Ayn's Multiple World

Should we catch up here?

Good morning. We're getting kind of a late start. We've been up most of the morning, but have come in and out of tasks and have had some sleeping at the keyboard. I'm not sure why that happens, just does. We're pretty much through the coffee pot this morning though Rich had something to do with that. He's gone now and has been for a couple of hours. He has to do two games this morning for 11 year olds. He said he'd be back by 12:30-1 pm. It's about 9:15 now.

I think we're pretty much caught up with our FB. We haven't done a sewing entry yet and we're about 8-9 days behind in this blog. I'm going to go through what's happened in this last time frame a little quickly if I can. First part is that we've been in and out of Dr. appointments. First Dr. M. was gone and then we went, and then we had meetings, and now next time he'll be out. It's a sign of a busy doctor in that he's going to hard mail me our one prescription. Sheese! But, it gets the job done.



So, we'll start at the top of the list. We've done a lot of work in the sewing room. Well at least it seems like it. Top of the list was that we moved in our little mini-bar AND discovered ice cubes bought in the 7 pound bags. WooHOO! Sweet! It is just now we can always have cold water. Often we open a bottle but it gets warm before we finish. We're still using bottled water, but now in a glass with cubes. We still haven't opened our wine bottles, but we're prepared … we got some stoppers so we can keep our wine fresh until we get back to finishing it all. Missy is not really approving … she's keeping her eyes open on me.



As a list the things that have gotten done is that we finished the top of Joe and Cari's quilt. We need CS to advise us on a few inner corners. I didn't like the way they turned out. I know she'll know how to fix them. We'll take it up north with us next weekend and try to sandwich and quilt it … Looking forward to having that project done before the wedding.



We were a little frustrated when CS sent through the word that one of her animals was consuming the petal project. I think it's the glue that's enticing them.

I think one of these was the culprit … and don't let their good looks hold them harmless!



I hear CS is doing her best to get things accomplished and is trying to work at least an hour a day. She hasn't mentioned how many of these blocks she's finished, but she's got 60 to do. When we left she was done with 25%.



The other project of the weekend up at CS's was the Dancer's in the Park project. We went over this with CS … she has one of the two patterns within the project done. This is the second part. I was happy how the cutting out of this project went, but then I think we overwhelmmed poor CS.



The next project was the curtains. We had gotten the fabric in and had to show a little nerves to cut into the 18 yards of fabric. I was really happy with the result though. It makes a nice soft wall. They are light enough to let light through, but they are muted. I really, really like them!





Shoot … sure hope some of these pictures made it to the sewing blog. We're still encouraging CS and Linda to write. They seem to prefer the FB notes instead of the quilting blog. I think there's a sense of the one being more private than the other. I'm also trying to encourage them to be taking more pictures. I suggested two a day, but that's proving too much. Linda's doing better than CS and is getting at least a picture in every 3-4 days. *sigh* Just when and how did we get so adept.

The next project was the table skirts. We finally decided according to the fabric we had left to do 10 - 34" panels. This gave us some really good coverage options. They are ready now to take to CS over the weekend next so that we can get them ruffled. We've got enough fabric to bring them down by 1/3 with the ruffle's … not perfect, but close enough. I'm hoping it isn't too much. We got the clips for the back, but will need CS or Rich velcro rolls to attach to the curtains.



After those were finished we went back to the fish. I was happy in getting one set of fish finished yesterday. We just need to keep working through it so we can move on to the part where we put them together. I'm thinking they are going to be way to long … so we're thinking we'll maybe make a couple wall hangings too. I don't know what we were thinking … they are only about 9 wide, but are 18 deep.

Maybe we should make 4 blankets instead of two. We'll have to see how big 9 x 9 fishes are. They are just over 6" - so that means 54" wide … hmm 4 1/2 feet. There will be a border too. Ok, just finish this part and we'll have to see. If I did split them. Then we could have a light one and a dark one. It might be better if they were going to be wall hangings. We'll have to see. We'll talk to the sewing group over the weekend about it.



