Happy 4 Years!

Today is our 4th wedding anniversary, and what a wonderful, crazy four years of marriage it's been.


Joel had my quilt professionally quilted as an anniversary gift, and it turned out absolutely adorable!  I'm thrilled with the job they did at Red Rooster Quilts.  

My favorite is the bottom border of the hands and feet.  I'll give the final reveal when I finish it and hang it on the wall.  How fun!  Happy anniversary to me! 

Hungry Reading

My husband and I have completely different reading styles.  Joel usually has about 4 to 5 books he's reading at a time.  He reads maybe a chapter from one and then reads a couple of pages from another.  It takes him usually a couple months to finish a book.  His ADD probably has quite a bit to do with this approach to reading.  I am the exact opposite.  When I like a book I read it continually until it's done- usually in 24 to 48 hours (depending on how busy of a schedule I have at the time).  He makes fun of me for the number of books I fly through.  I can't help it though.  I love reading.

This summer I was introduced to the trilogy of books that begins with The Hunger Games.  I instantly fell in love with these books and read each of them in under 24 hours.  They are by far the best books I've read this year.  I told Joel he absolutely had to read them, but he usually tunes me out when I start talking about books (in fact, he tells me he has no recollection of me talking to him about these books whatsoever), so summer passed by and our lives continued on.  Until....a friend this past weekend starting talk to Joel about the books and it piqued his interest.  He started reading the first book Sunday afternoon and finished it the next day.  Welcome to the 24 hour club, sweetheart!  I was shocked, because I've never seen him engrossed in a book like that- ever!  He came down to breakfast this morning with the second book in his hands, and it made me laugh.  He blames me for his addictive reading behavior.  It looks like my baby has come over to the dark side after all. :)
If you haven't read these books I really recommend them.  They kept me biting my nails all the way through to the end.  I confess I wasn't completely satisfied with the ending, but if you get to that point we'll discuss it- I don't want to give anything away!

Fabulous Prizes

 As a participant of the Bloggers Quilt Festival I won a prize!  This is seriously exciting because I never win anything.  I can't think of anytime except maybe when winning a gold fish at the school fair in kindergarten that died on the way home.  I got the Pure Fat Quarter Bundle from Above All Fabric!  It has some really adorable fabric that happens to normally be way above my price range (clearance at Jo-Ann's, anyone?), so I'm going to have to come up with a cool quilt for this fabric.  Oh the possibilities! :)

Sweet Times

A trip to Pennsylvania just would not have been complete without a trip to our friend's new cookie shop.  I was so sad when it opened AFTER we moved out of the state, so it was great to see her and her family and enjoy some amazingly, delicious cookies.  It was a quick drive by, but SO worth it!

If you haven't ever tried Missy's Ugly Cookies hop on over to her website and have some shipped to you today!  I have to say my favorite thing was the pumpkin roll, but in terms of cookies if you love peanut butter and chocolate you absolutely have to try the Pennsylvania Countryside Tango - it blends peanut butter cookie dough & chips w/ chocolate cookie dough & chips. Yum!  It's heavenly!

After our cookie run we came back to Grandma and Grandpa Thompson's home for naptime and some football.  It was the big Ohio State vs. Penn State game.  Our house is a little torn about which team to cheer on since we both have a degree from Penn State, but now Joel's employed by Ohio State.  I stuck with Penn State and Joel went for his new love of Ohio. :)

Dr. Seuss Love

I had been looking for an idea of what to do for the Dr. Seuss quilt I wanted to make for the playroom and then I came across the Country Cabin pattern on Quilt Dad.  The fabrics are completely different and I changed some of the dimensions to fit some of my scraps I wanted to incorporate from previous quilts, but I had a lot of fun making this quilt top.

It obviously needed to go with the rest of the room and also the pillow that I had previously made for the room.  What do you think?  I'm considering sending it out to have the top stitching professionally long armed, because if it's going to be hanging on my wall I want to absolutely love it and not be nit picking about my top stitching job.  We'll see.  I have to convince my husband it's worth the money first. :)  I love you sweetie!!

Blogger's Quilt Festival

 The quilt I chose to share for the festival is the first quilt I ever attempted to put together (it's not even top-stitched), but has the most sentimental value.  I made it for my mom - each patch is heat transferred pictures of our family (They all bring back memories of some pretty funny vacations and/or stories of our family while growing up).  There are also a couple pictures from my parent's wedding and of them when they were younger.

The top row consists of a square dedicated to each of the five children in my family with an "S" in the corner for "Stuetz" (my maiden name).  The colors match the colors of my parent's room (the back of the quilt is a forest green).  The quilt is completely different than anything else I've ever done, but it makes me smile every time I see it because of the memories it evokes.

What to do?

 For Amy's Challenge this week I was going to come up with some type of Halloween decoration idea with the fabric that I've had for years sitting at the bottom of my fabric bin.  I decided to put together a quilted wall hanging, but now that I've quilted it together I'm having quilters doubt.  I can't decide if I like it- I was thinking it was too wide and big for my taste, but then it didn't seem quite as huge when I put it on the floor to take a picture.  Bleh- what do you think? Should I bind it and hang it up?

Customer Complaints

There are just certain places I don't want to see animals or insects and recently I've seen them in a couple of establishments that seen a bit out of place.
The first was during Nathan's well-baby check up.  There was an ant scurrying across the room.  I admit it entertained Nathan while we waited for the doctor to come in, but there's just something wrong with seeing an insect in a place where you'd like to think of it as a sterile environment.  The room where they do all of the child measurements also smelt like a month's worth of nasty body odor, so the cleanliness factor was already in question.  After a couple of other concerns and issues, this particular doctor's office is a one and done experience.  We're looking for a new pediatrician.
Secondly, I was thinking about that particular incidence when a bird flew over my head.  This may not seem like an abnormal experience except for the fact that I was in the grocery store at the time.  Don't get me wrong, I don't feel like I'm in danger of getting the Bird Flu or anything, but something about live birds and food just don't mix well.  Birds poop- as evidenced on my car and home, and quite frankly I don't want to find bird poop on myself or anything else in the store.  I was already slightly put out about this when I noticed they were already taking down the Halloween items.  Does anyone else remember when they actually used to wait until AFTER the holiday to take everything down and put it on clearance?  I know they skip over Thanksgiving because there's not much marketing value (one of the reasons I love it so much), but could they at least wait until Halloween is over to display all of the Christmas stuff?  Please?  Next year they may decide to skip Halloween altogether and put up Christmas items after the 4th of July.
Third- this has nothing to do with animals and insects, but I went to the Dollar Store to pick up a bunch of Halloween themed party favors for Nathan's playgroup, but much to my chagrin the majority of the stuff in the store was not $1.  Really?  Joel says I need to take into account inflation, but if that's the case then they need to change their name because it's not really a dollar store.  To which Joel replied, "Two Dollar Store just doesn't have the same ring to it."  He may have a point there.