Sunday, December 9, 2012 @ 7:04 AM
Good morning. This is
us … and perhaps you can see what we’ve been working on. YAYYYYY SCRAPS! It’s been awhile and it felt real good to get
back to it last night. What we found
ourselves doing though instead of cutting them all up was to just be
straightening them. We worked a little
farther into the plastic bin pictured, but we’re probably only about a 10th
of the way through the project – WITH just this bin … there are 9 bins this
size total. Yup yup … that means we’re just
over 1% through with the project and the one bin in particular – left on top of
the stack is a nail biter! Yeeks. The bin we are working on now is one of Linda’s
two. I think some of them are left over
from somebody in her family another couple generations older. They are like the vintage of my Grandmother’s
fabrics, and so have been really fun to work through.
One of the things that is so amazing to me is how many
varieties of fabrics she has. Every once
in a while, you will come up with a certain fabric that there is a set or
series of, but the majority of the pieces are just a few pieces of any one,
meaning to me that someone has taken good care to use up the scraps and we’re
the most thrifty of quilters in salvaging sometimes just one 2-3” square at a
time. Another thing that is noticeable
is that some of the scraps appear to come from very worn clothing in that they
are just paper thin. I think when we get
to separating things out, that will have to be taken into consideration – that is
separating fabrics by texture AND color.
There will be so much to go through yet.
I do realize that we have left our other projects in the
lurch. You know which ones we are
talking about – the Christmas ones. We’ve
still got 2 ½ quilts to bind and then 5 applique to satin stitch and 6 applique
to bind. Still within reasonable limits,
but we’ve only got just under two weeks to finish the majority and we’re still
thinking we need to get our mother’s quilt to her before Christmas. It would really make her day I think J I feel a little guilty now in thinking that
we’ll have to leave this project of scrapping sort of mid-project to finish the
others, but it is easily enough taken down.
The bin is on wheels and will roll back under our bed, the ironing board
will come down and the drafting table will roll back in its place. We’ll probably store the ironed scraps back
in the container until we’re ready to sort all that out. I’m thinking it would be nice to get through
both of Linda’s bins before we sort, so that we keep like-pieces together. It’s really a testament to how much she’s
collected.
One of the things that has pushed us further with the
project is the renewed interest in scraps since we’ve been on this last
retreat. LV Linda gave us some scraps
from Ann and we gathered some more scraps from the girls and another Ann on the
trip. It was really nice that they would
do that for us. I would like to connect
with the other Ann at the retreat … I forgot her last name, but she was really
generous with what she had left. Some of
the appreciation came with the twins being here and asking to see the
collection of scraps collected by LV Linda at retreat. They felt the same way as us in that it is
like eye candy to quilters to visually and texturally see and touch the
different pieces. I think it was Jean,
but she went through every piece straightening the pieces in flat bunch. It was very gratifying for both of us to
realize how nice some of the pieces were.
And, then the other part of it was that LV Linda let us know in the last
correspondence how sorry we would be that she now knows that we are into
scrapping. Yeah yeah … Bring it on
babe! Hehehe
I also have to think in line with actually using the fabric
in quilts. It is part of the
project. I’m thinking that in-between
things, we will pick up a few more books on scrap quilts. I think the variety in fabrics is just the
most amazing thing. We would love to
showcase the quilts. I’m not sure though
if we will want to give these quilts away.
Maybe. I don’t think that most
people will want a quilt of very old thin fabric, but we would really like to
do something with it. In our minds, we
are piecing together collages of fabric in various shapes and forms. We’re trying to think through how to make the
most of every piece. We also have to
keep in mind that along with piecing we would have to quilt also and I’m
thinking that in that case … we might want to conserve on fabric and just have
quilted scraps on both side. That way we
would preserve the integrity of the fabric.
It’s just so much fun. I’m afraid
that we’ll never have enough days in our life to finish these projects.
There is a spare thought here that comes up and thinks about
the quilts my Grandmother used to make with her church ladies. I’m thinking of how they collected scraps and
other pieces to make quilts for people in need in other countries particularly
through Lutheran charities. Oh how much
fun it must have been to be a part of all that – and all the conversations that
would have been held in the process.