The next thing about the sewing room is that although it's not finished yet last night Rich put up the two design boards and the wall hanging. I think Rich has some ghosts and goblins in his background that make handyman stuff really hard for him, but he does pretty good when he finally overpowers his negatives on doing the work. The wall hanging kinda went up upside down, but that's a pretty little thing … I'll wait until he gets back, but it seems now the magnet bars are screwed in real good so hopefully the bar holding the curtain can just be pulled off the magnets and switched up to down. It will give me a chance to repin it again too. It's sitting a little too low to the floor.



The design boards aren't perfect as to their space, but given the space we have … I'm not going to complain. Now it's up to me to make them look pretty!





Hmm, should say something here. I think you knew that the steamer was one of the items coming in under that special financial gift from sister. It's like each morning since there is a line to see who is going to use it first. Rich and us are both figuring out how to use it … and I find that both of us no matter what the condition of our clean clothes seem to prefer items steamed out. It's a really nice comfortable and relaxed look on the fabric. I do with there was an extension pole to get it higher, but for now we can let that go … just to nice to have wrinkless clothes.

AHH!!! One more thing added on the domesticity front. Rich and us both got dusters … I guess I'm going to be going for the gusto! This is proof that there was a dusting here. Rich says give it a week or two and the fun will wear off and it will sit in the closet. He has to be nicer. It might wear off for a bit, but in general we do eventually come back to things. At least we're trying.




Want even more proof … we're getting better!?? Well mostly better if I were really good … there wouldn't have been such a big piece taken out of this Blueberry Delight that w made yesterday … this involved turning on the stove and everything!



Next … we've got this perfectly willing bunch of potatoes that is volunteering to be made into potato salad! I'm pretty excited about that … maybe after a bit this afternoon we can put that together. The idea of the cooking was to take something to Rich's Mom's and Bud's and then maybe too treat out Rich's friend Bob with something special. We were supposed to go over yesterday for chicken, but Rich and us were arguing. I had told him I wasn't leaving the house until the tasks got finished. Well, needless to say he didn't like my attitude. I think we're pretty much friends again now, but the elephant is still in the room. I know he called Bob because Bob called back when I was in to see if Rich was ok. Yeeks. Feeling like a lousy friend. I keep trying to get better, but he's been leading me on in going to do these things for nearly a year. At some point patience is going to give. I'm afraid I lost mine.


I think I'm going to have to unload the dishwasher soon too. I want it done before Rich gets back. He wants to leave about 5:30 pm. He's going to take me down to Navy Pier for dinner, a movie and fireworks. We're non-committal as to the Ferris Wheel. I think of it everytime I go down there, and want another ride, but I don't want to wear out Rich's cash drawer.

There's some stuff happening with people in my life in that … on Rich's side he's going through some stuff with his kids, not between them, but with them. Chris is still having seizures and this last bit he ended up back in the hospital because his throat was closing in on him. I sure hope he didn't have whatever had gone on over here. Maury had it too. Rich didn't, but just not sure. He seems to be ok now … or at least I haven't heard anything over the last 24 hours. Jillian is going through her problems because of the breakup of her and Dawna. Rich almost went down there to help her pack-up and come up for her month break - she's a gym teacher who finished the year on yesterday. But, Jillian decided she could do all that on her own. Gotta give her credit … it can't be easy going through what she's going through.

We've been doing a lot of corresponding with CS and Linda of late. Linda had a bad turn of events in that she'd just gone back to work for her old company, and then it turned out that they were closing on Friday after two weeks of being back. Now we found that it might be a ploy on union negotiations. I think she'll find out mid-week what is happening. She's doing real well with the sewing and now her and her hubby are going out for the weekend. CS is trying to keep up with the sewing too. She's working through being out more with Mark helping with the work at their church.

