aaaaaahhhhhhhh......... hear that? Righto - relative quiet. Spent a short while this morning getting my muffler fixed. Felt so good about it had the oil and windshield wipers changed as well. Is that bliss or what? Now I can spend my time riding around listening to selections from my iPod. Finally figured out how to shuffle the tunes. duh.
What else have I done? Put away a little bit of stuff. Answered some email.
Oh and speaking of email - the seasons quilt (now "The View From Here") won second place at a show. whooo hooo! And at what I would consider a fairly conservative show too so that pleases me. Well, it always pleases me to win something or other. Just an ego thing I guess or some validation that maybe it was worth taking the extra time to make something match or to undo something and redo it. Yes indeedy. OK - anyone care to join me for a round or two of the happy dance?
Please note - it's totally un-apparent, but the thing takes two AAA batteries. According to the specs on the web site those batteries will last about 20 hours, twice as long as a single charge of the iPod! I might give up listening to the radio altogether.... So yes, great. And yes, it takes batteries. Now ya know.
1000 songs. In your car. On your boom box. On your clock radio (probably not the best sound provider). On anything with a tunable FM radio. All without CD's. How cool is that? Very.very.cool.
Another day come and gone. Loooooong day. Very long. I did another seam of my quilt (see 3/26 entry) yes indeedy it's come to this: sewing a fairly good sized quilt 1.5 inches at a time.
I paused from this exciting task to sew a little rice bag for our cat, although I'm using it at the moment. Actually I might have to make another one for me! You know rice bags right? You take a nice piece of flannel or other fabric and you make a little pocket or bag with one end open. A simple thing, like a pillow case. Fill about half or two-thirds with regular uncooked rice. Carefully sew shut the open end of the bag. You've got a rice bag!
Why do you have a rice bag? OK, put it into the microwave and nuke for about two to three minutes. Remove. Make sure it's not TOO hot. You'll figure out how long to cook it, the first few times. Nice and toasty warm? OK - apply to sore body parts! Or slide between cold covers and sheets, down where your feet are going. Apply to stiff neck.
In my case, wrap in light towel and place in carrying case of small cat going to vet for his little operation. Yup, tomorrow's the day for little Gus (aka "The Dink") to be altered. Last time, when he had his hernia repaired, the tech suggested rice bags rather than a bottle of hot water. Makes sense to me, not so cold after it cools off!
Written at:
3/27/2002 11:45:00 PM
Another day come and gone. Loooooong day. Very long. I did another seam of my quilt (see 3/26 entry) yes indeedy it's come to this: sewing a fairly good sized quilt 2 inches at a time.
I paused from this exciting task to sew a little rice bag for our cat, although I'm using it at the moment. Actually I might have to make another one for me! You know rice bags right? You take a nice piece of flannel or other fabric and you make a little pocket or bag with one end open. A simple thing, like a pillow case. Fill about half or two-thirds with regular uncooked rice. Carefully sew shut the open end of the bag. You've got a rice bag!
Why do you have a rice bag? OK, put it into the microwave and nuke for about two to three minutes. Remove. Make sure it's not TOO hot. You'll figure out how long to cook it, the first few times. Nice and toasty warm? OK - apply to sore body parts! Or slide between cold covers and sheets, down where your feet are going.
Apply to stiff neck. In my case, wrap in light towel and place in carrying case of small cat going to vet for his little operation. Yup, tomorrow's the day for little Gus (aka "The Dink") to be altered. Last time, when he had his hernia repaired, the tech suggested rice bags rather than a bottle of hot water. Makes sense to me, not so cold after it cools off!
My new quilt is now all sewn together one way. I even replaced one of the triangles I'd added last night, using a darker orange. I like it. I think the triangles are there but not distracting. We'll see. Took me awhile tonight to sew the "hunks" together and then I took some documenting photos. Guess I'll have to wait to start sewing it all together the other way. Those are long seams but there aren't quite as many of them....
Written at:
3/25/2002 11:46:00 PM
Last night while the Oscars ceremony was on, I worked on my new quilt, adding small triangles of bright pinks, oranges, golds to some of the grey squares. Now that that is done, I can sew the rows.
At lunch today, I un-sewed some of my Amish-inspired nine patch quilt top. Some of those seams were no where near actually matching. wow. It looks better already, even though it has a bunch of holes in it.
Today was my last day of being "inventory guy" at work. Not having to be at work at 8 AM will seem like a wonderful thing to me. whooo hoooo! And I think I figured out most things so the regular guy will only have to check things out to make sure everything is cool.
Wow! 5300 visitors since July. How cool is that? Just happened to be the number on the stats page when I looked this morning.
