Is that normal?

Holy cow! Several serious issues have came up over the last couple of days....I'm afraid I went about this whole quilting business in the wrong order. First, as you may recall, I got SO excited about buying fabric and getting started that I jumped in head first! But first, some good news, I have all of my fabric squares cut up and on my den floor; just waiting to be sewn together!:

Now, for the drama that has ensued! Get ready for it....I took the sewing machine out of the box that it came in and have realized that I have NO clue what to do with it. Minor detail, right? Some of you are probably saying, how does she NOT know how to use a sewing machine? Well, I took Home Ec in 7th grade with Mrs. Hillard. She was a great gal, however, I did not "retain" much of her wisdom that she passed along. My two memories:

1) When a classmate offered to lick the spoon when she was demonstrating how to make chocolate chip cookies, she said, "There shouldn't be any licking of the spoon, you should use a rubber spatula to get all of the remaining dough to make one final cookie." Whatever lady!

2) I remember making a lopsided football that I made and had a hard time keeping the stuffing inside. :(

Okay, so clearly I do not have a good "foundation" going into this project. So, I thought, huh, I'll just call my good friend Gena who recently made a quilt (which is beautiful!) and I thought she could talk me through how to use this newly-found beast that is on my dining room table and I would have it up and running in 15-20 minutes. I took pics and emailed them to her. I described it to her today and told her there was a light attached to it and a foot pedal! "Is that normal?" Standard sewing machine protocol??! Ahh! However, after receiving the picture of my Pfaff 130 (which isn't even on the current Pfaff webpage) from the 1950s she declared it was too foreign for her to give advice over the phone from KC! :(

So, here it is in all it's glory....

I have however found a couple quilting classes available near to me at "Hen Feathers Quilts"...think I might need to look into those.....

http://www.henfeathersquilts.com/index.html

Will keep ya' posted!

A better way....

So this morning I had a wild hair and drove a different way to work. Partly because of construction that is messing up my normal route, but I just needed to share how SHOCKED I am at how much faster it is to take 21st St. to Hillside (main streets in town for you non-Wichitans) than Webb to 13th to the secret back road I discovered...

Normally my little drive is 15 minutes and today I shaved it down to nearly 10! I don't know why this was so thrilling, but man, it really started my week off on the right now and just had to share!! :) I can't believe I have worked at the hospital for 9 months and have just now discovered this....very excited for all the extra minutes that I will have in my mornings!

Home is where the Family is....

I just returned from a nice 3-day weekend at my parents' house. My sis flew in Thursday night from Dallas. We got to see the progress made on my parents' new house, which should be done in the next month, went to the K-State/OU game and celebrated my dad's birthday today! It went by way too quickly but we had a really good time together....until next time; check out some pictures... The new house...almost done!

Meg being a squirrel and using the grill to keep warm...

Bob with the free brats a girl dropped by who was passing out samples...he was pretty excited!!

Sisters! Me and Meg....

Kylie and Brady...go Cats!

Hanging out with Mom and Meg...

Mom and Dad after the game.....even though we didn't win, it was really nice outside!

Happy Birthday Dad! Cheers to many more!!

A whole new world....

What have I done? My palms have been sweaty, heaving breathing, thoughts of panic and worry.....and I'm so excited about it!! As mentioned in a previous post I am embarking on a new challenge as of Saturday. For quite a while (like several years) I have talked about learning how to quilt/sew and that's what it has been....talk....until Saturday, when I bought FABRIC! Again, what have I done!?!?

The previously mentioned Kylie (a veteran quiter compared to me) and I went to "The Button Hole" in McPherson and were greeted with TONS of beautiful fabric and so many patterns (which I now kind of know how to use). I had a lot of fun looking at all the different options and talking with the women at the store who kindly explained to me more about quilting/fabric than I ever thought I would know....still, so much to learn!

I took my grandma's sewing machine from my parents' house last time I was home (my mom doesn't exactly use it daily) and it now proudly sits in the corner of my apartment....just waiting to be used to make this beautiful quilt. Now, if I can just figure out how to use it....I will keep everyone posted. With the help of a rotary cutter, straightedge ruler and cutter mat I have cut all of my "Fat Quarters" into the assigned measurements. Here are some pics of what I have done so far....now for the hard part of putting it together!!

The beginning...

So pretty...

All cut up!

My 5" squares...yea!!

How some of the squares will be sewn together...

Such a good day!!!

