How was your Christmas?

 my new best friend and I had a great day.

 I got all but one of my presents finished.  Bows for my son's girlfriend.  She loves purple and wears these hair bows almost every day.  I bought a pack of 50 hair clips so I'm set for the next few holidays.  I hear she loved them.

 She is a dancer and loved her blanket.  A $5 fleece blanket from WalMart and a little embroidery and this made a quick present.  I LOVE my embroidery machine.

 A Sharks blanket for hubby, an elephant for my daughter, a trombone for my son and the still to be finished dog blanket for my oldest daughter.  That will get done tomorrow after I can get on my son's computer.  It is currently hooked to the TV in the front room which has been taken over by the new Wii U the kids got.  I may get a chance tomorrow morning when everyone is asleep.  It's my favorite time of day.

 We all got a lot of things we wanted this year.  My best present was having everyone home.  I'm not sure how many more years that will happen.  I love that the kids are all growing up, but do realize that once they all start their own families, I won't get to keep them all together anymore.  I'm enjoying every second I can with them together.  Even the occasional fight.

And this little guy doesn't seem to understand he is a little guy.  He kept stealing everyone else's presents.  This bone is bigger than he is.  He's currently making quick work of it.  He's also taking over everyone's blanket too. He loves to make a nest out of it and go to sleep.  I tried taking a nap and he would have nothing of that.  He took my blanket off me and made a nest for himself out of it.

I hope you all had a great Christmas and took time to reflect on the reason we celebrate the day. 

Can you stand some puppy love?

 I will be so sad when this little guy goes home.  He is just so much fun.  My two little dogs have taught him a thing or two about being a dog, like it isn't polite to smell your butt every two seconds and you must ask permission to sit on the back of the couch and you can't play every second of the day, sometimes you have to take a nap.  But, he is learning and they are getting along pretty well.  He loves to sit on someone's lap and gets upset if he can't be in the same room as a person, any person.  Yes, I would say he is spoiled.

 And he loves to give kisses.  My son was able to get him to look at the camera, that's why I have this weird look on my face, he was licking me and I was trying not to get dog slobber in my mouth.

 I'm loving the idea of an Italian Cypress in a pot.  It took all of 3 minutes to decorate, two stands of lights, 7 ornaments and I was done.  No, not your typical tree.  You would think with all the extra time, I could have cleaned up a bit, but instead I quilted.

This one is from the pieces I mis-cut from the last quilt.  I couldn't measure correctly and cut a bunch of 4 1/2 inch squares that didn't work with the last quilt which needed 5 inch squares.  So, I had these pieces ready when I found out my principal's husband had to have a pacemaker put in on Friday.  Although I don't like her and don't respect her as a boss, I do like her as a person.  I would never wish bad things on any person and can't imagine the stress she felt when they found out he had to have emergency surgery last week.  So, I figured since I had these pieces ready to go and the quilt only takes about 3 hours to piece the top, I'd get this done quickly and will be delivering it tomorrow.

finished my favorite quilt

 LOVE, love, LOVE what else is there to say?

 I will be delivering it tomorrow to my student who is really going through a rough time.  Every person needs to know they were created with a purpose and to are special.  I hope she loves this quilt as much as I do and I hope that she realizes that she is a special person.  I also pray that she realizes she has a special purpose on this earth and will be able to pass that message on to others.  I hope it makes a difference in her life.

 If you ever have a chance to make a quilt and donate it to your high school, you will make a difference for a kid too.

 This is my oldest daughter's puppy.  His name is Louie.  He's a doxie mix and he's awfully cute.  He makes me want another dog.  I need another dog like I need, well, I don't need another dog, but he sure is cute :)

Isn't it nice when the kids all enjoy the same things?  Even if it is video games :)

Oh, Christmas tree

 We waited until all the kids were home to get the tree this year and waiting got us this.  The stores were clean out of trees!  Lowe's had cut them up into this pile, while the other stores had either just thrown them away or sold out completely.

So we settled for a 6 foot Italian cypress that will get planted in the backyard after Christmas.  At least it is Christmas tree shaped.  We almost got a Kumquat.  It came predecorated with really pretty orange 'balls' on it :)  My son asks if I knew what to do with kumquats.  Of course, you eat the skins.  At least that's what we did when I was a kid.  The flesh is really bitter and sour, but the skin tasted like candy.  I think we might have just stared a new family tradition.

I love it more

I love this quilt more than the last one I made, how is that possible?  I have to make one just like it for me :)  Red and black seem to be my favorite color combo right now.

This is for another of my students who is struggling with depression and suicide.  She just got out of the mental hospital.  I was hoping to have it finished today to give to her sister, but didn't get it done in time.  Santa's elves will have to deliver it over the break.  I will have to quilt it tomorrow.

