Busy. Busy. Busy

Lots of stuff going on lately but once again, no photos to share because I haven't had time to go back to my computer to transfer to thumb drive. Oh well, I'm working on that.

We have been having the exterior of our house painted for the last week. I'm really happy with the painters and the quality of their work. They finished everything yesterday including staining the front and back doors. When we were looking for painter recommendations, we were told that this outfit would be the most expensive but it turned out they gave us great bid and so we went with them without much further thought.

Last weekend, I spent a lot of it reorganizing and cleaning my sewing room. It had become totally out of control because my book shelf had broken down so all my books were in boxes throughout the room. I couldn't easily get in the closet where all my supplies and fabric are kept because of the boxes in the way. Tom had a rather unorthodox suggestion of how to rearrange the furniture. I was a little nervous about it because his suggestion called for my large sewing table to be place at an angle in the middle of the room. After a lot of shifting of furniture, we arrived at something I could live with. After the passage of several days I have decided I LOVE MY SEWING ROOM!!!! It is almost absolutely perfect and I will share photos soon. Promise.

We are also in the midst of working on our new website and seeing what different on line consignment type stores have to offer. We're getting ready to get a privilege tax license from the city and state so that we can be legal with our sales. The website is still under construction but we are making some progress, slowly but surely.

I had a balance test a couple of days ago. Boy, was that a weird one. Anyway, that test was negative so we still don't know why I am having dizzy spells or attacks as the doctor calls them. I will be having another MRI of the brain with contrast tomorrow afternoon. If that doesn't show anything, I don't know what will happen about this dizziness because the doctor told me that if I have had a past pattern of dizziness I will definitely have future dizziness. It might not sound like such a big deal but when it lasts for days and days, your life is definitely impacted.

Oh, and work has been very busy too so there is definitely a lot going on.

Dog fun

When things go wrong revisited

This first photo is a bowl made from clothesline and then wrapped in fabric. I like the color choice. Since I don't have all my vacation photos to select from, I'm going to upload some photos of some of the items I have recently made including the bag that was giving me fits the other day.

Here is the bag that was giving me so much trouble the other day. It turned out just fine after all.

This is a casserole carrier for both hot and cold foods.

Vacation

We have been on vacation this past week visiting northwestern Arizona, southern Nevada and southern Utah. Our first stop was at the Hoover Dam which is on the border of Arizona and Nevada. It is truly an engineering marvel and has played a major role in Arizona's water resources.

Aside from the fact that it is an incredible testament to man's ingenuity, a dog had a role in the building of the dam. I didn't take a photo of his actual grave, but here is a photo of the plaque that is over the gravesite...oh rats! All of my photos from the Hoover Dam stop aren't on my flash drive. I will have to revisit this post at another time to show the photos. But anyway, here is a story about the Hoover Dam dog.

When things go wrong

Since making the resolution to sew every day, I have been pretty good at keeping it. This a.m. I woke up at the usual time (5:00 a.m.) and when finished with breakfast, went to my sewing room to sew a bit. My plans were to cut out the upper layer of a tote bag and then pin it to the batting so it would be already to quilt.

No such luck.

I had the fabric spread on the floor because it was directional fabric and I needed to make sure I cut it out so that the dog heads in the fabric were all going the right way. Roscoe thought he could help by trying to butt in, standing on the fabric and then rolling in it. Once I got rid of him, I had to look at the fabric for a long time to make sure I cut it correctly. I thought I had it right and proceeded to cut it out only to find out that I was wrong! Fortunately, that was easily fixable. But still, valuable time lost trying to make sure I was going to get it cut correctly.

Anyway, I knew since the fabric was directional, I was going to have to make a seam that would not show on the bottom of the bag. Got that stitched out just fine, took it to the iron and pressed the seam open, turned it right side up and saw that I had the dog heads all going upside down.

Rip out the seam.

That was all I had time for before needing to get ready for work. This joyfest of mistakes took about 1/2 hour and all that was accomplished was to get the top layer of fabric cut.

This does not bode well for the rest of the bag.

This is so ridiculous it can't even be commented on.

Hurricane Katrina's victims have put a price tag on their suffering and it is staggering — including one plaintiff seeking the unlikely sum of $3 quadrillion.
A whopping $3,014,170,389,176,410 is the dollar figure so far sought from some of the largest claims filed against the federal government over damage from the failure of levees and flood walls following the Aug. 29, 2005, hurricane.

Little is known about the person who claimed $3 quadrillion. It was filed in Baker, 93 miles northwest of New Orleans. Baker is far from the epicenter of Katrina's destruction, but the city has a trailer park where hundreds of evacuees have lived since the storm

Natural born enemies.

LOL

Wolves as Pets

Little Brain had a recent post on her blog regarding the reintroduction of wolves. This came at about the same time that I received word from my cousin that she had adopted two wolves as pets. She said they found a newspaper ad selling them as half timber wolf and half artic wolf. Maybe she was sold a bill of goods on these "wolves" but I can't tell from the picture she sent me if they are actually 100% wolf, some mixture of dog/wolf or just a husky or malamute. I'm hoping that for her sake, they are actually dogs that resemble wolves because everything I read on the internet says that wolves do not make good pets (I would have guessed the same but needed backup for my assumption). Here are several articles regarding keeping wild animals as pets and what a bad idea it is:
Springwolf, Wolftrust, and Fish & Wildlife and finally article

Not a good thing to have a wolf living with you.

Thank you gift

Here are photos of the thank you gift I made for the woman who resurrected my Steiff bear.

As I mentioned previously, she is a dollmaker and has made many, many Raggedy Anns and Andys. She was very pleased with the gift and commented on the fact that the fabric could have been used for a Raggedy Ann or Andy.

Beauty is in the eye of Photoshop

Here is a video I find very interesting. Not just because of its message but also a good demonstration of the use of photoshop.