Magic Tile Quilt

My sister Sarah has been finishing projects and she has inspired me to do the same. So, I have a few quilts that have been in process. This one I started about 2 years ago and then haven't really touched it since. I began on Friday, finishing the magic tile blocks. They look like they're hard to do, but they are not difficult. I was just going to let the purple border be the outside and leave it as a small quilt that could be hung on a wall, but then I had vision of adding a strip pieced border. So, it took me about two hours to cut out ans sew all of the strips together to make the black/white/purple border. Today, I ran to the fabric store and picked out the black border and a purple backing. Now that the top is finished, I have to decide whether to hand quilt this one or tie it. I think it's going to have to be hand quilted. There's just no good way to tie it! Anyway, the picture that looks purple is the actual color. All the other pictures that were closer to the true color were blurry, so the one that looks blue is not actually blue, it's purple......

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With a cherry on top!

Today was the Lafayette Quaker Oatmeal Festival. It happens here every year and includes a 5K run, an oatmeal breakfast with a huge topping bar, and a baking contest. I entered the contest once before with a different recipe and nothing came of it. This year, I decided to enter the recipe that I created for the Pillsbury contest since it met the "1 cup of oatmeal in the recipe" requirement. So, I baked my Cherry Chocolate Fudge Bars yesterday and cut them up into bite-size pieces for sampling and mom put a cherry piece on each one for garnish. I put each piece into a mini-cupcake paper and filled up my mini-cupcake tree and took it over and entered them in the contest. They looked so pretty! I wish I had taken a picture, but the best I could do is take a picture of what is left in the pan so you can see what they look like.

I dropped off my bars to be judged by the officials and tasted by the public and then I ran off for a full day of teaching. The winners were announced at noon and since I couldn't be there, my parents went to pick up my cupcake tree and see if I won anything. After a long day of teaching I came home this afternoon and found THIS on the counter waiting for me.....

What, you can't see the sign? Well, let me zoom in......

That's right! I won 1st Place in the Desserts category!!! YAY!!!! Look at that happy smiling Quaker man on the oatmeal box. That's exactly what I looked like when I saw it (Just with shorter, brown-er hair *wink* ) I was so excited. I ACTUALLY won a prize in a baking contest! Who would have guessed. Here's a picture of everything that I got for winning. The cake pans are heavy and nice and I love the bowls. The spatula is a high heat resistant silicone - I've always wanted one of those. I even got a shot glass liquid teaspoon measure and free oatmeal. What more could a girl want??? See, good things do happen even when you have a bad haircut ;)

Do You see this face? Is this the face of someone who is having a good day??? I don't think so. This face, my face, is the face of someone who is stinking mad.

Why? Why am I so mad?? Well, I'll tell you. Today, I went to get my hair cut by a man who has cut my hair for the last 2 years. He has cut my hair at least 10 times in the current hairstyle that I have. Flipped out in the back, long bang in the front. Always the same. Well, today I walked in and he said, "Same thing as last time so you can kind of flip it or spike it in the back?" and I replied "Yes, it's gotten a little long and is getting hard to style, so it needs to be shorter. " Okay, this is our usual communication and he has never really botched it up....until today.

This, my friends, is why I am so mad. Somehow, Eddie thought that what I really meant is that I wanted an A-Line. So, he got out his clippers and SHAVED ONE INCH INTO MY HAIR LINE!!!! What was he thinking? Now, it's not unusual for him to take his clippers and trim along the hairline just to clean it up a bit. So, I didn't think anything of it and didn't realize that he was "trimming" so high. I mean, really, how often do you have someone trim the back of your head? I have no concept by feel alone of how high someone is touching the back of my neck. So, he cut my hair and spun me around and I just about died.

So, I said, "Eddie, you shaved an inch into my hairline!" And his response was "Isn't that what we always do???" At this point my jaw has dropped and I'm trying not to hyperventilate. So I said "No, we NEVER do that EVER! It's always at least Half of an inch long at the base of my hairline!" And his response was "Well, I thought you wanted an A=Line and since it was so short in the front, I shaved it to look like an A=Line. Let me see if I can fix it" YEAH RIGHT! You can't glue the hair back on! "Um, I don't think there is anything you can do." At this point I was barely holding it together. So, he said he wouldn't charge me and that I should come back as it grows in and he'll blend it together. I seriously doubt that I'll be going back. As I left I was already crying and he was apologizing profusely as I walked out the door. I got in the car and sobbed my way home where I continued to sob and mutter (AKA Yell) the occasional "What the HELL was he thinking!" To that, all I can think is that he wasn't thinking at all.

So, the possible solutions, 1. A WIG 2. Some goth make-up with a black leather and spike dog collar. or 3. A plethora of scarves that I can tie around my head with a big bow at the back until it grows. As you can see in the picture, it's going to take a big bow. So, if you wonder how I look there it is. AND to add insult to injury, I got my camera out to take pictures and guess what? The LCD screen has somehow broken so you can't see what you're taking pictures of! I have no idea how that happened, but it's so frustrating.

An update.....Finally......

I know it's shocking....I am finally updating my blog! I just never take the time to sit down and do it. The past few months have been busy with lots of stuff happening. So, here are a few things that I've been meaning to post...

This is a quilt that I've been working on. I just love these fabrics. I still have 2 borders to add and I'm thinking I'll use the striped material to back it ....

