Busy Weekend

The Nurse and the Entertainer were here for the weekend. We had a good time. They caught up to me at coffee on Friday night and then zipped off home this morning. Well not quite, they left my place to meet relatives for lunch, then do some last minute shopping and then head home. We shopped on Saturday, and then hung out for the evening. I have forgotten how much fun 6 year old kids are. Especially ones with imaginations. We ordered in Pizza which was SO MUCH FUN!! We played school,  we played Rapunsel, we played beauty shop:

I have not had that much blue eye shadow on since the late 70's early 80's and oh my, the lip gloss. Let us just say it was liberally applied!! We watched Frozen, we watched Monster High 13 wishes, we had a good, giggly, silly time. The house is mighty quiet now they have gone home again. I just wish I was able to walk around and move easier. My leg is giving me grief and I was not able to move like I would have wished to. This is getting to be a recurring theme with me and I am not liking it. Changes need to be made.

They headed home and I took off too, I had a couple of errands to run. I picked up some picture reprints at Walmart and then stopped at Michael.s to pick these beauties up:

They are my Ireland water colours and I am sooooo happy with how they turned out. The colours of the mats are much nicer in person. I really am not good at getting he right colour in pictures but I am tickled with them. They are hanging in the living room, over the couch, in pride of place. The living room has quite a few Irish related pictures now. I have the two photo canvases, these two water colours and a long narrow frame that holds some post cards that I love from Ireland, (post cards with lots of little fat sheep).

I am spending the rest of the day quilting and watching some tv. I should have been making puppets, I will get at that order next week. Laundry can wait until Monday and changing the sheets on the spare beds can be done at at later date. I don't feel like doing any of it so quilting it is. I am over half finished the sawtooth star quilt. I have 4 and 1/2 squares left to quilt. Monday will be the beginning of getting things finished. Too much stuff is piling up.

Too soon it will be time to get gathered up and prepared to get back to work tomorrow. I am going to try to make my lunch tonight. I usually do it in the morning and I just would have it easier if I did it at night. Making it in the morning means I end up buying it more than I should. That has to stop, health wise and financially. I am me though, I have good intentions, follow through not so much.

Toodles,
Linda

I Want My Mommy!!

Funny how it does not seem to matter what age you are or mature you pretend to be, how many years it has been since your Mother shook of this mortal coil and moved onto the next life, par of you still wants your Mommy. Sometimes for comfort, sometimes for no particular reason at all, sometimes to blame and sometimes to say all the things you never got to say. You deal with it, you manage your life, you go on and you function, you laugh, love, celebrate, grieve, rage and accept but you always, in some corner of your heart and mind, want your mom.

Today marks the anniversary of my mom's passing. I wish she was here. So many times I wish she was here, sharing and being part of stuff.  I wish she could watch Miss Mouse being such a great Mom to our Tater Tot. (My mom would just be so smitten with that little man.)  I wish she was here to share all the daily life stuff. I wish she was here to see how well everyone is doing and share in our lives.

I also wish she was here just to talk to. To ask a million questions I thought I had years to ask but turned out I was wrong. She was gone, far too soon.  I need her sensible, down to earth, wisdom and mostly I just need her. I have been so weepy lately and I know its hormones but still it just makes me want to put my head in her lap and have her tell me everything is going to work out. Sigh. I will get over this, I just am having a little wallow right now. Cause I WANT MY MOMMY!!!

Love and miss you Mom.

 My pretty mom when she would have been in her late twenties

loving Grandma. 

Toodles

Linda

Random Sunday Stuff

I think I have mentioned it before but I love Sunday morning. I love the full bacon, eggs, hash browns, toast, coffee breakfast, I like the slow, no pressure pace of the morning, the no alarm clock and just the easiness of it all.

Having fun relearning the stove. I find I am forgetting that this one has more temperature choices than High. I not longer have to burn stuff. Its taking some adjusting.

I thought the Nurse and the Entertainer were coming this weekend. Miscommunication. They arrive next weekend. So I had to reshuffle my list of things I was planning to do and I actually went to Walmart yesterday afternoon

I hate going to Walmart on a Saturday afternoon. Six times circling the parking lot to find a space that was still in the same time zone as the store. People who think they are the only ones in the store and no one needs to get around them. Long lines at the tills. It all just adds up to make me cranky.

Getting rather tired of the hormones flaring up making me I tend to be weepy about any little thing. Its not that I am genuinely upset its just I am super quick to puddle up over the darnedest things. Its annoying. Can't get through reading facebook with out several kleenex. Yeesh

I always think I am going to go out and do stuff on Sunday but the reality of it is I prefer to stay home and putter about the house. I am a relaxed lump on Sundays, and I like it.

