I am trying

DH had his birthday earlier this week and I bought him a Weber grill.  November last year 3 of us (needless to say all quilters) sent our hubbies off to a Weber cooking class.  Now Karin's husband loves cooking so one can understand why he went but what Marie and I thought when we sent ours, heaven only knows expecially since none of them at that stage even had a Weber.

I guess we hoped with Karin's husband as inspiration we'd have a little more help in the cooking department and with my purchase I hoped to rekindle the interest.  I know it is still early days but I think it is paying off.  Friday evening we got beer roasted chicken and this afternoon we had the tenderest fillet stuffed with oysters, blue cheese, sour cream, sherry and a myriad of spices.  Lip smacking good!!

Meanwhile I really try to quilt a little every day but our cats are drawn to a quilt like magnets or should I say only when I want to work on it.  The quilt will sit on the table for days on end without a cat nearby but watch me move my behind on the chair to start and I have and audience!

This is Socks (ginger) and Sasky making themselves at home just as I got going and there is just no way I can move a quilt around underneath the dead weight of these two.

I so hoped to get a good session quilting in this evening but it is just not going to happen.

The only cat in the house that knows her place is Katseturi on the couch.

I’ve become a Fly Baby

Earlier this week, Tuesday to be exact, a quilter sent me a link to a site, this led to another link, which ended up at another and so forth – easily spent 3 full hours link to link being brought to an abrupt stop at FLYLADY.

 Why I stopped there?  I've been “busy” doing what so many of us do without even thinking about it…… procrastinating!!  So there was this system to get organized, do what you should instead of thinking about it or adding your thoughts to yet another list and I really needed it.

I’ve always loved cleanliness and being organized.  I know some of my friends would pop in words such as ‘clean freak or obsessed’ but 3 little things made my life so much easier.  These are planning, being organized and believing one should have a place for everything and everything should be in its place.

Now as much as I value these I occasionally do get distracted making it all the harder to get going again.  So yes, maybe it was an upper guiding hand that led me to the FLYLADY site for then everything changed and all for the better.

I already had a morning routine, what I lacked however was the ‘get dressed first’ part leading me to easily do all my household chores and starting to plan dinner in my PJ’s.  The problem being that if I needed an ingredient for any dinner I would not be dressed to quickly drive and buy it, which meant, change of plans and these could change a couple of times until I found something to make of which I had all the ingredients.  Valuable time wasted.

 So I signed up to receive the e-mails (testimonials, positive urges to get going, quick-fix to do’s) and I am amazed at what all I got done in this week only.  I have a main bedroom cleaned from top to bottom, including washed curtains and winter blankets, a tidy dressing table and nightstand, a cupboard without any clothes that I don’t like/wear, shoes sorted, carpet washed, shower glass scrubbed, you name it, I did it.

Then, apart from that, I have an organized towel cupboard, tidy car, tidy handbag, clean refrigerator, my laundry is up to date and my sink is shiny!  All of this with the attitude of “just do it for 15 minutes”.  You wouldn’t believe how many of these tasks were done way before my 15 minute alarm (cellular phone) went off.

My dear blonde didn’t think this was funny as “she’d hate someone telling her to clean” (I think she wanted me to read between the lines which I prefer not to do) but then I just thought if you want to do something, you’ll find a reason, if you don’t want to do it, you’ll find an excuse and I not only wanted a clean house I need it.  So instead of seeing FLYLADY as someone who tells me what to do, I see this as my personal assistant reminding me of my appointments.

So yes, I’ve been practicing this on my quilting as well.  I am busy quilting a Queen size but the heat is not helping much so I often tell myself to go quilt just for 15 minutes and I easily get 2 blocks quilted at a time.  Hopefully by next week I’ll have a completed quilt to show.

Dog problems

Phew! What a week.  Okay the ‘hard’ family left, thank goodness but the action kept coming.  Milla, our fattest dog – we bought her as a miniature Doberman but with her appetite only the Doberman part is left – got agitated.  I couldn’t put my finger on the problem but the dog was restless beyond control and when she finally rubbed her behind against the carpet I thought:  “Aha worms!”  No biggie, I can solve this, got the tablets, gave it to the dog but nope, no change whatsoever.

So time to turn her over just to find the poor thing has a horribly swollen vagina, so bad sores were forming around it.  Off to the vet we went.  Well, well , never too old to learn.  Pure fat – Milla has an unstoppable appetite and hiding food from her is simply fooling yourself, she’ll find something somewhere.  So her belly fat was enclosing her vagina and with her age the vet suspects she might be leaking urine and this gets trapped between the fat eventually burning the skin.

Now you should have seen this vet in action.  With the dog still on her back he proceeded to show me how the skin could be cut in a T section, the fat be sucked out and then the skin flap be tightened before stitching her up and he so eagerly demonstrated how the little vagina would then ‘pop’ (I swear I could hear the sound) out again.  Serious??!!  This dog is a half breed, almost 12 years old, annoying as hell and then he honestly thinks I’m going to pay for plastic surgery on a DOG!!

So seemingly impressed I ask what the alternative would be and yip, much more in my price range.  Keep her dry as much as possible with ordinary baby powder.

So sorry Milla if you want to eat until your vagina starts hiding from you, go ahead my dear dog, plastic surgery is out of the question! 

Yes, I'm still quilting, just don't have a finished project to show at the moment.

Friday the 13th – All night quilting

On Friday a couple of us decided to quilt through the night to see if we can’t make progress on our UFO’s.  We’ve been so busy with our festival projects that our own quilting has been neglected.  I don’t think any of us even realized that it was the 13^th and nothing bad happened.

