With Rex Watching

I thought I ought to write this down for posterity sake. Rex, one of our horses, who is pushing 30 years old, is having trouble gaining and keeping on any weight. He is on a special "senior" horse mix that we feed him twice a day. And he's Grace's horse, he wouldn't blow up in a million years, probably because he's so darn old! Anyway, with winter coming and him being on this expensive feed, the hubby and I have discussed what we wanna do. We know if we take him to the sale barn, he'd just go to a dogfood/glue maker. We had decided to keep him around. Well, last week, Jeremy decided it's time to just put him down. We borrowed the backhoe from the neighbor down the road, and the vet was scheduled to come out. And he'd be gone by the time Grace got home. Jeremy even had the hole dug, with Rex watching the whole time. Then he grew a heart, cancelled the vet, and backfilled the hole. He may not last the winter, but right now, we'll just fork out the money for the fancy food and enjoy seeing him out in the pasture with Cocoa and Nibbles.

Another Bag Creation

Here is the Gracie bag from Lazy Girl Designs. I made it in just a weekend, several weekends ago. After telling my oldest it was named after her, she assumed it was hers. In fact, she may have even taken this picture. The flap has velcro on it, so it keeps it nicely closed, but easy enough to open. The flower fabric has daisies and zinnias (I think) and it's a fun fall fabric. The lining is a tan color with tan leaves and flowers on it. I plan on transferring my current purse contents into it...once I get the motivation to do so.

Ah, the dry air!

After coming back home to Wyoming, I now appreciate it much more. I love the dry air, minimal traffic and being able to see the horizon. A fellow engineer from college who is now in the Atlanta area took me out one night. She showed me downtown with all the big buildings, one way streets and crazy traffic. We ate at an authentic southern food tea room, Mary Mac's Tea Room. I had chicken and dumplings with cheese grits. I managed to get home without a hitch. I even got a window seat on the way home and nobody in the seat next to me. Then I had to drive back from Denver. Heck, I'd already put in my eight hours by the time I got back to Cheyenne at a little after 10 on Friday morning. It was so wonderful to see my girls and hubby again. I think Anna was the most happy to see me.

And I learned my husband doesn't listen to me. He apparently thought I was in Arizona the whole time!

After 5 days away from my sewing machine, I've been back at it. I'll be posting my latest project soon.

Country Mouse

Woke up this morning to rain, wind, cold, and yuck....just 10 hours later, I'm sitting in a sweltering, humid motel room. Here's the scoop....I left Cheyenne around 8:00 this morning, headed to DIA to catch a flight for an Urban Drainage Design class for work. It rained most of the way to Denver. Ok, girl- not-knowing-the-roads, combined with the spray from traffic, was rather interesting. After getting to DIA and getting my boarding pass and passing through security and getting to the gate, all of which wasn't a bad ordeal, I have plenty of time to kill at the gate. Did a lot of people watching.... I had an aisle seat on the plane, wish I would have had a window seat, but it seemed like there were a bunch of clouds out there anyway. The plane landed in Atlanta and then the jetway had issues, so we had to taxi to another gate...so there was about another hour on the plane with some rather impatient people. I get to the main terminal, get my luggage, and get on the bus to the rental car area. The driver said they've got massive amounts of rain....18-24 inches in the last 7 days or something like that and 10 people have died so far. He said "they" were saying it's a 100-year storm. So...everybody's a hydraulic engineer! :) By now it's dark here in Atlanta. I manage to find the motel...I may not have had the best driving skills in getting there. The room is small, mostly taken up by the king size bed and HOT! I crank the A/C. I use the only mode of transportation I haven't used today (or so it feels)....my feet, and walk across the street to a Subway. Off to sleep on sheets I keep telling myself are nice and bleach-y clean and take a shower with soft water that I'm SO not used to...I feel slimy.

Nothing New

Boy, I haven't posted in quite awhile. I'm headed to Atlanta for some training on Monday. I'm sure I'll have lots to say next week. I'm kinda excited and scared at the same time. I haven't been on a commercial flight since I was a kid; in fact, I don't even remember it. I've been to DIA but that was 10+ years ago, before 9-11. And I'm doing this by myself! I've been to the DIA and Atlanta airport websites, been on Google Earth looking around Atlanta, I think I'm ready.