Still miffed at silly ol' shoot-ourselves-in-the-foot Tripod. Let's see - more traffic is better but if you get too much, we're shutting you down - Tripod. Sooner or later someone will say to them - you are supposed to be giving me 1 Gig a Day and because you shut me down for two hours as people were coming to my site I only got 32 MB or 64 MB - where's the rest of my Gig? OK, there, I've said it!
Written at:
3/24/2002 12:10:00 PM
Apologies to all who were blocked from coming here for two hours while tripod decided that I was "over my limit." uh huh. Not to be a stickler about this, but if they're going to run a meter, how about taking into account the many hours when I got little or NO traffic and metering out the remainder of my daily bandwidth. Geesh. Doesn't take a rocket scientist to know it doesn't take a rocket scientist to do that sort of math and use technology to make it so.
On a better note - I had hoped to be sewing tonight but instead ended up ironing seams on my new quilt. Way too many seams to iron open. And while doing that I decided to go ahead and put in the small triangles of pinks, oranges and dark yellows. I think they'll float in front of the whole thing. But that means quality time with a seam ripper tomorrow. Not painful in the way that ripping out mistakes can be, but all in all a good thing.
And speaking of seam rippers, my amish inspired top was right at eye level during all this ironing and man, all I could see was this glaring error of seams not matching. ooops. I know my mind was somewhere else that night..... september 11, 2001. The title of this quilt now is "Summer as Seen from September. 2001."
My March Journal Quilt entry is up. Started out as one thing and turned into something that goes way beyond what you can see in the photos. Pretty cool, I think!
It's suddenly howling up a storm here. Probably is doing some sort of storming, since I hear stuff hitting the windows from time to time. But mostly wind. Big wind.
I'm definitely sore. Should be interesting getting out of bed tomorrow, eh? I'll try again to go in and be the fill-in "inventory guy." If I was unsure if I remembered anything of my instructions before, I am even more skeptical now. Maybe I can claim temporary amnesia?
On a different note, thanks to Fed ex, my package arrived at its destination for the Smoky Mountain Quilters show in Knoxville TN. Always nice to start out a quilt somewhere where you've done well in the past, without the pressure of it being your home turf, LOL. That show is April 5-19, 2002 and is part of the Dogwood Arts Festival. The exhibit itself is in the TVA West Tower in Knoxville.
Written at:
3/21/2002 11:36:00 PM
You are Hobbes! You're a bit too mellow to be an incarnation of Calvin, but you're still his best pal. You don't mind having fun, though, and enjoy playing tricks on your friends when they least expect it. Take the What Calvin are You? Quiz by contessina_2000@yahoo.com!
Written at:
3/21/2002 07:25:00 PM
what a day. On my way to work, for 8 AM! I slipped on some ice in the parking lot and, before I even realized I was falling, was flat on my back gasping for air. Hobbled into work and tried to get myself back together but all I could feel was this pain over the top of my pelvis and this big muscular knot forming up and down my right side. So off I went to the MD's and he told me to ice it, lay down and see how it felt tomorrow and the next day. All in all a soggy morning, from the slop on my backside thanks to the slush and to the tears which didn't stop for quite awhile. Geesh. I'm a mess sometimes.
Did lay down with the ice pack. Grabbed: my lunch (a turkey sandwich which I did NOT share with the cats); a bit of coffee, my madonna phone (headset cordless type) and Harry Potter vols 1-2. I read for awhile but then fell asleep. ME - in the middle of the day. Unheard of. When I had to get up later on, my back is still pretty sore, but does feel less spasming.
I'm really enjoying Harry Potter on the second run through. I'd forgotten many of the details. It occurs to me that I don't really care if I see the movie because I enjoy the view in my head of Hogwarts.
And it's all about tracking - I'm following a package being sent (and returned) via fed ex. Gotta love the free account you can set up. Heck, they even gave me a free calendar when I signed up. You scribble your account number on the forms (which they'll send you free along with more boxes and tubes) and it gets sent and charged to your account. whooo hooo! How easy is that? I did it so I could send quilts to shows and not have to wait for the package to be weighed etc, put the check for return shipping inside, seal the box etc etc etc. Put the fed ex label inside with the shipping info and my account number, seal the box, call for pick up or drop off. Bang. Done. Track online. Repeat.
and how will you be celebrating american chocolate week?
don't worry, you still have time to prepare. the week runs from march 17-23. and it's a week worth celebrating on several levels. for the first time in years, chocolate prices have rebounded from deeply depressed to all new highs. at first it seemed like a short term fling, but the prices appear to be still climbing, mostly due to bad weather in africa and political problems in the ivory coast, where 40% of the world's cocoa orginates.
Yes - just another reason to eat more chocolate!
