Nothing Prosaic

I have worked a ton this past week, so I'm short of time. I'll have to give pictures and more details later, but here are the week's highlights.

• The quilt show was marvelous, as usual.
• I entered the selvage purse in the North Georgia State Fair, and I happen to know that it won a ribbon, but I'm not telling which one just yet.
• We opted out of the Braves game last Saturday because of so much rain in the area. A few years ago, I would have gone anyway, but I'm way over the desire to sit out in the rain and watch a baseball game.
• Speaking of rain, we had over 11" at our house over six days. Much of our county had it far worse, with some places getting over 20" in a day or two. Atlanta saw flooding of historic proportions. Thankfully, we had no water in the house nor in the basement.
• I made pralines and entered them in the fair as well. I don't know yet how they fared, ribbon-wise.
• The only sewing I did was to make valences and a patchwork pillow for Caleb's room. I'll show those later.
• I'm hoping that by this time next week I will have all my bookkeeping work caught up and I can resume a normal schedule. But it'll be a long shot.

Zoom, Zoom

I wish that were the sound of my new dream machine flying across fabric, but alas, it is the sound of my keyboard and calculator as I continue to play catch-up with American Vision bookkeeping. I made one lonely postcard this week, for my young friend, Liz, and her husband, Joe, who welcomed baby Jude this week. It turned out cute, and they have a dachshund, too. (The dog's name is Aberdeen, in case any of you were wondering.) (Not my blue, spotted dog -- Liz's dog.)Last Saturday's birthday party for my father-in-law was a success, if I do say so myself. He seemed please with it, and I was thankful that so many family members were able to come. In the background of the picture is his sister, Frances, who lives in Canton.When most of the party-goers had left, Emily was sitting on the sofa with two or three of her cousins who are sisters. It was a little disconcerting to overhear my father-in-law asking his daughter who the girls were. He knew Emily, but he didn't know his other granddaughters. I don't know if he's seen them since Christmas or not, but I was still surprised by the inquiry. It also means that he probably didn't know his nieces and nephews either, although he didn't let on while they were there.

Today will be a zoom, zoom day. After an early morning haircut (pictures later, if the hair and the rest of me look OK), I'll head to the Cobb County Civic Center for the 2009 Georgia Celebrates Quilts exhibit. This is an every-other-year event that I wish were every year! It is like going to an art gallery, and I never cease to be amazed at the skill and creativity of the participants. I'm just a dabbler, but these people are quilters and artists.

When I leave there, I'm headed to the grounds of the North Georgia State Fair. The fair doesn't open until Thursday, but I've decided to enter the selvage purse I made. I may enter some homemade pralines too, but those don't get delivered until Wednesday.

The final event for the day is a Braves baseball game. We've apparently entered monsoon season this week (2.5" of rain on Wednesday, 1.5" on Thursday, and 0.7" on Friday) and two of the last three games have had initial rain delays of over two hours. That doesn't really sound like a good time to me, and since the tickets were free, I won't feel too badly if we don't see an entire game.

Finally, as I left the house yesterday for some errands, I realized that I hadn't seen Blinky for a while. When I leave the house, I always like to ascertain her whereabouts to be sure that she didn't accidentally get shut up in a closet. Finally, I found her. The sheets were off the bed for laundering and she burrowed her way inside the spread. Looks good to me, on a rainy day.

The Big Day is Here

This afternoon is the party I am hosting for James' daddy's 90th birthday. I took this Boy Scout memorabilia (left) to the framing shop, and this is the finished product (right) that we will give him today. We'll even hang it on the wall for him. I think he'll be pleased.

Dream Machine

For some, a dream machine might be a Ferrari. Or maybe an Aston Martin. A Maserati? Nope. Here's my dream machine.I got it this week, but I've been so busy with birthday party cleaning and preparations that I haven't had much opportunity to play with it. Thank goodness it comes with a free class to learn to use all the different functions and attachments. Here's just one of the many things this Janome machine will do:

My only sewing so far is a birthday postcard for James' daddy, who owned dachshunds for many years.I can't wait to really put the machine the test. It's got special features just for quilting, so I'm sure to get my money's worth.

A Perfect Fit

I bought this basket a number of years ago, thinking that our cats would like sleeping in such a cozy space. Neither of them cared anything at all for the basket -- just like a cat! Blinky would get in it sometimes, especially after we sprinkled catnip inside, but that was about it. Caleb and Alexa like to play with the basket, so it's not a total loss.

A few days ago, I couldn't find Blinky anywhere. This is where I finally found her.See, it is nice and cozy. She hasn't been back in it since, though.

Make Sure You Have it All

Make sure when you are about to take your baby out in the stroller that you have your purse, bag, purse, bag, and purse with you. You can never be sure what you might need. I wish I could have gotten a picture later of Alexa pushing the stroller. She had a hand on each handle, which necessitated the use of her shoulder to hold her cell phone to her ear while she jabbered away.

Good Eats, Good Fun

Last week I forgot to give you an update on the event we attended -- the 10th birthday party for the Food Network show, Good Eats. James and I agreed that it was one of the most fun thing we'd been to in years. We laughed through the whole afternoon. They were taping this show and occasionally the camera would pan the crowd, but don't expect to see us on television as our seats were high up in the balcony. Still, the Cobb Energy Performing Arts Center is not that large, and we could see everything perfectly. The show will air on Saturday, October 10th at 10 p.m. (10/10 at 10 for their 10th anniversary. Get it?)

Spell Checker?

I had a good laugh this week when I came across an order from an American Vision customer. He wanted us to know that the book he ordered was to be shipped to a prison inmate. For that reason, the spelling of the recipient's name was "cridical."

Work and More Work

The folks at American Vision called me last week and asked for my help. For years we've been trying (without success) to integrate the online store with QuickBooks, the software that pretty much manages all aspects of the ministry (sales, inventory, donations, financials, etc.). The president and vice-president were in agreement that it was time to scrap all that, and find another way, which they asked me to do. I spent some time studying and testing options, then I went into the office on Monday, spoke with all the worker bees and explained the changes to the way the system would operate, and then set about trying to bring order to over two weeks (or ten months, take your pick) of backlogged chaos. In short, my work-at-home hours have been averaging 6-8/week. Last week, I worked 28 hours, some of them doing hard time in the warehouse. I don't mind, though, since I have my eye on a $1,200 sewing machine! Next week I will only go into the office on Wednesday. Monday is a holiday, Tuesday is babysitting day, and I'll need Thursday and Friday to get ready for the 90th birthday party on Saturday. I'll have another couple of months of extra hours, although a good many of them will be from home, until my work routine should settled down to about 12-15 hours per week of off site work.

So, not much sewing happened this week, although I did get the borders attached to the baby quilt. No pictures are forthcoming until it's finished. I still have to layer backing, batting and top, then quilt it and attach the binding. It's a good thing I still have three months to get it finished.


Finally! The peppers are starting to ripen. I don't remember what kind of plant I bought, only that they are sweet peppers and that they would turn orange when ripe. I thought maybe they'd go from green to yellow to orange, but nope. They're going straight from green to orange. It's hard not to pick them now, but I'm trying to wait until they're completely orange. We're now harvesting more tomatoes than we (I) can eat from our single plant, and that's with some critter still munching them. Fine. You have some, I have some, and there's still a surplus. BLTs on the lunch menu today.

Stay Tuned

Weekly blog update coming later today.