Well, so much for the New Year's plans already! Day 1 - off to a wonderful start! I started the New Year with a New Year's day shopping excursion to our local Fabricland. It was a wonderful bargain day for me and I bought way more than I had thought I would. They had cleaned out what they class as their Quilt Shop fabrics, normally priced at $19.98/metre,and put many bolt ends in the bargain centre at 4.99/m. But better yet the New Years sale was 1/2 price of all fabrics in the bargain centre. So that gave me $19.98/m fabric for $2.50/m! WOW! Most everything in the store was 50% off or better. So between fabric, sewing machine needles, rotary blades, etc I dropped almost $400! (I think I see a squishie spree coming)
Day 2 - starting to slide already Took one of our 2 Golden Retrievers to the vet. We had noticed a lump the beginning of December and by Christmas it was ugly! Vet scheduled surgery for the 4th. (stress, worry). Now it is actually a work day after all the holiday stuff, and it is year end for our business which means counting inventory and copious amounts of book work. Made a really good start at it all. Also washed about 15 of the cuts of fabric from the shopping spree.
Day 3 DD is looking to buy her first NEW car! and wanted Mom to go with her to test drive the ones she had picked out as possibles. So off we go to a larger centre about an hour and 20 minutes drive from us, and spent the day talking to car salesmen and driving around in new cars. Came home and put another load of fabric thru the machine.
Day 4 Take dog to vet for surgery, come home and clean house. Got a customer coming over to look at stuff. (Most of our sales are done on-line)Good sale! Pick up dog from vet. Oh my! I was not expecting this! They removed the lump and have sent it away for biopsy. Vet says it may be nothing more but can't tell for sure till test results come back. I was expecting a small 2 inch maybe 3 inch incision, but what we have is about 8.5 inches, 36 staples! and because of where it is (on her side and across area at top of back leg) an area that has lot of movement and the fact that they actually removed a large chunk of skin, we are supposed to restrict her movements for 2 weeks. Stairs, furniture, etc are no, no's. Outside only on leash to relieve herself, and No licking. Ok, this restricts my world a bit. This dog is worth every moment, so I don't begrudge this at all, just have to re-plan some stuff. I did fold up the fabric that had been washed.
Day 5 A different DD is getting married in Feb. She had asked me in the early fall if I would shorten her wedding dress. Then called a few weeks later and said she had someone else that was going to do it. (I live over an hour away). Then just before Christmas I find out the other person hadn't got around to it yet and DD was starting to panick. I said no problem let's get through Christmas and I will just get it done. So today, off I go to the city again, thinking I am going to pin up this hem and bring it home to finish. Nope! get there and DD has tried on the dress only to find out that she has gained too much weight and can't get the zipper up! Ahhh! Ok, so I look at the dress and there is no extra seam allowance to let out. It is not reasonable to expect that she will lose 10 pounds in 4 weeks, so, off we go bridal gown shopping. She has set herself a budget for this wedding and is trying so hard to stay within it! DH and I have 16 children between us, so there is no way we can pay for weddings! This DD and her betrothed have been together almost 10 years and have 3 children, so understand reality. Well, she didn't like anything she tried on, but in the process we saw several dresses that lace up the back instead of zippers. Well, ok, lets take the zipper out of the dress she has and put in loops and laces. So back to Fabricland I go. I did find a fabric that is close enough in color and shine the make a panel to go behind the lacing and I found stuff to make the loops and the lace. Got home about 8:30pm and by the time we had supper I was ready for bed. (DD doesn't know, but we booked tickets this morning to fly her grandmother out from the far side of the country for the wedding! grin)
Day 6 The DD that is looking to buy a new car happens to work with a woman who used to do bridal gowns, so DD has taken the dress and all my supplies to work with her this morning to get opinions on the best way to proceed with all this. I know I CAN do it, just I really don't want to and I'm sure there are some tips and tricks that may make the whole process easier. I did ask her to ask her co-worker if she would do it for me.....it would be worth it to me to pay her to do it. But, now here I am, Saturday morning. DH works today and I will have the house to myself. This was the day I had planned on ME time! Cutting and sewing and creating! But now I'm thinking I better be getting some of the copious amounts of bookwork done as I'm going to have to take another 2 days next week, one to work on the dress and another to drive back to the city with the dress.
Well, whatever I'm going to do today, I better get at it. Thanks for letting me get all this off my chest. If you could spare a few good thoughts or prayers for my dog, I'd really appreciate it. The rest is just stuff, and we will make it all work, but I'm really not ready to lose this dog. She is 12 and considered to be old by the vet, but she is still very active and has a lot of love to give. (Hmmm, maybe all this "stuff" is just to keep my mind from worrying about the dog! )
Happy quilting to all! Marilyn in, can this really be winter??? Alberta, Canada