Do Not Hump

So I worked three over night shifts this week. One was included in a 24 hour stint. Whew! Total I worked 67 hours last week!

I've been trying to go to the gym in the morning, but I just couldn't do it thursday after my over night. So I asked my hubby to go on a walk with me!

We ended up walking 2.67 miles in a loop along the "trail by the tracks" and then up past our church and back to our place. We live in such a fun location! Luke told me at church that twice yesterday Josiah put on his shoes and said, "walk to ali's" (only in Josiah-ish it's pronounced ah-yee). :) this makes me happy because even though josiah has not himself waked over here, he knows it is possible because we've all told him! So he's just waiting for his chance. :P

Anyway. It's been a long week, and about to start another. But my hubby takes care of me. We thought this sign on the train was funny. So this long post is to remind you all...

Why?!?

Does it always come down to buying more fabric?!

For my lovely sister in law, Peach's, quilt, I thought I had enough fabric! I thought I had 8 yards to start with. Then when I started cutting, I was worried I wouldn't have enough, so I bought another yard. Still not enough. Had to buy more white. So I bought another yard. Sigh.

This is what I've got plus a few more of the pink pieces, but that will only make about another row! I'm trying to make 6x7. I only have 6x3.66. Bleh.

So my good progress on this quilt will have to be put on hold yet again. I've already spent my quilt budget for the month...and while I nearly got up and went out just now anyway...I decided to hold off.

Now to get back to my diamond red/yellow/black...

Wednesday Happenings

Hello everyone! It's officially the middle of the week and it was a beautiful day!

 It was about 75 degrees all day. Oh my. A great February day. 

Brett came over and we had a quilting day and we both actually worked on quilts! She worked on her Snail Tail quilt, and I have gone back to working on my sil's pink double-wedding-ring! I have tripled my progress in the last three days. 

 

I haven't really decided what to do about the "corners" of the rings. The instructions call for squares, but I don't follow directions very well and I don't really like that. I might applique some squares after I baste? Or circles? I don't know!!! 

These things I did a while ago and I actually made four, but the others were harder to photograph because of the wall they were on. I didn't put them up in our old apt because we were trying not to put holes in the wall. But I just used spray mod podge on thick cork board and four different fabrics (as a quilter it was a little difficult to let go of some fabric for uses other than quilting, but I bit my tongue and did it, and I'm glad I did!).  I have all the things from our fridge on these now, and am trying to keep the fridge cleaner...

I made this a couple weeks ago. Since I made a Shutterfly book for our wedding photos, I wasn't sure what to do with the wedding photos I had already ordered. So, picture collage!

Do you remember the quilt I made for Kelly? Well, introducing...

Kelly!

I work with her three days a week. Today we were stamping and stickering a card for her grandmother. Fun arts and crafts time! I'm actually working two overnights (my normal shift on Wed is 4-11, but I am also working the shift after - 11-9:30am!) this week, and 24 hours starting Sat 8am! Whoo! It's a good thing Kelly and I get along so well! :P Busy!

And here is where her quilt lives! She loves it. A great I SPY game.

Not Nothing

So! I know it's been several days since I posted, but I haven't been doing nothing! I haven't been quilting, or really cooking much...

But I did make a bag! The one I was planning to make a few weeks ago. I bought this super cute fabric...

It's trees and panda bears. A little cutsey, but small print so not immediately tagged that way. :P I tried for about 5 min to turn the photo, sigh, but I can't so it. I know Andrew would tell me I should ask him, but he is currently...

Playing Halo with Nate. :) Nate is a great friend and helped Andrew out for several hours today with the business. I wish we could pay him so we could hire him! He's interested in the business, loves working with Andrew and volunteers his time, even though he's in school! He came over for dinner. :) I like to leave Andrew to his guy time when he gets it, because he gets it so rarely! I don't want to interrupt his relaxing, he needs it.

Anyway, back to my little bag. I started it while I was at Brett's on Wednesday. We had...4+ hours of "quilting". She'd been up super early working (at Starbucks, opening shift is early!) so she puttered around with fabric and designs and I worked on this bag while we watched Sense and Sensibility. :) Oh Jane Austin! 

I finished the bag today. After a few snaffoos (I sewed the interfacing to the wrong side and then couldn't figure out how to attach the lining to the outside...so I ended up hand sewing the top...haha. Oh following directions! I'm not great at it. :P

The bag is bigger than I was expecting. I guess I should have been able to tell by the dimensions, but for some reason I never can tell how wide 18 in will scale down to when I have it all sewed. It's good for carrying around all my stuff when I have food/book, etc. And yes, those are lemons in there. Different days find very strang things thrown into my purse!

