Hoping Things Will Slow Down Soon

Hopefully by the end of next week, things might start to slow down here and start getting into a normal routine that doesn't require lifting boxes, unpacking boxes, helping to move Mum's things over to her new apartment in my house and helping cleaning her place. This Monday coming the movers come to take her furniture and move it over here in her new digs. She is wore out from coming home from work, packing up more boxes, loading up her car and bringing over herself. She prefers to do this to cut down on the movers time and she knows herself how well things are packed. I am taking Monday off from work to help her out and get her completely moved in. We both said tonight over supper how we wish it was all down and that we are both suffering withdrawls from our sewing and quilting and miss it terribly. By Monday, ALL my fabrics and shelves and pantry units will be here and I can start making my sewing room look more like a sewing room.

Right now my sewing room looks like this:

That big white book shelf in the back there was painted last weekend and mounted to the wall. The shelf was first in one of the spare bedrooms upstairs here in the house, but Trevor wanted to use that room as his "Man Cave" and he didn't want the shelf. Needless to say I grabbed it immediately as I knew it would be PERFECT for my new sewing room!


Ohhh the mess!! I thought I would start by going through all the photocopied and internet printed patterns I have saved since the 90's and decide which ones I wanted to keep and the rest I will give away.


In the far corner is the new desk I bought and had assembled from Staples. I LOOOVVE this desk!!! I have had my eye on it for a couple years now. It is extra wide and big and so is perfect for my little office space when I get back to selling my work again and a FABULOUS spot for scrapbooking!


A temporary place to put all my quilting magazines and books til my bookshelves come on Monday.


I can't tell you how many binders I had of patterns. The biggest pile of patterns to the bottom right are ones I don't want anymore. I plan to give my Thursday night sewing girls first dibs!




Last week my cousin was in town with his wife (an old school friend of mine) and their 9 month old little boy, whom I am the proud God Mother of. They are presently living just outside Edmonton, Alberta and came home for two weeks to visit family. This was my first time meeting my little God Son, and I just love him to pieces.

So here is my little guy and his Dad (my cousin) here in the house.







Poor little fella has been fighting a nasty cold since he left Edmonton. He parents left Thursday past to drive across the island to visit Lisa's family and poor Ethan had a rough time of it. The drive from here in St. John's to Corner Brook is about 10 hours, that includes gas and pee and meal breaks. At least it was a nice sunny day and so the drive was good.

I have one more piece of news to share with you all and I thought I would leave the best for last. We have a brand new addition to our little family. I would like to introduce you to Alexi

A house is not a home unless you have a little furry critter to give it love. We rescued this 4 year old mix from the local SPCA. Her last family could not take care of her any longer as there was an illness in the family. Unfortunately they had to say good bye to her. When we saw her the other day, we fell in love with her, and just knew she would be the one for us. She has such a beautiful personality and a HUGE sook that wants constant love. She has been my shadow since we brought her home yesterday evening.


Here she is with Daddy as they take a little power nap before supper!


Hopefully after Monday, I'll be able to post more photos of the developing sewing room. I had hoped to put new flooring in and new walls and paint as there is old 70s panelling there now, but time didn't allow. So I think I will wait til after Christmas and then start renovating that space. That will be the last room in the house to be reno'ed. Other than that, the place is really starting to take shape. We are starting to get our things we love on the walls and really make it a cozy home. There are still a few more things we need to do such as get the spare room set up for future guests, (Trevor is moving over his bedroom furniture for that room), and the other room is his "Man Cave". He will start making that his cozy space shortly. Once both rooms are set up, THEN I'll start posting the before and after photos so you can see how this place really transformed!

It is now a little after 10pm, and myself and Alexi are here on the couch spending time together. Err well I am posting and she is taking a nap. This is a girl's movie night and so after this post, we will sit back with our favourite treats and watch a movie.. hmmm perhaps we will watch Twilight!!!

Quiltingly Yours
Andrea

Vancouver Photos Part I

Hello All!

I thought I would drop a little line to say I am still here, but up to my eyeballs in unpacking and minor renos to my place, and helping Mum paint the basement apartment for her. I have soooo much sewing stuff down to Mum's existing home now that I am going down there each chance I get to throw more stuff into rubber maid containers and taking them over to my place. Right now the sewing room is more of a place to pile boxes and containers than an actual sewing room, but that will change. I do miss sewing and I am getting major withdrawls!!! I can't wait to start sitting in my sewing room after all the unpacking is done and get back to my projects. For now, my sewing room time will be spent unpacking all the boxes and containers and putting things where I want them. I know I will be doing alot of purging as I organize my way through the chaos. I might need to tackle that room with a bottle of red wine to get me through!! LOL

I thought I would show you a photo or two of our trip to Vancouver and Whistler. Trevor and I took a TON of photos and video and I still haven't really sat down to really look at them and clean them up. There are many that are too blurry to use and I haven't been able to get round to deleting the ugly photos! But I thought I would share with you some of my favourites during my first glance over the photos!

