A happy day....

Bill got his offer today, so I’m sure he’s home rattling through all the paperwork and stuff. YAY! I’m so thankful that everything turned out this well... there could have been a lot rougher time, and we praise God for making this pretty painless but still reminding us that we are not in control and anything can happen anytime.

Last night I sorted through my music fabric again and divided it up into various states of prettiness and tucked them away (except for the really nice ones... I’m leaving them out to see if the things I bought separately play well together and last night was not the night to judge. :-)

I almost never get personal phone calls during work hours, but the last couple of times I have, I’ve gotten two at once. :-p I got a call back from my doctor’s medical assistant about this battle I’m having trying to get a prescription refilled. I started the process on the 20^th to make sure I didn’t run out. Good thing, because I STILL don’t have it. Ugh. ANYWAY, I was finishing up talking to her and I hear my call waiting. SO I catch that call and it’s the jewelry store “back home” (New York State) telling me my ring is ready! YAY! For those of you know don’t know, I went to get my ring cleaned in August and one of the small stones fell out in the ultrasonic cleaner. They found the stone (I later found out the tip was broken off, which is probably why it fell out). After that, I didn’t feel like dealing with sending it (just feelin’ lethargic and not caring about much) and so I sent it near the beginning of October. They had trouble finding a stone that fit and had to deal with insurance, but a stone was found, all is well and it will be on its way to me on Monday. It’ll be so nice to have my “pretty” ring back. I use it as my wedding band, but I have a backup for situations where I don’t want to wear something that sparkly. They’re shipping it overnight, so when I get home Tuesday, it should be there. :-)

Bill’s going to dress in his handsome Robin Hood costume tonight to hand out candy. He loves that stuff. The rest of us are going to sit around and play cards. We’re so exciting, aren’t we?

Happy Halloween (unless of course that offends you, then have a Happy Friday!) :-)

Blessings,
Kristin

He's in! :-)

Hi, all!!!

Bill got news this morning that his references checked out and they're going to be extending an offer Friday or Monday! YIPPPPEEEEE and Praise God!!!

Thanks all for praying, and if you want to keep praying for his adjustment into a new environment, that would be great.

One kinda bummer note is that we won't be able to go see Bill's brother for Christmas as we had hoped. Bill only gets a couple days off as paid holiday, and he can't use any vacation until his 90-day probational period is over. I was pretty sad about that last night. But the nice thing is the company has a lot of perks and fringe benefits. Too bad they don't have a job for me! ;-)

On a non-Bill note :-) I wasn't feeling to terribly great last night, but I did sort through a bunch of fabrics from a project that I started and hated. :-) I pulled out the "really good" stuff, the "pretty good" stuff and the "good" stuff, and left the "mediocre" stuff for another day. Some of the blocks were already put together in a rather icky way, but maybe I'll use those in a scrappy quilt one of these days. I bought a bunch of music theme and accent fabrics, and what made me think they'd all look good in the same project is beyond me. I've since bought some nice fabrics in browns and creams (some music, some not), and they'll go well with some of the stuff that I've rescued from the mess I made (or was preparing to make in some cases). Let's hear it for procrastination! YAY!

Thanks again for all your prayers and your expressions of love and support with Bill's job situation! :-)

Blessings,
Kristin

This just in....

Look at this! Twice in one day! ;-)

Bill just got an email from the place we’d been hoping for (first choice, first interview) and pending the checking of his references, they want to make him an offer and have him start November 10! YAY! The $$ is a little less than he was making, but 2 good raises and he’ll be above what he was making when he got laid off. I’ll let you know when he has a formal offer, but it’s looking like the end (or the beginning, as it were) is in sight.

Money will be a little tight for a few weeks until he gets his first paycheck, so that should be interesting. Depending on how their pay periods run, it could be as late as November 28 before he sees a paycheck. The severance and pay runs out on November 6 (what he would have made had he still been working). Not that we can’t cut expenses between now and then, but Bill brings in 2/3 of our income, and that’s a lot to not have, even for a few weeks. It could get interesting. :-)

Just had to share... I now return you to your regularly scheduled blogging. ;-)

Blessings!
Kristin

Tissue box covers DONE!!

Hi, All!!

