Another RR Block

Yes I've finished my embellishing on another RR block within the SewBuds group.  This one belongs to Janie J and it's been sitting here since June 20th awaiting mailing - can't because Canada Post was on rotating strike then workers locked out period!  Darned irritating all around!  But I hear it should be over tomorrow and soon it should be "back to work"!!!
This block is from a previous round robin but not completed so Janie has sent it around in our March 2011 RR to hopefully have it totally embellished before coming home this time.

So I used one of Janie's tatted purple trims she included for all of us (I didn't take one as I myself tat so left them for others to enjoy) and stitched it ontop of the lace trim previously added to the block.  I then added a trio of multi-coloured beads anchoring each of the rings in place.

Then I decided it needed some more yellow to balance out the block and possibly dress up the grey/green triangular patch.  So I tatted up a dragonfly and anchored it in place with pearls.

So here is the whole block, all packaged up and hopefully on it's way to Candi this week.

WR - Slave Lake Project

Yet another yearly retreat started with the Western Retreat Yahoo group was missed by myself BUT my contribution to the retreaters' call for blocks did make it there!!!  See the retreaters wanted to help as much as they could those displaced homeowners of the devastated forest fire that engulfed Slave Lake, Alberta.  So here are the disappearing nine patch blocks I made up.

Also I passed on various funky stamped batiks I knew I'd not use and just had not attempted even using them in local ABC donation quilts so they too went West!!!  So thank you to Beryl G for being my "delivery person" and also to Carman and Pam for taking the batiks and stitching up a quilt top and Ali for quilting it!  You girls did a lovely job!!!

Yes I was very pleased that I could at least contribute to this project, and in that way I also did some purging of fabrics from my stash too!  One of these days I'll make it out West again.  Sure would be nice to see my quilting friends again!  Miss you muchly!!!

FINALLY - I've Proof in the Trap!!!

Finally after like 3+ months I’ve caught the first MOUSE – let’s hope it’s the only one now that all holes in are supposedly blocked off!  And the exterminator wondered if I was hearing a squirrel in the trees because of my open windows!!!  I told her that three times I’ve moved stuff from my closet and out would run a mouse under my bed and still she didn’t believe me!!!

On Sunday when woken up once again, I sat on my bed to “determine the exact location” of the scratching and then I went to investigate.  Here it was attacking my royal icing doll which was covered with some shellac sealer – I didn’t consider this food but an ornament – HMMMMM!!!  So there I was at 2:00 am clearing the boxed items out and into the garbage and in the morning put one of the large spring loaded box traps in its place.  No more scratching that night and last night was quiet also.

Now every day both on waking and upon returning to the apartment I always check all the traps and ZIPPO so far.  Well not today at lunch time - I now have proof on my camera with the date and time of the mouse in MY OWN PURCHASED SPRING LOADED TRAP (not what the exterminator left me) which I’ll print off and tape above her traps for her to see on her next visit!  Wonder how many more there are, now that I’ve removed what they think was food for them?

So back to giving the apartment another thorough cleaning and then keep checking to see if more messes are spotted and keep checking traps for a while at least.  What a chore, but hopefully now it might be on the road to being mouseproof – holes plugged and all cleaned up???  Also I'm still sorting through my items and purging what is not needed or wanted to be kept etc.

More Good News!

Well this morning I was able to talk with Sylvia and she sounds really good, even said she enjoyed a soft textured chicken meal last night – YEAH!!! The Drs said her blood calcium is back to normal and fast too after the thyroid surgery. And very soon they are changing her cast to a walking one and then discharging her, basically she does not need anymore hospital care. So that means someone has to drive to Thunder Bay Tuesday to pick her up when released on Wednesday and hopefully it’ll be early enough so they can make the return trip before dark. Once Len knows the particulars he’ll let us know too.

Also the postal workers are to be legislated back to work this week, if they had not settled in the mean time. SO I’S GONNA BE ONE HAPPY CAMPER ONCE THIS IS OVER – see I’ve many packages supposedly coming my way but held up somewhere because of the mail disruption – now let’s hope they are delivered without any work slowdown mischief. Canada Post had sent me an email to participate in a client survey – maybe they won’t like my reply – see I have beefs on all sides of this situation, with Canada Post making so many changes and wanting to go with automated services (majority of my mail does not fit the regular letter size slot), with workers not doing their job properly (my #10 is receiving mail constantly for #61 and the complaint process is the PITS period) or some finishing early and not filling their 8 hours of work and also with the Union tying the corporations hands too! Yeppers, as far as I’m concerned they are all at fault and it’s the clients that are paying the price. I cannot afford XpressPost all the time, nor can I afford courier services locally, never mind internationally.