This is where thoughts of having the twins over become such a big deal. There’s so much to do and talk about and
experience together. And, it also seems
that it was part of the beauty in being together for such a nice 24 hour plus
period of time in that after a short while, you stop talking about just the
experiences we’ve just had over this last period of time and you start just
talking about the quilting projects underfoot and comparing one thing and
another and after a while – you are just so far into the Zen of it that it’s
like being super alive. You are running
in the current of being in the middle of life.
AHA! I remember the
other Ann – the one that added conscientiously the scraps … Her name is Ann
Walker … hmm, no … that’s not it … that was the 4th Ann on the
retreat. I’ll have to ask Linda this
morning who the other Ann upstairs was … thinking it started with a “P”, but I’m
not sure. We’ll have to wait.
AHA! Now Rich is
up. Actually, he was sort of up about a
half an hour ago. But, in truth he was
just rustling in bed. SOOOO we went in
and gave him a half an hour back massage.
He fell asleep again, but then after we finally stopped, then he woke
up. Maybe it was inevitable because
Missy was meowing and I thought for sure that would wake him up. She can be so noisy in the morning. We saw one of our old high school friends
when we’d gotten back to the computer.
She’d left this not on FB and we had responded to it. It gave us the giggles this morning. I know that Deb is like DEFINITELY a “NEED
COFFEE IN THE MORNING GIRL!”
Hehehe – just showed Rich the picture as he walked by with
another refill of coffee – well at least for him. We’re like on our third cup. Yup yup … it’s going to be like that. Now Rich has gotten up…
Ok, let’s make that our 4th cup of coffee and the
pot is empty. It’s now 9:25 AM. Rich has been up for about 1 ½ hours and we’ve
talked to Linda for a bit before she had to be off on her way. She’s going on an overnight with Tony to
Iowa. WooHOOO!!! We’ve also had the talk with Rich as to our
plans. He said that he wasn’t ready to
go to the fishy store, but that he would call his mother after his morning show
now almost over. He thinks we’re going
to be at her place by about 1 – 2 PM, and he says we’re only staying a couple
of hours. That will give time for a
visit and to pick up anything they might need.
THEN we’ll go grocery shopping with us out in the car. I know how exciting can that be. I might bring with me the hand sewing. It’s a little bulky, but we’re thinking that
Rich is going to be gone for a while. We
read a couple books totaling only about 120 pages from Kindle. We were disappointed with them. One was probably the worst e-book, we ever
read. The author was just a kid and
sounded like it especially in her stories and mannerisms of talking, AND in
spelling errors. We had the impression
that she’d written it and then just let it go.
I can’t believe she didn’t spell-check.
*sigh*
Anyway, Rich said that we’ll leave between 12-1 PM. I’ve still got a while before having to get
showered. We tried something different
the other day slipping into the shower with Rich. Ok, that’s probably more private than we’re
making it, but you just get regular ideas of what a shower was and then one day
you get a bright idea and think why haven’t we been doing that more often! Ok, shhh, and no nothing over happened. I do like touching him though. He’s like hot stuff!
Ok, girls … better calm down – or, we’ll NEVER get past this
page!
Maybe it’s time to wonder if there is anything that we
really want to say about the time that has last past. I don’t think we said, but we didn’t have
much of a Dr. Marvin’s visit this week.
We’ve been going through so many ups and downs and we were down on
Wednesday afternoon when we were supposed to go in for our single appointment
of the week. We couldn’t make ourselves
do it. The connection – phone between
Dr. Marvin an us was poor and he didn’t realize we’d sent a message until about
20 minutes after the fact, so it was a short conversation. The only thing we can really remember about
it was getting the sense that it was ok to be feeling the way we were … that it
wasn’t a bad or unnatural thing. We felt
at the time going into it that we were doing ourselves some kind of disservice
for not being able to hold our “higher” feelings we’d been racing through with
all the excitement between the twins and Rich.
Excerpt removed here due to being overly critical and public of CS
We’ve just reminded Rich that he put off calling his mother
and said he’d do it after the last show and now we’re a half an hour past
that. Just that I want to lock in my
schedule of the day. Soooo now he’s
calling her. I’m feeling frustrated with
the last series of thoughts and we have to think of how we’re going to put
ourselves in a better situation. Rich is
talking to Bud and more like told him we were coming by at 1 PM. Well, that’s almost like asking. When I called Rich on it he said that if you
don’t tell them, they would rather than tell you they wanted you over for 6-8
hours. That be like way too much. Rich just said we’d be there for a couple
hours so we could go shopping. That’s
true, we are – or at least he will go shopping.
