Mystery Quilt 2009

Today is the first day of the mystery quilt I signed up to do. It is going to be really cute. I can't wait to finish....if I ever finish today. Marshy has been so cute! While I was cutting out fabric for my flying geese units he wanted to come sit on my lap. Then he wanted to play with the sewing machine or the iron, whichever I happened to be using at the moment. He thought that turning the lights on and off on mommy would be fun to play, too. Then he wanted me to build him a house out of his Mega Bloks that he got for Christmas.

Around noon I took a break to get lunch. We had Wendy's and watched Toy Story 2 while eating. Mike and I fell asleep. Oops! Marsh was so good to sit in his high chair eating his fries and chicken nuggets quietly while watching the movie. For the first time in months he ate all 5 chicken nuggets!! Of course, when the movie ended he starting screaming "OVER OVER OVER OVER!!" which naturally woke us up. haha

Now he and Mike are building dinosaurs, houses, and a garage for Lightning McQueen. Everytime something breaks Marshy starts yelling "I'll fiss it!" or "Fiss it! Fiss it!" He has gotten quite good at saying fix lately. Sometimes it sounds a little more like "siss it" but it is still really stinking cute when he says it!

I'm hoping that now that Mike has Marshy's almost undivided attention that I'll be able to finish the quilt top. Then I can post pictures. So excited!! I've never done anything like this before, and I think I chose some pretty nice fabrics considering. The pattern is a quick and easy one too, so I might make it again, with some changes, for baby quilts or something.

Date Night

Tonight was the family party. We were going to go. Then we realized that we would have babysitters, my parents, and be out all by ourselves. Do you know how long it has been since we have been out on a date? Since July. Yes, I am serious. Anyway, we decided that we would see if we could go see a movie instead. We drove over to the theater. The line was outside the building and down the block. No kidding! I guess it's family night, and the kids are all out of school, so that idea went bust. Then we decided that since it was already 7 PM, and it would take us 30 minutes to get to the party, we'd just go buy a movie and then maybe grab some dinner before heading home.

We went to Best Buy. First of all: their computers were on sale. I need a laptop. The one I wanted was gone. :( So sad! BUT! The other one I wanted, the Asus 10 in, was only $380. Of course, it only has 1 G ram, so my quickbooks wouldn't run as well as I would like on it....UGH! So, the search for a decent laptop with good memory, ram, harddrive, etc continues. Then we looked at movies. They were having a $12.99 sale on some of the blu-ray titles. We bought Weeds seasons 1 & 2 for the price of 1 season! WOOHOO! Weeds is one of our favorite shows on Showtime, which we don't get, so we have to watch them online at Netflix, and some of those other free tv show sites. We also love Dexter, but they didn't have it. :(

Then we decided to go to dinner. We had driven past this little Mexican restaurant that we had never seen before, and it was packed. Joe Veras Mexican Restaurant. It's funny, because it is seriously like 1 block away from Los Hermanos. We were seated immediately, and pleased to discover that, unlike other Mexican restaurants, the menu was small and simple. No "I'd like the number 42 with a side of 27 and a 98 for dessert!" We easily decided on what we wanted and placed our order. They informed us there would be a longer than usual wait, because they had a party of 30 upstairs. 30!! WOAH! The wait wasn't actually that bad. I've waited longer at higher-class establishments for sub-par food. This food was anything but sub-par. The food was delicious! I think my favorite thing was that the rice and beans were not the main attraction. They were there to complement the food, not substitute for it. It was so yummy! I seriously still can barely walk I am so full!

We got home by 9 PM, to find Marshy totally wired with energy. He didn't fall asleep until about 10:45. Grandma and Grandpa were glad to have been able to tend him, and we were glad they came down, even if we didn't end up going to the party we originally planned on going to. But, it was really nice to finally get some time just the two of us. This holiday season has been stressful for both me and Mike, so it was nice to get a small break from everything (including baby, as much as we love him).

I can't believe he did it

Mike threw away the bottle today. Yes, Marshy's last good bottle. I can't believe it. We still have one, but the nipple has a slightly larger hole than it should have in it, so it leaks all over the place. Marsh has been drinking fine out of the sippy during the day, but it's the whole bottle at bedtime that has been hard to shake. Well, he's on his 3rd sippy tonight now. Please note that it is now 11:17 PM.

I'm sure that his not being able to sleep has nothing to do with the fact that we were out late Christmas Eve, woke up early Christmas and out late Christmas day, out late for UFC Saturday night, he has way too many cool toys to play with, and now have taken away his bedtime bottle. Yeah. I'm sure there must be something else wrong with the child causing him not to be able to go to sleep. There's gotta be.

Don't you hate it when you're finally feeling a lot better, but then you wake up early on Sunday morning and find that the rest of your family is sick? UGH! Yucky!

Setting this down now

Okay, so I am going to come right out and say it, because if I say it on here, then I have to follow through, right? RIGHT!

So, I have started making my New Year's resolutions already, and I am definitely hoping to complete at least a few of them.

1) Compete in, and hopefully win, the family Biggest Loser challenge. What is this challenge? Well, we as a family are going to be competing for about 3 months to see who can lose the most weight. Then, hopefully, as a reward we will get to go on a cruise or a nice vacation somewhere, without our children, that allows us to show off our new hot bods. Yes, I want to actually do this. It is motivation for me. A cruise? Yeah, never been on one. Sure would like to go though!

2) During the family Biggest Loser challenge, lose a minimum of 25 pounds. I know, it seems like a lot for 3 months, but I sure am hoping to be able to do that. That would put me back to my high school weight, which would be great because I like to think I was hot in high school! :)

3) Read the following 4 books (I'm afraid if I make it any more, I won't actually do it):
Persuasion - Jane Austen
Northanger Abbey - Jane Austen
Mansfield Park - Jane Austen
Vanity Fair - not sure who wrote it, but I want to read it now that I've seen the movie!

4) Pay off my loan entirely. Last August I borrowed a large sum of money from the bank. I would like to have it paid off by the end of this year. Yes, I have 4 years on the loan (so a little over 3 as of right now), but I feel like I need to get this done ASAP.