As for my mouse situation, I finally found the source of the scratching during the night, it has been removed to the garbage and a TRAP put in its place. I pray that these !@#$% are finally caught and gone for good. See the pest exterminator supposedly plugged all holes into my apartment so that means whatever is inside can’t get out, so they better get trapped!!! I’ve had enough and want my place to me, myself and I!!!  And today the block owners passed on two large traps so lets see if these work any better than what I have now scattered around this place.

At least all this nuisance has a good side to it! I’ve managed to clean up over half of my place and soon it will be tidy and organized once again. No, it will not be a show home per se, but it will be a home once again instead of a storage unit. LOL!  And with my girlfriend's help I just may start some serious decorating and showcasing my handywork too!!!

I'm Back and Right At It Again!

Well last week I finished off my two crazy patched blocks for the Chain of Hearts group DYOB #3 (I missed out on #2) - this I think is ahead of time so hopefully I can keep on schedule with the weekly stitches called.  Here's the two blocks:

My own block awaiting embellishments

My swapping block awaiting embellishments

OK, I'm just back from a weekend trip to Dauphin for an extended family member's bridal shower and while visiting with Florence & Wayne I also got to visit/chat with Elsie too!  The bride-to-be arrived on the back of a Harley and in a short dress too boot!  WOW!!!  The shower was lovely and AWESOME party fancies to eat too! 

Afterwards Wayne drove us out towards Rainbow and Stony Point Beaches on Dauphin Lake - well as far as we could venture without trespassing restricted areas.  BUT talk about devestation based on high water levels from last year and this year's excessive spring runoff.  At this time the west side of the lake has encrouched of lower lying farmland anywhere from one to two miles inland - just awful.  Then on our way back we drove right into a storm front.  It was a might scary with the fork lightning too - was really glad to get back to the house where the storm had blown over already!!!  PHEWIE!!!


  

OK, I got back home about 6:30ish and promptly went to work in the sewing room to organize my closet shelving unit.  Somehow things just don't all go back as they came out.  Guess the shelves took away some space - BUT I can tell you I love it!  Anyways, NOW I can pull out the bottom bin without dismantalling the whole tower of bins - that definitely will make my projects mucho easier!

AND on either side, with the use of scavanged pant hangers I'm able to hang up my various quilted projects and not be overly folded and piled up like in the past.  Now I just have to pick up some type of plastic to cover them from collecting dust.  BUT now that I've tidied this place up so much lately hopefully I can keep the dust under wraps in future too!!!

Next I set up my new footstool (the one that Harold realigned the anchoring holes nice and solid like) beside my stitching chair with my awesome stitching lamp equipped with pattern clamp holder and magnifying glass (on wheels for easy mobility).  AND it does hold all my stitching threads nice and handy like and not so messy around my chair.  Now just to clean up more loose items and this area will soon be organized too!!!

Then to put the icing on the cake so to speak, I called my brother-in-law and found out my sister Sylvia is doing lots better.  Her blood calcium has dropped considerably and she's looking forward to some solid food sooner than later but finally after 2-3 weeks of IV she's finally unhooked and on liquids!!!  YEAH!!!  And hopefully Wednesday she'll have a walking cast put on her broken lower leg and able to stomp around rather than sitting all the time!  Her Drs will be making a decision as to her release this week and we're all praying she is ambulanced back to Dryden for more therapy on her leg there before finally being released home.  At least when Len visited her in Thunder Bay this last week they got to see that he needs a walker to get around so is unable to take care of her too.  So hopefully their Dr. will assist in arranging some home care etc like after her hip replacement surgery.  And their oldest daughter, Audrey, will be taking time off to help around the house etc when released.  PHEW, it's sure been a rough spring for Sylvia, but hopefully things will be on the upswing now they have corrected the problems.

Relief Again!!!

Watch, just because my window AC has been installed and it's actually working after a three year siesta in the closet, our summer will be decent and I may not need it!!!  Yeah right, I doubt that one!  LOL!  It sure is gonna be just LOVELY sitting back and doing my stitching in normal temperatures in this place this summer.  Thank you Harold!

And not only for the above, but also the neato shelving unit he custom built for my closet and then installed this tonight.  Too bad I'm too tired to take the time and put away the tubs like it was designed to hold.  Oh well next week I'll finish off that task.

For now I'll just relax a might with my feet up on my new footstool that Harold also had to "fix" as Winners sold it with mismatched screw holes to attach the legs - DUH!!!  Good thing I got 24% off when I took it back to show them!!!  Yes, I'll take pics next week and show you then.

Good thing Harold & Joan are willing to barter my house/pet sitting  fees for Harold's handy work - helps both of us out!!!  Am I ever glad to know this too!!!  Thank you!

What's New?

