Long Weekend

It's been a nice long weekend for me. DH is out of town for a conference, and my son started working! We're so proud of him. His first job, and Tuesday he'll be getting his license, so he can drive himself. He wasn't too keen on my taking a picture of him in his Whataburger uniform, so you'll have to take my word that he looked handsome.
I made some magnets with the flat marbles. This is my favorite one, though in the picture it looks as if she has smallpox or something.
This is another fav, though one of the first I made and I didn't put a plain white card stock circle behind the printed paper, so you can kind of see the magnet, but it makes for a better picture.
We got my son a car. While looking for him a car, I found one I wanted, too. It's convertible!! And sooo cute. Only one person can ride with me, though. So my son and I were wondering today, if you're in England and the steering column is on the left side of the car, is the gear shift reversed? Jill? Do you know?I was marveling while emptying the dishwasher at how many Fuzzy's cups we have. I think my DH likes it just a little! haha....there were three more in the dishwasher, and who knows how many he has in his office!
Oh, and you see that stained glass in the background!? My step-mom made it for me for Christmas. I love, love, love it!

Did I tell you I'm going to Jamaica this summer!? I'll be going with the Caribbean Christian Centre for the Deaf. We'll be staying a week, and I can hardly wait!

Classes start this week, will be interviewing some parents of D/deaf children. If you're interested, let me know!

Check THIS Out!

Our anniversary is next Friday. Thirteen years. It's been a little slim, so we decided we weren't buying each other anything (does that ever work? No.). I spent about $30 on hubs.

Hubs got me THIS! Isn't it beautiful!? I *love* it!

I have to make a place in my 'craft' room for it, so it's temporary home is the living room. It works! It has a knee lever instead of a foot pedal. How cool is that!? The book and bobbins and presser feet were in the drawer. Date: 1951! SOOO excited, can you tell?

It's called Necchi. Anyone familiar with?

On another note....I just watched my son drive away on his first 'drive' with the driver's ed people. Sniff! On both accounts!

New Project

Well, we're on our third weather day off from school, with a fourth tomorrow. I started this new Mariner's Compass quilt today. The colors in the photo aren't true. The points that look yellow are actually light green.
I like it so far!
I'm actually going to a conference tomorrow, so I won't be off again. They'll tack these days on to the end of the school year and we'll be going into June! :( Hopefully the temperature will be nice and toasty tomorrow to melt this ice!

Stuff

Wow. I just can't keep it all up! I guess I'm just going to have to post once a week and make it a good one! I started classes again last week. This semester I am taking Small-N Design and Language and Literacy Development.
I *finally* finished the quilt to hang in the doorway of my classroom. It's been a hit. My first self-designed quilt. The flowers could have used some leaves, but it didn't happen.
I thought this was a cute self-portrait of one of my students. The blue line around his ear is his cochlear implant! :)
Here are some things I bought at the quilt show a couple of weeks ago. These fat quarters will be used for my Dear Jane quilt. Which should be finished in approximately 2030.
This was a cool pattern that looks kinda like circles, but it's not. It came with the triangle ruler to help out.
The pictures are from my camera, so the color's not so good, but these fabrics will make a cute bag to hold groceries or stuff. I have lots of stuff.
Random beads/sequins. I may do a crazy quilt someday....any advice?
This will be something new. It is a felted wool penny pincushion. (Not the bear, he's just there to look cute)

Quilt Show

I went to the quilt show today..

It was a lot of fun.

I spent almost all my Christmas money.

Got some material, beads, fabric, and patterns.

I forgot my camera, so these pictures are from my phone.

My back and feet were sore when I finally sat down in the car.


Someday I will enter one of my quilts!

Catching Up

Hi! Yep, still alive. A dear friend called last night and in the course of the conversation apologized for not calling much, but said that she reads my blog to keep up with us. Oops! I've been so delinquent here she's way behind, and so are you! One of the problems (excuses?) is that I love to put pictures. Well, with the moving and the wayward child moving back in, classes, new job, yada, yada, I just haven't been as diligent. This will be a catch up post, nice and random, just like you like 'em!

Here is some delicious new fabric I got to make a quilt for a Christmas present. At the rate I'm going, it will be for *next* Christmas.

Yesterday, we decorated pumpkins at school. We used pipe cleaners, yarn, sequins, fabric, googly eyes, markers, and hot glue. Ouch. I think they turned out really cute.

We did our dress up/fall parties last week. Michael Jackson showed up.

A friend of mine gave me this series of books a looong time ago. I finally dug one out a couple of weeks ago and devoured it. If you like quilting, you might like these books. Harmless, easy-to-read. Thanks, Sherilyn!

