I am blessed

The packers arrive in the morning to start the packing job. I have tossed, sorted, gave away, donated, coughed and sneezed. I am DONE! Whatever didn't get done won't get done by me; at least on this end of the move. I am pleased with all the work we have done.

Tomorrow starts the end of my life in Alabama and I am eager, I am ready to begin a new phase in a new place. I am surprised by this since I have always hated change, but I know as long as Ray is with me I will be fine.

My guys have worked so hard over the past week and I am so proud of them. I have seen my husband give 110% even when he was past exhaustion. My youngest son has amazed me by doing far beyond any he has ever done. He has really stepped up and shown me he is becoming a man. My oldest has shown up and helped even when he would rather be anywhere else. I know they have worked hard so I wouldn't have to. I love my guys!

I hope I am back tomorrow to blog, but I don't know.
Later,
Diane

Thank you for the support

After the last post I have had emails and phone calls telling me I could make it through this move, to just hang in there. I appreciate every one of the calls and emails. I was having trouble sleeping and my sadness of leaving my two older children in Alabama was affecting my ability to think clearly.
I went to lunch with one of my friends and came home with a much better spirit.
Thank you friend! It is going much better now.

My oldest son has come over several times to help his dad with heavy stuff. He was here tonight and we were able to go through his former bedroom. He had left some stuff when he moved out and we sorted through to see if there was anything he still wanted. There wasn't much but he found a couple of books and lots of Legos he still wanted. Not only did my children read any and everything they could put their hands on the boys LOVED Legos. We have LOTS! He said he might be 25 years old, but Legos are still cool. That made me smile.

Tomorrow he will be back to help his brother and dad clean out the storage building out back. That will be the last big job and after that we only have to sort through papers in the roll top desk and we will be FINISHED!
YAY! :^)

I managed to hurt my back again today because I am impatient. I thought my son was taking too long to come back to help me move a heavy box and picked it up myself and immediately knew I had messed up. :^(
So I am back on muscle relaxers and pain pills. Maybe I will be better tomorrow.

Later
Diane

I'm drowning

At least that is how I feel.

Why is this move so much harder than the previous moves? I have moved across country with 3 children in tow and it wasn't this hard. I can't seem to get myself organized.
Ray reminded me last night I had to pack a suitcase and overnight bag for the length of time our stuff would be in transit and I almost lost it. I had completely forgotten that I would need to do that. I forgot I would have to get my pharmacy meds transferred to a Walgreens or CVS since there are no Rite Aid pharmacies near me. I hope that isn't hard to do.

I have sent another truck bed full of stuff to the dump and another to Goodwill, so I am make a dent. Do you have the same problem and me? Do you have junk stored? Why do I do that?
Ok, I have to stop that! I need to just face the reality that I have held onto junk in the past but want to change starting TODAY!
I can do this, I have been married for 27 years and given birth to 3 children; one of those with NO DRUGS! I can do this!!!!

If you hear yelling and see arms flailing around throw me a flotation device, please.

Diane

still no quilting

Today I started working in a spare bedroom that I had used for my business. If I thought cleaning out my sewing room was hard, this room was much harder. I have boxes upon boxes of dyed fabric and patterns and books. UGH! I think I may put them up on Ebay when we get settled.

I have got to find a home for lots of booth items. I have 4 tables, display racks, book racks, pattern holders and a cash register. Not to mention 3 giant Rubbermaid boxes holding my dyes. I have managed to convince myself I don't have to keep ALL of my dye room set up. I am going to donate some of it to a lady here who is starting to dye.

I am ashamed of the purchased fabric (not hand dyed) that I have. I have stated before I am the kind of person that if I can't see it I forget about it. I feel like a squirrel with nuts. I have found fabric tucked here and there all over my house. It is sad!

I told someone once that when we moved to this house the packers came and asked me if I wanted to move all of my fabric with me. After I told them yes and they looked at me quizzically I asked why they asked me such a question. One of the ladies looked at me and said, "there is just so much". Well honey I hope those same two ladies don't pack me this time because I have LOTS more now. I really didn't have much then. I packed it all in three 18 gallon size Rubbermaid before. I won't embarrass myself in telling you how much it is this time, but believe me it is a lot more. Besides all of that I have too much hand dyed fabric too. I have had clearance sales and so I will keep what is left, but it is more than any human should have.

Then we come to books, not just quilting books, but mysteries, biographies, historical, comic, religious studies, childrens. We have as many books as some small town libraries. I tried to get rid of some but have a very hard time. All of my children love to read so it is hard to release the books my kids enjoyed so much, but there are just so many of them. Even after they came to the house and took with them the ones they wanted, I still am faced with Dr. Seuss, Nancy Drew, Encyclopedia Brown and Doc Savage.

I told my husband the other day we need to decide where we are going to retire and build a home with a library, a sewing room, and a workroom for him. Actually build it to accommodate the way we live instead of trying to make a bedroom into a workroom or sewing room. But then that would mean moving again...maybe I can make do with what I have!

Later

Diane

The race is on

We are in the home stretch of this moving race. The movers will be here in one week and we are hurriedly doing the last several things that must be done.

Today we (Dad and two sons) cut two trees and hauled two loads of tree and yard debris to the dump. I cleaned out the closet under the stairs and managed to either give away to friends or donate to Mission of Hope at least 70%. Why I hang on to things I could and should have given away a long time ago I have no idea.

