Brian’s always teasing me about having the willpower or concentration or whatever of a toaster oven.  Oh, well . . . I guess that’s just me!

A couple of topics to touch on . . . First, Barbara, I’m so glad you’re getting the knee replacement!  Good luck with it but I know your knee is going to feel better!  Maybe you’ll be able to get more golf-time in!

Books . . . I’ve been reading like crazy again (I got in spitz and spurtz) but mostly I’ve been reading light mysteries.  I’ve got one last Cara Black (“Murder in Passy”) to read but I’m trying to hold off until when I can savor it better.

Pictures are about to be put up and tagged as “Paducah Pals”.  I had Brian hold the quilts that were finished up so I’ll put them up next (they’ll show up above this post, I believe).

An earthquake on the EAST COAST!!!  That was fun except for the few seconds when I was thinking “Wow, that feels like an earthquake” and then, stood up to cross the room and get in the doorway because I realized it WAS an earthquake.  Poor Lexi– ran barking from my office and on down the stairs.  Pretty much stayed by my side for the rest of the afternoon, curiously.

After work, I rode my recumbent, fed and walked Lexi and then went downstairs to sew.  I had a few things to finish on the quilt guild quilt but I got distracted because Brian wanted some help with a shadow box for the guest room.  He finished that up and I started work on my quilt.

I just finished that quilt 16 minutes ago.  It has been a long day but, after washing/drying it tomorrow during the day, I’ll be able to return it to the guild and have them ooh and aah over the lovely design– pictures forthcoming, remember?

On Saturday, I pieced about 40 blocks and was trimming them down while I ran out a quilt design.  I was trimming the blocks because I put them together wrong (but who is really going to know that?) and trimmed the wrong bits from 9×9″ to 8×8″ and still, who will know but me?

Anyway, the quilt machine (Angel, the Fusion) stopped running.  I went in to check on her and sure enough, she was stopped.  There was an error message on the screen about the motors being disconnected from the computer and thus, it wasn’t moving anywhere.

Admittedly, I didn’t get it.  I hit the “OK” button and hoped it would start up.  Nope, not going anywhere.  <Sigh>  I couldn’t save the design either <Double-Sigh> so I turned everything off hoping that it would reboot and run properly.  Nope.  ARGH!!!!!!!!!

Oh, how I did NOT want to have to wait until Monday to call Tech Support!

Brian and I talked about the problems on Saturday evening and he said that I should try again Sunday (Duh!!  Try to keep me away from that machine!!) and he would come look if there were still problems.  After church, I went downstairs and set it all up again (remember I had to re-enter the design because it wouldn’t let me save it), and, no joy, it still wouldn’t let me get past the “base” screen, without letting me into the ProStitcher side of the world.  <Sigh–Here we go again!>

I called Brian to come downstairs and he looked the machine over and lo and behold, there was a cord unplugged!!  An obscure plug under the machine and once he re-plugged everything in, the computer started up without a problem!!  YAYYY!!!!  (My Hero!!!)

So I had to rerun the design to meet in the middle of the second row where it had stopped.  Smarty-Me says “Okay, I just won’t run any thread in it!”  Guess what?  The machine is smarter than me and says, “Whoops, no thread here– we aren’t moving any more!”  <Sigh>  Luckily I have some monofilament thread but it is “regular” monofilament thread and guess what?  After I retrace the first half of the second row and finish the rest of the quilt, I’m going to have to tear out all of the monofilament.  Lovely!

Today, I’m ordering a cone or two of the water soluble monofilament– no more ripping out for me!  I’ll only have to wash the quilt (which I do anyway) and it will be gone!!  Why didn’t I have any around to begin with?!?!?

Brian’s going to help me with pictures on the three quilts that I’ve worked on the past few weeks– as soon as it stays light enough for pictures (either inside or outside).  Every time I think of it, it is either dark from a storm or dark because it’s night time!

Brian and I are going to take pictures of the two most recently finished quilts– I promise!  I may even make him pretend to be a quilt hanger when he gets home from his exams this morning.

I have a quilt that I want to finish before Labor Day and, of course, the five or six that are back-logged in my closet waiting to be quilted are there, too!  And of course, there are other quilts that I have planned that I want to make– I’ve got a lot of quilt fabrics to get rid of, remember?

You know where I’ll be . . . have a good one!

I went to dinner with my Other Friend, Linda (not Linda Rose) and we went to the Blue Dolphin.  The purpose of getting together (besides the fact that we haven’t gotten together for awhile) was because we needed to plan some things for the Quilter’s Bible Study.  Linda is going to be my new assistant since the pastor’s wife has moved with him to another town in Maryland (imagine the nerve of her to move WITH her husband!).  We’re going to have a lot of fun this year– Linda’s got a fabulous sense of humor and is an excellent quilter.

And about six more to go . . . I’m talking about quilts.  I’ve just finished the first quilt on my new machine.  It was start to finish on the new machine (where the wall hanging was partial embroidery, too) using electronic patterns.  The quilting is fabulous and yes, there will be a picture . . . eventually!

This morning I woke up dizzy– oh, joy.  Can you say Vertigo?  (No, Don, I won’t be able to hear you from here!)  So I took an Antivert and went back to bed for an hour; I was foggy all day but that pill really did the trick on keeping symptoms away!  I had a second one at about 2 because I started to feel like I was getting dizzy again when I was looking at the computer screen but, overall, I did well this time.

Obviously, that’s much better than going through the dizzy-nausea-cold-clammies-n-hot-sweats!!  Man, I hate those!!

Did I mention that I’m feeling WAYYYYY older than I usually feel?  My left hip is currently hurting me more than my left knee– that’s saying a lot!!  Okay, yes, I get cortizone shots in my left knee every three months (abating the inevitable knee replacement) but I can’t do that with my left hip.

After the MRIs and X-rays, it was determined that it has two years or whatever my pain tolerance can take before there is a hip replacement needs to be done.  Cortizone shots can’t be done for a hip without putting the patient completely out and being in debilitating pain for some two to seven days after– hmm, sounds vaguely like what would result from a hip replacement.  I’ve got to plan to have this thing taken care of sooner rather than later, however, since my pain tolerance is less than it used to be but also because the GRINDING is getting to me.  And, while we don’t have any big trips planned like last summer (ahhh, remember Paris?), we will eventually and I’ll want to do silly things like WALK a lot and stuff!

I’m still not great at choosing the pattern and running it out the way I want it to– I don’t think lines start a quarter inch from the borders.  As a result, I go back and fix things and I’m okay with that.  Someday, I’ll figure out which patterns do what and will know how to run them better.

Tomorrow I’ve only got to run the borders on this quilt and I’ll be done with it.  I want to start piecing the quilt for my $ewing $tudent’s baby (she had a girl!) and get that quilted with the giraffes ASAP cuz it’s just gonna be too cute!

Yayyy!!  The weekend is [ALMOST] here!  Boy, do I need it!!

WHEW!!