How I made most of a quilt...

I found fabric that I couldn't live without:

Then I got a whole bunch of tools that made my life a better place:

Then I cut it all into 5" squares, paired them entirely randomly, and made a whole pile of half-square triangles. I squared them to 4.5":

I made a whole bunch of 12-square rows:

Sewed them all together to make a 12x10 quilt:

And finally ended up with a finished quilt top:

I had to sacrifice a quilt to the cat to prevent him from "helping."

Next up - Find a backing fabric (I'm thinking a dark brown), and a binding fabric (I'm thinking the exact same dark brown), and quilt! (I'm thinking straight line quilting, turquoise thread).
Then I learn to bind a quilt and then I never give it away ever because I MADE IT!

Block of the Month Class

I have made more quilt squares too!

February: Half-square triangles

and

March: Foundation piecing

 and

April: English paper piecing

and

This is what happens when I try to take a photograph of my quilting (it's also what happens when I get out my quilting stuff):

Dreams

As part of my project, I have written down many of my dreams, and am categorizing them. I expect that this us as close to a bucket list as I will ever get. I hope to update this list regularly as new ideas occur to me and I get to cross things off.

Financial:
Pay off all debt (mostly student loans)

Travel to:
France (in June!)
Belgium
Ireland, Scotland, England
Germany, Austria
Greece, Italy, Turkey
Japan for cherry blossoms
India - a journey of food
Grand Canyon and Yellowstone (again)
Colorado Rockies
Alaska and Hawaii (again)
Egypt to see the pyramids
Safari in Africa
Brazil with mom
Antarctic cruise

Career:
Find a job that makes me smile every day when I go in.
Have weekends off (or 2 days off in a row)
Run my own business/clinic
Get a PhD

Outside:
Garden
Learn to golf
Go snorkeling
Have a productive vegetable garden
Have a cutting garden to keep my house beautiful
Have a bee and butterfly garden that attracts lots of animals
Go horseback riding more often
Ski more

Inside:
Quilt
Knit
Write a blog
Scrapbook (digital?)

Food:
Learn to make sushi
Learn to toss pizza dough
Cook healthy meals
Understand nutrition

Family:
Have kids
See my parents more often
Raise a seeing eye puppy

Socially:
See my friends more
Throw more dinner parties
Be a better friend

Self:
Get fit
Run a 5k in under 30 minutes
Laser eye surgery
Laser hair removal
Be proud of everything I have, think and do
Be mentally healthy
Learn sign language
Learn fluent French

The Perfect Day

I'm doing a project with myself and part of it asked me to imagine my perfect day. This is what I came up with:
Wake up naturally, with the sunrise. Feel well rested.
Drink a cup of coffee on the porch with Dan and Violet. Watch the birds wake up and visit the feeder.
Go for a run.
Weed the garden, pain free.
Go out to lunch with friends - drink a glass if wine and gossip.
Spend some time crafting and writing. Listen to music, podcasts, a book on tape or the radio.
Make dinner, and not have to worry about dishes.
Curl up on the couch with a good book, a blanket, and Dan.
Go to bed before I become too tired for words and turn into a pumpkin.

Quilting - a new project

I have been at a loss for a good project recently. Since last year we spent quite a bit of money on the house (new bed, new furnace, new floors in the basement), one of the guidelines is that my new project cannot be expensive. I have knitted 2 scarves for Becky's project with yarn I'd purchased a while ago but didn't like the way the project was turning out. The scarves came out nicely, but apparently I haven't taken any pictures of then. I should get on that.

For a project around Christmas, I'd purchased a couple of dat quarter bundles. I did not use them all, so my next project will be quilting! This should be fun. I signed up for a Craftsy course (free!), and last night I made the first 2 quilt squares. Now I covet a self-healing mat, a rotary cutter and a guide.

Here are my first two squares!

Small town feeling

I think I should be distressed at what happened this afternoon, but instead I find myself mildly amused. There are a couple of pharmacies in the same chain that I frequent for my medications, but the one I go to the most is near my favorite grocery store. The pharmacist who typically works on Sundays is the one I tend to see the most, I'm not even sure I've seen him there on other days of the week. However, today he was working when I went in to get my meds filled. The conversation went something like this:
"Hi, I need to refill my no-crazy pills"
"Birthdate?"
"*lists off birthdate*, I'm running to the grocery store, I'll be back in 20 or 30 minutes."
-half an hour later-
I smile at him, he picks up my prescription, I state my address without him asking, he checks me out.

During NO part of this did I actually tell him my name or what medication I wanted refilled. Oh no, my pharmacist knows me by sight.

Good thing that I'm such a believer in better living through chemistry.

The laptop is working!

Sometime over Christmas break the laptop got put on the floor at my parents' house. And it could be that I stepped on it. Or, you know, someone else could have stepped on it. But I'm the only one who will admit to having knowingly put my foot on it. So, it's my fault. But anyways, the next time we turned it on, there was a big white line down the middle of the screen. Everything on the inside still worked, but the screen had only the right and left sides showing.

Good thing we got the warranty. The laptop went on vacation to the spa for a few weeks. Then it took a long nap in the library, which we couldn't walk through due to the sheer quantity of junk that inhabited the floor. But! We cleaned the library last weekend, and found a copy of Office that we could install on it! And now it's a real! live! useful! thing! Can you tell I'm excited? Well, I am.

I read so many blogs, probably over 50 in my Google reader. I keep wanting to be better at posting, but it's so hard for me to find something to say and the energy to write. With the laptop, I can sit on the couch next to my darling husband (who's making me watch Dr Who with him), and spew out whatever's in my brain.

Bullet points:
-I accidentally overdosed myself on my thyroid medicine. Turns out that 50mcg is 10 times less than 0.5mg. But my brain, when I refilled my meds from the clinic stock, didn't take that appropriately into account. So when I got my thyroid rechecked last summer, they cut my dose in half. And then at New Years, took me off of it completely. At which point my thyroid stopped making any hormones again. Jerk. So I'm back on meds, at the CORRECT dose.

-I thought I had a deep vein thrombosis in my calf. I got a d-dimer test which was positive. I got an ultrasound (and an x-ray), which were negative. I'm still on birth control pills, but a little more paranoid about any aches and pains that I have.

-I had a terrible day at work, between a chihuahua in kidney failure and a yorkie having a seizure, I felt like I was working right at the edge of my mental capacity all day. Which, as I was running a few fries short of a happy meal all day, was not very high to begin with. My husband met me at home with a pizza and let me watch Glee and Bones instead of dealing with life when we got home. Then we had strawberries and leftover chocolate mousse for dessert. It was amazing, and I'm feeling a ton better. Fortunately, if I hadn't been, I still would have had girl scout cookies and boston creme ice cream to fall back on. Those are safe for another day.

That more or less emptied my brain. Woohoo.