Feeling way behind

To start from where I left off...No I don't know anyone who actually voted for Alan Keyes, nor would I want to make friends with them, ick. But there were tons of lawn signs along the avenues here and the news said our county was the only one Keyes carried in IL. I started packing my bags right then but where to go?

Mexico!! ay ay ay.

Second, just as I was showing the girlfriends my all-done-but-the blocking of my Noro Kureyon Poncho, I read Manolo's blog and see at his shop this totebag denouncing the poncho.

Third, I had to leave my house early yesterday morning, before I could answer email and write in my blog and the day became so jam-packed with funstuff that I am way behind and now my husband is home on another of his vacations and that will make feeling lonely evaporate! Hurray...

I want you to know that I am writing you instead of listening to Car Talk, and working on my latest quilt idea, but geesh I must catch up.

1. Yesterday we had a meeting of the Chicago School of Fusing to discuss our super fantastic career opportunities and how we are going to amuse the world with our antics in the future. It was a meeting held at the home of Emily Parson, (see her blog link on the sidebar.) She created a lovely spa luncheon of salade nicoise and we brainstormed and chugged coffee and then all of it ended by noonish. What a great start to my day away from the studio. Laura gave us all a copy of her new super fantastic book, Fusing Fun and you must truly BUY IT. It is available from her website.

2. Emily lives in St. Charles IL (the farthest south end of the aforementioned valley) and it has the added attraction of having lots of nice antique shops where a gal like me can find the superfantastic bargains in silverplate that I have been desiring. I found 22 pieces to begin my romantic dinner with silver place settings fantasy that has been festering in my brain of late. Each piece was a whopping $1.60, so who could resist?
I may have to trash a few pieces that could not be polished to a gleam, but it is a good start.
Pictures will follow, but fear not, not much matches anything else. Martha would be proud.

Close enough when used by candlelight



I am working to remedy the disastrous effects of having two weddings with no thoughts of registering my china/silver/crystal patterns. Again, I am feeling way behind.
I had this ancient memory of my first wedding gifts, Melmac plates and Plastic drinking glasses. What does that say about my elegance?

Rushing home from antiqueing I discovered that Dave got off work early (three days early!) for the start of his vacation, so I immediately put him to work fixing the garage door opener which switches on and off at whim, creating a lovely racket opening and closing the door several times in a row. Spring must be near, as this happens whenever the weather reaches a melting temp.

I had in mind a quick kitchen clean, a spray of Pledge at the front door to make it seem as though I had recently dusted and a rested look when my guests arrived at 3 pm. This would be the interested-in-quilting gals that live in my little town that I had invited to visit my studio which never really got all that straightened out. But hey, this is how a REAL ARTIST lives, right? I am very good at posing as one...

At precisely 2:48 they arrived, so forget the Pledge spray, and I greeted Kaylie, her mom and her pal Lauren, the quilter wannabes. Very lovely girls, freshmen in the two local jr. colleges and the very smart to bring along Mom, in case I was a demented serial killer, or seducer of young virgins, as if there were any left...

Having swilled real coffee at Emily's I was in rapid fire mode and spent the next one and a half hours talking about my favorite topic, me, and showing them all there is to know about fusing and machine quilting and dyeing and the escape hatch finish. We quickly viewed the 40 or so quilts I still haven't put away since the last time I left home to teach and then I got out my Janome 7500 to perhaps entice Kayley to buy, since her machine doesn't have droppable feed dogs, making it nigh impossible to free motion quilt. She tried out her hand machine quilting and did very well, overcoming the fact that I had set up the machine on the kitchen counter and one had to stand to stitch. Amazing that the height did not hinder her.

A nice time was had by all and having been attributed celebrity status by these gals gave recompense to my ill fated achievement of only Honorable Stinkin' Mention at the Mid-Atlantic Quilt Festival.

That was not the end of my jam-packed day, by any means. Now it was time to set up the Romantic Dinner with Dave

Perfectly lovely long stemmed roses, denuded of all but six inches of stem, so that we could look into each other's eyes at dinner.

I had made a new tablecloth for our round table and had the new old silverplate polished and ready, and luckily had cooked our dinner the day before in unusual-for-me thinking ahead fashion.

I set out the Corelle, which will soon be replaced by real china, I hope, and the five pieces of unmatched flatware and Dave opened the wine and let it air and I microwaved our entree, green chili with quesadillas for him and green salad. So this is not a tres elegant meal, but did Dave care? No he made all the yummamente noises that would have accompanied anything Charlie Trotter or Julia would have dished up, and I finally relaxed. sigh.

We discussed what we would do on his vacation and slurped the whole bottle of wine and finished with two small scoops of ice cream still lingering from Valentine's Day. Then retreating to the couch we reveled in our cozy home and how lucky we really are. It was only 6:30 and I was about to conk out for the night, so I suggested a tiny cup of coffee to stimulate the remaining senses.

BIG MISTAKE.

Intermission.

Afterward, I like to watch Monk, and whatever L&O episode is playing on USA and so we retreated to the library, where I promptly fell asleep for the only two hours I would sleep the whole damn night.

Going to bed at 11pm and lying there waiting for the effects of the coffee to wear off, led me to designing quilts, new classes to teach, worrying about having enough art left in me to justify my existence, how far behind I am in everything I had planned to finish before Dave was back home to distract me, and how I really must start being serious about losing these four pounds before things get out of hand.