Moving On

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Don’t you hate to wait? Especially when it is something that is important or exciting to you?

The important issue that is giving me anxious moments is the medical thing. Ya I posted about how frustrating it is and how I just wish it would be over, but hey it is still hanging around. Had a CT yesterday in Austin and go back to a specialist Tuesday. So the waiting will not be over soon.

The other more exciting event I am waiting on is the retreat I am going on the middle of this month. It’s with a bunch of us that get together on retreat about three or four times a year. We have a ball and actually get some quilting done. Some get more done that others. Getting a bunch done is not that important to me as the fellowship is. We have a BALL!

But this waiting brings me back to the waiting days we used to have when I was teaching. I would hear fellow teachers saying just three more days to the weekend, or ten more days to Thanksgiving. They would be counting down the days to the next break. Their whole lives were spent counting the days until they could do something they enjoyed. Or perhaps they looked at as counting the days until they got a break from doing something they did not like doing. It seemed so sad to me, it was like they were wasting their lives, frittering them away waiting for other parts of it to start. That is spending 71% of your life waiting.

It is bad enough that we have to spend a certain amount of our life in sleep and other life sustaining activities, but to voluntarily give away such a large proportion of our lives to doing something that makes up dream of being elsewhere is wasteful. If you don’t like what you are doing now, don’t dream of times to come, but make NOW something that keeps your attention focused on now.

So with that in mind, I am making up my lists of what I want to do NOW. I may not get to all of them, but I am going to enjoy doing what I can.

Does that mean I am not going to anticipate the retreat? NO, cause to me the anticipation is part of the fun. I am picturing myself at the retreat, talking to my friends, seeing the work they have done and what they are working on now. I see myself staying up all night due to excitement and having a ball.

Will I spend time and energy being frustrated over this medical thing taking so long to resolve? Probably. I am not perfect and will get frustrated at the limitations forced on me with this yuckiness of vertigo but I will work harder not to let it get me down.

By the way, I updated my Crazy Quilt page with some new photos showing the progress I am making on it. You might want to take a look by clicking on the tab above.

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Its been too long, way too long!

May 27 wake up with congestion and major coughing. Have to cancel plans to attend Memorial Day cemetery cleaning/visits, During the day, ear issues develop

May 29 get in to see PA and get RX for antibiotics and cough syrup, plus directions on what OTC to take Ear Infection disappears in days

June 14 see PA again – more coughing

June 24 Vertigo sets in –coughing gone, but Vertigo is so bad I cannot walk

June 25 see PA again, cry and throw up cause the vertigo is soooo bad

June 28 See ENT – MRI scheduled Hearing test administered  down the hall

July 16 – follow up with ENT –also balance test administered IF YOU EVER ARE OFFERED ONE OF THESE DECLINE Doc gives RX for antibiotics and steroids. Says there is heavy mucus in my mastoid

August 8   Doc gives another round of antibiotics and refers me to a ear specialist. Won’t see him until August 27

I AM SO TIRED OF THIS!

Poor hubby he has to drive me anywhere I need to go as, of course with this vertigo I can’t drive. But this crap has been going on all summer and I am gaining weight like you wouldn’t believe! About early July, I decided that I was not going to stay sitting in my chair anymore and have been sewing and working on the computer. It takes twice as long to get stuff done, but stuff is getting done. That helps in that I am not fretting over stuff that is waiting on me.

OK, just had to let it out. Moving on

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In Flanders Fields
John McCrae, 1915. In Flanders fields the poppies blow
Between the crosses, row on row
That mark our place; and in the sky
The larks, still bravely singing, fly
Scarce heard amid the guns below.
We are the Dead. Short days ago
We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,
Loved and were loved, and now we lie
In Flanders fields.

Take up our quarrel with the foe:
To you from failing hands we throw
The torch; be yours to hold it high.
If ye break faith with us who die
We shall not sleep, though poppies grow
In Flanders fields.

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The past few years I have been working on improving my free motion quilting. It has been a journey and one I have not finished yet. I will know I have “arrived” as a free motion quilter when I can do feathers.

What are feathers? they are the utmost in elegance when machine quilting. I practice and practice so that one day I can make them myself. Here are a two samples I found on the web about feathers. There are plenty of pics out there, I even made a board for them on my Pinterest account.

But the thing is, they take practice and practice before perfecting.

One of the things I learned when working on my machine quilting was to make sure you have control of what you are sewing on. When I was using my little Magnolia Janome, that meant putting a table behind the sewing machine and a tv tray beside it to support the quilt. But, I just did not “get it” yet and would end up with sharp points and jagged lines where I had lost control and the quilt would pull out of whack. I was moving the quilt beyond what I could handle. Beyond my grasp one would say.

It got so bad, that one time I sewed the sleeve of my shirt onto my quilt. I just did not want to turn loose of the quilt and adjust my grip on it so I had my arm fully extended through the throat of the machine. It was kind of shocking to sit there and watch that needle go through my sleeve. Then, I was kind of stuck. I could not take the shirt off, I could not remove my arm from the sleeve and so I sat until I realized that no one was going to come and rescue me. I had to use my left hand, did I mention it was my right arm that was stuck in the sewn sleeve? Anyway, I had to use my left hand to try and cut the sleeve loose. Choosing between cutting the sleeve and the quilt, of course I chose the sleeve. It was a worn out shirt anyway. I got free, but learned about loose garments and the sewing machine.

My skills have improved now, and I don’t feel the desperate need to hold on the quilt until I could not move it another inch. I’ve learned to just try and control a little bit of the quilt at a time and I get much better results.

Isn’t life a little like that. If we desperately try to control every little thing we end up loosing control and things get damaged or destroyed in the process. It takes maturity and a little trust to let people and situations work themselves out without us trying to control every little part of it. I had to learn how to trust my needle to go up and down and do its thing and just worry about the piece of the quilt that was under it at the time. I could not control the whole quilt, I had to just concentrate on just that part of it that needed my attention.

In my life, I have had to learn how to just let some things go and not worry about them. That does not mean that I wash my hands of the situation, or that I remove myself, it just means that I should just enjoy myself and let others do their job and handle their own responsibilities.

Of course, I am still learning how to let go. It probably is one of those things that we all will struggle with for our entire lives. Once in a while I just need to step back and give myself a talking to about it.

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So now the birthday bash is over and as the dust settles, we have to move on. Though, if you did not get the freebies I posted last week, you can still get them in the store, only now they are not free.

This weekend I have been working on my art quilt. Its not that I don’t have anything else to do, cause I do – a LOT to do. But, I just needed to relax and chill for a bit. So I decided to work on an on going project that has been in the back of my mind for a while. This is one of those projects that spend more time in your brain than on the sewing table.

I started this art quilt while on retreat where I had access to large tables to try the shapes out. I literally just cut out shapes and then threw them onto the background to see how they would go. I would rearrange, then add, then move and so on and so on. Once I got the big pieces on it was just a matter of figuring out what else to do with the quilt. Then I was able to start sewing and quilting on it a little at a time once I got home from the retreat. I have spent only three days on this so far – three days one day at a time here and there. But I really like how it is coming along. I only need to do a little bit more background quilting and it will be done. EXCEPT I am not too sure of the upper left corner – the one with the three strips coming down ending in flowers – Oh and I am not too sure about those flowers. I may be going back and adding some bodies to those and making them into butterflies.

so what do you think? should those strips go? I am debating just taking the tulle off that is under and around them and perhaps that would be enough. Of course, if I wanted I could just cut that part out and not even worry about seam ripping and then add another piece to fill in the hole and no one would know – LOL

Here is a close up of some of the stitching

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Hubby and I are not doing anything special for Easter this year. But I wanted to post a pic I came across today while looking at Easter pics.

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Found this floating around the web and just had to post it here. It explains a lot of stuff to those who are around quilter’s all the time.

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The day before Memorial Day, Fort Hood opens up to let families visit the cemeteries that are on the range that is part of the base. There are quite a few of them as the army took over a LOT of property through the years. (We’ll save that issue for another post.) Hubby’s family gets together and goes to each one that has family buried in them. They try to clean and take care of the graves. I go along when I can. But, I just don’t do HEAT very well. Generally the tempatures are in the hight 90′s for these occasions and there is NO SHADE to be found at any of the cemeteries.

After the rounds are made we all congregate to have a family get-together and of course EAT! This year I made some Reese’s Pieces cupcakes. I really outdid myself on these. They were so good, I could not resist them. They are made with a chocolate cake mix and peanut butter icing. To make the peanut butter icing, you just add peanut butter to your decorating icing. I made a double batch of icing (2 lbs of pwd. sugar) and added about two thirds of a large jar of peanut butter. But be sure to leave the mixer out to add in the peanut butter. It really gets stiff. I finally added about a half cup of water to loosen it up some. But, I warn you! These things are good so be sure you have people to share them with or you will end up eating way too many! LOL

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