Replacement modem

I'm set off to install/configure my replacement (and upgraded) modem now capable for wireless that arrived today. I'm crossing my fingers that it doesn't go bad.

Disconnecting my current modem.....
{{praying.....}}

Talk to you soon {{I hope!!!!}}

2:31 update

Oh yea, oh yea, oh yea.....doin' the happy dance. THAT was easy...oh yea..oh yea....

NOW...to set up the OTHER laptop, so now DH and I BOTH can be online at the same time without fighting over the cord!

2:36 update
Ha! That was easy too! I simply opened it up (I use a MAC), and I get a window...."Would you like to join the wireless network Centurytel?"
I clicked "Join"....
....and here I am :0)
Now....I wonder about my iTouch......

;0)

Yeah, yeah...I'll get back downstairs soon enough. I have the backing loaded on the frame and am to the point where I need to cut the batting to size.

Oh....this day is SOOOOO much better than yesterday :0)

Using what's given to me... (with update)

Daycare needed to close today, so....
I'm using the "extra" time given to me!

Laundry already underway
Breakfast complete
On the agenda: Morning Run quilt back prepping in order to quilt it today.

But first....off to look for the Darn Best BBQ Pork Ribs recipe. {{a request from hubby.}} Trust me, my arm doesn't need to be twisted very much! One good thing about raising those lil' porkers for a few months every year.....lots of YUMMIES in the chest freezer.

10:45 update

As I was about to start prepping the ribs for the evening meal, THIS stopped me in my tracks! Counter space was non-existent! So.....to work I went, not overly willingly, BUT....as the duty drew closer and closer to an end, it wasn't bad AND....

...at least now I had a working kitchen again. {{Note: *I* didn't necessarily make this 'before' mess, but didn't help with cleanup along the way either. I love DH and the last thing I want to do is complain when he makes dinner. Afterall it's a win-win for me when he does! He grew up in a family where his parents owned a restaurant and his mother was head cook. The man knows how to cook!!!! BUT....he's also a MESSSSSSSSSY cook! ;0) }}



Anyway...now that I had working space, I loaded up the ribs with a dry rub and wrapped 'em up in foil. They'll stay in the fridge until about noon, at which time I'm still contemplating if I want to cook them lo-n-slow in the oven at 200 uncovered for 1-2 hours and THEN cook them lo-n-slow for another hour wrapped up in foil with some homemade BBQ sauce to get them to the 'wet' texture I like.....OR to just wrap 'em up with the sauce right away and store them in the fridge to marinate for a few hours before cooking 'em for a handful of hours at low heat to the point where they fall off the bone.

??????

Hmmmm.....guess I'll know when noon time comes around.


Regarding DH's cooking
Case-n-Point

For lunch, I am reheating some bite-size fried chicken pieces that DH made the other night from our butchered chickens, in addition to some homemade rolls. Yup....he's a yummy cook! :0)

But...mmmmmmmmmm......7:05 pm update.....these suuuure tasted yummy tonight! In addition to fried potatoes, stuffing and DH's remaining homemade buns from the other night.

I'm really trying not to be, but.....

I'm tired
I'm cold
The house is a disaster
The pile of dirty clothes has literally grown exponentially over night
The dishes are piled (almost growing exponentially as well)
The quilty deadlines are looming
and I simply have NO motivation to face ANYTHING right now


But bless my husband....
he just warmed up the ricebag and tucked it under my quilt by my feet.

I sure love him

and tomorrow will be another (BETTER) day :0)

What I'm up to...

SO Angela is Tiny Tuesday'ing away....
Amanda is enjoying some tea and trying to make the best of her weather...
Jill is working on a spectacular Radiating Star quilt for granny

Me?.....

I'm TRYING not to feel dumb....

I just taught myself a lesson on Confidence Intervals....


ie: If I take a sample (n=1077) of young women whose mean quantitative score (x-bar) is 275 on a national NAEP test and knowing the population standard deviation (sigma) = 60....

