Ch, Ch, Changes!

It seemed last year around this time, everyone kept talking about Change. And while I'm still not on board with that particular brand of change, I do believe that changes are good and allow us to grow. Having said that, I've decided to make some changes. Both in my life and in my blogworld. Here we go (you ready?).

1. Education ~ we've kept Ben home this year and have begun our homeschool. It requires a great deal of my time, but I love it. I wouldn't have my life any other way right now. Carter still goes to his preschool. We absolutely love the school & the teachers and they've known him since he was just a few months old.

2. Blogs ~ I have this blog that was originally dedicated to my quilting and my life. I have another blog that was to be all about frugality and pinching pennies. I was also in the process of starting a THIRD blog that would chronicle my homeschooling adventures. It was my dream to show that any average everyday mom could do it. Because, without fail, everytime I mention to someone that I homeschool their response is "oh, I could NEVER do that." And I want to scream and shake them and say "YES YOU COULD!!!"

Each time I go to write a post on any of my blogs I always have to pause and think "which one should it go on?" For instance, I made a few great deals on some homeschool supplies, should I post that on the homeschool blog or the frugal blog? What about just our regular homeschool days? That's my life. I want to share it here, but it also should go on the other blog.

So, I've made a decision. I will have ONE blog. Afterall, this blog is about my life. I'm a quilting, frugal, homeschooling mom. I wish my life were so neatly compartmentalized, but its not. All of the little pieces keep overlapping. No matter how hard I try to keep them all seperate :P.

3. Another recent change has been the daily addition of Green Smoothies to our routine. They taste fabulous, they make us feel better and it gets some veggies into the kids. Something I've rarely been able to do in my 7+ years of being a mother.

So, if you've made it this far in this post, I congratulate you. It took me several tries to get here myself, and I'm the one writing it! Quilting has been put on hold while I'm trying to get everything caught up still from being sick. But I hope you'll continue to join me & my family on our random adventures!
Cheers!

OINK OINK!!

It appears my house has been infiltrated with the SWINE FLU!! I've been in bed for the better part of two weeks. I'm just now starting to feel human again, but I fear the kids may be getting sick. I haven't even touched fabric or looked at my sewing machine in weeks.....I'll be back. Soon.

I'm alive.....barely

There is something pollenating here in our small town that has KO'd half of my friends. My allergies haven't bothered me at all since we've moved here until this year. Ben and I are both miserable. It rained last night and I woke up finally being able to breath, but I have a nagging cough that is irritating my asthma.

So now that you've heard all the gory details of our funk, go back and enjoy your coffee! : ) I'll be back when my head either explodes or drains empty!

How do you design??

I decided to throw my hat in the ring for DQS 7.

I had an idea in my head, so I started with these (which is evidently where I start with every doll quilt swap...

I put them together like this......

....and then it grew into this. Which is absolutely nothing like the orignal design in my head. But I love it. And I don't want to send it away.

Sometimes when I have an idea in my head, its hard to get it to work with fabric. So I don't stress about it. The fabric and the blocks will tell you how they want to play, you just have to open enough to listen. So how do you design? Do you tell the fabric what to do? Or do you let the fabric call the shots?

Some Eye Candy....

These pictures were all taken last week before my emergency cleaning spree, but I didn't get a change to post them. Since I haven't done anything blog worthy all week, I thought they would make a good filler post until my life becomes interesting again!



This fall I will be making the boys matching bed quilts to go on their bunk beds. I need 21 different fabrics. Ben vetoed one of the fabrics in this stack (the yellow one under the red & white stars), and I've since purchased a few more. I'm almost ready to start cutting. There will be a little bit of extra fabric from each cut, so I think I'm going to make a Bento Box out of the scraps for a floor quilt or picnic quilt.

This is another set of strings for my CYOC swap. This was random purples around a white center.

I've also mentioned in the past that I'm involved with the Sunshine Charity Quilts (online group). For the month of June (I know, I'm late, don't judge me) Bonnie was collecting string blocks to donate to the Heartstrings Group (of which I am also a member). We're only requested to send in two blocks each month, but I was on a roll with my string piecing and I wanted to make a dent in my strings stash. The dent was negligible.....

We are actually able to breath today, even the though temps are still in the high 90's. I'm considering turning on my sewing machine tonight or maybe tomorrow. I sure hope I don't melt.

I'm here....

I'm here, I'm alive, but I'm melting! The house showing went off with out a hitch. But we won't be selling. I don't think we'll be able to come together on a price. They want to pay fair market value (and I can't blame them), but we aren't really prepared to move, or sell. So, in order to do so, we'd need a little more financial motivation. And they aren't willing to pay that. So, we're ok with it. This is where we are supposed to be. My friend, Sarah, just had a beautiful addition added to her house and she gave her contractor a glowing recommendation. It just so happens that she's not only a great bloggy friend, but a Real Life friend as well. And we live in the same small town. So, we're going to talk with her contractor and seeing about doing an addition here. Then our house will nearly be perfect. And we could live here indefinitely, you know. In case this market never really does turn around!

So, I got the house all tidied up and lookin' spiffy. But I haven't sat down with my machine yet. Good Lord, its been so HOT here! The thought of sitting in front of a machine, with a hot computer and hot light. Next to a hot iron. ...... ugh, I couldnt do it. I think the heat has peaked and so hopefully it'll only be a few more days before we're back to "normal" ~ whatever that is....

We Interrupt This Regularly Scheduled Blog.....

You may remember last summer when we put our house on the market, because we were going to move into our "dream home" (HA!), but then it all fell apart and we stayed right where we are. Do you remember that? Probably not because I had like, maybe four, readers at that point. Anyhoo, it was a fun summer last year. Trust me. F - U - N (NOT). Well, last week we had someone randomly knock on our door and say "hi, we know your neighbors and we heard your house was on the market last year. We think we'd like to buy it." WHAT???? Seriously? I shouldn't be surprised, because this is exactly the type of crap that happens to Jason and me all. of. the. time. We aren't normal, we don't lead normal lives and normal stuff just doesn't happen. Ever.

We'd had our eye on a house in town and so we called the Realtor and went to look at it. We had every expectation of falling in love with this house, working out a deal with these random people and living happily ever after. Well, the house was awful. Just awful. Ok, maybe not that bad, but it wasn't the house for us. We called Mr. & Mrs. Random back and told them that we appreciate their interest in the house, but moving just isn't what's best for us right now. Then we went on with our lives. Three days ago we got a letter from them explaining that they've spent three days looking at houses with their realtor and they can't find anything. (really? nothing? In this market? Surely they aren't looking hard enough). They are in love with our hosue (they've only ever walked around the yard, they've never been inside) and they want to live our their retirement here. They understand our position but would like us to keep them in mind should we decide to move anytime soon. Crap!

See, we have outgrown our house. Two growing boys and two big dogs in a two bedroom house. We don't fit. We realize this and we also know that this is NOT where we want to live out our retirement. However, we had just resigned ourselves to staying here probably another five years or so. Until (fingers crossed) the market turns around a bit. Then we got to thinking....right now, in this market, someone wants to buy our house. They seem to be desperate to live here. We're nuts if we don't try to go for it.

......so, all of this to explain ~ I've been cleaning like a mad woman for the last several days. My sewing machine is accumulating dust and I'm not working on any of my WIPs. :( They are coming on Saturday to view the house and I've explained to Jason that I will be spending Sunday evening glued to my sewing machine. He seems ok with that ;)

See y'all in a few days!