5) Finish the following sewing projects:
Marshy's Cars bed set
Christmas wall hanging quilt (which will apparently be for next year....)
"Comfort" quilt #2
Mario/Luigi bed set
Halloween wall hanging quilt (which will apparently be for next year....)
Backpack diaper bag #2
Mystery Quilt 2009
Bind the quilts I have in the other room that need to be bound (I think there are 3)

Okay, so that is that. I have set 5 for sure goals for myself to complete in 2009. As for the goals I made for 2008? ha ha ha ha ha ......yeah, no good. First goal: finish all of my sewing projects. HAHAHAHA Like they ever all got done! I got a good chunk of them done, but not nearly all of them. Second goal: keep the house clean all the time and make homemade dinner every night. HAHAHAHAHA Again....that never really got done. Sometimes the house was clean, but then we'd go out to eat. Or the house would be a little messy, and I'd make a nice homecooked meal. But it was never both. I guess part of it is that it is sure hard to keep the kitchen looking nice when your sewing machine is practically glued to the counter! So, I will try to continue these goals in 2009, but rather than set myself up for disappointment by not achieving them, I am just going to think of them as nice things to do, and not so much as "I have to do this or I have totally failed in life".

MERRY CHRISTMAS

It's 3:30 AM, Christmas morning. The gifts are all finished and wrapped and packed into the car (with the hopes that we'll be able to get everywhere we need to be today: Salem to Bountiful, it's one long trek). Marshy's presents have been left by Santa. And the living room at least looks decent enough to shoot some Christmas home video! Mike will be getting up in about an hour to get ready for the whirlwind that is Christmas.

I just wanted to stop by and wish you all the happiest, and safest, of holidays.

MERRY CHRISTMAS!!

Adventures in a T-Shirt Quilt: Project Complete!

It's finished! It's finally finished! And it is SO DANG CUTE! (yes, that is me struggling to hold this heavy sucker up, on a wobbly folding chair balanced partially on hardwood and partially on carpet while Mike fumbles with his Blackberry Storm to take the picture....several times because he couldn't seem to press the right button)

I did a large meander. I used a beige colored thread on top, and a dark brown in the bobbin, to match the dark brown minkee. Ohhhh....it is so soft, I wish I had one now!

This is the quilt after I finished quilting it. I think it only took like 30 minutes or something crazy like that. I used a low-loft poly batting to try to lighten up the quilt, since it was already so heavy. I can't imagine how much heavier it would have been if I had used 80/20 or something denser than the poly!

I tried to avoid as much of the print on the t-shirts as possible. There were some areas that were, obviously, unavoidable, but overall it looks really good.

As Promised

As promised...I have finally gotten to it! I have uploaded quilt pictures on the other blog! I honestly didn't realize how behind I was until I was getting them all off of the camera. Holy Crap! There were 36 pictures! At approximately 2 pictures per quilt, that makes like what? 18 quilts?! Nuts!


Anyway, here are the links:


cupcake quilt
teacher quilt - this one was made by two elementary school boys. Check it out! They did an amazing job!
photo quilt
bedspread quilt
9 patch quilt
Christmas quilt
Be-Attitudes quilt - check this one out, too, for sure! It was such a cute pattern (by Nancy Halverson)
Wedding Table runner - this is the second of the two runners I did for my cousins getting married this week.
another photo quilt
black, white and yellow quilt
G-ma H's quilt - I finally finished this one! This is the one that I have the binding made for, just not attached because it is too late to sew it on. :(
G-ma M's quilt - I have the binding attached to this massive quilt, and now just need to finish it off. Grandma's birthday happens to be on Christmas day, so we decided to give her and Grandpa a large quilt.

And, to end this post of all posts, here is a cute picture of my Marshy. We had taken Mike's car one day, so I had brought the car seat in to the house instead of switching it back into my car (probably because I didn't have my keys with me). Well, he just wanted to sit in that chair and read Mike's scuba magazines. He likes to look at the fish. In fact, every time we get a new one is his favorite day! haha

FINISHED!!

So,.....it's only like 4:20 in the morning, but I just wanted to get on here and exclaim my relief and joy that the t-shirt quilt is finally finished!!!

Pictures coming soon!

And now I'm going to go down some children's tylenol multi-symptom cold medicine for my cough so that I can get some sleep. Aaah. Sleep.

P.S. - Can you believe there are only 2 days until CHRISTMAS?! I can't!!! In fact, I'm kinda freaking out over here!!

Feet

Do you ever get that tingly feeling in your leg when your foot falls asleep (or in my case, both feet) and you feel like it would be less painful to saw your feet off than to endure the tingling? No. Oh. I guess it's just me then. Don't be surprised if I don't have any feet tomorrow!

I know I promised, but...

Okay, so I know I promised to post pictures of the quilts I've done lately, but I have been so busy that I haven't had a second to relax! My landlady was supposed to come today to take pictures of the place and post for sale signs. Last night Marshy and I were both feeling not well at all. I'm sure that staying at work until 10:30 pm has nothing to do with this. Anyway, we called our landlady and left her a message saying we'd be more than happy to post the signs for her, but we were sick, and with Christmas coming up this week we just have been so busy getting ready we haven't had time to properly clean.

I was all set to get a good night's sleep and feel better this morning. Well, so much for either of those! I was up until 2 AM barking. I'm sure the next door neighbors wondered what sort of odd sounding dog we acquired, because it really was awful. The good news is that I'm not as congested as I have been, but the bad news is my cough is awful. It's one of those "sounds like you're going to cough up a lung" coughs. I hate those.

Anyway, Mike decided to get me up nice and early: 9 AM, and clean the house, just in case our landlady didn't get the message. She did. She called around 11 to say she'd be down later in the afternoon to drop by the signs. Later, like how later? I should have asked. She didn't show up until around 2:30. Then she was all bugged because she couldn't take pictures. "I need to do them as soon as possible," was what she said to me, in a snippy tone, like my request to maybe do it after the holidays were over was too much to ask. What? You honestly can't wait a week and a half? It took the neighbors across the hall from May until November to sell their place. The people downstairs have had theirs on the market twice now. Yeah, you aren't gonna sell any time soon, honey, you can wait two weeks to take pictures.

I had to go in to work this afternoon for a few hours. I finished 3 quilts. Yes, I know, I'm amazing *bow, bow* haha. Just kidding! I'm totally not amazing, just a little stressed. One of the quilts was the t-shirt quilt. Now I have to bind it. By tomorrow. Yeah, I know. It's quarter to 1.

So, that said, I promise that I will eventually, by Christmas, get all of my pictures uploaded. And by Christmas, means that by the end of Christmas day they should all be up! :)

What is up with my brain?!

Yesterday, during one of my semi-non-coherent stages, I had a prospective client come in. She wants to make her daughter a blanket for her bed, but isn't a sew-er. She wondered if I would be willing to do all the work for her. Of course, I said yes. She doesn't need it until the 29th, so this gives me a little extra time than if she needed it for Christmas.