A 95% confidence interval has me using a critical value (z*) of 1.96 and sample mean standard deviation of 60/squ rt(1077)
Therefore, I can be 95% confident that the true population parameter (the population mean) is between:

275 +- 1.96(60/sqr rt (1077))
which equates to :
271.4166 to 278.5834

and that my margin of error is 1.96(60/squ rt (1077) = 3.5834


In layman's terms

If I were bored and went out asking 1077 young ladies how they scored on their NAEP tests, I can, with 95% confidence say that, the average score of the 1077 ladies will fall between 271.4166 and 278.5834. OR that the average will be 275 +- 3.5834 points.




{{{{I think}}}}

Finish #2 for December; another start and Stash Report 11/29-12/5

I was able to finish up Brown Paisley today {{{Okay, that name really doesn't fit---I guess it's going to stay as "Angie's Quilt"}}}; quilting and binding finished. I don't always wash up quilts that I give away, but this one I did because I wanted to soften it up. Mmmmm.......i really like the results!!! So soft; nice fabric :0) And I just realized that I didn't measure the final quilt; it was 70"x88" before washing.


The quilting isn't that easy to see form the front; and the back isn't much better. I decided to use a more "romantic" pantograph since this is going to a female. Feather Me is the pantograph; a bit more time consuming than some of the other pantographs I have; a bit more intricate but well worth the results.

I wasn't about to start loading another quilt on the frame; mainly because I need to prep and piece the backing for my next handful of quilts needing quilting. And besides, I needed to spend a bit of time on my Statistics prepping {{{bleh!!!}}}.

So when I headed back downstairs after dinner/baths/bedtime, I pulled out the fabrics and whipped out 10 more 10-minute blocks for Jen's Diamonds. I started cutting and piecing the planned sashing as well; eh......I think it'll grow on me. The fabrics look much better in person than on the picture. And that one "crazy brown" fabric; it looks very cool in person, but in the picture...WOW...it sure stands out!

And I just needed to share this picture of the area next to my sewing machine. To some; disaster area! To me; it reminds me of growing up when I mom ALWAYS made me clean my room "because it's a mess!"....but.....this truly is organized chaos! I have my Bonnie Hunter RRCB step 2 rectangles on the right ready for cutting; If you look closely, you'll see that I have a handful of step #2's already pieced and pressed (upper left). I'm cutting rectangle sets as I piece, and I have a small stack next to my machine that are ready for pressing (very left). So, yeah... they are my current leader-enders. In the center of the picture are my Fall Buckeye Beauty block swap units that I HAD been using as my L/E project until Bonnie's took presidence.

And now....the moment I was dreading, but.....I actually am okay with these numbers!

Stash Report: November 29 - December 5
Used/week: 15.222 yards
Purchased/week: 12.333 yards
(backing for Twilight and some sales I COULDN"T pass up at ConnectingThreads.com)

Used/year: 220.021 yards
Purchased/year: 221.736 yards

Net used: -1.715 yards

I DEFINITELY will finish the year off in the black. I made up some ground even though I had that purchase. And with the list of quilts I have yet to finish before the year-end, ..... yeah..... I'll finish in the black :0)

Happy Sunday!

NOT how I wanted to use my day!

The day started out perfectly fine....

up at 7:00;
coffee
muffins

shipping package; printing postage; asking DH to drop it off at the post office when he headed to town...

headed downstairs; pressed backing for Brown Paisley;
cut and pieced backing
loaded to machine
pieced batting pieces from stash of batting scraps
loaded top
started quilting....

COMMOTION upstairs followed by DH coming to me saying that he thinks Candace wrecked our DSL modem by spilling water on it

Me, heading upstairs to verify the worst

Unplugged everything to let things dry out, in hopes that the modem will work later

Hours later, trying the modem with NO LUCK

Back downstairs to continue quilting, breathing deeply....

