In Which I Come Out and Then Rely on Quilting Minutiae to Go Immediately Back In

...Come out of the blog closet, that is! Yucka yucka.
My brother started a blog. It's really good and I want to comment on his blog post but then he'll see that I have a blog and then he might have spare time and he might read all the dumb old posts. Plus my parents read my brother's blog and they might see my comment and they might come to visit my blog and then THEY might have (no, definitely have--they're retired!) spare time and come see my blog... To prevent deep reading, I am going to write a detailed, quilt-heavy post so they can see it's not worth diving in here.

Here is a picture of a quilt I made:

(This is the quilt made to look like the house where I grew up, where my parents still live)

(This is the actual house)

It took a year. Lots of that year was spent avoiding the sewing room altogether because some aspects of this quilt were geometrically confusing to my head. For instance, the diagonal sky. It was like, "WHAT?" And the house was hard, too. Really, any time you get diagonal, I turn into a frustrated monkey who can't figure out how to the square piece into the round hole. Seam allowances, squaring off...Not to mention I was learning to use my rotary cutter as I made this quilt. (This is the part of my blog where I reveal to non-sewing readers that they really have no interest in reading my blog!) See all the strips? I bled over those strips. I learned that rotary cutters don't solve all the world's problems over those strips. I learned that you really must find a way to keep your ruler still or else the strips get that dumb arched imprecision.
I started the house quilt in like November of 2009 and finally gave it to my parents in mid-December of 2010. It was supposed to be a Christmas 2009 present. But they've known me for like almost 34 years now, so if they aren't used to disappointment over the timeliness of promised "creative" gifts by now, then it's their own damn fault. (I don't really think that! That's just tough talk. In reality I was embarrassed and guilty.)
Here are some final thoughts on this quilt, along with some detail shots:

• I wish I had waited until I was more skilled at making quilts before I tackled this one.

• I say that because I think I could have made a more beautiful and less-childish-looking quilt if I had just had a little more experience with that uniquely-quilty experience of not-having-the-faintest-idea-of-what-the-finished-product-will-look-like-until-you-have-a-finished-product. This turns out to be one of my favorite aspects of making quilts, as it turns the whole endeavor into a kind of surprise party (not that anyone's ever thrown me one, but a girl can hope). However, with a little more experience, I've learned some things that would have made the process of the house quilt into a slightly less painstaking process. For instance, I might have done a little more cracking-out on Flickr house quilt groups. I could have learned some things about depth and perspective (I really hate that I didn't have the flowers in the front of the house wrap around a little bit to create an illusion of...I dunno, dimension?)

• Most importantly (and this is going to be the last point I make because I'm even boring myselfby hand* is so disproportionately large compared to the time it takes to piece the motherfucker, that if you don't do your level best to make the best possible design, you are going to have a veritable eternity to second-guess your choices. This point applies more to another quilt (a pink and horrible-looking one) a little more, but still: when you're hand-quilting, you are looking at the design in minute detail for like thousands of minutes. And if you took any shortcuts because you were sick of trying to figure out diagonal sky (for instance), you are doomed to regret it--because you are going to be sewing hundreds of teensy tiny stitches all over that screwed-up-looking diagonal sky! You can't escape!

That's it, I think. I'm just waiting for the other quilt photos to load. That means this post might never be finished because it's been loading now for like five whole minutes...
here), the amount of time a body spends quilting a quilt *On hand-quilting:
*I shall write another post someday on this subject. I love to do it because it keeps my hands busy while I'm participating in fun lazy things like TV-watching. And there is really nothing so special than a hand-quilted quilt that somebody slaved over for you. The machine-quilted quilt is nice, but it's less of a labor of love. There's less poetry in it, yo.

It's a Wonderful...

wonderful,

wonderful,
wonderful,
wonderful,
wonderful life.
May your days be merry and bright.

In Which an Ancient Computer Causes Me to Wax Nostalgic...

