HI, My name is Wendy and I have a drinking problem...

I do not drink enough water! ...and that is a problem. Every morning I promise myself I will drink more water and then before you know it, the day is gone and I am thinking "I can't drink now, I will be up all night."
I have been trying to reduce my weight ( and who isn't? ) since "forever" but more recently just after Christmas. I have 14 pounds gone, which is a good thing but when I look at how much more I need to lose it just seems like an impossible task.

However I have been thinking a little different lately; it's like a lot of things in life. It takes dedication and hard work. 

I have a small poster on my bulletin board beside my sewing machine; It says "Quilts take a really long time to finish if you don't work on them." Losing weight and getting fit and healthy is the same way.

I have looked at quilt patterns and thought how much I would love to make them but thought, "wow! way too involved or complicated or advanced for me to do" but you know when you break it down into blocks the job becomes much more manageable.(this is one of quilts I thought used to be way too much work and involvement and now it is finished and proudly displayed on my sofa)

That is how I am trying to handle this challenge in my life. I know I won't ever be a runway model, but I can work at being a smaller, healthier, stronger version of who I am now. One of the things that will help me is drinking more water.

This is my LuLu Lemon shopping bag. It is full of quotes but one is of particular interest to me. Top left hand corner, just under the wide white rectangle...take a better look...

We all know what happens to a plant without water...remember what happened when I had to go away suddenly for a family emergency and Mr. O forgot to water my outdoor plants and flowers?

This is what happens when you don't hydrate enough... 

...and this is what happens when you don't hydrate at all. Scary eh?

Speaking of flowers...check out the flowers Mr. O brought home to me for Valentine's Day. He knows I love to have fresh flowers on the bathroom vanity...

So as I said earlier, yes I have a drinking problem, but I am working on it. I will aim for at least 5 glasses of water today and maybe more tomorrow. 

Cheers!

..part two of Feeling Sheepish

I had planned on writing this on Saturday but...but...(here we go again)
I hear Science programs dealing with the earth's axis and how the degree of tilt has changed...Do you think it has possibly shortened the days or speeded them up so that we really don't have 24 hours in them any more? I only ask because I don't seem to get as much done in a 24 hour period anymore. I know it could be that I am trying to cram too many things into a 24 hour period; it could also be because I am older slower than I used to be but until I have proof otherwise I am blaming it on the earth's changes...
Still working away on retreat stuff...starting to feel panic that I am forgetting something very important, but I guess I will find out soon enough. Just 4 more sleeps!
It is a bitterly cold day and a perfect one to stay in and get some last minute things tended to.
I neglected to mention on my last blog post that I won a give away from this Blogger . (Take some time to browse through her blog archives...she has some fantastic photos of Prairie landscapes and how she interprets them in fabric.) Monika is a fantastic art quilter; she does amazing thread painting; she almost never misses a day of blogging; is always positive and upbeat AND she is Canadian! She has been published in a couple magazines and had a give away of a quilt kit she designed and had featured in the magazine A Needle Pulling Thread. It is the perfect prize for me because it is a combination of embroidery (something I love to do) and piecing (something I need to practice more).

I am so happy this kit has come to live at my house! Thanks again Monika!

I have had a friend and former neighbour visiting me from Newfoundland. We have spent many, many hours quilting in the past and it is such fun to have her back again. We of course have been up to our old tricks...staying up till all hours of the night with old movies on the television, playbooks and phones and all kinds of technology to keep us "connected", snacking on popcorn while we sew till the wee hours of the morning, only to get up and do it all over again. Cam will be staying with me until after retreat and then bright and early Monday morning we head to Halifax to spend the day with a friend who is recuperating from surgery and then back to Moncton to deliver her safe and sound to her husband who is working in Moncton for awhile. Cam has been working away on a few baby quilt she has been commissioned to make. Here is her progress so far.

Are they not cute? In her down time she has hand stitched the binding on a dozen placemats and a table runner, worked on her knitting AND been helping me with my retreat stuff! This has definitely been a working holiday for her...

Thanks Cam! It has been fun!

