My home,

My home took a while for me to warm up to. We've had hot and cold spots for sure, but after the last hardship we went through I can't help but look upon it fondly and call it my home.

You see, I live in a 5th wheel. Its a hard place to get used to when the whole place is only 35' by 8' and all the furniture is built in. Doesn't leave a lot of room for decorating, do I did my best.

You can see that its no Better Homes and Gardens place to live. Its more like a gypsy shack. But, I did the best with what I had and this is what I've come up with. Besides, you'd like it as much as me if you had to deal with the stuff I did in the last two weeks.

A while ago we had this problem with the sinks draining, so Ty took off the P-trap under it and looked around to see if there was anything in there. Alas, there wasn't so we put it back on and called it a day.

Until we look in the bathtub. Where I keep all my clothes.

(By the way it did not look that nice at that time. Things have gotten much better since then.)

They were drenched in about 3-4 inches of grey water that had backed up into the bath as a result of us playing with the pipes. So after that whole scenario Tyler built me a platform upon which I could keep my laundry basket full of clothes and thank goodness he did. Last week it happened again, except this time the water didn't drain.

He and his dad went under the trailer and had to drill a hole in the pipe that dropped anything from our septic to the main septic on the property. They snaked it out, all the while Tyler is getting sprayed with this backed up water and I am in the kitchen putting away dishes with a fiery rage. 

I can't say what a relief it is to not have to worry about plumbing. It'll ruin your day.

Until you wake the next day after first rain and find that the roof had leaked a gallon of water onto your couch. 

It is fixed now, but at the time I was so upset I looked for apartments Ty and I could move into. So this is where I live, and all the pictures were taken today. That is how it looks now. I can honestly say that living here is really fun, especially since we went through the hardships we did together.

Living small really makes you appreciate the things you have, and miss the things you took for granted.

Castle Crags

Tyler and I had planned to go up to Weed, Ca. this last Saturday for about a week. On the way there however are the Castle Crags, so we decided to stop off and make the hike. It was a strenuous 2.7 miles up and then again back down, but well worth it. If anyone lives in this area, it's quite fun and a real cheap date at just $8 for the parking pass.

This was on the way up. Whenever I see a cut through the forest like this it reminds me of a big scar. Like the one everyone has on their knee.

You can see Mt. Shasta from the trail. We went up to the little town on Mt. Shasta later that day.

Another view from the trail, as we were coming up on it.

So there you have it folks, a view from the top..

...looking at the top. It is a huge crag. If you ever get the chance to hike this trail, you should.

On the way back we hiked over to Indian Springs and filled our water bottles. The water tastes delicious, especially after you've run out because you didn't plan on doing a spontaneous 5 mi. hike.

The power of will.

It only takes so long before I become tired of my own excuses and decide to do something about it. It isn't easy, and sometimes I break, but I find the harder I work the luckier I become. Abraham Lincoln said that once.

Sometimes, I get to this point of such extreme low self esteem it becomes paralyzing.

I've met these people that continue the way I have been. They are past my point. I don't want to be those people. They are so sad and so convicted in their self pity and excuses that they alienate those who love them. I find myself doing that too, but I saw a quote that made me rethink what I am doing now.

It said, "All it takes is 20 seconds of insane courage to change your life completely."

I thought about that and determined for myself that it does not matter if I think I can, or if I think I can't. I will. My convictions will be that I will, no matter what the circumstance. I believe self esteem is like any other human attribute - like a muscle. We must practice using it and train it every day in order for it to grow.

Tomorrow my wrist may not say anything, or it may say something different. It doesn't matter. As long as I have positive and strengthening reminders as to why I do what I do I can keep going.

Today, I will.

Coffee to start my day.

On the weekends this is what I do.

I had an inclination to take my camera with me to work this Saturday and take pictures while I was opening the coffee shop. While most people are hating their jobs, I tend to be enjoying mine. That's not to say it doesn't have it's downers as well, but for the most part it is pretty cool.

I mean, I get free coffee and tips.

That is what I stare at almost every day. It's either that or the blender depending on the time of year.

All of our drip coffee is Fair Trade Certified Organic. Sounds expensive, but if you bring your own cup the Joe is only a dollar. That includes cream and sugar too.

Life as a barista is not so bad. There is nothing like the smell of a coffee shop.

Free motion strife.

I have this tendency to waste my time away thinking about what I need to be doing or what I would like to do instead of actually doing something. But - sometimes I actually do something. And it results in tears.

