I got next to nothing accomplished.  And what I did accomplish, I did not photograph.  The temperature heated up and we had a week in the 90s which made me pretty much useless.  I had been making super progress on my girlfriend’s quilt and then I ran out of thread.  I got more but it’s three weeks later and I still haven’t touched it.  Now that the weather is better, I really need to get back to it.  I started a book at the end of August, and you’d think it was War and Peace with how long it took me to finish.  I just finished it Friday.  It was Full Dark House by Christopher Fowler, a mystery set in World War II London.  I really did enjoy it, I just didn’t pick it up very frequently.  I did finish my Sunshine Day Afghan and drop stitch scarf but that was the extent of my productivity.  At least I got something done.  My in-laws were in town for a visit, and as much as I’d like to blame them as a distraction, no can do.  We had a lovely visit and I had plenty of time to relax and knit.

There was one little thing we did that took up a bit of time in September.  We bought a house!  We started looking in August and it didn’t take us very long to find the right one.  It was built in the 1960s and hasn’t been updated so we are having some work done before we move in.  Meeting with contractors, shopping for appliances, filling out tons of paperwork…that took up a bit of our time.  I’ve even gotten started packing though we won’t be moving for a few weeks.  I’d rather do a little bit every day instead of rushing around at the last minute.  I’m excited to be moving and settling into our permanent home.  We’ve been living in a state of “make do” since we’ve been renting and it will be a relief to have our own place where we can come up with permanent solutions.  Like no more microwave in the craft room!  We’ve been storing a bit of furniture in the garage for when we got our own place so if it doesn’t fit in the new house, we can let it go.  And color!  I can put color on the walls.  There’s a lot of work to be done on the new house, but we are excited to see the transition from someone else’s 1960′s house to our updated home.  We are also trying to teach ourselves patience.  The transformation is going to be a multi-year process (and forever on-going), and I tend to want everything done now.  Margaret will be practicing patience.

Rather than add any new goals for October, I’m going to roll my unfinished September goals forward.  Hopefully I can make significant progress on that list, in addition to getting my packing done.  That should be more than enough to keep me busy!

of things in progress…

a quilt…

some scrapbooking…

granny squares…

and playing…

Bill walked through the door on Sunday morning with this super cheerful bouquet of sunflowers.  I have been enjoying them all week.  Sunflowers make me smile.  This morning I moved them into my craft room to make me happy while I persevered through my mystery quilt sawtooth star squares.  I thought I had finished these squares last week but when I looked at them, they were terrible.  They weren’t the right measurements and they were messy and after mulling it over for a couple of days, I decided to make a new set of them.  I saw them making my life difficult as I tried to put the quilt together.  It’s totally my choice to redo them, but it also kinda sucks.  They are the hardest, most time consuming part of the quilt.  The good news is that the second set is looking much better.  I am using my wing clipper ruler (which I forgot I had the first time around) and this batch is actually coming out square and they are the right size.  So while it’s tedious and boring, it was the right decision and my sunflowers make it a wee bit less painful.  I’m also going to do something with my reject squares, I’m just not sure what.

The other thing that makes my resewing less painful is this little kitty.  She makes me laugh ever day, if not multiple times a day.  She’s just so darn cute.  Gracie loves to stretch out on her back and show me her belly.  The best thing is that she lets me rub it.  I love the belly.

This summer has been the summer of lemonade.  I’ve pretty much cut out all soda (diet and regular) from my diet.  I kinda miss it because I do enjoy an ice cold Pepsi every now and then, but I know it’s not good for me.  And actually, I’ve gotten to the point where regular Pepsi is just too sweet for me.  Weird.  So this summer, my drink of choice has been lemonade.  And really only at dinner time.  But sometimes we go out, and an extra special treat is a strawberry lemonade.  Panera has a very delicious frozen strawberry lemonade.  We had some strawberries in the fridge and I decided to make my own strawberry lemonade.  I blended up a pint of very ripe strawberries with about 2 teaspoons sugar and ended up with strawberry puree which I poured over a glass of iced Simply Lemonade.  That pint of strawberries made about 4 or 5 glasses of strawberry lemonade, and I stored the puree in the fridge in a covered container.  I might also try it without the sugar; it all depends on how sweet the strawberries are and your sweet to tart preference.  Yum!

