Frustration...

I actually had a whole different blog written. It was my venting about the frustrations I've had the past couple weeks, mainly since Mr. Crafty left for his business trip.

The AC died last week {and is still very much needed here, it's been over 100 all week} and last night/this morning I found out that our mailman sent all our mail back to the senders. Including my tags for my car. And the DMV is closed today. But I have my printout showing I paid and I don't plan on getting pulled over so I should be OK. Just annoyed. Earlier, I might have been a more than annoyed...

The original post went much more into all that. And I just deleted it. I am letting it go.

So there's a back story to the next part of this blog post. When Mr. Crafty and I were planning our wedding, we wrote our own vows. I wanted them to be really personal and really us. I wanted to promise to always eat the pickle from his hamburger. But he thought that people would take that the wrong way. *clears throat* I mean you, Justin & Trevor.

You see, Mr. Crafty hates pickles. And I love them. He used to order his burgers without pickles. Now he orders them with pickles and picks them off and puts them on my plate. He also loves mushrooms. And I hate them. So I pick them out and put them on his plate. So I wanted to promise to always do that...

Mr. Crafty comes home tomorrow and I am ready for him to be home. We've gone two weeks without really being able to communicate with each other. He gets no cell reception in the part of rural Nebraska where he has spent the last two weeks. He had no desk, computer or phone of his own at work so I couldn't really email him. And there was no phone in his room, weird I know. He's my best friend and I miss him.

He's spending the night in Omaha before his flight home and the girls he's been working with in rural Nebraska were telling him all the "big city" things to do in Omaha. Apparently, they started making fun of sushi. {This was told to me via IM a bit ago when he got to an area where he actually gets cell reception. Hallelujah for cell reception!}

So I told him not to eat sushi without me. {I actually have wanted to ask him all week if we can have sushi for dinner tomorrow after he gets home but haven't had a chance.} He said he would never dream of it.

Mr Crafty: "Nor would I eat the pickle on my burger, that's yours"

Awwww, come home Mr. Crafty! Come home!

Trixie is ready for Mr. Crafty to come home and cuddle too!

Happy GleeKy Tuesday

{I'm going to apologize if this post appears twice. I was out of the office at a recruiting event and sent the post from my phone. Love that mobile posting via email. But the post I wrote never appeared on my page. And it's not in my gmail sent or draft folders. It's apparently lost somewhere in internet-land.}

GLEE Season 1 on DVD!!! And the special issue of people!

Happy GleeKy Tuesday!!!

I'd like to thank Target for having the DVD set on sale the day it came out {Target opened at 8am, I stopped by to get mine on my way to the recruiting event at 9:30am}.

I also may have had an irrational thought when I saw all the other cars in the parking lot of Target. I was worried they were ALL there to get their copy of Glee and they might be out. And then I realized the rest of the Target shoppers probably did not plan their morning around picking of their copy of Glee Season 1 like I did. OK, maybe a couple other shoppers... like my friend Scott who got his at 8am and was at the door waiting for Target to open.

Now I just have to explain this and the other things I got at Target to Mr. Crafty...

Happy Friday

So this week has been crazy! Like crazy, crazy.

Last night was the first meeting of the Tucson Modern Quilt Guild! Yippee! The time I should have used to read the 200+ pages I have to get done this weekend, mini-paper & journal response (both due today), I spent meeting the lovely ladies of the new Tucson Modern Quilt Guild. Our kinda-sorta fearless leader is Melanie of All Above Fabric.

I have no pics to share because I left my camera and projects to share at home. What??? I know! I ran home, took a quiz for one of my classes, changed and drove over to the meeting. There was a group picture taken and I know it will be posted on either the guild website or Melanie's blog on All Above Fabric. Fantastic ladies! Definitely my type of quilters. And we all seem to have the same fabric problem. We joked that we should be the fabric-holics anonymous.

If you are in Tucson, love quilting and fresh & modern fabrics, come join us for the next meeting! We're going to meet the 2nd Thursday of each month and have some other activities planned.

But here's the real Happy Friday for me... as of yesterday afternoon, this beauty is mine. ALL MINE!

Photo from Mac website

Yes, I am now the PROUD owner of a 13-in MacBook Pro! I have always been a Mac girl but somewhere along the line, I ended up owning a PC laptop. And then a PC desktop - which really is Mr. Crafty's computer. I was tired of using the PC, especially being tethered to the computer desk. So I finally persuaded Mr. Crafty that I NEEDED this. I was stalking my laptop via FedEx tracking all week. And yesterday at 12:53pm, it arrived.

Mr. Crafty also got a 160GB iPod Classic to replace his dying 5-year old 64GB iPod. So don't go feeling bad for him. Except that his new iPod arrived on Tuesday, the day after he left for his two week business trip. So he doesn't even get to enjoy it yet :-(

Now I just have to figure out how to set up our old wireless router...

{unless one of my neighbors wants to let me "borrow" their wireless}

Some Thursday fun!

