Gunpoint

I had been admiring this picture for days until I realized that the princes were holding the princesses at gunpoint. Shall I have a talk with my daughter?

What summer means to me

We had a summery day here last week (just one!) and I got the urge to make a friendship bracelet. I gave it to Talia. She made one for Alex (surprisingly well with my improvised board) and I ended up making two more for Talia as well. Not to be outdone, Ron wanted to show that he knew how to do it too. Who knew he could do something crafty? He also gave it to Talia who now has 4. She hasn't taken them off yet. Alex didn't like his, I guess. Or maybe he doesn't want to be friends with Talia. I can actually make pretty fancy ones but I won't get into that... just yet anyway. It was the perfect project for a summer day.

The Chloe Quilt

For some reason, this quilt took me forever to complete! It's practically a whole cloth quilt so you would think I could finish it in a snap. I don't know what happened. My machine is really failing me at this point. There is something wrong with the shank and foot. It doesn't raise up that much. I distinctly remember I pulled on it or pushed it up one time and felt a resistance and thought, Uh oh... That was a while ago.

I've been in the market for a new machine for a long long long time. I'm too lazy to figure out when I started talking about it on this blog but let's just say that it's probably been two years or more. I currently have a $200 Singer. Even the one my 13 year old neighbor got at Costco is better than what I have. I just don't know where to start. Singer, Janome, Bernina, Husqvrana, Babylock, Brother, Pfaff-- the list goes on and on. Not to mention that I would love to have a long arm machine someday. I noticed a machine on someone's blog the other day so I called up the Bernina dealer and asked how much it was... $6000! HELLO! So at least I know where to start-- PRICE! I decided I have about $600-$800 to spend on a machine. Using that as a guide I can basically afford the lowest end of the "good" machines. I could get a Bernina that doesn't do anything. I can get a Husqvarna for $1000 if I buy the floor model. I'm thinking about a Babylock since I can afford one that actually does some stuff. Does anyone have any recommendations for a machine in that price range?

My kid just pulled out her own tooth

It was only super wiggly for about 2 days. Tonight she asked for a piece of gauze so she could pull it out. Thinking she would give up in about 1 second, I obliged her. Well... she tugged on it until it came out. I can say only this. The tooth fairy is NOT prepared.

Just a little fabric...

I bought lots of fabric at the Quilt Market in Chicago. Some just caught my eye, some is already intended for projects, some are quilt kits (I have about 6 quilt kits with the most striking fabric and have never actually sewed one up yet...) and I bought one Block of the Month set that I hope I'll actually be able to keep up with. It is so exciting and inspiring (and only the tiniest bit overwhelming) to be around so many amazing quilts on display and so much gorgeous fabric.

For me, the fabric is what really points me in the direction of the project. Since I rarely know what I'm going to do with the fabric I buy it's hard to know how much and exactly what colors I need. What I end up doing is... buying the entire fabric line. I know exactly what I want to use the Wild Bunch fabric for (the second picture on this post which I stole from the site True Up, btw...) and I can't wait to get started. I really have to make one more baby quilt before I can start anything else. Hopefully that will get done soon. The baby is probably 5 months old already! I'll post a collage of some of the quilts I saw at the festival later this week.

I'm going to be ALONE!

I'm off to the International Quilt Festival in Chicago.

By Myself.

No kids!

No husband!

No girlfriends!

No one!

I can't wait! This is absolutely something I want to do alone. I'm so excited. I missed it last year because we were in Amsterdam. I'm leaving in an hour and I still haven't told Talia. I've found it's better to tell her right before a major insult, such as going to the dentist or having a babysitter. Otherwise she'll just freak out from the time I tell her until I'm gone. This way, I'll tell her, she'll freak out, I'll spend a few minutes with her and then I'll leave. Once I'm gone she's fine. So that's that. Catch you later SUCKERS!

