Christmas

Well we are finally moderately settled in our house, enough to entertain a little. We had a house warming party late October. Thanksgiving for my side and my husband's side of the family was at our house. Now we had Christmas at our house, 12 people came over for breakfast and people coming and going all day.

Tonight I finally got my desk and computer set up. I put my CF card in the slot and my computer is now downloading all the photos from since we move into our house...all 783 photos!!

HOME!

We are finally home! We are settling in gradually. I don't know how I will ever get through all these boxes. It may take years. Most of the rooms are mostly unpacked.

We went to the Houston International Quilt festival last week! It was so much fun.
Tired now... going to sleep...

Progress as of Aug 27th

House Update

Progress has been made on the house. That is an understatement: Tons of progress has been made on the house. The countertops below are not granite, just a good imitation of it.

More "Oh" days

My Granddad died August 5th. My sister, 1 year old niece and I took a road trip to Georgia for his funeral. (I don't fly if I can help it.) It was a good trip. Last week I stayed busy with inservice.

Tomorrow is our first day back to school with kids. I am nervous as usual. Well...maybe nervous is not the right word...anxious might be better. I am not worried like I was my first year of teaching. I used to worry if they kids would eat me for lunch. My ESL kids are angels though...mostly. I worry now, in my 3rd year teaching (can't believe it has been that long), that I won't be an effective teacher. I want to equip my kids with the knowledge and skills they will need in the future. There are days that I feel as ineffective as a fish flopping around out of water. I hope this year I have more days where I feel like the kids understand something they didn't before. This year I pray for more "Oh, now I get it" days!

I'm reading a book called The Wednesday Letters. So far it is really good. It makes me want to write my own Wednesday letters, maybe I'll write one this week.

Library burning...

Mixed emotions emerge and all I want to do is suppress them all. My Granddad is dying; really he has been dying for a couple years now from Alzheimers. Part of me feels that Granddad died when he forgot who I was or even before that when he lost the personality and spunk he used to have. I didn't think I would react much when I got the expected call saying he has hours to live but I did. I didn't break down and fall to pieces but my heart hurt. I feel the mourning begin there, like tears without the water and salt.

Guilt because I have not recently visited the shell that once was my Granddad. Sadness for many reasons. Joy that he will very soon be with God and his wife. Joy that he will no longer be in pain. Joy that he has had a good and long life

I recently heard the saying, "Everytime an old person dies, a library burns." With Poppop I spoke to him many times about his childhood, how he met Nana, being in WWII and many more things. I was familiar with the "books" in his "Library". I never had that with Granddad. I didn't know him well, not for lack of trying but because I wasn't around him except a week every summer. I didn't even know where to begin asking him about his youth. Well now all those stories, those memories die with him. For that too I mourn.

(I think that is why I write and journal, it is my earthly immortality. I wonder what God thinks of that. Is that arrogance and pride or is it ok?)

We have the correct color brick now!



























We also have Sheet Rock!!








































I got a little label happy. I think you probably knew that this was the fireplace without me having to label it.






In the Kitchen:


















































The really exciting Laundry room!


























This is right next to the Library sitting area which was one of the first pictures I posted on this blog entry.

PWLA Writing 1

I am attending the Plano Writing Leadership Academy and having lots of fun! I am learning lots that I can do with my students in school.

Our assignment was to look at an excerpt from The Great Gatsby (they gave us the excerpt). Then we were to model our writing after that. Here is what I came up with:

This is my South West—not cacti or tumble weeds or barren endless sand, but memories of my life, biking in a suburban neighborhood down to Bob Woodruff Park, a green, open, luscious place, where dogs run and people chase Frisbees, people fish and where children feed the ducks and are chased by geese, where balloon festivals were held, where nature trails meander and my husband proposed and feelings of happiness, peace, amazement, beauty, nostalgia and contentment prevail. The southwest holds memories of walking to the neighborhood 7 11 to buy an excess of candy in 100’ blue skies, playing Barbie with a neighborhood of friends. It is camping with my family or with Girl Scouts, night hiking, riding horses on a wooded trail, singing camp songs happy and sorrow-filled and haunted, raccoons eating peanut butter at night in our cabin, sleep walking down wild trails, stepping on a snake…barefoot, teen-age pranks in the night, wild temperature dropping from 80’ to 30’ in 4 hours, almost earning our Polar Bear Badge in tents, sitting in warm afternoon air working on cross-stitching a yellow rose of Texas, learning to bead from a Choctaw woman in the woods. Whether golden leaves falling, branches bare and clanging, yellow-green leaves budding or summer leaves blowing in the wind, always friends around…That, is my Southwest.