This last Tuesday I had decided that my free motion quilting was good enough to want to try on an actual quilt. I knew I wasn't going to be awesome, so I chose a quilt top that didn't mean much to me.... Thank goodness.

You can see on the right hand side how many times I went over that one spot. I had to actually seam rip a portion of my quilting it was so bad.

The quilt I chose was as good as any, but either it didn't work for this motif or I didn't work for this motif. Either way, it didn't work. Every time I came across a seam, which was every 2 inches, the darning foot would get caught on the lump and drag. And since I am not experienced with this whole free motion quilting thing I had no idea how to control the stitches when they came flying after my foot made the jump over that lump.

I got so mad that I rushed the last loop and broke the needle. So I crumpled the quilt and threw it in the corner, went to my fiance to sulk, kicked the thrash can, and then proceeded to cry like a baby while he carried me into the house.

Like I said, mad.

After I calmed down I went to a local quilt shop to get an opinion, or advice, or anything. I asked her what I could do and she looked at me crookedly and said, "You just need to practice." Practice?!

Because I was sore already that comment pissed me right off, but after I cooled down I realized that it was kind of a compliment. She told me to get some relaxing or calming music and take my time with it. So I did.

And then I broke another needle. Since then I have not touched the sewing machine. I am giving myself time to cool off. No wonder I think about things rather than do them. I am so much better in my head.

Too much to make it count.

I am sitting here, 20 minutes into ballet and I am not in class. Again. I skipped Tuesday too.

I feel almost exactly the same as I did last Tuesday.


Well, I heard once that we are doomed to repeat lessons until we learn them. I am repeating emotions before the same event in my life, every time. An indicator that there is something to be learned from this? I think so.

I thought about what it could mean though, and it brought me down a rabbit hole that I continually side-step without thinking. Its like I know it's there, but it is something I ignored or put off for so long I either forgot it completely or let it become absorbed into the background of my life.

However, the problem I have been side-stepping has been my life. I go about it the wrong way. I need to change my method. I do what everyone else does but I approach it in a different way so that I don't recognize it, and it's a classic so I don't know how I could have missed it.

It is the classic, "I need to do something in my life to reach success. I'm going to quit smoking, starting eating right, start exercising, get a new sleep schedule, get a new hobby, and quit my job. Today." People do this all the time and never last more than a week. Why is that? They take on too much at once! A person cannot handle that much change and expect success to stick. It feels good for about a day and then reality kicks in and it all sucks.

Well, "Hello, Annie!" That's what I do too! Me! I do that!

This May I said, "Yes Tyler, I will marry you. Then I will:

1. start planning a wedding
2. move in with you
3. adjust to my new life
4. start quilting for the first time
5. start a Pilates certification course
6. work part-time
7. start blogging
8. learn about photography
9. learn old school cooking techniques
10. learn to can
11. start writing workout programs
12. start my own workout program/training my little brother
13. learn ballet and the french instructions
14. open an Etsy shop
15. decide to make a quilt to raffle at my wedding
16. make my niece a quilt
17. and contemplate a job change."

All the while I have also been planning for the future in strange other ways, like when we decide to build our house (hopefully next year). Well duh, of course I am getting these feelings about ballet. It's no wonder I have been getting these feelings of overwhelm in general!

I need to prioritize.

Free motion practice.

I know in order to become good at something one must practice, so that is what I set out to do with free motion. Who knew it would be such a chore though?

This is not my first attempt, I think this may be my third.

It is a little wonky and it did have some eyelashes, but overall I would say a good trial.

I did this quilting with my Brother. It wasn't until later that I realized the feed dogs actually didn't drop. The quilting looks pretty good, and that factor didn't bother me much at all. I decided to go ahead and try the quilting again on my new Singer, which I will be posting about shortly. It went smoothly at first, and then I attempted an actual pieced quilt.

What a mess. It all ended when I broke my second needle and threw the quilt in the corner of the room.

Apparently I need good, calm music to quilt to. Thus far that has been the advice of every seasoned quilter.

Pennee quilt back.

I finished the quilt backing to Penelope's quilt yesterday! My goal is complete the whole thing by Saturday. We'll see how that goes. I have never free motion quilted a quilt before so I need to get my practice in.

I didn't notice until I took this picture that my top right seam is crooked. I knew the entire back was, but that is pretty funny. I use a rotary cutter to slice all my fabrics but I work on a picnic table that has uneven wood slats on top. That's probably why everything is crooked. It makes me look forward to the cooler weather when I can go inside to sew.

