Things to keep me busy...

I've been meaning to show these for some time. I don't know about you, but keeping my earrings in a neat, accessible manner has been frustrating. Over the years I've tried different things. I've looked at earring-hanging items at the store, but they would only hold a few, and I've accumulated quite a collection. And then, some earrings are studs, some are hooks.

Then, Sharon W. gave me this crocheted earring holder for my birthday.

It's a bigger variation on the hanging ribbon I learned about from Deborah.

Still, it wasn't big enough for the hooks. So I came up with the following, using an old frame and plastic mesh.

It works GREAT! Now my earrings are hanging up, instead of tangled together in a bowl.

And, I can satisfy my OCD and have colors together. But it only works for the hooks.

I also wanted to post my progress on my quilt-top. Somehow, I've had less time to work on it and it takes longer than I thought, but I'm enjoying seeing this come together.

I have a lot more appreciation for those pieced quilts that you see!

And then, these two REALLY keep me busy! We had eye appts. this week and E. is now in soft contact lenses. The hard lenses were reshaping her eyes too much, and since she has stopped growing, her eye-sight has stabilized on its own. (The hard lenses helped stabilize during the growth period). A really interesting side effect of the soft lenses has been that her pupils now are not so large. A. has adjusted well to her braces, and goes again on Monday to get the bottom ones on.

They are also performing Sunday afternoon at the Hearst Arts Center, in the Young Artists series, doing a viola duet by Telemann.
This is one of those situations where hiring an accompanist was well worth the $25.

Okay, So it's another sunrise picture...

Maybe the weather pattern is changing because we haven't had snow since Monday, and we've had clear, sunny days.

Each morning as I see the sun rise (earlier AND further north)

I get SO excited!Grandma Bailey gave this amaryllis to Alice at Christmas, and it has been brightening the kitchen for the past two weeks.
As the head opened, I thought, "it's a lily!" And then I noticed the name "amaryllis" and realized the "lis" part of the name means lily, in French.
I guess I'm just glad all my French study hasn't been totally wasted.

Another Find in the Cleaning

During the Winter Olympics, I like to have a big project. Maybe it's so I won't feel guilty spending so much time in front of the TV.

When I was a teenager, my mom set up quilting frames in the living room, and we tied quilts while watching the down hill skiers or the figure skaters.

Somehow, that need for a sewing project has been embedded deep in my psyche!

But, for this year, what project should it be???

***

During the cleaning-out and reorganizing, I came across the quilt blocks I embroidered while I was expecting Elizabeth, 16 years ago. They hadn't been lost; I knew they were there, I just was hesitant to take the next step. My mom has a flower-block quilt, pieced together with blue and yellow, and it's beautiful.

Other than tying some quilts, I've never really done this sort of thing.

How much fabric would I need? How do I start?

Then, recently someone gave me a bunch of craft books. Most of them were then donated to the Book Nook, but I kept a few and I found this section on quilting.

Maybe it caught my eye because I love the colors, or because it would be a perfect way to use my flower quilt blocks,

but it has step-by-step instructions. Just the help that I needed!

We've been Tivo-ing the evening Olympics, so we can skip the commercials (it's amazing! A 5-hour program viewed in under 2 hours). On Monday evening I cut fabric. (A major step forward for me!)

Yesterday, I got a lot of the piecing done (who knew it would take so long?)

By last night, I had enough done to be able to lay out a portion of the quilt and see if the colors would all look good together, and I like it!

The mauve/peach print will be the major color pattern, but I didn't have enough, so I'm incorporating the green/blue print at the corners.

What would a flower garden be without green and blue?

Uncovered Treasures...

All the cleaning out, reorganizing, and decluttering has been accompanied by "So, that's where that was," or, "I had forgotten about that." One item was something Alice made in preschool (11/8/00)... ...her hand print. So, we took a picture, and it went into the garbage. I have a hard time throwing away things. Especially things that have an emotional tie.
Or things that are still functional.
So, you can guess that I have just way too much stuff.
*
We also found a sweatshirt that Grandma Mildred made.

I couldn't bring myself to throw it away--it went into Deborah's container and she'll have to decide what to do with it later.

Meet My Friends...

Meet my friends--Pusher and Lifter. We've hung out together a lot lately.
Since we became friends with Pusher, Kevin and I have found that it is best to do the driveway with just a couple of inches of snow, even if it means doing it multiple times during a snowstorm like today's (and yesterday's). With Pusher, it is quick work going from side to side across the driveway. Then Lifter is used to tidy up and throw the piles of snow left by Pusher.
It makes for a pretty good workout!

I found myself yesterday longing for one of those winters when no snow fell--like the winter after we moved into our house and there was no lawn, just bare dirt. That would have been a good time to have it covered with snow, but no--we had dirt tracked into the house all season long.

Now, the snow is piled as high as it can be so that if you throw another shovel-full, it just rolls back down onto the place you were trying to clear. So I have to carry each shovel-full several paces to a new spot on the lawn.
Is it really only Feb. 9? This winter has lasted a looong time already.

Youth at the Food Bank = A Ton of Fun!

This week's mutual activity was at the Food Bank. While we waited to sign in, someone discovered a large floor scale and the youth piled on--could they add up to 2000 lbs? Yes! A ton of youth. E. noticed I had my camera out, and decided she was going to be in evey shot.
I'm not sure how much work she actually got done...

but she achieved her goal!

We sorted donated items into categories and checked for expiration dates and seals.

I'm always amazed at how the youth can turn something like this into a fun time. The hot chocolate and cookies at the end also helps their great attitude.

But we have great youth!

The missionaries are coming...

We received the phone call a month ago, "would you be willing to house the missionaries again?"

Hmmm.

We want to help out, but how best to include them into our household?

We've decided to import bunkbeds and have them in the guest bedroom.

Which also happened to be my sewing room.

And the music practice room.

We've already moved the sewing desk into the TV room--that might be nice so I can have a movie on while doing sewing projects.

My challenge for today--take all the stuff I removed from the closet and under the bed and find "good" places for all this stuff.

I'm hoping I'll also be able to condense, organize, throw away, send things to Goodwill, and in short, make things even better.

Of course, in connection with this, I'm cleaning out and reorganizing nearly every closet and storage space in the entire house.
A great project for a snowy February day, don't you think?

Groundhog Day and Taxes

Happy Groundhog Day!

It snowed overnight and is still cloudy, so any groundhog here definitely did NOT see his shadow!

Would that mean only two more weeks of winter?

When has THAT ever happened? Spring, by February 16???

We'll be lucky if spring is here in 6 weeks, March 15.

And since it is now February, it is that wonderful, clean-out-all-the-financial-records-in-the-cubbyholes-in-the-desk time, in order to do...

TAXES!

Oh, one of my least favorite things to do!

But I purchased TurboTax yesterday, and within an hour, was almost done.

Almost done... because we haven't yet received the paperwork on investments.

Still, it was the quickest and most painless preparation yet of all the rest of it.

Good luck to the rest of you!