She wants the blanket to be about 108 x 108 inches. This is a pretty good sized blanket. Initially she was thinking just use one kind of fabric for the top, and another for the bottom. Unfortunately, she didn't buy enough of this really cute ladybug fabric to use for the top. She was going to go back and see if she could find some more. We decided, though, that should they be sold out of the fabric, she would need dimensions in case she needed to add a border to the quilt.

Now, for some insanely ridiculous reason (this is the part where I swear I wasn't on drugs) I told her that she would only need 1 yard of fabric for her 12 inch border around the ladybug panel. Yeah, uh-huh. I promise I wasn't on drugs. I hadn't even taken a Sudafed yet! I honestly don't know what I was thinking! The finished quilt top will be 108 x 108, and at 45 inches wide, supposedly I only needed 1 yard (36 inches) of fabric. Yeah, maybe in a world where a yard of fabric is a lot longer than 36 inches!!

I gave her my insanely inaccurate measurements and she went back to the fabric store. She called me while she was there, asking how much she would need if the fabric was 60 inches wide instead. To this I replied "Oh, a half a yard." DUH! Again, I swear I wasn't on drugs. Still hadn't taken the Sudafed! A few minutes later, I realized that there was no way that was right. I called her back "Umm, yeah, I told you wrong. You need 3/4 a yard." We laughed, and she said she got a whole yard instead, just to be safe. Ummm......yeah, still not right.

Fortunately, she bought a whole bunch more of this really cute red fabric to use as the backing. Then, she decided that rather than have a solid border, she wanted blocks pieced into a border, alternating red and white. It was a really cute idea, and I was really excited to do this for her.

Well tonight I got started sewing. I sewed together the two pieces of ladybug fabric to make the main center panel. It's supposed to be 84 x 84, but after trimming off the selvages and squaring it up, it came out 80 x 80. Not a big deal, right? I'll just increase the block size from 12 to 14.....except that 14 doesn't go into 80 equally. So, mixed in with these 14 x 14 inch blocks, I have to have 2 - 12 x 14 inch blocks on each side of the quilt. No big deal, I can make this work. I have plenty of fabric. Right?

WRONG! I need about another yard of white fabric to make the pattern work. However, I do have a lot of green ladybugs leftover, so I'm hoping she will agree to throw that into the pattern. I think it would turn out really cute.

But yeah, so the point of this story is this: WHAT IS UP WITH MY BRAIN?! Is it just that I am so tired that I can't even do simple math now? Seriously, even multiplying 14 by 4 took much longer than it should have for me. Oh well, at least I have it all figured out.

Another funny story about simple math: Thought I needed 4 1/2 yards of minkee to back the t-shirt quilt. Yeah, not so much. I am going to have leftover minkee up the wazoo! The quilt is only 72 x 72. What was I thinking? I guess I was thinking that I needed 2 1/4 yard strips...two of them. Obviously, I didn't take into account that minkee is 60 inches wide. Yeah. Lots of leftovers.

Again, simple math. Maybe I am just meant to be able to do calculus (as I can recall clearly several fun parts of calculus, having permanently blocked out the nasty bits, courtsey of B/C AP Calculus/Physics block in high school), but I cannot do simple math to save my life!

Here's to hoping the rest of the weekend will help get my brain back on track. Any suggestions for easily doing simple math? Besides "just use a calculator", because that doesn't seem to work all that well?

I swear I'm not on drugs!

Blah.
Blah Blah
Blah Blah Blah

That is what I feel like.

Blah

I hate being sick. I hate having a cold. I hate feeling like I have no energy to do anything, not even the things I want to do.

I also hate the snow. And the blizzards. And the way people drive in snow and blizzards like it is a sunny summer day.

I hate being tired, too. Always tired. Of course, this is because I am sick. But it is also because I stayed at work until 10:30. Yes, that's right. Then I made the 30 minute drive home in the dark, with some jerk tailgating me almost the whole way. And there was ice. And snow. And it was dark.

I hate driving in the dark. If I can leave work 30 minutes early just to avoid driving in the dark, I will. It's like people go stupid when the sun goes down and forget how to drive. Same with when it snows.

Did I mention my land-lady is coming on Sunday to post "For Sale" signs in all the windows and take pictures of the condo? Yeah. Good luck with that, since I haven't really cleaned all week. Because I've been sick. I tried to clean. But then I got dizzy and lightheaded and had to lay down. It's not my fault I fell asleep as soon as my head hit the pillow! I blame the Ny-Quil I took right before! haha

I love Ny-Quil. But only when I'm sick. And not the original flavor that tastes like nastiness. I really like the cherry flavor. But Mike likes the original green one, and Sam's sells them in a 2-pack, so we had to get the one he wanted last time because he was the sick person.

I also love that Mike got home from Jellystone safely. He had to drive all day in a blizzard. In Wyoming. Where people are dumb and think it is a sunny summer day and drive like, pardon the expression, bats out of hell. I always thought Payson drivers were the worst, but aparently Wyoming drivers are. But, he arrived home safely.

Well, I did 3 quilts at work today, and I took pictures, but I am so out of it (if you couldn't tell) that I really don't think I'm competent enough to post the pictures. So, I'll post them tomorrow maybe. We'll see.

I think I'll take my Ny-Quil and go to bed now. I am tired. And hot. The house is only 65, and I'm dying! What the heck?! Last night it was 70 and I was freezing. I blame the cold. Stupid cold brought on by stupid stress caused by stupid Christmas. Okay, Christmas isn't stupid. I love Christmas. But stress is stupid.

Anyway, I'm taking my Ny-Quil now. And then I'm going to play Iron Chef on my DS Lite until I fall asleep and it dies because I fell asleep without turning it off. Hopefully tomorrow will be a better day, and I'll have more of a voice, and less of congestion, and the snow will go away or at least be plowed out of the road in my complex because they said they were going to plow and it has been a week and they haven't plowed yet! WHAT THE HECK!? Stupid snow.

Night Off

I stayed at work until 7 tonight. I am taking the night off at home. Yes, I have a quilt back that needs to be seamed. Yes I have borders that need to be sewn on G-ma's quilt. Yes I have mom's present to finish, and brother's present to start. But I am starting to get a stress cold. You know, the sinus pressure/congestion, the cough, the constant usage of kleenex (I prefer Puffs plus with lotion and aloe....guess what though? Wal-mart was OUT OF THEM! I am stuck with regular Puffs, which are better than Kleenex, but my nose is starting to get red now. boo hoo!) all caused by stupid stress. And not so much work stress, as personal "Oh crap I'm not going to get all my presents made" stress. I also stocked up on Sudafed. And by stocked up I mean bought 1 box because that's all they'll let you buy now. Stupid druggies making it hard for me to get my medicine!