There’s lots of other things that make me happy, but I don’t have any more photographs of them.  I’ll have to work on that.

I had a productive weekend.  Productive mainly with the fun stuff which is always nice.  We relaxed in the morning, went for a walk, ran errands, ate out, did a little window shopping…  And then in the evening things got really exciting.  I pulled out all my needlepoint and cross stitch projects, photographed them all and updated my inventory.  I went through the stack, identified 80 projects to keep and over 30 to donate and/or sell on ebay.  80 is still a lot of projects, but I’m only keeping the projects I really like. The unfortunate thing is that most of the projects are medium to large sized projects so they will be more time consuming and it’s going to take me awhile to finish up those 80 in my stash. C’est la vie.

I also started a new project on Sunday.  It’s the Sunshine Day Afghan.  I’ve only done crocheted edges on afghans before so granny squares are a whole new world.  I worked on 4 squares yesterday from about 1:30 – 10:30 with a nap, dinner break, and other miscellaneous breaks.  After all that time, I had 2 squares fully complete and two squares half done.  At that rate, I might have this afghan done in 9 years.  Today things went better.  I’ve got the technique and while I’m still slow, I finished four more squares this afternoon.

I’m hoping to maybe do 2 – 4 squares a day.  We’ll see.  They are quite addictive.

It’s been a few days since my mom headed home after a wonderful visit.  But of course every visit with mom includes disappointment.  I hardly took any pictures, and there’s no picture of the two of us, or the three of us for that matter.  Ah well, it’s something I have to remember for next time.

I am all about balance, and our visit was a perfect blend of hanging out and getting things done.  I had a couple of projects I wanted my mom to help with, and help she did.  We went through my piles of fabric and found a bunch of stuff to donate, and my mom inherited a few things.  It helped created space and gave me room for the piles of fabric that were hanging out elsewhere in my craft room.  And now I only have stuff that I am going to use.  I also had some WIPs that have been sitting around for several months that Mom finished.  It was a win-win situation; I showed her how to do a blind stitch on the quilt binding, and she practiced by finishing my projects.

She helped me reorganize the closet in our guest room, we packed up 15 bags of stuff to take to Goodwill, she finished sewing and hemming two cotton dresses I had cut out a few weeks ago, and helped me fix some pants that needed fixing.  I’m probably missing things, but that was a lot of stuff.  Yay for Moms!

In between all that work, there was plenty of time for play.  We relaxed and knit while watching Seasons 1 and 2 of the Closer on DVD.  There were breakfasts out, coffee breaks, ice cream runs, an occasional walk, some shopping, and introduction to Jamba Juice and last, but not least, Transformers 3 in 3D.

Now that I’m seeing it all in black and white, it explains why it took me two days to recover after she left.  We had a super quiet 4th of July.  In fact, Bill napped in a chaise lounge while I sat outside stitching and watching the Cubs game.

We spent the evening watching tv and trying to keep our furry babies calm.  Neighbors were setting off (illegal) fireworks over our house and the animals were not enjoying it.  At all.  It actually made me a little nervous – little explosions being set off over our very dry, wood shingled roof.  It makes sense to me why fireworks are illegal here.  Thankfully there weren’t any problems and they stopped at a reasonable time.  Bill had off on the 5th which was a great bonus and we had a nice day together.  All in all, not a bad way to roll in the second half of the year.

We, at Casa Napier, are suffering from some pretty obnoxious jet lag.  We’ve been asleep by 8:45 and up between 4:30 and 5 am. It’s been like that for five days.  It’s horrible.  Last night, we managed to stay up until 10:30 and I slept in until 6:30!  Actually, my ideal time to wake up would be 7:30ish so I’m almost there. 5am is a tad early.  Especially on a Saturday.  But on Saturday, I gave up and pulled out a notepad to jot down a to do list.  I’ve had a bunch of little projects on my mind and I finally got them on paper.  We made a decent dent in the list this weekend.