Did I ever show you this little guy? He is my first attempt at cross-stitching. He's a truffle from the Dessert of the Month club in Jan. I received Feb's dessert on the first, but have not had much motivation to go buy embroidery floss. Sigh. Oh well. He IS cute, though!

Tonight I made baked bbq chicken, cheesy scalloped potatoes and sauteed zucchini/carrots/onion. One of the little girls from the Montessori gave me two chocolate cookies for Valentines Day today, and they were SUPER good. And of course I wanted to make more. So I tried this recipe for Flourless Chocolate Brownie Cookies. Great idea in theory...but they didn't come off the pan in the shape of cookies, and they were too sweet, even for me (oh you should see the size of my sweet tooth!). They taste like chocolate chips rolled in powdered sugar. Unfortunately they'll sit on the counter and I'll eat them anyway...

Also this week I spent about...12? 15? hours working on a New Zealand album on Shutterfly. I was inspired by the sale they were having (40% off! plus a promo for free shipping if you spend over $30, which I was going to!). Our wedding album turned out really great. I don't think I'd spend full price on them (this one was originally going to be $70, plus tax and shipping!), but with the sales that they have, it's totally worth it! And I can work on them any time and just order them when the sales come around. Anyway, we went to NZ over a year ago, and I haven't even worked on my physical album in about 4 months, so I didn't know how long it would take me to make a NZ one. So I got a little obsessed with finishing. And I ordered it last night! It is going to be so fun! And with all discounts, it cost $45! 12x12 album with 30 pages! Love it. (also, we had credit from a gift card, so I only had to spend $25 yesterday!)

My friend Alyssa is planning on doing one a year after doing her "First Year" albums for her two boys. I thought that was a really good idea. Especially on Shutterfly, when you can add photos and work on the book whenever you want and then just order when it is done. So I'm trying to take more photos. :) Especially of friends and family and every day things, not just the trips. We have a great life and I love looking back on everything we've done together! I just love being married.

Food!

So! Here are some pictures of the Negamaki...they tasted as good as they look! Ingredients: 1lb flank steak (plus seasoning), carrots and asparagus! I'm feeling lazy and don't want to put in the recipe...how about this? IF anyone wants it, you can email me!

Here is my boring shot...

And Hubby's artistic one:

He makes it look so delicious! :D And I made it TASTE delicious. I guess you can't be good at everything. :D

We celebrated Valentine's today because I work tomorrow night. I asked him if I could plan it this year and he jumped on it. :P (Apparently after his epic picnic/learning a song on the guitar of two years ago, the creative juices have yet to replenish :P). So I decided right away that I would make his favorite...Indian Chicken Tikka Masala. He gets it every time we eat at an Indian place, and when Tandy (my lovely mil) is around, he requests Indian (because she will pay for it! :P). And I can't really argue with him...It is super tasty. He has brought culture to my life! I grew up with American and Mexican. Good, but he has added Thai and Indian, and it makes our dinner choices broader! 

ANYWAY!

I ordered the main spice on Amazon because neither Vons nor Albertsons carried it and I figured if they didn't, none of the smaller stores would either. It was supposed to arrive last Tues. And Amazon said it did. Delivered to our front door. But while my other ordered package arrived that day, this did not show up (garam masala). Finally, when we were heading out of town Friday, I complained to Andrew (I didn't tell him what it was, he just knew I was missing something) and he suggested that they had delivered to the front office of our apartment complex. Since we were out of town all weekend, I finally got to check this morning...and they didn't have it either!

Panic is setting in. My plans! Andrew's dinner! :(

After babysitting Isaiah this morning, I went to Food 4 Less, Trader Joes and then was headed for a last ditch attempt at Ralphs (running out of time before I had to leave for work...ended up being 10 min late :/). When I passed World Market! Oh man, they saved me. And the price was about 1/4 what Amazon charged me. :P {side note: we love Amazon. If we could buy everything from there, we probably would. This is the first time we've ever had trouble}.

SO...

After all this and much more (but this post is already very wordy and I may have lost some of my few readers...), dinner was absolutely delicious! It genuinely tasted they way they serve it at some of the restaurants we went to! So: Chicken Tikka Masala, Basmati Rice (with lemon and cilantro), and homemade naan! Yummy! 

Andrew was very impressed and highly pleased.

Success!

And he's currently doing the dishes. :D Wonderful Hubby! Or Wubby. :D

And we have Trader Joe's creme brulee in chocolate cups for dessert!

Weekend Wedding

So I'm going to be backtracking a little in the next couple of posts. Thursday night I made a meal from Weight Watchers "This...Then This" cookbook: "Asian Style Grilled Flank Steak". Then Friday night (slash morning because I knew we'd want to eat and run) I made "Negamaki with Ginger Dipping Sauce". No photo of the first meal (tasted great, but not really picture worthy...), but my hubby took some really amazing photos of the amazing looking Negamaki (it actually looked like the picture in the book! THAT is impressive!)