My friends and I made this quilt for another friends wedding. It was a whirlwind. We made it start to finish in 4 days....talk about hectic. It's one of those projects that was good in theory, but then reality sets in and you realize that you should have left yourself more time or picked out a gift from a store.. However, I have to admit that the finished product was beautiful.

In the same week that we tackled the quilt, we ended up in another pickle...literally! We got 5 cases of free cucumbers and decided to make pickles to put in our storage. Mom and I had fun with the process and we made some delicious dills and sweets.

My friend Wendy and I made curtains for her roommate. We made them for her doorway and her window. I think they turned out awesome. I want to make some curtains for me now. We'll see if that actually ever happens ;)

She doesn't have a door, so we wanted to make them look nice from the hallway too. So, we put a sheer overlay on the back. I really like how it looks.

Here are the set for the window.

This next picture is for Sarah - how's this for an inspiration purse!?

I love it!

This summer, I was in Idaho and went to Tautphus Park Zoo with my mom and Jer and Heidi's family. We had a great time. This video is of the Gibbon monkeys that we saw. They make the loudest noise ever and were hilarious to watch because they entertained themselves by swinging around the cage and then slamming into the glass to scare the people watching. This one's for Jer & Heidi.

The following pictures are a series of cakes I've made over the past few months for people's birthdays. There are a few more, but I don't have pictures. Breanne wanted the Molten Lava cake from Chili's, so we made a copy cat recipe. They were delicious.

That's all for now! I will try to post more often!!!!

Projects...

As some of you know, Mom has had an orchid cactus for years. I always think it's an ugly plant and that she should get rid of it....However, my opinion has changed. This is the very first time it has ever bloomed and it is huge (About 8 inches across) and gorgeous.

This is a picture of the sewing room. Yesterday, we pulled up the sewing room floor for the 3rd and hopefully last time in 3 years. We originally tore out the carpet and painted and then replaced the floor with vinyl tile. The tile was defective and within 24 hours had peeled itself off the floor by curling itself upward. We replaced that tile with m0re vinyl tile. It looked beautiful, but within a few weeks it was cracking at the edges and then big chunks of it were coming up. So, after dealing with that for the past 3 years, Mom has decided to get it replaced by the professionals. So, here is the empty sewing room and office.

So, where did ALL that stuff go? It went back into the ORIGINAL sewing room in the house which was Sarah's bedroom and which we now refer to as the laundry folding room. Here is what it looks like. This is everything except for a big wardrobe and a dresser that we had to shove into the storage room. The first two pictures show the room half full.

And that's not the only big project we've tackled in the last week. We spent last Friday and Saturday laying sod in the back yard. Here are a few pictures.

This past Wednesday, we had 6 guys from church come over and carry the extremely heavy garden boxes back onto the beach and fill them with dirt. The yard is slowly coming back together. Aren't you so sad that you aren't here to help? You're missing out on all the fun!!!

Haircut and Highlights

It's been 5 months since my last haircut so I decided that it was time to get one. Here are some pictures of the new do....I had to take the pictures through the mirror to get the right angle. The highlights are super subtle, but I think they'll get lighter once I've been out in the sun doing all that yard work....

And while I'm at it, here is the yard in it's mostly finished state. All we need is a lawn chair, a beach umbrella and a kiddie pool :)

A Yard in Chaos

So, we had to take down the tree between the garden and the fire pit. Dad asked the neighbor if he wanted the wood and if he would help cut down the tree. A few minutes later, he was half way up the tree with a chain saw.

Here are Ben and Dad watching from below. I'm so glad he didn't fall. That's a long way down.

About 15 minutes later, the tree looked like this....

Here is John, inspecting the hole he is digging for the septic tank.

Nothing like having a huge hole in your back yard.

This truck was supposed to back down to the end of the tennis court and dump a load of sand. There wasn't enough room between the tree and the hole for the guy to get back there. He tried, but he got this far, jumped out of the truck and looked at the distance between the hole and the tire and said "I'm just not that brave" So he dumped it at the side of the house and they scooped it up and drove it back with the backhoe.

Here is the truck that delivered the tank on Friday morning. That tank looks like a concrete vault. I have a video of the tank being dropped in, but I couldn't get it to load. I'll try to get that up eventually.

Here it sits, waiting to be hooked up to the pipe.

This is the first day of excavating the leech field.

Nice big pile of dirt.

We woke up on Monday morning and it had snowed. Talk about bad timing. They drove backhoes in mud and kept on digging.

Here is the backyard shot from the end of the tennis court. Tha's about 2 feet deep.

Here is the backyard Monday morning, before they started moving dirt out of the back. They didn't want to get trucks stuck in the mud, but they had to move the dirt somewhere so they could keep working.

So, they dumped it here for now. Dad and Mom decided they can level out that part of the back. Some of that dirt will be hauled off to our neighbor's yards.

In an effort to save trucking expenses, we had them dump a bunch of dirt in the front. Those ruts are 18 inches in some places.

Here is the leech field being put down. Those are big plastic domes that connect to make a sort of tunnel. There will be 4 rows like that and they will all be covered with sand.

This is how it looks after 2 rows have gone in. Sand Castle anyone?

Here is the view from the railroad tie garden.

I'll try to put up more tomorrow....