I realize it's been a long time since I've posted anything, but I'm sure you didn't miss me, since I am pretty humdrum anyway.
Most of the time, I don't post anything cuz I don't have anything exciting to say.
This post will prove it cuz I still don't have anything exciting to say, but I will record a few things that I've been up to.
Sewing. Purging.
There. That about covers it.
If you want more details, you can keep reading if you wish.
This Alaska quilt that I've been working on is finally almost done.
I really hate the way my quilts get puckered when I quilt all the way across the whole thing, so this time I tried to minimize the puckering by not sewing across the sashing, which meant constant starting and stopping, which meant more frustration with my machine. So in order to maintain a fairly good relationship with my machine, I had to do only a little bit at a time each day, and get it done slowly and calmly, instead of quickly with high stress and rage.
Anyhoo, I finally got to the part where I can start working on the binding. I was looking forward to taking a break from my machine while I waited for myself to go buy some fabric for the binding, but then PW asked me to teach her how to sew.
sigh........okay, fine
I got her started on a small project, and this placemat is the final product of her labors.
I thought it turned out pretty good for her first project.
She had a little help from Weeners, of course.
I think Weeners loves my sewing machine more than I do.
Since I still had the walking foot attached to my machine, I went ahead and made some more dish rags for the church building. I will probably keep some of them for myself.
I got 4 more to go, and then my machine will be put aside until I get my binding fabric ready.
Also, I started another quilt. I know you're gonna think I'm crazy, but I decided I am going to hand piece this one because I'm sick of my machine, and I just find it relaxing to sew by hand. Besides, this one will have a lot of seams and corners to match up, and I know if I do this one by machine, nothing's gonna match up. It will look way better done by hand.
I take turns making quilts for my kids, and since PW's is all done, it was time to make one for Justin again. I found one in a magazine that I thought would be nice for him. The whole thing is made up of 2-1/2" squares. Very simple.
It took me a long time to get all my squares cut out.
For a twin size quilt, I needed 1800 squares. All neutral colors in dark, medium, and light tones.
I didn't want to repeat the same fabric in the same 25-block square, so I had to keep running to the quilt stores to look for more patterns, for variety.
I finally got them all cut out and ready to sew. So now when I sit down to watch TV, I can relax with my thread and needle and let the quilt top slowly grow in my lap.
This is the first block. I gotta make 72 of these.
In the meantime, I finally FINALLY! got Justin's 1st year album all DONE!
I had to buy a 3-1/2" binder cuz it ended up too thick for the binder that it was in. You know how it is when it comes to taking pictures of your baby, especially your first one. You take LOTS of pictures. So I'm sure the 1st year album will be the thickest one, and the later years will end up being 2 or 3 years all in the same album. That is, if I live long enough to get through all his years, let alone Steph and PW. But it's a fun on-going project that I enjoy doing.
My other recent activities involved purging. We've accumulated a lot of JUNK over the years, and decided it was time to get rid of stuff. We've already made 3 trips to Value Village, and that was just after going through Justin's and PW's rooms.
Mostly got rid of a lot of books from our homeschooling days.
Then I went through the game closet and got rid of half our games that we don't play anymore. :-(
Next room to go through is my scrapbooking room, but I highly doubt I will be getting rid of much there. I do need to do some serious organizing though, and that will be a huge time consuming job.
Side note news flash: one reason we wanted to start purging is because Chuck applied for a transfer to Duluth, MN. If he gets the job, at least the biggest part of purging will be done. But nonetheless, even if he doesn't get the job, purging is still needed, and it feels good to get rid of stuff.
That is all I'm going to say about Duluth because there's no point in elaborating on it until we know something for sure.
At I'm not quite sure how I feel about it anyway.
So a couple weeks ago, Chuck had to go to Florida for 10 days. Midway through his absence something happened. PW left the garage door open all night, and that resulted in a whole day of an unexpected fiasco which woulda/coulda been avoided.
Friday morning I woke up to a cold house. It's usually on the cool side anyway, but this was cold, so I knew right away something was wrong.
The furnace wouldn't kick in, so I knew I had to call someone right away before the house got even colder. I called HeatSource cuz they've been out here before to fix our furnace and I was very pleased with them, so within an hour or two, the guy arrived. (His name was Jesse - very nice guy.)
