ACLS Certified

At last the studying and the lectures, the tests and the practicum are over. Well for another 2 years anyway, LOL! I learned a lot and admit that I should have done this a long time ago. It turned out to be a lot of fun although very stressful at the same time. I had a great team!

Award Winners

"This blog invests and believes in PROXIMITY - nearness in space, time and relationships. These blogs are extremely charming. These kind bloggers aim to find and be friends. They are not interested in prizes or self-aggrandizement. Our hope is that when the ribbons of these prizes are cut, even more friendships are propagated. Please give attention to these writers! Deliver this award to eight bloggers who must choose eight more and include this cleverly written text into the body of their award."

I received this award from my friend Mary http://mary-myneedlethread.blogspot.com/ who is a great Sloanie and blogging friend. Thanks Mary! It is my goal to pass it along to some of my favorite bloggers and the following list are ones that keep me smiling! To pass along to 8 I have to admit I'd be repeating some most recent award winners. So am going to just give these for now. Check them out and enjoy!

Lindabee http://www.lindabee2000.blogspot.com/

http://livinginamaterialworld.blogspot.com/

YAY Margi http://maverickcrafter.blogspot.com/

Tuscan Sunrise

This quilt was made by my friend Thelma Moyer and it won First Prize at the Road To California quilt show!! YAY THELMA! Here's what the entry said on the web site:

Winner of $150.00 for 1st Place - Traditional, Large, MixedSponsored by QuiltSoupEntered by Thelma Moyer (Belfair, WA)Made by Thelma Moyer and Joyce Ross Quilted by Joyce RossStarted in 2007, Finished in 2008Design basis: Original design. Lone Star CenterArtist statement: The gold peeling paint/stucco said "Old World" and we both like Tuscany. The touch of gold and sparkles speak of sunrise on the dew. This was our first collaboration.

The picture doesn't do it justice but captured it from the site. My picture of it was when it was "in process" and I wanted to share it as the gorgeous finished work that it is.

Study, Study, Study

I have studied so hard today I have a headache and think I'm brain dead! My goodness but there's so much information to review and memorize for the upcoming certification (ACLS). I only have a few more pages to have read the whole book. I've also done the pretest a number of times. I'm done for the night. I think I'll go have a little dinner and then put my feet up. Tomorrow is an early day at work and then I'm on call all night tomorrow night. I worked both Saturday and Sunday, each a 12 hour + day. There hasn't been much free time lately and my blog reflects that. More like bi-weekly thread huh? LOL.

McCall's Quilting

YAY, the new McCall's Quilting magazine came today. I just love it when I can crawl into bed with a new quilting magazine and read it front to back. Then I start planning quilt projects, think about fabrics I have or what I'll need to buy, color schemes I might want, new notions to check out, new tips to apply. It's just the bestest time, LOL! Next I'll go back and start over marking all the pages of projects I want to make. Yep, ALL of them, ggggggggggggggggg. I haven't even peeked at it yet. What restraint! Ok, can't wait............ I'm off to read it! Night all.

Flu bug

How do we get these bugs? I live such a clean, quiet life, LOL! Being the loving, caring person that I am I took the last of the hanging on bugs to work and shared with all my friends. Now I have no friends, ROFL! I made it through my work day and feel much better tonight. Even managed to eat a bowl of soup. Guess that means I'll be headed back to work tomorrow and need a good nights sleep. So that's where I'm off to even though it's awfully early. Ho hum.

Down with Christmas!

Yep, I finally put all of Christmas away, ha. It only got put up a few days before the big day so I don't feel quite so bad waiting 3 weeks, LOL. The girls and grandkids were here today, always a fun time even if I was suppose to be doing other things. They rescued me from getting started on the Christmas packing but it got done anyway. Will go cook dinner and then must study, study and study some more the rest of the weekend. It's for a class I must take for work, ugh. I'm so excited to report I now have 3 of the 4 borders knit on Ethan's afghan! YAY! I am almost done with my book and would much rather sit in my chair with my feet up the rest of the evening reading and knitting.