When I was sewing this I had no idea what I wanted it to look like. I decided to use the small squares from the front where the brown border intersects on the back too. From there everything else came together. Like the grey strip that turns to white. I randomly sewed those two pieces together and it just so happens that they matched exactly at another seam.

The same thing happened with the top strips. I was not going to use the "Flea Market Friends" fabric but it was exactly the length I needed to finish the back. Coincidence?

I do not believe in coincidence. My sister told me something she had hear about coincidence once. To coincide means there are two factors to create the situation. One is explainable, the other is not. However, no one questions what is not explained in a coincidence. You know, the factor that makes it all come together. She asked me, "Have you ever considered it to be God?"

I have not, but ever since then I would like to. There is something about it that makes me feel quite contented.

Rise and shine!

I always thought that "rise and shine" was a saying about the sun. Today, I am thinking a little differently.

Maybe it means that when you rise you should shine. Maybe you should be that sparkly, wonderful person that everyone has got in them- when they awaken. I always wondered how the people I knew did it. How they managed to be in a great mood and complete all their tasks throughout the day. Maybe it was what time they woke.

I awoke at 4:50am to participate in a fitness boot camp of sorts that my brother-in-law teaches. (It starts at 5:30am so I like to get up a little early.) While driving on the highway there were few cars to be seen, the parking lot was empty when I got there, and everyone was so tired from just waking that I didn't have to talk.

I love talking. Just not when I first awake. I don't have the energy it takes to be patient and tolerant in conversation.

So, the boot camp went great and I had enough energy to practice some ballet afterwards. Rad.

It is now 8:10am and I feel like a million bucks. My coffee somehow seems more enjoyable. The before-school traffic somehow less annoying. The daunting tasks of my day somehow less daunting. I feel so inspired!

Throughout my life I could never understand why I couldn't achieve my goals or dreams. I had plenty of time,  
plenty of energy, and plenty of talent to make it all work. However, I could not get myself to do anything. So I did a whole lot of nothing. With this feeling I have right now, I may be able to just do all that I wanted to- and more!

I am not normally the type of person to get all hyped up about "life changing" routines, events, pills, etc. but I would like to take today to be one of those people. I know there are successful people out there. And I know they didn't get there by mistake. Whatever they did right, they rolled with. Maybe this will work out, maybe it won't. Regardless, I am going to roll with it.

A pointe to make.

I sit here with ballet looming nearer and nearer as time passes, thinking to myself, "Do I want to go?"

Usually I know that if I have doubt or fear about something it could be due to two main causes:

1. My fear is driven by a fierce desire to do well, which in turn sabotages me because it causes paralysis and/or severe self criticism, or
2. My doubt is genuine because there is something wrong with the scenario that makes it wrong for me.

Even if I detect something wrong in the slightest it causes the largest of doubts within me.( I seem to be an overly analytic and somewhat complex person when it comes to my thinking process, which drives me crazy, but please bear with me.)

So ballet...

Let me start with my background. I have a certification for personal training through the International Sports Sciences Association which consumed me well before I got it. I have a passion for all things fitness and health. It is something I don't ever stop thinking about, or talking about, or doing.

So ballet would seem like a good idea for me because of its nature of demanding the physical. However, I have found with time and experience it would be the opposite for me. The workout is great, don't get me wrong. I haven't ever used my body quite this way and I can feel muscles I may have never used before working as I move, but there is one HUGE drawback.

It is the foundation of the movement. Ballet has carried throughout the years the basis of the art without ever losing anything it would seem. Which is a score for ballet, but awful for me. I'm talking body positioning here. In ballet, the feet and hips must be turned out while still having straight legs and the lower abdomen pulled in. The feet positioning changes from there, but the hips do not.

That is a problem for me for a few reasons:

1. My glutes are the most developed muscle on my body, making it very difficult to literally work around them. My turnouts suffer because I can't seem to push past that.
2. When I am turned out it causes a torque on my knees which sometimes causes later pain. I am one of the few fortunate young women to play sports and not have a knee injury or any problems with my knees. (knock on wood!) I would like to keep it that way.
3. I have spent the last few years correcting my posture through exercise and mindfulness. I would hate to lose some of that because of a semester of dance. 
4. I had this belief that I would learn how to strengthen the arch of the foot through dance because dancers have such strong feet. I have learned from being in class however that dancers have some of the ugliest and most collapsed feet I've seen. In order to compensate for additional muscles on the hips some dancers use foot eversion. 