So I walk into my apartment after work and the gym....and it smells like lemon, and things are gleaming and shining. They do not normally gleam and shine and smell like lemon, however since I signed a 6-month lease with my apartment complex, they had a cleaning company come in for TWO HOURS! It looks so awesome!! Not that I don't clean normally, but they took it to a whole new level! My carpet was also professionally cleaned and looks so nice... The magical cleaning ladies cleaned the shower, toilet, bathroom and kitchen floors, the sink in my bedroom, kitchen sink, the stovetop and the tile by the front door!!!! It looks like a new apartment. Kind of like they came and "shouted out" my whole place...."Get out of here dirt!" ....and out it went! They also folded the blanket on my couch, took the trash out and made the magazines on my coffee table look so pretty...fabulous! I will probably never move out!!

In other news, one of my favorite TV shows was on tonight and I wanted to share in case you haven't already discovered it. "Jon and Kate Plus 8" is on Monday nights at 8 CST....and it makes me want to have 8 little Asian babies...they are SO cute!! I would even have twins and sextuplets I think....well, maybe not, but they are REALLY sweet! Check them out!

http://tlc.discovery.com/tv/jon-and-kate/jon-and-kate.html

To top it off, gas is down to $2.29 per gallon. Hooray!!

Hope everyone else had a great Monday too!

"Souper" Sunday...

It has definitely been a busy weekend with quite the variety of events...including working yesterday morning and most of today. However, the rest of my time has been great. Friday night consisted of dinner with my friends Linds, a couple Oprah episodes and the long awaited return of my contacts! I wore them out to dinner at Chipotle and felt very fancy. :) More importantly, I got to wear them to play basketball today and it was so nice to not feel like my glasses were going to get caught on the rim when I dunk...

So, after I got off work yesterday, my friend Kylie and I took a trip to McPherson (about 45 minutes away) and it was a lot of fun! I will have to post more about the purpose of the trip another time, but I will give you a hint- Fat Quarter! If you know what this means, then you know more than I did two days ago!! I look forward to sharing about this new adventure in my life...

Last night I watched the KSU game with friends and had a good time with them....even though the game was HORRIBLE! Losing by one point is worse than losing by 50 cause we were SO close! Ugh! On an upnote, I took a pumpkin fluff to dip apples and graham crackers in and it was pretty tasty.....found the recipe on my friend Camdin's blog:

http://forkintheroadcc.blogspot.com/2008/10/leaves-from-ohio.html

Of course, I also took a few pictures....I am bummed I didn't take any of Kylie's daughter Lilah. She is too cute...at not even a year and a half, she is already got it down to say "Touchdown" and put her little arms up.....too bad there weren't very many chances during the game yesterday to do that...but here are a few pictures I took of Elena who will be 3 weeks Monday!


Molly holding her little Longhorn...she was cute; even in all that awful orange!

Had to put this one up Linds! :) Definitely looks like you might be dropping her...not nice.

See, hold a baby like this.....see how happy she looks when I hold her! :)

Anyway, tonight I was putting some "Taco Soup" together for our soup lunch tomorrow at work. We are having a lunch for the physical therapists at the hospital as it is physical therapy month....Speech Therapy month is in May if you would like to plan ahead. The physical therapists gave each of us a small plant in May and I am fairly cerain I killed mine by June....sad. Nevertheless, several people, including me are bringing different soups and the others are bringing crackers, chips, cheese, fruit, etc. I love this time of year when it's starting to get cold and warm foods like soup sound good again! Taco soup is one of my favorites and I will share the recipe in case you want to try it (Denver!!)...In case you are a weight watcher follower or know how that works, it's only 2 points for a cup (so my mom claims, I think it's more like 3)....of course more if you add cheese/sour cream. Give it a try!

Taco Soup:

1 pound ground beef
3 cans chili beans
1 can stewed tomatoes
1 can corn
1 1/2 cup water
1 can 4 oz. green chilies
1 envelope taco seasoning
1 dry packet of Hidden Valley Ranch dressing

Brown ground beef. Mix all ingredients together. Enjoy!!

Oh....my....goodness......

In honor of Boss's Day today, I volunteered to make a cake with a recipe that I have been wanting to try that was on my friend Kylie's blog:

http://kommunicated.blogspot.com/2008/09/babies-and-chocolate.html

I have never seen a cake eaten so quickly. It is RICH! But so good. Think I got my chocolate fix for the day....or week....or month. :) My boss said that she thinks she gained weight just breathing it in....oh so worth it though! Give it a try sometime!

The top of the cake.....

Ahhhh........