This time however we did it somewhat different in that we invited the men along to spend the first part of the evening with us.  They had to barbeque and after dinner they left us to do our thing.

Rina’s grandson got hold of the camera and then we all just had to pack out teeth.  The sweetest little boy ever and so over his grandpa it is just not true.

After the men left we moved in behind our machines and got some quilting done.  I was absolute stunned to see the ease with which Rina did Free motion quilting as no less than 3 weeks ago she told me that she couldn’t do it.

Unfortunately I did not finish the UFO I worked on.

2012: Week 2 in review

DH and the blonde returned to work this week and for a moment there I felt sorry for them until I started doing what a good housewife should and realized I work every bit as hard as anybody else with the only difference in not having clients/patients interrupting my progress. 

Even though I didn’t quite finish much this week, I did a lot of preparation for things to be finished.  With preparation I mean measure, cut, iron and whatever else except the actual stitching part.

I got my festival goodie bag project for May ready, I planned a Kaleidoscope quilt workshop, cutting, taking pictures and writing notes as I went on.

Then I printed a couple of foundation piecing patterns as we planned an ‘all-night-quilting’ session of Friday, the 13^th and I wanted to work on that then.  Got family (the hard kind, ugh!!) over of Friday to visit for a WEEK!! Went to group meeting on Saturday where we worked on other festival projects until I had a blister on my thumb from cutting plastic.

All the while having to cook, entertain, clean and try to get the odd stitching done.  Busy, busy, busy.

Do you have pajama days too?

Years ago I phoned a neighbor one morning and when she answered the first thing she said was:  “You can ask me anything as long as you don’t tell me you want to come over”.  I thought “how rude” but asked “why?”  She then explained that she didn’t plan on getting dressed that day.  It was winter and I still pictured her butt naked in the freezing weather and didn’t quite understand when she explained that she occasionally was so eager to get going with what she wanted to do for the day that taking time to get dressed seemed to simply be a time stealer.  So stay in your pajamas and save 30 to 45 minutes.

I found this a great idea but had less success than she had for every time I stayed in my PJ’s someone would come over whereas those days that I’m dressed for success I would often times not see a single soul.  The nice part came in when I would try to apologize for me being in my PJ’s at 3pm and then simply get a wry smile from the other person with a “I have those too”.

So with it being the last day before DH starts to work again tomorrow therefore still having somewhat of a slack routine at home, I chose this day as one of my Pajama Days.

Got this silky black and red number from my blonde for Christmas and as for the pinning board behind me with the blocks being so ugly pinned.  I gave up on this.  Dear little Ash thinks it is the funniest thing to climb up the pinning board and pull out my pins with his teeth.  Not that butter could melt in this mouth as he slept by me today.

DH surely broke all his rules when he stayed in his PJ’s too but wandering soul that he is, soon called me to see this….

One of our female tortoises laying a load of eggs and this is only one of several nests between the two females this summer.  While outside I took a photo of Tanya, a smaller rescue tortoise who only now learns to eat more than just her preferred lettuce.  Unfortunately all I had to compare her size was my dirty size 5 garden flip flops.

Then finally I snapped the previous (Feb 2011) little ones that can actually now be released in the wild.  They are healthy and strong enough.

With the breeding program photographed I got working on projects for our National Quilt Festival’s goodie bags and wrapped up another months’ worth; writing the month and amount I finished on the bag to drop by Karin whenever I go in her direction.

What a lovely surprise I got when after I did this I went to my PC to write down my progress and realized that I already made my quota for March and this lot would then actually bring me up to date until April 2012!!  Just love it!

Not my intended post for today

I wanted to post something else and may still somewhat later BUT I just read the blogs I follow regularly and saw this idea for 2012.  Now if I take time to write about it, it MIGHT just mean I have every intention to participate and I guess I'm hoping that a couple of my friends MIGHT just decide to join me and in doing so keep me motivated to finish it.  I'm thinking Karin, Wilna, Natasha, Sonja, Daléne, Breggie, Rina, Charlene, Kokkewiet, Marie, Chris (Sewing Junkie) ...... if your name is not here it is simply because I was too lazy to type more not because I don't think you should participate.

The reason why I popped this post in now, is that this project has already started, so we're all already behind.  We better get going but enough talking, check this out HERE

Simple Yet Elegant Block 13

OMW it  took me all of yesterday to finish just this one block and no, it was not as if  I did much else.  With it being so terribly hot in central South Africa doing handwork while sitting in an air conditioned room is about all I was up to.

In between  preparing food for friends coming over this evening I’ll be cutting these 13  blocks down to size and then I just have to wait for next month’s installment  to get going with the borders.

Simple Yet Elegant BOM – Block 12

My friend Celdri came and went way too fast.  We had so much catching up to do and we tried over Sushi and wine and even though we chatted until 02:30 in the morning I still occasionally find myself thinking about a topic we discussed but never finished.  It was hell hot and she took a swim to cool down.

DH and the blonde came back from holiday and life turned back to normal with 4 straight hours ironing for me.  So I didn’t have much time to think about getting into a routine, it was simply a matter of DO and get it over with.

DH is still home this week and the blonde’s registration at the University only needs to be done on the 16^th, so still plenty of interruptions during my days.

I too took a quick dip in the pool late this afternoon and then on the side of the pool with my feet still in the water I finished block 12 of the BOM, Simple Yet Elegant from The Quilt Pattern Magazine.

Happy New Year

We had a ball welcoming the New Year!