107th time the charm!!

After losing 106 auctions for Mario Kart (with the assistance of eBay's Bid Assistant), I managed to attach my name to one on Friday night! I could hardly believe it when I saw that! I WON! I WON! I'm a WINNER!!!! ;-)

Believe it or not, I was a picky bidder - I didn't bid on every one I saw, and my search didn't even pull up all that were out there. I didn't even get to bid on everything I saved into the Bid Assistant since if the price was higher than my max bid when it came up, it got skipped. I kept on trying even after 100 losses over 9 days because Bid Assistant made it pretty passive for the most part, plus there were a lot of the games out there and some weren't even too far away from my max bid. The supply was going up and the price was inching down, and persistence paid off. I didn't want to pay more than I would if I'd bought it in the store around here, so I had a definite ceiling. Sure, it inched up a little, but with the help of a 10% off coupon from eBay, I kept the price to less than it would have been for retail plus sales tax.

So now, are you ready for THIS? Mario Kart arrived on MONDAY!!! From Illinois to Washington over the weekend. I was really excited because many of the "free shipping" auctions were media mail (2-10 days), but this one was going to be sent Priority. I thought it might get here Tuesday or Wednesday, but wasn't expecting MONDAY! WOO HOOO!!! So I got home from a jewelry class last night and did some racing (when I should have been going to bed). :-) I HAD to test it out so I could post feedback on eBay about the seller, right? ;-)

There's the big news of the day / week / month... and now I anticipate I'll be blogging even less than I was. I learned another new beading technique last night, I have a new Wii game (like pinball wasn't addictive enough), and we won't even talk about all the various crafting tools and consumables sitting in my craft room. And, icing on the summertime cake, minor league baseball has started and I have partial season tickets. GO FROGS!!! :-)

Blessings!
Kristin

By Popular Demand...

Okay, I don’t know if you can call it popular demand, but TWO of you are bugging me to post… so here I am!!! With PICTURES! :-) I would tell you you’re taking me away from the very important task of bidding on Mario Kart, but as I’m composing this, my internet has decided to take a nap, so I guess I can afford the time. ;-) I’ve discovered eBay’s Bid Assistant… so now I can lose auctions 10 times faster! LOL! My problem is I don’t want to pay more for it on eBay than I would in a store if I happened to catch it there. So, I’ve lost a lot of auctions. ;-) I’ve checked a couple local places and I’m going to call and bug them, too. Okay, so on to the good stuff.

Do the Do

Before and after pictures of my haircut! I left some of the mirror in the after pictures so you can see the back. I don’t usually style it like this (it’s curly, so it’s different every day) and I haven’t gotten a picture of a perfect hair day. I’m enjoying not eating my hair along with my lunch and not pinning my head when I lean back in a chair. I kind of miss being able to d more than one style, but I wasn’t doing much but a ponytail with the longer hair, anyway.

Jewelry Making

Here are pictures of bracelets and a necklace I made in classes. There’s some stringing, chain maille, and silk cord knotting (the most recent class).

Here’s a necklace and earrings set I did. I’m still not sure I’m 100% happy with the pendant on the necklace… the god news is, I can modify it if I want to! I made a bracelet to match but I wasn’t too impressed with it, so I’m waiting to see what plan solidifies on that one. The first thing I made with these beads was a badge lanyard which I wear to work pretty much every day. I’ve decided I need one with silver, though, so I bought beads for that last weekend, so well see how long it takes me to get that cooked up.

And the set that I almost didn’t finish because it frustrated me so (I had no guidance on multi-strand necklaces when I made this, so there was some trial and error). I also threw in a picture from Bill’s niece’s wedding reception that shows the necklace and my new do (not my best hair day, unfortunately).

Baby Pictures

June 5, a little 4 pound 13 ounce treasure came into the world. My brother Tom and SIL Meg now have a sweet little Sadie Mae. She was about 7 weeks early, but came home from the hospital on June 14. Thanks to all who were praying for Tom and Meg and Sadie and the family. Below are pictures of the newborn girl and her first day home (alone, with 2 of her 3 sisters, and with Meg).

My Mom is working diligently on the baby quilt we’re collaborating on for Sadie… we’re hoping to get it pretty well finished at open sew day on Saturday. I’ll have to remember to take my camera in case we actually get it done.

I think that’s all the news for now. Hopefully this will keep you occupied for a day or two so I can go back to my Wii. ;-)

Blessings!
Kristin

Still Alive....

Hi, all!
No, cutting off all my hair did not kill me nor drive me into hiding. ;-) I've just been distracted with work and family and the Wii I got for my birthday (more on that another time).

I'll try to post a legitimate entry soon (including pictures)... Not sure when, but it could happen before July.... maybe. ;-)

Blessings!
Kristin

Another addiction....

Hi, all!

