Day 273 of 365

For the most part, I try and stay out of trouble. I might make mistakes (and that has been happening more often lately), but I try and do the right thing. I try not to take advantage of others. I obey traffic laws. I always have worked at being the "good girl".

But a couple weeks ago I got an infraction. An infraction from the quilting website I've been visiting for the last few months. The one where I give away fabric and quilt blocks and quilt tops. The one where I share my quilt projects and my sewing-based tutorials.

The quilting website had gone through a change over the past month. From what I understand they sold their site to another company. They then took on a radically new look and a bunch of additional advertisers. They lost a lot of the members as they became frustrated with the changes. It didn't matter much to me either way, but thinking about those changes probably should have been a heads up to me that things were different.

The site doesn't (and never has had) the capabilities for quilters to post videos. Since all my tutorials are videos, I usually post a picture of what I made on their site and then link to the how-to video. When the change-over to the new website occurred, I wasn't able to post pictures anymore. So I just posted a link to the video.

And that is where the problem lies. One of the moderators that patrol the website deleted my link and let me know I'd been given an infraction. An infraction for posting a "spammed advertisement".

Now, I have never collected e-mails from anyone. I don't advertise anything on my blog. I don't ask for donations or money. I don't even have my YouTube videos set to air advertisements. So how the "spammed advertisement" came about, I'm not sure. Of course, my messages to them attempting to find out more have gone unanswered.

At first I cared about getting in trouble. After a while, not so much. I occasionally go to the site to get an idea for a pattern, but haven't posted any free fabric or quilt blocks or quilt tops or tutorials or pictures or anything since.

The way I see it, the site has served its purpose. It gave me lots of ideas for quilting, but even more importantly it is where I found out about all the different charities that needed donations. Because of that site I've done work for the Quilts for Kids organization, Operation Kid Comfort, The Painted Turtle, Quilts of Valor, and Stocking for Soldiers. But now it's time to move on.

Although after my $5 ebay purchase that arrived today, I'll need to search out some ideas somewhere. The big box of fabric being sold was called a "Quilter's Dream". It sure is.

Yards and yards of beautiful fabric and dozens and dozens of very, very old  hand-stitched quilt blocks. Someone obviously put in a lot work into something they couldn't finish. Now if I could just figure out what to do with it all...

How to Make Lollipop Homemade Christmas Tree Ornaments - Day 272 of 365, Tutorial Tuesday

I'm crossing my fingers. Crossing my fingers and closing my mouth.

I  need to make sure the words I can't do this don't wind up slipping from my mouth during either one of my meetings today. After thinking it yesterday, I'm going into today with some I can do this thinking. Now whether that will carry me through the day, I'm not so sure. But I'm going to try. Today is a new day. Doesn't mean it's going to be any better, but there's a chance it just might.

There is a chance I might get some ornaments on my Christmas tree, though. Yesterday's picture didn't include all my new ornaments. I made some new ones this weekend for today's tutorial. A piece of fabric, some clothesline cord, and a lollipop stick from the candy making section of the craft store led to these.

Let's hope when I get home tonight the I can do this has carried through the day and at least a few ornaments make it on the tree.

Now available in my Etsy store as a digital download with the written directions, step-by-step color photos, and link to the tutorial video. Click to find out more!

Looking for something else? 

Check out some of my other Christmas sewing and crafting projects!

The step-by-step how to tutorial for the homemade lollipop Christmas tree ornaments made with fabric scraps and clothesline cord can be found here:

Looking for more holiday sewing and crafting projects? 
Check out some of my other projects:

*Fabric Easter Eggs

*Stuffed Fabric Carrots

*Fabric Easter Bunnies

Day 271 of 365

As I was sitting at a training at work today all I could think was, "I can't do this."

I can't sit here any longer. I can't stand how bad my back hurts. I can't stand how much my hands are aching. I can't stand how stiff and painful my knees are. I can't concentrate on what the speaker is saying. I can't pay close attention to what others are saying. I can't form my words to get out anything intelligent to add to the conversation. My mind is numb. I can't will myself out of this. 

Something has pushed me over the edge. I'm not sure if it is the combination of working and holiday stuff or the weather or what, but something is off. Something has hit me like a ton of bricks. My pain is worse than usual, bordering on severe.  I usually can will myself out of the pain slump, but it didn't work today. Usually I can put on an act so no one knows what is going on, but I couldn't today.

I have pain pills at the ready, but still have avoided taking them. Days like these make me want to go back to them. Days like these make me wish I hadn't gone back to work. Make me wish I didn't hurt so much. Make me wish things weren't like this.

As much as I want to focus on others, right now I can't. I have some new pictures from Operation Kid Comfort to make into some quilts and pillows for some kiddos with parents in the Navy, but I can't get my mind into it right now. I have quilts to make for my husband and daughter for Christmas, but I can't get there, either.

A feeble attempt at keeping my mind off the pain happened this evening when I thought I might decorate our Christmas tree. Our daughter put it up last week when she was home for Thanksgiving so I could decorate sometime this week. I desperately needed a mental distraction. Unfortunately, a pre-lit tree and a determined deep-into-the-pain person with non-cooperative joints did not equate to a decorated tree tonight.

What I did manage to accomplish was to sort through our new ornaments for the season. Every year we pick up new ornaments, mostly at the after Christmas sales. I always forget what I had purchased, so every time the next Christmas rolls around, I get excited about the new ornaments I bought the year before.

