melissa ann

cleaning - I had to stop

Ignore the mountain dew and horrible quality photo.  It's late.

It's seriously my bad habit, the mt dew that is, that I need to kick and those are my last 3 cans.   My kitchen is small.  Not a joke.   The sink is just out of the picture with maybe a foot of counter space then the stove with about 8 inches of counter space on the other side of that.  Then.. the back door.   Earlier tonight we finally replaced the under the counter light and I don't think anything could have made me happier right at that moment.  Well maybe some ice cream.   I can negotiate.   I just grabbed the camera at that point in the middle of cleaning and snapped a quick shot.   Night time shots in the kitchen are horrible in my little house.   Not that the daytime photos get much better.  At least I have light!  No more cooking/prepping under dark cabinets.

So it's 11:59 pm at this exact moment that I write this very sentence.  Didn't do a whole lot today.  I didn't sleep very well last night.  Had a doctors appointment this morning.  We had lunch at our favorite mexican combination plate place then came home.  Had a nap and stuff.  Naps are good. 

Then dinner happened.

I am really trying not to spend a lot of money and the man gave in anyways when I said I wanted this little Italian place from down the street.  What was I thinking?  Three times we have been there now.  First time was horrible.  Second time was great.  Third time was horrible.  I have groceries stocked up.  I will be cooking from now on.  I need support!  Convenience food is way too convenient.  I suppose that is why it is called "convenience food" to begin with though. 

After my so called dinner.. I had the urge to "tidy" up the kitchen.  It started with sweeping and two hours later ended up with my other half ordering me to sit down and get off my feet.  He's taller.  He's bigger.  He can pick me up.  I had to stop. 

I guess its for my own good. 

finally - maternity leave

So it's day five maternity leave for me. I'm so excited.  I wanted to blog and take pictures for the last several weeks but they were so rough for me that I thought my posts would just come off extremely grouchy.  Work was a little too stressful those last few days.  To the point that I was breaking down and crying quite a few times before I even made it home.  I'm proud to say that I have yet to have any sort of meltdown since being on leave and that makes me and baby way too happy. 

Of course a lot has went on in the time that I wasn't posting.  As you can see up there I started piecing my baby quilt.  I even sewed it together.  I just need to cut and sew the sashing on and on with the quilting!  Other than that.. not much crafting I'm afraid.  Like I said before, work was way too stressful.   I had a lot planned that I wanted to make and create before I popped this baby out.  Don't think it's going to happen and I'm not going to even try rushing to get any of it done. 

That's something I've learned over the last five days.  Slow it down.  I've been peddling through life so quickly that years have went by and I have nothing to show or remember them by.   I've rushed and stressed over this and that and everything else that I really never took the time to stop and smell the roses so to speak.  So.. I'm going to fix that.  I'm going to try not to freak over the small things.  I'm not going to stress if the house isn't perfectly clean or something doesn't get done. I'm not going to break down if I'm running 5 minutes late for work.  I'm going to take the time to cook more and enjoy the time I have with the people that I love.  It's the people and things that you love and make you happy that really matter and count.  I'm going to beat this into my head (not literally of course) until I get it.  To hell with everything that ever made me stress, freak out, and break down.

Okay! Sorry for the bantering.  Want to see the quilt top pieced?

I love love love how the light coming into the window lights all the blocks up like little jewels.  You can click on it to see the larger version that shows the blocks a bit more clearly.  I'm so proud of myself with this too.  After actually sewing the blocks together and trimming (I did trim it better after taking this picture) I wasn't too stressed about any wonkiness or crooked lines.  Can't you guess I probably had a meltdown stressing over the fact that this is my first larger piece of quilted anything and I wanted it to be perfect.  Well it's not.  I can deal with that.  I'm ready to finish this but the fact that I really don't know how I want to quilt it has slowed me down to a complete stop.  Hopefully something will inspire me over the next few days and I'll get it finished in no time.

attempting a quilt

Well december came and went and now it looks like I'm about to let january slide right on by as well.  Work was crazy busy during the holidays. So between working and trying to get some rest in afterward each day, I didn't have much time for anything else.  Now that things are slowing down and I'm coming up on my 8 month mark.. I've got to get ready for this baby!  Last week I cleaned out my sewing room (sniff sniff).  I'm down to a corner, but I'll take it.  I have a wardrobe and cloths for my baby girl and thats about it.  I really need to fix that.

A few months ago I decided I wanted to make a quilt for her.  I picked out this stack of reproductions from my stash.  Then I went and spent way too many hours on flickr and various websites searching for some sort of inspiration on what sort of pattern I wanted to use.  I fell completely in love with the double hourglass quilts I found.   So I settled in for using lovely little handmades tutorial found here.

Thats my first block right up there.  Yay!  I think I may have forgotten that this is my first quilt as well. Other than a small simple table thingy I gave my mom two years ago.  I believe I'm going to make it roughly crib size, maybe a tad larger so that I can use the quilt longer.   I worked on the blocks a bit today.   Though I only have completed 9 so far.  I have another stack of 18 half ready.  It took me several tries but I think I got over being nervous chain piecing. Otherwise I could probably have competed more blocks today... I'm just slow.  I'll post more pictures when I get a bit more done and actually have something to show.  As for right now, I'm going to prop up some swollen feet and cuddle my lovely bottle of tums.

So yeah, about that fresh start.

Back in May I had every intention of doing something with this blog.  Then I went on vacation to Florida.  Where, sadly, I did not get many pictures in.  Seriously.. I kept forgetting about my camera.  Anyways, back to the time line.  So I come back from Florida and started getting a little sick.  Something just was not right.  I thought I might have known why I was sick, but I wasn't hearing it. 

Um yep, thats right.. I made a baby.  I'm still a bit shocked by this fact even though I am right around five and a half months now.  This is my first and what a doozy the first few months were.  I had no energy at all.  None.  I went to work and came home and parked myself on the couch.  Sometimes never leaving the couch until it was time to get ready for work again.  I'm not really showing and have actually lost weight.  Every once in a while I feel some movement.  Ultimately I am excited, just not as excited as everyone else I know is.  Is that horrible?