176 this morning!

Yay!

Wednesday Wrap-up

I got Nanette's quilt all quilted today! However, there are problems that I have to fix, so that'll be on my plate for another day.

I worked out at 5, too, so that was great! It was not as hard this time around, but it was still a great work out. Hopefully tomorrow I'll make it in to do cardio. Jason and Dave are planting grass seed and laying all the dirt we have on top, so I will definitely need to be here on Seth duty. But maybe I can sneak it in while Seth's still napping.

The scale at the gym sucks, though. My scale shows that I'm down to 177 in the mornings. Obviously, that's the morning and at the gym I weigh in the afternoons, but still, at the gym, it only shows I've lost one pound. However, according to my scale, I've really lost more like 3! So that's disconcerting and annoying. . . .

A pretty good day!

Phew!

I worked out with Joel last night and he kicked my ass. We did upper arms and shoulders and I wanted to cry by halfway through the first set. Yikes. I'm a little sore today, but not bad. I didn't get to do much cardio because I was so upset (and also sick - I had a fever and was all achy by the time I went to bed) but hopefully Seth and I will get to go on a walk tonight.

My weight this morning was 177. Yay! Next Monday Joel's going to do an official weigh and measure for me.

Nanette's band quilt -

is now half quilted! The thread I got is heavy-duty, though, and it's not going very smoothly. I guess I need to use a different gauge needle. It keeps bunching up on the bottom at the tops of the the swirlies. I'm not sure what to do about it. . . .

Cardmaking.

I got the stuff for Celina's invitations from Teresa last weekend. So now I think I will try to have those done for her by the time they are in town for Dave and Jenn's wedding. They are pretty simple, but also very pretty! They will look great once complete, I think, and she only wants 20 so they won't take too long.

I thought I was going to make invitations for Monique's son's first birthday party, but I don't think it's going to happen. And I had such a darned cute idea! Maybe I will make them for Seth's second birthday this fall! Teresa got the stamp set. I am so jealous. It is super cute.

Debu's quilt!!!!

I'm done!!! I sent it in the mail this morning. It turned out so good. I can't wait for her to get it. The third year anniversary of her mom's death is on Thursday, I think, so hopefully it will make it to Tomball in time.

I will be aiming from now on to get a quilt done by each anniversary. Maybe I can do a couple at once. Now that I kind of know what I'm doing, it might be easier to do the final three. I was thinking of doing something a little different for Peyton's, with some cool corner pieces between the blocks - we'll see!

Exercise and diet.

Diet - not so much. It's especially hard on the weekends when we have a lot going on! Plus, I made brownies today. Exercise - well, this week I worked out Monday, Tuesday, and Thursday. I would have gone more, except Jason was working really hard every day after work on the patio, and it just wasn't necessarily possible. I should have gone today, but by the end of the day of pouring the patio and looking for plants in the various nurseries, I was pooped! But I will go tomorrow.

I have been sticking right at 178 in the mornings, though, so that's good. I just need to lose some! I guess I should try and stick to my trainer's diet for a week and see what happens. That is exactly what I should do.

A pretty Wednesday!

178 this morning!

I did get my cardio in last night, although I went after dinner. Jason is working hard on getting the patio dug out, so we attempted to have an early dinner so he wouldn't have to stop working and start again. Dave came over to help him, which was really nice.

While I was on the elliptical last night, I was flipping through the channels and happened upon an old episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation. There was a chick on there wearing the WEIRDEST outfit EVER. Unfortunately, I only caught the last five minutes. So then I watched the first twenty five minutes of The Biggest Loser. It was actually kind of cool! I wish I'd gotten to see all the weigh-ins at the end. I only saw three. Some of those people barely even look like the same person after having lost over 100 pounds!

On the list tonight:
1. work out
2. finish Debu's quilt
3. wash Debu's quilt!

Woo hoo!

Good work out!

I had a workout with Joel my trainer last night. He focused on arms with free weights. I feel really, really weak that I needed to use the 7.5 lb weights! But I was huffing and heaving by the end of that 20 minutes (although I'd used 10 lb weights for the first 10 minutes) so I for sure need to stick with the 7.5s! After that, I rode a mile on the bike at 8 as quickly as I could, which was 3 minutes and 50 seconds. And then it was crunches on the machine - and I totally sucked at those! But oh well! It was a good work out. I'm not very sore today. Hopefully I'll make it to the gym tonight for some cardio, and then a good salad for dinner.

