Sewing project

My mom is flying in for a reunion retreat out at Port Townsend on the Olympic Peninsula. One of the things we are doing at the reunion is having a pajama contest. Who ever wins the pajama contest gets a big surprise present from Debbie Macomber. Ms. Macomber was going to come to the retreat and be a guest but her schedule is so busy that she can not make it. So she sent a present for all of us as well as a big gift basket...

The lady who is in charge of the reunion came up with the pajama contest. I am making mine. I decided I could find a really pretty pattern to make. Now here's the thing. I have never sewn a wearable outfit...I did get a nice pattern for an oriental inspired "scrubs" which I am turning into pjs. I found a nice tan brocade/sari fabric to make "silk - like" pajamas. I cut all the fabric out and took the pattern in to see if the two people at work, who I know sew well, could give me any pointers. I also went and found piping in a dark chocolate brown and two frog closures. The top is coming along well. I have the two front pieces attached to the back at the shoulder seams. I also just made the collar (the only part with interfacing) and attached the piping to the collar. I am now too tired to actually go further without fear of mistakes. I cannot wait to finish it though as I am hoping for a very nice top and pants that I could use for a dressy outfit as well.

I also made some freezer jam in the flavor of blueberry. It's sitting on the counter gelling over night...then into the fridge or freezer. I have done this with strawberries already and that was amazing.

Productivity was average today as I got most of the dishes done as well as picked up and organized the master bedroom, except I have about four medium size piles of clothes to get put away and a large pile of laundry to do. Tomorrow I will keep myself busy until it's time to go pick my mom up at the airport. Hopefully it will make the time go faster as well as I can get quite a few things done!

How to spend a geeky weekend in Seattle

This last weekend (friday through Sunday) I went to my first convention. A gaming convention called Penny Arcade Expo. It was held at Washington State Convention and Trade Center (four stories of craziness as I like to say). Friday afternoon Jeremy, two of our friends, and I headed down town to find parking and explore the world of video games, PC games, and board games. It was a big Geek convention and I am proud to say that!

All in all the weekend was very entertaining and enlightening. I went to two panel discussions. Number one was the History of Harmonex (the guys that made Rockband) and number to was "Is casual killing core gaming?" Now many of you who read do not game as much as my dear husband does so I will explain both panels.

The first was a walk through of how this tiny company Harmonex grew from some gentlemen from MIT who wanted to make music more interactive with the general public....all the way up to Rockband and the craziness of popularity that this game has developed.

The second was a discussion about gaming companies gear more of their games towards the "casual" gamer (one who likes to play easier games that you can put down after a half hour if need be and not have to invest so much time into...). On that panel was a gentleman that
I used to watch on tv...on Star Trek: the Next Generation.... Mr. Wil Wheaton.


He is so intelligent and a wonderful speaker as well as a HUGE GEEK - just like the rest of us 70,000 people that attended. I have since become an avid reader of his blogging.

Wil's blog

He is insightful and still very funny when poking fun at geeks and himself.

So that was three days of non-stop lights, games, walking, hard to find food, waiting in lines, and happiness. (Something like one day at the MN State Fair)...

Now it is Tuesday and I can tell you nothing remotely laborious happened on Monday...I don't even know what really happened that day but lots of watching Dirty Jobs with Mike Rowe, napping, and more napping.

I made an attempt at my first batch of freezer jam of the strawberry variety tonight. Check out my food blog tomorrow for the recipe and pictures...then I proceeded to find the only ounce of productivity I have felt at home in two weeks.

That means I cleaned out the fridge (scary), unloaded then reloaded the dishwasher with some dishes that had been sitting for too long, then bagged up threw bags of garbage, two bags of glass and bottles, and had Jeremy help haul them to the garbage...in the meantime cleaning off most of the table and counters. I feel very productive and tired too. This week, because I had four days off, I am working four ten hour shifts...I feel like I am living at the job this week...but it's ok because I am finally out of training and working on my own with the assistance of a mentor for the next two weeks. I enjoy the problem solving aspect of my job and helping consumer's feel so much better about our company (knowing that we rock as a company and how we treat the consumer).

so that is a random post for you...covering a few days...

P.s. My mom is coming to visit in 24 days (but who's counting!)

P.p.s... Jeremy and I found Waldo!