When I take a look at point No.1 I realize that my lack of good turnouts is only a problem because I am an overachiever. It consumes me, which drives me mad. Looking at No.4, I can see now I am just not as charmed overall with the experience thus far. I had great expectations for ballet and it shows no promise of fulfilling any of those. I wonder if it will fulfill anything inside of me.

Well, I am off to find out.

If I had a Pennee for every quilt I made,

I would have a few nieces.

My most adorable and only niece, Penelope, will be turning the big 1 in October. Seeing as how she is the first baby in my family I figuring a little spoiling will be called for. This will be her first quilt by me but certainly not her last.

Here is the top, hung from a random frame my father-in-law has in the yard.

The fabric is Alexander Henry's "Flea Market Friends", which is where all the inspiration came from. Everything from the random chandeliers to the cutesy hand drawn animals said, "Hi, I am the perfect mix between everything Curtis and Tracee." Curtis is my brother and Tracee my sister-in-law. They are the wonderful people who made the cutest darn kid I have seen up to this point.

This is actually the first quilt top that I designed. You can tell because that intersection there is supposed to have four brown strips coming from that brown and blue square in the middle. It does not because I forgot about that last piece. (Please excuse the Irish pennants. I am getting better at photography but sometimes I get so antsy that I forget to make everything look nice in the shot.)

That is what it looked like after I fixed it. I have a small crease on the bottom strip, which would normally gripe my ass but because I was so ready to get the quilt done I did not even care. I figure I can stitch over it with my soon-to-be amazing quilting skills.

Here is a close up of the tumbler. This is where the quilt started. From here it designed itself really.

The colors are not the best representation, however they get pretty close to what they look like when the quilt is being held. I am in the process of figuring out the best settings for my camera to take pictures of what I am doing while still taking into account the lighting. Photography has always been a hard one for me.

I am not so sure what I want to do for the back yet. I love the way Elizabeth Hartman uses elements from the front of her quilts to make the backs. They look like a piece of art themselves, which is what I aim for.

Curtains!

I am really a terrible liar. By mistake none the less. I know I said I would have pictures of my curtains up soon, and I have them to post. Hooray for that! However, I realize I just shouldn't tell anyone I will do anything. Not only is it a pleasant surprise when I actually do whatever it was I needed to, but if I don't tell them about it then they won't get upset when I don't do it. Good logic, eh?

Curtains, please! (tee hee hee...)

They are made of fabric my sister bought to re-cover her chair, which means it was free for me. Score!

They kind of have an old world feel to them, which I love. They also brighten up the loft area significantly.


Well, in color, not in a literal sense. Literally they do not brighten it at all seeing as how the don't let any light in. I lined them with this blackout fabric sold in the drapes section of Joann. I love that stuff. It makes sleeping so wonderful and uninterrupted.

Hooray for ballet!

Okay, I am not actually that excited about ballet but today was the best class I have had thus far. I got my shoes in the mail along with my tights and leotard...

Yeah, I have to wear a leotard. I was mortified too.

The shoes made a large difference in class. I have yet to find out if the leotard will make me a batter dancer or not. I ordered the wrong size. I have this tendency to believe that I am larger than I am. Some may call it a Napolean complex. Regardless, lately I have come to terms with my smaller stature and have been purchasing or making clothing according to that size.

So, when I went to order my sizes I figured, "Why not order the smalls, since you always order the larges?" I now know why not. When asking my best friend, who is a dancer, how the items should fit or what sizes she wears, she told me everything I did.

Oppositely.

This girl is tiny, wearing a size 3 jeans regularly she wears a size L/XL tights. She also wears a M leotard.

I ordered a small. Upon arrival of my package I decided to try it on anyhow. She said when I hinge at the waist it should not ride up very much, if at all. Imagine my surprise when I hinged and stood back up only to find my butt had eaten the whole thing. (For those who do not know me personally, my butt is rather large-ish for my stature.)

I will be returning the leotard to get a medium. With the tights on, I know it won't be so bad but I don't even want to risk it in class. Imagine what the other dancers will think when I have to explain to them that my butt is a voracious leotard eating monster.

They may wind up fearing for their own leotards as well.

When the world eats me,

If there is anyone out there who reads my blog, sorry I haven't posted in a while. If there is not, "Sorry Annie for putting to the side your obligation to post on this blog almost everyday. I would say it won't happen again, but I can't guarantee that."

There.

It seems the world ate me this last week. With ballet starting up and everything in between I have been a little busy and more than a little consumed. (Get it?) I've been taking time to digest everything that's going on. Needless to say, I have not worked on any quilts recently. I have aspirations to work on them all but I don't want to spread myself too thin between everything I am doing now so I decided to wait.