There was another surprise in that I wrote to Becky my old high school friend. I don't think it is going to go very far. Basically, I asked her if she could send if she still has it … my recorders and some cards from the funerals 7 years ago. It turned out that Becky got pregnant and is now a 50 year old mom to a 5 year old. God Bless her. She said her husband left 1 1/2 years ago. I feel very bad for her in that regard. I'd hoped she'd make it. It's hard to keep marriages going through hard times. I know this for a fact. I wrote her back a little as to how I was doing, but feel real mixed feelings saying too much more. Her anger had terrified our system, and I don't want to be caught up in that kind of fear and hurt again. I think there's apart of me that will always love her, but some paths I won't cross … done too much work in becoming healthier.

We've been pretty busy at work and had some opportunities to meet some new people at a class to update my work in training the DSPs. I really liked the guy leading the group. It was a two-day affair and I sent him yesterday a copy of my notes. He was really amazed with the part of bringing in my electronics. Everyone else printed out this like 500 page book, but we just brought in the netbook with our Internet devise and went from there. And, you gotta know me enough by now to know that we take copious notes! Turned out to be about 28 pages single spaced - BUT, there was TWO days … well, just in my defense. This is Gary the teacher.



Sister has given me besides doing the accredatation work, staff training, and program a caseload of now 25 people. 3 more were added on in this last month and a half. I don't know what to do about that, or my feelings, but the gut level is that … now being 3 years away from the next CARF survey … I'm feeling pretty light and easy.

I will have a day off next week and then one day working, and then a staffing and admin meeting on Wed, a staff training meeting on Thurs, and then another staffing on Friday and then Thinking Group on Fri. Even with all this we are looking at getting back into CARF. Sister got us a 32 GB flash drive to replace the 8 GB we'd grown out of. I couldn't fit any more files on it. So now the 32 GB has all the regular stuff and we're going to reserve the 8 GB for processing CARF. I really do look forward to doing stuff with all that and I started a project of tracing the words so I really understand what they are after. I never in all these last 3 years did this and it I think didn't assist me in the holes I had of my knowledge and enthusiasm. I really do want to understand this stuff. I think it's going to be my calling card. I would like to be able to think that if something ever happened to Sister and or St. Rose I'd still be hireable to someone in the field. It means picking up some good habits now.

And, then back to our weekend now. You know about today and Navy Pier with Rich tonight and the sewing we've been working on … not sure you picked it up too, but Rich will go fishing with Bud tomorrow morning with the boat and then I will stay with his Mom, and then we'll meet for late lunch. Rich will most likely pick up BBQ and then of course the stuff we'd made, and probably his mom will throw in a few things. I don't know if Rich told her yet how much we were bringing. I'll probably get on him again for that this afternoon. It's 11 am now and he's still got 2-3 more hours being out. We're leaving at 5:30 tonight. I always worry about the weight because again we've climbed back to old weights. I'm not going far with that here. We've just started skirting that topic with Dr. M.

The two big things was to get the sewing studio complete and then CARF, and then after that we told ourselves we'd consider it again - as to diet and exercise. I know it's way past time, but we've only done so much and now handling we have to do more. We're really proud of Rich … I think he's lost about 35 pounds. He's looking very good and it's encouraging.

But, for now I think we'll stop … I had forgotten about one other project we wanted to get a handle on. We wanted to put that secondary mauve on the edges of the shelves with the craft glue. Being yet early on a Saturday morning WITH light seems to be the right time. Ok, ok … we're going to post this and then get on with it. I think you are pretty much caught up with things again. Pshwoo. That was a lot of info wasn't it.





Ok, just these last TWO more pictures. Linda is on the left and Emily is on the right they are part of our sewing sisters - Quilted Moose Sewing on Spruce - Nice, hmm? We're on a two weeks without Dr. Marvin ... Lot's happens in a couple weeks, doesn't it? Be taking care!

posted by Ann Marie @ 5/29/2010 12:08:00 PM Comments: 0