December is riding in on fluffy, lazy snowflakes. I'm lying on a couch with my best friend's baby asleep in my arms. I'm gazing out the attic window at treetops and slow-motion winter weather. The music up here comes from my old iMac and it's like a time capsule no matter how often I play it. Nothing has been added to it in four years, maybe five. And the thing wasn't even plugged in for at least two of the intervening years. It doesn't have a built-in CD burner, either--every song in there might as well be preserved in amber, accessible only from this dinosaur of a machine (the first color-screen computer I ever had!).
This is also the first computer I used for music. I bought it in 2000 or 2001 and all the songs I put into it are mine, you know? I was so single during the time I used this thing, at least until the last year of its waning days, anyway. P is a music junkie--he owns thousands of albums and has broadened my musical taste more than I ever thought possible. He is the dj in our house and I wouldn't have it any other way (except sometimes, like when he's in a Skeletonwitch mood or on a Pavement binge, or a Fugazi bender--I can take some of that stuff but he knows it's best to play it when I'm not around). So the music up here represents the last music that was purely mine. (I'm trying to write this in a way that doesn't make it seem like my delicate sensibilities have careened helplessly into the gaping maw of my husband's voracious musical appetite, but it isn't working. So can you just take my word that P taking over at house dj a good thing? It means we do not listen to a finite number of relentlessly sorrowful songs on a continuous loop--New Me finds Old Me's taste to be quaint and pretty, and it does bring back the memories, but you absolutely cannot dance to it.)
That said, I love being the dj of my sewing room (the attic). Lots of the playlists I listen to were composed in the early days of 2001 or 2002, when I lived in another attic--that of an old house that was converted to apartments. It was mere blocks from the hippest part of downtown Columbus; I was single and skinny and waiting tables for a living. I had painted the walls of my tiny garret various shades of purple and turned it into a kind of bohemian-looking hovel. My mattress was on the floor (on top of box springs, but still). I dyed cheap curtains and hung them on a makeshift bamboo rod (suspended from the slanting ceiling by raffia! Ah, to be young once more...) which separated the "bedroom" from the spot where I kept the computer and a bookshelf and some pillows to sit on.
I listened to Dar Williams and Bob Dylan and Lucinda Williams up there. I listened to Gomez, Willie Nelson, Tom T. Hall, Van Morrison, "Greetings from Asbury Park," Stevie Wonder. I listened to "The Captain" by KC Chambers. I listened to songs, not albums--that's one of the main differences between me and P, actually. I know it's not a purist's way to do things, but the sewing room catalog is riddled with single tracks from many artists and bands. I had only recently discovered iTunes and was enamored of the way you could just get a song you heard at out one night or on the radio.
Bless the hearts of my friends back then, people I worked with at the restaurant who didn't owe me anything--they would come up to my little attic and sit at my computer (at my drunken bidding) and agree that it was very cool to just get any song you wanted, and make playlists with me and give me ideas for songs to buy. The sheer dorkiness of that practice is stunning me this morning as I remember it for the first time in a while, but it's also something sort of sweet and innocent from a time I don't often associate with those qualities.
I remember that I listened to music alphabetically. I didn't really utilize the playlist option that much, and one night I was listening to the Rolling Stones to impress a guy and when it came to the end of that, a Rod Stewart song came on. Oh, the horror! In my defense, I acquired the Rod Stewart in a Rushmore-induced fit--it was "Ooh La La." And now that I'm thinking about it, it does not defend me at all--it only reveals how thoroughly uncool I really am. See, a quick Google search reveals that the song at the end of Rushmore is not performed by Rod Stewart. Duh, if you're cool. If you're me, you download the Rod Stewart version and think you're cool until something like this happens and you remember that you are actually the kind of dork who invites people to after hours and then makes them sit in front of your computer with you. I still do that. I'm kind of doing it right now, aren't I?
Some things never change.

Here is a Picture I Took with Our New Camera

We still have an absolute boatload to learn about how to take really great pictures, but we went on a walk through our deserted (for winter vacation) college town on Sunday and took a bunch of naturally-lit photographs and then at the end of the walk, Ella the Dog sang to us. Actually, she yawned while I was snapping away, but how cute is that??

Budget Girl to the Rescue

Starting this month (November), I am the one in charge of our budget and bills. This is not something that comes remotely naturally to me, so I had to make some adjustments in our life. I will talk about those some other time, because they are a little bit ingenious and comical at the same time--good qualities in a blog post, you know. But the reason I'm thinking about it right now is that I must (must must must!) get our grocery budget under control--it was already dicey with our recent extended house guest situation, but then Thanksgiving weekend blew it all to hell. It's our biggest expense (besides, you know, housing) and one of the only ones we actually have any control over, so I'm going to put all my problem-solving skills to work on it.
Starting right now! What with leftovers and a few other options in the freezer/fridge, I think we can keep the grocery bill very low this week. But I have to plan.* Thoroughly and boring-ly. Sorry.

Monday

Breakfast: Peanut Butter/Banana smoothies
Lunch: Soup; peanut butter sandwiches
Dinner: Out (my brother's coming to town and there's nothing we can do about that; this kind of unexpected--and totally welcome--expense is exactly why I need to be smart about our bills!)

Tuesday

B: Cereal
L: Leftover sloppy joes
D: Broccoli spaghetti squash (intriguing? Possibly disgusting? It's gonna be an experiment). Leftover turkey/stuffing/sweet potatoes are my insurance policy in case the squash is awful.

Wednesday

B: Oatmeal
L: Soup; peanut butter sandwiches
D: Breakfast for dinner: sausage & egg bagels; hash browns.

