Feeling More Productive

The past few days (since I got my packet from "The Feel Good Group") I've been feeling more productive. Actually, it's also since I started working on a simple quilt (last Saturday). I realized I needed something to motivate me. Something more than feeding, clothing, and cleaning up after me and the boys. I needed a project (hmm... I seem to remember thinking of "that Project Thing" a few months ago, guess I forgot for a bit). Anyway, I started working on the quilt so I would have something to think about and do. I find if I have a fun project going, then I think about it when I fall asleep and also it gets me out of bed in the morning, even if I don't work on it in the morning, I get my "work" done quicker so I can reward myself with play time. I've got to have something fun to do in order to motivate me to do the not-so-fun things.

I've been making progress with reducing the price of our home and with arranging for our things to be moved. I'm even feeling excited about a few leads on selling the house. I've also been making more time to work on the computer regurally, which means I'll soon be caught up enough to do some stuff with pictures. This is good, because I've got some pre-paid prints expiring on Shutterfly next month.

Suzy :D

PS: Yesterday, while out exploring the countryside, I stopped to take pictures of the fields, and flowers, mountains, and sky. Then, while taking them, I realized my adorable boys, waiting in the van, would look great with this charming background. I've included one of the pictures I took of Frank and Jack. :D

Writing A Letter

Yesterday I received a packet of letters from a group of my Aunt's friends. I read them as I went to bed. I was so excited that I sat down and responded to them, by flashlight right away. It's been years since I've written a letter... you know, with a pen and paper, by hand! It was so nice to receive their hand-written notes of encouragment, I hope they too enjoy receiving a letter from me.


Just last week I'd been thinking of starting to write letters again... with the computer and internet far away (for me anyway, once a week is "far away") I guess I'll go back to communicating "the old fashioned way!"


Suzy :D

A Few Days Away

We are headed to Salt Lake City, Utah tomorrow. Tom flys out on Sunday morning for three more weeks of training in Ohio. We are going to leave early tomorrow and spend the afternoon in SLC. We intend to go to a train shop and a water park tomorrow. On Sunday, I'll do some shopping (tennis shoes and who-knows-what-else) and then head back to Wyoming around lunch time. It's a five hour drive each way. I'm sad about Tom leaving again, but looking forward to a fun day with him and the boys tomorrow.

Suzy
PS: Nothing's happening on the quilt project except a lot of guilty feelings. :P

Was I CRAZY?

There was a time (when I was about twenty) when I wanted six children. Presently we live with my cousins family of five. In the past week and a half eight of the nine of us have been sick. The past few days the other mother has been SERIOUSLY bedridden, so, I've been trying to run the show AND keep five kids quiet as mice. I must have been INSANE to ever think six children was a good idea!


On a related note, in this large household there is a Extra-Super-Large-Capacity washing machine that basically washes two loads at once. Yesterday, I processed TEN of these loads, which was about equal to TWENTY normal loads! Yeah me!!!


Today my Grandma, my second cousin (age seven), and I spent two hours working on zuchinni... LOTS of zuchinni. Zuchinni that's eight inches around and eighteen inches long! We peeled, scraped seeds, and shredded 26 cups of zuchinni! Wow! I wish I'd weighed it first.


I'm feeling small successes these days with VERY domestic things... cleaning, laundry, and cooking!


ttfn,
Suzy

Living without Internet

I've been away from the Internet for two full weeks now! Wow! Here's the last journal entry I typed intending to post:

Monday 16 July 2007, 1500
Many of you will be happy to know that I’ve just created my first draft of the pattern based on Tom’s Blue Carbuncle Quilt. Here’s a picture of me when I finished the quilting (the day after Christmas last year) on a friend’s long-arm machine.

My goal is to have the pattern complete and to my testers by the end of the month. Yesterday I discovered that my notes from when I sewed the quilt are in storage in Arizona. So, today, I pulled out a sheet of graph paper, a #2 pencil, a ruler, and the quilt. I did all the measurements and calculations (except for the specialty setting triangles). That took about an hour and a half. Then I typed up the preliminary instructions (about 45 minutes). Next I need to redraft the setting triangles and integrate that information into the instructions. The biggest time drain will no doubt be in illustrating the instructions. I’ll talk with Tom about this… I think it would be fastest for me to sketch the illustrations, and for him to create them on the computer. From there, assembling the written instructions and illustrations in Publisher should be a fun cake-walk.

Anyway, this part of it went quicker than I’d expected, and I felt refreshed as I worked on it. Now for a snack and a break.