O plan to spend the rest of the day quilting and watching tv.

I hope you are having a wonderful day.

Toddles,
Linda

Time for Reflection and lots of Quilting

This weekend was not totally what I hoped it would be. It turned into a time to reflect, re-evaluate, admit, confront and take ownership. Every now and then we need to clean house, look at the parts of our lives where things are not going as we would like them, admit mistakes and pull our little selves up by the boot straps, put on your big girl panties and figure out what changes you need to make. Move on, improve, try harder and generally get out of the disillusional little bubble you live in and face the facts Jack!! You need to change your game.

So on went the thinking cap and I spent a lot of time mulling over a multitude of things that needed to be looked at. I spent a lot of time quilting. I think best when I am doing one of my crafts. The sawtooth star quilt is coming along nicely . I finally got started on Babybug's quilt. I should have it finished soon as it it a rather easy quilt to make. Lots of fuzzy lint from it while cutting the material but its lovely when its sewn up. Very squishable.

I finally took my little water colour paintings to the framers and they will be done in a couple of weeks or less. I cannot wait to see them framed and ready to hang in the living room. I hope they look as good as I think they are going to. That is about all I was out of the house over the weekend. A brief trip to the framers and home again to quilt and think.

My "to do" list has many things left on it that did not get done. Oh well there is always another day. The Nurse and the Entertainer are coming for the weekend but I imagine that I will get some work done while they are out and about shopping or visiting. Time will tell.

Toodles,
Linda

The New Stove is HERE!!!

Thanks to an unexpected cheque from my companies health plan, (honestly, I thought I had used up all my benefits for this year but I hadn't, WHOOT!!) I had money on my hands that had not been anticipated nor was it earmarked for other things. What to do with this wonderful bonus???? A NEW STOVE!! Four times I have saved up for a stove only to have other, more urgent financial catastrophes, suck up that money. GRRRR.

The stove that came with the house was fine, it looked ok, but it was starting to slide into old age. Two of the burners only worked on high, the oven temp was a total crap shoot, which makes cooking a meal, baking anything an adventure. Least of all  it had this:

Can you see those little dark marks on the back?? Those are lumps/globs of glue residue. The former owner glued tea figurines across the back of the stove. Good way to keep them from falling off but it really makes a mess.  I could not get the residue off. This may not be a reason to totally ditch a stove in and of itself, but it contributed to my wishes for a new one.

I was also never a fan of the big black door, it shows every mark and streak. Anyway after a couple of delays in the delivery time this little beauty arrived yesterday. It is really almost sad at how happy I am over an appliance.

I had hoped to get a grey top but they do not make those anymore and they do not have lights on the top of the stoves anymore. Apparently everyone is supposed to have a range hood with a light in it. Now I am going to try and find a lamp to use as a night light in the kitchen. I have no range hood and no cabinets over the stove to attach a light to. Anyway, inspite of the black top and no light I am deliriously  happy with it.

I like the two big burners at the front and the warming burner in the center back.  I have pulled off the stickers , but have yet to set the clock and turn it on. I googled up how to keep it clean. Something I think I will be more prone to do with a flat top rather than a traditional burner top. I HATE cleaning burners and pans and ovens. This self cleaning, flat top baby has me having high hopes. I may prove myself wrong but I have high hopes.

Today I am off from work. Using up the very last of my vacation days before the new ones kick in. I plan to quilt and watch tv. Maybe fit the stuff back into the stove drawer that came out of the old one. I have some stuff to purge out of it, which is always a good thing. I may even do the dishes from my book club meeting last Wednesday. What I do know is I am relaxing today. That's what days off are for. Maybe I will even try out the new stove!!

Toodles,
Linda

The Times They Are a Changin'

While that is true in the grand scheme of things the time change that concerns me the most is the one that happens today. I have lived here for more years than I lived in my home province and I still cannot say I am used to the time changing. I am especially not fond of this one, we loose an hour and while it is only an hour, it makes a big difference. Plus I shot myself in the foot today. I usually change the clocks on Saturday night so when I wake on Sunday I am in the proper time zone. I forgot and when I woke this morning thinking "oh, its 10 am thats nice" in reality it was 11:00 and I was not happy. Oh well, nothing I can do about it, must relax and accept the things I cannot change.

