A new venture?

I just finished making a prototype for an insulin pump pouch for the granddaughter of a friend of my mother. They're not difficult to make, and already I can see some possibilities for personalizing them. It would be interesting to see if I can find a market for them. This pouch features a velcro closure and an adjustable elastic waist strap. There's no reason it couldn't be used for other applications, like coin/key purse for latchkey kids. It's soft enough to be worn under clothes without chafing.

My sewing orders seem to come in clumps. I can go for a long spell without any orders and then, all of a sudden, I have several orders going at the same time. I am currently working on some patches, the insulin pump pouches and a special quilt. I know that as we get nearer to Christmas I can count on a bunch of sweatshirts to embroider and one or two quilts. I'm hoping to finish the patches by Monday so I can deliver them on Tuesday.

It looks like summer is here this weekend. Finally we have some sunny weather and warm temperatures. I took Rocky for a walk around the block and we stopped at a tag sale. I spied some stuffed animals and Rocky took a liking to a stuffed frog that my neighbor bought for him. It was cute to see him walk the rest of the way home with the frog in his mouth. He was so proud.

Thursday night we lost two BIG limbs on a maple tree out back. We were very lucky. Fortunately our neighbor had gone to the grocery store for a few minutes just before the branches crashed to the ground so they missed landing on his car. They also missed taking down the power lines. I called the arborist about taking down the rest of the tree, but so far he has not stopped by so today John and our neighbor cleaned up the two limbs themselves. John is going to be tired tonight!

I'd write more, but my fuzzy buddy has his head in my lap and is telling me it's time to go out.

Milestone

July 14th was the 25th anniversary of John and Diane (not our wedding anniversary, but the day we met). And, yes, we celebrated. We went out to dinner at one of John's favorite Italian restaurants. Tomorrow is John's birthday (in a manner of speaking, I was an early birthday present for him 25 years ago when we were fixed up by a mutual friend) so tonight we went out to eat (again) because tomorrow night I have my aquacise class. We have a favorite "go-to" restaurant where the food is always reliable, satisfying and priced right. You can get a sandwich or a steak dinner and breakfast any time of day and they make the best fried scallops around.

My Lia Sophia order finally arrived with only a few items backordered. I got quite a haul for myself. Now to go through it all. If I keep it in those little blue boxes I'll never remember what all I have, besides, the jewelry is too pretty to hide in boxes and drawers.

Grilled Pizza

I love my new work schedule. With mandatory furlough days for town employees falling on many Mondays this year I changed my part-time schedule from Monday, Tuesday, Thursday (days that had been requested by my supervisor when she hired me 6 years ago) to Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, so now I have a 4-day weekend every week. I really love my Mondays. Today I had an 8:30 appointment for routine bloodwork (fasting) after which I took myself out to breakfast at my favorite spot and then went to Wal-Mart to poke around. I guess it's been a couple of weeks since I've been to that Wal-Mart and in that time they've begun a major renovation that has the entire store turned upside down. It was very chaotic and unsettling, which just goes to show that I can be tolerant of chaos of my own making but I am bothered by chaos that I can't control. I was very glad to pay for my purchases and GET OUT OF THERE!

Hooray! My Lia Sophia order has finally shipped. At least I now have a tracking number. I don't know where it ships from but hopefully it will be in my hands by the end of the week.

The rest of my day was spent sorting through stuff in my studio. I literally had about a 2" square work surface to make John's birthday card because things have gotten so out of hand. While I worked I watched disc 2 of Planet Earth from Netflix. I still have a lot more work to do, and I guess it's going to be a neverending project. A few weeks ago I bought a 12 x 12 expanding file with colored tabs. I don't know if they intended it for this, but I have sorted my loose paper into color groups by the tabs. Now I have a place to put those partial sheets of paper after I use my Cricut (or Pazzles Inspiration, which I AM going to start using).

Dinner tonight was a cookout. I made shish kebab and a grilled pizza. I never believed that you could grill pizza dough without making a gawdawful mess, but I stand corrected. The crust got a little charred but the finished pizza was pleasantly crunchy and chewy. I used pizza dough from the grocery store, leftover Classico tomato basil sauce, carmelized onion and mushroom and pizza cheese. The actual grilling time was about 2-3 minutes each side. It was good. I would do it again.

My GPS bit the dust. I have a Nextar X3-02 and it just stopped charging. I'm looking around for a replacement. I've actually been pretty satisfied with the Nextar. It's got the text to speech feature which makes me laugh when the voice gets abbreviations screwed up. Of course, I wasn't too happy when the GPS routed me through the Lincoln Tunnel driving from VA to CT and then lost me in Manhattan because the tall buildings prevented me from getting a satellite signal. It seems that all GPS systems have pros and cons. If anyone is reading this and you have a GPS that you love, I'd like to hear from you.

And what about Kindle...Naturally, my brother has one. He has everything. I've been looking at Kindle and the Sony e-Book (they're now the same price). But then, there's a free Kindle app for my i-touch which I downloaded, along with a few free books. I think the Kindle app is a barebones reader where you miss out on a lot of the features of the regular Kindle (like the dictionary), but using the i-touch version means that I don't have to put yet another device in my purse. I don't find the i-touch screen too small to read comfortably, but it is uncomfortable to have to hold the little device for an extended period. Another difference that I've seen between the Kindle and Sony is that Sony allows you to share your library with up to 5 family members. My house is filled with books. I love books but I'm running out of space to store all the books I have. It sounds incredible to be able to lug around 1,500 volumes in a little device the size of a paperback. But what happens to your "library" when you die? Are you no longer purchasing a book but just a license that allows you, and you alone, to read or use a book for your own enjoyment?