This sushi restaurant became one of our favourite places to eat. I believe we went there 3 times and it was only a 5 minute walk from our friend's condo downtown. In this photo is Trevor and our great friends Dennis and Lauren

The Vancouver Aquarium

Me and Trevor

I didn't think these crocodiles were real. They looked silver glazed. But I saw an eye twitch so they are very much alive!! LOL

Say Cheese Mr. Croc!!

Big Fishy!!

More Fishies


Iloved the Jelly Fish Exhibit!!!

These were such cute little monkeys at the aquarium


This is on a First Nations Reserve and it was amazing! We hiked along suspension bridges from tree to tree!! I felt I was in the Ewok Village from Star Wars!

Such beautiful totem poles

My addition to the totem pole

Trevor's scary pose in the totem pole!!! Funny guy!

Big hugs after we made it across the bridge!!!

Trevor and Dennis hanging on for dear life as they make their way across the bridge!

The crooked fishing shack we found after our walk through the suspension bridges in the trees

Big Bear Hug!

There is a FABULOUS little shop downtown Vancover on Turlow called CUPCAKES!! All they sell are cupcakes and might I say YUMMMMMYYYY!!!! This was a variety pack we bought but we also bought the bigger versions of the coconut and the chocolate mint cupcakes!! sigh... I wanna go back to Vancouver!!!

My favourite was this coconut one. It has a cream cheese frosting on it!


I will post more again shortly.. I am heading out with some friends with work tonight and going to the local Yuk Yuks comedy club. I am in need of a break from the house!!

Til Next Time!

Quiltingly Yours
Andrea

I'm Baaaaaackk!!!

The weary travellers have returned! We came home last Monday night after flying from Vancouver to St. John's on the same plane. We stopped over in Calgary and Halifax along the way to stretch our legs, pee break and to get more passengers. It was a long travel day and it was good to just get home and sleep in your own familiar bed again. Unfortunately I had to get up early in the morning to start work. Uggghhh!! I was a victim to say the least! I had been suffering jet lag all week and dead dead tired after working all day. I didn't have the energy to get out of my own way! When I got home from work yesterday, I made a light supper and I was in bed by 7:30 that night. I woke up this morning 9:30am!! Yep... 14 hours of sleep!!!!!!!! It felt GREAT!!!!!!!!! I plan to have another nice sleep in tomorrow morning, but I won't be off to bed so early tonight :)

We had a great trip to Vancouver, and we didn't stop!!! We feel we now need a vacation after our vacation just to rest and relax! I suppose that is a good complaint as it shows we had a fabulous an action packed holiday! I am still compiling all the photos together as we had both my camera and his. Trevor also took a pile of video too. I hope to add some photos here of our trip in the coming days. I am only now getting a bit of energy back to do things.

After my 14 hour sleep, I got up, made breakfast then off to the house again to start more renos. Actually the major renos are now done and as you can see from my last post, my furniture is all moved in. I still have many boxes to unpack, but today, my big job was to sand down the plaster in the two master bedroom closets and get them ready to paint. I hope to start the painting tomorrow morning. If all goes well and the house gods are in my favour, I would love to see myself completely moved into my home by next weekend. I may not have Internet hook up right away, but I will shortly I hope.

I'm not sure if I will get my sewing room reno'ed before I move, and I might not get it started for another month or so, but I will just have to deal with what I have right now and fix up the room at a later date. I would like to get it done before the end of the year if I can at all. I am just anxious to get all my sewing stuff in the one room and get back to sewing and playing again. I have been suffering serious withdrawls since I couldn't really do much sewing the last month or so as all my time has been working on the house. I hope that changes really soon, cause I have sooooooooo many projects I want to be working on.

I also decided to teach again this Fall season. Only this time I am only going to do one night a week instead of my regular night and Saturday morning. I have other areas I want to pursue and I need that time to work on them. So for now I will be teaching either Monday or Tuesday nights starting in September. I have decided to teach a Sampler Quilt. It will give my present students and new students a chance to learn many quilting techniques in the one quilt. I also hope by the Fall to have my own sewing studio ready to offer private classes for smaller projects. If not by the Fall, hopefully by January.

Well I just wanted to drop a post here tonight, to let those of you that do follow my post regularly that I haven't completely disappeared :) When my sewing room is up and running I will be back to posting more regular sewing/quilting notes, and also when my kitchen is up in production mode, I want to start adding more of my favourite recipes and any new experiments I try.

Til Next Post

Quiltingly Yours
Andrea