another hot spot cleaned, second quilting done

My honey headed out for golf on Wednesday morning (11/29) and for me it was ‘best laid plans’ and all that jazz…I had planned to go to WALMART first thing to get all of my chocolate supplies (my 20 pounds of chocolate arrived over a week ago…but I don’t have anything to go with it!), but I couldn’t find my recipes and when I went to re-print them, my computer was totally screwed up.  By the time everything got straightened out it really was too late to go (it’s always a zoo between Thanksgiving and Christmas unless you go super early), but there was an upside.  In looking for my recipes I had another organizational moment.  Here’s the ‘always overflowing’ basket-of- things-to-go-to-the-basement that sits at the top of my basement stairs (I thought somehow my plastic sleeve of recipes could have gotten in there):  

And here’s what it looked like after 15 short minutes of putting things away:  

Now really….it literally took 15 minutes to get rid of everything in that basket…why can’t I keep it neater??  

After that I headed downstairs to continue to sew on CUTE SEA LIFE, and started up quilting on the second quilt loaded on my long arm.  There’s so much going on with the paisley print in the quilt that I didn’t want to add to that, so I just picked a simple stipple in a larger stitch out.  

In the early afternoon I headed out to the lanair to read my book (it got up to 70 degrees today) and when my honey came home around 3 PM (with a score of 85) he joined me for a bit of reading and a nap!  He had the second serving of shrimp scampi for dinner and by the time I joined him on the couch at 8 PM I had the quilting finished on the second quilt:  

and the blocks for the 3 CUTE SEA LIFE quilts were all sewn together: 

lunch at the Greenway, shrimp scampi, Cookie & Elsie

Tuesday morning (11/28) went by in a flash for me…I got my emails read and pushed ‘publish’ on my blog just as my SKYPE rang…with Janice on the line.  We talked until 10:16 AM, after which I ran upstairs, made a quick pit stop and was out the door to pick up Gale:

& Loree:

and head into Charlotte to meet June (without her glasses after cataract surgery....YAY!):

for lunch at the Greenway restaurant.  As always the food tasted wonderful…it’s just that the temperature of it could have been MUCH hotter (it was tepid at best).  

It was hard to choose what to order off of the menu:

but we started off with a yummy selection of breads (the sourdough and the lemon poppyseed were particularly good).

For our soups, I started with clam chowder:

while my dining companions opted for the tomato bisque (with a mini-grilled cheese crouton there in the center):

After that I had the crab cakes:

Gale & Loree had the cider glazed pork shank:

while June had the filet:

We polished everything off with rice pudding and a wonderful chocolate raspberry cookie:

By the time I got home at 2:30, all I wanted to do was take a nap, but instead I changed my clothes and started to work on the mirrored buffet in our living room.  You may remember that I got rid of my ‘good’ china several months ago…I wanted to go over everything else in the buffet to see what to keep and what else to give away.  I didn’t have a lot of time to work on it before it was time to clean shrimp and make dinner for Michael.  I made his favorite shrimp scampi 

before he headed out the door for rehearsal.  After that I decided I deserved some sewing time, so I headed to the studio.  I completed some CUTE SEA LIFE embroideries awhile ago, and cut out the corresponding fish fabric in September, but never got back to sewing stuff together.  So I laid out a pattern on the design wall for more Clinton quilts:

and spent the rest of the evening working on that.  At 7 PM I was a little hungry and went upstairs to make myself 1/2 a sandwich...and my babies were snuggling again:

Michael wasn’t home until almost 10 PM and we watched a bit of TV before bed.

new quilts loaded

It was only 31 degrees when Michael left for golfing in Lancaster on Monday (11/27)…brr_r_r!!!  I was basting on Miss Scarlett by 9 AM…getting 2 smaller quilts loaded up:  

I got that all done….spent a bit of time with 2 customers who stopped by to pick up their quilts, and finally took a break in the afternoon to take Jan out for a milkshake.  Jan took a bad fall on Saturday and she now has 2 black eyes and a broken nose.  We headed to Chik-fil-a, hoping that their Christmas peppermint milkshakes were out…but no such luck.  We had to be happy with one strawberry and one cookies-and-cream  :~).  When I got home, I got the program set up for the first quilt, got bobbins wound and started to stitch it out:  

Michael came home with an 85 and said it wasn’t bad at all in the sun.  He wasn’t interested in dinner as they had a large, late lunch, so he stayed downstairs to run through his emails.  Elsie thought she’d show him that she missed him:  

which of course made someone else jealous:  

and Cookie eventually took over the prized spot on dad’s lap :~):  

Michael left to go to the movies in the evening for THE MAN WHO INVENTED CHRISTMAS, about Charles Dickens writing A CHRISTMAS CAROL (about Scrooge).  By the time he got home (close to 10 PM) I had the first quilt all quilted:  

I also had a bit of time to organize another 'hot spot' (for you FLYLADY fans) in the studio from this: 

to this:  

Michael really enjoyed the movie and we talked for about an hour when he got home before heading to bed.

bread, yoghurt, Sandy F's quilt done

Michael and Cookie headed out for a walk first thing Sunday morning (11/26), while I spent a bit of time in the kitchen.  I haven’t made bread in forever, so I mixed up the dough first thing and left it to rise while I headed downstairs.  While I was working on the remaining rows of Sandy F’s quilt, my honey brought me a smurfy egg/cheese/spinach/English muffin breakfast!  

When I got Sandy’s quilting finished:  

I headed back upstairs to put together yoghurt for Michael (it had been fermenting in the crockpot overnight) 

and to get my fully risen bread:  

into loaves for a second proofing.  I got the bread baked while my honey ran to the grocery store and ran the extra 1/2 loaf down to Paula, who came home from a wonderful vacation with her entire family, with a cold  :~(.  

In the afternoon I got Sandy’s quilt all cleaned up 

looks like Christmas ornaments....right?

and started to load up a double length of fleece for 2 Clinton quilts:  

We went ‘star gazing’ after dinner as the ISS (International Space Station) flew overhead once again.  It seemed even more interesting since we have started to watch the PBS special ‘a year in space’ with Scott Kelly…and I also have his book on hold at the library  :~).