Well, I took my first beading class last week and I’m looking for trouble! ;-) It was a pretty basic class, but it taught me enough to be dangerous. Like I need one more expensive hobby! :-p Sunday I made a badge lanyard out of some beads and links I got on Mother’s Day at Shipwreck Beads... I’m REALLY digging these beads!!! I done good! I should have – I was putzing around the store trying to decide long enough! I’d find a focal bead I’d like, and then I couldn’t find the right accent beads. Ugh! Last night I took apart one of the bracelets we made in class and turned it into a watch band, and strung a freshwater pearl necklace to wear to our niece’s wedding in a couple weeks. I’m going to make a bracelet to match (and earrings if I get inspired), but I haven’t gotten there yet. I also don’t have the clasps I want (mail order), so I get to procrastinate a little longer. I have another class tomorrow, and several more classes over the next several weeks. WHOOPS! ***Breaking News*** I don’t have a class tomorrow! They just called to let me know that they have to cancel it because they don’t have enough people. :-( I guess I’ll just have to bead at home, then. Or watch the Mariners game. Or sleep. Sleep..... great segue....

I’m still doing the vanpool (4^th week this week). I had to drive two days last week because of appointments, but I was still able to get out of bed at that awful hour known as the time between 5am and 5:30am. Ick! This morning was a ROUGH morning... ZZZZZZZZzzzzzzzzzzzzzz................................

This is the week I get my hair cut! Hair today, gone tomorrow! Okay, gone Friday. :-p I managed to not tear it all out or chop it off myself. Hopefully the next three days will go as well. ;-) Mom volunteered to FlowBee it for me, but I declined. I did let her near me once with that thing and I lived to tell about it, but I’m thinking I’m going for the scissors this time. :-p

In quilting news.... nothing. ;-) Sometime between now and June 5, I need to prep for my Girls Night Out with Roxanne Carter. I’ve been taking the same project (and not working on it any other time except cutting and other prep work) so at least I have that spot of time I’m using for that. I’d love to take something I need “help” with to take advantage of the genius tutelage available to me, but I can’t think that hard. WHOOPS! Classes are dropping like flies! It’s looking like I scheduled a medical appointment for my Girls Night Out day! WHAT was I thinking????? I guess I’ll have to call and sign up for GNO in July instead. DOH!

Aren’t you so excited that you can experience life with me, as it happens, moment by moment?

There’s my check-in... next time you hear from me, it’s pretty likely I’ll have new hair! Okay, the hair won’t be new, but the style will be. :-p

Blessings!

Kristin

This and that and a couple of pictures

Hi, all!!
Thanks again to all who voted on my new hairstyle... I go under the shears on May 23rd and we'll all be surprised by the outcome, I'm sure! :-)

In other news, on April 27th we took a tiptoe through the tulips in LaConnor, WA. I have some pictures, but Kelli has a lot :-) and I'm really chomping at the bit to see what she has. It only rained on us a little, and we had a lot of fun watching Kelli's son George romp in the mud. The close-up of the orange one is my favorite... at full size, you can even see waterdrops! :-)




Let's see.... what else is new? April 26th at sew Saturday I made three reusable grocery bags! Yay, me! :-) I was going to use some old sheets that were in the donate pile, but one my my fellow quilters had dropped off some fabric for us to consume as we saw fit, and some of it was food-themed and of a sufficient amount to work for the bags. How cool is that? So I still have more to make, but I've gotten started, anyway. Interesting thing... Bill took them to the grocery store yesterday, and the checker / bagger said that there's a bill going through King County that would charge customers 25 cents per bag to provide them with plastic bags at checkout. Ikea was the first I knew of to do this (a nickel a bag) and I've known other places that used to give a discount if you brought your own bags. That explains why so many stores recently have been selling reusable bags for $1 each... Too bad I don't have the fabric, skill, or motivation to make something worth selling. :-)

And, the most shocking news of the month.... I joined a vanpool. Okay, that's not terribly shocking until I tell you that the vanpool leaves the Park and Ride at 6:15am. Keeping in mind that my alarm used to go off at 6:30 and I crawled out of bed about 8am, this is quite the paradigm shift (without a clutch!). I barely slept the first night because I was so paranoid about missing the van and would everybody like me... almost as bad as the first day of school. So far I've been able to get up and out, and the "missing the van" anxiety dreams are subsiding.

I think that's all the news for now...

Toodles!
Kristin

The Latest and Greatest

Between being busy and being sick (with some overlap, ugh), I haven’t had a chance to say hello lately. We’ll see how far I can get in this sitting.