I also have studying to do, laundry to finish and fold, and a lot of housecleaning that needs to be done. Yeah, I'm taking the night off from that too. I ate some popcorn, and watched You've Got Mail on tv. Now I am lazing around in my comfy jammies. Ahhhh. This is the life! Well, it would be if I weren't starting to get sick! :(

It's just after midnight....maybe I'll take some Ny-Quil and go to bed early. Hahah! Early! This is my normal bedtime...well, it will be in 45 minutes. Well, that said, I think I will go to bed. Maybe I'll start reading Persuasion again. It's not like I started it back in February or whenever, and haven't gotten past the 2nd chapter. And the language is such that I'll probably fall right to sleep reading it. That sounds like a nice plan. Okay then. I'll do it!

Good night, ya'all!!

It's almost 1:30....

It's almost 1:30 and the house is totally quiet. Well, mostly quiet. Well, quiet except for the hum of my sewing machine which was going until about 5 minutes ago when Mike texted me from our room (where he had been sleeping, I guess) to tell me to stop sewing.

I did manage to get a lot done tonight, though. I finished the t-shirt quilt top. I figured out that I have to buy another yard of fabric for a client whose backing fabric was too small. I seamed yet another client's backing fabric. I trimmed down the table runner that I quilted yesterday, and made its binding (which still needs to be attached). And I almost finished the present for my mom....well, the first part of it at least. I guess I probably should have focused on sewing the two very large borders onto the very large quilt for G-ma M, but I think I'll do that tomorrow.

As for me, since I can't sew anymore tonight, I think I'll take me some Ny-Quil and get my slightly larger than little self to bed. Mmmm....Ny-Quil and a good nights' sleep on the couch.

More Quilt Pics

I just added a ton of quilt pics on my other blog. I think this one was my favorite one, though! The front is way cute. Go here to see more pictures of it.

Adventures in a T-Shirt Quilt: Day 6

Do you see this?! It is the t-shirt quilt top. And it is FINISHED!!! Hooray!! I came home from work and my Colton's Angels meeting tonight, and busted the rest of this quilt top out. Finally! Now all I need is some cute minkee (which I will probably have to seam....the quilt is about 72 x 72) and it is ready to be quilted and bound. I even finished right on schedule with my timeline I drew up the other night!! :)

Adventures in a T-Shirt Quilt: Day 5

Well, it's day 5, and I am still no further along than I was yesterday. I take that back. I have attached row three. Unfortunately I have discovered that the longer the t-shirts sit there, the more they stretch out. This explains why rows 1 and 2 are perfect, yet rows 3, 4, and 5 are off by about a half an inch.

Last night I unpicked rows 3, 4, and 5. Tonight I sewed row 3 back together. Then I had to unpick the first block again, and re-sew it. I finally gave up, and sewed it on to the row 1/2 unit. It is still off by a little, but what can you do? Once something has stretched out, you can't unstretch it.

I have decided that even though it is 10:45 PM, I am going to sew as late as I possible can. I also have to cut and seam a back for a different client's quilt. I will probably be up quite late, but it's okay, because I really need to get this all done, and my family understands.

My goal for tonight: Re-sew and attach row 4 to the row 1/2/3/ unit, and re-sew row 5. Hopefully attach row 5 to the rest of the rows. That would be so great to finish the quilt top tonight. We'll see.

My goal for tomorrow: Find the backing fabric so I can get this quilt ready for quilting!

Adventures in a T-Shirt Quilt: Day 4

No pictures for today's progress.....or lack thereof. Apparently I used the wrong marker for my seam allowance, and am now having to unpick all of my third row of sashing. I have yet to see how badly the 4th and 5th rows are. I am hoping not so bad. In fact, I am hoping there are no problems at all! So, rather than finishing this quilt top today, I will be unpicking a lot of it. I won't get to sew on it tonight because it is already 10:45 PM, and noise curfew is 10, so I will be nice and not annoy the downstairs and next door neighbors with the noise of my commercial-grade sewing machine. :)

Hopefully I can get it finished tomorrow during the commercials for Chuck and Heroes! :)

Two more projects finished

Remember how I said I can't ever say no to another project? Well, two of them are finished! YAY!

I have 2 cousins getting married this month. They are sisters, and one is on the 26th and one is on the 27th. Not having time to shop for anything, and wanting to do something a little more personal, I decided to throw together these two table runners. I haven't decided who gets which, though.

This first one is Gypsy Rose by Joanna Figueroa, Fig Tree Quilts for moda.
I couldn't find any fabric from the line at the store, so I picked a similar color for the border. The binding and backing are the same fabric as the border, as well. See, I bought 1 1/2 yards thinking that would be just enough....turns out I really shouldn't try to do math in my head! I figured out that I would have so much left over, so I threw on a cute little 2 inch border.

This one is Fig & Plum by Joanna Figueroa, Fig Tree Quilts for moda.

Same deal with the border. It will also be the backing and binding, and I also bought 1 1/2 yards for it. UGH! At least they are done and now all I have to do is throw them onto the quilt machine at some point this week. I'm hoping to get all my clients taken care of by Wednesday so that I can do my personal quilts on Thursday, Friday, Saturday, and Monday of next week. Just in time for Christmas, eh?!

Riding in Cars with animals

Mike got a new phone. Finally. He has needed one for a while, but has been waiting for the "perfect" phone to come along. He thought he had found it in the Samsung I-760. But then it got pulled. Not quite sure why, but it was no longer available. Then the Blackberry Storm presented itself. I told Mike I wanted it, and he said I couldn't have a new phone until I had gone for 1 year without breaking mine (This means I will be getting a new phone next September instead of this month). Then he went and ordered himself the Storm! PUNK!

Anyway, it finally came. He has been like a kid on Christmas Eve waiting for Santa. Seriously. Every day it was "Is my phone here yet?" Now that it is here, he is so excited to get to use it. He decided that because it is all touch screen, with no keyboard or anything else, just a few simple buttons and a touchscreen, that he needed to buy an Invisible Shield thing-a-ma-jig. I guess they are scratch proof with a lifetime warranty or something like that.

We went to the mall to get one. While we waited for them to apply the Invisible Shield we walked around the mall. Marsh wanted to ride the kiddie rides but we only had a quarter, so we just let him sit in one instead. This was his favorite one, because it had animals in it. He kept hugging the lion sitting next to him.

You tell me: Does he look content or what? You can kind of see that he is a little pale. I think this was the starting of his not feeling good, because today he is still not doing so well. I'm hoping this is just a weekend long thing, and that he'll be back to his normal, chipper, hyper self by tomorrow.

