When Quilters Gather...

You can find THESE in parking lots!!



VCQ Plates 2010

Aren't these great!!?

If you pulled up behind a car with a recognizeable license plate, would you beep? Wave? Quilting is about community as much as anything else, and I just love it when I come upon cars with personalized plates or bumper stickers like these!

One time (maybe I've told this story)...I was out running errands with DS Jeff (who will only ride shotgun with me if food is promised somewhere in our excursion!)and he pointed out to the van in front of us..."MOM! She's a QUILTER!!.....Mom.....she is pulling into DUNKIN DONUTS!!" LOL Yep. We definitely are our own subculture!!

I would have beeped and waved, but she wouldn't have heard me and I was in the wrong lane to turn into Dunkin Donuts myself ;c) But doesn't just KNOWING that a stranger is also a quilter make them approachable somehow? I love this sense of community among quilters!

I had an absolute blast teaching at the Virginia Consortium of Quilters Celebration this year. I don't think I can ever hear "CELEBRATE GOOD TIMES COME ON!!" And not break out into song and dance, because it was the theme song for the whole weekend!

I had the best time in the evenings just sitting with Pepper Cory, Cathy Miller and her hubby, Mickey Depre, Kevin Womack, Annette Ornellas and the other teachers just UNWINDING and telling stories until the late hours. Friendships were formed, strengthened, much laughter shared, it was SO GOOD. Usually teachers can leave exhausted, but I left inspired by everyone that I taught with!

I've got some class pics to share, but I'll have to plan that for tomorrows post. I'm hitting the ground running today, there is so much to do to get ready for my trip to AUSTIN on FRIDAY!

And you know how the universe sometimes swings in your favor? Get this one....you know my friend LUCY from the Netherlands? What kind of Karma/Kismet thing is this....The same time that I am teaching in Austin, she and her hubby are 2nd honeymooning in TEXAS!!! So we are planning an evening to get together and share hugs and stories and cram what we can in a small window of time because they are traveling the state, and I've got guild activities planned. Still. I'll see her and hug her in a place that is very far from both of our homes.

Yep, Quilting is a lifestyle choice...and look how it is blessed all of our lives through the people we've met!

I'd definitely beep behind you if you were in front of me ;c)

Over-heard Locally.....

At my post office (which I have told you I love love love)

Postmaster Cheryl to customer: Do you have any 5's or 10's?

Customer: Why? Do you need me to make a change-run for you? I'm happy to do it if you need me to?

This might not sounds like A LOT to any of you...but in a BIG CITY you just don't find the Postmaster running short on change for one thing. And you definitely don't find the Postmaster handing over 20 dollar bills to someone who is NOT a postal employee to drive down the street and go through the drive up bank and GET CHANGE (and expect them to come back!)

This here, y'all, is one of the reasons I love living where I do! Little glimpses into every day rural life in NC.

More on the 2" strip over-abundance..

Several have emailed on the availability of the pattern I was posting for my 2" strip reduction. It's a current block pattern running in Quiltmaker Magazine. You should be able to find it on your news stands.....

You can also find out more about it HERE!

It's a great issue with lots of neat stuff in it. I still believe dollar for dollar that magazines are the best pattern resource going!

Besides, if you can find it at your grocery store it becomes part of the grocery budget and there is no paper trail..LOL!!

I'm not doing this as a special project like a Quiltville Mystery...it's just an idea for blocks that we can build as leaders & enders on the side of other things..there is no time frame, there is no set number of blocks, this is a work at your own pace and make a dent into something you've already got cut to size :c)

More Gifted Squishies!

You guys are awesome! I can't begin to tell you how excited I get when I go to my mailbox and find things like this!

Suzette emailed me asking if I wanted some scraps from her dresden plate quilt after I posted THESE blocks a while back (yes, another "IN PROGRESS" quilt...how did this get by the wayside? Honestly, I need to clone myself about 3 times to do all I want to do!)

When she said scraps, I thought SCRAPS...you know? But look at these pieces! They are the left over pieces from having her Dresden Plate pieces DIE CUT...way to go!

And look how nicely these are going to add to my little collection of vintage 30's & 40's pieces? I love these!

Thanks so much for sending them....it's making me all excited about this project all over again. I love combining these prints with plain muslin and solids, and mixing them with domestic household fabrics like the stripes and plaids from recycled clothing...what a mix!

