New projects

I have been having trouble with the blogger and so I have been unable to post for a while.  Today when I tried again, there was an added tool that had been missing before .... so maybe now it will work.

First on a personal note:  I applied for disability this week.... yea team !!!  After a couple of appointments my doctor put me on 3 months medical leave.  At the end of that, doc will re-evaluate my status.  Progress at last !  Again I want to thank everyone for your support, encouragement and very positive input/advice.  Now on to the quilts ......

Remember the Oh-Cherry-Oh D9P from August?  My DGD-J fell in love with it and eventually very tactfully requested it for her new bed as a bedspread.  I had to search high and low for some additional Oh Cherry prints as I needed to enlarge it a little so it would fit.  But no luck.  But then Elaine at Soggy Bottom Flats found some for me.  Yeah and Thank you, girl !!  I was then able to enlarge the quilt top enough to fit her bed and it is off to the quilter. This is an old pix of it:

I had a very insistent helper as I was finishing the top ...  Mama kitty, Lucky.  When I would spread the project out on the floor and turn my back,  she would come and pull the edges up in a swirl pattern to make herself a bed.  I would come back to find her parked in the middle of her newly made bed.  I would shoo her away, straighten it out and make whatever design adjustments I needed.  When I would trot off to the sewing machine out of her sight (yes, she always waited until I was out of the room),  she would come back and build her bed again.  We went thru this for almost an hour. Knowing how stubbornly persistent she is, I let her go until her nap was done.  I had other things I could work on .....

The Puzzle Quilt is at the quilter as well.  I made a pillow for DGD-E to toss on the bed with her quilt.  I need to get the sham done as well .... maybe another pillow too.  This one is an 18" square Twisted 9 Patch made with leftovers from her quilt:

Have already started DGD-M's quilt.  It is very different than all the others I have been worked on thus far.  Will post it later this week, now that I have figured out how to use the new system.  It is a simpler quilt pattern, but still choosing the fabrics to add is the most difficult part of it.  Not all of the fabrics we had originally picked worked well together.... especially one little area.  I am on the fourth fabric audition ... hope this one is IT !!!

Puzzle Finish

First I want to thank all of you who emailed me and left comments regarding my last post.  I tried to respond to all of you but in case I missed someone then .... THANK YOU !!!  Your words of enouragement and advice were very helpful and appreciated.  As corny as it sounds ... it did make a difference in my life.

My time at home has been extended another 2 weeks for now.  My physical problems remain the same but my perspective and attitude have changed tremendously in the past week.  Amazing !!

Now on to my finished quilt top:

That last stretch to the finish was an effort .... this is the first bed-size quilt I have done since returning to quilting and I love the end result !  The top was too big for me to handle for a full picture but when it comes back from the longarm lady I will get a full picture of it.

There was a huge mess all over the house when I was done!  OMG!  I was further blessed that my DH did not offer one complaint about.  He even helped me clean it all up by vacuuming.  What a sweetheart!

 I was curious as to how many different fabrics I used.  A scrap here, a fat quarter there and ended up with over 100.  Here are the leftovers:

I still need to make a matching pillow sham, but am taking a break from these little 6 inch squares for now.  I have an "Origins" layer cake to make into a D9P.  I told you I was addicted to the pattern!!  It is simple, easy and quick.  Yeah !!!

Hello !

When I first started blogging several months ago, I met a few people who were making efforts to be real and be honest in their blogging.  They really touched my heart and their words were inspiring to me.  That is part of why I started blogging.  But here I am facing the choice .... shall I be honest about who I am right now or not. Then I came I came across a blogger (new to me) who was being frankly honest and it truly affected me.  So here it goes .....

I have struggled at my job as an RN for a very long time because the demands of the job were becoming greater and greater ....  because of health issues I am limited in what I can and cannot do, but as business was growing my ability to keep pace has not.  I like what I do and I am good at my job (I should be good at it as I have been doing it for over 30 yrs !!!)  I have worked most of my life ....

Here I am having to decide if I can keep working or not.  Do I retire or should I go on disability? Maybe I just need to take a medical leave of absence. When do I do this?  I really wanted to make it at least thru to the end of the year ... that is what I was developing as my plan.  But maybe I am just giving up too soon, maybe I am not not trying hard enough, maybe if I get more organized or cut my hours and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.  After all I should count myself fortunate just to have a job in this economy ..... yadda yadda yadda yadda ....

And then the bursitis in my hip flared up again ... worse than ever.  I couldn't take off right away because the other full time RN was on vacation.  By the time I stopped working the pain was excruciating and I was more exhausted than I usually am.  So now I am home for 2 weeks, going to Physical Therapy, on pain meds 3x stronger than what I was on and barely able to even sew on the quilts.  It is the end of my first week home and the progress I have made is that I realize that I need more than 2 weeks ..... now what?

I think it helps just to write this. I need to keep praying and stick a rod up my butt and be strong enough to face reality !!!  That's what .... :-)