SUMMER of ME!

With all that's been going on in my house, I have been neglecting the part where you are supposed to take care of YOU! This is something that I struggle with a lot though. I take care of everyone else and always leave me for last which means that I normally don't take care of me. I have struggled with my weight for many years now, I finally it all figured out when I found out I was pregnant with wonderful E. And needless to say, it has all went downhill with him. I did lose a few of the pregnancy pounds, found out we were moving (when he was a mere 18 days old) back "home" and I started spiraling out of control. Before I knew, we had been here 2 years and in that 2 years I gained 30 pounds. None of my clothes fit the way they used to. My "fat" clothes don't even fit.

I have been a Weight Watchers member before and that's how I lost. I rejoined but am still struggling to lose. I have been gaining and losing the same 5 pounds for 3 months. I came across a little challenge over at Baby Tea Leaves, that I found through 5 Minutes for Mom.

My goal is to lose 5 pounds by the end date of July 25. I don't have a big plan for that time, but I would like to lose 10 pounds August 31, that is my 15 year class reunion and my friend and I are leaving the hubbies at home with the kiddos and going alone. I'll be posting on "Fat Fridays" about my week.

I know I need to exercise more, I know I need to make wiser choices in my eating and I know I need to get my water in. I just need to focus on a goal and go for it.

Country Living Magazine

Picture from CountryLiving.com

My husband collects the Coke Reward Points and just after Christmas asked me if there were any magazines that I would like. I said I'm not sure (I was already receiving 6 magazines, 2 of which I don't really know how I ended up receiving them) and so he started rattling off the names and when he said Country Living I said I would like to get that one. Yes, I know that's a lot of magazines and most of them get flipped through, so more than others and when subscriptions run out I won't be renewing the majority of them. And yes, I recycle them I either offer them to friends, the library or to our church recycling bin (the parish school is part of a recycling program that earns dollars for education).

I received my Country Living magazine on Monday and happened to be going into work that day and stuffed it in my backpack. I don't recall which page but I remembered seeing an article about a juried exhibit of quilts at the International Quilt Festival in Houston. This link will take you to the article. Basically, the Country Living Classics exhibit is going to be a selection of 30 quilts that have been submitted by readers that will be shown at Festival. They are looking for Classic Country Quilts of all sorts. Read the article for more information. No, I will not be submitting any quilts for consideration, but I think there are a few people that should.

Good Luck!!!!!

I've had a few requests about the Free Fabric I received from Sew, Mama, Sew. You can purchase the fabric at the Sew, Mama, Sew Store. I received my Hancocks of Paducah catalog in the mail and was browsing through it and found the fabric in their with all of the other fabrics from the same line. So here is some more information:

The fabric line is called Flutterby by Tula Pink for Moda Fabrics. It is premium 44" cotton.

I also like to shop from Emerald City Fabric & Craft LLC, they have an ebay store and have the above line in a charm pack. You can bid on it or you can buy it now. Just thought I'd let you know. Wherever you may decide to buy from, the prices are all comparable.

Quilt a Long Progress

An update of sorts, the basement is drying out. I'm not sure how long it will be this way. And now that the kids shouldn't play down there, that is where the kids want to play.


I am participating in a Quilt A Long hosted by AmandaJean over at Crazy Mom Quilts. This link will take you to a picture of what the fiinshed quilt will look like. If you remember, I was also participating in one prior to the holiday season last year. I posted about it here. Well in usual Wendy fashion, I didn't finish it. The holiday craziness caught up with me and well I didn't work on it. When AmandaJean announced she was having another quilt a long, I felt bad participating after having not completed the first one. But I decided to participate anyway and work on the first one along side of the second one.


Here are pictures from the first one:
Week 1

Week 2

Week 3

Week 4 (and my favorite so far)

Week 5 (not as difficult as it looks)

Yep, it's may and I'm working with Christmas colors. Crazy isn't it.

And now for the current one. I am really liking the fabric that I chose for this one. I almost want to make 2 of them. But don't want to bite off more than I can chew. I have several projects started and all are making progress but none are completed yet.

Week 1 SQAL

Week 2 SQAL

I have not completed week 3 yet, but will work on it sometime this week, maybe today. I need a break from cleaning (hehehehe). I have also prepared the fabric for the setting blocks, but have not worked on any of those yet.

I am still working on Dear Baby Jane no new pictures to post because the scanner is not attached (because of the basement conditions). And my pictures of those tiny blocks come out dark. I'm still behind, almost caught up, maybe a Dear Baby Jane catch up day is needed for me, hmmmm.

No pics, no quilting and a big mess

Last week was very, very busy. The boys had their stepping up and graduation ceremonies. The shower in the master bathroom leaked into the dining room and has required a plumber and is now going to require tearing our bathroom apart to find the possible leak and fixing the problem. T-ball and last minute finishing up on a friend/boss' trip to Hawaii. A relaxing day was to be had on Mother's Day. All of the boys (including dad) went to church with me this morning and we stopped by home so I could change into jeans before heading over to MIL's. Well I needed to checkin my friend / boss for her trip to Hawaii, so I went into the basement to use the computer and after opening the door and turning the light on to find the basement flooded, not just a small amount of water but probably 3 inches of water standing in the basement. Yep, a huge mess. Lots of things are getting thrown away, lots of things are going to be purged and lots of things are going to be sold. I guess that is a good thing about this happening. It has made me realize that even though I knew we had a lot of stuff, I realize that we really do have a lot of stuff that just isn't going to be used.

Things I will be condensing:

• Kids toys - getting rid of all of the baby stuff, my boys are 2, 4 and 5 they don't play with it.
• Books - not all of them, but we do have a lot of books that we don't use.
• Craft -things that I don't use and no longer enjoy doing. I really need to get rid of some stuff and make a pledge not to buy any more.
• Paper - it has gotten out of control.
• Stickers - sadly, this box probably has to be thrown out because the entire bottom is wet and dripping, I'm sure the stickers are not any good as well.

The basement mess is going to take some time. We will probably have to replace our desk and file cabinet, and our old kitchen table was being used as a train table and well, it collapsed today. Out in the garbage it will be going. To get rid of the weight machine or not. Hmm, I'm not sure but we'll see.

I am hoping to be able to still work on some projects over the next few weeks, but I'm not sure how much will get accomplished. I do know that no pictures will be posted as the computer is down (not broken but disconnected) and we won't have access to our external harddrive to save the pictures to.

Alas, it will all get taken care of.