Quiltville Service Announcement....

Hey everyone!

You all know I've been dealing back and forth with website issues between my webhost and the domain name provider. Each has said it is NOT their issue, it's been a HUGE pain in the (*&@#($*&(*&!

I'm teaching in VA this weekend...arrived at the retreat center, and have spent the last hour or so on the phone getting things straightened.

It's a bit technical, so I'll put it to you this way:

The website may be DOWN for the next 12 to 48 hours while they get everything pointed to the new IP address. This all takes time to move from one server to another, so I ask your patience....Hopefully by the time the weekend rolls around, things will be up and running and ready for you!

Thanks for your patience!

Total Strip Overload!

This is it.

Something must be done!

We just can't have this!

I mean, when it is impossible to SHUT a drawer of 2" strips....and you are faced with starting another drawer to contain them....shouldn't this be a nudge, a niggle, and push, a shove...

To PICK A PATTERN AND MAKE SOMETHING!??

Yep. Even if it is going to be a leader/ender thing. Something has to happen with this drawer. These strips are all 2", just begging to be sewn into something riotously scrappy.

There is a drawer of the same size, though not near as full (but full enough) of neutral/light 2" strips to go with this bin of colored 2" strips. And you know what I want to do? FINISH the quilt I started that is now showing in the May/June issue of Quiltmaker! I started with these blocks, never got very far, and when Quiltmaker asked for ideas for scrap addicts, this is one I submitted for my column.

Yeah, I know...I need to practice what I preach and MAKE A QUILT...not just a pile of blocks! So..I'm doing this. I'm cutting pieces for this..I'm going to work on this as leaders/enders in between everything else.



Anyone wanna join me? This is a GREAT block for a positive/negative feel...you've got light chains going in one direction, darks in the other. I LOVE CHAINS!! They just draw your eye to follow along. The more colors the better, the more variety the better, and it doesn't take much to sew these in between the lines of other things.

Sometimes it's nice to take a break from things that require triangles or curves!

I'm ironing some pieces today and kitting up some blocks. I'm leaving for Virginia to teach at the Virginia Consortium of Quilters this weekend, and when I'm not teaching, I'm going to be sewing!


And..you guys...come on...don't let the excuse that you don't have a lot of 2" strips stop you. You know you can do this with any size strip you've got. Got an overabundance of 2.5" strips? Tada. Resize the block, your block quarters will be 6" finished instead of 4.5" finished. NO. EXCUSES!!

Thrifting In Winston Salem!

I blogged yesterday about my "getting away from it all" at home and heading out to have lunch with Lisa and Karen.....such good sports at dumping all on THEIR "TO DO" lists just to indulge my desire to have some gf chat time over some good food.

We went to a place we've frequented a couple times before (and will again!) Nawab....the best Indian food in Winston! Really...I always leave there full to the point of pain, so maybe it's not a good idea to go there.. :cÞ

We sat and gabbed and ate and chatted and laughed and ate some more. At which time I asked which was the best way to get to Peter's Creek Parkway from there...and Karen's eyes lit up. "Are you going to the Goodwill Clearance Center???" She hadn't been before..CAN YOU BELIEVE IT?

Well, she was in for an awakening, Quiltville style.



This is the beautiful new Goodwill in Winston....it has a career training center, a retail store on the right, AND the clearance center on the left!



This was our entrance! Quite the nice building, don't you think?



Upon entering, and grabbing a cart (A buggy, if you are in the South...) THIS is what you are greeted with! Miles of bins on wheels, stuff piled high! An overwhelming sense of "OH MY. WHERE DO I START!?" And you have to be willing to DIG...and DIG...because there is no rhyme or reason to anything. You've got to know that the BEST finds might be at the bottom of one of these bins, so you can't just casually walk by and GLANCE...you've gotta get IN THERE!



Karen found some wool clothing items for Lisa who does rug hooking (Yeah, she's gone to the other side and taken up with the hookers! *LOL*)And we spent time laughing about really WEIRD items, and finding things that we would even take home and wear ourselves..it was really fun!



And what did we pay? Signs hung from the ceiling telling us that clothing was $1.39 a pound, or if you bought 25lbs or more...it was $.99! I suppose you could get friends to go with you and get that much...I have a confession to make, the first time I went to find clothing I could repurpose into quilts, I came home with 35 POUNDS of clothing....so I got the bargain that day!



