Whine Time

Prepare for some horrendous sites! Plumbing Disaster!! Woe is me - woe, woe, woe!!! Let me go back to the beginning. The day before my kids left for their vacations, Sunday ,June 22nd, my washing machine quit working. Bummer. So we got a new one! It immediately started squirting water everywhere when it tried to drain. Apparently there was a drainage issue now. So out comes the "plumbing snake." It never did really help. Next my husband tried something else and accidentally punched through the downstairs drainage stuff. Now the plumbing for the whole kitchen and laundry room was completely out of commission. I couldn't turn the water on or pour anything down the drain. It would pour out from the downstairs (basement) ceiling and run down the wall and onto the floor.) This morning a REAL plumber - a friend of my husbands - came over and they re-plumbed the drainage stuff. "Now you can wash dishes, clothes, run water - whatever - and it should drain out immediately!" my husband said as he left for work. I couldn't wait!! I started the dishwasher. I ran water into both sinks and poured bleach in to sterilize them from all the yuck that had been coming up into them. I started the clothes washing machine. Oops, what was that noise in the laundry room? I didn't want to, but I peeked into the laundry room. Water was spurting everywhere!! I turned things off. I threw towels on the floor. I started mopping. I started crying.
I called my husband. "Hmmm, I really thought it would work just fine now. I will have to do some more checking on it." He has come to the conclusion that there is now a major blockage of our graywater drainage system on the outside of the house. So he called a septic tank guy who will come and clean out that pipe. Naturally it is the day before the Independance Day holiday so I don't expect him for a few days at least. The whole house is a disaster! I have been living with this, very patiently, for over a week now. I am just about at the limit of my tolerance. I am ready to blow!! He said he might come tomorrow. Oh please!! I sure hope so.

Here is a shot of SOME of the stuff I had to pull out from under the sink and out of the laundry room.


This shot is the washing machine pulled out from the wall, with the towels soaking up some of that nasty water.


The following shots are of the sink with the new load of nasty stuff that came up into them after I bleached them out today and the basement ceiling where some drywall had to be removed to access plumbing. You can see the yucky stuff all over the wall. And I have already been informed that when it is fixed I am the one that has to clean it all up, since "dear husband" has done the plumbing part. Sigh. I am so down about this. Yuck, yuck, yuck. I can't cook! I can't clean! I need to go to the laundromat because we are running out of clean clothes! Ahhhh!
Well, sorry for this "Poor old me" whinefest. I just had to blog about it! Maybe this is therapy? LOL.
Julie

I'm Taking the Challenge!!

I have decided to take the "Finish Five by the End of July" challenge! I started poking around in my sewing room and found plenty of flimsies that need to be quilted. There are more than five here but these are the ones I am choosing from. Does the flimsy below look familiar? It is the Orange Crush top! I am going to quilt it in sections so it is not completely together and doesn't have any borders - I will add those after the center is quilted. I am anxious to try this method.

The Blue and White is already pin-basted, and I had completely forgotten about it!! It is from a $5 quilt top block of the month by Sew Much Fun quilt shop in Columbus, Georgia. It is prettier than I remember and might make a nice Christmas gift for a lucky someone. I can't decide who to give it to - I will have to think about that one.

The blue and brown "Take Five" quilt is one that I made at our guild's retreat in 2007! I meant to quilt it last summer but you know how that goes.

Maybe this year - but it is larger than I remembered!

The other ones are panels that I fell in love with and planned to use as table runners or door hangings.

Hmmm, I think I will make a set of placemats out of this Christmas one. All I need to do is add a border around the individual rectangles and quilt. They will be cute! Can you tell that I am a sucker for a panel? LOL I know they are "cheating" but - hey - they are super fun to machine quilt!

I will try to keep you up to date on my challenge progress. Wish me luck!

Julie

Sandcastle Quilt Kit Giveaway

Look at this cute sandcastle quilt! Brenda at Pumpkin Patch Primitives Quilt Shoppe is having this summer quilt giveaway. Simply go to her blog and leave a comment. You are entered twice if you post about it on your blog. I am not going to wish you luck because I want to win it myself! LOL. The last day is June 30 so you'd better hurry.

Sorry, this giveaway is closed!

Road Trip!

Today I went on a great road trip with several quilt guild friends. I met Anne, Oma, and Doretha at an Interstate exit near my house and we took off to check out the Charlie Eliot Wildlife Center in Mansfield, GA for our guild retreat next year. It is a really great place, such a step up from the 4H center where we have had previous retreats. Since the 4H center reserved it for some other group on "our" weekend, we had to find an alternative. It looks like it may be a good thing after all. We took lots of pictures and I am putting some of them here.












Of course, we had to stop at a couple of quilt shops on our way. First we stopped in Hogansville, GA at 1910 House Quilts. What a great quilt shop. It is only a 32 minute drive from my house. I have never lived so close to a real quilt shop! And, to top it off, she was having a 100 bolt sale. There were 100 bolts all for $25 each. They all had at least 5 yards on them, but most had more. I bought three bolts!! I don't know how much fabric is on them but it is a lot. You can see a picture of me, Anne, and Doretha carrying our loot.