Thursday

B: Smoothies
L: P can go out; I'll scrounge something--can of soup, toast + egg, whatevs.
D: Tuna noodle casserole (from a box! I know, but this is also part of the budget plan: we have the box for reasons I won't go into; it's much cheaper to use what we have than to go out and buy all the various individual ingredients--they do add up).

Friday**

B: Oatmeal
L: P can go out again; I will maybe have leftovers or toast or something.
D: Roast chicken; rice; cabbage of some sort (there's a head of it in the fridge right now) spinach salad (with goat cheese! And glazed pecans! And red onions!)

Saturday

B: Pancakes, maybe? We have nowhere to go this weekend, which is nearly unprecedented. Whatever we do, it will be very relaxed and lovey and yay for weekends!
L: Chicken salad? Maybe we'll do last night's spinach salad with chicken, or maybe sandwiches on toast. Celery.
D: Maybe we'll go out. Or have chicken tacos with refried beans made from the cooked cranberry beans I've got in the freezer. Salsa ingredients; lettuce; tortilla shells; cheese.

Sunday

B: Oatmeal or bagels or eggs and bacon
L: Soup--we'll have chicken stock for sure, and I have a boatload of frozen corn from Thanksgiving: corn chowder it is! Onions; milk or cream; potatoes.
D: Spaghetti and meatballs (from the freezer--P's favorite, for sweet nostalgic reasons, Sunday-night dinner); salad; bread (made while I was making the soup).

*We eat breakfast together every single day, plus P's lunch expenses snuck up on us last month (when I was tracking these things for the first time); I have to plan for those meals too or else what's the point?
**This will be the grocery store day, I think...

OK--see how I did that? The orange words constitute a shopping list! This is, or would probably be, really dull if you were a person who existed in the world, but it's totally working for me! And the list is pretty minimal, so it gets December off to a cheap start. Hooray!

I'll tell you all about our awesome camera later. For now, please know it's awesome and that's all.

(Mostly) Drug-Free Pie-Making

This morning I stuck with ibuprofen while I made pies. I made some dough for the crust on Monday, thinking that wold make it easier today. But I didn't put enough fat into that batch, so after tons of rolling and crumbling and trying my best, I had to give up and start the crust from the beginning. Should have done that to begin with: mixing the dough isn't what takes time and concentration; rolling it is. Anyway, I always make pie crust with shortening but today I added about a tablespoon or two of butter and look:
Pretty, huh? I'm trying to refrain from saying "wait 'til we get our new camera," but I obviously wasn't trying too hard! This pie deserves a very nice camera.

Anyway, I used this recipe, which calls for the juice and zest of one whole lemon. I added more than a dash of cloves and some extra cinnamon and nutmeg. And I ate a tiny piece of one of the apples once they were all mixed up with the seasonings and zowee! It tasted great! I'm scared of under-seasoning apple pies because of a disastrous experience in high school: my friend and I made lasagna and an apple pie for our Christmas Dance dates and the apples were old and tasted like absolutely nothing. Plus, the lasagna was cold. So that was the other lesson. The apples, though, were an unforgettable disappointment--the pie looked lovely but tasted like sawdust. Anyway, that lemon juice and zest really added a zing!

And this pie! It's so pretty! Like, magazine pretty! I hope everyone's impressed tomorrow at P's family's house. They aren't really pie people, though. Usually there's not even a pumpkin pie at their table, which is why I'm making one right now. They are a pumpkin-roll-up-with-cream-cheese-icing people. They are cake people. But I'm a pie person! I come from pie people! It's tragic, because this crust is the kind of crust that can only be truly appreciated by people who really, really loooooooove pie.
P.S. When I finished the dough-chilling and pre-baking and rolling and shaping and filling and blah blah blah, I did take a Vicoden. I figure I can handle removing pies from an oven and determining whether they're done, even under the influence of prescription painkillers. I felt I should tell you about the Vicoden so you'd forgive me if this post is error-riddled and/or incoherent in any way.
P.P.S. Damn! I just looked at the recipe again and realized I forgot to dot the apples with butter before I put the top crust on. I repeat: Damn! I hope it doesn't totally ruin it. I mean, I know it won't totally ruin it, but I hope...I just hope it's good!

Oral Surgery, In Brief

I had a wisdom tooth removed. It hurts and I'm on drugs. This is my post for the day.

I did it!

P.S. I made really good pureed vegetables soup and I'm gobbling up Bob Evans pre-made refrigerated mashed potatoes. And P is being so nice to me! He's making me excited for when we have kids and they get sick and Daddy takes care of them. He has a chart for my drugs and a gauze clock (I get the gauze in my mouth for one hour at a time). I love him.