If English is your second language, there is this sign to help you too!



To check out, you simply wheel your cart up onto the scale, and someone will ring you up!

All in all, I paid about $10.70 for what I came home with. That's 12 articles of clothing....from shirts to skirts to pajama pants. That averages .89 cents a piece. Not bad! My treasures are ready to be put through the wash so I can cut them down into useable pieces for quilting. It was definitely a SCORE day!

BELLS & WHISTLES!!!!!

I just hit 1000 followers!!! WHOOOT!!! But where are the flags and bells and whistles and confetti? Shouldn't there be an email or something to let me know who this person is?






Thank you thank you! I'm glad to have you along for the ride! (all of you!)

Sew & Tell Tuesday, From Memphis TN!

I'm in the midst of making lunch plans with two local friends, Karen & Lisa....and because we are going to be enjoying some much needed girlfriend time, I'm going to be away from home and projects for the afternoon.....

So I decided today would be a good day to leave you with some lovely eye candy! I dug way back in the pics that people have sent me, and I decided that today will be a show from pics that FOREST JANE sent me!

That's FJ's heart wallhanging above, and she had this to say about it:

And here's my wallhanging that I made to hang at the library on Valentine's Day. After I took it to a guild meeting they all wanted to know where I got the idea. I posted the link to your site on our bulletin board (and website) and they all caught the Bonnie fever from me. :-D

Here's one still in the block stage, by Stacye R.

Forest Jane wrote:

Here's some pineapple blossom quilt pix for your site. They're all made here in Memphis TN. Sandy C. made these two:

About the next photo she writes:

I've also attached one of my brother holding a strip twist quilt I made for him

Looking at everyone's pics always leaves me SO inspired! Thanks FJ for sharing the pics with me...for those who didn't know, Forest Jane is the designer of all of our mystery and other logos. She does an awesome job behind the scenes at Quiltville!

Vintage 80's & 90's!

Remember when all there WAS was VIP and Cranston prints (And some Peter Pan or others..) for quilting with in the "early days?" If you've been quilting for nearly 30 years like I have, chances are these fabrics will strike a chord in your memory.

The year I graduated from high school, 1980, I spent the summer involved with Musical Theatre. I was in the chorus for Music Man. I had to make COSTUMES! My costume was a very full gibson girl kind of outfit, with a very mutton sleeved blouse with lace, and a very full flounced skirt, underskirts, petticoats, etc.

These were the kind of fabrics that were available! And when I was done......guess what I had left? SCRAPS! Oh, I loved that outfit....I loved being in musicals! But not long after that in 1981 I moved away from San Jose, headed to Idaho, got married, started a life.

The SCRAPS from my clothing sewing came WITH me when I moved....and many of my first patchwork projects incorporated these scraps from things like my costume sewing.

When I presented a couple trunk shows at Tiny Stitches in Marietta, GA a few weeks back, I was gifted with a large brown paper sack with handles...CHOCK FULL of these kinds of fabrics, 80's & 90's....which bring back so many memories to me! Just look at these! ONE OF THESE...is the exact same fabric I used for my skirt in that play. There are a couple of yards of it! I feel like someone has gifted me with a piece of my young adulthood....that 18 year old girl who had no idea which way her life was going to go, just on the brink of "too scared to choose any path lest it be the wrong one". Remember being that girl?

Sometimes I still think I am that girl....and this brings me all the way back to her, and I can look at her in the mirror and now say, so many years later...LOOK! Look how far you've come! Look at the path you've been on, you never dreamed this was possible, did you?

I'm sewing some of these browns into the brown/blue quilt I'm piecing on. It's been a great journey. I'm glad that young girl is still along for the ride.

Quilts a Quiltin' at the house of Quiltville!

I loaded the top with the "Extreme" border this morning..it's getting quilted today! Or at least as far as I can go today....

Busy busy busy quilt, it's getting a lovely all over design.

I wish I could show you the whole thing, but you are going to have to bear with me with just parts and pieces and small glimpses until the next book is out in Feb!

I got home from DC yesterday evening....lovely drive, just a beautiful day!

I was so tired though, that I was asleep by 10pm...and I slept all the way until 9am this morning! You know, there is a lot to be said about sleeping in your own bed, the window cracked open for a bit of fresh air, two kitties, one on either side, purring away.

