So Tired - Rant

Well I am very very ready for the week to be over.
On Tuesday night DH and I went to bed. He couldn't sleep. Kept hearing a noise. I heard it but I didn't care enough to let it bother me. After he tossed and turned for an hour and a half he got up to investigate. Went to the basment and discovered it was the sump pump trying to engage (but failing) he also discovered 4 inches of standing water in our basement. Yay. Guess what I got to do all night? Well no, we didn't bail out the basement - there were probably 500 gallons of water down there. I got up and went down...put on some sandals and stepped in...Water up to my ankles. I waded over to the sump pump to see if I could get it to trigger. Reached my arm down up to the elbow and fiddled with it. It was at this point that I noticed a wonderful SLIMY texture coating my skin. My best guess is that it was varnish left over from the previous homeowner who had used the basement as a woodworking shop. Sooo...we finally decided that there was nothing that we could do that night and unpluged the pump so the motor wouldn't burn out. We removed the wine bottles from the bottom layers of our wine racks. We had already lost 4 bottles of wine but fortunately it was our homemade wine and not one of the really expensive bottles we had purchased.
We jumped in the shower (got smart and brought the grease cutting kitchen soap with us) and scrubbed. And scrubbed. And scrubbed. Finally the hot water gave out so we went to bed slightly less slimy than before.

We spent Wednesday morning at the hardware store and replacing the pump. It looks like we are only out a few hundred bucks. The pump was only about 80 plus a few other supplies. The big loss was the home winemaking equipment that we won't be able to use again. That needs to be nice and sterile so I don't think any amount of washing will get the equipment clean enough for my tastes (besides, would you want to drink it)? So we'll replace the equipment as we need it. The biggest headache is going to be cleaning up the mess down there. We had lots and lots of cardboard boxes down there and they are all soggy and shot so it's gonna be ugly. Oh well it is what it is. At least now (Friday) the house has stopped smelling like varnish.

Now I am just exhausted from work. I really slacked off on Monday and Tuesday, and I know it. But I am paying for it now playing catchup. That wouldn't be so bad (I am catchin up with all of the data entry and filing) but I have had my head bitten off on no less than 4 occassions today by tenants (I work for a Property Management group) who seem to think I am the one who is at fault when their power goes out and want me to snap my fingers and fix it. Oh yes what a lovely day...Not only the power outage (which usually means about 20 or so extra calls) but we had a building that had raw sewage back up into it thru the floor drains, sinks and toilets! YUK! I understand this is aweful disgusting gross and unnacceptable but I CANT FIX IT FROM HERE!!! Not only that but that king of problem is out of the scope for our regular building maintenance men - they have to call contractors out and contractors TAKE TIME to get there. Of course for most of my tenants YESTERDAY isn't fast enough.

Ok I am done ranting and actually feel a little better. Now if only I wasn't so darn tired!
Well, back to the filing I go!

One more star

Well I finished another feathered star on Sunday...I guess 18 hours of football is good for something right? Sooo here it is...looking much the same as the others, just with different fabrics. Last night I cut the fabric for Star #4 and have started piecing that one too. I just hope I don't get distracted like I did with this one and forget all about it for months on end. As before here is an overall and then a close up of the fabrics...The block looks slightly distorted because it's not on a totally flat surface.

Hand pieced feathered stars

Here is the first feathered star that I made. The second pic is a close up of the fabric.
It went together surprisingly fast but I think that is because I was so eager to see it done. Below are pics of the second completed block. I will post pics of #3 when I finish it.

Baby Quilt?

Well, yes it is a baby quilt. This is the quilt my husband designed and executed for our niece, Eve. Let's just say her parents aren't the pink and yellow sort...But this one we know will be used and not just stored away in a cedar chest. I only hope that Eve come's to love it too.

Did I also mention that Brian is the one who did the cutting and sewing? This is his third quilt and I must say he is getting pretty darn good at it.

Winter Fairy

On a typical Northwest day here in Washington some years ago my brothers and I were playing on Christmas day. We had opened our presents and downed a lot of candy and we were killing time between opening our gifts and going to Grandma's for dinner.Well that day my brother got a microscope for Christmas...boy were we having fun putting everything we could find under there and looking at it.Of course it wasn't long before we took the thing outside and started putting leaves and bark and all sorts of stuff in it...It was my turn and I had a nice brownish red leaf I wanted to see up close. I put my eye to the scope and just as I was getting ready to slide the leaf under a snowflake landed on the bed! wow was I excited to see a snoflake magnified. but not as excited as I was when I realized that it was no mistake it landed there.Upon taking a second look (for my eyes couldn't be trusted) I saw the Winter Fairy Goddess bringing life to the first snow of the year. Sure enough when I looked back up it had started to snow!I have preserved that memory and placed it on the block you see in the picture today.

Brian

Most of you already know that Brian just passed the P.E. exam...Woo Hoo. Now we are waiting for his liscence...I am so proud of him!

Projects

Woo hoo! ok so it looks like I have figured out how to post a pic from the web...just not sure how to make it work out of my pic folder. Hopefully it will work better from my home computer since that is where I will be uploading from usually.
Anyway this is Harley Quinn the Fairy I am working on from the FairyGoddessMothers group. The fairy template was created by our Listmom Linda Pool (she has some good books out too - you should check them out if you are interested in quilting). Harley is still a bit of a brainchild but I have started to think about what her backround is going to be....I am starting to lean towards having her sit on a windowsill looking into a courtroom (throne room). I have some fun embellishments I am going to add too. I have some little jingle balls to hang from her hat and shoes and a couple of 'juggling balls' to put around her too. Next step I guess is to figure out how large to make the quilt itself so I can start drafting the backround.
Ok well, that's all for now I suppose...I'll post some more pics later tonight I hope - this is assuming I can figure out how to make it work.

Just some randomness

One of the Yahoo groups I belong to is the FairyGoddessMothers. It is a quilting group for people who have a love of fairies...that would defenitely be me. On top of that the ladies there are all a great support network. Plus we have lots of fun and encourage creativity and imagination. I'll post a pic as soon as I can figure this darn thing out...so far all of the pics I have tried to upload tell me 'your picture was not uploaded' Of course it won't tell me why...Sooo eventually I'll figure it out...

First Real Post

Ok,
So here I am feeling kinda weird talking to the internet...but this is really for me...not the rest of you. I figure that I can give this space to friends and family that want to check in on me.
So...hopefully this will be a space for me to post my current projects and what not along with those fun little 'life moments' like chopping off all of my hair and getting a bad dye job...
So... see ya'll around.
~Rachael