relationship – Page 2 – No Chaos No Order

Quilt Run 101

Posted on February 18, 2013 by nochaosnoorder_lkd0dk Posted in heart, relationship .

A random, just for fun adventure! Quilt Run 101 is a Spring event held by 15 coastal quilt stores. There were several ways to participate:
1) The passport. No purchase necessary, just be sure to get your passport stamped at each store you visit. Get at least 6 stamps to qualify for a $25 gift certificate drawing. More stamps qualifies you for more prizes. The Grand Prize is a Janome 6600 sewing machine! You need all 15 stamps to qualify and that was my goal.

2) 2013 Quilt Run 101 quilt. Each store picks a unique quilt block for you to put together as a commemorative souvenir. I decided just to get the pattern for each block (free), but you could have gotten a kit of pre-cut pieces ($3. Pretty reasonable, really!) I might do the actual quilt if I was making the event a big one – rent a beach house for the week with girlfriends, hit a couple shops a day, but play at the beach, too. And, of course, be sewing each day! Basically, building memories, rather than driving the whole time. 🙂
3) The Challenge Quilt. Each store picks a fabric and you have a couple months to make a quilt that has all 15 fabrics in it. The fabrics are SO different, getting them to play nice would definitely be a challenge. I wish I had gotten a picture of the sample board. Each entrant gets a yard of fabric and qualifies for more prizes. You have to buy a fat quarter of each fabric, so at $3/each would cost you at least $45.

I went as cheap as I could (since I spent so much on gas) and got 1/8th of a yard at most all of the stores. There were two who wouldn’t cut 8ths, so I skipped them. It took me three whole days to get to all the stores.

Day one: Florence to Billings by myself. A great time to reconnect with me and joyful singing. 11am – 11pm

Day two: Astoria to Cloverdale with my husband and our baby. Another great opportunity – time to reconnect with the hubby. Robin slept most of the trip and was such a good boy most of the time he was awake! 🙂 9am – 8pm

Day 3: Waldport to Toledo with my Mom and Robin. More connecting! And Robin was more awake and interested in the stores and shopkeepers. I turned in my passport, but didn’t win anything! 🙁 11am – 5pm

Note cards.

Posted on January 21, 2013 by nochaosnoorder_lkd0dk Posted in home, relationship .

I take after my father when it comes to greeting cards: it’s a surprise if I think about it. Unlike my mother, who sends birthday, anniversary, and graduation cards to both her and my father’s extended family. She is punctual about it and spends time and effort picking out the right card, year after year, for them all. She’s amazing!

I stink at it! I am so bad! Despite watching her for years, seeing how much value she feels it has .. I don’t. I just don’t feel the same. I’m also indifferent about giving gifts. Sure, I love you and value our relationship, but I don’t feel like it’s important for me to find a token gift that very often isn’t useful or enriching to the person who’s birthday it happens to be. Now, when I DO find something that is perfect for anyone, I don’t hesitate to buy it! Often without too much regard for price. If I KNOW that this gift is something that will fill the recipient with joy and excitement and will likely get lots of use – consider it bought.

Same thing with cards. I don’t look for cards for people. I just try to write notes to people when I find myself thinking about them. I’m not that good at it (so if you haven’t gotten a card, it’s not because I’m not thinking of you!), so I have a little book that helps me. You saw it here yesterday, in my desktop sorting basket:

I had an opportunity to use it today and it occurred to me that I should share it with everyone!

So, I think this was a gift or give-away from my mother – a simple, small notebook.

Some people are always eloquent, with legible handwriting, and accurate spelling. Not me. I have found I waste fewer cards if I wright a rough draft. Even if it’s just a couple sentences – I’ll mess up the spacing or their name or something. So, I write it out here and try to check my spelling and grammar. An extra benefit is I can look back and see what I’ve written to people in the past! It’s fun to see what I thought was noteworthy in my life when I wrote it.

Inside, I keep a flag on the next empty page and a note card right inside. More often then not, the card there works for what I want. When I open it up, I’m ready to write!

If that card doesn’t quite work, I can turn to the back where I’ve glued an envelope and put in a variety of other cards. I also keep some address labels here.

Since I write these cards right by my computer I have instant access to my address book (Google’s Contacts) and my stamps are stored in the same space as the book, so I am able to draft, write, and address the note without a hassle!

{this moment}

Posted on December 30, 2012 by nochaosnoorder_lkd0dk Posted in heart, relationship .

{this moment} – A [Sunday] ritual. A single photo – no words – capturing a moment from the week. A simple, special, extraordinary moment. A moment I want to pause, savor and remember. As inspired by Collecting the Moments … One by One and SouleMama

{this moment}

Posted on December 23, 2012 by nochaosnoorder_lkd0dk Posted in health, relationship .

{this moment}

Posted on December 16, 2012 by nochaosnoorder_lkd0dk Posted in heart, relationship .

{this moment}

Posted on December 10, 2012 by nochaosnoorder_lkd0dk Posted in heart, relationship .

A letter:

Posted on December 5, 2012 by nochaosnoorder_lkd0dk Posted in heart, relationship .

I’ve heard a rumor from some elves about a letter my cousins will be receiving :

Dearest W and P,
As I was making 50 gallons of hot cocoa for the elves’ afternoon snack, my husband, Santa, rushed in the kitchen. “Merry! W and P are moving! Please make sure they aren’t missed!” He was in such a hurry to finish the toys in time for his trip, he used his finger-to-his-nose-with-a-wink-and-a-nod trick to disappear and go back to the workshop! I wish he wouldn’t do that in my kitchen. It gets sparkles in my flour.