Domestic duties, and bargellos

Today I woke up when Jeremy left for work and started out bright and early by making what I am now dubbing Cheesy Chicken Enchilada Soup. I put all the ingredients in the slow-cooker and turned it on low. I then started laying out the strips from a jellyroll packet for a Bargello quilt. Basics of this quilt are to sew strips together then cut those sewn strips 90 degrees across the sewn so you have new strips of squares with each part of the original strips on them. The beautiful part of a bargello quilt is how you then line up the strips by rotating them so the one original strips are offset creating a pattern.

I know it's hard to imagine, just go google Bargello quilt images and see what comes up. I think they are part of what makes it a wonderful quilt is how just moving the pieces can make something turn into artwork. That's what I love about quilting, how it can be so artful.

So I am almost done sewing the first round of strips. Then comes the cutting. I will post a picture tomorrow of my progress.

I also did all the laundry in the apartment, that was fun! Clean clothes smells so good!

Small Worlds

Well the week has gone by and I have successfully made our apartment visitable. I worked my behind off yesterday and today getting ready for Jeremy's brother and girlfriend. Then at about 3pm I hopped in the car and drove to the Seattle airport and found my way no problem. I walked to baggage claim to wait for them to arrive and as I watched people get off the escalator I did a double take...I saw four people from Winona State that I went to college with walking towards the very baggage claim I was standing next to. My mouth dropped open and I walked towards them and said hello. They were just as surprised as I was. I haven't seen them in three years. It turns out they are here for a conference for the boys to attend and their now wives got to come along. I told them about moving out here and Jeremy's new job and then I had to run to find Jer's brother. I did leave them my number in case they wanted to have dinner or something. It also turns out they are staying in Redmond tonight (the town next to Bellevue, and basically a stone's throw away from my apartment).

So on a last note, we took Jake and Elisa to Ooba's Mexican restaurant/grill. We also took neighbors Sue and her son Ricky. We all had a blast. I had a Fresh Mahi Mahi burito, Jer had a Baja style Burrito with Cod.

It was a great night, and I am looking forward to the rest of the week. Now off to bed in my clean apartment. Don't worry I am going to take pictures so you all can see our place now that it's clean and 95% unpacked.

wacky weekend

So we went to Jer's Aunt's house yesterday for his family's traditional Thanksgiving. Man was that turkey good. We were there for a bit, and Jer finally told his family that we were leaving, and they were really shocked but excited. They asked when Jer was leaving and he said "tomorrow". So we came home and cleaned some more. I got up at 7:30 this morning to start cleaning more...Jer was up by a record time of 8:30 (for a Sunday that is unheard of). We worked really hard, vacuumed the entire house again, I cleaned the bathrooms again, we moved more and more stuff to the garage, finally at about 12:40pm we walked through the house as if we were the ones looking to buy, and our verdict was yes!

So we left feeling like our house was ready to be shown to potential buyers. We swung over to Best Buy because we bought a point and shoot camera and the guy forgot to add the service package on. After settling that, we headed to the mall for Jeremy's final Minnesota meal. He got ManchuWok (orange chicken is his favorite) and I got A & W. We stopped in at Zales to see if his watch was back from being repaired (it wasn't) and then headed out to the Rochester Airport to drop him off. He is now on his way to MSP and then out to SEATAC airport and Nintendo!

I have returned home to a pristine 4 bedroom house, Now what? It's very quiet and odd.

Who wants to come over?

update on the house cleaning

We have all the upstairs but the spare room cleaned. We still have the downstairs to do as well. Jer got up early and went out to "rake" mow the lawn and just as he finished with the last bag and it started to snow/rain. We then hauled all the bags (in two trips) to the compost site and made it home to shovels some food in and welcome our Realtor over to start the paperwork for selling the house. Tomorrow he is bringing by the official for sale sign. Tuesday his team is coming through to give us pointers on things we should pack away and how we should rearrange furniture or things.

it's thanksgiving week... mom and dad are coming wednesday and so are Candi and the kids and maybe Erikk...so our house is almost clean for them but clean for the showings too...

i'm tired, can I have a break now? tomorrow is the complete downstairs...and work...

Holy moley, batman!

So we're putting our house up for sale. That's part of the big news. And the realtor wants to take pictures of our house today. Problem? I've been gone since Wednesday, and my house is a sty. So I will be cleaning all night long, and packing....and cleaning.

Holy crap this is craziness.