Week Five Recap

Apparently it takes me at least half of the next week before I have time to write about "last" week. Week five in my "50 weeks to 50" timeline was August 16-22, and it was a good week, very busy and full.

We traveled home from our VA family reunion on Sunday afternoon, and had a birthday dinner with the kids at Mallory's house that evening. Frank and Bettie stayed with us another couple of days (and left early Wednesday morning), so we had lots of playtime with Gingersnap and Gumdrop. We had a full family dinner on Tuesday evening with the whole gang...all eight of us, plus Frank and Bettie. I wish we'd taken some pictures, but we were too busy eating!

It was a great week for quilting, too! Monday night I pieced the flying geese for the pieced border of my Celtic Solstice while Paula and Laura were here.

Tuesday afternoon I had time to quilt my "Christmas in July" quilt. I chose a great Christmas panto by Patricia Ritter called "Christmas Doodles" and it is so cute on the Holly's Tree Farm fabric. I had my binding ready to go, so I stitched that on first thing Wednesday morning.

I needed a different fabric for the border and binding for my Celtic Solstice quilt, so Dennis and I roadtripped to Goldsboro and visited Thistle Bee Quilt Shoppe to buy the needed fabrics.

Thursday I settled in to finish my Celtic Solstice top. When I was about halfway finished, I went ahead and pieced my backing, and loaded it in my frame so that I could get going on the quilting on Friday. Then I hit a glitch...I don't know how my quilt ended up so much larger than the pattern (but I do like wide borders), but it ended 85" square. My backing was only 82"x 92". I can work with the 92" as width, but of course I'd loaded it as length...and I was going to have to make the back wider anyway. 

SO, I spent Friday piecing a strip to add to the back from leftover block pieces and fabrics, and finally got started quilting on Friday night.

Saturday I woke up anxious to quilt...so I quilted ALL DAY... from 6:30 a.m. to 8 p.m. I forgot to eat, I didn't drink enough water, I just quilted. And I made it to row TWO. This quilt is going to be epic, but it's going to take me the rest of August to finish it, and I really wasn't expecting that. I had a goal to finish it by August 26 (today, as it happens) so that I could enter in a quilt show here in the state. Didn't make it. Maybe the Pitt County Fair? We'll see.

So, in conclusion, when I look back at Week Five, it was all Family, Friends and Finished Projects.

Now is the portion of the post where I need to talk seriously to myself (I don't pretend anyone is listening) about the FIVE categories I claim to value. Where is my balance? I am going to have to change my habits if I'm actually going to get Fitness or Faith into my day regularly. September 1 is my "go to" day for beginning a Whole 30 (and I have actually cleaned out my pantry and fridge and begun eating Paleo-esque in anticipation of that goal), and it is also my plan for beginning 90 days of P90X3. So, if you *have* been reading this stuff, you'll probably get sick of me talking about my physical health by about November if not sooner.

And September 1 is also our training day one for Community Bible Study. I sent a welcome email to my Core group members and am making phone calls today. I'm looking forward to the daily routine of studying with a group of women, and this year's material looks fantastic. I had a little wandering-in-the-desert this summer, but I'm going to put together a real plan for study next summer so that doesn't happen again.

Bottom line, I'm going to happily procrastinate the two areas that I can until September 1, and go back to quilting excessively. Just keeping it real.

One final thing...a little spotted fawn scampered through my front yard on Saturday morning. 

Week Four Almost Escaped...

Here it is, nearly halfway through week five (it's going well, but I'll save that for next week!), and I haven't had time to evaluate or refocus or redefine or whatever it is I'm trying to do week to week. So, a quick summary of week four, then off to today's adventures (which include such tasks as updating my military ID and running by the quilt shop in Goldsboro...keep your fingers crossed I'll find the perfect fabric!).

Faith...Family...Friends...Finished Projects...and (cough, cough) Fitness...