I’m not sure with the smoking though if we want to bring our
blanket. We know that we wouldn’t bring
it inside, but we have to look at the part that we are going to be the smelly
on after being in the house.
Excerpt removed here due to being overly critical and public of CS
Probably time we stop digging ourselves into the ground and move on. Just so much negative we can do. Even with our thoughts on housekeeping it’s like we have to meet goals and then move on – and then, we are looking for the positive that’s come out of it. Can’t live in the negative.
I think that’s why it’s been so problematic of late being in
a depressed mode. Being conscious of the
mood means that you are part moving toward the reality of either accepting it
and feeling your way through it. I don’t
believe you can control all your moods, but I do think we are very assisted or
not assisted in length of time or scope of the poorer spaces our brains hover. Thinking now of even being so far down with
the medication Dr. Marvin had us on keeping us so negative or sleepy – we watched
it long enough to pin-point it was the medicine making the changes. I remember telling Dr. Marvin, we’re sleeping
until 9:30 AM, then 12:30 PM, and then we were falling asleep at 7:30 PM. There was a relative long period of time
trying to work past that while on the drug, but the bottom line was that within
a month’s supply, we were knowledgeable both us and doctor that the drug would
have to be changed back out. So during
that phase we were going through other possibilities like how were we going to
be able to pay for the $4-800 the regular medicine was going to cost.
We’ve gone through things like working through the problems
with the UIC program MAP program. That’s
had several downfalls, but the positive would be that we can afford the $55
they are charging us for our six medicines we use monthly. Because that is not a problem, it frees up
time to be working on other things now that are so much more productive – like in
opening with our excitement for cutting the scraps or sewing on the regular
quilts or applique pieces. I think that’s
the positive we keep getting back to as well as being back to our writing. I know that if we’re getting thoughts down we
are doing what we most enjoy doing. The
part of us that makes us feels like a fish in water. Always we’re trying to get back to that
smiley place. I think that was a big
part of the session with Dr. Marvin – he had been trying the new headset so
that part wasn’t going well, but the tone of his conversation – of just being
accepting of us being in our life no matter up or down feelings. Sometimes we forget that when we’re down it’s
only temporary – but carrying that knowledge we can get to the more positive,
pleasant feelings. I think it’s the same
with CS. I know that we can be in a
happier space with her. I don’t know
though if she appreciates that not “getting out of the space” where holidays
are something not to like, that we have to repeat it with her each time it
comes about. We’d hoped so much this
last year she could catch more of our positive rather than catching her
negative. I think she would agree that
there is just not that much family, to ignore what is given. It makes me feel insufficient when we offer
ourselves and are not accepted.
Ok Ok, shhhh we’re back to all that. I guess we’re in the stage with it that we’re
trying to be more conscientious so that we can get past something that is being
problematic. I’m also realizing that we’re
probably being overly analytic because this has been on our mind now for
about eight days. That’s a long time to
carry something without making progress on it.
I refuse to feel bad about it for putting the thoughts out there. I do apologize that so much of our thinking
is done out loud as we blog. That’s one
of the difficulties of being a writer.
Maybe some time in our past we’ve come to think that talking instead of
writing is more risky. If we have a
thought I’d rather have it put down on paper/screen where we can deal with it
and explore/re-explore until it makes sense, hmm?
Maybe we appreciate just the accountability.
But, as for now we have other places now to go. Hmm, Rich seems to be done with his morning
TV. We hear the Christmas music has been
turned on. It’s about 10:30 AM … Hmm,
isn’t the Christmas tree on yet?
AHA! There it is. It’s probably also going to be caught with
Sir Sweetie that someone is popping pop corn already. Hmm, better get some pop with that. It’s just that we’re trying to get our
regular afternoon in before being dislodged from the comfort of our spot. I kinda wish that Rich had just left me stay
at home, but I know he’s already told Bud we were coming – and we probably
should take a turn in getting out there.
It’s only been a couple of weeks though.
Maybe we will call our mother on the drive … that’s probably then been a
couple of weeks too. If you’re going to
do one mother, you might as well be doing two.
It seems to be the most comfortable spot we have at this point in
calling her. Sometimes it gets caught up
with Rich being on the phone with someone else as we are talking, but then we
have him to help us get through the call if its another bad one – meaning more
negative feelings for us to sort through.
