Renovations Interupted

I wish I could say I could do more sewing this week, but I can't yet. (Next week is the plan).

Hubby and I went to the "Home Show" in Hartford this past weekend looking for flooring (kithen, hall, bath) and came home wit hlots of ideas and plans for measurements to be taken by a few new companies, but it was unusually cold come Sunday night, .... and Monday....so I called the gas co. since the heat didn't seem to be on.
Well, the good news is... we have the heat on!

The bad news is.... they recommended (can you say... INSISTED) we get some furnace /boiler quotes to replace our present one. So I spent the week getting quotes. Can we say anywhere from $6500-9,000? And we really had about $5,000-6,000 left to spend on the ktichen. I guess that may have to wait. Crap!!

This is the old cast iron one. Probably as old as the house (circa 1947).

This is the water heater.... another old bear! But it works well, so far. (Though REALLY inefficient!)

Daughter Engaged FINALLY!!

My youngest daughter sprung it on me before Thanksgiving that she was (oh, btw) engaged to her beau (long-distance) who lives in FL. I was rather sceptical, since her 'history' of dating didn't seem to last too long with ANY guy, let alone someone in another state! He came up at Christmas.... still no ring ("It's being resized, Mom...). Yeah, okay.
Well, I got a phone call from a local jeweler with a message for my daughter... "Her ring is in".
Damn! Don't you know, she really FINALLY is!! Congratulations, Julie. It's a blue diamond with white diamonds down the sides and a very small blue diamond sits under the big on (in the space below) on each side. Very pretty.

They aren't getting married until summer of 2012, which is fine. They want to pay for it themselves, ... that's fine. They will get married back up in CT,.... that's really fine.

Door Renovations

Well, (Jan 13, 2010) we gave our choices of back door/storm door to the contractor! It will be so nice to get a new back door (our old one is soooo bad), AND a new screen door (that works!). I can't believe I'm getting mini-blinds inside the glass panes (they don't get dusty and I can wash one pane of glass!) and a screen on the storm door that I don't have to take out and put away!! WHoooo Hoooo!!

I actually think I'll post photos next to each other... before and after shots....

This is the interior door from the inside kitchen. pretty shabby....I'll show details of the really bad spots, since the devil is in the details, as they say.

And this is the new door... Mini blinds are pulled down now, but I'll show you them when you can see the outside (tomorrow when the sun is shining).

Here we go. Figures, my grandson needed to 'help' show off the doors. You can tilt the blinds using the top 'bar' or raise and lower them using the bar that runs down the right side of the door. You can't imagine how much fun I had the first few days playing with that door.

Some of the bad 'details' are such.... a storm door that is pulling the wall out everytime the wind catches the storm door......

a door knob that has a section of it in the middle that has chipped off (the key still goes in, I don't know how)

Great door latches that barely work (great security, huh?)

...a door sill, that is chewed away. (This was the part I loved getting replaced!!)

And this was the pile on the driveway that was gonna go, 'bye bye'!! (No, the garage doors are NOT on this year's list, although they will be replaced (or the garage will be rebuilt...someday).

Now for the storm door.....This was the old one. Pretty ratty.

This was what held the storm door on. (not much, wouldn't you say?)

This is the new door before the storm got put on (and no trim). NICE DOOR! It just needs to be painted (primed fiberglass)

This is the storm from the inside. The nice thing is the top glass slides down into the bottom pane, while bringing the screen down with it (from a secret place inside the top of the door). No need to store the screen door somewhere and the screen is high enough that the cats can't dig holes in it (what a concept!).

And this is the view from the outside. YEA!!!!Ain't she a beauty?

Heartstring quilt for a 9-yr old swimmer with Leg Cancer

I finally had a chance to work on a heartstring quilt that our church group, Peace by Piece Quilters, has been asked to make for a little girl with leg/bone cancer. She loves swimming, Hanna Montana, Jonas Brothers and I thought of a pattern we made a while back that had a star in the center. The first photo isn't the correct color, but the 'sectioned' photos show it better. It was a heartstring that we didn't have enough blocks to make even a small one, so I figured it I put a square of fabric over the heartstring block, drew a diagonal line and sewed a quarter-inch seam on either side of the line (use this line as a cutting line), then I ended up with twice the blocks. With a border around it, it worked well.