Random Pictures....and plumber's crack

I really need to stop leaving my camera at work! I take all of these cute pictures of Marsh, then the camera goes to work for a week and doesn't come home until the weekend. Then, naturally, I am behind in posting pictures on my quilting blog, and on this blog.

This first one I managed to take of Marsh while he was sleeping one night. We bought him his own $2 pillow from Wal-Mart, which he promptly dumped milk all over the 3rd night he had it. I figured, "Hey! It says it is machine washable. Let's get this sucker cleaned up!" I promptly threw it in the washer, and then the dryer. Yeah, big mistake. Now it is a giant misshapen mass of polyfill pillow stuff. I did manage to stuff it back into the pillow case, so at least it resembles a pillow, though.

Marsh is still having trouble going to sleep at night. I think he might be getting something, because his diapering routine has changed dramatically, and forced us to do laundry more frequently than desired. When he finally does get to sleep, though, he is the sweetest looking little angel. He snores, too. I think it's just a whistle-booger, but it's so cute. He mostly does it in the car, probably because he ends up falling asleep hanging over the arm rest of his booster seat with his arms straight out.

We Marsh has a new favorite movie now. He still loves Cars, and carries his Lightning McQueen lego car everywhere (and if you try to take it away from him, or pick it up off the floor he will hit you on the head). However, he loves dinosaurs more than Cars. What the?? I am not sure why. Maybe it's because deep down he knows he is getting Kota for Christmas. Who knows? All I know is that Disney's Dinosaur needs to be grounded for about 3 years. I have seen/heard that movie so many times I can almost quote it. I actually am longing for him to go back to Incredibles or Baby Einstein's Baby Wordsworth.

I can't tell for sure, but he is either watching Dinosaur or a Fisher Price Little People movie here. He is so enthralled. And of course, if you look closely, you can see pieces of Lightning McQueen in each hand.

And now for the money shot! BAM! The crack! He dropped McQueen on the floor and had to pick him up. It took me quite a while to get this shot. His diapers have a bad habit of not staying on his bum. Probably because he should be in size 6 (which Wal-Mart never has in stock) but I buy size 5s (because Wal-mart doesn't have size 6 in stock). I missed a prime moment a few minutes before I took this one. I swear the whole crack was hanging out! I love plumber crack on little babies. It is so much cuter than on full-grown men. *cringe* YUCK!

Adventures in a T-Shirt Quilt: Day 3

Well, it's day 3, and I have made quite a bit of progress on this t-shirt quilt. I pieced together all of the rows, and began to sew the rows into the quilt top.
I would've gotten the third row of blocks sewn on, but it was already 11 PM and I didn't want to make the people downstairs madder than they probably already were (because my machine has the tendency to shake the floor if I go too fast, which means it is shaking their ceiling!)

I am hoping to spend tomorrow afternoon finishing this quilt top. Then all I need to do is buy the backing fabric on Monday, and put this baby in line at the shop for quilting.

This has been surprisingly easier than I expected. The piecing has gone by fairly fast, and I'm sure if I didn't have to keep changing diapers every 30 minutes that I would definitely have gotten more done. I pieced for 3 hours tonight, and I feel like I've accomplished quite a lot.

I am definitely starting to think that this is something I would enjoy doing again and again, for both myself and for clients. In fact, I am hoping to make one for my brother for Christmas (I KNOW! I am nuts! I know it won't get finished in time, so it will be more of a Happy New Years present, probably).

Adventures in a T-Shirt Quilt: Day 2

Bought some more fusible interfacing: 6 more yards. That makes a total of 15 yards. Stupid, though, because it went on sale today. I could've gotten it all for half off ($7.50 instead of $15.00) if I'd waited. But how was I to know?

I finished fusing the interfacing to the t-shirts, and cut the remaining shirts out. Then I cut out all of my vertical sashing strips....all 30 of them....at 2 1/2 inches wide. I still need to cut out the horizontal strips. There will only be 12 of those, thank goodness!

I also laid out all the blocks and arranged them in a pleasing manner. I even started to sew the sashing on, but then I ran out of bobbin thread, and I didn't have a pre-wound one ready, so I am done for the evening.

I would have gotten a lot more done, except that Marsh had to be taken on another car ride to get him to go to sleep. He was snoring when we got home...so cute...and then he said "OFF!" when I laid him in bed, but he didn't wake up. He must have been dreaming.

Tomorrow, Day 3, I am hoping to get the sashing all sewn onto the blocks, and the quilt top assembled. I still need to buy the backing fabric. I haven't found anything that really jumps out at me and says "This is exactly what Nate wanted! BUY ME BUY ME!" I have a couple of options, but I still need to check a few stores. Hopefully I can get this sucker quilted by next Friday. That would just be awesome!

Speaking of Busy.....

Can someone teach me to say "No" and to just buy gifts at the store? Seriously! I have 2 cousins getting married. One on the 26th, one on the 27th. They are sisters. I am making them their wedding gifts. Yeah, I know. I'm nuts. Just thought I'd share my insanity with everyone else. Hopefully I still have half a brain after the holidays end! :)

Adventures in a T-Shirt Quilt: Day 1

So I am doing a t-shirt quilt for my cousin's roommate. He brought by the t-shirts this morning. There were 22 t-shirts, 2 button ups, and 2 polos. I am doing a 5 x 5 quilt (this means, 5 rows, 5 columns, for those of you who don't speak "quilter"). He wants minkee on the back, and a solid navy blue for the sashing.

I went to Joann's Fabrics after work today, and bought 9 yards of lightweight Pellon fusible interfacing, 3 yards of a solid navy blue "Quilter's Solids" fabric, and a Full size (because that's all they had) polyfill batting about 1/4 inch loft. It was only $34. Not too shabby. This took about 1 hour, because the Orem Joann's is always busy and you always have to wait for at least 20 minutes to get your stuff cut.

I got home, ate dinner, and proceeded to cut apart the t-shirts. Up one side, across the sleeve, through the neck, across the other sleeve, and down the other side. It took about an hour. Since I am only using 25 blocks, I had to pick which shirts to use. The polos were a little thick, so they were immediately disqualified. Fortunately, one of the t-shirts had enough of a pattern on the back that I could use it as well as the front. I ended up using 22 t-shirts (with 1 back) and the 2 button ups.

After the shirts were cut apart, I proceeded to cut out large sized pieces of the interfacing, place them on the t-shirts, with the stretch going opposite the stretch of the tees, and iron them on securely. I didn't buy enough interfacing! The 9 yards only lasted for 16 of the shirts! I have 8 shirts left. Fortunately, it is only $0.99 per yard, so I figure another 5 or 6 yards should do the trick, and not be too pricey. Ironing on to the 16 shirts took about 2 hours.

