Thank you all! Finally, a full post.

You are all amazing! So amazing! Thank you all for your concern and caring words over the past few days. I am breathing lighter now; merely trying to do what I can when I can and the best I can. "Time heals all wounds," so I am patiently waiting out my time for this one.

In the meantime, I am trying to keep life on a positive track and keep my mind occupied.

I never got around to posting my progress from last week; I finished up about 40 (?) of my string blocks; not trimmed yet, but de-papered. I attempted to sew some more yesterday, but due to the fact that it was such a mindless task, my mind kept drifting back to the upsetting moments from earlier this week, so, I turned everything off and tried finding things to keep my mind occupied. Paul was just about to leave for some winter shopping for Caitlyn and Candace, so I quickly got dressed and bummed along with the family.

The rest of the day, I forced myself to "get into" a new book that has come highly recommended. The first chapter was SOOOO hard to get through; I kept drifting away from the words and then found myself re-reading the same paragraph over and over. But finally, I drew up a bath, relaxed with the jets on full-blast, and hunkered in. Chapter 1 did not appeal to me; many words were unrecognizable to me since they were Swedish-related terms. It was just hard to follow, characters were introduced and I struggled keeping names straight.

Even at the start of Chapter 2, it was discipline that kept me reading.
However, by the end of Chapter 2, the story was finally making progress and I was slowly getting hooked. I am now through Chapter 3 and am looking forward to some reading later tonight.


I could have read some today, however, sadly, much of my day today has consisted of this. Now that I've come to grips and peace with many of my school tasks, today's hours in front of the textbooks and Standards were quite tolerable.


Back to last week: it was filled with turning our house into a Christmas house. The tree was trimmed...


and the Nativity scene was set up, and other Christmas decorations were set up around the living room. We (I) am NOT an outside decorator (yet). Too much work.

Another event of this past week was Cassie's 11th birthday. She told Grandma "anything with wolves," so that is exactly what she received. Wolf calendar, wolf figurine, wolf puzzle, wolf tie-your-own fleece blanket. She was in heaven.

And from us, she was given a Kindle Touch; part Bday and part Cmas present. Prior to her opening it, I downloaded the Hunger Games trilogy as part of her present as well; she is well into Book #1 already, a week later.

I hope this slump is nearing an end. It's absolutely amazing how, within two weeks, I've gone from "life is awesome and couldn't be any better" to ..... THIS! I've read a lot of quotes on attitude lately, and I am mentally listening to my own attitude and trying to turn it all back around to the positive side of life. I don't like controversy. I don't like being grumpy and depressed. And I CERTAINLY don't like being considered "insubordinate" when I work so hard at my job.

3rd time is the charm - Living Life #3

‎"Like success, failure is many things to many people. With Positive Mental Attitude, failure is a learning experience, a rung on the ladder, a plateau at which to get your thoughts in order and prepare to try again."

- W. Clement Stone

Dear W. C. Stone.

Thank you. I needed to find your words today.

Sincerely,

Amy

Living Life #2

You're never given anything in this world you cannot handle. But if you keep looking in the rearview mirror, you're eventually going to get into a wreck.
-author unknown

A former student of mine posted this on FB today, and with the emotionally charged week I've had... the timing was perfect. I simply must keep these words in my mind and allow time to do its healing and resist continually dredging up the events of this past week.

I am hoping to find some therapy time in front of my sewing machine this weekend...my mind needs to stay occupied.

It has been a difficult week.

Living Life

"When playing music (instrumental), you should listen to everyone but yourself...and I find that is a good way to live life as well."

Hm: an interesting quote to think about as you go through your day.

Orca Bay - Step 1

Thank you Michael Buble'
Thank you Bonnie Hunter
Thank you Green Bay Packers

All of you helped me have a most, most wonderful day!

I was beboppin' with my iron right off this morning with Buble' blaring in the background. I'm sure I was quite the sight with my tush a wigglin' to "I just haven't met you yet..." and all those other jazzy tunes. I was hoping to have all the units sewn by noon when the Pack played so I could cut off the dogears in front of the TV, but.... it just wasn't meant to be. No biggy! I just tuned into the game on the radio and kept sewing (sadly, I needed to turn off the Buble' though!) Come to find out, the game wasn't aired on local channels anyway. So it worked out just fine.

Trimming all of those hourglass units left my garbage looking like the outcome of an evening of confetti. What a fun looking garbage can!

And remember how I mentioned that I was trimming off the ends of the strips with my EZAngle ruler before cutting with the Companion Ruler?

I ended up sewing 20 "bonus" pinwheels from those ends.


**heavenly sigh**
I've missed this.

A day ahead of quilting, quilting, quilting.

Digging through last year's snow suits, success! The girls are now set to enjoy the first snow of the year.

And **I'M** off to do some quilting......Michael Buble playing in the background. Yeah....today will be a good day :)

Orca Bay action

I spent a good hour auditioning fabrics for Bonnie's Orca Bay Mystery; tried some blues, tried some browns....in the end, I kept coming back to the greens, purples and oranges. I veered away from Bonnie's "sunset" theme and I'm playing around with a name, but that will come at a later date. I only have a few purples shown here, but there is another short stack that will add a bit more of a variety. Yeah....these are still speaking to me; I'm extremely excited to see how these colors will work out.

And as Bonnie wrote in her directions: cut, sew, cut, sew, cut, sew, (and some pressing inbetween)... my morning and early afternoon was eaten up. More than half of the pairs have been cut and sewn; no pressing yet. I had a nice pattern established; starch/press/stack two full strip sets of neutrals/purples... then cut with the EZ Angle* and Companion rulers, and then taken to the machine to be sewn up right away. So, every 10-15 minutes, another 20-22 pairs were added to organized piles.
* the EZ Angle was used to cut off the end pieces of the strips before using the Companion ruler. I figure why waste the small triangles from the ends?!?!!? I've sewn those little buggars up as well and have set them aside (in the upper left corner of the picture)

The first snow of the season is hitting today. And the weather was deteriorating fairly quickly, so we hit the road to get a few groceries and to pick up the Harry Potter movie. I'm looking forward to watching it again and for Cassie to see it, however a commercial was just shown that Tinker Bell is coming on shortly, and they all seemed pretty enthused about watching THAT...so..... we'll see.

A reflective morning

After school on Thursday (and 6 hours of Parent-Teacher conferences), I was all set to just kick back in front of my machine with my day off yesterday and sew, sew, sew on Bonnie's new mystery.

It's annoyingly amazing how life's events can alter a mood at the snap of a fingers. :/

I was in a slump yesterday; just some pent up negative energy that wouldn't go away. It didn't help that I couldn't convince myself to just head downstairs and try some quilting therapy; nope! I wasn't having ANY of it. I mean....even BONNIE could get me out of this slump :\ Not good.

So I moped...
I went through the motions with the girls and some friends they had over...
I allowed myself to just.....blehhhhh around; I couldn't shake it.

This morning, I'm feeling better. Reading Bonnie's post of tips is the first positive of the day, so I'm stating it off better than yesterday already. I haven't chosen my fabrics yet, so reading how she defined her focal vs. accent colors will help me when I pull fabrics shortly.

Cassie spent the night at a friend's house. The other two are eating bagels with nutella in front of Phineas & Ferb. Paul is gone for a week of deer hunting. Ideal for a whole lot of quilting to commence, right?

So, my plan (goal?) for the day. Sew for as long and as much as I can. Shop later for milk and Harry Potter Part 7 #2 (the necessities, right?). And then watch the movie with the girls later tonight.