Well B. is scheduled to have her tonsils (and possibly her adenoids) removed the end of April. She will have to miss at least two weeks of school afterwards. I hope all goes well and that B. is recovered from her surgery with no problems. In the meantime, I've been stocking up on her favorite beverages and frozen treats since staying hydrated is very important afterwards.
Other than that, I've started walking again. The weather here has been absolutely gorgeous this past week and we have been having sunny, record high temps of 80 degrees. Our cherry blossom tree is already in full bloom. And they say that other things have come into bloom 6 weeks earlier than normal. So frost is a concern. Anyway.... I try to do at least 1/2 hour to an hour of walking each day or 2-3 miles. I seriously need to lose some weight and walking is the only form of exercise that I actually enjoy doing. I added a new playlist to my iPod with "walking music" - Lady Gaga, Kesha, Katy Perry, Maroon 5, and some others. Good upbeat music keeps me motivated to keep going. Hopefully, I'll stay with it this time and won't end up having any problems with my feet again. Last time I got into my groove of daily walking, I ended up with plantar fasciitis and had to go to the foot doctor, have my foot wrapped and do stretching excercises. It hurt like hell in the mornings when my foot hit the floor. That was years ago though and I'm hoping I'll be okay this time.
Although I haven't been doing anything crafty, my crafting ADD has been kicking in again and I have been reading up on quilting lately. I recently got an open toe walking foot (a.k.a. even-feed foot) for my Kenmore sewing machine. It was on back order and finally arrived yesterday. I also got an open-toe darning foot for free-motion quilting and a binder foot. I figure with some new presser feet, maybe I'll be more apt to try more things using my sewing machine. My big plan is to eventually make a quilt to hang in the living room on the empty wall behind the couch. Pictures would get lost on that huge wall and so it has remained bare since we built our house 8 years ago. I'll start with something small first like a quilted table runner or smaller wall-hanging. My husband bought my sewing machine for me about 8 Christmases ago and it sat for 3 years before I got brave enough to thread it and try sewing something. I made more than several cross stitch pillows, a Halloween treat bag liner for a canvas bag, and a table runner. Anything with a straight stitch basically. Then it sat for a few more years. Now I'm trying to figure out how to attach and use the walking foot with quilting bar. The quilting bar didn't seem to want to snap in and I didn't want to break it. And since it comes with barely any instructions at all, I've been on Google all morning. Ugh. I finally got it all figured out, I won't be removing it now that it's attached, that's for sure. Now I want to make a cover for my stand mixer. A lady on a stitching message board that I used to participate in promised to make me one - oh about 7 years ago and it never happened. She even had me pick out the fabric I wanted and everything and then I never heard back from her. Oh well. I just remind myself of the cross stitch pictures I promised a few people years ago that are all 1/2 finished. I can understand that life and lack of mojo can sometimes get in the way. So I am going to attempt to make the mixer cover myself. I'll use the walking foot to make the quilted fabric part. I found some different patterns online and will try to adapt one of them to fit my mixer.
Our new furniture was delivered a couple of Saturdays ago. I am absolutely loving it. We got new curtains for the living room - they are black and linen checked with buttoned tab tops. They will frame the window with the matching valances and some sheers in the middle instead of the shade that's in the picture above. We even got a nice pretty double curtain rod. Of course, we can't hang them until we paint. Which probably won't be until mid-May at the earliest or when B. is all recovered from her surgery since I don't want the paint smell bothering her. In the meantime, I have gotten my long-lost country primitive decor stuff down out of the attic and put all that back up throughout the house. It ended being put up in the attic during the holidays a couple of years ago and never brought back down til now. So what was once old is now new again. :)
Well I hope you all enjoy the rest of your weekend. The weather has cooled down quite a bit here and it's going to only be in the 60's for awhile, plus it's rainy. Today is my mother-in-law's 75th birthday. She doesn't look it though. She's a beautiful lady inside and out and we are celebrating her birthday with her later on today at a local Italian restaurant. Gotta get some stuff done around here first....
Until next time....
