Saturday, January 30, 2016

Fruits of Labor

Finally. Finally I have worked through my enormous pile of scraps to make 177 X blocks.  
Dang, that feels good. The quilt I'm planning to make requires 63 blocks. So I'll have a few left over.

In other news: running. 
This is from a few weeks ago. Because snow happened. 



Saturday, January 16, 2016

Progress

The evening started out looking like this:
And two hours later it looked like this:
It *felt* like progress. And I suppose it does looks like progress. But man. Those are a sh*t-ton of tiny pieces.  

And there was progress of another kind today in the form of exercise. 
I knew at the time that the juxtaposition of my head beneath the horse statue's rear end unfortunate. But I had crazy running brain and decided it would be fine. 

Wednesday, January 13, 2016

And Also: Running

Against my better judgement, I signed up to participate in the Lottery for the 2016 Cherry Blossom 10 Mile Run.  So many people try to run it.  No chance I'll get in, I thought.

I got in.



I have not run a race of this length in about 5 years.  I've run a few 5K's, one or two 10K's.  But now there's the challenge of a 10 miler on April 3 looming.  So I'm going to give it my best shot, to see if my body any longer holds the capacity to train and push itself to complete this kind of race.

It seems appropriate, given the whole reason I started this blog was to catalogue a marathon training program I participated in, that I use this as a forum to track my progress.  I gave up on that one pretty quickly, and chances are I will this one as well.  But you never know.  Maybe it'll be great.


Thursday, January 07, 2016

Cross Stitch Progress and Daily Writing Prompt

Quick pictorial update on my ongoing (aka mostly ignored) cross stitch project.  The goal now is to get it to them before their first anniversary.  Fingers crossed!  Don't worry, I bought them a real present as well.  It's not every couple that registers for a nail gun (as well as other tools I will never be qualified to use).  I couldn't resist.

Also... a new feature I like to call:

The Daily Post's 365 Days of Writing Prompts:
or how I snarked my way through 2016 in writing

At least that's my initial reaction.  I like to write, I want to write more.  That was the initial impetus for this blog, however I think we can all see how well I have been able to maintain consistency.  I've decided to make 2016 the year I really make a go of it.  In thinking of ways to get myself to buckle down and write something every day (or as close to it as possible), I googled "daily writing prompts" which led me to this pdf created in 2013 by The Daily Post.

I appreciate the effort that went into creating this list, but as I read through it all I could think was "is this for real?"  Take today's writing prompt, for example:

January 7
Helpless
Helplessness: that dull, sick feeling of not being the one at the reins.
When did you last feel like that –- and what did you do about it?

Happy New Year - let's dredge up some awful memories!  Dull sickness, that's what we want to spend time dwelling on, then, isn't it?  I suppose the idea being that you overcame that sense of helplessness and took back your power and all that.  But, yeesh, couldn't that have waited until April or something?

So my first writing exercise of the year will be to ignore my writing exercise.  I choose not to make myself sad.  Take that, The Daily Post!

**UPDATE, 7:12 pm

The kids had gone upstairs with the dad.  I had 15 minutes until I needed to leave for Mommy's Night Out.  Dishes done, laundry started.  I had just enough time to set my sewing machine, Big H, back up after her Christmas Holiday Hibernation.  I removed her cover to find this:

Broken needle: simple accident or cosmic message?

And I have no. more. needles.  Suddenly, I had that that "dull, sick feeling of not being the one at the reins."  Helplessness.  What this karma striking me down for my dismissive attitude to a good-natured writing prompt?  Whatever the cosmic cause, amazon.com has once again come to my rescue, assuring me a Sunday delivery (Free with Prime!).  Breath returns to normal, jaw unclenches, muscles relax.  Good thing I'm heading out to drink.


Wednesday, January 06, 2016

Sad Neglected Pile

These are the makings of a scrappy "X" quilt that I'm in the process of working on.  It's not for anyone in particular (actually is was going to be the alternate in case my friend had a boy, which was not the case).  I keep the pieces out in the hopes that easy access will inspire me to grab them and start stitching on a whim.  The pattern is simple and the X blocks come together very easily.  But more often than not, the fall to the bottom of the priority list, beneath dishes and laundry and sitting and doing nothing. 

Tuesday, January 05, 2016

Crafting of a Different Sort. And Dinosaur Strangling.

 The Very Serious Boy was given the gift of Kiwi Crate for Christmas.  The first box showed up and we set to creating a very cute claw grabber thingy and pom poms.  It was a big hit and we are looking forward to the next 5 months of more crafts.

e. harrison, meanwhile, has made a new friend in Zoomer Dino.  Age appropriate, schmage schmappropriate.

Monday, January 04, 2016

New Year's Resolutions


2016!  It's here!  And with it comes the prospect of so much - crafting, running, cooking, reading, and, dare I say, sleeping.  Hopefully there will also be less of other things - things like Facebook and Candy Crush.  We'll see what shakes out, how much energy there will be and how it divided among all the different aspects of life.  Above are a few pics of projects I never got around to sharing last year.  It was a treat to be able to make some baby girl quilts after a run of boys.  The second quilt was for a friend who had a baby girl after 2 boys.  They didn't find out the gender before she was born, so it was a wonderful surprise for them.  I went a little overboard on the pink, but the momma was more than okay with it.