Faith: In week four,  I had a fantastic time in worship, learned so much about missions in the middle east, and then hung out with my church family at our summer pool party. I got to cuddle and allow one of my "covenant grandchildren" a siesta pool-side, and just love the way the body loves each other. I got to visit with my sweet sisters on Monday morning as I picked up the new Community Bible Study materials for 2015-2016 (Covenant Living & Leadership). We start that training next week, and our first week together is September 3!

Family: Lunched with Mal & Mike & Gingersnap and Gumdrop after church, then saw a lot of them as the great-grandparents (my in-laws) arrived on Wednesday. We had a whole big family dinner that evening, although Matt missed out due to his late work schedule, and Maggie's devotion to fitness had her running a bit later. Then Dennis and I took off for Tazewell, VA with his folks on Friday, by way of a brief touristy stop in Mt. Airy's Main Street, and spent the weekend at the Davis/Beavers/Sparks family reunion. (Frank is an "honorary" Davis, and his mother was a Beavers.) It was my fifth time at this gathering, and I saw a lot of folks I remembered, and some of them even remembered me. Sweet people, good cooks...so much food.

By the way, happy 80th birthday to the best father-in-law in the world! After getting to spend Mom's birthday with her last month, it was a treat to be able to spend the day with Frank on his birthday this month.

Great-grandparenting happened a lot this week:

Friends: The Sugar Creek Quilters were here as usual on Monday night, and I got twelve more Celtic Solstice blocks pieced since I'd spent Sunday afternoon putting my sets of block pieces together into stacks. Then Thursday was Greenville Quilters Guild pot luck dinner as well as regular meeting, so I got there early around 3:30 and quilted with Paula until time to eat, then quilted a bit more until time to meet. We had an AWESOME show and tell this month. Many new members, and several of them brought quilts or quilt projects underway to show!

Finished Projects: I was so motivated by my progress on Monday night that I sat down Tuesday morning and got the rest of my Celtic Solstice blocks made...and started assembling rows. As it is with many projects, I found the errors in my block construction as the rows came together, and had to spend a bit of time unsewing and resewing a few four-patches. It turned out great, and now I'm rethinking my border fabric. So far so good, though. I pieced CS geese for the border at guild, and have a few more of those to go.

That's about it...oh, yeah, fitness. NOTHING. I walked a bit, made quite a few trips in and out of the guild meeting, stood over my frame for a while...but not one bit of progress. I think my brain just will not commit to anything because our summer has been so full of one shake-up to the routine after another. Lots of company means company cooking (and Yoder's and Simply Natural Creamery)...but I think I'm seeing the return of a schedule with the beginning of September. September will be Whole30 month for me, and I'm going to start up on P90X3 again. That's the plan. It's a good plan. It works. I'm going to work that plan. (Stay tuned to see if I do.)

I finished another quilt this week (I'll post it on my Week 5 recap), and it caused me to do a quick evaluation of the quilts I've finished this year (not in order of completion):

Cross & Crown
Pilgrimage (commission)
Alphabet Soup
Scrumptious Squares
Lakeside Roses
Persimmon Tweet
Christmas Vacation
Checkerboard
Ravi's Tees (commission)
Lakeside Runner
Dalmatian Christmas mini

Other than Dalmatian Christmas, everything has been begun and finished in 2015 (not really UFQs). When I finish Celtic Solstice, it'll be my first significantly-sized UFQ completed this year. I'd like to say I'm going to focus on UFQs for the rest of the year, but it's just not true. I have about 20 projects lined up to piece and quilt that are brand new ideas and fabrics. My 50/50 idea is not working out so far.

That's all I have time for, and it's fine. This week has not been conducive to self-reflection. Let's hope I get a bit more quiet time in the next few weeks!

Week 3 Recap

August arrived, and the first nine days have flown by. I'm not sure I've been as actively "focused" on my five areas this week, or just swept away by the currents of activity. Either way, it's been busy.