Guess what! I went and bought fabric for a Halloween tissue box cover and one harvest one, and I got them done last night! YAY! I also went through some of my stash and WIPs and I have stuff I don't even remember I have! Many are partially finished or a rework is in my brain. I guess I won't be whining anytime soon that I have nothing to work on (though we knew that from my list, didn't we?)

Question for quilters: How do you organize the things that are smaller than a fat quarter but bigger than a "scrap?" I have some things I found that are large enough to be useful in a scrappy quilt, but not small enough to call it a scrap that I can put in my scrap bin. Some of them are really nice and I hate to just make them into squares for another project and waste what I have. Any ideas?

No interviews today, but Bill might hear back on that job today that he interviewed for last Wednesday and would really be a good fit for him (but more likely it will be tomorrow before he hears anything). Bill got a call last night from a former coworker that he was close to. That was pretty cool.

I'm hoping to quilt the islands on the pirate quilt tonight, so if anyone has suggestions, y'all had better comment soon before I run wild with something tacky and nasty. ;-) I'm hoping to make one more compass block this week or early next week and then one at Girls' Night Out Thursday the 6th (and I can get help if I'm totally lost and void of skill and memory). Then one more after that and I can start planning the rest of the quilt. Yay, me! :-) The rest of it should go faster (ha ha) because there are no real "pictures" to echo and there's no more intricate piecing, plus I think I'm just going to either meander on the rest of maybe do a crossed line (like the stuff you get pre-quilted). I think I'm going to need to go buy thread because some of the motifs in the other fabrics are cool and I don't want to detract. And since I'm having such a fit with the invisible thread (I can't get the bobbin tension right), I don't know that that's an option. Maybe I'll get Roxanne's help with that next Thursday.

I guess that's it for now...

Blessings!
Kristin

Found the feet!!

Hi, All!!!

My night ended better last night than Sunday night. I got a few things shuffled around (just scrapbooking stuff... I didn’t find any vagabond sewing items). I have more to do there, but my mission was to see if there would be anywhere feet would be hiding. So I decided to check the insides and all the pockets of my two sewing totes, and guess what! The missing feet are found (along with a thread spool adapter I’d been looking for - I do need more than two of those, really). I guess my logic when I put them there was that I’d want to take them with me all the time (why I’d want to take my White feet everywhere I don’t know, but that’s just beyond speculation at this point). Too bad I rarely look in the outside pockets of my sewing totes. :-p I still don’t know where those four spools of thread are, but at least I have my feet, and am going to put them in a more logical place this time... as soon as I figure out what that is. The ones that are machine-specific are easy... it’s the CurveMaster foot that can be used with any of the machines that’s the tough one. I only have one other foot that can be used with anything (and I’m not sure if it will work with my Janome or White - I’ve only used it on a machine I don’t have anymore), and that’s too big to put in the small tackle boxes I have. So the mystery is solved and a little bit more is right with the world. Now I just have to figure out a logical place for my CurveMaster foot... but I think that’s what got me into trouble in the first place.

Bill had a phone interview yesterday with an HR gal that seemed to think his resume was worth passing up to the hiring manager, so there’s a step. He also got a call from someone else asking him questions and asking for a clean copy of his resume (I guess the ones on the job sites come out as all text). Still waiting for tomorrow or Thursday to find out about the first job he interviewed for.

Still trying to think of how I want to quilt the other part of the QAYG I’m doing. I’ll include a picture (from a website, not what I’ve done) and If you have any suggestions, let me know. I’ve cut off the border with the squares to make it look a little less juvenile and the quilting I’ve done so far is meandering in the water (hee hee). There’s a lot more empty space on the islands than it looks in the photo, so just echoing the mountains isn’t going to give me tight enough quilting for the batting I’m using. I also need to do something with the top right compass since it’s about 4-5 inches wide (if I remember right - I don’t have it in front of me). I was thinking of satin stitching the two brown circles (outside and then the start of the center) and that should work. I don’t want to go over all the black lines inside of and radiating from the compass, but maybe I could. What do you think?

Other than that, there’s not much new except a little recycling rant I had this morning. The passion is gone, so there’s really nothing to tell on that one anymore. Sorry, folks!

Blessings!
Kristin

Bill’s interviews and hobby news

Hi, all!!

