Son of a ......

I thought I would do a little home repair project this weekend. Nothing to big, just recaulking the tub/shower. It definitely needs it. And since I'm getting the bathroom window (which is in the Shower!?!?) replaced in about a month, I thought it would make it look a lot nicer.

The bottom of the surround has been bowed out since I bought the house. Well the reason is because the plaster wall was disintegrating behind it. So when I pealed off the old caulk, a shower of plaster chunks literally rained down into the tub. I must admit that my dad and I kind of thought that's what was happening, but we didn't realize how bad it actually was.

I talked it over with my dad and I decided to try a "quick fix" to see if it would hold. After knocking out as much loose stuff as I could, I cleaned the edge up and put some liquid nails type caulking behind the surround. Boy was that messy! I couldn't get the tip of the caulk gun far enough up into the opening, so I ended up squirting a whole bunch of it into my hand and spreading it myself. Yuck!! Then I laid a 2x4 along it and wedged another one between it and the side of the tub. I left it that way until Sunday night. When I removed the 2x4's I expected it to just pop out, but surprisingly it held. I decided to wait until the next morning to caulk to see if it would hold through the night. It did, so early Monday morning, I was recaulking the tub.

To my sorrow though, when I got home last night it had not held. The surround had popped back out. My Dad's coming over this weekend to look at it, and I'm thinking we're going to have to take the whole thing out and replace the plaster with drywall. The kind specifically made for bathrooms. So in the mean time, I slathered more caulking along the hole hoping to at least close it up temporarily so I can take a shower until we get it fixed.

Guess the house got jealous that I spent so much money on fixing the car last year that it thought it was it's turn. :o)

I had wanted to "SOMEDAY" gut the whole bathroom and re-do it. However, that day is not today! Would be nice though.

I'm Tired!

I'm beat today. I could definitely crawl in bed for a hour or two nap. I completed my second workout of week 1 on the Couch to 5K program last night.

Before I started it though, I had a health assessment meeting with James at health club. They checked my blood pressure, weight, cholesterol, you know the normal things I would expect. Then he made me walk a mile to determine how long I would take. OK no big deal right. Well, took me 20 minutes to do 10 laps on their indoor track. But THEN, THEN he wanted to know how many push-ups I could do in 1 minute. HUH!?!? WHAT!?! I have never been good at push-ups. As a kid I once did 100 sit-ups because my brother bet me I couldn't do it. Could barely stand up straight the next day, but I did it. But push-ups, nope. I barely and I mean barely did 11 of them. Really not sure if that 11th one should have counted but he did count it therefore I'm claiming it.

After the push-up torture, I ran my second C25K workout. It was a little easier this time because Susan told me about an App for my phone that is geared specifically for the workout. So I loaded a bunch of music on my phone to use it as a MP3 Player and then ran the app. It dings me every time I need to switch from run to walk. Was a lot easier than watching the timer on the treadmill.

Tomorrow, I'm planning on running around the neighborhood or something. Kelly was telling Susan that we shouldn't just run on the treadmill. But I guess it will depend on the weather. If it's not raining I want to go early in the morning before it gets hot. It's supposed to be cooler on Sunday, so I may do it then instead.

Couch to 5K

This weekend while I was at Faith's Baby Shower, several interesting topics came up.

The first made me chuckle but also start thinking about my own life. Amy was talking about "30 things she wanted to do before she turned 30." Now here's the part that made me chuckle. She said she just had things she wanted to do before she got old. Those were not her exact words, but that was the gist of them. When she said that I looked at Faith and kind of rolled my eyes. Faith chuckled too and told me "she doesn't mean you are old." I know she didn't mean anything. She was referring to herself and the things she wanted to accomplish in her own life.