It just beats hotel sounds, snoring from the room next door, wall ac/heat units going on and off, the sound of people in the corridor, and all. And the fact that I didn't have to wake up to an alarm this morning made it that much more blissful!

I'm smiling going back over all the fun times we had in class this past week. Some of the students got sneak previews of a couple of the quilts that are coming in the next book, toward the end of class I pulled them out to do some binding...Gotta grab every minute!

My next outing? I leave Thursday for Smith Mountain Lake, VA, for the Virginia Consortium of Quilters! It's going to be a fun weekend of classes by many teachers from all over, I guess it's similar to a State Symposium, and I'm happy to be a part of it! This time I won't be driving up the dreaded I-95, It's more Scenic, up toward Roanoke! Another lovely drive.

I had a friend who used to live in Roanoke (They moved! BOO!)and I have always loved the Blue Ridge mountains up there...just unbelievably gorgeous. If there was one place I could pick to retire and STAY PUT...that would be it!

Back at the machine.....enjoy your Sunday!

Fabric Fun!

At my Texas Braid class with the gals in Indiana, I absolutely fell in love with the wide variety of fabrics the ladies had brought! Many with stories of where the fabrics came from, be it inherited from their mother in law, cut from their own old dress they had saved from the 1960s (That story was such a hoot as we all got a piece of this goldie-hawn-esq circa Laugh In frock!)and other places where fabrics had their origins.

Fabric is so fun because it has MEMORY to it. I love working through my scraps because of all the memories they bring to mind as I pull this piece that was in my son's baby quilt when he was born, my other son's high school graduation quilt, all those kinds of things. Can't you just pick up a fabric and remember where/when it was used?

Kathy sent me a lovely envelope full of such fabrics...Just look at these! I love the funky greens with orange flowers, and who wouldn't like the pink vintage cowboy novelty fabric? CUTE!

Thanks Kathy for sharing your vintage treasures with me! I can't wait to see where they will end up in my quilts!

Virginia Bound in Virginia!

We had such a great time on Wednesday I wanted to share these pics with you!

The most fun thing of teaching a class, especially a SCRAPPY class like this, is to see the color ideas that students come up with, whether they are digging deep into fabric they've had "FOR.EVER." or recycled fabrics they are finding a use for, or scraps they've inherited from someone, or just a color way they have always wanted to dry and finally have a catalyst for doing it.


BurkeVA2010

The pics might be a bit washed out..we had a WONDERFUL bank of windows in our class room looking out on the spring weather outside, and it was shining in on us as well, so this is the best I could do, thanks to the camera on my phone!

What a lovely day we had, and I am sure that there is going to be a wild array of wonderful quilts being made from the time we spent together!

Thanks Ladies, it was a blast!

Spring In My Hood!

The changing of the seasons always fills me with a sense of wonder. I love living in a place where I get to experience all four seasons, but really, If I had to put them in order of preference, I would list SPRING as my favorite....even though it tends to pass the quickest, turning from bare branches and brown grass to full blown green and hot summer within just a few short weeks (if not sooner! Remember, it was 90 on Easter here!)

Fall would be my next best...when the leaves turn their gorgeous shades of rust, red, yellow, orange....but then the nights are shorter, and the days shorter, and I'm not willing to rush into that right now either!

These are some pics I took while on a walkabout the neighborood a few days ago. I think I've mentioned this before, but when I leave town for a few days and come back, it is easy to see how much has changed in just those few days!

As always, things I long for in spring, like the blooming of the Bradford Pears pass so quickly.....and now it is the DOGWOODS that are showing their true beauty...with the exception of the few short weeks in spring where the dogwoods boom, The trees just really seem to fade into the woodwork (or the woods themselves!) around here...but for those few short weeks when they DO bloom...oh, they are glorious!

The lots in my relatively small neighborhood are LARGE with the smallest being about 1 acre. I live off a small culdesac with only 5 homes on it. When the trees are in full leaf, I don't even see my neighbors because my house is down in its own littler "holler" as we like to say.

My favorite place is my walk along the main road in the neighborhood where I am greeted by wonderful old wood fences around a pasture, a barn, and other outbuildings that have been there for who knows how long.

I especially love this humongous old oak tree that provides wonderful shade in the summer, and glorious color in the fall. There hasn't been livestock in this pasture since I moved in, but I imagine at some point there could have been horses or goats or whatever.but I just love the country feeling of being out where I am.