Since my sewing machine has been in the repair shop for a 'nose job', I yanked my 42 yr old Kenmore out of the cellar and set it up on my grandson's little card table to use... Other than the burning oil smell (dust in the back?? it was covered in the cellar), and the initial ruuh, ruuh, ruuh, ruh, ruh, ruhruhruhruhruhruh... it ended up working okay (I think this is the next one for the service dept.). Little crowded in this area, but it seemed to work.

This little guy was a great 'fill-in' for my Janome. ... Of course, it HAD to be. There was nothing else!

Sew-In in NH

Finally!  A whole day of sewing!!! I finally got to go up to a sew-in. AND I brought my mom, who's almost 82, and lots of fun. We made a weekend out of it. Early Sat morning we headed for Lee NH, where Brenda ( in the first picture) had organized a great group of Heartstringers from all over New England to come together to sew heartstring blocks for a local shelter. Some of us had another project or two that needed to be worked on also, but Brenda got to collect a good amount of blocks to put together at a later date.

Here is my mom (far right), Marcella &  ? at one end of the hall...

I, personally, got to put on a "blueberry' border to one of our heartstring quilts (PbPQuilters), finish some of the Strips and Strings Log cabin blocks and trim them up (total of 50 blocks) and also make 10 heartstring blocks with blue centers (mom made 6 blocks). I gave them to Brenda for the 'cause' and gave her some of our blue center material so she could make enough for 8 more blocks (total of 24 with the same center fabric). It felt good to get that much done, although I never noticed a 'dent' in the strips pile...

Here is what I finished and left (with additional center strings) for Brenda to continue with. Thanks Brenda!

It was really nice to meet a lot of the ladies I see posting on the Heartstrings Quilt Project Group boards.... Mavie, Bev, Darlene in ME, Darlene in MA, (Cricket and Ginny from MA, of course-- and NO, Cricket, I didn't get to Marden's this time, but I WILL!).Here are some photos of the ladies....

I can't believe I have a photo of me!

The crew hard at work...

Notice the wood stove in the background.... nice smell.

Ginny & Darlene had way too much fun!

One quilt down for the count.

Darlene & Mavie...

Another one down....

Cricket working on blue centers...

Marcella and her crumbs!!

It was really nice to meet a lot of the ladies I see posting on the Heartstrings Quilt Project Group boards.... Mavie, Bev, Darlene in ME, Darlene in MA, (Cricket and Ginny from MA, of course-- and NO, Cricket, I didn't get to Marden's this time, but I WILL!).

 It was a comfortable place and the fact that it was heated with two wood stoves (the smell was wonderful), made it very nice to spend the day there. It also helped that the weather was wonderful, too!!

Had to post this sign as we were leaving town. Sorry it wassn't in focus. I was outside of my car on a busy route and didn't want people to see me taking a photo of this sign. My mom did a doubletake! LOL

Layoff 8 wks. Now to make an appt for EVERYTHING!

Somehow, if you know you have to work, you plan for everything else in your life. Now that I have 8 wks of Lay-off, my days are ...o-p-e-n. I may need to appt EVERYTHING to make sure things get done.
So here goes.
1. Taxes. (without getting this done, I can't get the next few things done.
2. Call Frank (electrician) and set up time to replace outside electrical line and put in breakers.
3. Discuss quotes on furnaces.
4. finish sanding/painting medicine chest so I can finish bathroom.
5. Finish painting the area behind the bathroom door.
6. Sort through the craps of fabric from the PeacebyPiece Quilters.
7. Make kits up for demo (pillowcases) at the Quilting retreat on Mar 25.
8. Organize finanaces and balance checkbook (it's been a long time since I've done that!!)
9. Figure out what I'm taking to retreat.
10. Clean den out.
11. get rid of 'stuff' for May Fair
12. Sew
13, pick out furnace
14. Take mom out for birthday
15.Paint new back door
16.Return flooring samples to Flooring America
17. Return samplew to Carpet Factory Outler
18. Set up time with Flooring Amer to measure square footage for flooring
19. Send money to Hank for vacation cottage (April 20th)
20. Send RWB quilt to Mary J.
21. Drop off Pillowcases to Children's Med Center of CT
22. Drop off pillowcases to Shelter
23. Mail pillowcases to Alycia in CO
24. Sew plaid HS blocks for PBPQ
25. Find teal border for swimmers quilt
26.

