wednesday recap

first off - ALERT!! friday is national margarita day! please quilt with caution. I don't want to hear about sewn fingers and backwards piecing because of my announcement. :D

and on to real news. the search continues. the house offer fell through. however, I am proud of us for sticking to our guns and for realizing what we wanted and that we weren't going to settle for something more than what we wanted because we felt bullied into it. quite honestly, we are disappointed that it didn't work out and mainly because we feel that they sellers and their agent were being pretty damn stupid about the deal. they can't move into their new home until they sell this one... and they were stalling and holding off on the deal for a mere $4500. in the grand scheme of things, *that* is very silly. oh well. sucks for them.

I was thinking about my blog today. and how it's a "quilting" blog. but how often do I really post about quilting?! well, hardly ever. I keep saying, yeah I'm going to quilt, yeah I'm going to design this. I have so many ideas but lack of desire to do it. I'm trying to decide what the reasoning is behind why I'm not jumping into my quilting and DOING it rather than just talking about doing it.

• I am lazy.
• I want to spend time with my husband, even if it is sitting and doing nothing. my sewing room is upstairs and he spends a lot of time downstairs... I can't be in two places at once.
• I am easily distracted by new projects. along the same lines, I am easily frustrated at things I don't understand, or projects that don't work out well the first (or second) time.
• I rely too heavily on my mother for help... she is the one who taught me everything about sewing and quilting... but she is about 250 miles away. and as much as she tries to explain things over the phone... I am very much a visual learner so phone instruction usually doesn't work well.
• I'm scared that my work won't come out as good as other quilters. solution = don't quilt. I am so anal about points, about "randomness" (which for me is very NOT random), and just perfection. das says, "a man riding by on horseback won't notice the difference" which I do work hard to remember... but I guess just the fact that *I* know there is a "mistake" makes it hard for me.
• I'm not as prolific a quilter as a lot of the other people that I see blogging, or that I am friends with through guilds and other quilting encounters. I think that why can't I do that many? there must be something wrong with me if I can't make that many quilts.

I really don't want to be a sideline quilter anymore, but I don't know how to shake all of these issues that I (think I) have. any help would be greatly appreciated. I want to create... but I'm not feeling very creative.

das wants me to audition for american idol this fall. I only have two more years to try out before I am too old. (yikes... I'll be too old for american idol? I've been watching since season one) I don't know. we'll see... I am far too stage shy. even karaoke is, well, hard for me. I *love* it, but am so nervous. I just want to sing though. I am considering joining the band that hpb is in... but I'm scared about singing in public, and I'm not sure about the music. it's a christian rock band, but some of the music is more religiously oriented than I am comfortable with. however, I just want to sing, so maybe I'll just suck it up and do it anyway.

yay!

well, I'm feeling slightly better than yesterday... and that's probably only because it's really sunny out. still chilly (hpb and I took a walk at work), but nice. some good things about today... we may find out about the house offer (though nothing yet)... it's my last day of putting ointment in my eyes (double yay). I guess that's all for now... but the day isn't over yet.

I hope to get some things accomplished today... at least setting up the machine (hey, small goals people). :) I know I'm making some chicken pot pie with the leftovers from sunday. I was going to go all out and use real carrots and whatnot... but now... I just kind of want to use a bag of frozen veggies and be done with it. :) what a lazy face! it'll still turn out just as good, I'm sure. that's how das had it growing up, too.

I'm finding it hard to be motivated to quilt... mostly because I see so many other people finishing a quilt a week or more. I just... don't. I know that I have other things that I do... but geez louise. I feel so unaccomplished and lame. :( and I need to get a lot of stuff done now, too... if we do get the house... most likely we'll be converting the garage into work space for das and myself, so it will be a while before I have the space to be working on anything. not to mention the move itself! oy. let's cross that bridge when we get there...

lots to do at work... but I'm just thinking about quilting! :)

so I didn't get anything done...

but it's for good reason! honest! I got up (relatively) early, courtesy of bowser the alarm clock, and went downstairs. das was reading the paper so I played some mysims on the wii and then when he was done, we played wii sports for a bit. afterward, we decided that we should call our real estate agent and tell him that we would like to make an offer on the house. he wasn't around but we left a message and went on our day... I went upstairs and started to think about quilting (I still have my machine packed up from a trip a few weekends ago, ugh). not too long after I made it upstairs, das yelled up that I needed to dressed, we were going to our agent's office to make an offer! so I threw some presentable clothes on and off we went. so dotted our i's and crossed our t's... and now it's just hurry up and wait! we're definitely excited and are pleased with our decision to move forward. hopefully we'll hear soon...