Then I centered and cut out the 12 1/2 inch squares from each of the 16 shirts with interfacing, which only took about 30 minutes. This is what I have to show for my work on this project:

Sorry the picture is a little dark and blurry. I left my good camera at work by accident, so I had to use my phone.

I feel pretty good about todays progress. He doesn't need it until the 27th, but because we are closed the 25-28 I have to have it done before Christmas. No big deal, right? Throw it on the stack of 50 bazillion other things I'm working on! :)

Stay tuned for more Adventures in a T-Shirt Quilt! I will be working on it every night, hopefully, so I'll definitely keep ya'all posted on my progress. This is so fun, because I have always wanted to do one, but not had the time, and now I have to do one for a client, so it works out! :)

T-shirt quilts

Has anyone done anything like this? What are some tips? I have thought about doing them, and now I have people asking about them, and I don't know what to tell them.

The Cabin

Our apartment complex is fairly nice, except for where it is located. I have to laugh every day when I come home because the houses surrounding it are so incredibly the definition of "white trash". The streets are lined with cars that don't work, cars that are being fixed, and cars that have 5 year old popping out of the engine while dad or grampa or "uncle" Jim are working on them.

Some of the houses have a lot of potential, if the owners would maybe paint it or mow the lawn, or get rid of the junk pile in the middle of the driveway.

Others are just hopeless. There is one house on the street I take to get to the complex that is seriously made out of what appears to be plywood that was once painted white and is now a "distressed" (literally) look. The driveway is chunks of cement, and there isn't any grass. The owners like to loaf about in their boxers and wife-beater tank tops with their socks on, but no shoes.

The people who live across from them seem to not care whether or not their ill-kempt children get run over by cars, as they are playing in the unlit street at all hours of the day (7 AM until after 10 PM) with NO reflectors or anything on them or their bikes. They are the ones whose lawn could use a mowing.

There is another house down on the corner that used to be sad looking, but has been slightly improved by the removal of siding and installation of a nice stucco. There are still some windows missing, and the door has a large Burger King box lining it, instead of a screen. Of course, these are the people who have a "yard sale" and sit out on the corner with their sign painted on an upside down Toys R Us box with piles of what appear to be garbage strewn across their lawn. I'm pretty sure they didn't sell anything all three times they had it. I'm also pretty sure that that house either was, or is currently, a drug house. Strange looking people coming and going at all hours, two people walking up to the house, but only one going inside.... If it is in fact a drug house, I am surprised that the cop living across the street and the other cop living in the complex next door haven't caught on.

Now, I'm merely painting the picture. I'm not saying that any of these people are bad (unless that house really is a drug house, then they are)....they just should maybe take better care of their homes. And their kids. But, like I said, this is merely for illustration purposes.

Amidst this neighborhood of trashy-looking homes is a GIANT log cabin. Yep, you read that right. A GIANT log cabin. With a big fence, and huge pine trees. Made entirely out of logs. It is a really nice-looking house, actually. Now that it is decorated for the holidays, it looks really nice, too, and you can actually see it through the huge trees. It is quite a large house. But seriously, did they have to put it in such a strange place? And on such a tiny lot? It looks like it belongs in Park City, not Provo. And especially not in this neighborhood where some of the houses look like they are barely bigger than the garage that isn't attached. I find this odd. Anyone else with me on this one?

The sad thing about this area is that one street over the houses suddenly are well-kept with neat and tidy yards and nice driveways (like the house the cop lives in, which is small but nice looking, at least on the outside).

Still Busy Busy Busy

I honestly forget how busy the holidays get. For some reason I feel a lot more stressed about Christmas this year than last year....and I'm almost completely done with my shopping!! I need to buy a GC for my lil' bro (who is impossible to shop for), and finish the presents for G-ma H, G-ma M, and my mom (I'm making them all myself. Ambitious, aren't I?).

I did manage to finish binding Marshy's Very Hungry Caterpillar quilt - finally! Now I am hoping to get the Cars quilt quilted and bound in time for Christmas too. Plus, I am going to make him a bed skirt, a flat sheet, and a pillowcase out of some Cars fabric I bought at Walmart yesterday. Now that he is in a toddler bed, he needs toddler bedclothes. Sheet sets are so expensive, and I have always wanted to try to make one myself, so this is the perfect opportunity.

Speaking of sheets! I went to Gracie Lou's today to buy the backing fabric for G-ma M's quilt. The pattern calls for just shy of 8 yards of fabric (I keep bringing this fact up because it is an INSANE amount of fabric!) Anyway, I did a wall hanging for Mike's cousin with natural-colored muslin on the back, and it looked quite nice. I had decided I was going to do muslin on the back of G-ma's quilt. It would be a lot less expensive than buying $10 a yard fabric. $80! Woah, I can imagine Mike's reaction when I told him that's how much it would be.

Anyway, muslin at Joann's is like $1.50 a yard for 45 inches wide, and $6.99 a yard for 90 inches wide. The quilt is about 80 x 98, so I figured 3 yards at $6.99 isn't too bad. But I wanted to check out Gracie's because they have really nice fabric. They only had the 45 inch wide in the muslin I was looking for. But then she showed me my favorite fabric in the whole world (as of right now, but don't worry, Amy Butler is a really close second!) It is the most beautiful sateen fabric ever. It is so silky smooth and soft. It's the natural color, and it is 118 inches wide!! HOLY CRAP! I only needed a little of 2 yards. It was $14 a yard, but totally worth it. Remember, I was looking at $80, so a little over $28 is nothing!

Well, my feet are now totally asleep and at the really painful tingling stage, so I'm going to go try not to cut them off and get the circulation back into them! I will post pictures of all of my progress soon, hopefully!

Toddler Bed time

Yesterday we turned Marsh's crib into a Toddler day bed. I know, we are crazy. But if he can climb out of his play pen at work, he can climb out of the crib, which is a lot higher up off the ground.

It only took us 3 hours to convert it. Yeah, that's right. 3 hours to take the front off the crib and put a little mattress guard on instead. It's because I am apparently slightly challenged. See, I was trying to use the screws that came out of the front of the crib when really I should have been using the screws that were a little longer. It apparently helps to read the instructions. Who knew?!

Marsh was so excited to be able to get in and out of bed by himself. So excited that we had to put his mattress on the floor while we were reassembling his bed. He slept really well in it, until about 1:30 AM. Then he wasn't quite sure what to do! I ended up staying up until almost 3 with him on and off. He slept until 9:30 this morning, which was nice, except that we missed church. We were so good to even set 3 alarms (two of which failed) so we would make sure we would be there! Next week, for sure. (I can't wait until church moves to 11!)


