Tackle It Tuesday

Today's tackle should not have been a tackle if I was following my control journal. More on that in a minute. My laundry room has gotten out of hand. I did complete my Commitment to Loveliness last week and got Mt. Washmore under control. One day a week I am to wipe down and organize my laundry room. It really is not a room, but a nook. It has louver doors that open to a washer/dryer and open shelf. No room for a folding table or rack to hang clothes on. I have to stand in the back entryway to do the laundry. The design actually works well for me as I can clean my laundry "room" in less than 10 minutes if I do it once a week. Here is what it looked like after being neglected for several weeks. The laundry baskets on either side are filled with clean laundry needing to be put away. After doing that, I needed to sort through the middle basket which is there to catch dirty dish towels and cleaning rags, but somehow has managed to catch everything else! The cleaning products were scattered and not in order and the washer and dryer needed some wiping down inside and out. The pictures and walls had gathered dryer lint and dust. The floor around the machines needed a quick 1..2 swipe and voila!!!! A clean laundry room. Tackle It Tuesday is done until next week. Hopefully you will not see my laundry room on the tackle list again. I plan to revamp my Control Journal to include home school and a more detail schedule for my household.

I found a really great blog that has the best control journal, although she calls it a Home Management Binder. I need to spend some time looking at her method. Her name is Candy and this girl is organized! My motto for this year has been "Organized is good!" Speaking of organized..I was struggling with the school books on the classroom table. The ones we use everyday that really do not get put away. We all have our stack, Charlotte, Zach and Mom. I found these cheap ($1) wash basins and got each of us one, marking our names on the side. Now we all have a place to put our books at the end of the day.

Now, if I need to use the table mid week to cut or press a quilting project, It will be a 2 second task to clear it all off. Hope you tackle something today! It feels good to get even the smallest thing done that has been put off!

Sunday

TJ's baptism went nicely. The cake got a little dinged up, but nobody cared. The weather was beautiful and my son, Bud and daughter in law, Rachel gave a beautiful party afterwards. Here are some pictures of our family day. Please squint your eyes if things appear blurry...I am afraid my photography skills are not getting any better. Here is a picture of "everyone"..from left to right..My Godson Steve (the Godfather) Bud, Rachel, TJ, Krista (Rachel's cousin and the Godmother), and Pastor Burg, who is 87 years old. He was a visiting Pastor today. This is not our church, but my Aunt and her family attend. Here is TJ with Steve, who just returned from Iraq. He will be heading to his home base of Hawaii in a couple of weeks. Can't feel too badly for him! Here is Charlotte at the after party. They had everything set up in the garage and yard as it was such a beautiful day. You can see Sweet Hubby's prize Corvette in the background. He stores it in our son's garage.Here is Zach, aggravated at me for something, and even more so when I made him sit still for a picture. Rachel, making sure everyone has everything they need. She was a good hostess!
This is my mom (who can not just pose and smile to save her life!) and my sister Debbie and me. Kyle with his Aunt Debbie. She is a favorite for him! Here is how TJ spent the first half of his party. Then he decided the front deck should be finished. His PawPaw and Daddy will be doing that tomorrow while Grandma has a sewing day.My sister's grandson, Dominic LOVES soda pop and would not let me take his picture unless he was drinking from a can!By the time the day was over and everyone had gone, Bud and TJ decided some down time was in order. I feel the same way.In quilty news, I did get borders on my 4 season swap and it is marked for quilting. You can see I used the 2nd fabric. I will use the floral print for the back. Tomorrow is Labor Day and I will do light school...we will make butter, as the co-op did not happen, and then watch a Little House on the Prairie movie...a great movie for mom to hand quilt through! Hope your weekend was as wonderful as mine!

4 Seasons Progress

It is coming along...slower than I would like but still progressing. It has went from this

To this...

And now to this, in less than a week.

Now the original plan was to use this beautiful floral for the border....I think not.

I think this one will be better...what do you think?

It is hard to see in the pic, but it is little fall leaves. Darlene, you know what it looks like, it is on your bag. What is your opinion? It will just be a 3 inch border. Now for the quilting, my favorite part. I am seeing some really beautiful 4 seasons swap pieces out there. If you are not in the swap and want to see some of the finished projects or those like mine that are still in progress, just click on the 4 seasons swap badge on my sidebar. This will take you to a page with a list of names of quilters in the swap. Just click on the names to visit their blogs and see their projects. I know Linda finished hers and Anne showed hers all finished today. Libby is done and Nadine is ahead of me for sure. There are many more and they are all incredible. So I will be quilting tomorrow and maybe have it finished by the beginning of the week. TJ is being baptized on Sunday so I will be gone most of the day. My Godson, Steve is back from his second tour of duty in Iraq and we have not seen him in 2 years. It will be very exciting to see him. He will be TJ's Godfather. Tomorrow is a big laundry day so I will have lots of time to hand quilt between loads.

