It's Been A Good Week!

This has been a good week.  I feel good about myself.  I'm cutting back on eating, I've decided I really need to get a grip on that part of my life.  I walked a lot yesterday, granted it was in a mall but hey, I got the exercise part in!  I also got some shopping done.

Monday I went volunteering at the hospital again.  When I left, I was putting Evan in the car, and I bent over to remove a stone from the tire, and saw a nail in there.  It wasn't flat, so I drove home.  Told hubby and he took it back to town to get it repaired.  I guess I should have called him from town and told him and maybe had it done while I was there, but I had Evan and I didn't really want to hang around the car place with Evan with me.  This is the third time the car had a trip to town today!  The first trip was when we both drove in to drop the new truck off at the dealer for the "stuff" to be done to it - the undercoating, the protectant on the inside, the brake system (to pull the horse trailer in case we have to take the horses somewhere in an emergency) and the bed liner.  The second trip was me with Evan.  Just spoke to hubby - he's going to get an oil change while he's there, in addition to getting the nail pulled and the tire plugged.  Hey, time to myself!  :-)

Did I mention I made chocolate chip cookies at the beginning of the week?  Yeah, I know, that's not going to help me get my weight down.  I will NOT deny myself everything...I just can't or I'll be miserable.  I CAN, however, eat better during meals and not eat a lot in between.  Anyway, I made them from my favorite recipe (which I cannot remember where I got it from, I've had it so long on a recipe card - I think it's from a cookbook....), but I didn't add enough chocolate chips.  I wanted a variety of chips - dark chocolate, milk chocolate, and semi-sweet.  I tried to measure out how much one package would be.  From now on, I'm adding twice as much - heck, what's the use in eating a chocolate chip cookie if there isn't enough chocolate in it????

I was pretty successful this week with getting some things done that I wanted to get done.  I didn't have any motivation at the beginning of the week, but the  last 2 days I did pretty well.  I got some shopping done yesterday, as I mentioned before, mostly successful because I went alone!  I also got my Snowman wall hangings done!  Yay!  I will put the photos up here.  This is one complete panel, but I cut them up into individual squares.  I only quilted one of them - I have a really difficult time quilting panels.  I love putting them together, but I don't like quilting them - too time consuming to be constantly changing the thread colors!  I'm lazy, what can I say???  The one I did quilt, I didn't like so much so I'm not sending it out, I'm keeping it for myself!  :-)

Quilted Snoman

Snowman 2

Snowman 3

Snowman 4

Snowman 5

Snowman 6

I had a heck of a time uploading these and I can't seem to get blogger to let me put them where I want to.  I didn't used to have this issue......I think if you double click, they will get bigger, but I'm not positive.
At any rate, some of them need ironing.  It was a job figuring out how I could make them stiff enough to hang with just one hanger in the center of the back (that last photo is crooked - so tilt your head. lol.  I have to sew the little ring in the back in the center - it's obviously off center!).  I finally decided to use a heavy duty interfacing that I used (doubled) in the bottom of a purse I made.  It's pretty stiff.  I cut about an inch wide and the length of the interfacing and placed it about an inch from the top of the panel.  I then used some sort of puffy, iron on interfacing for in between.  I made the first two differently tho.  The first one (where the snowman is quilted and not very well) I made with plain batting in between, so it doesn't stay stiff like the others.  I ended up putting 2 little white rings on the back, and using a dowel to hang it.  Just a few of the reasons why it's staying here and not getting sent to anyone!
The second one I ended up using iron on interfacing which is quite stiff, and it worked.  I should have used that on them all, but then found the puffy, iron on interfacing and tried them.  Because I didn't quilt them, they didn't need the puffy stuff, but I had quite a bit of it, it was already out, so I just cut away and kept using it on the following 4 panels.  They came out ok, but as usual, I'm quite critical of myself and my sewing.  Not many will get these this year, and I think the remaining panels will get used in a quilt.....

Now that these are mostly done (I have to sew a label on them), I started printing out the photo I'll be using on my Christmas cards....and don't you just know, I'm low on ink.  So I'll have to get some ink before I print the rest.  I need to get busy on those, as I'm going to be quite busy the next couple of weeks I think....more on that at another time.

I also updated my TDI (Therapy Dogs International) paperwork so I can continue to volunteer in 2012 with Evan!  :-)  I don't do much - just go to the hospital 2 or 3 times a month when I'm scheduled, but it's enough I think.  I do want to start working on some tricks with him....

I have all my new calendars for next year.  I found a little booklet one for my desk in Target for $1.00 (the bigger one was taking too much room), we got a free one in a newspaper or magazine, for the kitchen, and we found one in Target for $1.00 which is the desk blotter style which Hubby likes.  So that's all set.

Hubby put together the granddaughter's ride on toy yesterday while I went on my shopping trip.  He's such a good guy.  It's really cute, but she's only a year old and the thing is motorized.  Makes me nervous....but hey, it was her mommy's choice....we also got a little brown recliner chair for her and it's SO adorable!  Granddaughter's birthday is Dec 21st, but party will be on the 17th.  Then there's Christmas.  So the chair is birthday and the ride on toy with other toys, is Christmas. 

I have labels to put on the quilt for her too - the pretty, colorful one I made that her that won't match her room - but maybe her mommy and daddy will put it in the family room for her to snuggle in when they are in there. I also have to put the labels on the snowmen wall hangings.  I'll do that in front of tv tonight.  I tried that method of ironing muslin onto freezer paper and sending it thru my printer. I could only find a strip of muslin about 6 inches wide, so I did that - it didn't work really well.  I guess the muslin needs to be 8.5 x 11 like the freezer paper for it to work better.  I messed up one but the rest came out ok, thank goodness. Guess I need to buy some more muslin when it's on sale next time.

I get SO many sale ads, I sometimes feel overwhelmed.  Maybe because it's Christmas season or something, but when I get in Hancocks and Joanns I get overwhelmed - and it doesn't help that I get them after the sale has started (and sometimes after it's ended!!!).  For example, I got the Black Friday Hancock ad, this past Wednesday....let's see, that's 5 FIVE days late!  So I missed a couple of good deals there.... sigh. 

Ok, so this post is way long so I'll close for now.  More later!
Take care of yourself, as always,
Martha