This is happy Marsh and his "Phant" All I wanted was a simple picture of him in his new daybed, but all he wanted was for me to take a picture of the elephant, and then look at it saying "BABY! Mommy, baby!"
Again with the elephant. Yes, honey, I get it! Now get in bed so mommy can take a cute picture of you!

Trying to climb into the bed. It's a little high for him, but he manages to get in quite easily. It's the getting out he doesn't like! Apparently the diaper isn't enough padding for him, if you get my drift.

Finally! A cute picture of him in his bed! He loves his bed now, as opposed to before when he hated bedtime.

He did okay during naptime today. We had to put one of those doorknob child-proof handles on the inside of his door because he kept coming out to the living room to play. The first time he came out, I was actually asleep on the couch, and he smacked me so hard on my head I didn't know what hit me! It was kind of like a "wake up mommy! I want to play!" smack. I finally just put him in bed with a pillow (one of my nice ones), his stuffed animals, and several blankets. He cried at first for about 15 minutes at the door, wanting us to get him out. We ignored him, though, and he went to sleep for 3 hours! I am unsure as to whether or not he actually got into bed, but at least he slept!

He went to bed tonight with no problems, but he had to have mommy's pillow with him! I guess I'll have to get him his own pillow when I go to Walmart tomorrow. Hopefully he'll sleep through the night without any problems!

Dr. Muse and the Ketones

Remember them? Weren't they great? Some people say yes. Some people say no. Some people are undecided.

Lately I've been listening to their "Number Ones" album, and it's okay. Not as good as I remember, but maybe that's just because my music taste has changed.

I was listening to the CD the other day, when "From me to you" came on. Remember that one?
If there's anything that you want

If there's anything I can do

Just call on me and I'll send it along

With love from me, to you.

Well, boy did that bring back memories! Imagine, if you will, that it is the spring of 2002, and there are three senior girls standing on the enormous high school stage (the biggest stage this side of the Mississippi....it was our claim to fame. Well, that and our state winning drama department). Imagine three senior girls standing on this huge stage armed with nothing but three microphones, two guitars, a keyboard, and an orange. The orange was a shaker thingy that looked like an orange. I was really good at it, too!

We were the Ketones. "Charles" played lead guitar. "Cher" played 2nd quitar. I played keyboard and orange. We all sang. WE WERE AWESOME! A few feet behind us was a drum set. A few feet behind that was the curtain. And behind the curtain? Another drum set and some kid from band. I think his name was Jake. He was our drummer.

"But what were the other drums for?" you ask. Well, our principal, Dr. Muse, just happened to sport the mop-top hairstyle! YES! He totally looked like one of the BEATLES! It was AWESOME!

We walked onto the stage, followed by the Principal. When he sat down at the drums the entire auditorium (filled with most of the school) started screaming. We sang "From me to you". It was great. We had practiced for weeks, and it had paid off. We were the hit of the senior talent assembly. And I'm not just saying that because I was in the group.... everyone loved that we got the principal up there pretending to play the drums. It was a whole new side no one had seen of him. It was GREAT!

Catching up

I feel as if my blog posts have been lacking in the pictorial department lately. That is mainly because I have left my camera at the shop, instead of bringing it home every day. That being said, here is a week's worth of pictures for ya'all!

Marshy got a fun Christmas present tag kit in his Wendy's kids' meal the other night. LAME-O! Except for the cool Snoopy and Peanuts stickers, which he immediately found good use for this morning when I gave them to him.


Oh isn't he so cute?! He kept the stickers on all morning, until we were halfway to the shop. Then he started pulling them off. Every few minutes we would hear an "OW!" from the back seat.

This was last night on the way home from the shop. He fell asleep in the car, an almost empty box of crunch (or crumb) donuts in his arms. It was probably a sugar-enduced coma! Seriously, he had like 10 donuts! There was no stopping the child. We would give him one, and he would shove the whole thing in his mouth and grab another one. It's not like we don't feed him or anything. He eats a lot most days, especially on Mac 'n Cheese night.

These next few were taken last Sunday. He loves to play Guitar Hero, only without the tv on.

He can push the buttons and strum and everything! My aunt once told me, when he was not yet 1, that we needed to find out if he was a prodigy or not because if he isn't then it isn't worth wasting the money on lessons. I think she was kidding. But, at least we know that he might not mind the guitar. He'll probably even be good at it.....he has his daddy's fingers. Mine are short and not conducive to accurate or pleasant guitar playing. :(

(Notice the red "Cars" shoes he is wearing? Yeah, they are way too big for him, but he insists on wearing them. He wears an 8. That's the size they are, but for whatever reason they are like duck shoes on him and he can barely walk! Still, he throws a fit if we take them away from him. Shhh! Don't tell but their hiding on the top shelf of my closet where he can't see them!)

Quilting

I just uploaded so many cute quilt pictures on my other blog! I have been so behind! I had 8 quilts' worth of pictures to add, but now it is done and updated. Please go have a looksy, and feel free to comment! :)

Sad Day :(

The other day I made sugar cookie dough. The recipe says to let it sit at least 1 hour in the fridge, but you can make them whenever once the dough is chilled. I got out the first half, put it on our Rollpat, and took my Silpin (we have a red one) to it. I didn't use very much force, but there was a loud *CRACK* and then my Silpin started to bend at the middle. It had broken!! :'(

Oh I am so sad!! We only used it like a whole 3 times! I guess my only consolation is that my cookies turned out decent, and I know where to get a Silpin for half of the list price.

Quilt Shoppe Grand Opening

Gracie Lou's Quilt Shoppe is having their online store grand opening, and they are giving away so much cool stuff! Seriously, so exciting! And, if you're one of the first 20 orders, you get a little something extra! Don't believe me? Go to their blog or their online store and see for yourself! (But the deals are only on the website, so make sure you stop by there.) Seriously! GO THERE NOW!

Instead of...

I cleaned the whole "storage" room out today.

Not so much out, as tidied up.

And not so much up as moved things around.

And not so much the whole room as 1/4 of it.

And I did it at 11 PM.

Instead of studying.

I really should've studied.

Then I watched TMZ while binding Marsh's quilt.

Instead of studying.

And now I'm blogging.

Instead of studying.

Maybe I'll just go to bed.

I can always study tomorrow.

Right?

What the ....?

