Tuesday, February 19, 2013

Rain, rain go away!

 and don't come another day....at least not this week.
We're at the camper this week and guess what? It's raining! Of course! EVERY single time we come it rains. Which means 4 kids trapped inside what becomes a very small camper.......all day long! That also means that my patience and nerves are shot by the end of the day.........
At this point I am ready to go home and stay there.
Doesn't help that dd #2 called me when we got up here to tell me she has the flu. I've been calling and checking on her to see if I need to go home and take care of her.

I think that if I hear a weatherman say "drought" this year I may scream. We have had more rain this month than most of the year already!

Sunday, February 17, 2013

I'm frustrated....

actually I am beyond frustration. I am just so tired of NO ONE in this house being able to pick up after themselves or do simple chores without constant supervision. My kids are not babies either! Two are teens and one is preteen.

Today I told 11yo ds to feed and water the chickens and gather eggs. An hour later it still hadn't been done. I commented on it. He went and gave them a tiny amount of food. It's cold right now.....there's snow on the ground for pete's sake. I plainly told him to give them extra. He didn't. He also didn't give them water or gather the eggs and supposedly we've not had any eggs for 3 days......hmmmm.
I went out to water.....not only are the waterers nasty because he doesn't clean them (don't worry I did!) BUT there were 3 days worth of eggs out there!

And the girls aren't any better.......I washed dishes for an hour today. I was out all day yesterday running the girls here and there shopping for a dress and a birthday present and so on. I even took them out to Olive Garden for lunch.
Today I cleaned out the cup of peanut butter they had sat on the counter.....3 days ago. I wanted to see if they would take care of it. Nope!

So here's the new House Rules:

I cook 3x a day...you eat then and I wash your dish right away
if you don't bring your dish you eat next time on a dirty dish....or you do without.....

No snacking...kitchen is closed between meals (that should get their attention!)

No Netflix

limited internet

and no fun activities because the taxi driver (me!) is busy being a maid!

oh and most likely they will loose phones ....I think that if I have to go behind my teenage children and pick up after them then I deserve a smart phone with a data plan! Sound like a plan to you? Does to me!

Snow!

Oh how I LOVE snow. We so seldom get any here in the South so when we do I am beyond happy!
The kids had a blast playing, the dogs had a blast playing, even the duck enjoyed it!
Yesterday morning was rain...lots of rain, then 40 something temps and sun. Out of the blue it started clouding over and started snowing. It was really coming down! We crossed over Lake Wylie on the way to take 16yo daughter to a party and we couldn't see the water or the end of the bridge. In an hour we had at least 2 inches! Daughter's party ended early and church was cancelled today. It hasn't warmed up like they said it would today either. It's taken until lunchtime to break above freezing.



Thursday, February 14, 2013

Quilting...the blood sport

So I'm happily quilting along the other night doing Baptist fans on my CW quilt. The first row was the hardest.....all those seams on the border. I was putting some real pushing effort into getting that needle though when I felt a drip. I pulled my hand out from under and saw this. First time I have ever stuck myself enough to bleed like this!



So I stopped and cleaned up and put a bandaid on.....I thought my finger would be really sore the next day but thankfully it wasn't.
Done with the 2nd row of fans too! I love the way it's looking. This is the back. I'm doing this freestyle.....no marks to guide me and this much I did without the hoop. It was too hard to get the hoop on the edge.

Oh and of course my quilting buddy.....she HAS to come and lay right beside me usually under my elbow every night when I quilt. There's usually some thread chasing that happens too.........silly cat! And yes I quilt on the bed.......I go to bed early and spread the quilt out over me and watch tv for a bit and quilt.

Wednesday, February 6, 2013

Ready to quilt!

It took some finagling....is that even a real word? But finally my CW quilt is ready to start on. I had planned on thread basting, that is until I actually tried thread basting a small quilt. No way I was going to survive doing this one. Problem though was it's so big I don't have floor space to pay it out and pin it. Problem solved! We found a way. A few strips of fabric, couple small nails, and some safety pins had the back attached to the frame and smooth. Then skirt hangers had the top and batting in place. We pinned the outside first and then the middle. We did have to flip it to do the bottom half but I think it was definitely easier on my knees to do it this way.
 DD was awesome and helped me get everything in place.
I am thinking about a pvc frame though that I could put together in pieces......one that would fit any size quilt. Sandwiching is always the part I dislike the most.

Saturday, February 2, 2013

Quilting with cats......and dogs!

I am thinking I will thread baste my CW quilt. It is going to take me a LONG time to handquilt it so not having pins in indefinitely sounds smart. Since I've never thread basted one I thought it would be a good idea to learn on a small quilt.
However I'm not quite sure how I will accomplish it with the help I have!

Miss Ninja decided that it was her job to make sure the basting thread stayed in place.........

 and Miss Reece thought the quilt sandwich needed to be held in place better.



Needless to say they were both VERY helpful! I finally gave up. Tomorrow night I will finish this.......on the kitchen table out of reach of helpful paws!