But it made me start thinking about my own life. Several of our mutual friends have been doing a similar list "101 things to do in 1001 days." For me, that was way more than I wanted to commit to even though there are no 'size' requirements on the 101 list of items. It could be as small as making your bed every day for a month or knitting 1 project out of every book you own, or reading Pride and Prejudice. Or as large as running a Marathon. But the whole reference to "things I want to do before....." caught my attention. I've been thinking for awhile about certain things that I want to do or experience with my life.

Another conversation that caught my eye was Susan telling us about this program that she just started. It's called Couch to 5K. The idea is to transform yourself from couch potato to runner. After 2 months you should be ready to run a 5K (3 miles). You start of the first week alternating running for 60 seconds with walking for 90 seconds. You do this for 20 minutes 3 times. The second week you run a little longer, and so on until you are up to your 8th week and running 3 miles. Now depending on your degree of potatoness, you may choose to repeat a week or two. After thinking about it, I decided I wanted to do it too.

I've looked up 5K's in our area, hoping for something around the end of September, beginning to middle of October. At first, all I could find were 2 on September 18th and the next one wasn't until Oct 31. But I have since found one in Elkhart on October 9th. Gonna email the girls and see what they think of this one. I say girls, because Kelly said she would run also. Not run with us, since she could leave us in the dirt, but be there to cheer us on. Which I think would be great. Kelly has been very encouraging. She just started running a year ago and has already run several triathlons and a 1/2 marathon. So you see what I mean by leaving us in the dirt.

Anyway, to make a long story short. I finished by first workout last night. Now that I am an Memorial employee, I get a major discount towards a membership at Memorials Health and Lifestyles Center. They have an excellent gym and pool. I was a little stiff this morning, but not nearly as bad as I thought. I did realize that as I was writing up the description I did unintentionally cut my exercise program short. I did the 5 minute warmup walk, then began my running. I was supposed to run for 20 minutes, but I only did 15 because I was looking at the treadmill clock and saw the 20 minutes and thought yeah I did it! Susan told me about an App for my phone that I could use or I found some Podcasts that play music plus tell you when to run/walk. Have to get those set up on my phone.

I called my parents last night to tell them what I was doing. I should have known what my Dad's reaction would be. His immediate reply was "YOU CAN'T DO THAT." Nothing gets my back up more than him telling me I can't do something. For those of you who don't know it, I was in a car accident 22 yrs ago that messed up my left ankle pretty badly. It has no radial movement and limited up/down movement. However I have noticed that when I exercise my ankle, it actually loosens up and works better. I told him that I know my limitations. If my ankle starts to be a problem, then I will walk the whole damn 5K if I have to. While the running I did last night did make my ankle ache a bit, I wore my ankle brace to bed and it was fine this morning.

Faith's Baby Blanket

Here is the world's tiniest photo of the Baby Blanket that we presented to Faith this last weekend. This was a joint effort by several knitters. We each got to choose the stitch/pattern of our choice and knitted a strip 144 sts wide by aprox 4 inches tall. We all used Knit Picks Shine Worsted weight yarn. Which if you have never used it is very very softy and comfy. A crocheted border will get added to it next. But at least it was far enough along to gift it.

Mostly we passed the strips around, so there wouldn't be a lot of seaming, but for the out-of-towners that just wasn't going to be an option. So I volunteered to Kitchener (a.k.a graft/seam for those non-knitters who may be reading this) any strips that may need it. Turns out I only had to do 3 seams. However, Kitchenering 12 sts across the toe of a sock is way less time consuming than doing 144 sts. After the first seam took me 4+ hours, I was a little worried about what I had gotten myself into. But the first seam was my "learning" experience. I wasn't sure how much extra yarn I would need to sew the seam. I ended up with WAY too much. After taking a stitch, I had to pull the yarn FIVE times the length of my arm in order to tighten up the stitch. Well I didn't want to end up with 3 inches to go and no yarn left. Was so not a problem! Then I found out the the rule of thumb is that the yarn should be 3 times as long as the length of your project. After that the next 2 seams just flew by. They still took about 1.5-2 hours, but hey it was worth it.