Messenger Bag

This is the 32 minute messenger bag; the tutorial is here. I used a batik for the outside and just a scrap from my stash for the lining. I didn't time it to see if it took 32 minutes, but it was super quick! I use it to stash my book and planner in to take to work.

Jeremy's employer had a family safety day. They had lunch catered and there were tours of the plant, along with an ambulance and fire truck you could look in. They had Cold Nose Investigators there with their dogs. That was really interesting. It's amazing to think a dog can find a body under 74 feet of water! There was a bus tour of the plant, I wish they would have gone slower so Jeremy could tell me more about what he's always talking about. But at least now I have some clue. Too bad the day was cold and overcast.

The Piddle Things

Lately, Anna's been waking up in the morning with a dry diaper. I finally dug the tiny potty out of the basement and dusted it off. This morning was another dry diaper, so I sat her on the potty. Not too long after lots of cajoling, I hear tinkling. Thinking she was done and giving TONS of praise, I take her off and start to empty the potty. Then I hear more tinkling and there is an enormous puddle on the bathroom floor. Apparently she hadn't completely finished! I hadn't started actively potty training her yet, but if the opportunity presents itself, you bet I'm gonna try. Sometimes it's the little things...er, the piddle things, that make a mommy the happiest!

Bellybuttons and High-Fives

And this is my Miranda Day Bag....I think it turned out great! It even fits the laptop. I had to go to the farm and ranch store to find the rings....none of the craft stores in this silly town sell rings except for key ring type things.

Lately Grace has been a terror at daycare. Yesterday she was trying to suffocate Anna. Today she was dragging that poor baby around the house to the point of hurting her. I don't want her to get us kicked out of another daycare.

Oh, the joy of teaching your toddler tricks! If you ask her where her bellybutton is, she pulls up her shirt and looks for her bellybutton and points it out when she finds it. It's entirely too cute because she has the little baby belly and has to really look to find the button.

Almost....Maybe

The girls and I went to see the new addition to the family, Chloe, my sister-& brother-in-law's new baby. Oh my Goodness, she was soooo tiny. She slept pretty much the whole time we were there too, but it almost made me want another one, almost....maybe.

I finished my Miranda bag, however; I haven't gotten around to downloading the picture yet....it looks way cool! I just need to go get some plexiglas to give it a nice stiff bottom. I also made a "32 minute messenger bag" I saw here with some batik. It looks great! And when the baby was taking a nap, I pinned together the quilt sandwich for Grace's quilt. I think I'm going to tie it, but not sure yet....that would be the quickest. And somehow I still managed to get the house clean, bake zucchini bread, shampoo the carpet, and do laundry this weekend!

Trains & Chickens

I've gotta take you back to December 2007. My friend, Heidi, and I went shopping for fabric to make a quilt for her step-son. It was a rather complicated quilt with lots of little pieces. There were doors that opened to reveal trains underneath. I snuck in a few with chickens as I'm "Jeri with the chickens", hence the quilt's name. Fast forward to August 2009, I *finally* got it done and it looks great and he hadn't outgrown trains, thank heavens since it took so long to do it! Here's a pic of the finished thing...the doors actually open and close. It's got little train buttons as well.As a thank you, she got me a Reversible Quilts book; it's way neat-o! Now I'm gonna try making a reversible baby quilt. It seems I have an abundant amount of family/friends that are expecting babies in the next few months.

On a totally different note, my husband is cleaning his gun at the kitchen table which also serves as my craft table. I'm unable to sew on anything right now and he sure is stinkin' up the place with whatever cleaning fluids he's using.

Miranda

I made the Claire bag from Lazy Girl Designs, the link is under Favorite Links on the side, a few weeks ago. I only wish I would have put some sort of closure on it, velcro or a magnet. This is one side.... and this is the other....

I found some great fabric...and it was on sale! I'm gonna make the Miranda Day Bag out of it. But first I gotta wash it :(