This week has been strange. I spent Tuesday and Wednesday sleeping. I have not spent that much time sleeping since I was a teenager. I figure if you sleep until noon, lay down in the afternoon and sleep for two hours then hit for bed at 9:00 or 9:30 you are needing some rest. I was not sick, just really tired. Maybe getting some rest prevented something else happening. Who know??

Busy and The Carpenter blew through on their way to the airport and a vaca in Mexico. We had a nice visit and that dear brother of mine changed a light bulb for me that I have managed to ignore for two years.  He is a good brother. They mentioned now that they are going to have some more free time, they may come for aa extended visit and do some jobs for me that I cannot do myself. I am starting a list even as we speak.

I went nuts on Saturday and bought a new stove. I need one. The one that came with the house is fine but its starting to go. Two of the burners only really work on high. The temp in the oven is a total crap shoot. Its got three legs and a peg that if you bump the stove it falls out. Across the top at the back of the stove there are lumps of glue. The former owner glued Red Rose Tea figurines on it. My new one is a flat top, self cleaning, brand new baby.I got it from the local Maytag place. I may have been able to get a cheaper one from a big box store but these guys will deliver it, install it, take the old one away and if it breaks down they come and fix it. You do not get all that from a big box store. It will arrive on Wednesday and in anticipation of that great event I did this

Now you can see all the leaves I did not get taken care of last fall, I feel now they can deliver the stove without falling on their faces. There was a good 8 inches of packed, humpy, bumpy snow that I should have taken care of when winter first arrived but I didn't and it just got packed and hard to walk on. Its not much to shovel so one really would think I could take care of it better than I do but I am me, what can I say.

Since my house is finally clean and tidy, I did not have to spend a lot of time this weekend doing house work. So I was able to get started on this:

This is the hand pieced saw tooth star quilt top that I bartered the quilting of it in exchange for another quilt top that this person's aunt made. I started it yesterday and its a joy to be working on it. It was a perfect way to spend a Saturday afternoon, I watched To Kill a Mockingbird while I stitched away. I have not seen that movie for a long time. I plan to work on it again today. I did a bit before I had to go out and get cat food and litter, then I did the shoveling, now I am ready to get quilting again. I still have the litter box to deal with but other than that there is nothing inbetween me and some stitch time. I may even get to squeeze a nap in there someplace. I have some shows PVR'd so I can watch and stitch and enjoy. I am thinking nap first though. Shoveling snow kicks it out of me.

Toodles
Linda

Pinterest Inspired

I have been quilting again, which makes my little heart go pitter patter with delight. This one I made for my office's social committee to raffle off as a fund raiser. They buy the material, I donate my time and they do the raffle. I wanted to make one a little more modern, more up to date not a traditional quilt. When you need an idea I did what many of us do,  I searched Pinterest for inspiration. The end result is this little beauty.

I rather like it. Its bright, pretty and not too old fashioned. I think most people would be ok with it. So it goes to the office tomorrow and tickets can go on sale. Now I can move onto the next quilt. I have a top that is ready to go I just need to get a batt. One stop at the local fabric store and I am on my way.

I have been itching to get at this quilt, its hand sewn squares, tiny little patches made by a friends Aunt years ago. It feels like flour sack material and I cannot wait to bring it to life. It sat unfinished for years and I am going to turn it into the quilt it was always meant to be. I am doing this it in return for an appliqued butterfly quilt top made by the same lady. You know me, I love a good barter. I cannot wait to get at it. I also have two baby quilts to make. One for Babybug and one for the Tater Tot. I can work on them while I quilt the other top.

It was so freakin cold here this weekend, I stayed in the house, quilted, cleaned and just generally stayed warm. -50 with the windchill was reason enough to keep to the indoors. I did venture out on Saturday morning, I needed some breakfast fixin's and the fact that I had no eggs drove me out into the cold. I warmed the car really well and got my errands run in jig time. While I was out, inbetween the grocery store and drive thru coffee/breakfast biscuit, I treated myself to a slightly bigger tv for my room. I got a  24inch flat screen with DVD for $138.00 from Superstore. I can now move the 19 inch down to the sewing room and say goodbye to my little 10 colour TV that I bought when I bought the house. Its slowly dying  anyway and having a DVD player in here will be nice. I can also finally get rid of the last VCR. It doesn't work but its still hooked up to the TV because I am lazy and really did not want to start removing things until I was ready to replace the TV.

I can get along with out a lot of things but my car and my TV are very important to my happy. While I may not just sit and watch TV, its on all the time for company. Like now, I am blogging and the DIY network is showing me how to fix up an income property. Yes I watch a lot of tv and I like it.

Toodles
Linda