Suzy :D
1507

PS: My working title for the quilt, which I’d like to come from “Heaven Sent Designs” (I have to see if this company name is available) is “Window to Heaven”, or maybe “Window from Heaven”? Anyway, the Carbuncle thing is generally frowned upon (we named Tom’s quilt for the Sherlock Holmes Mystery of the same title, which is about a rare blue diamond). The window idea plays off of the fact that the design looks like a stained glass window… what do you think?
1510

PPS: for those of you testers wanting to get a head start, hear are the yardage requirements for a 65”x103” finished quilt… other sizes will follow.
Fabric Requirements:
Diamonds* - 25 – 5” WOF Strips OR 21 Fat Quarters
Sashing (Should Contrast Diamonds) - 2 yards
Setting Triangles - 1 yard
Border - 1½ yards
Double Fold Binding (3” cut yields 5/8” finished) - 1 yard
Backing - 6 yards
Batting - 103” x 65” (minimum)
*Solid or all-over random type fabric designs are best suited to this pattern, as one-way or directional-prints will wind up at a 45° angle in the finished quilt.
1512

Life is really slowing down these days. I've gone into Sweetwater County with Tom twice these past two weeks. I take the boys with us, and the day goes really fast! We've found an apartment we're applying for tomorrow. We'd be moving into it in September. It's in Rock Springs. We'll probably have to sign a six month lease (which should get us through the worst of the winter). We keep hoping the house in Mesa will sell. This week we lowered the price from $283,007 to $269,900. At the Open House this week there was a couple that was very interested... they even liked the way the garage is set up... said it was "perfect" for them. Keep your fingers crossed!

I haven't drawn those illustrations yet, guess I'd better get on it; huh?

Like I said, life is slower here, and quite beautiful. Very calm and relaxing. We look forward to having our own place, but are enjoying our time with family too.

More later (and hopefully sooner),

Suzy :D

Auction Addicts

Well, Tom and I enjoy ebay auctions, today we went to our first live auction. We enjoyed it too! Among my treasurers are a set of four antique ice cream parlor chairs and a tredal Singer sewing machine. I'll have to get some pictures for you, but, for the meantime know that they have character and are beautiful! :D Not realizing how long I'd be out (four hours, 10a-2p), I wore a sleeveless top and wound up with a sunburn on my arms and chest. :P I still had fun.

I'm sitting outside the library, on the concrete, plugged into the only working outlet I could find. There are clouds rolling in and there is thunder rumbling. We won't be here long enough to warrant setting up internet at my cousins'. I've realized I'm a HUGE net junkie! I use it for EVERYTHING! Communicating with friends, informations, bill-paying, photos, recreation. Around 1993 when I first heard of the World Wide Web, I knew it was something I should stay away from for as long as possible (which I did), because once I started using it, I knew I would want to keep going... feeling rain droplets... gotta run!

Suzy :)

Welcome to Small Town America!

We’ve been here in Wyoming nearly two weeks. Last week we were able to celebrate our Nation’s birth in a small town way!

Due to family schedules, we chose to light off our fireworks on July 3rd… we weren’t the only ones. We spent a solid hour lighting fireworks off in the horse pasture behind my Grandparent’s house.

On the morning of he fourth, we went to a parade… the Lander 4th of July Parade… the longest running parade in the Nation! We had so much fun while we sat on the curb in the old-time Main Street, in front of the ACE Hardware. The kids stood on the edge of the street, waiting for the passing people to toss out treats. It was great to see how excited our boys would get when they would win the occasional piece of candy! They’re were cowboys (REAL cowboys) and Indians (REAL Indians), tractors and antique cars, go-carts and souped-up-manly-man-macho-trucks, trailers with High School Reuionites sitting on hay and even a float handing out fresh-from-the-tap beer (to the men who would run up to the side of it) – they didn’t even card them! :P For me the funniest thing of all was the high school marching band… marching in t-shirts and mix-matched shorts. They were out-of-sink and I just couldn’t stop laughing. Even though they sounded good, it was so very funny to see them marching without a uniform!

The end of the parade was extremely refreshing! For at least fifteen minutes five firetrucks sprayed water on the intersection of 4th and Lincoln. I wonder if they stop at 4th Street for a reason? :P In any case, we were just ½ a block away and downwind, so, we got a lot of the breeze-blown moisture. I guess this is how they literally “clear the streets” and signal the end of the Parade each year. It was a lot of fun!

The afternoon found us napping, followed by a family barbecue. A storm started to blow in around 6pm with VERY strong winds and rain, but by dusk it had all settled down and was very cool for the HOURS of fireworks that followed. People started lighting fireworks around 7:30 and didn’t stop until midnight… because of the city ordinance. There was actually an extra round of fireworks at 3:40 am on the 5th of July, from someone who was late or just wanted to wake everyone up.

We had my husband’s birthday cake just before bedtime and actually ate the homemade ice cream a few days later (we were too stuffed from the hamburgers, hot dogs, salads, chips, and corn to eat the ice cream on the 4th!)

Thomas declared that it was “his best birthday ever!” He didn’t receive one present wrapped in paper, just lots of fun times with his family in a calm, relaxing, cool rural setting. What a delight!

Suzy :)
PS: I’ve been having trouble finding a consistent internet connection, so, my log-ons are getting further and further between.