Can I say one more time that I really love it?  I know I am going to make one for me.  It is so pretty.  I just love this pattern too because it is pretty, easy and makes a great size quilt.

I ordered the 4 1/2 inch finished triangle for my Studio cutter from Accuquilt and then didn't realize that wasn't the same size as the 4 inch finished triangle.  I am not good with numbers.  So, I cut 4 1/2 inch squares and the triangles didn't fit.  You need 5 inch squares to go with the bigger triangles, in case you were wondering.  The quilt comes out bigger, which is great.  I'm going to make this is red, white and blue for a QOV for February's quilt raffle and the bigger size will be perfect.  I love the black background for making the color pop.

What a great stashbusting project this is too.  But you would't know it from my fabric.  I busted a bunch of reds and there are still a ton waiting to be cut and used.  Which is good because I cut a bunch of 4 1/2 inch squares and wouldn't you know I need a second quilt with red as the main color.  My principal's husband had a pacemaker put in today.  I think he could use a quilty hug.  It was an all of a sudden operation and quite a shock to her.  So, I should have his quilt finished this weekend too.  Then, I have about 6 other quilts waiting their turn.  A couple memory quilts that really need attention.  Those are the hardest to do.  I feel such pressure to make them perfect, when really they just need to be finished and quickly.

Oh, and my oldest daughter came home today.  She will be here 2 1/2 weeks and brought her puppy.  He's mighty cute and gets along well with my dogs.  Nice to have all the kids home and a full house again.  But I do have to squeeze my quilting time in when I can. :)

My friend Sandy's quilts

 I quilted up three of my friend Sandy's quilts this weekend.  I love that she trusts me enough to give me her quilts to quilt.  I love trying out new quilting designs on them too.  Of course, Rebecca the Robot does all the work.  I just push the buttons and babysit her when she needs help moving to the next row or runs out of bobbin thread, but I will take the credit when the quilt is finished :)

This last quilt was one I tried out the giraffe quilting design on before I used it for the quilt for my student who needed a hug.  Turns out she was in the hospital and still is waiting for her quilt.  I have another student who just went into the mental hospital for suicidal thoughts.  I am hoping to get her quilt finished before Christmas break.  If you have time to make a quilt and donate it to your local high school, there are so many hurting kids that could really use a hug.  Just drop it off and tell the front office to give it to the school psychologist.  They will know exactly who to give it to.  Many of these kids don't have parents who are parenting right now.  Our school is in a middle class neighborhood and we have had our homeless population triple this year alone.   These kids are under tremendous stress and really don't know how to process things.  When you hear about the school shootings, people are always asking why?  As a high school teacher, we see the why every day.  Kids need to feel like they belong and that someone cares about them.  If they can't find that at home, they will look for it in a gang, in drugs or alcohol or in the media through violence like the school shootings.  At least someone will notice them for a few minutes.  I don't pretend to understand them all, but many of them have the same needs of acceptance and feeling like they fit in somewhere.

Ok, off the soap box and on to happier thoughts.  Only five days and then break time :)  Which means family time and quilting time!  And time to clean out the sewing room.  Yippee!

A busy day

 My older son had a robotics tournament today.  He is a judge for the younger kids.  Yes, he is weird as he seems.  This is his girlfriend.  They have been going out since 7th grade and are now in 11th grade.  She used to have purple hair.  :)

 My daughter just came home this morning around 4am.  She got about 3 hours sleep this morning, but wanted to see her brother at the robotics event, so we went out thrift store shopping and ran some other errands and then stopped by. You can see he was excited to see her too.  They really do like each other.  It's nice to have kids who are friends.

 This is the big banner she won for getting the Scholar Athlete of the year award.  It's a pretty big deal.  She was pretty proud of the award and didn't realize it was such a big deal until she saw just how big the banner was.  They are going to put her name on it one day too.  She thought it was pretty cool to have it hanging in the gym.  Some of the banners are really old and dusty.  I told her that hers would be dusty one day too as long as the gym doesn't burn down or fall down in an earthquake.

 Here's my son working hard, counting the points the robots earn during the round.  They have to move the balls into and across barriers.

 He takes his job seriously.  The tournament director messed up and did something very wrong.  He corrected her, but her dad is the teacher of the class.  It's hard to correct the teacher's kid, because who is the teacher going to back, the one who is right or his own kid?  You guessed correctly, he backed his kid, the one who messed up the whole tournament.  My son was pretty upset that the rules weren't being followed.  I could see myself in him as he tried to process allowing the tournament to go on even though the rules were right there in front of them saying they had to have 12 teams instead of 8.  The other kid said it would be too much trouble to re-do everything.  Her dad (the teacher) agreed that it would just be easier to keep things the same and since nobody else knew the rules, just leave things the way they were.  My son said, that they should do things the right way, even though it would require changing things and take more time, but it was the right thing to do.  He was over-ruled and had to just let things go.  He was frustrated, but I was proud of him for stepping up and speaking his mind and being calm about it.

