Archive for December, 2006

Our furniture arrived from GA yesterday and we’ve been very busy the last couple days. Today we had to have everything out of the temporary apartment, clean it, and turn the keys in by 12PM. I’m glad to be down to one place here in MN especially since we still have both the house and the condo in GA. No offers on the condo yet and Chris won’t move into the house until the end of January so still plenty to worry about there.

The bedroom I’d planned to use as my studio is smaller than indicated on the floor plan so I’m having to modify my plans. Luckily there’s a small den so I’ve set up my sewing machine, cutting table, iron, and computer desk in the den and will have my fabric storage, books, supplies and longarm in the bedroom.

I found a great shelving unit at Ikea and bought two of them. They take up the entire wall of the bedroom and I’m putting my quilting books on the bottom shelves, my yarn in bins along one side, and the rest will be for fabric. I have a lot of unpacking yet to do in the studio and I won’t set up the longarm until all the other boxes are unpacked.

I did find my string bins and my sewing machine so I may start making a few string blocks for the HeartStrings Quilt Project as I unpack the rest of the studio. I do have a deadline for my unpacking since I need Keith to help me set up the longarm table and he goes out of town on January 2nd so I can’t procrastinate too long.

Comcast is coming in the morning so I’ll have my internet set back up and will be able to post pictures again too.

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With the move we haven’t really been able to celebrate the season as we traditionally do. We won’t see Chris and Becky or Adam and we don’t do presents, choosing rather to make a donation to Habitat for Humanity as we have the last several years. So no tree, no presents, no home cooked meals.

One bright spot was that Adam brought homemade Christmas cookies to us the day before we left Marietta. Baking Christmas cookies has long been a tradition of ours that usually starts right after Thanksgiving and lasts until New Year’s Day. I think eating Christmas cookies are Keith’s favorite holiday tradition.

Another family tradition that we adopted from Keith’s family is the Christmas Eve Picnic on the floor. Cold cuts, potato salad, and Christmas cookies of course – eaten on the floor in front of the fire and followed by a home cooked meal on Christmas day.

Well this year we’ll be eating Christmas dinner in a restaurant (the alternative was a frozen lasagna) but on Christmas Eve we will go over to our unfurnished apartment with a picnic (sandwiches and cookies) and eat on the floor in front of the fire.

Merry Christmas to you all and I hope that you enjoy celebrating your own family traditions this holiday season.

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I arrived in Minneapolis yesterday just in time for some snow. It wasn’t much but did help put me in the Christmas spirit as did the cold! I have a few days to rest before the movers bring our things and the unpacking frenzy begins.

In the meantime, I’ve been working on setting up a String Quilt Project as an offshoot of the Stashbuster yahoo group I belong to. I’m really excited about working on a group charity project and hope that it will help keep me occupied when Keith is off traveling this winter.

If anyone is interested in joining us or finding out more visit our group or email me directly for details.

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I’ve been running around feeling like I’m not getting anything accomplished and I finally figured out why as I was writing Keith an email telling him all the little tasks I had gotten done yesterday.

I’m a list maker.

I have lists for quilts quilted, for UFO’s, for stash fabric used, for quilts donated, etc. All of which help make me feel productive and keep me motivated – I just LOVE marking things off a list when they’re done – makes me want to finish more things and mark them off the list too.

For this move, I haven’t made as many lists as usual. My tasks are all floating around in my head and I don’t have a piece of paper with all the things I’ve accomplished marked off.

So my lesson learned is: make lists – mark tasks off as they are completed – feel good!

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Since I can’t sleep I decided to set up a Webshots album with quilt photos posted this year on my blog. I frequently find myself searching back through old posts to find a particular picture of a quilt to show someone in response to a question or comment and I decided it would be easier to have all the quilt photos in one place.

The new layout features of beta blogger certainly made it much easier to post the link on the sidebar too. Not all of these were made this year but they were posted on the blog for one reason or another.

Mary’s Webshots Album

Countdown: 3 days until the packers arrive

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