Quite a Week...

Well it's been quite a week! Lots of "happenings"... First of all, my hubby has retired. Monday was his "last official day of work". After devoting 36.5 years of his life to the Bank, he is now free. As he put it, "I'm no longer responsible for other people's stupid mistakes". I think he feels somewhat like someone who has just been sprung from jail.... So... my life and routines are no doubt going to change a little. There will be an adjustment phase, for sure. I'm so glad Santa brought a small tv for my studio... now I just have to get a lock put on the door... lol

Laura has found a new apartment for next year- a nice cozy little place which she will have all to herself. Hurray!! NO more roommate issues. We've had enough of that. She signed the lease this morning. What a relief, for her and for us...

I finished my lap quilt top. It was made with a Mulberry Bali Pop, plus a few strips from my stash. The pattern, by Janine Burke of Blue Underground Studios, Inc. is called Gemini. Very quick and easy. Sometimes you just need something "mindless" to work on - this fit the bill. It is a bit different for me, as most of what I do is fairly traditional. I'm not adding borders, it will just be quilted and bound. Done. Done is good. I know I promised a photo of this yesterday, but yesterday was quite a day... keep reading....

Speaking of "done", our quilt that we've been hand-quilting is finished! It came off the frame yesterday around 4pm. Wow- we even surprised ourselves in getting it done this quickly- just three weeks and roughly 135 hours of quilting by 17 different people. It will be bound, labeled and ready to show at our February Guild meeting. Today I will be erasing the marked lines...

To add to all of the above "excitement", we had another big snowstorm - lots of snow, very poor driving conditions, etc. etc. At the height of the storm late Wednesday afternoon, we were told our sewer line was either frozen or collapsed. (To simplify a long convoluted story, we are not hooked into the City sewer lines. Ours runs into the "family business" lines, so this problem was up to my brothers to rectify.) So... frozen line. This means we cannot flush toilets, shower, or run water in the sinks. Hmmm... interesting. Okay, we can live with this for a short while, but the fact that I had a number of ladies coming to quilt on Thursday had me worried. How do you tell ladies who are volunteering to come and work, for 2, 3, 4 hours or longer, that they will not have a bathroom to use? I worried half the night about a back-up... To heighten my stress, the phone rang on Thursday morning before I was even out of bed - it was brother Wayne telling me the huge machine they had coming to cut through pavement and dig up the line would vibrate my house considerably and I should remove anything that might fall from walls, shelves, etc. So you can just imagine what kind of a "state" I was in, by the time quilters started arriving at 9:30. Luckily most of them touched base with me before coming so I could forewarn them to "go" before leaving home. In the end, the line was not frozen, the humungous machine did not have to tear up the line, and there was no vibration at all. I'm still putting things back in place... What fun....

Piece,
Linda

Just when a mother thinks her work is complete, her husband retires...