Well, I asked one of my kitchen helpers to finish the cocoa while I went to my office. You see, there are so many children in the world, Santa and most of the elves work 363 days a year (two days off for our summer retreat in Hawaii) building and wrapping toys, preparing the sleigh, and keeping the reindeer fit, that I have been keeping track of the paperwork and other chores for the last 30 years. I still prefer to bake cookies and tend to Santa’s suit, but someone needs to coordinate things, like making sure over 1500 hundred elves pack swim suits and flip flops, or that enough sun screen has been packed (winter elves sunburn SO easily!).

Hearing the news of your move, I called to my best friend and assistant, Holly, as I swept into the office: “We have an address change!” We made sure your presents were packed in the ‘Oregon’ part of Santa’s bag, removed your Washington address from Santa’s itinerary, and made sure your Grandma and Pa’s address was marked on Santa’s map with a star.

Now, I don’t normally write to all the children who move close to Christmas – there are a lot of them! But, when Santa tells me himself (usually we hear from the Post Master General) I know this is a very special case!

So, please don’t worry, Santa knows where you are. Please be kind to each other, do your chores, and leave some cookies for Santa and carrots for the reindeer. I worry they’ll waste away from hunger on this trip!

Merry Christmas, dears!
Love,
Mrs. Merry Claus

Introducing my Some-Day-Perfect Sewing Closet!

Posted on December 1, 2012 by nochaosnoorder_lkd0dk Posted in heart, home, relationship .

I started at this house with my own craft room. It never looked organized, but I navigated it well enough and always had my sewing machines (my Brother serger, my 1974 Kenmore, and my 1954 Elna on a treadle) out and ready to use. Here is one part of the room when it was organized.

And here is a photo showing all of my unfinished projects piled up on my work table.

Phew! That’s a lot of stuff!

When I got pregnant, I thought a lot about how to organize our space. We’ve mostly been living like college kids with our computers and projects taking up the living room, but I wanted guests to feel comfortable – not sitting in a computer chair or a couch immediately behind a dining room table. I also knew with a crawling baby and walking toddler, we needed baby proof space for Robin to spend a lot of time in. Instead of turning my craft room into a nursery, I decided to make it our office and make the front room a real living room that is safe for Robin to play in. Either way, I had to drastically downsize my crafting projects and supplies.

I decided that I would keep out my scrapbooking supplies, since I anticipate doing a lot of scrapbooking about our family as well as a few, select sewing projects (snail trail quilt, doll cloths (when we weren’t sure about Robin’s sex), and yarn and embroidery supplies). Everything else either went to Goodwill or up in the attic. Actually, almost everything went into the attic. Someday I’ll have an even bigger studio and need all that stuff!

Warren and I moved our computers into the what-was-once-the-craft-room and my supplies were haphazardly crammed into the closet and a bookshelf. Here’s the sewing closet. It is approximately 41″ x 21″ and 9 feet tall.

Observe my office area and scrapbooking shelf:

It’s all so MESSY!! I’d like to sew a cover for my household notebook, but I don’t want to get into that closet. And Warren keeps stepping on stuff trying to get to the window to pull the blind. Some day soon, I’m hoping next week even, I’ll be organizing these spaces so they function. And, after all the blogs I’ve been looking at, maybe they’ll look nice, too!

PS: Go buy something from my Etsy shop – I need the space!! 😀

Ok,so remember when I said…?

Posted on November 29, 2012 by nochaosnoorder_lkd0dk Posted in health, heart, home, relationship .

Why haven’t I posted anything in the last few days? Because the camera in my tablet keeps crashing the whole thing when I try to take a picture! Grr… And as I described in too much detail just a couple posts ago, I am just not successful at blogging unless all the components are working. And they weren’t.

Anyway, we had two appointments this week. … It occurs to me, I wasn’t originally going to talk in much detail about Robin’s health here, but it really is integral to my anxiety, exhaustion, and efforts-in-organizing. It impacts all of my four “focuses” (relationships, health, home, and heart), so I think will!

Feeding clinic was unusually short. Two of the three specialists were absent, yet it still took us an hour and a half. Robin tried thickened sweet potatoes and, after an initial gross-out face, he seemed interested. Not eager, but interested. We talked about the pros and cons of putting in a g-tube rather than the nose tube. We also talked about when to do another swallow study (next January). Even though the appointment went well, Robin has been showing increased signs of reflux the last two days. Not fun for any of us! To do item: call Dr re: reflux meds

The eye exam went well and it was really easy – no forcing Robin still or touching his eyeballs! Did some vision field tests with a cute block and very animated assistant before she put dilation drops in his eyes. We waited a half hour and then the optometrist came and looked at his eyes. Retina and nerve fine, vision right where it needs to be (slightly far sighted right now), and both eyes working together and equally. He said about 50% of preemies end up needing glasses because one of their eyes develops at a different rate from the other. So we’re not worried about retinopathy anymore, but we are watching for vision differences. We go back in six months and we won’t have to do the dilation again, so it’ll be even faster and easier.

Monday I finished the rain barrel and cut the wood for the changing table too small. :/ I have decided to ask my dad to put it together for me (To do: call dad re: assemble changing table)

Belated {this moment}

Posted on November 27, 2012 by nochaosnoorder_lkd0dk Posted in heart, relationship .

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