My parents have lived in their house since my mom was preggers with me. So they've been there about 31 years now {no, I'm only 30, remember I said she was preggers}. The house is still nearly all original. Or is it vintage? They still have the original chocolate brown shag-ish carpet and the dark wood kitchen cabinets. The dark brown carpets were pretty handy for raising two kids and several pets!

For the past several years, my mom has been talking about the renovations she wants to do. And other than replacing the sliding door to the backyard with French doors last summer {or the summer before} not much has happened.

Until now! Mom retired from teaching the end of this past school year and now they are starting some of the renovations. They are getting new kitchen cabinets and countertops, basically a new kitchen but with the same appliances they already have.

In preparation for the new cabinets, they need to clean out 31 years worth of stuff in their old cabinets. Last night, my dad emails pics of a cordless electric ice cream maker he found. I have a sneaking suspicion that it was a gift at their wedding in 1975

And this morning he emailed this:

To which, I had the following email conversation with him:
Me: I want it!!! Can I have it????
Dad: Rescuing it from the Upward Foundation donation on the sidewalk, now! What would have happened if I hadn't taken a picture of it?!
Me: I would have been devastated. Completely crushed. That snowcone maker is awesome!

I remember making Snoopy Sno Cones in little Dixie cups with my older brother. We'd cover them in Kool-Aid.
 
And now it is mine. Just like our original Nintendo {I claimed that one several years ago}. My brother needs to be faster on the draw! Or maybe this is just karma coming back at him for when he used to sell me his old toys for my allowance.
 
In case you were wondering, the AC got fixed late Tuesday morning, thank heavens! It was a blown fuse ($200!) but the whole unit is 15-16 years old and will need to be replaced soon. Bleh!

Know what makes me smile?

Do you know what makes me smile? Seriously grinning ear to ear?

When someone uses a quilt I gave them as a gift. This is a pic of my friend Dana's daughter Taylor. {Since she is not my child, I covered her face.} She is still using the quilt I gave her as a baby. Taylor is 3 {I think, her birth announcement is still on my fridge at home so you'd think I'd know that answer!} and she just moved into her big girl bed so mom posted this pic to her Facebook page.

Seriously makes me grin from ear to ear. Not because it's a perfect quilt by any means. But because it is being used and loved and not stashed somewhere in a closet {like I know my nieces' quilts are, don't get me started on that!}. My boss' daughter is 5 and still uses her quilt every night. She calls it her "cold blanket" because the cotton is cool.

This is why I quilt gifts for friends and family.

Problem = crafty solution

Last week, the new semester started. And I had a problem. And it required a crafty solution!

My online class that runs from now until mid-December has an 800+ page text book (and yes, I will read basically all of it). And for some reason, the textbook manufacturer made this textbook a paperback. And I found it way too floppy and knew it would drive me nuts.

So I made my paperback book into a hard cover!

(Book cover from Target. Hurry, you might still be able to find them on clearance! It's paper and comes in a pack of three. It's meant to be colored with Sharpies but I'm also using crayons & highlighters)

I didn't take any in progress photos, mostly because I wasn't sure if it would work.

Here's what I did:
1. Found a couple sturdy boxes that I could cut up.
2. Trace around the book to get the 2 outer layer cardboard pieces.
3. Line up the 2 cut pieces to make sure they are the right sizes and trim as needed. I ended up trimming about 1/4"-1/2" off one of the long sides
4. Trace the outer cut pieces again for my inner layer cardboard pieces. These need to be cut about 1/2" smaller on the long side because they go on the inside of the cover.

(You can see why the book cover was necessary...)

5. Layer the outer layer on top and the inner layer inside the front cover and secure with rubber bands. Then tape the outer edges of the carboard (NOT the book, if you want to sell this book back). One thing I wish I had done was smooth out my rubber bands before taping. I can feel their twistedness through the book cover. Oh well, if it really bugs me, I can fix it.

6. Cover your new hardcover book with a book cover. I learned how to cover books from my junior year pre-calc teacher in HS. Never knew it would come in handy 14 years later!

I'm sure there are instructions on how to cover a book online but if you have questions, I can walk you through it.

On an unrelated note, the AC died last night. Ugh! I left at 5pm to meet some people for a run, ran to Target and Chipotle on my way home and when I got home at 8pm, the living room was 85 degrees (and got up to about 87). And the AC was blowing hot air. Of course this happened the DAY Mr. Crafty left for a 2 week long business trip. As if I wasn't going to miss him enough, he usually deals with things like this (not that I'm not capable, he just usually does them). So now, instead of going to work, I am waiting for the AC repairman to show up. Sleep last night was pretty miserable. I'm a grumpy (and sweaty) version of myself. I guess that's enough of my pity party.

Here's a couple pics of the crafty assistants "assisting" Mr. Crafty with his packing.

Rory making sure the garment bag flap did not blow away

Maggie supervising

Trixie tried to sneak a ride to Nebraska in Mr. Crafty's duffle bag. She played in that thing for like 20 minutes.