I can’t say I contributed overly much to the project list.  I came back from vacation with a nasty cold and though every day I felt a little better, I still took things very easy.  But I helped a bit. Sunday was a much more productive day for me.  Saturday, we went shopping for two new chairs for our patio.  We have two comfy chairs with a footrest and one not as comfortable love seat. I’ve always wanted a chair where you could lean back and close your eyes for a little nap.  At one of our hotels in Greece, they had a papasan chair on the patio, and it got me thinking.  We are now the proud owners of two comfy papasan chairs and I can easily see myself putting my feet up, reading, and taking a little nap.  We wiped down all our patio furniture, vacuumed the “lovely” green carpeting that covers the concrete, and rearranged the furniture.  I think it looks very cozy out there.  (There’s no cushions in the chairs because I’m waiting for my covers to arrive.  I’m a big fan of covers; things get pretty dirty otherwise.) We turned our dining table and chairs 90 degrees and it gives us a little more room.  And the finishing touch is a colorful new doormat from Pier 1.  We still have a few more things to put away.  I’ll have to post a better picture later, cushions and all.

I’ve also had the attention span of a gnat lately, but one project that I’ve been able to concentrate on is needlepoint.  I’m finding it very relaxing and it requires less concentration than knitting.  It’s been at least two years since I’ve done any needlepoint and I’m really enjoying it.

I wish we could blame our lack of sleep on Bill’s minor biking mishap yesterday.  Unfortunately I think it was just bad luck.  Bill was biking to work on a trail, coming off a bridge, and he hit a slippery spot and ended up on the ground.  He thought he was okay at first and finished the remaining mile and a half.  Once the adrenaline wore off and he tried moving his left elbow, he realized he wasn’t 100%.  I picked him up at the office, dropped him at the ER, went to an appointment (I never have anything going on, but of course this happens on the one day I have something scheduled), picked him up at the ER, took him out for a special lunch, stopped  for dog food, and then brought him home to relax.  He’s doing pretty well, but not enjoying the inconvenience.  Thankfully, it’s temporary.

And that’s all for Casa Napier.  I think it’s enough, don’t you?

I am on my way home from a wonderful yet exhausting trip to Greece.   It is a beautiful country and we barely scratched the surface with stops in Athens, Mykonos, and Santorini.  I prepared for this trip not as much as I should have.  We did very little research and had just a vague plan of what we wanted to do.  That part worked out well.  We saw our “must see” things and then played everything else by ear.  The part I should have done more preparation for was the physical aspect.  I am a walker and a hiker, but if I’m going to a national park to hike, I put in some extra work at the gym.  I should have prepared for this like a national park trip.  Everything was either up or down.  Very little was flat.  I was not prepared.  I got around,  but not as comfortably as I would have liked.

The trip was a wonderful mix of busy and relaxing.  We did a lot of walking and sightseeing, but also took breaks at sidewalk cafés and gelatin stands.  We also had 3 days of relaxing on the beach.

This was a great time of year to go.  It us still early in the season, not too hot and not too crowded.  I can’t imagine doing this trip in July or August.  I don’t think I would have enjoyed it as much.  Today, 6 cruise ships are due in Santorini. We only had to deal with 2, but there were 4 in port in Mykonos and it makes for a lit more people.

We are about 5 and a half hours into our 28 trip home but I am looking forward to my furry babies, shower and bed.  Fingers crossed, prayers said for a safe trip home.

We just got back from a relaxing week in Nashville, visiting Bill’s grandmother.  Aside from a little bit of a headache in getting there, the week was wonderful.  Our flight was delayed leaving San Francisco and we missed our connection in Dallas by five (!) minutes, keeping us in Dallas for an extra three hours.  Actually, given some of the storm clouds that we flew around, we were lucky we weren’t delayed longer.  Those were some scary clouds, as I was mesmerized by the pockets of near constant lightning. Eventually we made it to a rainy Nashville and were spoiled with southern hospitality.

