tonight's productivity

my after-work plan was to buy halloween candy, do some stitching on my costume and go to bed early. (see, no oxford comma needed there.) it's currently 10 p.m. so far tonight, i have ...

- opened a halloween card from my momma. she loves me. :)

- filled the sink with really hot soapy water to do dishes.

- made & eaten fresh guacamole. i heart (that's for you, april) fresh guacamole.

- chatted with lynn on the phone. twice.

- booked a trip to ireland, baby!

- washed at least five loads of laundry. four of which were fabric from my stash. i've decided to wash EVERYTHING so i know that i don't end up mixing my washed fabrics with my unwashed fabrics. plus, i'm cutting my scraps down as i go. i've got measurements figured out for my scrap quilt, so i might as well cut squares as i rifle through everything. multi-tasking at home is good practice for the office.

- eaten two pigs in blankets. crescent dough does NOT cook up as nicely when it's not fresh out of the can.

- finished watching season nine of friends, again.

- moved money around in my bank accounts to pay for the trip to ireland, baby!

- totally stolen marlana's "ireland, baby!" friends reference. :)

so tomorrow morning, i need to buy candy and still make it to work by 8:30 wearing the costume i haven't stitched, yet. good times. :)

november is NaBloPoMo. it's fun to say ... try it. it's NAtional BLOg POsting MOnth. those of you with blogs should challenge yourselves to participate. all you have to do is post something every day in november. april & i are totally committed.

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'becca will be requesting vaca time tomorrow for ireland, baby!

first snow

saw my first snow of the 08/09 winter yesterday. it only lasted about 3 minutes, but it was still snow. hard as it may be to see in the photo. ;)


i made butternut squash soup this weekend. well, i used a recipe for butternut squash soup. it's actually about half butternut, half acorn squash with some apple thrown in. i paused from stirring constantly to shoot this photo because frankly, i thought it was very pretty. the end result is interesting looking - but quite tasty. the recipe called for a pound of bacon ... what wouldn't be tasty about that?


the earrings i made for my costume.


and me in costume before bunco saturday night. i'll need to get someone else to shoot a better photo of the full ensemble ... but this gives you a pretty good idea. the skirt is from my prom dress. i love wearing it. :)


the weather cooling off encouraged me to pick my tomatoes. we'll see if they ripen on my window sill. i'm guessing that li'l baby one won't do much ... but it was too darn cute to leave out there.

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'becca is washing Christmas fabric and waiting for jewelry glue to dry.

H minus 119 hours

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'becca firmly believes that any get-together within a week of halloween is automatically a costume party.

tyb30 - october update

3 months left 'til my birthday!

1: take 2900 photos. done, thanks to a couple of fabulous vacations. 3139 taken so far. 100%

2: visit two places i've never been before. i'm officially an overachiever on this one. :) pittsburgh, michigan, south dakota, wyoming, new mexico, oklahoma, arkansas, cincinnati, milwaukee. 100%

3: finish two quilts. three done! i made a quilt for alicia's birthday, finished up a quilt for holly & wayne and used the scraps from alicia's to make a baby quilt for a silent auction at work. 100%

4: make/recycle/customize a table for the living room. i should have been way more diligent about going to garage sales this summer. 0%

5: avoid deep-fried vegetables. the french fry embargo officially started may 1. i've had potato chips a couple of times, but so far not too shabby. 95% (that's a solid A, but not quite perfect.)

