'll do with these, but they'll sit here just fine in the sink overnight until I figure it out :)

A Horse Show

This past weekend DH and I were asked to take pictures at a horse show being put on by a friend of ours. Well, DH took the pictures, I gave treats to the horses and did PR to the attendees :)

Here is Lee Anne, the owner of the farm. She is riding Gwendolyn and is already in her costume for the Pas de Deux performance. She borrowed her son's Marines coat for the event.


This is our friend, Audra, riding Caesar. She and Lee Anne did their performance together. Both horses were getting spooked by the windy conditions of the day and they didn't do very well, but it was very fun to watch.

Here are the winners of the day. Marsha and Cindy took first place - they did a great job! Audra's dad made the halters for the winners.

This is Mascha and Alexandria. They dressed up as zombies and painted skeletons on their horses. They took 2nd place for the show. Mascha is an exchange student from Germany. You could tell these two practiced a lot!

Here is Evie and Karlyn, a mother and daughter duo. They took 3rd place for the day. They were thrilled and did a wonderful job :)

Let's see....something sewing related...well, I've started getting the last 19 blocks together for Candied Hexagons. Just basting paper pieces right now. I should have a good start on getting the blocks together in a week or so. We'll see how that goes.

We are finally having a memorial service for my sister, Laura next week. We were waiting for the police to release her body to us, but they don't plan to do that until the trial for her killers is finished, so we're going ahead with a memorial service now.

A Knitting Blister!

You can't see it, or I would have taken a picture for you. But it's true - I have given myself a blister from knitting!

It first appeared on Tuesday, a sharp, small pain on my index finger. It felt just like a wart feels. But I haven't had a wart since Junior High!! My first thought? Ugh, I hate getting older. I even talked to my Mom about it when we went to the farmer's market that day. She agreed that getting older sucks! LOL

So, Wednesday evening, I sit down to do some knitting, as I hadn't touched it since Monday night. I had done quite a bit between Sunday and Monday night football games this past weekend. I start knitting and I hit the wart - again and again. The exact same spot that I use to hold the needle while sliding more stitches up is where I'm getting a wart? Great.

Then I thought about it a minute. That just seems too coincidental. A wart, which I haven't had in over 25 years, in the exact spot I use repeatedly while knitting? Yeah....it's not a wart, I've given myself a knitting blister! LOL

Guess it's time to take a break from the afghan and get back to work on the quilt :)

Halloween Rug?

Another project I started this summer. You all know those fabric bowls everyone is making using cotton clothesline? Well, I made a few of those this year, and decided the technique would make a wonderful rug for the kitchen.

I started pulling all the fabrics I didn't really like from my stash (you know, the ones that people gave you that you just can't figure out what to do with?) and cut them into 1/2" strips. I started with the purple pile, then got through the orange and green piles, too. At that point, I decided I'd better start actually sewing the thing before I cut any more fabrics.

This is how far I've gotten to date. As you can see, it has somehow morphed into a Halloween rug. Huh. Not exactly what I was planning - but what can I expect when I only pull oranges, greens and purples?? Yeah...I should have seen it coming.


As you can see from the closeup, I cut up an especially horrendous Charlie Brown green Halloween fabric, thinking the technique would disguise the design....I'm not sure it did.

Oh well, I'll still use it. It's going to be a rug for goodness sake - it's not like it will stay pristine very long. It's meant to be used and used up. And I'd better get back to work on it, it's not nearly large enough yet.

Felix's new favorite chair. Anytime I'm in my sewing room, he's keeping my sewing machine chair warm for me :) Looks like he's working hard at it, too :)