I cleaned out two closets and a linen closet upstairs and my kitchen pantry. The whole time I was thinking about how much I wanted to be sewing. I have two quilt tops that I want to make. Hopefully I can get to start them in about 3 weeks. I know that is going to be a tough one to pull off, but a girl has got to have a dream.

Today started the Quiltathon at Judy's blog. I want so bad to join in, but I will just check in often to see what everyone if doing.

The picture above is one of Nancy's top from the retreat we attended a few weeks ago. It turned out great!

Off to bed so I can do more cleaning tomorrow.

Diane

Just another day in my life

The week has pasted by in a blur. Last Wednesday started the day from "(&$!:
Joseph got stung on the face by wasps, so I cancelled a trip across the bay with friends, I felt uncomfortable leaving him home alone doped up in Benedryl.
I have been dealing with a back ache since going to Disney World the previous week. I took some pain meds I had and went to bed and that is when Kari called after her wreck.
I finally was able to go to the doctor on Monday and she put me on all types of meds and two WONDERFUL shots!
Now it is Wednesday and the shots are gone and the meds aren't nearly as great as I first thought.
UGH My back!

Tomorrow the moving company representative is coming to survey the house and decide how big of a truck and how many packers we will need.
We have piles all over the house of things we want and things we don't.
If all goes as planned the movers are to arrive the 29th to pack us and we should be in Florida unpacking boxes by the 2nd.

As ready as I am for all of this to finally be over and for us to be together in the new house I am sad for it to be here. I am already missing my friends.
I thought I would get to see some of them tomorrow for one last hurrah, but it looks like it won't happen since I am still taking pain meds and muscle relaxers, it would probably not be good to mix them and driving.

I finally heard from my family in Houston. Everyone is accounted for so I feel better.
My sister had surgery today to open a blockage in a vein in her groin. If all goes well she can go home tomorrow. I'm praying all goes well, Joy has been through so much.

Later,
Diane

Giving Thanks

For a long time we have told our children "Nothing good happens after midnight" I'm going to change that to 10pm.

My daughter left our house to go pick up a friend's child and as she was leaving from picking him up she called her daddy to tell him something. Kari has a way of starting a conversation on the phone and last night was no different.

The phone rang, Ray answered and I could hear "Hi Daddy!" she says a few things then I hear Ray say, Kari?, Kari? Kari?

My heart starts racing, knowing something is wrong but there is nothing we can do.

Finally after what felt like 10 minutes her phone disconnects and we hang up and it immediately rings again. We hear her voice but it is no longer happy and cheerful she is crying saying she needs him because she is bloody.

Needless to say the next several hours is a complete blurr.

She is going to be fine. She is covered in scrapes, raspberries and bruises.

I am so thankful to God I still have my daughter!

Diane

Show quilt

This is my guild's show quilt. I LOVE the applique!

You asked for it!

Anyone who has known me for more than a day, no make that an hour knows I usually just talk and worry about what I have said later. These same people also know I am not a stranger to being wrong. I don't have a problem with being wrong, but I would rather be right.

As I was at guild meeting yesterday, we were looking at show and tell.

Someone in the audience asks the name of the block, and when no one answered I offered "it's shaded nine patch, 4 blocks to make the design" At once I am disagreed with. Not a problem, but I know I am correct, so I say yes it is. Again she disagrees with me, and here is where I should have put my hands over my mouth , I looked at her and said "Yes, it is!" not loud, not rude, not even in a mildly raised voice, but with confidence.

Why do I feel the need to be right at this point? Why didn't I just shut up? I do not know, but I didn't. Next question is why didn't she feel the need to stop? I don't know but she didn't either. It was like children taking over, "I'm smart your dumb", "nu-uh! I'm smart and your dumb" Can you hear them on the playground? LOL UGH!

After years of serving as Workshop Chairman at the guild I have had opportunity to get people to teach many classes and in doing that was able to take most of these classes. One of them being a scrappy class taught by Karen called Shaded Nine Patch. This was the block she taught, so that is how I came up with the name.

I got home and looked at pictures of my quilts and googled shaded nine patch and came up with a link and shared it with the guild email list. Honestly I was not trying to be as pot stirrer, I was really trying to help the person who had asked the name of the pattern. Now I am getting emails from the other child on the playground still disagreeing. Really I don't care anymore, we can stop this. Call it whatever pattern you like.

Now if you look at this pattern and come up with another name you can let me know. I promise I won't argue with you, I may call you a name though. LOL

Diane

Sometimes I should cover my mouth with both hands

I'm going to.
Diane

Life is good

Remember the other day when I was so excited that my friend Linda G. was binding my quilt? You will not believe it but less than ten minutes after I posted that tidbit Linda called me to say she was finished! WOOHOO!!!

I was so excited but didn't have time to post about it as I was headed out the door to a spur of the moment trip to Florida.

ANYWAY...I want to say a huge THANK YOU to Linda. I will be home in a few days and I will pick it up.

Linda has a smart way of putting a binding on a quilt. I found a blog that had instructions similar to what she shared with me so I will link to it since I don't have pictures of Linda.

Headed out the door to Disney for the evening.

Later

Diane

Taking care of business

I asked for suggestions on organization ideas once I move into the lease house and in exchange I would give away a pattern. Linda if you will send me your address I will get it in the mail as soon as I return home. I am in Florida but will be returning home in the next couple of days.

Later
Diane