6: watch the entire 'friends' series. done! and like any self-respecting obsessed fan, i've started the series over. i'm currently on season eight, disc 3. again. :) 100%

7: send out Christmas cards. done! hey - i never said i was going to send them out at Christmas-time. i even got an easter card sent to me in response. :) 100%

8: tackle another month of 1000 photographs. accomplished in july - 1,029 photos. you can see them all here on my flickr account. 100%

9: put together the fortune journal. done! and i'm pleased with the outcome. 100%

10: surprise! done & i love it! i turned one of my living room walls into a huge piece of black/white photographic artwork. 166 of my photos, floor to ceiling, corner to corner. they start small on the left side of the wall (4.5" x 3") and get bigger with each column of photos (ending at 24" x 16"). i have had some issues with humidity, but nothing catastrophic, yet. 100%

11: send a piece of real mail each month. june - sent & received! july - sent & received! august - sent & received! september - sent & received! october - sent & received! 100%

12: watch all of Alan Alda's movies available from netflix. this one won't happen. i put my netflix account on hold again this past week. i don't watch the movies enough to make it worth the money every month. so i'm officially conceding failure on this one. 19%

13: try a muffuletta from at least two restaurants other than three floyd's. i haven't had any luck with this, yet. however, i did get what looks to be a very yummy recipe for muffuletta ... so i may just make my own. 0%

14: host a ladies' night at the new house. done! my ladies got together for a li'l halloween party. yay for us! 100%

15: get my own place. done! haven't you invited yourself over yet? 100%

16: plantumentary. officially started june 21, but it's in need of either an overhaul or some serious re-dedication. 50%

17: get my blog archives under control with yearly headers. workin' on it. 33%

18: don't plug in my tv until goal #3 is accomplished. done! since #3 has been accomplished, this one is officially accomplished, too. though i don't see myself plugging my tv in now that i'm done with two quilts. i just ... don't really care, yet. 100%

19: try to grow some vegetables. i have tomatoes turning pretty colors ... now it's a waiting game to see if i can get them ripe before frost. or picked to ripen inside before frost. or picked before the area wildlife picks them for me. blasted wildlife. 100%

20: read a book. i've finished'persepolis' and started catch 22, again. 100%

21: put up a Christmas tree. i have some plans for this Christmas tree. i want it to match my living room, as that is where i'll set it up. i need to do some digging for the perfect tree ... or make my own. 0%

22: get my nose pierced. done on the fifth of july! and by a very nice looking man, if i do say so myself. 100%

23: update my portfolio. done! yes, i'll continue to add to it and possibly make some tweaks ... but it's updated & ready to be seen. 100%

24: screen print a t-shirt. i have a plan ... :) 0%

25: bike ten miles. i haven't had my bike out of the garage all summer. 0%

26: create artwork for the office. why am i not more motivated to be productive when i get home from work? 0%

27: go two weeks without obvious processed sugars. this was started on Monday, Oct. 20. and ended on Thursday, Oct. 23. though, technically it was started again on Friday, Oct. 24. so we'll see. it turns out i really like starbuck's caramel apple spice. 0%

28: Christmas surprise. 0%

29: have breakfast at lynn's paradise cafe. 0%

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'becca tore into her prom dress tonight. literally.

H minus 177 hours

ms. pumpkin witch wishes you a very happy thursday before halloween.

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'becca had a great time last night.

thoughts of the day

i was confounded when i came home and saw the flag up on my mailbox. why didn't my mailman pick up my mail? it wasn't a holiday - a fact made obvious by the empty garbage can by the road. so what was the deal? then i opened my mailbox & realized he had passed, he had picked up my mail and he had left me random junk mail in return. and he probably even put the flag down. but someone had picked several mums & placed them in the mailbox ... leaving the flag up, i assume, to be sure i checked the box. this was done earlier in the year with dandelions.

i believe it's the little girl next door who has left me these flowers. on one hand i think it's very cute. really, i do. on the other hand, it kinda gets on my nerves that she's picking my mums just to leave them in my mailbox. if you want to leave me flowers - pick 'em from your own yard, not mine. this way you're just pointing out that you're in my yard ... and surely by now you know i hate that.


i finished the baby quilt tonight. i'm putting it in a silent auction at work tomorrow. it's about 42" x 51" - made mostly from the leftovers after alicia's quilt.


the backing is green corduroy. green. corduroy. i think i'm in love. :)


this is the first quilt i've washed immediately after finishing it. i have this fear that everything i make will self destruct in the washing machine - so i give the quilts away unwashed, so the new owner can get some enjoyment out of them before they die in the rinse cycle. granted, i've never had a quilt completely fall apart on anyone. but still, i was a little freaked out to toss it in the washer.

why did i wash it, then? well, the last thing i want is for it to fall apart on someone who buys it tomorrow. because then, without fail, i'll hear about it for a very long time. and i really don't want that. it's one thing if a quilt falls apart on me or someone who knows me. but a co-worker? yeah, no thanks.

i did, however, just pull it out of the dryer (did you notice i walked away?) - and it looks perfect! yay!

