Rambling........

Well, I have zero sewing to show y'all. I havn't touched my sewing machine since Friday night : ( I *really* need to work in some time for sewing, I am getting a little witchy : O The quilt just lays there taunting me! Homeschooling is kicking my butt this year. Last year, I chose curriculums that didn't require as much hands on time from me. Well, my children were very vocal that they did NOT like that. They like Mama to be more involved, which I completely understand, it's just there are *5* of them to teach, two of them being in high school. I really need to find a balance, because I need some time for myself. Between school and running everyone all over tarnation and keeping my house from becoming a complete hovel, there just isn't much time for me to sew or breathe. Well, not if I actually want to sleep! Oh, and let's not forget the two little ones that I have to take care of. Ava is particularly difficult. She is quite the digger and has already squeezed out an entire tube of Neosporin on my carpet and smashed my face powder to smithereens in the last two days.

AHHHHHHHHH!!!! There, that feels a little better LOL

Right now, so that I can use the computer in peace, I am letting Samuel draw on my back with washable markers. It actually kind of feels nice : ) I would show y'all his finished creation, but then y'all would see my back fat : ( Where does back fat come from anyway, I swear, two years ago I didn't have it!

Anyway, I will be getting a much needed break this weekend. Me and 4 of my girlfriends are going to Houston to visit my friends Melinda and Ivonne. They both live in Katy. Hey Marie, would you like to come and meet us? I know things are crazy right now, but maybe you could use the break? I know that is probably a serious understatement. No pressure, but I would love to see you again.

Oh, and some great news! Someone I have known for years is a quilter, only I didn't know it. While I was at my local quilt store the other day, we were discussing the fact that our town has a new homeschool football team. One of the ladies mentioned that the mother of one of the football players comes in all the time and was an avid quilter. Since I know practically everyone on the team, I eagerly asked the name of this quilter. It was Vanessa! I have known Vanessa since before I had Austin! She knew my dh before I did lol Anyway, she is in charge of the concessions for football and I just happened to be working with her that Saturday for the game. Well, we had a wonderful time talking about our passion for sewing! I can't believe neither one of us knew that the other one sewed! I guess it just never came up. So, we will be getting together, I have a real live person to help me when it comes time to quilt my quilt. And it is always great to find out that someone who was already your friend shares a similar interest. Of course, I shared my blog with her, and I am going to try and get her to start her own. She is hilarious, and I am sure she would have an interesting blog.

Well, I have rambled enough for now, I guess I need to go and start my day. I just keep telling myself that tomorrow I get a break! Hope everyone has a great weekend : D

Marie, my quilt and still hating AT&T

Ok, I am still hating AT&T! My email is STILL not working!!!! I called this morning and they informed me that it is supposed to be up and working today, but there are no guarantees. WHAT?! Are you kidding me?!! If it weren't so much trouble to change internet providers, I so would! I pay for this service and now because of their stupid mistake, I havn't received any email in almost a week. I think I deserve a free month of service, but I doubt I will get it. : ( So, again, if anyone has emailed me and I havn't responded, I am so sorry but I didn't receive the email.

I just found out about my friend Marie and the damage her family suffered during Hurricane Ike. I find it very ironic that we met only 2 weeks ago while I was in Houston, evacuating from Hurricane Gustav. I feel so bad, she suffered exactly what I feared happening, a tree falling on my house : ( I talked to her this morning, and she sounded like she was doing as well as could be expected. She said the Lord was getting her through this, but it is still very difficult to have your brand new house with a hole in the roof and water damage. They are still without electricity, but thank God the weather has been fairly cool in the South this past week. I wish I could do something to help, I feel so helpless : ( This hurricane was really bad, I have extended family on my mother's side that suffered complete loss during Hurricane Rita, only to rebuild and have it destroyed again during Ike. It seems like these storms are worse than they used to be, or maybe I just don't remember, but the destruction they cause has been horrible the last several years.

1974 fabric from Urban Chiks


This is the quilt I am making from Quilts and More. With different fabric, of course.


On a happier note, I started my very first quilt!!! I love the new Urban Chiks 1974 fabric, so I bought a layer cake, which consists of 10" squares of all the fabrics in the line. I really liked this quilt on the cover of Quilts and More and figured it looked like an easy first quilt. Also, the layer cake was perfect for this. I had enough fabric with the layer cake for all of the squares and just had to buy my backing fabric, binding fabric and the solid white and red for the sashing and borders. I am really enjoying the process of laying out the fabrics and piecing them together. I like repetition, I find it very calming and stress relieving. I am nervous about the actual quilting, but am not worrying about it until I have to lol I am going to use this quilt in my room, on the bed. It will be big enough to cover the bottom 3/4 of my comforter. I was going to try and make a king size quilt, but realized that probaby wouldn't be very wise since this IS my first quilt lol
So far, I think it is coming out pretty good. My seams are a little off in some places, but I think I am getting the hang of it.