First, he discovered that the furnace froze up, so he gave me the option of thawing it out myself and then he would come back after it's thawed, OR he could switch to hourly pay and stay and do it himself. I knew either way it was gonna cost a bunch of money, so I told him to just stay and finish it. It's a good thing because while he was here, he discovered that the pipes behind Chuck's "slop sink" were frozen. So while the furnace was thawing out, he examined that problem, and found out that the pipes behind the sheetrock had burst open. So he had to go down into our crawlspace and turn off the water and look for the leak and then he told me I should call a plumber.
Here's the weird part that I don't understand. I asked him if he recommended anyone in particular and he said "no". So I got on the internet to look for a plumber, and HeatSource came up. Well, that is who this guy Jesse works for! (So, why didn't Jesse recommend HeatSource?????) So, I called HeatSource and told them what happened, and she asked my name, I told her, she said, "Oh, Lisa! Not your pipes too!" She recognized me from my earlier call about the furnace. I told her that Jesse was still here working on my furnace, so I gave the phone to Jesse. I heard Jesse say something into the phone like "I don't know, she looked it up on the internet and HeatSource came up....."
So, I was getting the feeling that maybe they didn't want to do the plumbing work?????
Anyway, Jesse got stuck with both jobs of fixing my furnace AND my pipes.
I'm just glad he was here, and I told him that he was my knight in shining armor.
He said, "we don't usually get that kind of reaction from people". But Chuck was gone, and I was feeling like a helpless damsel in distress, so that made him my knight in shining armor.
(The last time the furnace went out, Chuck was in Iraq! Should I be seeing a pattern here?)
He ended up cutting a hole in the sheetrock to change the pipes. It was all wet and soggy in there, so he told me to put a fan in front of it to help dry it out (so mold doesn't grow in there).
I know, by looking at this picture you're thinking I was supposed to turn the fan ON, not just set the fan in front of the hole. LOL! No worries, I took this picture after everything had dried out.
So, while Jesse was waiting for someone to deliver two new pipes (yes, two pipes burst open), he continued to work on the furnace, which by this time was thawed out. He got it working again and said there was no damage, but then he made another discovery. He said, "I hate to give you more bad news but I have to "red tag" this furnace and shut it down."
WHAT!?
He tested the CO2 emissions and they were SKY HIGH, way off the charts. He said if our furnace happened to crack, everyone in the house would be dead in a matter of seconds.
So maybe it was blessing in disguise that PW left that garage door open? Otherwise we never would've been aware of this.
He said it would be a week before they could install a new one, so I asked him, can't we just take our chances and keep this one running for one more week?
He said no because it would be against the law, and he would get fired.
Okay, so what am I supposed to do to keep warm for a whole week?
He said he would let the furnace run long enough to heat the house up, and he would stick around and watch the CO2 emissions, but then he would have to shut it down when he leaves. And he would also loan me some space heaters to keep the house warm until the new one was installed.
I was grateful for that cuz I thought I was gonna have to run to Lowe's or Home Depot to go buy some. Also, Jesse set up one of their other guys to come out to my house later that same day to sell me my new furnace, so I was glad I didn't have to run to the store and try to get back in time.
So after Jesse fixed my water leak and shut down my furnace, he left. And then Ben came to give me his spiel. He presented me with 3 choices: cheap, medium, expensive.
And we also got Chuck on the phone so he could be in on this. I didn't want to make this decision on my own, although I was already in my own mind leaning towards the medium one.
It didn't make sense for us to spend a bunch of moolah on the expensive one if we ended up moving. The cheap one didn't sound too impressive. So Chuck agreed that we should get the medium one.
So for a whole week, the furnace in the garage sat useless
while I kept the space heaters quite useful inside the house.
They actually kept the house quite toasty, too warm at times. It reminded me of being in our toasty cabin on a cold winter day. :-)
So anyhoo, that was an unexpected adventure that ended up taking my whole day,
but thankfully we are still alive and warm with our new furnace which was installed on the same day that Chuck was coming back from Florida, of course.
Now if we could only train PW to get into the habit of always shutting the garage door!
For someone with nothing to say, this post ended up being really long.
I leave you now with a deep thought from Peeka-boo:
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