don't eat doritos after 10:30...

...because you'll eat the entire bag (or almost) and won't be able to decide what to work on and get nothing done as a result.  well, i took some blurry instagram pictures to show you of what i've been up to latey, but that doesn't really count. 

i've been on a cutting spree lately and have cut into my collection of Aneela Hoey fabrics, turning all that i can into 5" charm squares.  i had more than i thought, so this might take me a while to use up, and fortunately some people i know are going to be having baby girls this year, so i might share some of those adorable prints and make some baby quilts too.  but i'm thinking an enourmous patchwork quilt just for me.  like this perhaps:

and then i cut into my stash of "boyish" fabrics, which i'm pleased to see more of recently, and turned those into charms also....which i'm really excited about because it turns out i have more of those than i thought.

i'm planning to make monkey pants a patchwork quilt with them that would look a little something like this next picture:

only not blurry of course.  and...i know someone who's having a baby boy in march!  so that's great for them because they'll probably get an awesome baby quilt from me.





then, i've got enough girly fabrics to follow this quilt-along and am making lady face a quilt for her birthday that will turn out like that, and look a little like this in the middle. haven't decided on the background color but it ain't going to be white!!! suggestions?

next i'd like to show you some pieces of two projects.  the first is for my in-law's and will hopefully be a one year anniversary present.  my mother-in-law  is from Virginia and i found a Virginia star block tutorial (i'll have to find the link to that for you) so i'm making a quilt entirely in Virignia stars for them.  the colors aren't ones i'd pick out for me, but i think they will like them.



then, i fell in love with the new collection, Salt Air for Moda Fabrics (don't remember who the designer is, sorry) and have been wanting to do something with half square triangles.  well thank you Jeni for this awesome tutorial!  i'm over the moon for these block's of the month that she's planned and am super excited to have an enormous quilt at the end of the year.  i didn't trim my squares and just used charms, so it'll be extra large. here's how my january block turned out:



finally, my progress with the farmer's wife quilt is going nicely.  every time i sit down to make a few blocks its interesting to see the fabrics i choose to put together, and the blocks i feel like doing.  sometimes i can get 4 or 5 done in one day, but that's when i've had lots of coordinated naps for the kids, and stayed up way too late.  i started this project the 30th of december and so far i have 41 blocks!  but that's not super exciting as there are 111 in all, and i've almost run out of ones to do that don't make me super nervous to put together!  here's a horrible picture of them together so far:

 and for good measure, a picture of my little corner of fabric.  fun fact: this used to be our dining room table in virginia, but when we moved into our rental house here in idaho it turned out to be way to big for the kitchen space but the perfect size for the end of the laundry room.  (yes that is a lawn chair)

hope life's been treating you well, it has been a good year so far for us! 

I am a work in progress...

There are sooo many things I want to do.

So many things I want to eat, read, wear, try... I know it's impossible to check even a tiny fraction of those things off before I'm dead.  Sometimes that depresses me quite a lot, and I have to refocus, or take a hot shower and remind myself that having options is a good thing.  And, let's be honest, life isn't about making as many Nutella recipe's as I can find...as sad as that is...but when I get onto that train of thought, as I did for a little while today, thinking about how I have 52 books on my shelves at home that I either haven't read, started and never finished, or read and now can't remember at all...it feels so blah...and sad that we don't have the time to do everything we want.  It reaffirms to me the importance of spending our time wisely.  Something I am not always that great at doing.

I took a look at my list of resolutions and goals for this year and realized that I don't know if I will do half of them.  Same goes for my quilting and sewing to-do list.  I feel like I often have the best intentions, but they end up going nowhere...and that's what I think I need to work on about myself.

Following through.  And then relaxing about it if I don't get something done because...I am a tightly bound bundle of nerves...and I've got to learn how to take it easy...and "go with it" even especially when "it" doesn't go my way...

