Ahhh, my work day is done & tomorrow is my day off!!!!!

Hello, Hello!!! Wow am I glad to finally be home today and done with work until Thursday. The county fair is going on in our town right now and we figured we'd be slow this week. WRONG-A-RONI!!!! Actually I think it's quite the opposite. Seems like business has doubled just yesterday(Monday) and today. That's a good thing but man does this girl have to work when we are busy like that. I get a step aerobic workout everyday that I go to work. The kitchen and the hot deli area are up a step one way and up two steps the other way through the place. My main work area is down front on the lowest level. I am up and down and back and forth all day. When we're busy, I come home exhausted. You'd think I'd be getting thin as a rail but I'm finding that just the opposite too. I never used to eat much except for supper. Now that I work around food, all I want to do is eat. lol. It sucks. I get disappointed in myself. But, it's also good to actually feel hungry again once in awhile too. So, unless I get to where I can't get my pants on, I'm not gonna worry much about it for now. lol.

Speaking of the fair, I want to put in a plug here for the 2008 Ashland County Fair. This is the 157th annual county fair. Both my sons and their ladies are going to the Tracy Lawrence and Emerson Drive concert this evening. If they get any good pics, I'll post them. As like many folks, we experienced some extreme weather over the weekend apparantly due to Hurricane Ike, but on Sunday, September 14th, the opening day of this year's fair, they actually had to evacuate the fairgrounds that afternoon by 4:30 due to the weather we were experiencing, It did rain alot here Saturday but Sunday afternoon is the weirdest weather I have ever seen here in Ohio in my whole entire life. The wind was merciless. It had been a nice day, a bit windy and damp on Sunday but I noticed when I went to the store around 5:00 that there were alot of tree branches all over the place and the wind was definately picking up. I called home and told my husband to be ready to help me get the groceries in when I got there because I thought we were fixin' to get a tornado or something. The weird thing is and what scared me was there wasn't a drop of rain to be had. Just this extreme wind. Hubby and I went out riding around about an hour later and found two homes just barely spared by these huge massive old trees just either uprooted or snapped off right at the bottom. By 7:00, the power was out in about half the city and seems like all the rural areas. My brother is still without power and was told it could be 3 or 4 days before he'd be restored. My son's workplace lost power Sunday night as well and he was told tonight that it would be Friday before they were back up and running. Despite the inconveniences, we are fortunate. We could live in Texas. There have been alot of reports of damage throughout the county though. I feel for those who were in it's path whatever that was. Our power here at home was only off a few maybe 3 hours.

Again, mentioning the fair, lol, if I was smart I would have had a few of my items out there in a contest this year. Their theme was "around the world/transportation". I'm mad at an old lady who was supposed to get me info about getting in it this year so maybe next year I can get on board soon enough to get my own information and enter some of my sewing items. I probably am nowhere near being judged to win a contest this year anyway. lol.

I also wanted to share with everyone how I made that golf seat cover after all. I didn't use the technique I saw on Sewing With Nancy as I mentioned I might in a previous post. I ended up using a modified crib sheet pattern. If you check out this pattern, the third finishing option is the one I used. My first real time using elastic. Not as bad as I thought it would be and I learned something in the meantime, maybe. I'll find out when I make the covers for the seat backs. Maybe some of you might know. My problem was that I cut the 15 inch piece of elastic and pinned it in the middle and tacked it. Then I stretched it out 12 inches in either direction from there and tacked it. So when I went to sew it, I had that 12 inches of fabric to pull and stretch on. I didn't know whether to pull the back of it coming out of the machine after it sewed or let it relax. Seems like it would be easier on your machine to pull it still instead of letting it bunch behind the needle and then still pull on it from the front. I hope that makes sense. What I'm thinking is I need to break it down into 3 or 4 inch sections when I pin it and tack it. Then I only have to make sure in between tacks that that is all I need to pull tight to sew the elastic. If anyone has any tips, I'd appreciate it. There's a million things I'd love to make but using elastic has scared me off. Not til I can comprehend how to do it properly or have someone show me hands on. In the meantime I struggle. lol. If it works though, I say run with it. lol.

I was just out back and took some pics of the "storm" damage from Sunday. I won't complain, it could be way worse. Here's all I'm dealing with:







My hot pepper plant fell right over. lol.