I'm sure I'll have to add to this and revisit it to make sure things are getting done.

The Shoe Story-- long but worth it!

Actually, it should be entitled "How Shoe Denial Caught up wtih me"... Lee &I enjoyed watching (and voting) for America's Got Talent contestants all season long. So, when I heard they were gonna have the top ten finalists (NOT ten ACTS, mind you) at the MGM Grand (at Foxwoods Casino), I decided to get two tickets for hubby and I. Now, I don't dress up often... and I hate to buy clothes or shoes, etc, so I deal with whatever is in the closet. I had a nice pair of black slacks and a deep green sweater on, and figured I'd wear my clogs. Okay,...I know, ... they're brown, not black, but no one will notice, right? I put the left one on, and then the right one, and realized the right one felt funny. Oh, darn! The outer edge where the suede met the sole had blown out!! At least two inches. I think I remember it was just slightly blown, but not THAT much. Okay, these need to get thrown out. What else do I have....?

Looking through the boxes in my closet... sandals, nope,... more sandals, nope,... REAL dressy shoes, not tonight; etc....

AHH... I found a pair of black (this is good), rather worn Hush-puppy kind of shoes. That could work. No one will ever notice them anyway. It's a casino. Everyone is paying attention to the slots or the gaming tables, right?

I get to the casino and we walk into to the hotel lobby to ask directions to the theater. It's only down a short corridor. We get almost to the end of the corridor and I feel something give on my left foot and a rather loud 'Fwhaap! Fwhaap!...'Fwhaap! Fwhaap!...! Oh no! I look down and realize the sole of my shoe is ALMOST OFF. It's only attached by the toes and the ball of my foot. The arch and the heel have left the rest of the shoe!! Crap! What AM I gonna do? I know that if I walk as normal as possible, my 'Fwhaap! Fwhaap! will cause a lot of attention even above the whistles and dinging of the casino noise. I start to barely lift my foot as I walk, but now it looks as though I'm the hunchback of Notre Dame (minus the hunching part- just the dragging of the foot part). Once we get to the box office for our tickets and food vouchers, we slowly head to the food court and find a secluded table to sit at.

Once I'm seated, I decided that the 'shoe' part still has something there, not just my bare sock (which is red, BTW), so I peel off my sole completely!

It doesn't look too bad. After asking a waitress if she had some black tape (I explained my problem), she went off to find me some tape (holding her sides from laughing so hard, I might add!)... no luck (giggle). Off she went. After we finished eating, we had time to spare before the show, so we started walking to the slot areas and as I took a step, I 'CLACKED!!"'...

I looked down and saw that the bottom of a shoe has a metal rod running along the arch! and I'm on a tile floor!!... So now the only way to get to the gaming area is to walk on my toe/ball of my foot (THIS looks great....!) As I get to the end of the food court, the waitress comes over and says she found some 3M adhesive (spray in a can). Would I like some? Well, it was a brief thought, but if it DIDN"T work, I'd now be sticking to the floor with the leftover residue!! "No thanks, " I said to her."We'll manage."

All is fine through the rest of the evening, until we get home.

Since it was only close to 10 pm I thought my daughter would be up and I went to her bed to tell her the 'shoe story'. Since her laughter (and MINE) kept the little one (my grandson, Kai) from sleeping, HE now wanted me to 'lay wizz him, granmaw...". I did a quick lay down, sing a song, do the Lord's prayer (our ritual- just done double time), then slowly slid myself off the bottom end of the bed  to stand up (I still had my shoes on). As I stepped back with the left foot, and reached over the end of the bed to put my right foot on the floor and stand upright, I heard the right shoe GIVE OUT!!! Almost completely!!!!

THAT brought forth another round of 'quiet' hysteria from my daughter and myself, which got worse once I pulled my shoe off my foot and realized that I was so lucky THAT it didn't give out while we were in the casino! Poor Malakai couldn't get to sleep for love nor money, since our laughter continued until I tried to crawl up the stairs, dragging my shoes with me, laughing hysterically (can laughter whisper?) OMG! What a night.

I had plans the next day with my mom, so I haven't thrown out the shoes yet, but I will by the end of the weekend. (Or maybe I'll take them to work to entertain my co-workers.... This one is too priceless!

ps. I left the shoes at my daughter's in MA, and asked her to send them to me since I hadn't taken photos of them except for my camera.... asn I needed the photos for this post.