So here's a "simplified" list of the things I'm working on.  Personally and Otherwise:

1. This year I need to make exercise part of my life.  My ultimate goal would be to run a race (5k perhaps?) and feel proud of my effort at the end.  This is a loaded personal brick wall for me...perhaps I'll feel like talking about it later.
2. I want to ENJOY my children while they are young.  To me this means that I have to stop saying, "just a minute" and get on the floor and play with monster trucks, look at animal flash cards, and have fun with them while they still want to be around me. My little Lady Face has almost all of her teeth...she's no baby anymore...
3. I want to follow through on being more thoughtful.  Think about doing more things for other people, especially if they're things I wouldn't choose to do but that would make the other person happy.  And I'd like to be better at remembering birthdays but I've had 6 chances at that so far this year that have all been pretty much a fail.
4. Finish 2 wedding quilts, one for my friend who got married in August, and one for my mother-in-law who got married in April.
5. Organize my photos chronologically, have them put onto cd's and print the ones I want copies of, and put them into photo binders (I'm not much of a scrapbook-er...), or into nice frames and hang them on the wall or somewhere where I can see them.
6. Embroider something(s)
7. Make my wonderful Husband a quilt (he wants all solids, and mostly earthy brownish tones and I'm kind of resisting...but I think it would make his day if I made one for him)
8. Make myself a quilt for our bed, and a bunch more to snuggle under.  I get cold all the time, and love to pile under blankets everywhere, at all times, and especially with a book.
9. Give project 365 a shot
10. Be a better blogger (as this serves as a mini-journal for me in ways...)
11. Make my kids each a zig-zag quilt for their birthdays this year in April.

So that's that.  My "New Years Resolutions".

I've got more to show that I've been doing something this week besides sleeping all the time, but you'll have to wait until tomorrow...

Here are some of my favorite pictures from this year...so far...(and yes, I discovered Instagram.  I love it)

2012...

Happy New Year!

January is a big birthday month in our family, today is my mom's birthday, yesterday was my best friend's birthday, and the 4th is my sister in law, step brother, and nephew's birthdays! And yes, you are right, their cards aren't in the mail yet.

Here's what I did when the new year arrived: The single block in the left photo is the first block I made for the Farmer's Wife Quilt Along and it made me soooo excited to do more.  So, the photo to the right is what I have so far.  11 total and I'm hoping to add more in a few minutes when the monkeys take their nap!!

So far 2012 has been exciting, in little life moment ways.  Monkey pants learned to climb halfway up the fence in our backyard, all by himself! He was super excited about this, but when he realized he couldn't stay up there forever, he got a little more worried. Last night I had a dream where he was still almost 3, but as tall as his dad...scary...

I woke up this morning with my equilibrium all funky so my lovely husband let me go back to sleep from 9-11:30, during which time he rearranged the living room and cleaned it, and cleaned under the fridge and discovered the real reason our kitchen smelled a tiny bit...um..."off"...I thought it was the 50 lb bag of garlic that I'd bought at Costco with good intentions going sour, but nope...

...it was a dead rat...or mouse...I didn't double check...

One of the things I wish for most highly in my lifetime is to live in a house where we can have ZERO interaction inside our home with rats, mice, and all other rodents, living or dead.  So far, aside for the first place we lived after being married, we have had rodent battles in every spot since.  Which I think is ridiculously disgusting.  We aren't nasty hoarders, or even close to unclean...I'm not a clean freak, but it gets done as it should.  Why do we have these rodent appearances?! Yuck.

So, yes.  That happened.

Here's some more fun for our week.  My in-law's are coming this week to stay with us for a few days.  We haven't seen them since before we moved out here to Idaho in August, so it'll be great to visit again.  There are only two things I'm having a less than pleasant time with...

I don't know when they're coming, or how long they're staying (yesterday Lovely Husband said he thought it might be Tuesday, but at breakfast this morning he said he thought it was actually Thursday...??? No word on how long they'll be here, but school starts back up on Monday the 9th so...I might have to keep them entertained?! )
We have about 850 square feet in our house.

Wish me luck!

How is your 2012 going so far?!

p.s. I have a bunch of projects and goals and the like ready to show you soon, so watch for it and tell me what you're hoping to get done this year!

Today?