We were unable to do the co-op today as will occasionally happen, but we are not waiting, and will make butter on our own on Monday. The kids watched The Wilderness Family movies today and just loved them. What great movies!!! In case you haven't heard, Joni bought a new calf and named her Charlotte. There is a picture on today's post. She is so cute and is very little for a calf. She will be adopted by Violet the cow and raised as her own. How ironic, huh? My own Charlotte was very small for her age when she came to us. Charlotte was very excited to hear that the new calf was given her name. She knows how much Joni loves her calves and she was touched. It amazes me how many people who have never even met us have reached out and touched me and my children just since I started blogging in June. Speaking of which, I am approaching my 100th post, being the blabbermouth I am, it will be here before I know it. I am already thinking of a giveaway, so stay tuned....

Winter Wear

To me, any hand made gift is a heart made gift, so when my cousin Sheryl, who I have not seen in 6 years, came yesterday with a bag of hand made knitted scarves for me and my children, I was touched beyond words. I do not have the gift of knitting, so I was very impressed with the detail in her work. She commented "It is just straight knit, no pearl", and I smiled gracefully telling her how much I love straight knit. I had no idea what she was telling me, but it did not matter. I just loved the fact that she had created these for me and my children. Charlotte and Zach have been wearing their scarves around the house. Thank goodness the a/c is on!! Kyle received a scarf identical to Zach's only larger. He is off with his buddies and has put his scarf in his room, so no pic. Sheryl also made a beautiful hat and scarf set for my grandson TJ. Here is Charlotte modeling my beautiful scarf. They are all so soft.We are all set for winter now and believe me, we will need them!! Cousin Sheryl lives in Florida, but she was born and raised here in Northern Illinois. She understands the importance of a good scarf! No one in my family quilts except for me so my aunt and cousin were very excited to see my quilts. It felt good to see facial expressions and hear ooooh's and aaaah's of admiration for a job well done. That is why I admire the workmanship in the beautiful scarves that were made stitch by stitch for my family.

Well another week of school is over. Tomorrow we have cooperative cooking with 2 other home school families. We will be making butter (yes, shaken in a jar), and homemade banana bread to put it on. I will post on the home school blog about our cooking experience tomorrow afternoon. I love Thursday afternoons, because I get to turn this...

back in to a cutting/pressing table that looks like this.... To be honest, that is an old picture...the table still looks like the previous one. However, I am off to take care of that. Notice the roll of toilet paper...Zach's idea of a great way to clean up the glue he spilled. And the bin in the middle of the table..teachers current stitching project ;) Off to right the table and perhaps put it to some sewing use!

Flowers or Fruit?

I finished all the hand applique as planned just before bedtime last night. Now it requires hand embroidery to make what Sweet Hubby declared fruit, into flowers. He has no imagination nor appreciation of folk art. What do you see? Fruit or flowers, it doesn't matter. It looks "fall" to me and I am really liking the outcome. I am going to finish the embroidery and put on the border today. Maybe it will even get marked and basted. If not, then tomorrow for sure, as I want to be hand quilting before the weekend. I pulled out the pink and brown quilt today to show my Aunt Pete and cousin, Sheryl. My cousin is in from Florida to see our Grandma. She brought handmade knitted scarves for all of us! I will take pictures and post them tomorrow. They really are beautiful. Back to the pink and brown...pulling it out and touching it makes me want to quilt on it again so badly. After the swap piece is done, I will set up a schedule for my needlework. Hand applique on the masterpiece block and hand embroidery and machine piecing during daylight hours and hand quilting on the pink and brown in the evening. I have a UFO I want to get pieced before Christmas, so I have something to put in the hoop when the pink and brown is done, and I have a few table runners that need to go from inside my head to actually something that can be put on a table.

Tackle It Tuesday

There are many areas around my house that need some attention. Mt Washmore is still Mt Washmore, though I will refrain from using up a perfectly good Tackle It Tuesday on laundry! I put it on my Commitment to Loveliness yesterday, anyway. Another thing on my Commitment to Loveliness list was to finish up the applique on my 4 Seasons Swap piece. Well things have changed. I now need to get the applique completed TODAY!! I found an incredible hand quilting pattern which doubles the already heavy quilting planned for this piece, but I am so excited about it that I have to try. I say try because it is so much, and the project does have a time limit, plus I am not sure if it will actually work on this piece. The background does not leave a whole lot of space. Anyway, I am over-analyzing and thinking "out loud" here. The point...If I want to attempt this, I have to do it NOW! So while Charlotte is reading out loud to her brother and I, I will be stitching. While Zach is practicing his numbers, I will be stitching. While lunch and dinner are being prepared, I will be stitching. I always love my Tackle It Tuesday's but I will truly enjoy today's!! Here is a sneaky peek at what is done so far.

Commitment To Loveliness

It's time for another Commitment to Loveliness! This is a fun way to increase femininity and beauty in our lives each week without even trying! All you have to do is choose five things that you would like to work on or do during the week that will increase the loveliness in your life! Here is my list for this week:
1. Finish the applique on the 4 Seasons Swap project.
2. Mark my Oct. Flower of the Month stitchery.
3. Work on my attitude...yes, I need an adjustment in some areas ;)
4. Not a necessary goal, but it would add loveliness to my life to actually take some hand quilting stitches this week.
5. Get Mt. Washmore down to a small hill.

What 5 things would add loveliness to your life this week? To join in and see what others are doing to add loveliness to their lives visit Charming The Birds From The Trees.