My mom is coming to visit next weekend! I'm so excited. She is staying for a whole week, too! I hope I'll be able to spend lots of time with her. I'm hoping to take some time off work.

We are having such troubles with our stupid accountant! I don't know what's going on with her, but apparently her life has gone to hell in a handbasket and she's dragging us along with her! Hopefully we will get our taxes filed soon. We're already planning how to spend the tax-return money. We're having a great big patio poured out back of our house this weekend! Assuming we ever get our taxes done, we are going to:
1. do the patio
2. plant some red tips along the back of the yard
3. plant one or two good-sized trees in the back yard
4. hire V-Cool to install heat-reducing film on the windows on the back of our west-facing house
5. overseed the yard to try and grow some more grass out back
6. replace our sliding glass door with a patio door - on sale at Lowe's right now for 20% off!
I really need to get a window treatment on the back door, but I'm not sure we'll have the money for that. I'd like to get all of this done in time for Dave and Jenn's rehearsal dinner on Memorial Day weekend.

Gym.

I went yesterday after work and did cardio. I tried to go on a walk with Seth, but it started raining, so I was gym-bound instead. And, I went this morning as well! There's nothing like working out in the morning! Jason didn't go to work today, which is why I was able to leave and go to the gym.

Finished!

Oh, and I finished quilting Debu's quilt tonight after work!

Trainer Joel

I met with a trainer at Anytime Fitness tonight! I wasn't about to schedule it myself after being stood up the first time (and, yes, I do enjoy biting off my nose to spite my face), but he called yesterday to schedule it. It was cool! I talked to him about my goals (fit in my bridesmaid's dress; lose my belly; tone my arms) and he seemed sure that I could lose plenty of weight to fit into the dress. It was nice to hear his certainty, even though I'm not sure I believe it! :-) I think I'm going to spend the money to meet him once a week for the next four weeks. We'll see how that goes. He will teach me workouts to do so I think I could gain a lot of information and it'll be worth the money (which is more than I thought it was going to be but much less than it was at 24 Hour Fitness!).

Three kids.

Okay, I am slightly reconciled to that Anne prequel movie. It's not as ludicrous as the third one, at least (though, really, that's not saying much). They let Anne have two daughters, as well as Dom, and one daughter was named Rilla, so that was good. It sound like Rilla was married to someone named Peter, though. Couldn't they have referred to a Kenneth just to make me happy? Nope. Does Kevin Sullivan even READ the books? Crimeny. I think if they'd let Anne and Gilbert have all of their kids, I might have accepted it. But they didn't, so screw them. And actually, I really don't think that Anne could have been the same person if she hadn't been an orphan. I think her orphan-ness really defined her. And I just reread Anne's House of Dreams. I can't believe that Anne could have gone all her life without confiding in Gilbert that her father was alive. It's just not in her character.

Well, anyway, I am almost done quilting Debu's quilt. Yay! I have to find some appropriate binding materials. I'm thinking I might be able to be done by the end of the month, which is very exciting.

Aftermath.

Unbelievable. I actually got everything from my there's-no-way-I-could-ever-get-all-this-done list completed this weekend! And I even started quilting Debu's quilt! Wowzers. What a great weekend!

AoGG: ANB

I think I am actually depressed because Gilbert is dead in this movie. I am mopey. I guess it could be because Seth is leaving tomorrow, but I'm pretty sure it's because Gilbert is dead.

Saturday.

I have done everything that I REALLY wanted to do, and now I can keep going! It's only 8 pm! Woo hoo! Of course, the only reason I got it all done is because Jenn had to go to the hospital for kidney stones. Yikes!

I just watched the extras for the Anne of Green Gables prequel. Seriously? Why can't Anne have the six children she's supposed to have? Would that have been so difficult to do? Come on, Kevin Sullivan! Poop on you. It sounds like part of it follows the book. Her oldest son is missing in the Great War (of course, it's WWII instead of WWI since Sullivan sends Anne and Gilbert over to WWI in the stupid third movie), but why can't the other five kids be alive? Stupid movie.

Here are some cards I made yesterday:Two birthday cards for the April birthdays!

Two greeting cards to show KAZ on Monday.

I didn't get a good picture of the second one. It's all blurry. Stupid camera! I'll have to try again.

