Bandit And Back Basting

Turns out Bandit has an UTI.  He kept throwing up yesterday and I took him in today.  Vet said his bladder was the size of a grapefruit.  I feel like a terrible mommy for not knowing something was wrong.  That explains why I found cat urine all over my cycling clothing last week.  Who knows how long he's been using them for a litter box.

He got a shot and actually seems to be doing a lot better.

I got more of my "Red December" blocks worked on today.  I cut out around the pieces of the first block and have been basting the third block.  It's been nice to just sit and do handwork.  Sigh.  Blogger won't let me play nice with the first photo.  Buttons seems to be a camera hog.

Getting the second block fabric cut out for hand appliqué:

I had really hoped to ride my bike today, but the wind has been blowing really strong for the past few days so no luck.

Ahhh..the joys of daylight lasting longer.  I started feeling so much better the past few days and it's been really nice.  I'm tired of being cranky and whiny.  It also helped that I dumped the "My Tweets" quilt into the basement for now.  I LOVE the pattern.  I just finally had to admit to myself that I've hated making it.

That has given me time to work on another project, the "Red December" appliqué quilt.  I had already decided to back baste the quilt and had traced out the design on four pieces of fabric.  I just hadn't back basted the other three panels.  I figured it wouldn't take very long to back baste three other panels until I started.  It's taken me a day and a half to get one done.  My fingers are so sore they burn.  I'll have to do the other two next week.

Cycling:


I got my bike out the other day and went for a ride with my son.  I get about 3/4 of a mile out and I start gasping for air.  I finally get enough to keep going and about five minutes later while going through the gravel roads, I'm dying for air again.  I had to do this two more times and finally gave up on the hill.  I ended up walking up, still having to stop for air.  Even my son was worried.

Now I know I haven't ridden miles over the winter, but we went a total of about 4 miles and it nearly killed me.

I went out on my own the other day on the same route and was having the same problem.  My heart rate seems okay, my legs are sore but aren't burning, but I'm out of air.  I did go farther pushing myself to just deal with it and kept going for two more miles.

Only things I can come up with is a) I'm far more out of shape than I think or b) I might have exercised induced asthma.  I spent last summer doing the same thing.  Just dying for air, stopping to rest, go farther, gasp for air and keep going.  Anything over about 10 mph was enough to leave by the side of the road for a few minutes while I could get air.

The other thing I don't get about cycling is how can you burn yourself out so fast energy wise.  I can walk a few miles and be fine.  A few miles on a bike and I'm wiped.

Next pay day I figure I'd better see a doc about exercised induced asthma.

Baby Card

I am actually pretty reclusive.  The idea of giving crafty cards and other fancy papers seemed better suited for people who truly have a lot of friends and more exciting lives.  While I know lots of people, I'm not really part of their lives.  If you are bipolar, you'll understand.

Until today.

My neighbor just had a baby boy and she teaches my son's honor choir.  It's her first baby and I had this brilliant idea of making a card.  I have a cutter.  I have paper.  I have MTC and SCAL.  This should be easy.  I was up in Lincoln today and found a simple boy sticker set and knew I wanted it.

Well...

I knew what I wanted.  Nothing silly or childish.  You know, the diapers, onsies, bottles, safety pins, and rattles.  I wanted a classy card that was sweet.  I scoured the internet.  Nothing.  Everything was the usual sickly sweet.

DD saw what I was doing, grabbed some paper, the sticker set and my manual paper cutter.  In a few minutes she had a card up and going.  It's gorgeous.  Sigh.  I make things much harder than it really is.

She'd taken my Sizzix BigKick, used an embossing die to do two pieces of paper, glued them together, and put the sticker set on top.  She then glued that to the paper card.  Wow.

I figured I could do the center.  I wanted "Congratulations" as I didn't know what else to say.  I pulled up MTC and went through the fonts.  Nothing.  I recalled that MTC can import fonts from the internet.  I did some looking and found the perfect font.  I typed up "Congratulations" on the screen, put a pen in the CTSNBN (cutter that shall not be named) and it went to work.

So...  here it is!  My first ever card!

The inside:

 

Yup.  I claim the inside.  Stickers and everything.  DD claims the front.  It's PERFECT.

Tandem Bikes

Depression sucks.  It makes you cranky, impossible to live with and all I want to do is sleep all day.