Feeling Sheepish

I have a list of excuses, stories,  reasons for not blogging in so long but really, do you need to hear them?

Thought you might like to see/hear what I've been up to though...

I sent off a package to friends and family with 7 knitted scarves and 2 pillowcases that I made. It's nice to receive mail for no reason. I like to think it brightens a winter day.

I have also been working on a group project with my quilting buddies. 

The blocks were made up from the stashes of 11 ladies, but we managed to make it come together quite well and then the Countdown to Christmas fabric made a perfect border!

We used some of the leftovers for the back.

One member of our little group turned 60 a while back and we were a bit late in getting things happening, but we finally finished it and presented it to her on Tuesday evening at a local restaurant where we all met for supper before guild meeting. Deb's birthday was in December so this is a perfect quilt for a December birthday...dont-cha think?

Happy (Belated) Birthday Debbie!

Also been slaving, puttering away at guild projects. When you are making cute things x 45 it takes awhile; so it is slow going, but we are almost ready. Good thing too, because retreat is just 7 sleeps away!

We are pretty excited over our goodie bags this year, we have managed to come up with some great buys and ideas, so I think the ladies will be quite pleased.

Obviously I cannot show them now, but later...I promise.

I also tested out the mystery project pattern. (again I can't show it yet.) The usual procedure for us is this: Sue writes out the mystery project and I am the tester...works well for us and in most cases we get the bugs worked out before presenting it at retreat.

I zoomed in to one of the pieces and you can see some of the 6 required fabrics I worked with. I am so pleased with it that I will be making a few more for gifts.

I have also been working away at my PhD (projects half done). 

I finished 2 little ones (thought I would finish a couple small things to motivate me on to larger ones). I can't show them yet, because one of them is to be a "Secret Sister" gift for retreat.

This is one of the quilts I had just begun a little over 2 years ago just before Mom's accident. Obviously it was filed away for a rainy day. No it hasn't been raining here, but it was still a good time to get back at some half done projects. Eight more blocks to finish up and then I can start assembling this puppy. Hope to get it on the master bed at "Winterpast" when we open up in the spring.

Well, it would appear I do have a problem...I don't show up to blog for weeks and then when I get here I can't shut up...so I'll try to be back tomorrow with the rest of my comings and goings.

to be continued.................

Can you guess what we did Saturday morning?

More snow removal...

In case you're wondering...yes I did go out and help after the photo shoot. Man was it cold! -29 with the wind chill. This morning was -20 with no wind. Freezing rain today and tomorrow! Guess what my plans are? Staying home, staying warm and sewing...see ya!

I passed

I was scheduled for a stress test yesterday at the hospital.

Here is a 9 second video of my drive in to the hospital. Just the kind of drive you want before a stress test. lol  Either way, I passed so that is a "good thing."

While I was out and about yesterday I took a few pictures.

Thought I would share.

We had very strong winds and blowing snow. A wonderful "blustery" day.

I love an untouched field of snow...it is like a clean fresh page just waiting for you to make your mark.

Do you remember the old song by John Denver? 

"Some days are diamond; some days are stone..."

(you know you will probably end up humming this song all day now...sorry...)

Hope you have a "diamond" day today.

Neighbourhood Bully and mystery puzzles and weather predictions

I use that term loosely...my neighbourhood is not your conventional neighbourhood. I live in the country, and I can see only one neighbour in the summer, 4 in the winter when the leaves are off the trees. I do have a lot of "feathered" neighbours though and one of them is a bit of a bully. He seems to think the feeders are put out exclusively for him.

He is not real good at sharing and occasionally sits on top of the suet feeder keeping all others away from "his" food. I have dubbed him the neighbour bully.

Yesterday while doing dishes and looking at all the birds from my kitchen window; oh I know I am one of the few who does not have an automatic dishwasher, but I did at one time and when we renovated the kitchen we decided to take it out and see if we would miss it. When the new cabinets were built we had one cabinet installed as a separate unit so it could easily be removed should I change my mind and want a dishwasher installed and here we are 13 years later and still no dishwasher! Every once in a while I think about it but then quickly forget about it again. Just think of all the entertainment I would miss if I was not standing at the kitchen window over my sink... I was counting up the different birds that come to dine at "Wendy's Winter Diner" and thought myself quite fortunate.

