How I spent my 56th birthday!!

The day before I went to my sister's hair salon and got my haircut... very short, but nice.

I also planned to go with my sweet husband to the Foxwoods casino, but NOT for gambling. He had a pinewood derby race scheduled with the boyscouts group down there, but for adult racers. It was a fundraiser ($50 an entry, so we only entered one car-- "S Car Go") for BSA (Boy Scouts of America).

Lee also set up a table for his other cars and a flyer that we made up for his NEPRL racing group. He got a lot of action there at the table and may have a few more new members.

His car in on the right, second from the bottom... "S Car Go"... with the snail and the rocket on it's back! LOL

He wasn't running his car in the beginning, being 34 cars entered, so he had time to get a feel of the race times. I think he got a little nervous with one racer who's car was running 3.005's and 3.004's. That seemed to have made a new track record.

Then came "S Car Go".

She wasn't too impressive on her first of 6 heats and by the 3rd lane/heat, she was getting worse... then the announcer said "S Car Go" was entering the slowest lane, lane 4... the green lane. I'm sure Lee was wondering how much worse it was gonna be. The last lane (3) he ran 3.010 (started in lane 1 with 3.007).

Here she goes..... aaahhheeeeeeee! Damn! 2.997  !!!!   (the photo is fuzzy, but the guy's head kept getting in the way of the screen)

A NEW TRACK RECORD!!

He also didn't do so bad on the last two lanes....
In fact he WON the competition. I was very proud of him. I don't think he thought he'd won, since the first few heats weren't really great!

Once the race was over, they let him run a few of his exhibit cars on it.... They did great, too!!!

Life changes?

I got a call from my hubby, while I was at home today, and he is gonna interview for another job (actually another employer, same type of job -- Auto technician) on Friday. He's gonna go to where his recent service manager left to go to. His present job is a good dealership, sales-wise, but the son doesn't run it as good as his father did.

On similar notes, I have this week left before I go back to work on Monday. Poop! I really was getting to like it. Let's see how much stuff I can get done before I go back! (The race is on....)

Such a Deal!...?

I took a break from sewing and took my hubby shopping for a mattress for us. We've been married for 13 yrs and our bed was mine when I was just divorced... 1990?... can't remember if it was a hand-me-down back then, so it's old and saggy and lumpy... and my shoulders hurt when I wake up and my hubby's hips hurt when he wakes up, so  ... since we came into some money, we're doing it right this time. I assume it will be the last time we buy one.
Anyway, Better Bedding had a nice set for $700.... then we went to Sleepy's.... BIG mistake, since we spent almost twice as much there (although the bed was made for us-- not a sleep number, just computerized for each side to be conditioned for us on our side of the bed). They doubled the 'rebate' that thay originally were gonna give us (we told them we found one we liked at BB)... and they couldn't give us free delivery (BB would have), nor free removal (BB would have), but since we asked if that could happen, they reduced the price of the set the amount of Delivery & Removal so that when they added it on, it looked like it would be free! It was still an Expensive set.... more than I almost was comfortable, but hubby was set on them (AND they were throwing in two $100 pillows that we'd been carrying around to try out beds with. Very comfy!
We slept on it last night for the first time and I'm not sure yet, even though it comfy to lay on, to sleep the whole night may take a little getting used to. VERY different from my old bed. I'm trying it with my old feather pillows tonight. Maybe that will be okay, til I get used to the bed.

Organize, then sew?

I haven't been doing much sewing in my sewing room, because 1) I was given about 6 plastic tubs of fabrics (mostly batiks, tone-on-tone) and it's still sitting on my cutting table, because there isn't any room in my closets where I store my fabrics, 2) I haven't taken my sewing machine out of it's case since I went to sew with a friend in MA... AND I am attending a quilt-a-thon at our church in three days, so I might as well keep it in the case and really should bring it downstairs now (it's really heavy) and 3) I've been trying to get taxes finished and house decluttered (didn't I post a while ago that I needed to finish taxes??). Whew! One long sentence.

Well, I plan to go up after posting this and organize the space in the sewing room, at least. I'm working on some plaid (white centers) heartstring blocks so I thought I'd go finish those (have to count how many I need to finish a quilt- have 13 done).

I thought this was cool with a label from the inside of the neck showing...(I saved everything from the plaid shirts).

... or I could clear the cutting table so I could cut my outer border for the Alexa's quilt (swimmer with leukemia). I found some purple Hannah Montana fabric for the back (although I'll need to add Chinese coins to extend it- that's ok).

I did get to put the two inner borders on at Cricket's house last week, so I did get SOMETHING done. See? oh. I guess you don't see, since I didn't post any photos here. Here you go....



I even got the back finished.

I really wish I had enough time to put together a few tops (36"x 36" or 45" x 45") for the Project Linus quilt-a-thon on Tuesday, but I won't, ....I know it.

One week left....almost

In just over a week I'll be back to work. Damn! Yup, that's just how I feel about it. When do I retire?? (Obviously, not soon enough).
I've gotten alot of things accomplished, but I could have gotten a lot more done, if I was more organized. We are getting a lot of things done within the renovation mode we were in, but things did stop for a while when we were notified that we need to think about replacing the boiler. That will put us back about $4,000-9,000 ... AND we need to replace the outside electrical line to the house (the one that runs down the side of the house- not coming from the pole on the street), since it's so frayed!! These became priorities when there was a safety issue involved.
The only good news is that we got a 'gift' from my mom that enabled us to reconsider at least looking into a mattress for us and redoing the floor in the kitchen/hall/bath. We'll see.

In the meantime, I've gotten a lot of things done sewing, too! The projects this week have been to go over to church and clean out the complete set of cupboards (not particularly my job), and in that process I organized the Parish Life cabinets (my old committee), and the Peace by Piece Quilters cabinets. I also learned we have been given all of the lower cabinets for our 'stash'!!

I also, bit the bullet and machine quilted the "Swimming with Montana" heartstring quilt (leg/bone cancer for Alexa Marie Feragne). I wasn't sure how much machine and how much tying I was to do on it. It would speak to me, I'm sure. I'm almost pleased with how it came out... one little wrinkle. But that's not bad for how hard it was to keep it straight/flat when we were pin-basting it at church.

I cut the borders for an experiment quilt that our church group made... spikes on a Heartstring quilt, instead of the 2" straight cut center strip. I wanna name it "Starlight".Came out rather nice with the black border, I think, but I hope adding the yellow outer border doesn't make it look too much like a bumble bee! I'll find out today.

I also signed up our group for a little girl 8yr old who loves pink & black!! This should be a fun quilt to do... She has been on Charlotte's Garden since last July or August, so I have to work quickly. I think I'll put a few blocks together of 9-patches with Pinks and various blacks.

Quilt-a-thon

Our church has an annual quilt-a-thon for Project Linus, usually in Feb or Mar. and this year I was able to attend (I am still on layoff 'til the 26th of this month). This year they ended up with about 100 quilts put together on that day, but the Lutheran church always seems to add another 20 or so. Here are some pictures of this year's day... (Some are just fabric, sandwiched and tied.... no piecing done).

Here are Margaret (front) and Linda and Marilyn, working diligently on piecing (some were) and on sewing them envelope-style...

...these ladies were doing the tying

Here is the batting area...

Anna is hard at work... Notice the pile next to her? They need to be sewn and turned, then tied.

Lots of work going on....

Margaret is finally done with her heartstring quilt.

Here's the start of them getting put up.

Here's more...

and more...

and more... Good work, ladies!