Lightbulb to "CALL DARIN" to see if he has a solution (coworker who has gladly taken on the label 'geek' for our District)
Headed over to Darin's house to borrow his backup modem until I get myself hooked up with a new one

Started installation, ran into a snafu at the final stages (OF COURSE)
Called technical support to verify my ISP password
ON HOLD
ON HOLD
ON HOLD
HANG UP
REDIAL
ON HOLD
ON HOLD
ON HOLD
Representative finally picks up and walks me through all the steps I already knew, and was about to get to where I had the question....
DISCONNECTED
REDIAL
ON HOLD
ON HOLD
ON HOLD
ON HOLD
ON HOLD
HANG UP
REDIAL
ON HOLD
ON HOLD
ON HOLD
ON HOLD
GAVE UP FOR MY SANITY AT THIS POINT
Headed downstairs to quilt some more
Blood pressure too high; gave up on quilting
Back upstairs
REDIAL
ON HOLD
ON HOLD
ON HOLD
DH asking...."You still on hold?"
ON HOLD
Me saying...."&@%#@" to DH
ON HOLD
ON HOLD
ON HOLD
HANG UP
REDIAL
ON HOLD
ON HOLD
ON HOLD
Representative FINAAAALLLLLLLLY reached, and I told him all the stages that I've gone through 'til now; informing him that PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE don't disconnect because I've been on hold EASILY 5 TOTAL HOURS by this time!!!!!.....
He was KIND
He was NICE
He was HELPFUL
Got me almost working....
had to debug a final "issue"
was about to say how to fix it....

....
DISCONNECT!!!!

AGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

At LEAST he did get me to the final screen and I was able to figure out the rest on my own...

and finally



v'iola!

Back online!

And through ALLLLL of this.....DH has NOT been a loving and caring husband. Ya see, he's one of "those" people who just like to chip, chip, chip away and get riiiiiiiiiiggggggghhhhhht under your skin!!!!!!!!

Aghhhhhhh!!!!!!

So.....this is all still fresh, so I am going to back AWAY from the computer and take a deep breath. Criminey! It's almost 7:00 already!!! AND I ONLY have half of one quilt quilted!

Thanks for listening to my rant!
I know many of you will agree when I say...'it's too bad we "need" to have this internet access.' It would be quite different around here without Internet. It DOES get me thinking.....how would things be differently here if we didn't have Internet? What about you??????


Hopefully you're having a great day.

December quilt #1 done; Many to go...

Twilight was finished up this evening; the last stitches going in at 9:45 p.m.

This is for a customer and will be heading towards Virginia tomorrow, ahead of deadline :0)

The customer chose a black backing; I guess I could maybe see why--it hides dirt easier :0) However, since I have loose threads ALLLL over the place downstairs, I needed to take a lint roller to the back before I packaged it up for shipping ;0)

The quilting pattern is a pantograph: Chinese Crescents.

Twilight (71" x 71")

Off to a good start for December :0)

Tomorrow's goals:
Quilt Kayla's Morning Run
Quilt Angie's Brown Paisley

December goals...

Angela wrote one
Alycia wrote one
Jill wrote one

Who else writes them?

My turn....

November accomplishments:
Enjoyed State Volleyball with some of my girls
Organized and hosted Volleyball season-end banquet
Spent 10-15 hours each weekend dedicated towards AP-Statistics lessons
Got back down to the quilting room!! :0)
Chose fabrics for RRCB
Finished step #1 of RRCB; started step #2
Started Jen's Diamonds
Pieced Angie's quilt top
Pieced Kayla's Morning Run horse quilt
Bought some more fabric
Started In Flight

December goals:
Continue spending ~10 hr/weekend towards AP-Statistics lessons
Finish quilting Twilight for customer
Quilt Morning Run for Kayla
Quilt (and name) Angie's quilt
Finish Jen's Diamonds
Start/Finish Travis's Camo quilt
Quilt Green Beauty for Kathy
Stay caught up in RRCB
Finish In Flight top and quilting
Quilt Transitions
DO NOT buy any more fabric to finish the year's Stash Report in the black

I think that's enough.....