I actually finished the last seam on Sunday morning 2 hours before I had to pick Faith up for the party. Just in the nick of time!

We all met a Rachel's house for lunch. And boy was it yummy. We had Taco salad fixings, Gazpacho, GF crackers, hummus, chips, cheese, Blueberry lemonade, veggie tray, deviled eggs, fruit salad, chocolate covered strawberrys, creme puffs w/ice cream, GF cupcakes. Everything was extremely yummy!

Sky Photos

You should have seen the sky this morning! It was so cool.

The weather report has been saying "a chance of thunder storms today." So I've been waiting to water the garden, thinking I won't have to. Mother Nature would do it for me. Then we end up not getting any rain. Poor garden. Well this morning, I decided to go ahead and water it, thinking that if we ever did get rain, it would be later in the day/evening anyway.

Well, when I went out to turn the water off, this is the view of the sky that I was privy to.

Awesome isn't it?













FYI on the storm, I just barely made it into my car and out of the driveway before it started to rain.

A Bargain is Struck

As you may know (or maybe not) I am not just a knitter. I was a Quilter first. Or more specifically, I am a Topper. I like to make the quilt tops, but I'm not into hand quilting and haven't really gotten into machine quilting yet. So, since I can't always afford to pay to get my quilt tops quilted, I have a box of tops lounging in my sewing room. I finish a top and in the box it goes. I need to add, that I do get tired of people judging me for not finishing my tops. If they want to pay for me to get them quilted, I'm more than happy to take their money, but if not they need to just shut up about it. They will get done when they get done. I know another 'Topper' who says that her tops take up less space in her tiny house. Some one else once said that they were making future yard sale finds, which I thought was hysterical. I will now climb off my soap box and continue with my original story line.

Last month, I finished my Temple Guardians quilt top and I really would like to get it quilted, so that I can hang it in a couple of quilt shows this year. I mean I spent almost 3 years appliqueing the blocks, I am ready for this thing to be done and on my bed! I spoke with one of my local Machine Quilters at a retreat in January. I mentioned wanting to get it quilted, but money being a bit tight, I wasn't sure when it would actually get quilted. She said that she liked the fabrics that I pick out for my quilts and that maybe I should mine my box of tops and we do a trade. At first, I wasn't too sure about this because I really liked the quilt tops that I've made, but the more I thought about, I kind of liked the idea. They are just lounging there anyway right.

I called her yesterday to set up a date to bring the quilt in to get it quilted. Turns out she only had yesterday available. She will be leaving this weekend for another quilt show or training class. She teaches machine quilting classes around the country. She's even taught in England. I digress. Anyway, I raced home last night to get ready. Luckily I had batting and backing for another quilt set aside that I could use. (Color me boring, but I just like to use plain white on the backs of my quilts.)

While I was rushing around, I came across my Mexican Tiles quilt top that I finished last year. I had originally made it with my friends daughter in mind, but since she already had a quilt, I decided to keep it and use it for my 'retreat' quilt. I don't have any twin beds at home, hence I don't usually make that size. It's bright, cheerful and it makes me smile when I look at it. I had more backing, but not another batting. I thought "what the hell" let's throw that one in too and see how much it is to quilt that one.

So, I pulled out my box of tops and started riffling through it. Let me tell you, it wasn't looking too promising. Each one I pulled out, I would say, "oh no, can't part with that one." Finally, I found some that I wasn't too attached to. While they were pretty, I really couldn't seem myself getting them quilted anytime soon. I guess I should be totally honest and admit there was one that I really didn't like. Sorry no picture as it was finished prior to my blog. Don't get me wrong, it's a pretty quilt, but it did not turn out how I pictured it. I used a pattern called Strait of Georgia from the book More Fat Quarter Quilts by M'liss Rae Hawley. I loved the one in the book and modeled mine after it. I picked a smashing purple oriental print for the border and then all the blocks were made from the 'supporting' colors. I used different creams/light tans for the background fabric. I think that was my mistake. It turned out too 'brown.' Brown and BLAH!! As you may have guessed from viewing other quilt tops on my blog, I like bright vibrant colors.