Storybook Quilt

My quilt guild is trying to get the next generation of kids interested in quilts, so we started this project. It was not our idea, we heard about it from another guild. We gather picture books that have quilts in them. Then we make a small (36"-45") quilt that goes with the story. We write a letter to go with the quilt, saying what ever the maker of the quilt wants to say. Then we put it all in a Tupperware container together and donate it to Allen ISD Library system. They distribute them to the schools and rotate them around as needed. Teacher check out a box, read the story to their students and let the kids see, touch and hold the quilt. The teacher can read the letter to the students if they want.

I made a quilt for this program. The story I chose is called, In the Quilt of Night. I chose these colors from the illustrations in the book.

Walls and Roof!

It is amazing what can be done in 12 days! Here is our house now!! We have been over there at least every other day. The outside has not changed much in the last few days but they have been busy inside with plumbing, wiring, air ducts and more!



This is the view from our front window. I long for the day when I can sit in a chair at this window and read a book. Mom said she would give me Gammy's blue Victorian chair.




This is our breakfast nook and family room.










I am standing at the kitchen window now.








Here I am sitting on the "toilet" in the guest bathroom.











Jesse is sitting in the garden tub.

Poured Foundation

Our foundation is in this truck!





















We now have a foundation! I was actually able to get these photos of them pouring OUR foundation! How cool is that?

We have Rebar!!

Here is the floor plan for our house. We found out that it is flipped so that is really messing with my head. I flipped the picture and relabeled all the rooms.
















This is our driveway!


















This is our front sidewalk.
Really exciting, I know!









This is our house thus far! They should be pouring the foundation tomorrow!

Yes, I do plan to go out and see if I can get some pics of them actually pouring the foundation.

Plumbing

We got plumbing today!

This pic was taken about 8 pm.





Currently a big mud pile really. I'm glad the rain today didn't bring everything to screeching halt. This pic looks like a river made by the rain but this was actually freshly dug at about 7 am (before most of the heavy rain). This pic was taken about 8 am. Yes, I am being obsessive about watching the progress. It is a good thing we currently live only 3 miles from our new house!

Our House Ground Breaking

The ground has been broken! They framed out the form for the foundation! Now things are moving along!












This is the view from the future sidewalk, facing toward the house.

Here is the view from the backyard toward the house.









From where I am standing to Jesse is the width of our backyard!












Size of back yard...kinda... it is hard to see in the photo. The yard is not too big and not to small.









I am standing in our bedroom looking toward the family room.












Jesse is checking out the form for the chimney.

Why?

I don't understand how God works or why He does what He does. We wonder why things happen, things that seem horrible to us. I was just caught a TV show about Hawkings. What an amazing brain, one that can really wrap his mind around things like a black hole. Too bad it is trapped in a body that is nearly helpless. That was my first thought. Then the show went on to talk about how he had a bad spell and was in the hospital for 3 months with almost nothing to do but think. So think he did. He thought about black holes and he came up with a whole new theory, one that proved his old theory about black holes, that he defended for 30 years, wrong!
What would have happened if this man had had a perfectly working body? Surely he would have still become a genius but would he have still discovered what he has today, if he had had a normal busy life at home and at work with all the distractions of life? Maybe, maybe not.

Lesson learned: Slow down and reflect on things that are important to you, be that black holes or God. Perhaps that is why Jesse had cancer; very early in our marriage we were forced to put our priorities straight and realize how fragile and short life is. We learned how blessed we are with family and friends.

Now if I could just figure our why God made Chiggers!

Summer

Summer is strange for me. It messes with my internal clock, so that I turn into a night owl. I feel incredibly busy nowadays. I am used to going to work and staying in one place all day then going home. Now I wake up get ready at a leisurely pace, run here, there and yonder, go home to do laundry, clean the kitchen, mow the grass, take the dog to the vet, make as many apts as I can to get them out of the way before school starts. How on earth do I function when I have to work on top of all this?

Speaking of dog...I took Emma to the vet today. She has an ulcer on her cornea. Poor baby. I have drops for her eye and an antibiotic.

Tomorrow we go and make our decisions for counter tops, tile, brick color and more. What fun.

Blogs are supposed to be profound ponderings. I am not real good at thinking profound thoughts. I wish I was. Even more, I wish I was a published writer. I guess I will have to eventually submit some of my writing to a publisher in order to get that done?! I told my students that I would suubmit something before this summer was out. I guess I better get cracking then. Gathering up thick skin in preparation for rejection...

Tornado?

12 hours from now I will hopefully know if I am pregnant or not.

Last night during the storm I remembered again what the phrase "two made one" means. That was the theme for our wedding. Last night I huddled in a church nursery room with a lot of people. Apparently there were 75mph straight line winds close enough to us that some of us saw the power lines being ripped down. next a vortex was headed straight from us. I was not too worried, having grown up in Texas I am used to these life and death experiences. : ) That and we were in a house of God.

