Sewing and Blogging Slacker....that would be me

So I'm going to skip the part where I make all kinds of excuses as to why I'm a Slacker and go straight to the good stuff.

Sewing
I've joined a couple of quilt alongs, Crazy Mom Quilts and Old Red Barn.
This is as far as I've gotten on the 9 patch a day one. I'm so far behind. But by God, I will catch up and finish. All of this comes from my stash,which is really good news. I'm very excited about how this will turn out.
This is as far as I've gotten on the Old Red Barn one, I've purchased fabric. These are so far out of my normal fabric cravings, but when I joined the quilt along and went through my stash and saw that it would be beyond my current mental concentration to find 12 1/2 yards that went together, I naturally went shopping at fabric.com. This whole collection was on super duper clearance, and I've always liked red and light blue together. I bought extra of the gingham....it will make perfect binding for lots of things....hee hee.

The Oh My Dog wallhangings....still hanging over the railing of the loft. Will quilt and photo soon, promise. Kristin's birthday is FAST approaching!

Critters
Pepper Cat and Evey Dog are fast friends. I think Pepper thinks Evey is Mama. She follows her everywhere. And Evey follows me everywhere, so we make quite the parade walking around the house together.
In the last few days I've been reminded of the children's book, "Are You My Mother?" It has been surprising how the dog and kitten have gotten along. I was a bit concerned about how the dog would react to the kitten, she barks continuously at PJ one of our other cats. But Evey lets Pepper attack her, drink and eat out of her bowls, and most recently clean the inside of her ears. Whatever is happening around here is pretty cute.....
As far as the other cats, PJ has taken to living in the basement with her arch nemesis, Snickers. They crack me up down there.

Munchkins
As I was transferring photos for this post I found dozens of photos I had not taken on my camera. Perhaps this is another lesson of why not to leave your camera unattended.
Do you remember last summer what I came home to one afternoon? Well apparently, the oldest Munchkin got super industrious recently and decided to create her own pictorial. How I love when I find little treasures like this. She's my artist.

Weight Loss and Exercise
I'm up to 45 lbs lost since January 1, 2009. I'm on the treadmill at least an hour 6 days a week, most weeks 7 days. I gotta say watching my first season of the Biggest Loser this spring has kept me motivated.

Twilight-New Moon
I cannot believe I haven't seen this on other people's blogs. You know who you are.

So y'all take care....I'm off to the pool with the Munchkins....and hopefully will be sewing soon!

What in the world have I gotten myself into?!

Lord help me, I've joined Dana in her Old Red Barn Co Quilt Along. And I have a million nine patches to do to catch up with AmandaJean, but shhhh, please don't tell on me.

I'd better get to sewing. Who said dirty clothes don't keep? It's almost summer, we don't need all that many clothes anyway!

I took a break, so sue me

Hello everyone....sorry it's been so long. Since we had to put poor Sunny down things have been barreling along. What with sick kitty, end of school activities, a cold, a wedding, two birthdays, Mother's day, my part-time jobs of work, Mommy, Wife, exercise, and weight loss, and just regular day to day stuff I've been slammed.

So first up, what I promised a couple of week's ago. Quilting update.....honestly, I haven't sewn in weeks. I didn't miss it at first. I guess I just had too much going on, but I'm starting to get that itch. Before I got overwhelmed I started this quilt:
This had started off as a Square in a Square quilt, with three concentric squares per block. An old adage is coming to mind,"Measure twice, cut once." Yes, in all my genius, I thought to myself, "9 inch square, 3 squares, 9 divided by 3, 3" strips". Um, yes, above is what I ended up with. So then after the first cut, realizing my error, and muttering a selection of choice swear words....I decided that I would set the squares on-point. This started out as hand-dyed turquoises purchased for a whole other project that I bought and an Amy Butler that I thought was perfect with them. Then over time I collected other prints to incorporate. In the end, the Amy Butler didn't make the cut. Oh well......

I have another two matching wall hangings ready to be quilted. One for me and one for a dear friend's birthday. These are made with the Oh My Dog charm pack. I just had to have this fabric cause of Evey the dog. When I show you the finished product (hopefully soon) you'll see that the dog on it looks nothing like Evey. It actually looks like my friend's dog, Penny. So stay tuned.

Oh and I joined a quilt-along....I haven't done anything yet....I'm 17 days behind....don't ask.