You'll recall my five areas of focus this year: Faith, Family, Friends, Fitness, and Finished Projects. So far, Fitness is definitely getting the short end of the stick, although I include things like adequate rest, stress management, and sunshine in that category, so this week was better than the previous two.

On August 1, our entire tribe made a trek to the North Carolina Zoo in Asheboro. We've lived in NC for 11 years, and this was the first time we've gone to the zoo! It's about a three hour drive from where we live, so it took some coordination and planning. We chose a great day--HOT, but beautiful weather--and managed to get all 8 of our gang, plus two other sets of nearly-family (pseudo-family? quasi-family?) to all go with us. My dear Mallory bit off the large task of making everyone a t-shirt, custom-drawn with each person's animal of choice, and Dennis and I made the trip with Maggie & Matt. What a fun day! We laughed, snacked and cuddled our way all around the zoo. We walked all day, made reasonable food choices, and got lots of fresh air and sunshine. I'd call zoo day a "win" in the fitness category!

On August 2, we had a great worship experience in the morning, then Dennis and I *finally* made a flight over to Howard's Pub on Ocracoke Island for lunch. Typically we'd like to fly over several times a year, but this spring has been so wet and the weather has been so inconsistent...and then we've had lots of company. It was a fun flight over, a marvelous lunch of fresh wahoo and crab cakes, and then a great trip home that even gave us time to nap when we got back!

Monday I did some quick house prep for my family (including grocery-stocking), and then continued working on my Celtic Solstice project. I got a lot of pieces sewn while catching up with my dearest friends at quilting on Monday night. It'll feel great to finish the Celtic Solstice project this month!

My brother and his girls traveled to Virginia Beach for the Jr. Olympics track events, where his older daughter had qualified to run in the 800m, 1500m, and 4x800m relay. She ran Monday and Tuesday, then they came down to our house for a short but wonderful visit Tuesday-Thursday. They came 3 years ago to meet our first granddaughter Gingersnap, then came again the following summer for Maggie's wedding, but it was so good for them to come and meet Gumdrop, who turned 7 months old while they were here. We had lots of family fun while they were in town. We ate too much (another Yoder's trip, another Creamery trip!), drank too much (so weird to have a house full of adults), laughed just the right amount...and marveled at how tall everyone is getting and how much older we must be. This one is from 2012...

What a difference three years makes! 2015...

I spent Thursday and Friday and Saturday with my Gingersnap. Like parents of young children everywhere, her mommy was feeling a bit sleep deprived, so we had Grams-sleepovers for two nights, and we binge-watched a lot of cartoons (including introducing her to Fraggle Rock), as well as lots of playtime. She earned a great mask and a date out to Five Guys with her marvelous behavior. She's growing up fast.

I'd say the big wins for this week personally were the Family and Friends categories. We were so busy just enjoying each other all week. It kept my kitchen hopping and my sewing machines very deprived.

On the other hand, I met with a new customer on Saturday, who commissioned me to finish eight quilts that her mother had pieced but was unable to complete before she passed away several years ago. Five of them are very large (queen or king-sized) quilts, with three smaller art pieces. I'll get to work on those during September and October. I already have August full, so I'm just a few pieces away from finishing out my 2015 calendar at Island Time Quilting. What a joy it has been to work from home, around my life and family and doing exactly what I adore.

What's up for next week? I'll be finishing a couple of projects for clients, and piecing the Celtic Solstice for myself, as well as quilting two pieces I have prepared for the frame. I will pick up my new workbook for Community Bible Study, and praying for the women who will be in my Core Group this year. I cannot wait to see what the Lord teaches me through this year's study. We'll have Greenville Quilters Guild on Thursday, including a "yard sale" where if I'm good, I may have a few things to sell or trade. :) And next weekend, I'll travel with Dennis to Virginia for a fun family reunion, and get to visit with his parents (who I hope are coming here the following week!). Onward and upward...week four will be as busy as ever.

Lori