Since I wanted to take a variety of tops to my friend, I added that one to the pile. I ended up trading that one, a small wall hanging made from a Moda Charm pack (in really bright colors!), a pastel Yellow Brick Road baby Quilt, and a Island Star Baby Quilt to her. And the best part, I get BOTH of my quilts quilted. You know, I'm happy with the trade that I made.

I just can't wait to get them back!!! Do you think it's too soon to ask her if she's done yet?? :o)

Playing Catch-Up

It seems I'm always playing catch up lately. Something will happen for which I will think, "This would make a great blog entry." But do I follow through on it, NO. So here I am again giving you a really long entry to read in order to catch up what has been happening lately.

Quilt Retreat - I went to quilt retreat about a month ago. I had a really good time. I got done everything that I had planned, plus a few extra things.

1) I finished the borders on my Temple Guardians quilt. It turned out wonderfully. I can't wait to get it quilted. I'm hoping to get that done soon. I have to call Deloa and set up a appointment to bring it in. I would like to get it done in time for our Quilt Guild quilt show in August, but that depends on her schedule; so we will see. I have another quilt show in September that I can shoot for just in case. If not, there's always next year.

2) For my Oceans quilt, where I mentioned here, I got my rows put together. I'm not sure if I mentioned in previous entries, but I would like to quilt this using the "quilt as you go" technique. I will quilt each row individually, then sew the rows together, add an outside white border and quilt that. I'm hoping it goes alright. If not, I might end up with 5 table runners instead of a full sized quilt. Who knows, but my friend Helen has done several quilts using this method and they seem to work for her, so I thought why not give it a try. I'll keep you posted on how it's going.

3) Last year, during my spring quilt retreat, several of us made a trip to Lolly's Fabric Store in Shipshewanna. I fell in love with an oriental jelly roll in teals, brown, greens, and creams. I loved it so much that I had to buy the jelly roll, coordinating fabric for borders and the book that the quilt store's sample was made from. I started that project. Sorry, no pictures as all I was doing was sewing all my strips together. However, yesterday, I got all my blocks cut out of the strips. I just have to press them and then they are ready to lay out.

Vacation - The day after I got back from retreat, I re-packed and headed to Kentucky with my Mom, my Cousin Tracy and her daughter Erica. We went down to visit Aunt Corinne and Aunt Hattie (Marie). We were supposed to leave on Tuesday morning, but after getting 3 calls from Aunt Corinne asking when we were leaving, Tracy decided there was no reason we shouldn't leave on Monday night. That was fine by me, I was packed and ready to go. It was a LONG drive. It took us 8.5 hours to drive it. We would have made more stops to relax, but it was dark and rest areas are down right spooky in the dark. Tracy was very proud of the fact that she drove 'through' Chicago. She did very well other than the death grip she had on the steering wheel. We arrived around 2 am and boy was I tired. Tracy did most of the driving, but I was still recovering from lack of sleep from retreat. I never sleep well on their small twin beds.

Our plans were pretty loose for our visit. Other than visiting the AQS Quilt Show in Paducah, we just planned to hang out. The first day, we made a trip into Murray to do some shopping. We went to an antique/re-sell shop called Trends and Treasures, I think. It was very nice. I got a new book (Vanished by Karen Robards), a set of measuring spoons and 2 silicon spatulas. Then we went to a consignment store. I hit the mother lode here. I found a pair of dark lime green Capri's, and 3 shirts. It turned out that I had a shirt in my suitcase, that went with the Capri's so well you would have thought I bought them together.