Spring 2010
Come take a walk and see where I live!

I had a lovely class in Burke, VA yesterday.....and the lecture/trunkshow went super! Today I'm off until a guild meeting tonight, so I have put the do not disturb sign on the door and I'm sewing away!

It's a gorgeous day out there, and I'm really tempted to get out and about and do some sight seeing in Old Alexandria, but I need machine time too, so I'm a bit torn. Maybe I'll sew for a few hours, and go out in the afternoon before I have to be to Centreville to meet with the ladies at the school at 5 to set up for tonight's lecture.....

Whatever you get up to today, enjoy the beauty around you, and find SOME time to stitch SOMETHING every day!

Oscar in Blue & Brown.....

Oscar feels neglected because I haven't posted much of him lately, and since I am on the road, I'm going to indulge him by setting this up to post while I am away!

If this first pic looks stripey, it's cuz the sun light is coming in through the window blinds! We are so happy to HAVE sunlight, we aren't going to worry about photo stripes, are we?

Of course, this is the blue/brown/neutral shirt pile that I've made a big mess with.....I have so many shirts that have not been cut up, that I went digging through boxes just trying to find the right colors. That's always like a treasure hunt because I forget what I've put IN those boxes in the first place!

That one blue indigo shirt by his head is a GREAT ONE..just look at this!

It reminds me shirts I've seen Tonya wear....What do you think Ton? Is it you or isn't it? Too bad, I'm cutting it up! *LOL*

These are some of the browns I've got too...the one little floral is actually a pair of Old Navy pajama pants! It's a GREAT old fashioned looking print, isn't it? And I like the tan shirt too....something very masculine looking about it. It's nice to find things that aren't always plaids or stripes. Something to add interest...something fairly boxer shorts/hospital gown kind of funky print! *LOL*

Of course, now I have to deal with not only threads and strings from cutting UP the shirts..but with Oscar hair too. ^..^

COMPLETELY GOBSMACKED!!

(with a subtitle of....Things that Come in the MAIL!)

Yesterday Sue P wrote:

You could always put a holler out for your followers to find certain colors you have a hard time finding.

I'm up north in Finger Lakes, NY.

Sue P.

I've had boxes show up with no return address before....just a UPS or Fedex or Priority Mail label...so it's no joke, even though it gets lots of laughs at my lectures! So I had to laugh when Sue said..put out a holler for dark brown shirts, because I can just imagine that I'll be drowning in them in no time!

But imagine my surprise when I opened up THIS box Monday. You know, I feel kinda bad because it sat in my front hall all day yesterday. (Guilty guilty guilty!) I got home from a trip on Saturday night, pulling into my driveway around midnight. I went straight to bed.

(After looking at my new carpet that was installed while I was gone...I asked for carpet the color of DIRT..and I am happy to say this pleases me! I think Buddy and Sadie approve too, and it's a good thing, since they are the reason I need dirt-colored-carpet!)

I slept til nearly 10am, and DH and I spent Saturday morning running errands. You know the usual? Sam's Club, Target, Dicks Sporting Goods (his choice, not mine..I sat there and poked through my mail on my phone just nodding and going "Uhhuh, oh really, yes that's nice..." while he shopped for a new baseball mit. What do I know about mits? About as much as he knows about thimbles...and I did make him stop at Joanns where the notions wall was 50% off, so I could inflict the same kind of pain on HIM that the sporting goods store does to me!

By the time we had lunch (I'm a sucker for Chili's bottomless soup and salad, it comes with chips and salsa and I like the Enchilda soup)and made it home..I was still so knackered from this trip that I took a long afternoon nap. Which brought us to late afternoon!

And you already know from yesterday's post that I was off cutting and kitting to the wee small hours Sunday night BECAUSE I NAPPED! :cD

Today I hit the ground running...no cutting has been done even though I plan on it later. I had to work on the website calendar, tackle more email, arrange future travel plans, finalize everything for my trip tomorrow, do the mail order, start packing for tomorrow.....

When I came back into the house after the post office run, I decided it was time to open the box and see what goodies were in it! Ummmmm...there is a letter....and it says...

As someone who obviously appreciates quilts, I hope you can recycle these for donating or just repair, rennovate, etc for your own or other use.

Thanks.