Busy days

Since returning to work my days have been busy ones. The blog suffers, my feet and legs suffer and the dogs are sad, ha! Here are the 6" squares I got cut for the scrap quilt. I'll use all the light and darks there but will weed out about half of the mediums. It was interesting to see as I pulled fabrics that I have many more lights and mediums than I do darks. We had a great evening at Jennifer's celebrating Tim's birthday Wednesday night. She made a yummy dinner and german chocolate cake. It's always so wonderful when our schedules jive and we manage to be together on special occassions. I was able to deliver the sweet pea hat to Ethan and it looked oh so cute on him, LOL! I'm currently reading David Baldacci's "Split Second". It's another winner IMO, have enjoyed all of his I've read so far. Today was a chilly 36 degrees and a very gray day. I hope we have an early spring, hahaha. Off to see what trouble I can get into or progress I can make on one of my many on going projects.

Bunny Hill free BOM

RUN, don't walk, to get this fabulous and free block of the month from Bunny Hill Designs http://www.bunnyhilldesigns.com Their designs are just the cutest in the world IMO. Be sure to leave a thank you and check back each month. I found out on Pat Sloan's blog, thanks Pat! Now, should I do it in cotton or wool? So many decisions. I'm continuing to make progress on Ethan's afghan, yipppeee. Another border done and 2 more to go, ha. A friend at work asked me to make her niece a Sweet Pea hat but I had to decline for now. I have so many things to get finished that I've promised myself I won't take on anything new right now. I am amazed at myself though. It isn't even the middle of the month and I've already finished the sewing on 2 Christmas stockings, completed 2 unfinished knitting projects, completed an unfinished diaper bag and am on the downhill slide to complete the afghan. WHEW. I also started cutting 6" squares of fabric to make a scrappy quilt. More about that another time. Off to put my feet up. Have a great evening.

It's finished!

At last the Sweet Pea hat is finished for my darling grandson. The pattern Baby Beanies can be found at http://www.pipersquilts.com/. So cute! I was on call all night last night and slept like a baby :-) No wake up call to drive 45 minutes into work in the middle of the night. YAY! Started another dish rag as a take along project and of course it's in the grab and go bag I recently made. I have the border knit on one side of Ethan's afghan so 3 to go, LOL! As I began adding this border I realized I'd originally cast on 190 stitches rather than the 144 my choice of yarn instructed you to, oh my. Needless to say the afghan is turning out much larger than intended but considering my grandson is growing by leaps and bounds I'm thinking this was a perfect error!! Jennifer and I met up after work yesterday and enjoyed a visit at Starbucks followed by some time spent perusing one of our favorite craft and fabric stores, Pacific Fabrics. She purchased a "tool" bucket like mine and now she can get all her sewing essentials right there next to her machine. She's had to move her sewing into her bedroom so this will help tremendously. Hope she likes it as much as I like mine. And it's oh so cute too, ha. Off to see what mischief I can get myself into today right after I make Gene and I a raspberry mocha, yum!

hat progress

Ok, I finished the leaf for Ethans' hat and also got it sewn on next to the stem. The pea pod is started and I hope to finish it tomorrow night!! YES! I'll post a picture of course but tonight I have to sign right back off. Verrrrrrrrrry early day for me tomorrow and then on call all night, ugh. Today was a nice pace at work and tomorrow shouldn't be too busy. After work I took us out to dinner............ a Costco hot dog, LOL. Picked up a few things we needed and filled the gas tank for $0.20 a gallon cheaper than anywhere else in our area! Have a great day tomorrow, I plan to. Night all.

Knitting

I'm back to work and it is severely cutting into my free time I've come to enjoy this past month! I'm blessed to have a job I love though and it has been nice to catch up with my colleagues and fellow quilters. I've done a little knitting and finished a 1/2 done dish rag, took out 4 rows of my baby afghan (grrrrrrr) and am trying to get the leaf and pea pod knit and attached to Ethan's Sweet Pea hat. It's confusing.