I have however worked on some curtains for the trailer this week. They are almost complete and I love them. They match my others which I made a couple months back. Honestly, I should have made them sooner, but who wants to make curtains when they can quilt?!

They are a pop of color I need in such a small space though, so they are important. They are also lined with the black out fabric which tends to insulate as well, which is great because I love sleeping in the pitch black. The trailer doesn't air conditioning or heating either so they will help with the temperature too!

I will update this post when I get some pictures of them. Maybe I will post pictures of the interior of the 5th wheel too!

I love Anne

singed Anne's Fiance... TYTY

Feeling dead, not lifted.

I have spent this whole morning laying around either napping or playing on the computer. Regardless of which however, I have not left the couch. To anyone who knows me, that seems pretty uncharacteristic. I am the type of gal who usually hops out of bed and starts doing something immediately. (Especially these days. Gotta beat the heat!)

Today, I am not that gal. Today, I am the gal who can barely walk. 

Why?

Because I got overly excited about my new gym membership. 

On Wednesday I went to the local YMCA and signed up for a membership. This is exciting news seeing as how I have never belonged to a facility that has so much to offer! My brother-in-law works there, my sister works out there, a friend works and teaches classes there. What more could I ask for?

So after signing the paperwork I immediately parted ways with my mother, whom I joined with and headed straight for the weights. Generally I have some sort of workout plan, but that day I didn't. I decided to go with a tried and true, highly functional exercise, the dead lift.

Dead lifts aren't difficult for me. Stopping is difficult for me. Not over-doing it is difficult for me. Now, walking is difficult for me.

I did over 150 dead lifts Wednesday, which to some may sound like I am tooting my own horn. I'm not. It's actually quite embarrassing. You see, I have been a fitness enthusiast since I was 14 years old. So much in fact that last year I got my personal training certification. I understand that just because someone is certified doesn't mean they know all about it. But, I am the type to know all about it. Which means when I bent over and picked up that bar for the 100th time, I knew better. 

And now I'm semi-crippled from it. 

Going Sale-ing

After deciding that the best course of action to make each block look it's best would be to match the applique thread to the color fabric I applique, I realized I don't have that color thread. So, instead of going out and buying it at full price I have decided to take the week off and buy it this weekend, when thread at Joann will be 50% off.

Really, it only makes sense. Especially with how expensive this quilt it becoming already. Also, I get another 10% off the entire purchase for being a student. (If there are any students reading this, go to your local Joann and ask about this discount! It's like getting paid back for enrollment... Almost.)

So, instead of not sewing at all, I decided to take this lovely flannel I bought a few years back and finally make the rag quilt I had intended to.

It was coming along quite nicely until I realized that it would not be big enough to sleep under. I need to get about a yard more to make it a nice size. However, flannel is on sale this weekend also... So,

I can't wait until Friday! Joann sales, here I come!

Grandma's No. 2 Fan

I did it!

I completed 90 fans for my Grandmother's Fan quilt. After 25 hours of intense work this week I am finally done with that part.Now, I'm on to the rest of it...

I just found a cool way to do the center of the dresden plate here. Elizabeth Hartman explains it in such a way that seems so simple.

Until I tried it.

The centers turned out just fine thanks to her method explained in the tutorial. I did exactly that and then just cut them into four sections so that I could line up the right angle of the 1/4 circle to the right angle of my quilt block.

I think it looks great.

Here is the problem however. My tiny little 3/4 size Janome Harmony has a hard time sewing sometimes. She's a great machine, don't get me wrong. I've had her for 8 years and she's only let me down a couple of times.

However, the little zig-zag on my machine sucks when it comes to bulk. (Which my dresden fans have because I didn't see that I was supposed to clip the corners before I turned them. But, I digress. That's a different story for a different day.) The button hole stitch also sucks.

 So now I have to figure out how I am going to stitch these fans to their backing without making them look bulky or just outright gaudy.

I worked so hard on this already, I feel stuck. I could use my sister's machine potentially, or I can just hand stitch it. I'm not concerned about the amount of work it will take to hand stitch the machine but I am concerned about the integrity of my stitches. I would be so upset if I gave this away, had this big ol' production and hype about it, and then have my craftsmanship fail after only a little use.

My hopes are that this will last longer than my marriage, which is saying something. I am marrying him for life.

I'm pickin' up!