First, I got nailed with allergies or a cold or something a couple weeks ago. I’m still hanging on to a cough, but at least I feel like my head is still attached to my body. I missed some work because I couldn’t think and felt icky. I’m glad it happened the week it did and not the week after because I have been busy at work this week. Truth be known, a couple of my partial work days were partial work days because I had stuff that I HAD to do and I can’t work from home. So, I went to work, did what I needed to, garnered some sympathy with my Talullah Bankhead voice and lung-shaking cough, and home I went. All in all, a good use of time in my opinion. :-) Also in the coughing and needing of rest I went to a Girl’s Night Out with Roxanne Carter. She hosts open sew time where quilters get together and work on whatever project we like, and she’s there for consultation and advice. Don’t have anything to work on? She’s working on a Block of the Month for a lap quilt. Bring some fabric and she’ll provide the directions! It was a little advanced for me and I have enough projects that are partially done. So what did I take? A new project! LOL! I’ve had some Robyn Pandolph fabric for a few years that I’ve been wanting to make something with, but I couldn’t find anything that wouldn’t detract from the fabrics. So, I’m going with a variation of a Disappearing Nine Patch. The variation is that instead of keeping the block together and just rotating two parts of it, I’m mixing up all my little pieces. I have about 20 different fabrics from the same line and I want to spread them out a bit.

In other quilty news... remember that Washington State Round Robin Quilt that I contributed to (see QA Quilt Show)? Well... drum roll please.... it took FIRST PLACE in its category (Large - Duet/Group)! Wendy has a blue ribbon now!! Aren’t we cool?? LOL! I think no one was more surprised than her. She’s been having allergy head, so she wasn’t even going to go to the awards this week. Isn’t she glad she did?!? She thought the other quilt she entered (different category) had a fair chance, and when that didn’t win, she figured she was done. And then Roxanne Carter got an Honorable Mention in the Duet/Group category, so Wendy REALLY thought she had no chance! QA hasn’t posted pictures of the winning entries yet, but when they do, they’ll be around the QA site somewhere.

So I think the other news I have to share this time is that I’m going to be donating my lovely ~*~naturally curly hair~*~ to charity in the next month or so. I’m not doing enough with it to enjoy it, and even though short hair is higher maintenance because of the curls, it’s easier to wash and comb and doesn’t immobilize my head when my sweet husband puts his arm around me. :-) I finally have him convinced that short hair is okay. And it’s not like it won’t ever grow back. The only drawback is that when it’s been this long in the past, it’s never had the pretty curls it does now. I might have nightmare hair next time I go to grow it out! LOL!!! I’ve been playing with a put-a-hairstyle-on-your-photo website and may put some pictures up for voting once I get them narrowed down. Then I’ll get to see if anyone is actually reading this! ;-)

That’s all for now... thanks for stopping by!

You know you're a quilter if....

Well, I get some sewing in this weekend (YAY!). I decided to put a few quilts in my guild’s show that’s coming up next week. I usually don’t because (a) I don’t generally have anything around home that I’ve actually completed, and (b) I am usually not able to help out since it’s a one-day show on a weekday in a different county, and I hate to just have them display my stuff without contributing to the show. However, I got an email last week looking for more quilts. So I decided on my mystery quilt (previously shown, [picture below), the quilt I made for my Mom (picture below), and a Quilt Pink quilt I bought last year. I didn’t make it, but it’s a nice story and for a good cause, and it’s in my possession. ;-) I asked Mom if I could borrow her quilt for the show, and she was more than happy to oblige. She’s so excited that I get to be in a show. ;-)

The mystery quilt had a permanent sleeve, so I only had to make two sleeves. I got them made and one sewn on yesterday. This was around spending the better part of two hours pressing fabric that I washed for the baby quilt Mom and I are making. Yes, my back hurt. ;-) I was doing the hand-sewing while we were playing cards. I still have one more sleeve to hand sew on (but at least the sleeve is made)... have I mentioned how I hate hand sewing?????

Thursday I have a “Girl’s Night Out” sew time, and I have to get some fabric pressed and cut for that, and I’ll probably take the Janome because I want to do the whole project on one machine (I have a cheaper machine that I take to sew days to cut down on the computerized innards getting jostled around). My Janome and I got along quite well on Sunday, so that’s good news. I haven’t tried anything fancier than a straight stitch and winding a few bobbins, but I was successful at those, so that helped. I also love my new sewing cabinet insert – I’ve never been able to sew flush before! I’m really looking forward to doing a larger project to see how it works with that. I also was able to do a “proof of concept” of my sewing room. The lighting is awful (which I knew). I’m waiting until I’m sure on how I want things arranged before we start installing track lighting. I also had Mom sewing with me, so I got to try out more than one person in the room plus having the ironing board and cutting table set up. Needs a little more thought, but we’re making progress.

Oh, speaking of ironing boards... you know you’re a quilter when you go to Costco and your impulse purchase is an ironing board! :-p I didn’t actually buy it, but I was CLOSE! I have a spiffy space-age cover thing for the one I have now that I don’t think would fit on the new one (which is bigger), but it would be great to have a bigger board... still thinking.

That’s all the rambling I have for now... tasks for the week – a sleeve and pressing and cutting for the sew party on Thursday night! WOO HOO!!!