On Wednesday, we went to the quilt show. Well, Mom, the aunts and I went. Tracy and Erica stayed back to visit with Uncle Johnny. Tracy's not really into quilting. My Aunts and Mom all sew, but they don't "Quilt" like I do. I love to quilt, they not so much. I appear to be the only one who inherited a love/passion for quilting from Grandma Bonnie (their Mother).

The AQS quilt show was held in the Expo center, but they also had this huge inflatable dome next door with a lot of vendors in it. Because of where we parked, we entered the dome area first. It was funny, because Mom, and the Aunts thought that WAS the quilt show. Once they were done visiting all of the booths, they were ready to leave. I had to laugh at their expressions when I explained that while yes, there were quilts hanging up to be admired, this area was vendor booths only, not the quilt show. They ended up leaving me there to go get something to eat while I visited the rest of the show and vendors. I wasn't that hungry and besides, I hadn't come ALL the way to Paducah just to visit the vendors. I wanted to see the quilts too. I did take pictures, but it seems they frown on people displaying them on their blogs/on-line. I guess copy right infringement and all that. Anyway, you can go the AQS Website to see the winners.

I didn't buy a lot, but I really like what I bought. I got some teal/brown fabric to go with my project from retreat, a Bali-pop with 2 yards of coordinating green batik, a 3 yard piece of blue/tan batik, and 3 coordinating fat quarters (mauve, orange and green). I also got 2 lumbar supports; 1 for me and 1 for Mom. If she doesn't like it I plan on using it in my sewing room.

I realized after I came home, that I didn't get any pictures of all of us together. Actually the only pictures I took were of the flowers, Aunt Hattie's Pond and the quilt show.

So here are some beautiful Azalea's blooming at Aunt Corinne's.

And this is the Tulip tree that is blooming in Aunt Hattie's back yard. Someday when my Tulip tree grows up, it will bloom just like this one.

The Dogwood Festival was happening in Paducah also, but this picture is the only part of it that I saw.

We came home on Friday and the car was SO packed, that we decided to take our time and to make extra stops so we stretch our legs. It took us 11.5 hours back, because of this and detours for construction. Just so you know the reason that the car was so packed was not because I bought up a lot of stuff at the quilt show, it was because the Aunts decided to clean out their closets and give it to us. Most of it went to Erica, but the rest of us did not come home with some stuff too. Tracy had to do 15 loads of laundry when she got home to get all of Erica's stuff washed. OMG 15 loads of laundry!!!

Fiber Frolic - This last weekend a bunch of my knitting friends got together at Vicki's house for a fun-filled day of fiber, food and friendship. We got to ooh and aah over Vicki's new 3 Season room. I loved it and would so like to have one off the back of my house. The breeze coming in the windows was just awesome. I'd spend most of my time out there if I had one. To eat, we had Sloppy Toms (made with turkey, hence the name), Spinach salad, taco dip, veggies, hummus, deviled eggs, orange cupcakes, blueberry muffins, cookies. Everything was so good. Oh and Elizabeth brought some awesome strawberries. They were so good I had to drag Deb to Sam's Club on the way home because I don't have a membership card and pick up some of my own.

Of course it was until almost everyone had left that I realized that although I brought my camera, I forgot to take photos. No one else did either though so there! But I did take a picture of the progress I made on the sleeves for my Hoodie. I'm trying to do the 2 sleeves at one time thing. I wasn't sure if I would like it or not, since I didn't like doing the 2 socks at one time on circular needles. But so far it's going pretty well. I can't wait to get them done. I still have 12 rows to do on the body of the sweater, but I had put that aside since it was so boring. I measured it as is, and it measures 22". My row guage must be off a little, because it's only supposed to be 22 1/4" after the 12 rows that I have left to do. I just finished a pattern repeat though, so I'm thinking I will stop there and add the sleeves on when I get them done.

I know I'm forgetting things, but what the hey, someday I made need to play catch-up again.

See ya!