From my Lair

Yesterday I went to the Stamping and Scrapbook Expo in Hartford. I seem to recall overhearing some women talk about it at the Scrapbook Clubhouse last year and they weren't too excited about the show and the vendors but I decided to go anyway and begin collecting stamps for the Summer Passport Shop Hop along the way. The show wasn't bad but the Expo Center was a little over ambitious given the modest number of vendors they attracted. I probably spent about 2 hours going up and down the aisles watching all the demos before I made any purchases. I bought a foiling pen and glitter set, a circle cutter and two punches. Then I went to Wiggles and Giggles for my first passport stamp. I had a coupon to save 20% if I spent more than $10 so I bought a box for my soon to arrive Copic markers, some paper and a Just Rite stamp set that I've been lusting over for about 6 months.

John's birthday is next week so I set to work making him a birthday card based on a design that I saw in a video a week or so ago, but can't remember the location so I was working on memory. The card was based on a tri-fold with a window cut in all three layers and then die cuts were positioned in each window. I wanted birthday candles, a present and balloons with the present attached by a string so it would spin. The card morphed into a pretty good approximation of the card that I remembered...maybe even better, since I added a picture of the birthday boy. I used the foiling pen and glitter, the Just Rite stamper, my Marvy 2" square punch, EK border punch (candles), Fiskars 1 3/4" scalloped circle punch and Cricut Stretch Your Imagination cartridge. Now let's see if I can figure out how to add a picture to my post.



Rocky decided that he wanted to go for a ride in the car today. He jumped into the car and refused to get out.

Friday I did my annual stint as Guest Chef for our summer cooking program for 4th and 5th graders. We made Scrambled Egg Nests, Blueberry Muffins and Mango Lassis (which the kids loved). I was really surprised at how well everything went. There was one child with a nut allergy so I was careful to select recipes that did not have any nuts in them. We did a side by side comparison between King Arthur flour and store brand flour when we made the muffins.

Is this really JULY?

We have been having a very unseasonable summer. Lots of rain and thunder storms and beautiful rainbows and not much in the way of warmth. We had at least 3 different storms come through today interspersed with periods of sunshine. We had one thunderstorm that lasted close to an hour and I was surprised that our power didn't go out at work. The cracks of thunder sounded like they were right around our building and the rain came down in torrents. When I went home at 3:30 Route 1 was closed at the Causeway so I went down to Shore Road and came up Broadway. There was another road block there and they wouldn't let me go down to my street but I could go to the street before mine. As I went up that street I looked through the yards and got a sick feeling when I thought my house was missing but I was looking in the wrong place. My driveway was strewn with fallen tree limbs but my house was intact. I saw immediately that there was no power. Rocky and I went out to the corner where some of my neighbors were gathered and got the low down. Two power lines had been knocked down but police and the electric company were on the scene. I went home, fed Rocky and curled up with a book. The power came back on just before 5:00.

I'm getting ready for my stint as guest chef at our summer cooking program for intermediate school kids. I'll be doing breakfast dishes: blueberry muffins, scrambled egg nests and mango lassies.

What I've been working on: Brought my Cricut to work to day to make a summer bulletin board. I used Paper Doll Dressup to make a string of children dressed in bathing suits and play clothes. I love that cartridge.

What I'm reading: The Rancher Takes a Wife

My first post

I am not a blogger. It's not so much that I have nothing to say, but I keep forgetting to sit down and say it. I also keep forgetting the url for my blog so it's possible that I have several blogs out there on the web with just one entry in them. This time I hope to be a little more organized. I've already written down my url, id and password in "a safe place". Hopefully, the next time I need to go to that "safe place" I will also discover the combination for my old gym lock.

I am Diane. I am many things to many people: a wife to John, mother to Deborah, daughter to Sondra, sister to James, employee to Barbara, friend to many. I have always loved to make things with my hands. I knit, I sew, I embroider, I quilt, I scrapbook, I make cards. I leave behind me all the bits and pieces that these tasks create and that leads to the Chaos that surrounds me. If you ask my mother she will probably tell you that this is my fatal flaw and I have had it all my life. Give me a horizontal surface and 10 minutes and I can create a pile. I have wonderful intentions of taking care of the pile before it becomes a mountain that requires a backhoe to excavate, but unfortunately I usually get sidetracked with another project and that just leads to another pile.

I love "things". I love yarn and paper and thread and fabric and TOOLS. Can't have enough tools. Today was the first time I went into Jo-Ann's with coupons in my hand and came out empty handed! I think I already have everything they have. I still had to look, because I had a coupon for 10% off my entire purchase.

A bad thing happened to me today. I was at a party and I had to move my car to let another guest leave and, in backing up I sort of squashed another person's car. It's the first time I have ever damaged another vehicle in 40 years of driving. And, to make matters worse, the car I squashed belonged to a kid who had already had one car totaled on him and was rear-ended in another accident. Needless to say, he was not a happy camper and I feel terrible. The damage is not major by any means but will require a little body work. I was only going about 2 miles an hour and backed into his left front fender. There's no damage to my car. I exchanged insurance information with him but because of the holiday there's no one answering at the insurance company.

What am I working on right now? I am knitting the 2nd sock of a pair (for me) out of a varigated stretchy cotton yarn. I started the pattern on the sock today and discovered that I'd been reading the directions for the wrong sock so the ribbing at the top of this sock is going to be 2 rows longer than its mate. I can live with that. Yesterday I made a graduation card for my great-nephew's high school graduation and spent a pleasant afternoon reading a romance novel.

I just pre-ordered the latest books by Dan Brown and Diana Gabaldon from Amazon. By the time they arrive I will most likely have forgotten that I already ordered them. I don't think Diana's book will be released until late September. I can't wait to see what will happen to Claire and Jamie in this installment.