I can’t say enough how important it is that people get back to positive feelings
and try to avoid some of the negative feelings as they become
overwhelming. Then we think of like
Mother Theresa and all the people in poverty she helped. In a sense she did not become overwhelmed
easily put in very negative situations.
But, fortunately, we don’t have to hold ourselves to those kinds of
worldly standards – Pswhoo!
Yup yup … Pop and popcorn for brunch. Let’s for the record mark that as a positive
;)
I think we wrote a little about this next subject the other
day … but, yesterday we spent more time looking at a few apps/windows
programs. The three being investigated
are Evernote, Springpad, and Astrid.
They are all productivity programs, and there are cross-overs in
platforms though Astrid might be considered the only actual to-do list. We spent the least amount of time with that
of the three, but they all have to be considered as a set.
Ahh, someone after my own heart and adding in Diigo and
Google too and GTD!
Astrid + Diigo + Evernote or just Springpad?
In my book, a good GTD
solution must have a reminder, calendar integration, subtask (coming for
Astrid/checklist acts as subtask for Springpad), note comment adding and media
attachment (useful for projects), a fast UI, hyperlinking contact details (Astrid
does this on the mobile app albeit being buggy)
Both of these services mentioned offer almost all of this - one may excel at some of these features while the other may not and vice versa. Springpad isn't really a GTD solution due to the lack of a Today grouping which is fairly standard in most GTD apps; however that doesn't mean that it can't be used as one. I consider it more of a universal hybrid and had I not already been a Evernote and Diigo user - I would probably have adopted Springpad right away.
Memory/Information/Data/Content Dumps are great but only if they help you retrieve back the information you had previously stored. Diigo's Website and Firefox Extension has a auto suggest as you search, Evernote's desktop filters your notes as you search - these little things make it easier and faster for you to locate what you are looking for - Unfortunately neither Astrid nor Springpad offers such an ability however I feel Springpad would be the one impacted more by the absence of this feature due to the role of it as a one stop dump for everything.
This is how I use the services mentioned:
Astrid - To do/Project Management
Diigo - Bookmarking/Product Research (Annotation is a plus)
Evernote - Notes/PDFs/Manuals/Random Images/Some Audio Notes and Clips
I tried Spring, however I don't think it can replace Diigo for bookmarks. Having to upload screenshots/clipping/
Both of these services mentioned offer almost all of this - one may excel at some of these features while the other may not and vice versa. Springpad isn't really a GTD solution due to the lack of a Today grouping which is fairly standard in most GTD apps; however that doesn't mean that it can't be used as one. I consider it more of a universal hybrid and had I not already been a Evernote and Diigo user - I would probably have adopted Springpad right away.
Memory/Information/Data/Content Dumps are great but only if they help you retrieve back the information you had previously stored. Diigo's Website and Firefox Extension has a auto suggest as you search, Evernote's desktop filters your notes as you search - these little things make it easier and faster for you to locate what you are looking for - Unfortunately neither Astrid nor Springpad offers such an ability however I feel Springpad would be the one impacted more by the absence of this feature due to the role of it as a one stop dump for everything.
This is how I use the services mentioned:
Astrid - To do/Project Management
Diigo - Bookmarking/Product Research (Annotation is a plus)
Evernote - Notes/PDFs/Manuals/Random Images/Some Audio Notes and Clips
I tried Spring, however I don't think it can replace Diigo for bookmarks. Having to upload screenshots/clipping/
PDFs is not a good
transition from Evernote either where I can just drag and drop. I particularly
need Map / Email / Number / Web Address hyperlinking on my mobile app which is
where Astrid excels over Springpad at the moment though it is not without its
flaws.
So tell me what you use and what your takes on these great apps are.
So tell me what you use and what your takes on these great apps are.
Shoot have to go … we’ve found ourselves reading and reading
about the differences between all these applications and have run out of
time. It’s now 11:45 PM and Rich is out
of the shower. That means we have to
post, dress, use the washroom and be out the door in 15 minutes. Shoot, shoot, I hate that when it
happens. AND, I should have charged my
phone earlier. Sure Rich has a charger
in the car, but it would have been better to update charge closer to the top. The advantages? I do get an hour coming and an hour going in
the car with our Sweetie … AND our gadgets!
WooHOO!!! Time to play!
(8,750/1198)
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