My son is taking art this year. He recently completed a drawing of the Kool-Aid guy. The bottom is the original, the top is his version. Nice job!

Hubby showing his dark side.

I found a pretty mushroom in one of my plants.

We found a snake in the yard.

Earlier this summer hubs taught me how to put up a fan. Boy, were my arms tired, but it's always fun learning something new. Thanks, honey!

I also have been teaching one of my classes. I love it. By the end of this semester I'll have 21 hours. Only 500 more to go. Kidding, but it feels like it.

We've also used our fireplace. It's so much fun, I love it!

My job is getting better. Don't think I'm cut out for it, I like the babies with more severe disabilities, but I do love my hearing impaired kiddos.

Have a safe and fun Halloween!!

It's Here!!

Yep....Here it is!!

This is on the side of the box....isn't that clever!?

I love this packaging.

Ta-dah! Hubby as Vanna.
Downloaded a book in a minute and I'm off to read. Good bye!

A Great Spring Break

10 Great Things I did on Spring Break 2009



1. Exercised

2. Finished 7 IEPs

3. Painted my toes and wore flip flops for the first time this year.

4. Planted some new flowers.

5. Completed 49 progress reports.

6. Read books (and ordered my new Kindle!!)

7. Started a quilt for my expectant mommy friend.

8. Finished 2 Power Points and downloaded bunches of research articles on my new hard drive (on my new Office 2007and new external hard drive, thanks honey!)

9. Watched my son hone his skateboarding skillz at the skatepark.

10. Relaxed.

The two things I didn't get to: washing the car and practicing the cello.

Can anyone tell me how to fix this alignment problem? I have it all laid out nicely and then it does this. I fix it, it still does it.

Wordless Wednesday

Crafty Weekend

I got some crafting accomplished this weekend. My pictures are positively awful, but there ya go.

Here is the first in another BOM (Block of the Month) from Willowberry Designs called Verandah Views.

Here is my clipboard. It is my first Mod Podge foray (I want it to be called Modge Podge)

I used the pages from an old dictionary and on the front used the "M" and the "R" for mine and hubby's names....awww....idn't that cute?

Here's the back...."C" and "A" for my kids' names...although the real "C" page inadvertently got glued behind the background page. Oops!

Here's another using Robert Frost poems, though I don't like it near as much.

I got the idea from Jennifer over at Sewhooked....check out that wall!!

Late Valentines

Hello all! I'm sorry about my absence of late, last week was super busy. I had nine, count 'em *nine* IEP meetings in one week, we had parent/teacher conferences until 7:00 on Thursday night, and I was exalted. That's what my daughter used to say....she couldn't say exhausted, it was exalted. I love it. My professor also decided to post a twenty page article at 1:42 pm she wanted us to read before class that afternoon. Oh yeah, and there were tornadoes everywhere.

Here are the Valentine gifts! hubby wanted some new soft towels and a Red Hot Chili Peppers CD, and I wanted new headphones and that giant Toblerone. Yum!

I also got a Target card and these other two $10 coupons in the mail, so I might get motivated enough to go shop.

The problem is, I'm in "reading mode." I'm in a Flickr group called

The 25 Book Challenge for 2009, and I decided to re-read the entire Harry Potter series. I've read the first four at least two times each, but the last three I've only read once, and I have forgotten the majority of them, so I am frantically trying to get through them. I'm also an end reader, as you might remember, though I've restrained myself this time, as I do remember at least that everyone (well, the three main characters) survive. I'm on number six, so life should get back to semi-normal after that. Then I'll have to start on my three presentations for class and the 18-25 page paper....

So, I'll try to be better this week! No school today for President's Day...more time to read! Yay!

My First Embroidery

Ok, well first embroidery since I was a little girl and my precious Grandmother was teaching me. I guess some things kinda stick with you...like guitar lessons from my youth (Thanks Momma and Daddy!). When my son started learning this summer, I was shocked at how my fingers could still find notes!
Anyway, this block is finished. While it looks like a Valentiney treat, it is actually a BOM for a Christmas quilt. BOM=Block of the Month, though for me it'll probably mean something more like Big Ol' Mess! I will be starting this one next, which is also a BOM.
Any one embroidery? How do you feel about hoops, stabilizer on the back? Any other ideas/suggestions?

OH! And I was searching through old posts yesterday and I discovered to my horror that I am an exclamation point person! I mean, it's ok to be an exclamation point person in the body of the post, but I have an outlier number worth of post titles that have exclamation points at the end. I'll try to restrain myself! ! ! !