Doves, Grosbeaks, Blue Jays, Woodpeckers, Chick-a-dees, Nuthatches, and Starlings. There may be a few more but that was all that came to mind because they are the regulars. I had my hands in hot soapy water so I did not take the time to get pictures of all of them, but here are a few I have captured in the last couple days.

What else have I been doing besides dishes and bird watching? Well I did a mystery puzzle. For those of you who do jigsaw puzzles you know that the picture on the cover of the puzzle box is referred to very often while assembling the puzzle. Here is the picture on the box of the puzzle I recently assembled.

This however is what the picture looked like when finished.

This puzzle came with a short story of a "who-dunnit" nature. You had to assemble the puzzle and collect clues along the way to figure out the mystery. I am not much of a sleuth so I stuck to the puzzle making. It was a bit of a challenge making a puzzle with no picture to reference and as you can see it is a desktop and papers are crumpled and upside down and cups turned over so I never knew if my puzzle was being built upside down or right side up. I did finish the puzzle in one day but never did solve the murder.

I have also been working away on my PhD.(Projects Half Done). Right now that happens to be hand quilting a lap quilt that I started several years ago and never got around to finishing and working away at piecing a queen sized quilt for the cottage (also a vintage forgotten project)

I have been keeping busy with retreat projects and planning for mid February Retreat as well but of course I can't show you those until after retreat.

The weather Networks long term forecast says we have a prediction of 15 - 20 cm of snow coming this Thursday and 20 - 30 on the following Tuesday. I'm not sure how accurate they are but I forecast good quilting and bird-watching days ahead. We'll see who is more accurate...

My favorite weather is bird-chirping weather.
Loire Hartwould

I forgot...

Yesterday, in the wee hours of the morning, I had an amazingly clever title and subject for todays post. Today...it is gone! Vanished into thin air...how is that possible? I have been mucking around on my blog and a few others hoping it would come back to me, but alas, it was not to be; so instead, I will fill you in on what I've been up to.
I finished the old year with a finish! You may recall the dresden plate quilt I started in October for a dear friend who lost her husband. It is made from a collection of his shirts.
I have 2 more doilies to hand sew onto the centres of the plates and it is ready to wrap and mail. Next, I have to clean up some of my mess and get to work on the next project. Working on a PhD is no small undertaking and I am focused right now.
Back to the Dresden plate...earlier this year I was referred to a link on youtube with a tutorial on spray basting your quilt on a design wall (she starts on this subject at around the 6:20 mark of the video). It caught my attention and I thought I would give it a try because it seemed to make a lot of sense. I do not have a huge design wall, so I wouldn't be able to do a queen sized quilt, but for the size I was doing it worked very well! (with a little help from Mr. O)

Not the most becoming photos, but you get the idea. The whole process took about 10 minutes tops!

The machine quilting took considerably longer .

It is the first project "Ruby" and I have quilted together. It is far from perfect and I have a lot to learn, but we'll do okay Ruby and I. 

On Monday one of our granddaughters came to spend a couple days with us. We knew she would be visiting so we kept her Christmas gifts here. She seemed quite pleased with everything.

I had forgotten how life with a teenager can be...

Bathroom BEFORE a shower

Bathroom AFTER a shower!

Thankfully she picked up after herself. Despite having EVERY light in the house left on, the computer being in constant use and the frequent visits to the refrigerator and microwave we loved having her visit. 

She sat to the computer one day and saw my blog up on the screen and gave a bit of a giggle and said..."that's so cute! My Nan blogs!"

We miss you Lex!

p.s. I was hoping that as I wrote this blog post yesterday's brilliant idea would come back to me, but no luck...

(found on a lolriot.com)

Happy 2012!

"I said to the man who stood at the Gate of the Year, 'Give me a light that I may tread safely into the unknown.' And he replied, 'Go out into the darkness, and put your hand into the Hand of God. That shall be better than light, and safer than a known way.'"

an excerpt from King George VI speech in 1939