This is really the first sewing I have done in weeks. We were gone for the hurricane and then we started school the day we got back. The first few weeks of homeschooling are always hectic, plus ballet started and we still have football games and cheerleading practice. Life is just very busy right now. I did finish Sydney's ballet bag (I need to take some pictures) but other than that, nada. I had to dust off my sewing table before I started sewing yesterday lol I have so many projects I want to do. Hopefully things are falling into a routine, and the sewing will have it's place. I am also hoping to do a better job of keeping up with the blog. I have missed all of you : )

I am fine! stupid AT&T

We are doing fine after Ike. It didn't really affect us at all, just some wind and rain. However, I lost my internet several days ago, and just had time today to figure out why. Well, come to find out, they turned it off. After several hours of dealing with about 10 different people, dh found out that they turned our internet off by accident. It was someone else who didn't pay their bill! I am NOT happy! My email account didn't even work, so I didn't receive any email since the 16th. WE paid our bill on time, but because someone hit the wrong numbers, we had no internet. They kept insisting that our bill was overdue, finally someone realized the error. So, if you tried to email me the last few days, I am so sorry. Please resend it.

I have lots to share. I finally started my first quilt! But I have to go finish dinner right now. Hopefully I can get back on later this evening or tomorrow morning. I hope everyone is doing ok? I will be catching up on blogs this weekend : )

Back home and meeting a new friend!

Well, we are back home and trying to get back on schedule. I have missed blogging and keeping up with everyone else's blog, but there wasn't a lot of free computer time while visiting at my friend's house. We got home Monday night, and I was shocked at the mess in our backyard! I will take some pictures and post them later on in the week. However, I am very thankful that the trees just made a big mess and didn't destroy our home. I really had a lovely week with my best girlfriend and her family.



While visiting, I got to meet a new friend : ) Marie, from the Villa Family, lives about an hour from my friend's house. We have been wanting to meet up and finally got the chance! My dh and I with Samuel, Ava and Austin met for lunch with Marie, her dh Jacob, and Nathan and Maddie. It was SO great to meet her in person. We got along as well as I had imagined we would : ) Marie is even more beautiful than her pictures indicate. Seriously, she looks like a living doll. Her children are gorgeous too, and very well mannered.



After we ate, we took the children to play in the fountain, they had a blast! Mine got soaking wet, of course, and Maddie was SO cute running around in her diaper. She was a good girl, and didn't want to get her clothes wet lol Mine couldn't have cared less! I am borrowing the pictures from Marie's blog because I left my camera in the car. The visit was way too short, she had to be home for Isabella and I had to beat the awful Houston traffic. Hopefully, we can get together again soon and spend more time together : ) We have plans for that now, that include getting to meet Jona too! I am so excited about this!


How cute is she?!!!!


Marie's dh, Jacob, was so sweet and chatted with my oldest son, Austin. MY dh ditched us after lunch for a golf game! Men!!! LOL



I am so glad I followed a link from Kelci's blog months ago and found Marie. It is so neat how God orchestrates these things. We really have so much in common even though I am a good 10 years older than her!!! That fact was a little depressing lol I really feel like I have found a lifelong friend and it is great that she lives fairly close by so that we can meet again : )

Phew!

Well, dh has been to the house and everything is fine! We did have a tree in the backyard down, it crushed the kids treehouse and part of our shed, but fell away from the backyard into the the uninhabited land in back of our house. Our pool and, most importantly, our house are in perfect shape. Dh said there were two enormous branches in our driveway from the pecan tree in the front yard. If our vehicles would have been there, they would have been smashed. My parents house and all of my friends' homes weathered the storm with no damage, as well. I just thank God that Gustav wasn't anywhere near as horrible as they said he was going to be. The electricity is even back on.

We are going to be staying in Houston through the weekend. Dh is going to come up Thursday to meet us. We had actually planned a trip here for this weekend anyway, so me and the children just came up a few days early lol We are staying at our best friend's house, so we are having a great time : )

Thank you everyone for all the prayers and thoughts, I really appreciate it more than I can say! It is such a warm feeling to know that friends you have never even met in real life care so much.

Hugs to everyone!

Arrived safely

Just a quick note to say that we arrived safely in Katy yesterday evening. The trip over here was longer than usual. But it went well, considering. Dh and my oldest Austin are still in Lafayette. They are going to ride out the storm at dh's work. His office is in a cinderblock building, so pretty safe. Thank God the winds went down to a Category 2. It still looks like the eyewall will pass over Lafayette, which means they will get the full force winds of 110 mph. I am just really thankful it isn't still a Category 4. Anyway, y'alls prayers are still appreciated, for us and everyone else being affected by this storm.