Wait. No name? Just Thanks? OH. MY.

The box had everything wrapped in black trash bags. I mean, it could be ANYTHING in there?

But look what I found!!!


antiques in the mail!
The first couple were wonderful utility quilts made out of simple panels of whole feedsacks sewn together. Made quickly for warmth and tied or machine quilted...they don't look like they have been used hard. I'm sure lots of quilts like these wore out with the using through hard times. The fabric in them is so good, I'm thinking I might be able to repurpose it somehow, but for now, I'm just folding these and admiring their colors and textures!

The next black trash bag contained a lavender 30's railroad crossing quilt..I saw the hand quilting stitches and nearly cried! In fact...I think I did...cuz Jeff came running down from his room to find out what was going on!

And it just got better the farther I went into this big box! The one that really made my heart sing is the Sunflower quilt from the late 1800's....There just aren't words to describe how it felt to hold this quilter's work in my hands, knowing she is long gone, yet her stitches remain.

I have no idea if these were collected quilts? Or if they had been passed down through one family? I just don't KNOW!! But I do know that I will cherish them and love them and fondle them and dream over them, and love their fabrics, their colors, their quirkyness...

I left comments on each picture in webshots...so you might need to click the link to get over there and look at them in the album instead of just watch the slide show..but..man...I'm just humbled, and tickled, and awed, and....I don't have words to thank the person (whoever you are in Annapolis!) for gifting me with these wonderful quilts. THANK YOU!

Kitting Up!!

Remember that brown bundle I got in Indiana?

Well, it's been sitting here on my cutting table because I didn't know exactly what to do with it. The pieces range in width from 4" on up to 8"...some are full width of fabric, some are half...it really is a SCRAP bundle! But sometimes just having something out on the table will get things running around in my brain and inspire me in a color way I hadn't really considered doing before!

Until yesterday afternoon, that is!

That bin of muslin was still under the table from cutting for the reproduction 30s/40's project. (uhoh...why has this gone on the back burner!?)

I'd been cutting up some shirts that had found their way home with me, mostly in shades of blue and brown as well, and BAM! I knew what I had to do!

Really REALLY brown shirts are hard to find. They come in shades of tan, beige, all the way up to kind of an oak color, but unless you are the UPS guy, you just don't find dark chocolate brown shirts....but the ones I do have really look GREAT against some of these other browns that came in this bundle, the recycled fabrics add such a feeling of "utility" to otherwise "too perfect off the bolt" fabrics.

And muslin? What can I say.....I love antique quilts, and sometimes the other fabrics we have been told by the quilt police to use, such as Kona Snow, or really pretty cutesy all from the same line shirtings just are too......designer? I'm not sure. I want good contrast between the plaids and stripes and recycled fabrics, and the ones I've purposed for use from this brown bundle...and I love all the various shadings of muslin that are coming out of this bin! UTILITY! Yes. I think I'm going to like this. If muslin was a staple in quilts from the beginning of the days of patchwork, then that is what I am going to use now to give me the feel I want!

So this is what I spent hours on yesterday, kitting up, getting ready to leave for the DC area tomorrow. DC in the spring!! WOOT! I so love driving up through Virginia, it is one of my favorite places for a good long scenic drive.

Thoughts on the subject of "recycling"....Wouldn't you consider fabric that is given to you by a friend who doesn't want it any more as recycling? Would you consider fabric you've taken out of a kit to use in another project instead.....recycling?

What about a big bag of 1980's calicoes that someone brought to a trunk show just for you because you were the only person they thought would want or use it? *LOL* Is THIS recycling? I've got these great vintage 80's browns that came in such a bag. They are lovely!

As I ponder the text for the next book, does recycled fabric really have to come from CLOTHING I have taken apart to fit that category? Sometimes I think re-purposing fabric that has sat there intended for another project, but use it instead for another by switching gears in the same category.

And sometimes you just have to add new fabric (Like from this brown bundle)to your collection of recycled-from-a-previous-life fabrics to spice it up, and as long as the combination gives me the feeling I want, I'm okay with it.

At some point, I'm going to have to stop, repack the trunk show, load the books in the car, tackle the mail order, throw something for dinner in the crock pot (I haven't tried that lasagna yet, I think today might be the day)CLEAN THE HOUSE, and get a good night's sleep so I can leave in the morning!

But first....more cutting is calling my name!