Nothing important!!!

This past week I had a Colonoscopy!!

All of you readers who are older than 50 are saying “Oh man…..I am SO sorry”! You younger ones are shaking your head and wondering why I would even tell you that!!

Everything was good and the medical procedure is NOT the point of this post.

Since I was the first procedure of the day, I was back home by 8:15 which meant that I had the whole day ahead of me. Even better was the fact that I hadn’t planned ANYTHING for the day.

Following medical advice, I was told not to make decisions, operate equipment, or do anything really important for the rest of the day.

So, I chose to sit in my recliner, with my computer in my lap, and spend the morning surfing. In particular, I was surfing for project ideas….as if I didn’t already have plenty!!

I was rewarded when I ran into this block called “Dizzy Geese”…..

I searched further and found a great video tutorial for an easy way to make it…..

And……because I couldn’t do anything else, I watched the entire video and learned several new things!!

I then remember several videos that I had put aside to watch at some point so I pulled those out and started learning about making Instagram Reels & Stories. I even had time to play on my phone a bit to learn a bit more about Instagram.

Finally, I had signed up for the Modern Quilt Guild October conference and hadn’t finished watching the videos, so I sat in my comfy chair and watched several of them….again learning so much!!

In the afternoon I spent a bit of time in my studio, first learning how to make one of those fun slo-mo videos that everybody loves……

This is actually harder than you would think and I need to practice it a bit more!!!

Now, none of this is life-shattering, but it was sweet to have a day where I was Free…..COMPLETELY FREE!!

I don’t know about you, but I am really bad about filling in every minute of every day and this day reminded me that I need to also schedule in some days to do just what I did…..

ABSOLUTELY NOTHING IMPORTANT!!!

Planning time….

Do you take time to plan your upcoming quilting?? I am trying to do that but am not having a huge amount of success!!

At our last guild retreat back in May, I spent some time in my “planning/sleeping” swing and came away with some good ideas.

But when reality set in I wasn’t consistent to stick with my plan!!

I can look back and see a number of things that I have finished since that retreat, including four tops for charity….

Quilting on two major projects….

….and made two small quilts from scratch….

And I have been working on two more tops.

Yes, I did accomplish quite a lot in the last four months, but much of it wasn’t in my original plans.

Is that good or bad??? I don’t really know!!!

So how do you do it? Do you plan months in advance or just let things flow as they go??

It’s Fall Y’all!!

I LOVE summer!!

There…..I said it!!

I know that many of you are shaking your heads and wondering exactly what is wrong with me, but I adore the sunshine, the blue skies, and even the heat.

And this summer has been excellent. I have had time to do things I wanted to do….. quilting, painting, playing with new techniques, reading on the deck, and even the occasional (okay…. often) nap after lunch.

But, now it is September and it is time to turn my thoughts to Autumn…..

The first step was to redecorate my house…..

That task was accomplished, and now it is time to do some planning for the next few months.

Happily, there are a lot of fun things to look forward to….

Judging quilts at the Georgia National Fair

5-Day guild retreat

3-Day Modern Quilt Guild online conference

5 days at the International Quilt Festival in Houston

Making a baby quilt for my first grandchild!!

Okay….maybe the Autumn won’t be so bad after all!!

It’s Monthly Audit time!!

Well, July is over and, oh my, has it been a crazy month. I had lots of goals and, fortunately I did accomplish a few of them.

One goal was to publish at least 10 posts. On this front, I outdid myself by publishing 23!!!

Another goal was to cook something new each week and I really funked out on this one. I did enjoy using the ice cream maker, especially the luscious chocolate recipe, and I did pull out one old recipe and we found that we had forgotten how much we enjoyed “Mexican Beef and Cornbread”…..

Don’t you love the iconic Corning Ware bowl that we have had for 43 years!!!

It was a great meal when paired with a salad with Thousand Island Dressing…..

July was a heavy month for accounting work and I soldiered thru, getting almost everything finished by the 31st.

I did have one quilting victory when I “LET IT GO” and got rid of a UFO that had been on my mind for a bunch of years!!

We had our hurriedly planned trip to Texas which proved to be an amazing and much needed getaway!!!

Finally, my major quilting goal was to get the final corner of the Color wheel quilt appliqued so that I can put the top together. And I did TRY but honestly ended up spending more time writing blog posts at night than appliquéing!!

Toward the end, I was “Sewing like the wind”……

….but I went to bed on Friday night with 7 more circles to finish!!

Now that I have used the phrase “Sewing like the wind”, I am reminded of this clip from “Three Amigos”…..

But, honestly, if I am going to talk about “Three Amigos” I have to add this scene…..

Steve Martin is a hoot!!!

Our son, Brian, used to LOVE this scene and would howl with laughter when it came on.

I actually used this technique to get Michael’s attention one time….I was in the library on the second floor of a hotel in Shanghai and it was open to the lobby below. I saw Michael walk in the front door and wanted him to know where I was, so I started calling “lookuphere….lookuphere”. After a few seconds of puzzlement, he looked up and gave me a big smile!! I am sure that the other Chinese students in the area thought that we were crazy!!

All in all, it has been a sweet month, even if I didn’t do lots on my “to-do” list. Today, as I plan for August, I am excited about the things to come!!!

This is what survival looks like!!!

Well, it is April 16th and I can breathe a sigh of relief that the first 3.5 months of 2019 are over with.

When I first wrote about the craziness of the Winter and Spring, I said that I was concerned that all of the busyness would mean that I would get to the end and not remember anything about the months. But, I can honestly say that these months have been fun and that I have wonderful memories of the Quilt Show, the Wedding and everything in between.

I am also happy to say that I kept my pledge to spend time in my studio and probably only missed 10 days during the 3.5 months. I didn’t actually accomplish much during those times but at least put my hands on fabric and thought about upcoming projects!!

Now, the plan is to clear a few items off of my to-do list……things like cleaning house (it REALLY needs it), clearing out Quilt Show stuff that was placed into storage after the show, spending some time in my yard planting flowers and generally getting ready for the next stage of the year. We are traveling overseas for a month starting mid September, so the next 5 months are reserved for a LOT of fun activities.

The first of those fun activities was doing some photography at a local Hunting preserve. It was fun to see the beautiful birds…..