I was so excited for today.  The first day I could take the time and do only what I wanted.  Be it spend the day in my sewing room, working on a wedding quilt or to finish quilting my charming stars quilt or to finish the entry bench.  I woke up this morning thinking what shall I do first, only to find I have no water.  Not sure why, I had water last night when I went to bed.  Hopefully it is a simple fix, but so much for doing only what I want.  As soon as DH wakes up (he didn't arrive home until after 10 last night, long day at work) we will have to find out what is wrong.  Then I am sure, I will be washing up with the water from the rain barrel and off to town for parts or ???? Soooooo bummed!!!

Here we are in the end of June already.  I have a feeling this summer is going to fly by and we will be back into our slow and lazy winters.  What a very strange June so far.  We go from 80's and 90's to 60's.  I think I can only count 3 or 4 days we have gone with out rain.  After planting the garden and hoping for some rain, I sure didn't mean every day.  I believe the garden has only dried enough one time for me to get in and weed and it was a quick job at that as we were trying to beat the storm.  I looked yesterday as we had a day with out rain and it has been very breezy, thinking I could get in there.  No such luck, to my ankles in mud.  So much for my thinking we should plant flat instead of mounding up the rows.  I believe my exact words when asked how we were doing it "Goodness, it has been so dry, we should plant flat so everything doesn't drain off and dry out so fast."  Wrong!  Well some of the veggies are growing, some rotted off and were replanted.  At best all well be fine and at worst some will make it and some won't.  We will at least get some fresh veggies out of it.  The garden was the first of my June projects.

Next was the baby quilt for my nephews new little one, which if I am remembering right, should be here any day and is about 2 days late now.  Using swap blocks from a swap on QATW and adding another block in the center, I really like how it turned out.  There is the exception of my getting a couple blocks turned around and ending up with like colors next to each other.  I did have it on the design wall perfectly placed and I believe it was on row two that I goofed.  Funny how one block out of place on a directional placement can goof the whole thing up.  With being in a hurry, I didn't take the time to check why I was wondering about having to turn every block on that row.  I justified that by thinking oh I must have pulled the block off the wall wrong.  Note to self - when wondering about something, take the time to stop and check.  As luck would have it, I didn't notice it until I had it all together and had the flimsy up on the wall.  Even with the flub they loved it and she was soooooo surprised that I had taken the time to do such a wonderful thing for them.  Ha..........Thank You QATW for the swap blocks.  The swap gave me a large selection of blocks, not one block had the same fabric in it.  I love 30's prints and this has a huge mixture of them. 



 

Along with finishing the quilt, I managed to finish the entry tile.  Let's just say while laying the tile, I had torn feelings about this.  I would go back and forth with my thoughts - Hmmmmmmm I could and would do this again and Hmmmmmm I will never do this again.  Well I finally came to the part of cutting the tile, set the tile saw up and yes you guessed it - it just sat and hummed......hummmmmmmm.  So that led me to town to purchase a new tile saw, wasn't going to score and break this babies.  I would still be there putting tile in if that was the case.  Cutting tile is super easy with a saw, (hmmmmm, I could do this again) oh lord my knees hurt (hmmmm, I will never do this again), tile all laid (hmmm, that looks nice I could do this again).  So the tile dried and then came the grout............I have read horror tails of grouting messes and then read oh it is sooooo easy.  Well really how hard could it be? Right?  I opted to go back and purchase premixed grout nothing left to question that way.  I still think that is a good choice.  Let me just say this, grouting for me was very slow going.  Make a mess wipe it up, make a mess wipe it up.  Well not really it was more like - make a mess wipe it up, wipe it up, wipe it up, wipe it up.........don't wipe the grout out of the space, but wipe it all up.  Let it rest a while and wipe it some more.  Let's just say, this was my light bulb moment..........I don't believe I will ever lay ceramic tile again.  I went through more buckets of water and wrung (and you really have to wring it, almost to dry) out that sponge so many times, the arthritis in my hands flared and the joints in the palms of my hands were swollen over two inches thick.  It took days for them to go back to normal.  As the day went on, the wringing became harder and harder so the cleaning was not getting done as well as the first part of the floor.  This really isn't a huge deal, it just makes for more grout haze and I really don't believe you can get away with out having this when laying a textured tile.  Maybe if the tiles were smooth like glass.  So now I had to go and buy some haze remover.  I know I saw it and I know it was called Grout Haze Remover.  Well that is what happens when you shop different home improvement centers.  As luck would have it our local store didn't have it.  After finding help, I came home with an acid wash.  Now doesn't that sound scary.  I am hoping it is like the acid wash I used when I did construction cleaning.  The stuff would remove grout and any thing left behind.  I haven't tried it yet, as I just haven't had the time and the wanting to get back on my knees and wring out a sponge again.   I did start the hall bench, have yet to finish it.  Time has been very limited. 

