Wedding Gift

As I mentioned our friends Matt and Candra got married last weekend.  I knew I wanted to make them something as a gift but I didn't know what.  I saw the beautiful McKinley quilt pattern on obsessive crafting disorder and I thought it was perfect!  I modified the pattern to be bigger and instead of using charm packs, I just cut out my own 5x5 squares.  I absolutely love the fabric!

Here's the full quilt, thanks to KC for holding it up for me in the backyard.

A couple of close-ups of the squares and the backing, made with a twin sized brown cotton sheet from Target:

 I hand embroidered their names on the front:

 Used my Stampin' Up Big Shot to makes some 'flowers' to add some appeal:

I made a cute bride and groom card to go with it:

 This was definitely a time consuming project.  I loved how it turned out.  I had hoped to make it bigger.  I just knew that with the late start, I wouldn't have been able to make it bigger and finish on time.  I spent an entire weekend sitting at the kitchen table, just quilting. Matt and Candra loved it, I'm glad that I did it!  Thanks for your advice that you would have loved to receive something like this.  It definitely gave me the motivation to get going on it.

I'm still here!

I can't believe it's been so long since I last blogged.  September 15th!

Remember that new job that I got?  Well it has just sucked up all of my time lately.  I can no longer blog during my lunch time.  I had to get on the phone at 9pm for conference calls and that just left me with no time to blog.  It is really overwhelming to start I new job.  I never imagined it would be like that.  Despite that, I am soooo happy now at work.  Before I was feeling unsatisfied and unmotivated.  Now, it's all very new and exciting!  The late night phone calls stopped this week so hopefully I'll have a little bit more free time to do some blogging.

I have lots of things to share.  Our good friends Matt and Candra got married and it was a beautiful ceremony.  Later this week I'll share the gift I made for them.  I ran a 5K, and started training for another 10K.  Unfortunately the half marathon got put on the back burner after an ankle injury earlier in September.  This weekend KC and I did Habitat for Humanity and it was an interesting time.  Didn't feel like I helped as much as I would have liked but framing and roofing is hard when you don't like ladders.  :-)  My sister and I went to a Lady Antebellum concert and it was great!

On top of not writing posts, I haven't been reading/commenting much either, or reading the book club book.  Things are looking busy but manageable now.  I hope to get some more posts up and start commenting and reading more.  I miss blogging and hope that you'll "have me back"!  :-)  Thanks to Jessica for reminding me and motivating me to write a new post!

Let me google that for you!

Ok, so my husband showed me this tonight and I just about died.**  I love it and had to share!  Please, tell me that I'm not the only one who is just hearing about this.

The website 'Let me google that for you' is located here.  You type in your question and hit the Google Search button.

It then, provides you with a URL, in this case, it gave me this one, which you in turn send to the person who asked you a question.  The resulting URL animates someone typing the question into google and then says "Was that so hard" and then directs the user to the google results search page.

Ha ha, it cracked me up!  I love it! Though I think I'll chose wisely who to use it with. :-)

** This resulted from someone asking me a question that I thought was rather 'duh' and they could have just figured it out by googling it.  Just a pet peeve of mine! 

Just thought I'd share.  I hope you're all having a good week, mine is busy, busy!

Book Beginnings and Bookends - CeeCee Wilkes - Chapters 50 - 71

It's the last week for CeeCee Wilkes over at Book Beginnings and Bookends.  

1. At the end we find out Tim was sending Cory money because he thought she could be his daughter since he was having an affair with Genevieve. Did you see this coming?

I was suspicious as to who was sending the money and why if you remember back to when we answered questions a few weeks ago.  While I had no idea why he was sending the money, I was suspicious that it was Tim (and I still don't understand how he could send money if he was in hiding but that's a different story, he must have taken out all his money before the whole thing went down.)  I did not see it coming that he thought it could be his daughter though I was a little suspicious and felt that there had to be some motivation or something.

2. By the end of the story, what were your feelings about Eve? How had they changed since the beginning?
By the end of the story I was happy that Eve received the closure that she needed, she needed to change what was happening to her and it was the only way.  I think the life that she lived is very different from what she would have lived had she not had to keep this secret.  She was very cautious and not very open, now maybe she can live a little bit free-er and little happier.

3. Were you happy with the way President Russel treated Cory?
Yes, I understand where he was coming from in wanting justice for what happened to his family/his wife.  I'd like to think I'd be understanding of the other side of the story but I don't really know if I could be.  In the end, it was very commendable of him that he shortened her sentence and I hope that Cory is able to co-exist peacefully with both families.  Catch up on all the time missed with the Russel's and with her mother since they were so distant for so long.

4. If you were in Cory's shoes and had just found out all of this about the woman who raised you and who you believed to be your mother, how would you react? Would you forgive?

I have absolutely no idea.  I think, as Cory did, I would push her away at first.  I would feel shocked and angry and upset and fooled, like my entire life was a lie. I would want to hear every single detail and know everything that happened.  Then I'd hope that I could realize that my life wasn't a lie, that even though it wasn't what it would have been had this never happened, that I still had a mother and father and sister that loved me and that's what a family is.  

5. In your mind, how does this story end? Do they all live happily ever after? Does Cory go on having relationships with her old family and her new family?

In my mind, I kind of wanted to hear a little bit more about Eve's trial.  At least know what happened and what was said.  I think that they move on to live happy lives eventually.  I hope that Cory is able to go through some sort of treatment for her fears and learn to live a happy and independent life.  I hope that she is able to build new relationships with her new family and make them better with her old family.  She's been through a lot and deserves nothing but the best for her and her baby in the future.  

I hope that Eve is able to have as normal of a life as possible after everything that she's gone through.  I hope that she can share her mother's letter's with her daughters and maybe even see Ronnie again.

6. How do you think Cory has changed throughout the story? Have your feelings about her changed?

I kind of have a love/hate relationship with Cory.  I loved her because she was sweet, innocent and quirky.  Then got mad at her because of Ken and thought she was being kind of selfish and slightly over-reactive.  I'm so glad that she dumped Ken and I think that really helped her.  Her listening to Eve and forgiving her and helping Eve put me back on the love end again.  I hope she was able to find a good balance in all of her relationships.

Overall I enjoyed the book and participating in a book club was a different experience for me.  I certainly enjoyed it.  Hopefully I can join in again in the next go around. Can't wait to see what the next book is going to be!

You can link up here!

Fab Friday!

It's really been a great week!

1.  You have all been super sweet with your comments about my quilt.  Thank you so much you made my day!

2.  My new job is off and running.  It's very overwhelming, but I'm so excited.  Unfortunately my blogging might take a bit of a hit, because I don't have as much free time anymore.


3.  Tonight we're going over to a friends house for a game night, where we will undoubtedly play our favorite game of catchphrase!

4.  I'm wearing my cute new ruffled flats from the one and only Target today and I love them.  (and I got them on sale!)

5.  The start of football yesterday is so exciting!  That means that it's time for Fantasy Football!  I've had teams the last 2 years, the first year I got 1st place and the 2nd year I got 2nd place.  There are 12 teams total, 2 of them owned by females.  The guys have it out for us every year, but it's still lots of fun!  I'll be spending this Sunday watching football and sewing.

6.  KC and I are going to a fancy dinner tonight to celebrate my promotion/new job and we've been saving our change over the last year and have over $100 in there!  Yeah, can't wait for date night!

7.  I want to cook Spaghetti Squash (never have before), does anyone have any awesome recipes that they'd recommend?

What's everyone else doing this weekend?  Hope it's a great one!