It is absolutely pouring rain here and have had some heavy winds to go with it. I'm sure the rivers will be flooding. I'm just glad it isn't "white" as we've seen enough if you ask me, LOL! Besides getting my haircut today I organized all my digital photos and backed them up to the external hard drive, yea!

Congratulations to Jennifer whose hubby found her wedding band she'd lost in the snow!!

Time to put my feet up so will leave you with a little comment I saw written somewhere:

"You are only young once, but you can stay immature indefinitely."

New studio?

My hubby sent me this picture telling me if we just move his shop and take down a few trees I could have this as my sewing studio. He said he'd add some more windows as well. I asked him when he could get started, LOL. Isn't it great the way he thinks of me?

Sewing Room makeover!

The puppies LOVE having the couch in here, ha!

I decided I just had to get the sewing room moved around to fit in my love seat. This new arrangement opened more floor space for me, gave me a great place to put my feet up and stitch or knit. It will let my daughters sit and visit with me or allow darling Jaiden to sit and watch her princess movies, ha. Even though I removed the two tables that were set up for each daughter to be able to sew they are easily set back up for one of our "sewathons" together. Right now it's the best of all worlds for me and I'm really excited about how it turned out. Now we will NOT mention the humungous pile of stuff in the guest room that needs a home still, LOL! I moved all the excess out of the closet, out from under my cutting table and all the nooks and crannies. So thought I'd share the final arrangement with you all since it has kept me very busy the last couple of days.

Okay, okay I will show you the closet too, tee hee.

I have to keep the puppies out of this closet as all my yarn are in towers of shoe holders we purchased at Costco last year. I've covered up the ones under the hanging items to keep their little noses out and the rest are in the far left of the closet. My hubby built these things in for me and I just love it. Behind the door I have another clear plastic shoe bag like behind the door of my sewing room. It holds all of my knitting needles and a few craft items. So now you know what I've been doing!

Last night was my first night back to work since December 3rd! I've been off with my oral surgery complications followed by thrombophlebitis and cellulitis. I'm doing great now and look forward to getting a better rhythm to my daily routine and work schedule in 2009. I'm striving for better balance and in an effort to improve my health status we moved the treadmill into our living room for easy access! I'm on call all night tonight and crossing my fingers to stay home!

Happy New Year!!

Where did 2008 go? Well it's gone and here we are entering into a new one where we can create new memories and perhaps try new things, eat new foods, lose weight, get exercise and gosh, this is sounding like a list of resolutions? LOL! Nah, just hopeful that I'll approach new things this year in a positive and inquisitive manner. I have a bazillion unfinished knitting and quilting projects not to mention a few stitcheries, ha. So my goal is to complete at least 2 knitting and 2 quilting projects that are already "in process". If you're a quilter you need to take a run over to Pat Sloan's blog as well as Pat's A Little of This and a Little of Pat as they are both part of Debi's Whirl Into Winter Giveaway. Their blogs are linked on my side bar and you just follow the instructions to be entered. Additionally I'm hopeful to weed out closets of things that we just don't use anymore and lighten the load some. That includes my sewing room which is the hardest of all to tackle. I mean I'm just sure I need everything in there including every last scrap of fabric, LOL. I got started on the sewing room yesterday and although I've yet to toss anything I'm making some progress toward organizing a little better. I'll continue in that vein today. Our grandchildren were delightful this morning warming us with their hugs and smiles, laughter and conversation. Well maybe the conversation was a little WHY focused buy hey, you take what you can get from a 3 year old right? hahaha. It is just hubby and I today and I plan to fix us a really nice dinner, something I haven't done in a long time. We'll be having prime rib with horseradish sauce, baked potatoes, broccoli and garlic bread. Still have to decide on a dessert. Enjoy your day and make each one of them to come meaningful to you. I will close with this quote I found on my friends blog as it definitely applies to me. Be sure to take time to nourish your own soul throughout the year. I do it by spending time with my family and by taking time to sew and knit when the opportunity is there.

One resolution I have made, and try always to keep, is this: To rise above the little things. ~John Burroughs

Happiest of New Years to you and yours!!