1. It's quiet around here without the college children. We miss their presence, but we don't miss their laundry or the amount of food they eat! Madden is gone all day, too, with school and football practice, so he's not eating at home as much. I miss all my kids, but I console myself with the thought that they're where they're supposed to be, following God's plan for their lives, and most importantly that I can expect them to come home.
2. Do you have a tornado siren in your area? Do you know how useless they really are? I was excited a few years back when they put one up in our downtown. They test it on the first Wednesday of every month at noon and we can hear it loud and clear indoors. But did you know that they're not meant to be heard indoors? They're meant to warn the people who are outside. I'm sorry, but are people so stupid that the ones outside where the sky is dark and greenish and the wind is blowing the ones who need the warning???
I spent quite a few years of my life in Oklahoma where tornado shelters were common in backyards. Even in the "new" house my grandmother bought there was a community shelter across the street. Until I moved to Georgia from Virginia, I never had to worry about tornadoes, but we have enough to keep us on our toes here. So, while I appreciate the thought of the warning sirens, we have to look out for ourselves. We have only heard the sirens a couple of times at night during storms----the ones where it wasn't raining and the wind was quiet. But it didn't wake the children. The one time a tornado actually hit our neighborhood, we were all simultaneously awakened by the "freight train" and ran downstairs. If it had been aiming for our house, it would have been too late. We were lucky that it wasn't. That tornado seemed to have been mostly skipping around the treetops, not cutting a swath of destruction on the ground.
3. I haven't been quilting much, or at all, in the past couple of weeks what with the last push to get ready for school and this first week of school which also involved getting ready for American Heritage Girls last night. I'm hoping to spend some time on it in the coming week and get the quilting finished. And when I say "finished" I mean "FINISHED". I'm glad I decided not to quilt it heavily, but just use it for accents and to hold it together. Quilting hurts. My hands were so sore that for a few days I thought I had been spending too much time on the computer farming on FB. Then I realized that it was from the quilting. I guess I'm not cut out to be a quilter---at least not until I'm able to upgrade my sewing machine and get a walking foot to machine quilt. I don't know how women do it.
4. Barbara found an interesting post about schoolrooms. There are hundreds of schoolrooms here if you're looking for ideas. If you're prone to Envy, it's probably not a good idea to look. These days my schoolroom is a mess. We do all our work upstairs, so it has turned into the sewing/craft/scrapbooking/school/storage room. Not pretty.
I plan to spend a lot of time today looking at these wonderful rooms. Maybe it will be inspirational.
5. We went to the pool for PE on Wednesday. That was fun! It was a quick trip at 10 a.m.---we put on our suits, grabbed our towels and went. I didn't want to force them to swim laps, but I wanted them to stay active, so we had some noodle-races and tried different ways of maneuvering across the pool like sitting on the noodle and using just arms breaststroke style. Or bike riding. We held on to the walls and kicked. We stayed for 20 minutes and got right back to work after changing clothes at home.
It was great to get out of the house and have the pool all to ourselves.
6. Great, short post on effective parenting here. Jim Stenson has read some excellent parenting books.
7. We're looking forward to going to daily Mass today, since we have a lighter schedule on Friday's. Then we're hitting Rita's for some (maybe) Swedish Fish Ices. I've never been, but heard about them yesterday and found 2 free coupons in the paper. So we're going on a gustatory adventure. Okay, so it's not Bobby Flay, but it should make the kids happy. I know KT and Madden would love this since they're so fond of Swedish Fish.
As usual, stop by Jen's for more Quick Takes!
what is a swedish fish??
ReplyDeleteis it like sushi?
quilting only hurts at first. then you develop callosus in the places that the needle pokes.
if your hands are aching then you need to stop more frequently and stretch the muscles in your hands and rest. it's quilt a little, talk (or watch TV) a little...quilt a little...talk a little. If you ever get the chance to attend a quilting bee of older quilters you'll see that's how they do it.
to stretch, spread your fingers as far as you can and hold it for a few sec. Lay your fingers on a table or other sturdy surface and put slight pressure bending the fingers backward and hold for a few sec.
also watch how tightly you're holding the needle and the quilt. you don't need a death grip. But as beginners we tend to use one cuz we're so focused on sewing well that we tense up.
so remember this is supposed to be a relaxing activity, and take it easy.
looking forward to your finished pictures!!