My job, well I went back to my 4 - 6 hour days, for exactly 1 week.  Then I was back to 8's and over 8's for a few weeks........UGH!!! not what I wanted.  I am hoping that is over, had to do training.  The CNA's need 12 hours of training a year and yes you guessed it, it was that time of year.  Well because everyone has something going on, you have to run the programs multiple times.  Hence lots of unwanted hours. 

Then there was spring cleaning, a little late.  It is finally done.  I decided to purge a lot of things, not sure if I mentioned this in earlier posts or not.  I packed away the sentimental things and gave away the rest.  I seriously have about two handfuls of knick-knacks left out.  It is so nice when dusting and cleaning.  Makes it much quicker not to spend a day dusting everything.  There is just enough left out it doesn't look bare.  This in the end will give me more time to sew.  Yeah!!!!

Other then the baby quilt all I was able to complete so far this month was a wool candle mat, for a swap.  I hope my partner likes it.  I haven't downloaded the pictures of it yet or I would post it.  I didn't have as much time to do a lot of embellishment on this one.  So it isn't as fancy as some others I have done. I will post pictures later.

Then finally, my best friend from High School messaged me one day and asked if I was going to be around the week of the 20th.  I said yes and she asked if I was up to having some company as she was going to come down and see us.  While I was very excited, I was really more nervous.  We had not seen each other in 36 years and as time has it we had grown some what apart, with raising families and so many miles apart.  She is Canadian and during the construction boom her dad was a supervisor and they were transferred here for many, many years while we were in school. We became very close and for many, many years after she went home we stayed in touch, the only way we could.  15 to 20 page hand written letters and rare phone call when we could afford it.  She is better than I, as while here she said she still has every letter I sent.  While I don't think I have one she sent.  A few years ago, when all her kids left home and she had so many changes, she had a nervous break down and I was very worried about her.  She came though it and I think is stronger then ever.  She proceeded to purchase a motorcycle on ebay and then wondered how she would get to St Louis to pick it up, how she would tell her husband she had done so and then wondered if she could even ride/drive one.  Well as things go, she got it, got her license and rides all the time, to the tune of over 20,000 miles in a season, on her days off and after work.  WOW!  While on a ride down to the states (she lives in BC, so is rather close to the border) and on her way home she had a bit of mishap and was antagonized by some guy riders.  Nothing happened except put the fear of god in her and she went home and bought a bigger bike.  This time she got a Harley and it is beautiful.  Now she has a bit more speed and can get out of danger if need be.  I think that would have ended my riding alone again.  I have a couple friends that ride and ride alone a lot.  She was always a bit more gutsy than I.  So back to the story of her coming down.  My feelings were mixed - oh my goodness, what would we talk about, were we still the same, would we still like each other and get along and so on.  I know I am a worrier. Besides that she had told me numerous times before she was coming to see me and then things would happen and she could get here.  Well she really made it this time.......we hugged, we cried and we hugged and cried some more.  We talked and talked and talked and then she had to leave.  We are hoping we see each other again and much sooner then 36 years.  I wish she would have had more time.  She belongs to a group of women riders called MotorMaids, so she and her friend from home were headed to the convention down in New Mexico and she was also going to stop by and see a few of our other school mates on the way.  I am so glad we had the little bit of time we had. 

Well we have a huge storm coming in and need to see why we don't have any water.  So I better go.
I leave with you a new stitch along.  These ladies are awesome and have some really cute projects.  This is a from the same group I followed last fall/winter.  It starts at Farmhouse Threads and the link is HERE .  Please enjoy.........a few of the other blogs I follow have some stitch alongs going too.  check out their blogs over in the sidelines here on my blog.

Happy Stitchin
Laura