I arrived home on Sunday after a miserable travel day (5:15 AM wakeup call to catch an early flight, plane malfunction - discovered while we were in the air!, diverted to a new airport and switched to a new plane, turbulence that resulted in the lady behind me breaking my eardrums with her screams and the gal next to me dousing my lap with her drink, and when we finally arrived - late, of course - no luggage!). Monday, I was swamped at work, then had 2 karate classes and grocery shopping to do. Yesterday I was so strung out at work that I never stopped for lunch AND worked late AND brought my computer home to get some more things done.
However, when I arrived home with my kiddos, the sun was shining, there was a gentle breeze dancing over our mountain, and I said "ENOUGH!" I got a tall, frosty glass of ice water, pulled a picnic blanket out of the car, and settled myself down on the lawn with some books to read to the kids. I had to catch my breath - all this running hither and yon gets to be too much sometimes. We finished reading HOLES (just in time, too, because the movie is supposed to arrive from Netflix today!) and read DONKEY DONKEY, a book that I remember loving when I was a kid, so I ordered it online (can I just say that I LOVE Amazon Prime! I ordered the book on Monday afternoon, and it was in my mailbox on Tuesday!). I petted the cats, I brushed out the dogs. I caught my breath.
At that point, I could have gotten some work done, but I was on a roll now. I helped the kids with their homework, and then headed downstairs to prep some sewing to take on my next trip. (I leave tomorrow morning for Mexico, Costa Rica and Ecuador - another early flight with a 4 AM wakeup call, sheesh!) I sandwiched the little pink and brown doll quilt and stuffed the pillow to go with it (oops, no photo). I made another pillow for Rosabelle the dog (oops, no photo again, but it was nothing fancy anyway), and in between times, I worked some more on my current Leaders and Enders project with 1.5" scrap squares.
These blocks are 6.5" unfinished, and I'm not sure where I'm going with them. The point is to use up the black floral that is surrounding half of the blocks. I had a whole stack of 4.5" squares of that, and I wanted to use them up.
So, for this trip, in addition to packing the doll quilt and my September Birdie Stitches BOM to work on, I'm going to pack these, which I also ordered from Amazon on Monday, and which also arrived yesterday:
While browsing on Amazon, I saw that there are 2 Clare O'Donohue books that I don't yet own and a new Jennifer Chiaverini book coming out in November. Can you hear me rubbing my hands together in anticipation? I LOVE QUILT FICTION! Reading and quilting are two of my favorite pasttimes, so putting them together is a winning combination for me!
If you like batiks, don't forget to enter my birthday giveaway for 2 half yard cuts of batiks from Ghana. I will choose the winner tonight before I go to bed, and pop the box in the mailbox tomorrow on my way to the airport.
Do you know the "law of tenfold return" - give and you shall receive back tenfold? (I'm paraphrasing, I don't know the exact quote, although I am pretty sure it originated in the Bible) I know this to be true, and yet another example of this was waiting for me when I got home this weekend. I bought some fabric to give to others, and in my mailbox, from my mom and younger sister, was a box containing this - a pattern for Skiers in the Air and yards and yards of FLANNEL fabric to make it!!! Thank you, Mom and Kerry! Great gift that I will DEFINITELY put to good use!
And wanna see my favorite card? This is from my college roommate for my birthday this year:
I'm glad she thinks I'm remarkable - I'm going to need to be remarkable to get done all that needs doing today! I'll be out of the country until October 8, so I need to get all my affairs in order today, then on October 9 I have a group of 13 students visiting campus at my invitation for 3 days. And during the 28 hours between my return on the 8th and their arrival on the 9th, guess what is happening? Some of you probably guessed it - a cub scout campout!
I'll end the way I started...I don't know why I do this to myself!