Well I've nothing basically new except for the fact that I had a LOVELY Lace Days event with my friends and then moved back to my apartment after a week of house/dogs sitting.  I can tell you the mouse situation seems a little better but I don't think I've gotten rid of it totally, but seems the holes under the heat registers have been blocked so hopefully no new visitors.  Just gotta get rid of whatever is here.

Sunday my friend came with me out for a quick lunch and some shopping, we ended up at Winners and she convinced me to buy this lovely off-white leather storage type footstool.  It's only 12" high which is what I wanted but why so light coloured!!!  Oh well, and like Florence said I can always put a piece of fabric over it, so I bought it, took her home and promptly set to attaching the short legs.  YEAH RIGHT!!!  The first set screwed in no problemo!  It took me the fourth failed attempt of the second set of screws to realize someone did not align the holes properly.  GRRRRRR!!!!  So back to Winners on Monday and was given a 24% price adjustment and then I drove over to my friend's and begged him to please redrill the footstool to match the leg holes.  So soon I'll have a proper footstool that I can store my stitching threads next to my stitching chair!!!  YAHOOIE!!!

Now with the interrupted sleep nightly and the work demands lately, I kinda on meltdown these days and trying to keep a tight lid on my emotions.  Some days it is working others not - today was one of them - BUT I'm not having an explosion like in the OLD DAYS!!!  And after a very comfortable chat with my Manager I did feel better and going home for lunch helped too. 

Then coming home, doing two loads of laundry and once again moved all my sewing paraphenalia from the closet side of the room over to the window side definitely helped to defuse some of the anxiety.  So just to give the closet a good scrubbing, I'll be ready for my friend to install the lovely shelving unit he built for me.  Yep my own custom fitted closet shelves to hold my plastic tubs on three shelves - saving me the wasted energy of pulling everything out to get to the bottom bin in the future!!!  YEAH!!!

Week's Update

Yep I'm still dealing with a mouse situation in my apartment but the landlords and exterminator have been checking on it but dang it - it's just been a total nuisance plus lots of aches and pains as I have to keep moving my stuff from either out of the closets for checking or away from the heat registers for checking - that's from one side to the other.  Thankfully I'm given at least a week between these checks as I can't do three rooms all in one day!!!  BUT I will be very very very happy and relieved once this is cleared up and I can return to normal.  The GOOD thing coming out of this is my push to purge and clean up - heck soon I'll have it totally organized too!  Watch I'll not want to do anything for fear of messing it up!!!  LOL!

Well I'm once again house/dogs sitting this week (since Sat) and Sunday while out running a few errands I noticed that I had a low rear tire so I stopped and added air.  This was OK until Monday after work it was down again!  OH OH I musta picked up a nail.  Since I was not 100% this week I basically stayed home with the girls but thought today it was really really really FLAT and decided to call CAA since it was sunny out to get it changed.  WELL not even 45 minutes and he was here, changed and gone!  WOW!  He even gave me the gears that I was going to try and change it myself - "WHY, you've barely used your CAA and that's what it's for!!!"  So I'm glad I did call.  But there's a fair sized screw in that tire and not sure if it's patchable or have to totally replace it!  HMMM!

Good thing it didn't happen on Saturday last week as I had a mini Aurora Quilters quilt display on across town and this Saturday June 11th is our Northern Lights Lacemakers "Lace Days" from 1:00-4:00 pm at St. Peter's Anglican Church @ 755 Elm Street (at Grant Ave.) Winnipeg, Manitoba - display of bobbin lace and tatting - silent auction - some items for sale too.  So needless to say lots or coming and going but during the week I'm busing it to work and back - can't stand traffic hold ups at all.

Titanic Exhibition

At first I didn't think I wanted to go to this as it was quite pricey but our Dept Social Committee arranged for a group discount and last minute I joined in.  All I can say is I was very glad I did even if some of the times the story did upset me - knowing it was an actual life and death experience for many - not fictional.  One thing I can recommend if you are a slow reader like I am, is to pay for the audio equipment as I was in the last group to leave and I didn't READ all the notecards, but did read all the wallboards.  In the beginning you could get your picture taken and then at the end there were a few different scenes where they photoshopped you into the scene.  I picked two and bought them - that was the cheapest part of the tour.
 

"Sinking of RMS Titanic"
original oil by E.D. Walker
On Sunday, April 14, 1912, at 11:45 pm
Titanic was in collision with the iceberg.
At approximately 12:45 am on Monday,
April 15th, the first lifeboat was lowered.

'Titanic has gone sir'
original oil by E.D. Walker
A remark heard from the bridge of Carpathia.

Rose Anne photoshopped next to the wreckage.



Rose Anne photoshopped onto the Grand Staircase.
See the ghosted image of the Captain?

Sorry but I still won't watch the movie - seeing snippets is enough for my exciteable innards!  LOL!