Tonight we, Marsh and I, went to McDonald's for dinner. Mike was driving home from Moab, which was taking forever, and Marsh wanted "Spite! Chichen! Fry!" (Sprite, chicken, fries) for dinner. I got out a box of Mac n Cheese, which usually gets him going with "CHEE! CHEE!" but he kept crying and screaming for "SPITE! CHICHEN! FRY!" So I loaded him up in the car and we headed for McDonald's.

We have several free movie rentals from RedBox that we need to use, so I decided to rent Prince Caspian, the new one. I parked the car, got out and locked the doors so no one could steal Marsh out of it while my back was turned. There wasn't anyone else at the movie stand, so I hurried and rented my movie and rushed back to the car. It was freezing outside!

When I got to the car, can you guess what I saw? Marsh sound asleep in the backseat? Nope. Marsh turning his carseat lights on and off? Nope.

Marsh sitting in the driver's seat pretending he was driving the car? YEP!

Somehow he had unbuckled his seatbelt (which he does quite frequently), and managed to climb over the parking break without disengaging it (it doesn't hold very well if you bump it. It has issues), and was sitting ever so nicely in my seat pretending to drive the car. He even had one hand on the gear shifter! SO CUTE! I wish I had my camera, because it was the funniest thing, and he had the biggest smile on his face.

Bye-Bye ba-ba

Monday we started cutting back on the bottle usage. I deliberately did not fill one up before going to work. I took an empty one and hid it in my bag, but fortunately did not have to use it. Marsh sure did put up a fight though. When we got home, he wanted one so badly he was willing to go straight to bed. Of course, he woke up at 11 starving, so I had to fix a whole other meal, but that was okay because he fell right back to sleep after eating.



Tuesday he did pretty good too. He actually ate all of his dinner. Then he went to bed at bedtime without any fuss. He even sat in his crib for 5 minutes before the crying started. I only put a little milk in it, and he was fine. Oh, except that he needed to have his elephant in bed with him.

We don't have both sizes, just the big one that came with the train (which is "sleeping" in time out in the spare room because I cannot stand it: "Climb on board the animal train, come and sing along. Learning about animals is really lots of fun. Colors and sizes, what they say, if they're fast or slow. Learning about animals, there's so much to know! *choo choo*)

Anyway, he wanted the elephant. I let him have it. As I sit here typing this blog post, I can hear the ears, legs, and trunk being twisted, as they make a lovely loud clicking noise, and am dreading eagerly awaiting the cry for "MOMMY!" At least the clicking is a great warning device. It signals "Mom should get ready to jump up at a second's notice to fix whatever is wrong with baby."

Anyway, he is doing surprisingly well adjusting to no bottles during the day. I just hope he can keep it up! And that I have the patience to deal with:

"MOMMY! BA-BA!"

"MOMMY! MOMMY! BA-BA! BA-BA!"

"MO-MMY! MO-MMY! BAAAAAAA-BAAAAAAA! HEP YOU! BAAAAA-BAAAA! HEP! MOMMY! MOMMY!"

Any tips or suggestions? I am totally open! I've been doing the milk in the sippy cup thing, but he really hates most of his sippy cups. Is there a brand that anyone prefers over another one? Really, totally open for suggestions here! :) THANKS! :)

Ummm...yeah

Have you seen this? It is the Clapper Plus. What makes it a plus? It has a nifty little remote control. Oh, because the Clapper "classic" was too hard to work? It's too hard to clap your hands together to get things to turn on? Now we have to have a remote control that controls the Clapper instead? Ummm....yeah.....how lazy can we get? It is a sad, sad day when we are too lazy to clap our hands to turn the lights on.

How To

Last week we got our condo complex newsletter. Normally we skim over the two pages, take note of what you can be fined for and how much, and then pledge to keep an eye on any neighbors who are not following the rules (we really don't turn people in. To each his own, and let someone else get the neighbors in trouble!) This time, however, we read the newsletter thoroughly. There were a few odd things that caught my eye:

1) Please don't use your garbage disposals. Put your food in the garbage. Above all, do not put rice down the sink. (duh! If we can't throw rice at weddings because it kills the birds, then of course it will kill the sink! Also, if you don't want us having garbage disposals, why in the HECK did you put them in the units to begin with?!)

2) If you have wood floors, try not to walk on them. They are loud for the people below you. (So does this mean I can't use my kitchen? Or my dining area? How about you just say that we should just sit still at all times and magically transport ourselves to the other rooms of the house? Why should I even care? The people downstairs already hate us. I'm sure they couldn't possibly hate us anymore than they already do.)

3) You can do some minor car repair work in the parking lot, but we will decide what is too much and if you should get fined or not. (So, does this mean I can or cannot change my spark plugs? What if my car doesn't start because my spark plugs are broken? Are you going to get mad at me for popping my hood and staring inquisitively under it? Does that count as a repair? And have you been fining the people in units 85 and 86 for ripping their TRANSMISSIONS apart in the parking lot and leaving them there all day?)

4) Charcoal BBQs are not allowed. If you have one, please get rid of it. (We don't have one, but what if we did, and there wasn't any room in the storage closet to store it? Does that mean we would have to throw it away? Isn't that like, a waste a money, and something that should probably be avoided? And how come the people downstairs get to keep their charcoal BBQ?)

5) Your balconies are not to be used for storage. Please make sure everything is kept neat and clean, and there are no boxes or clutter on them. (So, what constitutes storage? Does this mean that the people in the next building over who store all of their kids' toys on their balcony have to find a new home for all that crap? What about our building rep's apartment? They have coolers on their balcony! Does that count for storage? I have an empty flower pot. Are you going to fine me because it is winter and my flowers are dead?)

The one that got me the most, though, was the wood floor one. Seriously, avoid walking on your wood floors? Hmm...yeah, okay.... in light of this, I have come up with a tutorial.

How to get your 2 year old to walk softly on the wood floor so as not to piss off your neighbors (the downstairs ones, as the next door ones slam their cupboards late at night and probably wouldn't care how much noise we made since they seem to always be partying anyways....stupid blender and margaritas on Thanksgiving at 1 AM!)

1. Intice the 2 year old into a game of peekaboo. Or, in our family, "Where are you?"

2. Play several rounds with your hands.

3. Start hiding under the quilt and see if he can find you.

4. Throw the quilt over his head and tell him to look for Mommy, who happens to be standing in the kitchen.

5. Try not to laugh too hard as he shuffles slowly and quietly into the kitchen looking for Mommy saying: "Mommy! Where are you?!" right before he runs into the dishwasher.

6. Take the blanket off and say "Here I am!"

7. Repeat until he tires of the game. Or until you tire of the game. Usually it's the latter.