I forgot that I didn’t update about Bill’s interview... I didn’t want to get anyone’s hopes up and have the prayers stop. ;-) Bill had a really promising interview last Wednesday. They have one more candidate that they're interviewing this Wednesday, so the waiting game is on until the 29th or 30th (or so). We'll probably hear on Thursday one way or the other. Everyone seemed to like him, and the HR gal told Bill not to accept another offer without calling her first. He’s got another interview this morning, and people have been calling him in response to the posting he’s put on various job sites. So things are rolling, but by the end of the month, his severance and everything will be gone. We’re fortunate to have that much, but I’m going to start to get a little paranoid on November 7 if/when he doesn’t have a paycheck. :-p

Bill’s parents got home safely on Friday (no “adventures” like the trip out, thank goodness). We did hear that Bill’s Dad’s last sibling passed away last week (his parents were already on their way home). I’m not sure how things are going there, but I know Bill and I are reminded how blessed we are to have parents in good health (his much older than mine).

I don’t remember if I mentioned I’m doing a quilt-as-you-go for a Christmas gift for Bill’s brother. As of last night, I have the center section (24x32 roughly) half done. And it’s the easy part, of course. ;-) The whole section is the easiest thing I’ll probably do, so it’s all uphill from here for the rest of the quilt, too. Hopefully it’ll all work out just fine and I’ll have it done by Christmas. We were planning on going there for Christmas so we could give it to him in person, but with Bill’s job situation, we don’t know if we’ll get there or not. Film at 11. ;-) I also go VERY frustrated last night because I can’t find two of my feet (for a sewing machine, for you wiseacres out there). I was (and am) very unhappy since one (which would function for both) is not cheap to replace. *sigh* I feel less frustrated today, but next time I go to use that machine (my cheap class machine), I’m going to be very unhappy that I don’t have my 1/4” foot. :-/ I can buy a new set of feet for $10 (plus shipping), but if I’m going to do that, I may as well buy the $27 fancy foot that can be used for the same thing and will fit on all my machines. Guess I’d better get online soon and see if I find it below retail. I don’t think they carry them at Jo-Ann’s (they’re not on the website). It would be nice if they did because then I could use a 40% off coupon. So now I get to comb quilt shops for that and for some other things I just can’t find that I know exist but are not with my sewing stuff. Missing from sew day? Missing like my mind? Should I start checking places that are unlikely (for my sewing things, not my brain)? Uck. I hate doing that. But it’ll make me more organized, right? Yeah. Good luck with that one! :-p

Okay, for the last [emergent] hobby.... we and Bill’s parents went to McDonald’s for lunch before they went. I am now addicted to the Monopoly thing they’re doing. :-p I’m an idiot. :-p I also started the online game (you put in codes from all the little tiny things they give you) and you get to roll dice and try to land on the right spots to win something or other. I got 25 Coke Rewards points from landing on Community Chest... not too bad! That’s a free 20oz bottle! YAY! You can only enter 10 codes per day and I have 16 more to go (two of which have bad printing so I can’t read the numbers. Ugh!). I’ll let you know if I win anything else. :-)

That’s it for now... tonight, it’s time to organize (yuck) and see if I can find any of my AWOL sewing stuff. ;-)

Blessings!
Kristin

Another update - Bill has an interview!!!

Hi, all!!!
Again, thanks to those who offered support and said hi. :-)

I just wanted to let you know that Bill has an interview Wednesday from 10:30am through 1pm the place that's referenced below where he interviewed 2-1/2 years ago). His parents are leaving Wednesday afternoon, but they didn't have any interview openings on Thursday or Friday, and it sounded like that time was about the only option. Fortunately, Bill's parents understand :-) and as long as the interview doesn't run over, he should be able to see his parents off (or we can meet at the train station if he's running way behind). It sounds like the interview process is pretty structured, so he shouldn't have a problem getting back, but I'm a Nervous Nellie sometimes. ;-)

Please pray for God's will, and that the interview doesn't run over (too far, anyway) so Bill would be able to make it home in time that the four of us can go to the train station together.

Thanks again so much for your thoughts and prayers... more news on Thursday or Friday! :-)

Blessings!
Kristin

P. S. He has also had a temp agency call him for a 1-year contract assignment... it wouldn't be his first choice, but it's nice to know there are things out there. :-)