The Last Post for the evening, I promice....

See what happens when a person decides to wait on posting about all the interesting things happening. She stays up late trying to catch up before she forgets everything. So just one more tidbit and then I'm off to bed.

Last week, my boss asked if I would be willing to be interviewed by a reporter from KSL radio. Of course, I looked at him like he was nuts and asked why would a reporter be interested in talking to me. Well it seems, he was coming to talk to my boss about credit card debt and was wanting stories of people who paid off their credit card debt.

So there you go, pay off your credit cards and you may just find yourself not only being published but also interviewed by a news reporter. Me? well, I just hope I didn't sound too stupid. Sadly I was too nervous to remember to ask when the interview might be broadcast, so I can't even tell you if it was or wasn't. Oh, well so much for my 15 seconds of fame.

A Whirlwind Creative Binge

Now I bet you are thinking this is going to be another sewing post? Well, considering who's doing the writing, it would be a pretty good guess but not this post. I had plans to attack a couple of sewing projects with an October deadline, but instead I went a little crazy in the kitchen.

It all started with the shopping trip to the grocery store when I was hungry. I had to pick up a couple of items for a dessert I was going to make for dinner on Sunday. When I got home I had groceries for homemade spring rolls, fried rice, trifle, and tarts. And I almost got all of it done too. The Trifle was for Sunday's dessert, so the cake and pudding got made first. I then started on the fried rice. While the rice was cooking, I chopped up all the ingredients for the spring roll filling. Two hours later, I had quite a dinner prepared. Now if only I had someone to eat it with. Turns out that night I was all on my own. Oh well, it was fun getting out my Japaneses dishes and setting the table. Sorry no chop sticks, I couldn't use them if I had any.


I hadn't gotten around to starting the tarts, so after dinner I mixed up some pie crust. About this time, I was exhausted. The filling, which was going to be lemon, wasn't doing so well, and I couldn't get any energy up to fix it. So I wrapped up the pie crust and put it in the frig and threw the filling out, (trust me there was no saving it). Then I crashed on the couch and ended up going to bed at 8:00 p.m. cause I was soooo tired.

Hopefully in the next day or so I'll have pictures of pie tarts. I will say that recipe I used for the spring rolls certainly make up a lot. Three days, three meals and it looks like I still have enough left for one for meal.

My Very First Sewing Machine

A week ago, my dear friend, Danyelle came to visit and after dinner on Friday night, we went over to JoAnns Fabric Store to look at sewing machines. I had told her that I had been seriously thinking of getting one, so she convinced me to go in and take a look at the Vikings. Now I'm a lousy shopper. I really don't like talking to sales people, mainly cause I never know what to ask them. I just like to look around, see if they have what I'm looking for and then buy or not depending on if it's worth it to me. Lucky, Danyelle isn't that way, so with her nudging occasionally, I was able to find out about one of the machines. Now since I had been thinking about it for awhile, I had a pretty good idea of what type of machine I was looking for. So after talking, we left, I liked the machine, but I knew of another store that was having a super sale on their machines and the one I had my eye on was $200 dollars less, not as many functions, but enough for me. So Saturday afternoon, instead of driving up to the store, I decided to first call and see if it was really what I wanted. And it was a good thing, cause they had sold the one I was interested in. So after more deliberation and my mom assuring me that I wasn't a spendthrift, (she's my sounding board for this type of purchases) we went down to the store.

It a mechanical sewing machine rather then a computerized. I did not want computerized. I wanted straightforward and simple. I do a lot of sewing but use very few stitches outside of straight and zig zag so I knew I didn't need all the bells and whistles. Along with that I didn't want to keep track of a lot of fancy feet. That's why this model works so well for me. It only had about 8 different feet, including the three I always use. What really sold me was it's one step buttonhole. I prefer basic techniques but when it comes to button holes, the easier and less steps involved is what I like. That would probably be my one luxury item.

Once I got home, I pulled out the owners manual, reviewed it and immediately pulled out a project to sew.


It's a Crochet hook carrier, made from a place mat. Really nifty and now I have a place to put my crochet needles.


So there it is, after years of sewing and at least 5 years of serious sewing, I finally have my very own sewing machine. I keep joking about naming it but can't come up with any Viking names I like. The closest female name is Vilhelmiina. What do you think? ;)

Twins!!!!

My mom's serger cover was looking pretty shabby, basically it had a big whole in the top and was doing little to protect the serger from dust. The sewing machine didn't even have a cover, it just had a towel that was put over it. So one night I decided to see what I could come up with. The sewing machine pattern was one I found on the Internet and the serger pattern, well I just pulled the old one apart and used it as a pattern. Not too bad, even if it is a little pink. Does a better job then the old ones. As you can tell from the patchwork, I like different fabrics, colors and prints. I thought it looked more interesting with three different fabrics then it did with just one or two.

I'm a reader not a blogger

Sorry guys, just not very good at blogging, even though I look at everyone elses blogs on a daily basis. I'm going to try to do better. I've been doing some sewing so I just need to get pictures. You know, I think if I would blog more I would realize I am not so boring as I seem to think I'm these days. Just a thought that came to me. So this is to let you know I am think of being more communicable (now that doesn't sound good, more like I have a nice cold to pass around) ;) My nose has been a little stuffy these days ....... just kidding

Catching up.....

So how does one explain not posting anything for over a month? All I can say is, I've been working so hard that I haven't had the energy to sit down and say anything. I've finished working my part time job. It's such a relief to be back to one job, only 40 hours a week, and Saturdays free to do as I choose.

Finishing out August with the second job was a real struggle. Every week, I would look at the calendar and feel like September would never get here. But it did, and it was worth it. I met all the financial goals I had set for myself, last January. Because of the rap New Year's resolutions get, I decided that of all my goals I wanted to accomplish, I would choose just one that I wanted to accomplish in 2008. I wouldn't worry about any of the the rest, if I succeeded at meeting them then they would just be icing but paying off all my debts except my student loans was what I really wanted to accomplish. And I did. Funny thing, I'm not sure how I feel about it. I felt more when I paid off my last credit card in July. Don't get me wrong, I'm happy about it but in a calmer, less emotional way. Of course, I'm not letting this milestone go uncelebrated. How did I celebrate? Well I spent three hours at the spa being pampered and generally de-stressed. All those knots I spent the last 8 months putting into my neck and shoulders... All gone!!!!!

Now with other news:

Labor Day Weekend was spent fighting a sore throat virus. Thankfully I caught it in time so it didn't knock me out too much. I watched a lot of movies and worked a lot on a couple of projects.. which was my plans anyway, I just wanted to do it with more energy. ;)

One of the projects was an embroidery design I created myself. I read an article about using snapshots to create custom embroidery. My sister-in-law had taken a cute picture of her boys and sent it to me a few months back. I really liked it and thought of it when I read this article. So I decided to try my hand at it. I really like how it turned out. It's just basic but still really cool. Her birthday was in August so I figured it would make a good birthday present. ... Tired of all the talk yet? Want to see what it looks like?
Brothers Reading is what I'm affectionately call it. The real question is how long before I start another one for myself?

Well those are the highlights. There are a ton of other stuff, I just can't remember them right now. Oh well. Have a good weekend.