DH surprised me with dinner last night.  We had agreed to go out last Saturday to avoid reservations and the crowds.  We had lunch in Lincoln and spent the afternoon hitting our favorite stores.  He came in the door last night, told me to get my coat and we were going to dinner.  We had a nice dinner and a great date.

One of the bike shops had a tandem bike so DH and figured we'd try it out.  He's talked about a tandem bike but I'll tell you what, those take coordination and trust and we don't have it right now.  I'm sorry I don't have a pic to post of us landing in the snow pile after we tried to turn a corner.  The LBS guy was pretty pissed which made it even funnier since we told him we'd never ridden a tandem bike and wasn't sure how to do it.  You told us to go out and try it.  It's fun!  He took the bike, grumbled and mumbled as he took the bike back in.  We left soon after.

I'd like to give it another go, but we'd need a wide open space and a few hours to get the communication right.  If you are the stoker (back seat) all you do is pedal and pray your DH's proximity alarm doesn't go off (or at least get a warning) and if you are the captain, you are in charge of everything else and need to let the stoker know what's going on.

These bikes would either improve your marriage or destroy it.  LOL!

Really Cold

It's 1pm on Friday and no phone call.  My house is down to 60 degrees from 71.  He said he'd call when the part came in.  I REALLY don't want to spend the weekend without a real heater.  We aren't stuck, it's just frustrating.

My kids have been spending the nights at friend's houses.  I'm grateful that people are willing to do that.

Tomorrow DH is taking me to Lincoln for Valentine's Day.  It may not be a date if the house is cold though.  LOL.  I told him not to worry about flowers.  While I'd' LOVE some, I refuse to spend 60 dollars on them.   Plus my cats have a love of rose leaves and will munch on them all day.  It's not worth the chasing or the squirt bottle over roses.  Any one else's cat adore rose leaves?

I was talking to the bike mechanic on Wednesday about tandem bikes.  He has one coming in a few weeks.  He showed it to me and it's based off DH's Trek Navigator.  DH fell in love immediately with the picture online.

Not sure I want to do the tandem thing.  After all, how do you get it out to a trail in Lincoln?  It's not going to fit in my SUV and I don't think they make bike racks for one.  If they do, it will cost a fortune.

ohhhhh...my gas guy came just now!!  Maybe I will have heat today!





 

Cold And Wet

But now just cold.

I discovered on Tuesday that a small water tube to my humidifier burst, flooding out my basement just enough to make things miserable.  I've learned a long time ago never to put valuables or anything else you don't want wet in the basement so most of it wasn't a loss.  The tube probably burst in the morning and I didn't discover it until around 2:30 pm.

I spend all afternoon cleaning up and go to turn on the heat.  Nothing.  A few hours later, nothing.  The gas guy comes in the next morning and painfully tells me that the circuit board is fried due to the water and I won't have heat until Friday.

So now I'm just cold.

I do have a giant heater, kerosene? out in the garage.  You know, that LDS three day emergency kit thing, but I don't think I can put it on carpet and truthfully I'm scared too anyway.  I have a small heater sitting next to me right now so we aren't freezing.  Just cold and glad I have a lot of quilts to use.

I'm just grateful the Service Guard plan we purchase every month covers everything and it wasn't a water pipe.  Yeah, it's expensive, but sure beats having to come up with the cash to fix this.

Now I just hope it's the circuit board and I don't need a whole new heater.  It's too cold to quilt right now so I'll post when I can.

edited:

Took out the kerosene heater.  No way will that work in my house as the rooms are too small and the caution page was filled up completely.  I know my FIL meant well when he was convinced the world was ending (long story) and bought us the heater but it's really meant for industrial usage.

"My Tweets" Do Over

I finally have a quilt post.

I'm not quite sure what happened with the "My Tweets" size blocks.  All I know is I messed up.  First response was to make the center bigger so I added borders.  Her directions then said I could cut the blocks down.  Okay.  I sized two blocks and realized that I screwed up this one.  I looked at the others and figured I'd have the same problem on several more.  The only option was to start over on the center panel and make it the size I missed when the package was sent.

So...

My heart just hasn't truly been in it.  I got this far and I just want to shove the entire project into the closet.  The worst part about these patterns are the feathers.

At least I didn't have the center panel done with the satin stitching.  I just hope I have enough fabric to finish.