New this year we have a Charlie Brown and Luci ornament that plays lines from their "sessions". A See and Say that tells us what the animals say and a View Master that works. A Playschool Jet. Clark Griswold from Christmas Vacation on an ornament that plays music and lights up. A kitty cat that looks like ours.

The tree may not have gotten decorated, but my ornaments are ready when my body is ready.

Day 270 of 365

It's FlyLady time.

After Mommarock posting a comment about FlyLady and me thinking about FlyLady as I was piling up trash yesterday, I decided it was time.

FlyLady is about housecleaning and management of housecleaning. It's about cleaning in zones. About shining your sink before you go to bed. About always getting dressed - including shoes - every day. It's about a household notebook/control journal and the use of the 27 fling boogie for decluttering.

I've done FlyLady for years. Because of her, our sink is always shining before we go to bed. We've had a household notebook sitting on our kitchen counter for the last several years. Most days, even when I'm home by myself, I make sure I have shoes on.

But the 27 fling boogie she writes about has long disappeared. The zone cleaning has stopped, even though I have lists typed up in my household notebook, a notebook that is rarely opened. I even have a monthly menu plan that was used years ago (but hasn't been looked at since).

So today I'm back to reading the book that has been sitting on my bookshelf for years.

My first few items I tackled today? One of the printers, one of the staplers, and one of our bath scales are headed to the donation bag. And a start on revamping our household notebook. Today we have new zone cleaning lists specific to our house, all on different colors of paper, ready to slip into sheet protectors for checking off.

The cleaning lists might not seem picture-worthy, but I know having them hanging out here on the blog will give me an additional reminder to keep on top of them. (As well as an additional layer of guilt if I don't.)

Baby steps.

If you haven't heard of FlyLady but are interested, under today's picture I've posted where you can find the book on Amazon. She also has a website http://flylady.net/

Day 269 of 365

I have too much junk around the house. Not really junk, just too many things. Boxes, envelopes, computer cords, plastic containers.

I tried downsizing several months ago but lost the itch to get it finished. Now is the time to try again. After yesterday's (and today's) den cleaning, I realized there is an abundance of things that I really don't need. Like our four staplers. One in the desk drawer, one still in the package in the desk drawer, one that resides in the pen holder, and one in my sewing room. The only stapler we ever use is the one in the pen holder. Printers? Just as bad. We have three even though only one is used.

Pens and markers? In the pen holder. Plus in the desk drawer in two different places - in a big drawer and in a little drawer marked pens. My husband's plastic container on the bookshelf has some more of his, and my plastic container on the shelf has some more of mine. That's just in the den. (Let's not talk about how many other rooms where we have dozens stashed.) Scissors, paper clips, blank envelopes, glue sticks, and post it notes can all be found in multiple places around the house. We've accumulated stuff I didn't even know we had accumulated.

We're even accumulating pies. In addition to the pies my daughter and I cooked up, my husband bought one from a student (another pumpkin). Then just tonight he collaborated with Marie Callender to make a chocolate raspberry pie.

Day 268 of 365

It almost happened today. For the first time in 268 days, I almost forgot.

Maybe my daughter calling this morning set things in motion for it to happen. Usually she calls every evening when she's on dinner break or after she gets home from work. Today she called this morning when she got off work.

She works at one of those department stores that opened at midnight last night. So at 11:30 PM on Thanksgiving Day she had to be at work. And she worked all night long until 9:30 this morning. I hadn't even had breakfast yet and she had already put in a 10 hour shift at the mall.

I spent the rest of the morning on school work and some computer clean-up on our home computer. In the afternoon, I gathered all the kitty pictures I've taken over the last year and made a calendar for my daughter for Christmas. In fact, the reason I started this picture-a-day thing was because of the cat calendar I made for my kiddo last year. (The full story was back on Day 9.) You'd think that would be enough for me to remember it, but no.

The rest of the afternoon was spent going through old software, desk drawers, pen holders, file folders - all those things in the den taking up space on bookshelves and tables and desks. I'm working on getting rid of things that we no longer need. The den has been a mess all afternoon as I've sorted it all into a million piles. 

At one point this evening I was doing some shredding and looked out the window. I spied birds sitting on the power lines, silhouetted nicely against the evening sky. I thought to myself, That would be a nice picture.

And that's when it hit me. I forgot about the blog.

I forgot to write. I forgot to find a picture. I forgot to even think about it. Never, in all these months and months, has a day gone by where I even came close to forgetting about it. But I did today.

Thank goodness for those birds. If it weren't for them, I might have skipped one of the most important things I do.

Thank you, birds, for saving me today.

Day 267 of 365

Thanksgiving is simple around our house every year.  You'll find no card games, no people cheering loudly as they watch a football game. Every year it's just us. My husband, my daughter, and I. If it's a year my mom is around (like this year), she'll join us too. No people bringing food, no extra dishes to wash up.

Despite all the pies and prep work my daughter and I did earlier this week, today was a party of four. Packed up enough leftovers for my daughter to have meals at work for the next four days. Plenty of turkey for sandwiches and soups and enchiladas and anything else turkey we can come up with. Slices of pie sent with my daughter for her and her boyfriend and my mom.

Turkey, mashed potatoes and gravy, stuffing, corn, green bean casserole, homemade cranberry relish, homemade rolls. Our standard, simple fare.

Whether your day was a quiet one, a loud, boisterous one, or somewhere in between, I hope it was shared with family and friends.

Speaking of sharing, my husband shared his plate for today's picture.

Happy Thanksgiving!