after leaving the office, we stopped off at stew leonards supermarket to pick up some groceries for our sunday luncheon with my MIL. since she is on the other side of the state, we don't get to see her too often, but are glad she's able to stop out and see us. :)

well, I'm off... hpb and I are going to the caddy ranch for some line dancing!

also, as you can see from the past few posts... my signature is looking a bit, well, crappy. any thoughts? I know I have a dark background, but even with using grey or yellow, it comes out all yuk. let me know!

UPDATE: we heard from our agent and he said the sellers are in DC and won't be back monday night. we won't get any acceptances or counters until at least tuesday. ugh. at least we know!

another day... at least it's friday

my eyes are finally starting to get less red, gross, and disgusting. however, they are outrageously dry. like, painfully dry. it's pretty dry in general here at work... but perhaps part of the problem is that you blink approximately 50% less while using the computer than you do when out living your life. and since I'm behind a computer eight hours a day monday through friday... ben stein can direct his commercials to me specifically. ugh. and dry eyes make me so tired, too. the past few days, I've just been d r a g g i n g in the morning. I mean, don't get me wrong, I am SO not a morning person. my das refuses to wake me up within a 6 foot radius of me for fear of getting some extraneous body part ripped off and thrown away or just arbitrarily stuffed somewhere. it's so linda blair really. :)

so good news on the homefront... or home search I guess I should say. das and I have found a place that we are quite excited about. it's a raised ranch on a dead end street with a hot tub. yeah, I said it. with a hot tub. it's not technically included... however, the seller's agent says he can talk them into leaving it. given the cost associated with moving it and such... it may not be worth the investment. it's only two bedrooms, so there goes my sewing room/das's office. BUT, knowing how insane he'd be knowing I'd just take over the remainder of the house with my quilting and other crafts, we've pondered the idea of converting the garage space into liveable space for my sewing room and his office. I think it really will work out for the best... we'd lose value for losing the garage, but would gain value for the increase in living space. anyway, I stopped in at the local police department this morning to request the crime census for the area. given the fact that it's in a city versus a town or village or any number of other, smaller places we could live in, we decided that it would be best to look into it. can't hurt, right? and we'd lived near the area before when we were renting out of college, and it was in a "rebuilding" stage (read: the hartford courant refused to deliver there, pizza hut refused to deliver there; in other words, if they delivered, it wasn't to us). I think it's better now, plus the city in general is really making some marked improvements: expressway expansion project, school redistricting and upgrades, plus revamping some older strip malls with more appealing stores and whatnot. overall, too, I think that, unfortunately, no matter where you end up, there's going to be crime in some form. it'd be naive to think otherwise... but maybe that's just my east coast attitude coming out. never really used to be that way (coming from maine), but CT has really jaded me. stupid CT. :)

well, it is certainly my intention to get some work done this weekend. I'm heading out to the cadillac ranch for some good ol' line dancing on saturday but other than that, the weekend is free(ish). hopefully I'll have good news to post later. :)

out of commission

so in 5 minutes... I have reapply my antibiotic ointment in my eyes. yeah. that's right. I got a staph infection in my eye, which clogged my glands, causing redness (thus dryness) and intense pains. it's disgusting, though. for about half an hour post-ointment application, I am completely useless. I can't see worth beans due to the layer of antibiotic film coating my eye. so using my glasses is pointless, too... because then I can't focus through film AND glasses. [ugh] hopefully this weekend I'll feel well enough to work on something.

oh, and not to mention... all this ice/rain we've gotten in CT hasn't been that great for the homestead. the potential for basement flooding is pretty high, which increases the possibility that our heat and hot water will need to be shut off temporarily until the water subsides (our sump pump would be helpful, but the hose that usually connects it is frozen in coil form). there are also a bunch of tree branches falling from the heavy ice and while none are going to hit our house (cross your fingers), there are some falling dangerously close to power lines connecting our house to the road... and the lines also on the road itself. [sigh] should be an interesting few days.

oh, and since the live signature is the new hot thing for the blog pages (I've noticed it on quite a few), I decided to jump off the bridge with everyone else and do it. I created a few... so if you have an opinion (the one person who reads this anyway)... let me know which one is best. I'll be changing them over the next few posts. :)