Written at:
3/16/2002 06:14:00 PM
I'm supposed to be sleeping but my mind is awake. Darn.
The other day I mentioned to someone that on the night between the 11th and 12th, I found myself reading through all the emails surrounding 9-11-01. I read further than that, but mainly I was reading the emails from a couple groups that wrote extensively as the news broke and in the days following.
As I was reading I felt again much of the sadness. Some of this had been stirred up by the documentary 9-11 on TV this last week. But it's the 6th month anniversary of the attacks.
Anyway, the person I was speaking with listened about my late night readings and said - me too. Another person joined us and hearing what we were talking about said - me too. How interesting is that? Touching base with personal messages surrounding and part of our lives then.
Still trying to make sense of the whole thing.
I got out my 9 patch quilt top that I was working on, on the days leading up to 9-11 and finished on the night of 9-11 and looked at it tonight. When I showed it a week or so later, I gave its theme as "order from chaos" because of the coloration of the 9 patches. But a few weeks after that I knew the real name of it -- Summer Seen From September, 2001. I have been thinking about this quilt in the past week and I think I'm ready to quilt it.
Wow a whole week passed without Blogging. Didn't wish my brother a happy birthday on the 9th. Didn't do much of anything web-page related.
What have I been doing, you ask?
Last weekend, my guild, East Side Quilters, spent a few days making quilt tops and finishing quilts. Had a good time, listened to good music, hung out with cool people.
This week, I worked. yeah yeah yeah.
Got a couple new software things: Click'N Design 3D by Stomper. I'd gotten a similar software with a plastic "jig" for helping to reliably put the label on the cd. That software was for OS 9 or earlier and it frankly stunk out loud. This, which works in OS X, was great. Well worth twenty bucks if you want a quick and easy way to do CD's with curved lettering, photo backgrounds etc. Came with some cool clipart as well.
Then I got another cool software recommended by one of the guys at work. This is Live Slide Show by Totally Hip Software. Sort of a cross between iPhoto and iMovie with the better features of both. I made a long and slick slideshow of NYQuilts! photos and exported it as a QuickTime movie. How cool is that?
Finally - upgraded to Adobe GoLive 6. Haven't had a chance to play around with that yet, but it looks wonderful and I can tell you that it's about 100% faster loading and response-wise than GoLive 5 in Classic. One more thing for OS X.
Finished my quilt and it's ready to go to TN for the show there. Did a bunch of other stuff I'm sure..... Visited with my folks a few times. Uninstalled the time-gobbling but OH so wonderful game Black and White. Wrote lots of letters to important people. Even got in a few hours sleep. I admit to wanting a wonderful wonderful dinner and something like a martini or a fabulous bottle of red wine to go with it. OK A girl can have a fantasy, right?
Yeah! the weekend is in sight and that means it's time for my guild's annual "Quilt-In." We spend Friday night to Sunday afternoon stitching up quilts we give local social service organizations and other folks in need. And chatting and laughing and generally having a good time.
Just a tip for future reference: If you want some advice from me about anything..... don't start out by implying that I'm "just a girl" and then go on to ask "what would turn me on!" Just a tip for future reference. It was that sort of day, and it wasn't even a full moon!
Most of the Apple store team went to a Karaoke bar last night after work and well - did the Karaoke thing. No, I did not. Many people offered to pick songs out for me though! LOL. I took some photos though which I'll stick up somewhere later. Most will be not too great since it was dark and smokey in there. All in all though, a good time was had by all, we mildly embarrassed Mark who is getting married next week and got to see that some of the team can really belt out the ol' tunes, as well as the new ones! Everything from Mack the Knife to Rap to Louis Armstrong. The folks at our table of course came with their own cheering section, but were -honestly, no bias or anything - the best in the room. There were some other people there who were really good and a few who were...... hmmmm....ummmm..... better left to sing in their own showers. Alone.
Before that, I saw "A Beautiful Mind." Very good. Sad, requiring some trust to watch in parts, scary in some parts, totally surprising in others. Very good.
So Sunday's report - dehydrated and in search of come caffeine and FOOD.
Gentle readers, have you been turned away from here yesterday and today around 2 pm? Something at Tripod says my traffic (bandwidth) has been TOO high and they've shut this site down for two hours around 2:15pm both days. I could understand this if I were swimming in traffic, LOL, but alas, we know this not to be true.
So, don't adjust your sets - I've already made inquiries etc etc.....
In the meantime, if you're reading this - do click the bandwidth link above...... the bar chart seems to be missing..... February? How odd.!
Written at:
3/01/2002 11:39:00 PM
For frequent visitors, I've added February to my journal quilt page Nice change from doing binding, LOL.
