Where has she been?

Good Morning Vietnam!!!!!!!!!!!!! No actually it feels like a war zone in my little tiny spec of the world. I have been crazy busy, busier than usual and can't figure out why! (oh yeah, because i still can't say NO!).

(This is Joey's Retirement Quilt that I made her, Longarm Quilted by the talented Mrs. Schaffler)

Anywhooo....i've taken my two weeks vacation (in JUly) from my "real paying" job and took the time to "purge & organization" my home. Yep, under the bathroom counters, closests, kitchen cabinets, everywhere! Wow do I have alot of stuff! Not the "oh my goodness she's a hoarder" but the "do i really need this if it's been in the basement for a year" kinda stuff. Speaking of the "basement", I spent two of my vacation days getting the spare room down there all prepped and ready for our new son! Yep, we are taking in a Billet (a young hockey player) to come live with us as is "pretend family" while he reaches for the stars and his dreams of becoming a famous hockey star! He'll be welcomed to a room with great hockey favourites all hung in frames on the walls, a brand new homemade pillow case and quilt just for him.

The basement houses my new design studio, so they pushed all my stuff to one end and created their (the DH and 2 boys) own little oasis on the other end. Weight bench, excersise bike, treadmill, TV etc. They are promising to build me a wall to sheild my delicate fabrics from the horrors of teenage puberty and "ewww sweat"! Then last friday a larger than life electrical storm hit our town, bang, pow pop and the rain came down sooo hard that it busted through the seams of the window to the basement....now before all you crafty gals get heart palpatations cause you know of the "stash", the water only seeped in at the end of the basement where the weight room was! whew! guessing some higher power felt the need to cleanse that area! hahahaha...the boys had to rip out the hardwood laminate on that end of the basement and they've decided that concrete floor is fine for their weight room. (thank goodness)...so now my room (soon to have a wall to enclose me) will be the only area with beautiful hardwood in the basement!

However this has made me realize that all the bolts and bolts of fabric I have really should be stored in plastic bins....so alas, I am off to Lowes/Home Depot to see sizes, etc. to get everything safely put away and hopefully in Clear bins so I can see my stuff!

With the cleanup done, I can now start on my customer quilts that need to be done by October 1st! Whew!

Oh yeah and in the midst of this craziness, I decided July 10th to join a Gym, been working out with a trainer and 5am workouts everyday (with the exception of only 1 day missed) ever since. down 2.9lbs and the energy level is getting higher (like I could even get more energy?).

Now it's prepping 3 of the 4 kids for back to school (shopping started and stalled out) and then a welcoming party for the "new kid"!

chowsers everyone.

PS Books I have read this summer and loved soooo much I bought them after returning the originals to the library:

Scrap Therapy-Cut the Scraps! by Joan Ford. you must get this!!!!

Fix, Freeze, Feast and the Big Cook (these are cookbooks on how to cook 30+ meals in one day and freeze for later consumption! With 6+ in the house, these are amazing for eating healthy meals everynight and not indulging in crappy take out!

PSS If you live in the Sherwood Park Area, please go try my favourite "mom and pop" restaurant: Filamente (best italian food ever) just off Wye Road by Sobeys & Tim Hortons, they treat everyone like you're family and their Gnocchi and mushroom ravioli are AMAZING!!!!

chow for now and hopefully, i will start up my weekly posts again!

back to the gym for me!

My Summer Nonsense Reads where/are: Torment & Thirst #4

These Glubers are amazing, Scrapbooker use them on pages and Quilters/Sewers can use them for Fabric flowers on dresses, hats, bags, etc. WHoot Whoot!