I’m finally caught up on mailing out shop orders, and am mostly recovered (however, the pressure in my ears suggests a possible ear infection, so I’ll be letting the Dr. peek in my ears tomorrow…ugh…). We were able to get a lot accomplished this weekend: quilts off the walls, yarn moved home, extraneous furniture hauled over to the auction house), and some fabric moved home.
The shop is looking empty and my studio is looking…well..chaotic. It will continue to be a half-baked, messy work in progress until everything gets moved home, partly because I can’t put everything away until more of the shelves and cabinets come home.
And yes, if I’m completely honest, even once everything’s in, it’ll be a messy work in progress…
The longarm will stick out into the middle of the room, just like it did before, with one end up against the bay window.
The shelving on the north wall is new, I’m not entirely sure what will live there, but right now, a stack of quilts waiting for binding is taking up space:
There used to be a couch on the wall where the sewing machine table is sitting. That had to go, no room for anything extraneous like that. Right now, some wire cubes are sitting there, but in the future a cabinet with doors will be occupying part of that space.
Everybody keeps asking me where everything is going to go when it moves back home, and the honest answer has been “I’m not entirely sure.”
That’s still my answer, because, I still don’t know how it’s all going to work. I do know that I finally have a use for the big tub in the bathroom that no one every uses anymore:
Garbage bags full of yarn fill it up quite nicely. Don’t worry, though, I don’t intend to keep them there permanently. I don’t really want to have product that’s for sale in my bathroom…I’ll stick to my personal stash living in there…
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Last night, as we were leaving our dinner meeting, Mark was fussing with his cell phone. Apparently, the screen was blank, and he was messing with it to see if he could get it to work.
I asked if something had happened to it, and he got this sheepish look on his face.
“It took a dunk in some water,” he said.
Wait. What?
Apparently, yesterday morning, he had his cell phone in his shirt pocket and…he was checking on our leaky toilet. When he bent over, the phone slipped out and into the toilet.
Of course, he wasn’t flushing at the same time, and was able to quickly pull it out and dry it off.
After we got home, he pulled the battery and spent some time blow drying his phone. As far as I know, it’s OK now, but he does NOT get to give me a hard time about my cell phone anymore.
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I just flushed my cell phone down the toilet.
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So, my super-fantastic-weekend-of-fun was…exactly that. I flew to New Jersey to spend a few days with my sister and her family. Colin (my nephew) is FOUR today, and the weekend was partly consumed by his birthday party, plus my sister and I got to spend Sunday afternoon visiting the City, seeing Wicked and getting makeovers at Sephora. I also had some quality time with 21-month old Hannah (oh, and Colin, Debra, and Matthew, too).
But, yeah. Back to reality. A house that is in dire need of straightening and cleaning (mostly because I’m hosting Thanksgiving, yikes), a backlog of quilts, and dang it, it’s time to decorate for the holidays.
And speaking of reality, after I walked in the house Monday night and said hello, I noticed the pile of mail. I should have ignored it as the piece I chose to open was the bill for my trip to the Emergency Room.
I just about needed ANOTHER trip to the ER thanks to the heart attack I got when I saw the total.
The billed amount? $1226
Thanks to the insurance adjustment, I “only” have to pay $536.
I was using my rotary cutter this evening and you had better believe I was excruciatingly careful with every single cut I made.
Wow.
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The crisis has been averted.
Here’s what happened, the long story:
For the past (mumble 2 years) little while, I’ve been “almost” done with a self-published book on freehand feathers for machine quilters. The class I’m currently teaching at MQResource is based on that book, and all of the handouts come straight out of what is in the book.
Each handout is just a part of the book, though, and to make the handouts, I’ve been opening the original document, SAVING IT AS something else, then deleting out what I don’t need for that particular handout.
Only, Tuesday night, I apparently forgot the SAVE AS part, and saved the one page handout right over top of the original book.
This was the FIRST STUPID thing I was referring to in my previous post. But not insurmountably stupid, because, I’m smart enough to have a backup of my book, right?
Yes, well. That backup is on a USB drive, and…when I posted this morning, I couldn’t FIND the USB drive. The last I could remember, I had scooped it up to take it home. For all I knew, I had dropped it outside and it was gone, gone, gone…
I just happened, a few moments ago, to crouch down to pick something up, and just happened to look right at the damned thing, where it had apparently fallen at some point yesterday. I guess I didn’t actually scoop it up to take it with me. Thankfully.
The moral of the story:
1. Don’t be so cavalier with the original copy of your book manuscript.
2. Don’t rely on a USB drive, that could be easily lost or stolen as your only backup.
A copy of the book now resides on the computer here at the shop, and I may even burn another copy to a CD and go stick THAT in the bank deposit vault.
Phew.
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Cheap ironing board with cheap cover: cover needed to be replaced after just a couple of months. I got a new one at Target, picked up what was supposed to be a nicer, thicker one, with a scorch proof (or was it scorch resistant?) cover.
Yeah. Right.
It started scorching…oh…about the first time I touched it with an iron.
And let’s not mention the fact that this stupid thing doesn’t fit properly: all of the covers I’ve had in the past have had some kind of drawstring around the edge that lets you cinch it up and make it fit better. Not this one, oh no.
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It is vacation time.
I’ll yak at y’all when I get back.
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And I’m going to have a pair of ball-shaped bruises, one each leg, to prove it.
And by “play baseball” I mean act as catcher during batting practice. Mark pitches, one boy bats, the other plays outfield.
And by “act as catcher” I mean stand as far away from the plate as I can, and let the balls hit the backstop before I grab them. Clearly I wasn’t very good, vis-a-vis the aforementioned matching bruises.
I’ve long accepted that I’m afraid of the ball. Damn thing HURTS when it hits you, seems like a pretty reasonable fear.
Baseball practice was a follow-up to a wienie roast (with smores for dessert). Yum.
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My brother and his wife now have THREE awesome kids. Sofia and Dylan’s baby brother Darren was born yesterday.
Gee, I guess someone better finish the quilt they are making.
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