Labor Day Weekend

I really didn't have many expectations for this long weekend. I mean, I did have a list of things to do, but in general, I assumed it would be a pretty uneventful weekend. That plan changed when I got into my car on Friday evening.

I headed out to my church where a group was putting on a play. As I'm driving down the road one of the fun warning lights starts blaring orange at me from my dashboard. Now, this is a light that has come on multiple times. Each time it comes on, I pull out the owners manual to check to see what it means and what I need to do about it. This particular light has something to do with the emissions system and if it continues to shine, then I should take the car to the dealership. So, I make the decision that I will take the car to the dealership on Tuesday and make a determination as to whether it will be more expensive to fix the issue or just trade the car in. I didn't come to this decision lightly. This light has been coming on and then going off for probably a year (yeah, I just kept ignoring it because it WOULD go off a couple of days after it turned on). The car is 12 years old and has given me 12 great years and included getting me to and from California without issue. So, Friday evening I pull back into my garage with that being the plan....dealership for diagnosis on Tuesday.

Saturday I road with my friend Jennifer and her beau Barry to the Watson's house for a chance to wish Randall a happy birthday and to meet the soon to be very famous Avery (check out everything about her arrival at her Wee Watson blog). It was great seeing Sara and Randall, and of course Avery. Sara did ask if I wanted to hold her and I immediately threw my hands up in the air and ran away...I'm really not much of a kid person. Avery is TINY, she came a little earlier than expected so even tinier than the normal baby that I would still run away from. I'm really not big on holding kids until they can manage the weight of their own head and don't require me to protect it or "watch it". And, to be 100% honest, I'm not really good with kids when they get older. I think I had 'baby pangs' for like 15 minutes in my early 30s when all my friends were having babies and I thought briefly that it would be a good thing for me to consider and that I was missing something by not having kids, but those feelings quickly diminished and I realize now that I don't really have a maternal bone in my body. I love ALL the kids that are in my life, I just don't know what to do with them and I can't relate to them, and I channel my great grandmother in thinking that children should be seen and not heard, or they need to be sent outside to play in traffic.

This brings us to Saturday evening. I still have my car on my mind....and I catch an ad on television before I can skip through the commercials that says that there are all these Labor Day specials at all these dealerships, so I think to myself, "Self, perhaps you should investigate...." So, that is what I did. I started investigating. I pulled up Kelly Blue Book to see what my car would be valued at (yeah, not much) and then started looking for acceptable alternatives.

Sunday comes around and I headed back out to my car to drive to church. This time when I started it up the glaring orange warning signal was no longer alight.....is my car trying to convince me that I don't need to get a new car? Is he teasing me into a lull of acceptance so that it will leave me on the side of the road stranded? I pondered and wondered. I decided that I wouldn't tempt fate and drive the 70 miles over and back to celebrate my nephew's birthday with the family and instead returned to my little den of vehicle investigation.

Monday morning I woke up and decided to heck with it, I don't care if my budget isn't ready for it, I'm just going to bite the bullet and get a new car. My original plan was to follow my head (after days....okay technically weeks and months and years of research because I have been thinking about this since I returned to Texas in 2009) and go to Honda and get a replacement CRV. However, I had to pass a Chevy dealership on my way to the Honda dealership and I felt that my heart really wanted me to at least look at and test drive an Equinox. Well, to shorten the story a little, a couple of hours later, I ended up driving off the lot with a pretty new white Equinox. It doesn't have all the bells and whistles that I probably could have gotten with a Honda (e.g., a sunroof, but I really doubt if I would ever open the sunroof) but it suits my needs and it is quite a bit roomier and more comfortable than my old CRV was. And, I guess I'll figure out how to make the budget work.

During the negotiations, I did text Sara and let her know that I was copying her and Randall, and she reached out to their neighbor who happens to be over the Used Car department and I don't know if strings were pulled or what, but he gave me a pretty good deal on my trade-in, so I was happy about that.

And, as a side note, I said above that I've been thinking about getting a new car for about 4 years now. When the topic first came up, my dad said that I should look at the GMC Terrain or, you guessed it, the Chevy Equinox....they are essentially the same vehicle. So, dad is still influencing me in one way or another....Now I just need to come up with a name for this new baby..... Oh, and Leo doesn't know what to think of it. 

Walking the Dog

I am currently lucky enough that I get to work from home. This means that I have developed a morning routine that makes Leo very happy.

5:30 - Alarm goes off and feed Leo. Return to bed to actually wake up and Leo curls up next to me.
6:00 - Actually get out of bed. Take my vitamins, put on some clothes, make a cup of coffee (thank you, Laura and Ash for giving me the ability to do this), turn on my computer, log in, check email, address some issues, update Facebook.
7:00 - Coffee has kicked in, so...well.... Put on my shoes, Leo jumps off the bed and starts pacing around all excited. Put leash on Leo and head out the door.
7:45ish - Return home (this all depends on how long we walk and how much sniffing/marking Leo does). Get in shower.
8:00 - Return to computer and start working. Leo decides that now HIS coffee has kicked in, so to speak, so he needs to spend some time in the backyard....yeah, he is sorta like his Mom in that he likes to 'take care of business' at home.
8:15 - Mom is hard at work. Leo is asleep on the floor of the office.

And so goes the day.

Here's the thing, I have a Fitbit that I wear and I shoot for a certain number of steps every day. This morning walk typically gets me close to halfway there but because I like to know what my progress is, I like to count my steps as I walk. I count to 100 and using my fingers as a sort of abacus, I keep track to 5 counts of 100 and know that I've gone 1,000 steps (I know you are probably thinking the math doesn't add up there, but I only count the steps that the left foot takes). Sadly, I have a tendency to get a little dyslexic when I'm walking and always (especially today) screw up when I get to the 40s. I tend to be counting along and find myself back in the 30s. I have no idea why I do this, but it really throws my count off...luckily it typically means that I go over the steps that I think I'm taking.