Then I heard that all this mess was headed to Wylie, where Jesse was. Now I was filled with fear. I could stand losing my own life but to lose my husband's life was a completely unbearable thought. I stayed on the phone through most of it, all the while begging Jesse to take cover in the bathroom and STAY there. "No, don't go look at the storm from the front porch," I kept saying. In the end our neighbors lost some large tree branches and that was the worst of it.

Four and a half years ago Jesse and I vowed to love each other forever. At the time I didn't think our love could be more than it was at the time but it is. Our love has survived bad weather, cancer, career changes, and time; now I hope that it will have to survive pregnancy and a baby.
I love you Jesse!

Humble Abode So Far...

Well here it is...our humble abode... so far. I think it is a little more humble than we want right now. I guess we will have to see if they can build something on it.
Today I walked through a house a few doors down with the same floor plan as ours. The cabinets are in and it looks fabulous! I am so excited!
We should be getting a call from Angie at the studio to pick out colors and such soon. Can't wait!

Today has been horribly normal feeling day other than barely detectable abdominal cramping. Very likely could be imagination. I have been taking it easy just in case though. I'm lifting nothing heavier than a laundry basket or a gallon of milk. Keep praying that we are indeed pregnant!

Waiting

Waiting, waiting. Friday seems it will never come. Some days I feel different, some days I feel horribly normal. I have never been good at patience. My grandmother says in my head, "Good things come to those who wait." She always has wise words to say in my head, her and my mother both. They are usually also the words I don't want to hear and yet they persist. All I can do is frown in displeasure at the thought.

So now I will wait and frown until Friday when I am allowed to take the home pregnancy test.

Thankfully though I have nieces and nephews here to keep me from frowning too much for now. Morgan and I will be quilting this afternoon. That always makes me smile...both Morgan and quilting.

Sold!

Finally we sold the house. We go to closing March 10th. I feel kinda happy and kinda sad.

We are still going to the gym multiple times per week. Jesse is better at it than I am.

I'm still alive even though I haven't posted lately.

I have been sewing up a storm the past few weeks. Sadly I have taken few pictures but here is one. This will eventually be a tote bag. The pattern is called "Flutterby Tote" by Quilted Frog. I just added a butterfly to the bag but I have not down loaded the photo yet. I will attach photos soon.

Too Pretty to Cut Quilt

The inspiration for this quilt came from a book called Just Can't Cut It by Pamela Mostek. The patterns are for those fabrics that are just to pretty to cut up into small pieces. The design in the book is much more elaborate so I simplified it.





I like simple, easy designs so I tweaked it. I started off by sketching it in my book for quilt designs. (My drawing actually has 2 outer borders on it but the final quilt does not because I never made it to the Quilt shop to find a taupe fabric)




Materials Needed:
A 15" Squared of "Too pretty to cut" fabric
3 accent colors
Fabric A--1/4 yd for the thin border
Fabric B--1/2 yd for the triangle off set material
Fabric C--1/3 yd for the outer border
(I'd get a little extra of each just in case you have to straighten the fabric store cut or if you are like me, not too precise or prone to mistakes)

Cut:
Fabric A: 2" strips (I cut 4 strips but actually only used 2 or 3 strips so now I can make a fancy label with the extra)
Fabric B: Cut 2 10" squares. Then cut in half diagonally so you end up with 4 triangles.
Fabric C: Cut 4" strips




First sew strips of fabric A to one side of the "too pretty to cut" fabric.
Press toward the dark color as shown below.

Trim off excess material.
Repeat this process around all 4 sides. So is looks like this:
Set that aside and get Fabric B and C out. Sew Fabric C to the short sides of fabric B. Then trip excess of the strip. Like so:
Now you should have a piece like this:

You may notice in my picture and when you make your triangle that the blue border overhangs or is larger than the square. Have no fear, you are doing it right. You will see in a minute why I planned it this way.
When you have all 4 triangles pieced, lay it out on you design wall if you have one or lay on floor or table. Now you can jump up and down with excitement because you can see it coming together now. : )

Now choose one of the triangles and fold it in half like the picture below. Put a straight pin where the fold it.

Now do the same with the square. Fold it in half as shown below and put a pin in the fold.




























Now open the square and lay the triangle on it matching up the 2 pins. Sew them together.

Press this seam (towards the darker color) and trim off the point.
Sew the next triangle on using the same folding in half method for each of the other 3 triangle pieces. Now you will see (below) why I wanted that extra overhang of the blue fabric. The point of the brown will not get cut off when you even up the sides and square the quilt. Nor will the point be covered up when you bind the edges.

Your finished quilt should look something like this: