Quilt with Vintage Sheets and Modern Prints

I started this quilt over a year ago for a fall baby regardless to say it its a bit small for an almost 1 year old baby.  So I might save it for the next baby girl sadly everyone is having boys now.  Ugh.  It uses vintage sheets from the IMQG swap from two summers ago, plus a few prints I got at Crimson Tate and some scrap solids I had on hand.  I realized in doing this quilt that I really struggle with wanting to use prints with many colors, it was like I was forcing myself.  But I do like the blend of old and new.

Sorry for all the wrinkles it was in moms car and then in a box and then I took it out to snap these photos.

Book 21 - wild from lost to found on the pacific crest trail

So this was book 21 Wild: from Lost to Found on the Pacific Crest Trail.  I surprisingly like it although at times I felt the book moved too slow and other times too fast.  It's about a women who's mom dies and she sets off to hike like 1,000 miles on the PCT alone with no hiking experience.  Parts of her story are impressive others not so much.  I still enjoyed it and finished it fairly quickly even though its a long one.

And double bonus it was on my summer reading list.

Project Life Week 24

I have been playing catch up on my project life.  This is week 24,  I used a slide protector which makes my photos small but I can print 4 on one 4x6 so that saves money.  This week we celebrated our anniversary of the talk with a trip to the batting cages,  we had a steak dinner  at a place dusts dad used to take him, I was featured on craft foxes.  Oh and dust was 2nd place in the tie, beard contest.  It was a good week.  I used a bunch ofscrap paper  up on this but I love the color pallet.  Nothing super fancy although a made a few confetti & flower pockets to fill in the empty spaces.  You can see the page before and behind in those pockets I think that's fun.

206/365

Holy cow I am in the 200s with my daily pics!  That's pretty much awesome.  Last week kicked off my first of FIVE glorious weeks at home.  This is truly a blessing because I am not sure I can stand summer in full force in New York and all the travel was making me crazy.  I also started a 30 day self portrait challenge so  look out because the next 30 days may include some selfies although I am trying to also remember to take other photos too.  

Monday - day 200 we took mashed potatoes on a date with us

Tuesday - napping while waiting on Dustin 

Wednesday - Dust playing the Ukuele 

Thursday - I completely almost didn't get a photo but I snapped this one after crawling into bed before we turned out the lights

Friday - again I was not good with the photo taking but snapped this in Erica's living room around 11

Saturday - the round robin quilt in progress

Sunday - Indy modern Quilt Guild Meeting isn't Darcie's quilt amazing?  It was a quilt along

My birthday!

Well it's been over a week since my birthday!  It was a great one although a little different than last year.  We kicked off my birthday Saturday two days early with some fireworks, mustaches, bubbles and glow wands in a Kmart parking lot.  It was hilarious and fun and I just laugh thinking about my mom spinning in circles trying to blow bubbles or my eyebrow mustache.  Poor Dust had to work but sometimes the girls need alone time.  

Then on Sunday it was birthday surprise time.  Dustin had planned lunch of hot dogs and then a scavenger hunt and then when he was called into work my girlfriends - Amy, Molly, Lynley, and Kemi took over they did an excellent job.  The last clue took us to the pool however a rain storm was looming.  So we ended up at the house hanging out, eating cake, and putting together my birthday present surprise patio furniture!  I am so pumped to lounge on my porch now.  It's so awesome to see my friends and family helping Dustin out when he has to work.  Big thanks to Amy who represented even with a broken arm.  Afterward Schreve and Alicia came over for hot dogs and grilling out for dinner.  (Sadly I only snapped two photos but Amy took some).

THANKS to my husband for putting together the surprise and thanks to my friends for pulling it off.

Round Robin Again

I spent like two weeks looking at this one.    The color pallet to me was just too much.  Too much muted tones.  Too much orange.   Too much variety.  Just too much.  Then when I finally decided to start it I have also NO fabric in these colors literally I found a 5x8 swatch of the orange and that grey blue hullabaloo.  Then I remembered this scrapbox I have from when I made people over mitts several years back.  And wouldn't you know someone's kitchen was like pale mint, cream and someone's else's browns and tans - BOOM!  

I thought seriously about starting a second center block but I it would have been much smaller than the original. So instead I scraped this together and surprisingly I don't hate it - the last border after the chocolate is my addition.  I like actually like it better with my addition.  I didn't have enough cream and none of that orangey red or I would have added a border of that too.  

199/365

Last week in snaps.  

Monday - from the train tide back after dropping of Dust at the airport a second time.

Tuesday - yes I am a sucker who paid $9 for a carton of strawberries at a grocer in manhattan and let me tell you they were probably the worst strawberries ever!

Wednesday - it was rainy but I stopped for bubble tea anyhow.

Thursday - the only snap taken all day was from the cab of this graffiti on the building it's not even that interesting.

Friday - I took the day off and kicked off my Indy pool tour at bethel park.  Kathleen and Tara joined me.

Saturday - we went to euchre at Amanda and Jason's it was super fun. (We also broke out skipbo)

Sunday - I made dust some iced expresso I also made a mess.

On being 33

well I've been 33 for a good two weeks now so I figure I should write about getting older.
in reality 33 isn't that much different than 32 
and 32 not that much different from 31 
and 31 from 30
but somethings I have noticed about my 30's
important things are MORE important 
not important things are LESS important (except if it's dishes in the sink)
i do have a few wrinkles 
my hairs are even more rapidly going gray
and with those gray came a tangle of frizz
the calluses on my feet will always come back
my laundry doesn't do itself
family is important
friends are important
i need creativity time
i like breaks and downtime sometimes
i want to be unique
i don't know everything (or want to)
i like wearing dresses
i got married in my 30s (i never wanted to be married in my 20s)
i look forward to the future
i think that in my 20s i spent lots of time trying things and just to figure out how to live
and now in my 30s i spend my time actually living
there's always room for improvement and learning and whoever said if you weren't learning you weren't growing you were dying is probably right.

The 4th New York Style

So last week Dust was here with me in New York and we got to celebrate the 4th in an all American city.  We planned on going to the beach if the weather was nice Monday thru Wednesday was all about the heat and rain and Thursday was a sunny forecast.  We woke up and it was nice had a little breakfast at our hotel.

Armed with our suits and probably the least amount of beach gear ever we boarded a Q train headed to Coney Island.  Neither Dust nor I have ever been so we figured why not! It was already a scorcher even at 11am.  Upon arrival we discovered the Nathan's 4th hot dog eating contest complete with Joey chesnut was in Coney island (I thought it was in times square). Joey Chestnut ended up eating 69 hot dogs!!!  This made the sidewalks impassable so we just watched a the tops of people's heads who "maybe" could see the hot dog eating.  

We bought a few towels and umbrella at a beach shop and hit the beach.

The beach was wall to wall people.  It immediately struck me too that it didn't smell like ocean outside either.  We put up our umbrella and Dustin hid himself under it.   Being a ginger Dustin gets sunburnt walking past windows so 95 degree heat and direct sunlight not the best.  I immediately took myself into the water.  The water was refreshing but seemed dirty but when you swam beyond the crowd was cleaner.  We hung out on the beach for a while then wandered the boardwalks.  Then we took the train back into the city, but not without first paying Zoltar so I could become "Big". Sadly I did not grow up!  ;)

After some showers and naps we were ready for the NYC fireworks we walked the 11 Avenues and times square to discover the roads were closed and the sidewalks outside the waterfront were jam-packed.  (If you want to see NYC fireworks on the river you must show up at like 3pm). We did find a place where the buildings only partially obstructed and we got to see the fireworks which are really long and spectacular and only part of them was blocked.  However in hindsight next time we want to see them in NYC iwill stay   in another  hotel or I will watch them on tv, because the heat of the city + the heat of the summer + wall to wall people not really my scene.  But still it was a good day.  Happy birthday USA!

185/365

Super pumped to have made it thru half the year of this challenge, previously I made it like 100 days.

Last week I was in NYC - surprise!  It was a pretty regular week, work, work, work, walk around, small group, work, i did get to see Thea though.  The weekend when we celebrated my birthday, first with girls night, then fireworks, then scavenger hunt.  I also was going to document an entire day in my life but by 2pm I had already forgotten - whoops. 

Monday - Dinner from the halal cart 

Tuesday - dr. Suess exhibit at the Pop.  Pop is an art space next to where my small group meets :)

Wednesday - I have been photographing street art recently here's some I found in Chinatown on Broome I think

Thursday - waffles with Thea we got to visit with each other for like a second in NYC.

Friday - this is my first photo from day in a life

Saturday - me and Kathleen at the fireworks

Sunday - Lynley from my scavenger hunt birthday surprise her clue was the hardest but I still knew where to go.