So, like I said, I got everything done that I absolutely wanted to get done. Last night I stayed up until 1 and finished Debu's quilt top. It was kind of hard to get a picture for some reason, but you can see it here pretty well, I think! Her backing materials is in the washer. I need to move it to the dryer.

And I just finished the back for Nanette's quilt, so check that off the list! I also took a picture of Ryan's quilt, before I put the binding on. Now I'll need to cuddle up with a movie on and get that binding sewn on. That will be my project for evenings this week, I think.

Alrighty, then, off to watch the terrible Anne of Green Gables movie and baste a couple of quilts! Woo hoo! (And give Seth a bath.)

Long weekend!

I have a big list of things to get done this weekend while Jason's gone. The Jenns are coming over tomorrow and we're going to scrapbook. I'm hoping to get all caught up on my pictures. Truthfully, I don't have too much to do and if Jenn Wright is here as long as she says she's going to be, I'm not sure what I'll keep busy with!

I have a ton of quilting stuff that I want to accomplish, though! Here is my long, there's-no-way-I-could-possibly-get-all-this-stuff-done list, in order:
1 - finish Debu's quilt top
2 - piece Nanette's quilt back
3 - finish quilting Ryan's quilt
4 - machine apply the binding for Ryan's quilt
5 - baste Debu's quilt (I would have to wash her backing fabric and get it sewn together)
6 - baste Nanette's quilt
Yep, that's my wish list. If I weren't scrapping this weekend, I think I could maybe get pretty close to getting all that done. But with the scrapbooking as well, I don't think so. Yesterday I bought more white thread so I could finish Ryan's quilt, along with backing for Debu's quilt, and I washed the backing for Nanette's quilt! Tonight, I'm very excited to say that I got Debu's top done. Yay! This is my original sketch for the quilt.I will have to take a picture of the quilt top tomorrow and post it for comparison. It is a memory quilt so I'm using a lot of fabric from Debu's mom's clothes. I didn't have enough of the outer border fabric so I had to put squares in the corners, but it actually looks really good. I used some of the fabric from Debu's mom's robe and I think it's pretty. It may be hard to keep square, though. I need to get some heavier-duty backing. What I have is too flimsy.

Anyway, it's after midnight and I am TIRED. I stayed up too late last night reading a book. I'm very pleased to have finished Debu's top. It always takes me so much longer than I anticipate! I was hoping to get Ryan's quilt quilted this evening, too! But I guess it will just have to be my first priority tomorrow morning! Jenn W. is coming over much later than I expected, so it buys me some extra time to focus on sewing.

I have been watching the Anne of Green Gables miniseries. I am a little over halfway through the second one, the bastardization of Anne of Avonlea and Anne of the Island. I wish they would have made Anne's House of Dreams. Even with the travesty that was the third miniseries, they still could have made a fourth that followed House of Dreams, my favorite of the series. *sigh* Megan Follows and Jonathan Crombie are so perfect as Anne and Gilbert. :-( A'sHoD could have been SO good. Mom got me some prequel movie for Christmas. I am apparently a purist and I don't want to watch it because L.M. Montgomery is pretty clear that Anne's life before Green Gables was terrible and I imagine the movie romanticizes it, but I read the extras and there's something about the 100th anniversary of Anne, so I will watch it tomorrow, after I watch the good parts of the third miniseries. It won't take long - it was BAD.

Okay, off to bed.

Gym-bound?

I want to go to the gym today! I've had a crummy eating day so far. It is bad to have extra-sharp cheddar in the house. Yum. But Jason texted me that he had to go look at a job, so I don't know what that means about what time he's anticipating being home. And he leaves tomorrow at the crack of dawn on Dave's never-ending bachelor party weekend, so I will be on Seth duty on my own for the next four days. I don't see any gym time looming in my future. POOH! I have got to lose an inch to get into that dress! Maybe I'll have to buckle down and get on the Curves diet instead of just trying to do it myself. I'm keeping the five pounds I've lost off okay, but I need to keep going!

I am sore!

My arms are sore, and my legs are sore, and my back is sore. . . . This is what I get for not stretching properly after working out yesterday! But at least I worked out, right?

Last night I also continued quilting the quilt for my nephew and started putting the pieces together for a quilt for Debu. Yay! I love progress. I would have just finished Ryan's quilt, but I ran out of white thread. How does that happen? Now I have to go buy some. Poop. At least I have a TON of coupons. JoAnn's sent out a slew of them for Easter and some are still good.