San Diego 2009

I always have trouble getting back into blogging after a vacation. I think it's because this blog is more about the minutia of my life-- what we had for dinner, which sewing project I'm working on, how Ron can't clean the kitchen to my satisfaction (to anyone's satisfaction, really), and how the kids won't sleep through the night (btw, this week has been baaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaad). So I'll just throw a huge collage up here and say we had a great time in San Diego. Our friends came all the way from Amsterdam to stay with us. It is really refreshing to take a vacation with friends. The kids got along GREAT, we cooked many meals together and the sleeping arrangements worked out fine. We finally got to meet little Yonatan-- I made the Hop Skip Jump quilt for him back in December. He is a great baby and so cute! I love having friends who feel like family and I'm sad we only see each other now once a year. We celebrated Pesach with them and also my birthday. We went to Legoland (again), Seaworld, Balboa Park, downtown La Jolla, the beach and the Fisherman's Village. Thank goodness my in-laws have a condo in San Diego. It makes me feel like I have a condo in San Diego. Isn't that nice?

April Fools

Gummi worms on the toothbrush. Classic. Accompanied by giggles, winks, and a cute "Don't forget to brush you teeth tomorrow Daddy!" followed by peels of laughter.

B+

Ron worked on cleaning the kitchen after dinner last night. I had made a yummy meal of walnut-miso noodles from 101cookbooks.com. There was not a ton of clean up but I'm the first to admit I'm a messy cook. The fact that the kids are either trying to help me or bother me while I try to do it doesn't help either. Usually I'll make a three component meal-- soup, salad and bread or salad, main dish, side dish. Tonight I really just made the noodles and a small salad since it seemed like enough. What I'm trying to say is, it wasn't that much to clean up.

Ron had ample time to finish the job, as the kids were in bed. He also had just loaded up his ipod so boredom shouldn't have been a major deterrant. When he came upstairs after "finishing" I asked him to give himself a grade on the job he did. "B+" is what he said. I warned him-- "I don't care so much if it's not done, I just want you to be honest with me." He stood firm and again insisted it was a B+. When I was in high school an A grade started at a 92% therefore making a B+ an 89% instead of an 86. I will, however, use the standard curve by which to judge. And let's not forget that we've had this problem many many times before.

Let's start with the dining room table-- because that's where normal people start the clean up process. They bring the dishes to the sink. I also completely clean the table and the floor because I know I will not go back to it later. Now, I know better than to expect Ron to wipe the table off, clean up the noodles Alex threw all over the floor or the lentils that are scattered in a circle around Talia's seat. Behold, the dining room table was littered with unwiped placemats and a few random dishes. And all those chairs pushed out from the table just makes my skin crawl. That's a total pet peeve for me-- just push the chairs in!

Moving on to the back counter. I don't expect Ron to take the compost out to the bin or even use the special granite cleaner that I love so much. I was even surprised and delighted to see he took some initiative and tried to seal the wine bottle up using a vacuum pump. Of course, he left said vacuum pump and wine out on the counter. Along with an empty dirty bowl, a green plastic bag and empty bag of salad greens, a measuring cup, the salt and pepper grinder, the wine bottle opener, a rag (unused by him of course), a bag of walnuts, a bowl full of sliced scallions, the food processor, and he even left the utensil holder sitting in the middle of the counter instead of pushed out of the way like it normally is.

On to the front counter. Rubber bands and asparagus left sitting right out, not to mention the cups of water. How hard is it to clean a few cups that have held only water? And then the mound of dishes. I should be thankful that he cleaned them at all. Look at that huge pile! There are a lot of reasons why we clean so many of our dishes by hand. Mostly it's a space issue in the dishwasher. It's poorly designed to hold anything but the flattest of plates. Plus, we don't run it that often so we don't put things in that we might need the next day, like a vegetable peeler or something. And Alex always has his hands in there so we never put sharp things in. We also have nice pots and pans and knives and serving dishes that just don't belong in a dishwasher. Despite all those many reasons that would lead you to believe that we simply have a lot of dishes that need to be hand washed, the truth is that Ron didn't unload the dish drying rack from the coutner before he started the dishes. And if I had done that many dishes AND the kids were asleep AND I had just loaded up my ipod you damn better believe I would have stood there and dried them off and put them away.

I'm just saying.