I can't begin to tell you how discouraging it is when I pick a large project, excitedly start it, and then part way through get overwhelmed. I feel like I am way in over my head and at that point don't know if I can even finish it. My self esteem starts to diminish along with my drive... It just sucks. So today, when I finished sewing up the petals for about half of my quilt I was so excited!

It's a real pick-me-up now to look over and see this pile.

Suddenly, I feel like I can go on...
Which is great because I did not cut enough petals to make all the blocks I need. I couldn't believe it, but when I did the math I realized this quilt will take 450 petals. 450!

...I didn't know what I was getting into.

Are quilters nuts?!

In the midst of my sewing strips of fabric, upon strips of fabric, and seam upon seam, upon seam, upon seam, upon seam... I had this fleeting thought like, "Am I nuts?"

The answer is yes.

I have taken perfectly good fabric, cut it into a billion pieces, and now intend to sew all those pieces back together to create a pretty picture. Of course, what I'm sewing it all into is functional. That seems pretty sane,  right?

Yeah... Until I find myself here again, cramping from sitting so long and wondering why I decided to cut all of the fabric up.

When my Granny Cora put together her beautiful log cabin quilt a hundred years ago, it made sense. She was poor like most people those days. All she had available were fabric scraps from clothing long overdue to the trash in or bits she salvaged from projects that required much more fabric. What else would anyone do with that fabric? They would make a blanket! (I don't think I've ever met anyone who said they had too many blankets by the way - let alone quilts.) That made sense then and it does now.

So I find myself asking then, why do quilters continue the approach they do? Blankets aren't a scarcity and neither is cotton, especially not attractive cotton. Do we quilt for the love of it? The art perhaps? Or the tradition? The functionality of the final piece?

At this point in time I can't say why I quilt. It seems to be one of the only things that I think about non-stop. If I am doing something else, I'd rather be quilting. If I can't be quilting, I'm thinking of the next quilt I'll be making. If I'm quilting, well then it's a good day. It seems I don't have to have a reason to quilt, but with every stitch I start to understand the reasons of others. Who knows, I may have all the same reasons as them one day. The same reasons as you.

So, why do you quilt?

Once upon a time there was a girl who could not stop thinking about a boy. After thinking about him for a disconcerting amount of time she got up the courage to ask him out. Nine months later they were engaged. Four months after that and she can be found here, attempting to document her journey in preparation for her wedding.

As soon as Tyler asked me to marry him I knew I had to make my own wedding dress. It is something I've wanted to do since I started sewing. So I sat down and started the sketching process.

It was entirely too overwhelming. I continued however, until I finally sketched up the perfect dress for me. I had decided between the art nouveau and the bohemian look and came up with the general lines I would be using in the dress. I excitedly showed my mother, to which her response was, "Oh, hold on and let me grab that."

"Whaaaat?!" I said.

And grab it she did. My mom had the exact dress I had sketched. Except better. It was the dress I used to dream of wearing when I was four. To me, it was the most beautiful garment a woman could wear.

She had bought this dress in 1996 at JC Penney during their Christmas sale. She paid $20 for it and wore it once - to Christmas dinner. Since then she has stored it in the original garment bag and transported it from house to house when we moved around. Without ever folding it. Or cramming it away. For 16 years!

Unfortunately I cannot give up any more details about the dress until after the wedding. My fiance doesn't want to hear about it, see it, touch the bag its in, nothing. He reads my blog to critique and only knows the story about the dress. If he had his way he wouldn't know that either. Everything about our attire will be unknown to each other until that day comes.

It makes the anticipation for the wedding that much greater.

Recently, my fiance's family's cats have adopted me into their hearts, and themselves into my home. I am a sucker for animals so of course I allowed them in to visit and to sleep. It's not like I really have a choice regardless. The screen door is missing the bottom panel - just perfect for a cat to slip in to. Them adopting me was charming, I was starting to feel more and more like the family. Even the cats like me!However, when I awoke and went to turn on my computer this morning the charm was lost.

One of the cats sprayed right next to my laptop. My laptop which just has been fixed for about 5 days after being out of commission for about 4 or 5 months. My laptop which I just paid to get fixed as an alternative to getting a new one.

I was mad. I did not seek the cats out though I was tempted. Instead I wiped it all off my desk and my favorite quilting book and instead started a blog. A blog which I have desired to start for 8 years now. One that I will start now so I can tell anyone or no one about the interesting parts of life from my perspective.

In a weird way, that cat helped me. If it weren't for him I may not even have had the gumption to start this project. I guess I should tell him thanks.

He is still not allowed in the house anymore though.