Next up, last weekend one of my very bestest friends got married! Yay! And she married a very cool guy, scroll down for his pic. It was a lovely lovely day. And she allowed me to play a part by doing her hair, her daughters' hair, and most important swig champagne in the car moments before she walked down the aisle. I never got to make any napkins for her wedding. I didn't make it to Quilt Camp, one of those previously mentioned birthdays conflicted, and they finished them up there. But when we got home, Hubbie said,"Oh look. I guess I accidently stuffed these in my pocket at some point." Now evil laugh, "Mwa ha ha ha ha ha!"
I've thought about holding them hostage and asking for a ransom.....but I really should be a "good" friend, right?. :)

Next up, this week we got some fantastic news....after almost three years of hard work the oldest Munchkin did really well on some standardized tests at school. When we moved almost 3 years ago from county to another, the academic standard difference took us by complete surprise. My oldest Munchkin started her 2nd grade year, behind and has fought and fought to finally get caught up. It's been heartbreaking as a Mother to hear her talk about how she's really not that smart. How she doesn't know if she's smart enough to be a vet (her life long, and I mean life long, dream). But as of 3:01 pm yesterday, we got the news that she passed her tests with BRIGHT FLYING COLORS! Whoo, hoo, oh yeah! So riding this high, I gave in to the oldest Munchkin's latest request, to go look at kittens. This week she came to me and Hubbie and told us that she missed her cat Sunny, but she thought she was ready to be Mommy to a new kitten.

Please meet Pepper!
And here she is with her new Mommy.
Pepper is 6 weeks old and too cute for words. Oldest Munchkin is so happy and in love. Quote: "This is the best day of my life." My Munchkins have had to endure alot in the last 12 months....they deserve alittle happiness.

So what do the other furry babies have to say about it all.....
"WTF! Hiss, Hiss, is she gone? I can't believe you've done this to me. Just when I had been promoted to Number 2! Hiss, hiss."
"Ok, I need to give the new kid some pointers.....like don't sit on my person's lap! That's all mine little kitty. But if you come over I'll lick your nose..."

Well that's about it. Hopefully, you feel fulfilled and caught up on my life.....blog at you soon, y'all!

Sunny Cat, Sunny Cat, Oh Lalee, Lalee, Lalee

Sing the title of this post to the song,"Lollipop, Lollipop, oh lolly, lolly, lolly".Today is a sad day around here. We had to say goodbye to our sweet furry friend.

Most of you may know of our sweetest kitty, Sunny. Five years ago, we adopted Sunny and her brother Buster when they were 12 weeks old. Honestly, they looked like twins. Their markings were almost exactly the same, the only way to tell them apart was that Buster was a bit bigger and crazier and had slightly frizzier fur. Buster had an unfortunate run in with Fantastic cleaner two weeks after we got him. So we were left with Sunny. She was a remarkable kitty. She never met a person she didn't like. She loved to be held like a baby and get kisses all over. She would endure this ritual and never struggle or fight. As a kitten she'd sit on my shoulder like a parrot. And best of all she became bestest friends with my oldest Munchkin. They were like peas in a pod. It was not uncommon to find my child hopping around on the floor with Sunny sitting close by to be told, "Mommy we're playing dinosaurs." This cat would let the girls put her in boxes and bags and play endless games. And she almost exclusively slept at the end of Munchkin's bed every night.
She was my quilting buddy. She was the cat who made herself present everytime I was sewing. She'd wrestle batting, chew on scraps, and lay on quilts as I tried to quilt them.
When we sold our last house, we constantly got comments about the orange kitty who followed them around and meowed. Several people said they picked her up and she showed them the house. She was a talker. She and I would have long "conversations" with me asking her questions and she responding.
In the last few months and weeks it became obvious that something was wrong, she lost alot of weight and got sick. We thought we had it beat, but over the weekend it became apparent that she had developed an abcess that was deeply infected. This morning oldest Munchkin and I took her to the vet and got the bad news we had thought we had prepared ourselves for. So we said goodbye to our sweet sweet girl.

Oldest Munchkin and I are heartbroken. The whole family will miss her. Goodbye, Sunny.

Whoops....

Sorry it's been over a week, how did that happen?

Well unfortunately this is going to be a short and not so happy post. As I type this my poor Sunny cat is at the vet again. She now has a large infected cyst on her leg and is very sick. Stay tuned....I'm expecting some news before lunch time today.