Oh, and in case you are wondering, I get the rest of my steps in during the house, typically by marching in place in front of the television or pacing from one end of the house to the other, circling Leo as I go and have to deal emotionally with the quizzical looks that he gives me as he doesn't comprehend why Mom is speed walking through the house over and over again in a maniacal manner periodically stopping to read what the little black thing on her shirt says. 

Las Vegas, Baby?

Last week I went to Las Vegas. Yeah, you read that correctly, I went to Vegas.

I went with my friend Angelia who is the creator of fantastic fairy wings and related ephemera (check out her Etsy store: On Gossamer Wings). She had been invited to teach fairy wing construction to dance costume designers (Tutu Seminars). I was invited to go along as the muscle (because every good fairy needs to have some muscle and protection behind her).

Angelia's seminar went from 6:00 PM - 8:00 PM on Thursday and Friday nights, so that put a bit of a hitch in doing anything exciting in the evenings (and yeah, I know technically that is still early, but we are old...and cheap, err frugal). The sessions were great and Angelia had the opportunity to meet some of her fans...and she does have fans. I have to say that the women and men that were participating in this seminar are amazing. They all schlepped sewing machines and sergers to this place and learned to make all sorts of different bodices and tutus and dance wear for the schools and professional dance troupes and theaters. The work that they were doing blew me away and they so enjoyed what they were doing. After the classes, they would continue to gather together and discuss the hows and whys of doing certain things in the construction of their costumes and they were all more than willing to open and share what they knew.

Now, Angelia and I we were not there for learning all the ins and outs of working with tulle...I was there solely as an observer. We also didn't stay anywhere near the strip, which is always the first question that people ask when I say I went to Vegas. In fact, the strip was about a 30 minute cab ride over there, and we just weren't that interested in checking it out....we could see it from our room, and that was good enough. We were on the 19th floor of a 20 floor building, so we declared ourselves to be staying in the penthouse basement or penthouse adjacent. The room fit our needs. It was clean, had two beds, and good AC, so really, what more could you ask for?

The casino, however, well, it really wasn't what you imagine, or rather not what I imagine....

What you expect in Vegas....bright lights and beautiful happy people

This would have at least been interesting to see:

This is what we actually saw in our casino (not an actual picture because I just couldn't bring myself to take pictures in there....)

Rows and rows of slot machines manned by the elderly or the depressing

Mind you, the casino was right across the street from a retirement community, so I really think they just bus people over from there every afternoon. The highlight of the casino, though was checking out all of the names on the slot machines. My personal favorite was:

Willy Wonka machine with the motion seat

Now this casino didn't have just slots and a handful of tables for cards, craps, or roulette....they also had a giant smoke-filled bingo parlor (although there was a little glassed in room for the non smokers to sit in), a bowling alley, and a movie theater (not that any movies were showing at times that were convenient for us).

Just to give you one last feel for this place.... As I stated, our class was finished at 8:00 PM, which meant we would get out of there around 9:00, after all the clean up and final questions. We would try to go to dinner after that, however, the restaurants would all stop serving around that time. The buffet was closed, the surf and turf restaurant was out of our price range...and closed. The bottomless taco and enchilada restaurant stopped serving. The sushi bar...you guessed it, stopped serving. The only place left to eat was TGIFridays. Yep, I went all the way to Vegas and we ate at Fridays...both nights. Not that I really minded because they currently have a Tennessee Whiskey Cake that is really scrumptious and Angelia and I split one....twice.

Will I go back to Vegas? I'm sure I will.....it didn't kill me this time and who knows, maybe third time will be the charm where I meet somebody and get married there...

The Three Rs Quilts

I have been participating in the Art Quilts Around the World, quilt challenge for a while now. The latest was "The Three Rs...Reduce, Reuse, Recycle" and the only rules (aside from staying within the size range) was that we were not to purchase anything new for the creation of these quilts. I immediately knew what I was going to use for my quilt....I have been doing a lot of fusible web stuff lately and really enjoy it and always end up with bits and pieces of fused fabric left over that I have just been tossing into a box. I decided that I would pull all of that out and and figure out a use for it. I then came across a picture in a recycling ad of a swirly tree with its limbs all ending in what can be recycled and the importance, blah blah. Well, I decided that I wanted to make a tree. This is what I ended up with: 

As I was working on it, it felt a little Dr. Seussian to me...but I loved it.

Then, sadly, I quilted it....

This is with the quilting and the binding. I am very disappointed in both of those.  I wanted to do a bunch of free motion quilting, but need to practice a lot more on that. Ah well, I learn with each challenge. 

This is the backing. I used a wallhanging that I made for my friend Sara's nursery...or rather, I used the first attempt at the wall hanging. I wasn't happy with the placement on the fabric after I had fused it all down and decided to make a second version....which is what she received. However, since this was the reduce, reuse, and recycle challenge, I figured I would go ahead and use it. The binding is also a bit that I had left over from some other quilt and you will notice that the bobbin thread on the backside is all different shades, that is because I used up a whole bunch of bobbins that were partially filled with different colors (nice thing about that is now I have a bunch of empty bobbins that I can prefill in preparation for my next big quilt rather than just having a single or couple of bobbins that I have to repeatedly stop and refill. 

As I look at this more, I may take the binding off and redo it...if I get done with the next challenge early...

This was a great challenge for me and I really enjoyed it. I've always wanted to attempt doing a "snippet" picture and this was my first foray into that but it won't be my last....I'm thinking about just covering a whole bunch of fabric with fusible and then see what moves me...