I look forward to our trips to Nashville because it is pure relaxation.  We don’t take advantage of anything Nashville has to offer which is probably a shame, but we’re there to visit with the family.  Instead, we relax.  It’s about the only time I really let myself sit and do nothing if that’s what I feel like doing.  Or not doing, maybe.  I did a bit of reading, some sudokus, I picked up some needlepoint for the first time in a couple of years, and I did a lot of staring at the lake.  My big activity was my daily walk up the driveway to pick up the mail. (That’s not Gran’s mailbox in the photo above.  We did venture out once for a walk around the neighborhood and that mailbox was begging to be photographed).  Bill’s uncle and family live next door so there was visiting with them, and lots of chatting with Gran.

We did do a puzzle, took Gran to a couple of stores, and made a stop at Rita’s Water Ice which was sooooo delicious.  (I miss Rita’s.)

It was a lovely visit.

I kind of stalled out in April.  I did not accomplish much of anything.  So I am going to cheat and roll my April goals into May.  Hopefully May will be a lot more productive.

I did finish my cotton top but haven’t photographed it yet.  And I read 5 (!) books this month – two Trixie Belden mysteries, The Search by Nora Roberts (love her romance novels), Rhett Butler’s People (Gone With the Wind from Rhett’s perspective) and The Baker Street Letters by Michael Robertson which would be excellent summer reading.

I also finished my innocent crush quilt top and the quilt back but need to sandwich and quilt.

So I did do stuff, just not a lot.  That’s life.  We’ll see how May goes.

Things have been relatively quiet in Napierland.  (Actually, I mistyped quiet as quilt so you know where my mind really is.) We’re just chugging along.  The weather is turning spring-like and gorgeous.  I love walking the neighborhood at this time of year.  The flowers smell amazing.  It’s extra special to me because I have suffered with allergies for years, but since moving here, I can actually smell things.

This past weekend, I was worried I had come in contact with a deadly illness.  I knew something had to be wrong with me.  I went to my local yarn store, that was having a sale, and I didn’t buy a thing.  Not. A. Thing.  Since I have survived the weekend and didn’t succumb to the ebola virus or hemorrhagic fever, I realize that my body was temporarily possessed by a mature, responsible adult who realized she already has plenty of beautiful yarn.  While not as dramatic an infliction, it was still scary.  I’m better now.

I’ve been making slow and steady progress on my fenced in quilt. It was moving really quickly and once I realized I needed to order fabric for the quilt back, things started to slow a bit.  My original plan was to do a solid color background but I couldn’t find a color I really liked, so I went with one of the aqua striped fabrics from the quilt top.  I only have four more rows to put together which should go pretty fast.  And then the sashing.  I don’t think I’ll get the whole quilt finished by the end of the month, but we’ll see.

One thing that is a huge help with the quilting projects is my new ironing block.  I used one during my quilting weekend, and it was great.  I can keep the block on my table and it saves me floor space because I don’t have to pull out my ironing board for these small pieces.  It was a super simple project.  Bill cut a piece of wood for me.  The wood is a 1/2 inch thick and measures approximately 17 x 22 inches.  I used some batting and then two layers of insul-brite (like you use for oven mitts, available at Jo-ann).  Then it’s covered in fabric and stapled to the back of the wood.  The two layers of insul-brite is probably a little much.  I am contemplating undoing the fabric and taking out one of the layers.  That sounds like work though.

The last thing that I’ll share with you is random.  Bill went to a our new Safeway (grocery store) that was celebrating its opening weekend.  While at the register, the manager spun a wheel, and it landed on Bill’s checkout lane.  He won a bag of groceries! There was good stuff in there: a bottle of laundry detergent, a loaf of wheat bread, cookies, salsa, salad dressing, peanut butter… That bag was heavy!

And that’s our goings on.