Anyway, the photo is not showing up right now because it is on the other camera..

BUT! I have pictures from this weekend. 

(I didn't end up getting any up close photos of the Hoffman Wedding Quilt...sigh)

The purple I picked for the quilt...PERFECT. Look!

You can't tell super well from these photos, but that purple is a near - if not exact - match. :D

Erikka was so adorable! Hopefully she likes her quilt!

All done up and matching with our polka dots! :) (Andrew's tie, in case you can't see it...)

Our good friends Rob and Allison. They got married in Sept, a few month after we did, and the boys were groomsmen for each other. :) Allison helped out a lot at our wedding, and theirs was beautiful!

We stayed the night at our friend Tyler's in Oakland, then the group (mostly Cal Poly grads, though with a few old friends and new San Jose ((lots of our old Cal Poly friends have moved to San Jose area)) friends) met up for lunch at The Counter at Santana Row, then we all walked and window-shopped/hung out from there. And that's when we all took a sneak peak at the yet-to-be-released Tesla. That is one spiffy car. Starting at $57K, or something like that. :P But really, the young guys working in there were super great.

I want a red one. :D

Tesla

This is our future car!
The guys working here were super great with our big group of not rich people wanting to sit in it and hear about it. :) a good sales theory I think! Young people may not look like they have money, but they may, so be good to everyone who comes in!

Also!

This is the first quilt I'm going to sell. It's going to be twin size (usually a little bigger, as my planning goes...), grey backing. Any thoughts? Suggestions? I'm giving my blog readers first choice...I'm thinking $70, including shipping. I'm also going to put it on my Etsy. :)

Fun!

Yay! Pictures of my finished quilt!

On my screen they look a little fuzzy. And the camera battery died before I could take any detailed photos...hopefully everything looks ok, and I'll get more pics later.

And four quilt blocks...they kind of look like they belong to different quilts! More white and black in the right two, a little more color than I was planning in the left two. We'll see if they tie together ok...

I'm thinking I'm going to position them this way, with grey strips in between. I was considering putting a little something in that intersection, a dash of color...but it's already pretty busy...

Sneak Peak...

I finished the wedding quilt! No pictures yet because I dove right into the next quilt...

Red, black and yellow! I wanted to do a strip pieced quilt, so I played around a little with a pattern I have until I came up with something different. :P The first block finished!:

Man, I really need to paint those toenails!

Fail

Home made ice cream. It wins every time. :(

Our Differences

So my hubby came home and said, "Smells good!" Then he walked into the kitchen and started serving himself. I came over and tipped the pan for him and he asked, "Oh, I'm supposed to take the broth?" And of course he didn't mean anything...

And I said, "Yes! The broth is the best part! I know you don't like it, but-"

"What? Who said I didn't like it?"

"Well, when you eat Cup Noodle, you pour off the broth..."

And he laughed and said, "How many times did you see me do that?"

"I don't know, several times?"

"Well, I pour off the broth because it's too hot to eat, not because I don't like it! I ate cup noodle today and drank all the broth!"

And he laughed and hugged me and said, "I like you." :D

And I like him. Oh our misunderstandings because I assume things after witnessing some of his eating habits...

Sauteed Veggie Soup

So I made some soup today. :) Which may just kick start another soup making binge. Went through one a few years ago, before the hubby. So good!

Sauteed Veggie Soup

2 medium red potatoes
Two carrots
one large or two small zucchini
Half a yellow onion
(you can add a chicken breast, and I was planning too, but the chicken smelled bad)
One garlic clove
1 1/2 Tbsp unsalted butter
2 c water
Beef or chicken bullion

I used my large, 14 inch pan, turned on to medium heat and melted the butter. I cut the potatoes to bite sized pieces (everything is cut to bite size pieces...) And tossed them in and stirred them a few times, then put the lid on.

I cooked the potatoes for about eight min, then put the carrots and onion in, stirred and put the lid on again. When the potatoes were almost soft, I the in the zucchini and turned up the heat. No more lid.

I sauteed everything very nicely and then pressed the garlic in, gave another min or so. I had discovered the chicken was bad before this, and was just going to eat the veggies, but hubby likes meat with every meal so I was trying to find SOMETHING to add...and he likes Cup Noodle, so I decided to put in some water and bullion. I used both beef and chicken, and that with the butter made this a pretty rich soup!

And the hubs just walked in (about an hour after I thought he'd be here :P) and said, "smells good," so at least it had nose approval so far. :P I are without him half an hour ago. I like my soup best fresh!