Accomplish for Week of September 9

To bake: Cupcakes for the Office - Yeah, gonna try this again

To piece: Sedona Stars Quilt - This will need to be postponed until I get my machine fixed. 

To read: Finish The Minstrel Boy - Please, I'm getting tired of this book and its plot line. 

To finish: Put Binding on Black Tessellation quilt - This will also need to be postponed until I get my machine fixed. 

To do: TAKE MACHINE TO BE FIXED...

Oh, and I have another ceramics class, so I should be doing some painting this week...woo hoo...

Week's Accomplishments...

So last Sunday I posted what I intended to accomplish this coming week (See Accomplish for Week). Well, I didn't complete everything... I did not back cupcakes for the office. I did not finish reading The Minstrel Boy, although I did get a little further in it. And, I did not get the binding put on my Black Tessellation quilt.

I did, however, at least piece the blocks for my Sedona Stars quilt:

I also made a Nap Mat at the request of a friend for her son to take to preschool:

I will NEVER make another one of these. It has a built in pillow and blanket. There is some foam to make it cushy. Tabs with Velcro to close it and a strap to carry it. I found the instructions on-line and they were, well, less than clear....However, I persevered, it is done, and I have learned what my limitations are.

Sadly, about halfway through my tasks, my sewing machine went kaput on me, and I now need to find a machine shop to get it fixed, luckily, I have my traveling machine as a backup and it happily (yes, my machines have emotions) stepped in to help me finish the work. 

Accomplish for Week of September 2

We are going to start small....

To bake: Cupcakes for the Office

To piece: Sedona Stars Quilt

To read: Finish The Minstrel Boy

To finish: Put Binding on Black Tessellation quilt

Not In A Blogging Frame of Mind

I apologize to all my readers for not being very consistent in posting and/or commenting. I just haven't really been in a blogging frame of mind.

Partially, I don't really have much to talk about...nothing has really caught my eye that I feel is worthy of sharing with my blogging community.

Partially, I don't really have any fun news to report...I'm slogging along on getting back in the healthy habit and am walking almost every day. I'm making progress on raising money for my 3 Day Race, but could always use more...so please donate (click the button on the left, it'll take you to my donation page).

Partially, I just can't seem to find the time to make it through all the reading. I know that this is no excuse because we all have tough lives and have lots going on. But, most of the time when I get home from the office I just don't want to fire up the computer again. This used to be my dad's biggest argument about not getting a computer...he didn't want to look at one after staring at spreadsheets all day at the office. Now that he is retired, though, he is Mr. Computer Man.

I'll try and do better, but I'm not going to promise. When I do find the time to read every body's blogs, all the good comments have already been made and I just don't have the energy to come up with something witty, so while I may not be commenting, I am thinking about commenting and that should count for something.

This weekend I'm going to try for a television-free weekend. I'm going to try really hard to not turn the t.v. on when I get home on Friday evening and have it on pretty much for the the full 2 days that I'm home...I'm going to make the effort to NOT "turn on, boot up, jack in" and actually spend the weekend just being, reading, quilting, and listening to the gagillion songs on my iPod.

I'll let you know how that turns out.

I'm Becoming My Grandmother

My mom's mom, Grandma V., introduced me to massages 14 years ago in Hot Springs, AR. Grandma always loved getting massages when she and Grandpa would go to Hot Springs, so even though Grandma was no longer able to go get one for herself, she insisted that my sister and I both go and be massaged. As I said, Marti, my sister, and I had never had massages before.

The place that we went to in Hot Springs was an old school "spa" with the mineral baths and hadn't really been upgraded since they opened in like the 1920's (I kid, but still). So we go down and check in and we are pointed to these little closets and are told to put our clothes on the hooks there and somebody would come and wrap a sheet around us and take us to the relaxation area. Mind you Marti and I are the only people in the spa area that are under the age of 50 in the whole place. Well, I'm in my little closet area and the person comes to wrap my sheet around me, what I didn't know is that I was supposed to turn around and face the wall, but I didn't. So, I'm standing there facing the little spa lady full frontal and she starts yelling me to turn around. That was discomfort moment #1. She wraps the sheet around me escorts me to the waiting area and then takes me back to this big room that has the mineral baths on one side and little cubicles with massage tables on the other. There are all these older women wandering around in their togas moving from salt scrub to mineral bath to God-knows-what. I lay down on my table and the wiry little masseuse starts giving me an old school rub-down. It was really not all that relaxing and very uncomfortable especially since I had to go to the bathroom the entire time.

I didn't go back for another massage for many, many years.

I was thinking about this today as I was having a wonderful massage at La Belle Spa by Donald and I started thinking about how much my Grandma would have loved this place. It started out with a nice foot soak with some crackers and nuts while I stared into a fire. Then Donald came and took me into a private room, with soft lights and soothing music being piped in...so very different than my first experience.

And as he proceeded to work the knots out of my back, I slowly began to relax and stopped resisting, and as I did so I tried to silence the running discussion in my head. I couldn't quite silence the voice in my head completely because as I lay there being kneaded like bread dough, I was thinking "how do I want to phrase this in my blog...."

2009...I'm promising myself more massages. They are SOOOO worth it!!