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'becca is going to poke around for more items for the silent auction.

14. host a ladies' night ...

i have a short list of things that i really should accomplish tonight. however, the only thing that's going to get done is giving you this photo from last night.

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'becca is re-thinking her costume for the office.

friday evening ramble

i should be sewing the binding on my little girl's quilt, but i'm not. i don't have the focus. or the desire to hear the machine.

i'm waiting for the dryer to be done, and then i'll probably go to bed. i came home tonight and immediately changed, tossing the clothes i wore out to dinner into the wash. they reeked of cigarette smoke. my hair probably does, too ... though i won't really notice that until the morning. in terms of noticing, i didn't notice how smoky the room was until i went to the restroom & came back.

today was jim's last day at the office. we went to charlie's ale house for drinks & dinner. it was good. we (the collective we) need to be more willing to go out for a few hours of fun without it revolving around someone leaving. i'm going to miss working with jim. he's a good guy.

tomorrow night i'm having a few ladies over for some halloween fun. i suppose i could be baking cookies or cleaning the living room right now. but i don't really have the desire for that, either. :)

maybe i'll go make a big glass of ice water & sit for an episode or two of friends ...

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'becca, 'becca, 'becca ...

19: try to grow some vegetables.

i'm going to have a ripe tomato before it frosts!

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'becca should be sleeping.

3. finish two quilts

i finished holly & wayne's quilt! i need to figure out a better way to photograph my quilts - hanging, preferably, so you can see the entire top. but, here it is. :)


here's a shot with the corner folded so you can see the back fabric.


and here it is all folded up so you can see the blocks a little better.

the red/white stripes are wonky log cabins. i piled up red & white squares and cut the angles randomly. then i pieced them back together to make the final squares half & half. the stars are paper pieced - a template i made myself. the instructions called for cutting all the star points individually, but lining up points isn't my forte ... so i paper pieced instead.

i machine quilted through the red/white stripes on the diagonals and hand quilted around each of the stars. and the backing is a pre-quilted fabric, so there's no worries about the batting shifting.

yay!

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'becca may have just proven to herself that being a pack rat is good.

dessert

note the sprinkles. my niece would be proud.

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'becca thinks the diet dr. pepper cans might match her living room perfectly.

9: put together the fortune journal

a couple of months ago i tried making a cover for a purse calendar out of fortunes. the results were not satisfactory. the fortunes were laid out in perfect rows, and it was too boring for me. so when i started this journal cover, i pasted down about a dozen fortunes in a haphazard, random fashion before deciding i didn't like that either. after all, part of the fun of using the fortunes was being able to READ the fortunes.

so i went back to lines. but i gave them an angle and mixed in some colored stripes. the stripes are cut from paint chips i picked up months ago when i was thinking about painting my office. i haven't painted the office - but i do still like the colors. :)


here's a view showing both the front & back of the finished journal. i'm quite pleased with how it came out. everything's covered in mod podge, so it's a tad hard to photograph without crazy reflection of the flash, but it has a fabulous feel to it. it's smooth, but you can see the brush strokes. and the fortunes are all different thicknesses (thanks to some of them being part of the original & second failed attempts), so there's a neat texture to it, as well.


there's one fortune on each side that's sitting on top of the color stripes. the front says "your dream will come true."


and the back reads "you're transforming yourself into someone who is certain to succeed."

i don't know about all of that - but i do really like journal. :)

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'becca is watching the cubs game online.