Tomorrow I hope to get some of my fave links posted back on here for pattern sites and such. Someday they might save someone hours of searching like I have done to find some of these that I like so well and/or have used and tried. We'll see. Looks like I got yard work to do tomorrow if it isn't raining. Cold I can take, rain-uh no. Hope you all have a great evening.

Renee

I've Been Busy Today

Oh man. Have you ever noticed that when you have a day off and nothing in particular planned, and the likelihood of sleeping-in is promising; that it is impossible to do so? Now when I woke up this morning and turned to the clock to see if I indeed had slept in, I was slightly miffed right off the bat. It was 7 daggone 30. What the heck? I'll tell ya what the heck. After a blind trip to the bathroom, blind meaning I didn't wear my glasses, as I hoped perhaps I could lay there and coax myself back to sleep awhile after I ran to the potty. Well, I will not provide detail, however I was not happy after the trip to the restroom either. So, I go get my spectacles and bounce off the walls as I make my way through the obstacle course that is my home. I get to the kitchen and realize......NO COFFEE!!!!! As Reba would say, "Crap". Not lookin' good. Anyway I decide that Pepsi will do for a quick burst of wake up caffeine. If I hadn't felt so lousey I would have walked to the store and got a cup of coffee but I knew Pepsi was only a footstep or two away.

In addition to normal morning fuzzy head, I also was experiencing what I call "straight-tripping". I forgot my evening dose of medication last night and when I do that my head does crazy things. It just feels funny like slow motion or something. So, I take my regular dose as usual this morning on an empty stomach and sit and wait for the heartburn to begin. While I'm doing this, I go for a cigarette and realized I was lazy last night and didn't roll any extra and my husband had taken the bulk of them to work this morning. Go figure. So, I decide I will ration what I have so I don't have to start rolling right away, especially with the fuzzy head.

I don't know about anyone else's cable line-up but ours seems to offer nothing but infomercials in the early morning hours. Well, I certainly wasn't in the mood to have how fat and frumpy I am pointed out to me that early in the morning by the twigs exercising their blonde heads off. So, I tune in to our local PBS station and what do I catch but Sewing with Nancy. I've provided this link to catch some of her shows online for free. The particular episode I saw today is not in that line-up, however I am so happy I caught it as while I was watching it I was finding it kind of boring until they began making a seat cushion cover. Well, I paid attention for the most part and went on with my business when it was over. Never thinking anything of it at the time, it came to me this evening that what I saw today would be perfect for a set of golf cart seat covers that I have been given the opportunity to make for pay. I have been pondering the idea of how to make them with great difficulty as my husband said I would probably have to use elastic to make them removeable. I have not really used elastic before and the few times I tried, I lost hope almost instantly. So you see why this was a worry for me. When he showed me the photo's today of the seats to be covered, that episode of Sewing with Nancy instantly popped into my head as the ideal way to make these cushion covers, as the lesson was a technique using gathering and a drawstring on the bottom of your covers for removeablility. Wow, it was like a lightbulb went off for me.

Needless to say, I am sitting here looking at a miniture prototype now as I made a cover for a matchbox just to see how it would work. I'll try and get a pic on here of it.








But I also made a microwaveable corn heating pad for a friend of mine. Her little boy needed one so I made him a little version of one today. I even shucked the field corn myself for the project. My brother brought me the corn and now he wants a bag too. I'll probably make his tomorrow. I also have to get my etsy stuff ready for the sale. I wanted to do it today but my little projects along with not feeling good at all kept me from doing a whole lot. Plus the heat is terrible. It's been another 90 degree day here in good old Ohio.

But in closing I just wanted to say that no matter if you think you are going to have a bad day, it really can turn around and I feel like it's been a pretty good day after all. I spent most of it doing something I love. Just goes to show that it pays to pay attention to stuff. You never know when you may need that information. What a coincidence this information came to me today after I saw the photos of those seats. I'm anxious to get started on them already. Even better, we get to go buy new fabric for the job. Woohoo, new fabric.!! lol. My Flower Garden quilt may get shoved back on the burner even though I don't like having a million jobs going on, sometimes I am weak. lol. I'm gonna hit the hay for tonight. And thanks to everyone who's taking a peak on my little quilted world.

Have a Good Night,
Renee