I'm not quite sure what day it is, though the phone tells me it's Thursday...um...what happened to Tuesday?  And Wednesday?  I just don't know.

Anywho.  Today has been moderately productive so far!  I have decided on some fabrics for my Farmer's Wife Quilt, which I'm excited to start, but freaked out at the same time because if each block finishes at 6" those are some reallytinypieces I get to cut out and sew tonight!!

Also, My mother-in-law is coming to visit next week (which will also be NEXT YEAR!!), so I thought I'd make up a lasagna or two!  And I did.  And I may have over-seasoned them.  We'll see.

As I'm about halfway through the layering of noodles, oodles of cheese, and sauce, I remember...Isn't my mother-in-law on the ATKINS DIET?!

So, I maybe just made two enormous lasagnas for us....yay?!

Hopefully I can have a win with the farmer's wife tonight on our first date!! (yes.  I am lame.)

Wish me luck!!

What are you working on tonight?

Is it warmer yet?

Goodness sakes it's cold here.  And my kiddos are going bonkers.  Husband is on a nice lengthy break from school also, and so far we are still all alive...we'll see how long that lasts.  He's been great while losing his mind at home all day long, so I sent him to the movies tonight.   He deserves the break. 

I'm from California.  The Bay Area to be precise, and I'm missing it.  I'm always cold here, and as a group, we have developed too much of a reliance on movies to pass the day.  Sleeping in until 8am most days also helps, but seeing as we've also been staying up until way to late, so we still aren't getting much sleep (smart right?), and not getting out very much.   I got a collection of Hitchcock DVD's for Christmas so that's what we've been staying up watching...which doesn't help me sleep either.

Now that Christmas is over, and it's really over here at our place (the Lowe's Christmas tree we bought a couple weeks ago was past dead on the 23rd so we took it down on the 26th along with the rest of our decorations), we are trying to figure out what to do with ourselves...Mr. and I have read all three of the Hunger Games books, and compared opinions on the ending, which I thought was a little bit....eh....okay.  Did you read the series?  What did you think? What should we read next?

We have played Mario Kart, and tried to teach Monkey Pants to drive (he likes to make whoever he's driving "dance"...which is cute, right?).  I am trying to finish my Drunkard's Path Quilt before the new year, so by Saturday. Pictures to come soon.  The lighting in this house is terrible for pictures. 



Also, I got my Farmer's Wife Quilt book in the mail today and am hoping to start on that tonight or tomorrow.  There's a goal of getting 56 blocks (to be caught up with the rest of the flickr group  working on this project) by around February so I have my work cut out for me there.

 I realized on Christmas Eve that Lady Face doesn't have a stocking!!  So I used mine to make a template for hers and made this green wonder to the left in no time at all.  Not super awesome, but I plan on making a better one, and adding some more things to this one to pretty it up...






I'm also trying to compile my personal, creative, and family goals for the new year.  I like to have something to work towards so I can gauge my progress as the year goes on.  I like thinking back on how much has happened in the year that's ending and figuring out what I want to do better, or more or less of, and try to help our family keep going in the right direction.  I'm still working on this so I'll probably share this with y'all next week.

 Hope you had a Merry Christmas (or a great holiday that you do celebrate if it's not Christmas), and have a happy and safe New Year!

(This is the family picture we put together in four minutes at the request of one of the Grandma's-Lady Face and Hobbes look so thrilled!)

Christmas so far...

We decorated last Friday and got a tree. Our dog, Hobbes, likes to sleep under, no, IN the tree. Perhaps to be safe or camouflaged from the kids?

Here are my favorite decorations.

(yes we have a cow tree topper. Story later)

WIP's

Get ready for some poorly lit pictures!

These will become...in no particular order (you can make a game of it and guess!!):

Placemats
A pillowcase
Drunkards path lap quilt
Christmas something
Wedding quilt
Baby quilt
A bag for Monkey Pants to put all his cars and tractors in

And THAT is what I'm working on. I'd love to have them all finished by the end of the year which may happen for all but the wedding quilt-in which case I'm hoping to have the fabric and a plan and call that good.

What are you getting done?