Our next stop was Quilts 'N Fixin's in Jonesboro, GA. This is another great shop, but we didn't buy as much there. Needless to say, a fun time was had by all.

Julie

Travel Day

Traveling day was today! Today we all had to get up at 3 A.M. to have Joy at the Montgomery airport for her flight to Hawaii with People to People. I am including a picture of her acting silly a few days ago. I didn't bring my camera with me to the airport and so didn't get a photo of her with her People to People outfit on. They were a really great-looking bunch of kids though. She will represent us well, I am sure. As of this post, she still has not arrived in Hawaii. Her flight was delayed three times and they won't arrive now until after midnight (our time) but it will be about 7 P.M. local time in Hawaii.

Here is a photo of my son, John Owen (on the right), with a couple of his buddies. After we took Joy to the Montgomery airport, we had to travel to Atlanta to put him on a flight to Ft. Myers, Florida, for his weeklong visit to his Aunt Carol. Carol lives in Naples and will be taking John Owen to Universal Studios and Kennedy Space Center. He called me earlier and is very excited. They are already having a great time. It was a little weird putting him on that plane and leaving him there, but he was extremely excited and I know it is a good confidence-building exercise for him. Well, more later!

Julie

First Day of Summer!

I am posting some photos of some of the lovely flowers blooming in my yard right now. I was careful to crop out the weeds! It is just too hot to deal with weeds right now. It is very dry in the yard and we hope for rain every day. The last two summers were classified as a drought here and the rain seems to be avoiding us this year as well. I tend to plant drought-resistant plants which helps a lot.
My grass needs cutting in the worst way. Of course, something always seems to go wrong with the lawnmower when we are cutting grass. Most recent disaster - one of the wheels fell off of the riding mower while cutting! Well, a man came by and put it back on today. Now to get Joy back out to finish it up. She is busy getting ready for her trip to Hawaii next week. She is leaving Monday for TWO WEEKS!

I hope you can get out and enjoy the day today. I am going to go for a swim later today to cool off. Have a great one!

Julie

The Block Scrambler

Here is the infamous "Block Scrambler." I like to lay out my blocks on my bed when I am working with them, even though I do have a design wall. Cabalito insists on jumping up and walking around on the blocks the minute I start laying them out. Soon they have a somewhat scrambled appearance! I know he thinks he is helping me and fancies himself to be quite the quilt designer. He seems to be doing a pretty good job here. I am pretty sure I will do the on-point setting for this quilt, even though this picture depicts a straight set. I love the wild colors and can't wait to have a complete quilt. I think I am going to do the "quilting in sections" method with this quilt. I would love to have it done, done by the end of my summer break. Unfortunately I have been sidetracked doing another scrappy bargello for my mom. It all depends on how much help I receive from the Block Scrambler!

Julie

Plucky Chickens

Here are a few pictures of the chicken pincushions I made back before Christmas. I am posting them again here for members of my quilt guild to peruse. I am doing a demo at the guild meeting next week. If you would like to make on it is called the "Plucky Chicken" and the original pattern is retired. However, the creator, Susa Glenn, has newer versions available at her website. She has many cute pincushion patterns there. I might have to try some different ones myself!
Julie

John Owen went to Ecology Camp - Camp Discovery at the Louise Kreher Forest Ecology Preserve this week. He had a great time. It was his second year to attend the camp. They learn about native animals, plants, etc... He especially enjoyed learning about the snakes. They waded in a creek and found salamanders, turtles, frogs, bugs, and fish. He loves this kind of camp and I am glad that we have such a great learning opportunity for him within driving distance.

The quilt above is a small wallhanging I completed using some of my "reject" Dear Jane blocks. I just included it here for eye candy since I didn't have any photos from the camp.

For those of you who asked, the new kitty cat's name is now Chuck-Fuzz. My kids named him, don't ask how they came up with it or what it means - who knows! LOL. If you didn't read about the rescue kitty, you don't know that they originally thought it was a girl and named it Zelda. I noticed that it was actually a boy and they had to change the name.

Until later,

Julie

Finally Catching Up

Since school ended for the year I have been trying very hard to catch up on Orange Crush. I am working on steps 4 and 5 at the same time. Last night I stayed up until 1 A.M. sewing and watching the Stanley Cup finals. (It went into triple overtime!) I am rooting for the Detroit Redwings. I enjoy watching hockey but usually only watch the Stanley Cup finals. Needless to say, there is not much hockey here in the South.

I found out that Zelda is a boy! I had not really looked that closely at the cat and had just listened to my kids telling me it was a girl, but as I watched him walk away from me today I noticed something that convinced me the cat was of the male persuasion!

These little wrens are out on our carport. So cute!! Today I noticed the parents going crazy out there and I found a baby that had fallen out of the nest. I put it back and all is well again. I just love all the new babies in springtime.

Julie