The principal said she had watched him earlier and he was being a ref, but also a teacher throughout the morning and was always helping the younger kids learn how to get better.  She is so impressed by him.  Makes me proud.

And as we left the school, there were a few turkeys along the side of the road.  They must have escaped someone's dinner recently.

While I grade lab books

 I was so far behind in my grading this semester.  With three new tachers and one that had only been in our department a year, I became the 'go to' person.  Everyone comes to me to ask where things are and how to do things.  Even the teacher who has been there one year less than me asks how to do things.  I'm not sure if she really doesn't know how to do things or just doesn't want to have to do them.  For example, we have a HUGE lab this week and everyone had a job to do to set it up.  Her job was to make the foul water we are all to purify.  She volunteered to make the water because when a teacher retired a couple years ago, he passed along a recipe list to her.  She says last week at the meeting that she has the recipe box on her desk and if anyone wants to use it, it is right on her desk.  Well, since she has the recipe, why not make the water.  I've made it in the past many times, it isn't hard, I've never used a recipe, just mix a bunch of nasty stuff together, garlic salt, coffee grounds, stuff like that, and the kids have to clean it well enough to make it drinkable.

So, the day comes to make everything ready for the lab and she asks me how to make the water.  I told her she had the recipe box on her desk.  She looks at me and asks where it is.  WITH A STRAIGHT FACE!  I have no idea if she really had a mental problem or she really hates working that much. 

So, me being the dumb one says I will just make the water.  I really don't want her making it anyways because she set up the previous lab for her class and did it wrong and her poor kids didn't get the right results.  I feel bad for her students because they aren't learning, so I often set things up for her, but man is it wearing on me to set up for 6 teachers.

 I'm pretty sure that's what is causing many of my physical and mental problems.  When I talked to the therapist and psychiastrist they both told me I have to stop doing everything for everyone else and start taking care of me.  Grading lab books for 16 hours this weekend was a sure sign of me doing too much for everyone else.  I didn' see the 5 other teachers at my house helping me when I needed it, that's for sure. 

I do have three TA's, students who get credit for helping grade and set up labs, but even with their help, I still can't keep up.  The other teachers are jealous and keep making comments to me about my student helpers.  They keep asking me to borrow my students, but I keep them all to myself.  If it wasn't for those kids, I'd be drowning in papers to grade too.  I have 3 or 4 other kids who come in to help out too.  I tried to get TA's for all the other teachers, but they didn't sign up for TA's and now they are regretting it.  Maybe next time they will listen :)  I'm not as dumb as I look.

So, while I was grading lab books and eating chocolate, Rebecca the Robotic quilting machine was stitching away on these three beauties.  They are for a friend's grandkids for Christmas.  Speaking of, I can't believe it is so close.  I haven't even started shopping yet and no decorating.  My daughters will both be home this year :) and we will have to clean and move things around to make room.  I'm excited to have the whole family home and to go thrift shopping with the girls.  It's much more fun with them around.  They are great bargain hunters.  I'll be rearraging things in the sewing room and moving things around in the shed.

10 more days of school until break. My little guy only has 5.  He gets a three week break, but has to go two weeks longer into summer.  I'd rather have a longer summer.  Let the countdown begin!

4 quilt tops in a day

 and graded 2 boxes of lab books.  I even got this one quilted.  It's a cute jumping dolphin quilt design.  These four are for a friend's grandkids for Christmas.  I'm using up most of my pink/purple/yellow scraps and with the tumbler die from Accuquilt these go together very quickly.  I hope to get them quilted up tomorrow and finished up this week.  I have lots of things on my to do list and more keeps getting added each day.  I didn't even bother to get dressed today.  Everyone needs a day like that I think.

Finished Giraffe quilt

This is for a special student who loves giraffes and burgundy and needs a hug right now.  I hope it fits the bill.  I love the quilting pattern

 This is as close to snow as we get around here.  Our family snowmen, made out of fence boards.  We made these 6 years ago, when my youngest was 3.  See the three buttons on his belly?  He was just a baby back then.  One for each family member and the boards were cut to height for the kids.  Not so much anymore.  I should make some new ones to show how they have all grown.  Of course, I would keep them all as skinny :)  When I showed my daughter that the snowmen were back up, she asked if I had left them up all year.  I'm not that lazy :)  Well, almost.