Quilting and Science Experiments

This is as far as I've gotten on the Half-Square Frenzy.  I will be adding a narrow border of something, probably in lime green (Rave Green, for all those Sounders fans out there) and then a wider border in purple or dark blue.  I don't have enough of any of the purples left to make a border, so...shucky-darn...I'll have to do a little shopping.  That's OK, I need to get some Halloween fabrics for the swap next week anyway.

And this is what Emma's One-Block Wonder looks like.  I used the Japanese fabric around the outside that made up the hexagons in the middle, so you can get a view of what the fabric used to look like.  Looking at it now, I should have put in a narrow border between the hexagons and the print, but c'est la vie.

Speaking of la Francais, Emma is enrolled in French this year.  It'll be fun to re-learn along with her and she can practice a little with my parents (who learned a lot more than I ever did...then again, I never traveled to France to be able to use it outside of the classroom).

Mr. B, on the other hand, was invited to be part of a study at Children's to test the Safety and effects of Lumacaftor and Ivacaftor, the drugs developed by Vertex Pharmaceuticals that will, hopefully, be a life-changing concoction for patients with CF.  He is not sure he wants to be part of the study; we're talking to him about it and he'll have to make up his mind soon.

I started going to yoga.  It isn't very intense and the instructor gives options for modifications for poses that *some of us* can't do, and gives the over-achievers poses to challenge them.  I like that this instructor isn't a 90 lb. rubber band; she's actually on the plus-side.  She also doesn't laugh when I lose my balance and fall over, which I really appreciate.  I will have to remember not to set up my mat next to the mirror.  I don't need to see that.

I took my longarm machine in for a tune-up before we went on our long trip, and I finally got it back today.  Apparently it's been sitting there waiting for me for several days, but they forgot to call and tell me to come get it.  That was nice of them.  I was having trouble with the stitch regulator going too fast, so they had to fix that as well as give it the usual lube-oil-filter treatment.  They did a bunch of repairs on it including replacing the main board and the power board (some kind of computerized electronics on it), removed thread jams from the roller wheels, installed missing washers from the encoder kits (wonder why those weren't there to begin with?), removed burrs and delinted everything.  The cost to do all that would have been $1200.  That's right--TWELVE HUNDRED DOLLARS!  Luckily, I had purchased the extended warranty and service package (about $300) and it covers it ALL.  Totally worth it.  Heck, it covered the broken encoder from earlier this year, too, so it's paid for itself five times over.

Kelly is making more changes to the house. He's just not satisfied unless he's drastically re-arranging the TV system every 6 months (new units, new service providers, new remotes...).  Now he's decided to move it to the other side of the wall, into the front room.  This involves cutting holes into the wall (the one we just had painted a few months ago after getting the ceiling repaired in the front room), re-wiring electrical stuff, crawling around in the crawl space (aka the creepy-crawly space), and generally making a mess.  I really wasn't interested in having this project done, but by the time I realized he was serious, he had already cut holes in the wall.  It hardly seemed the time to complain.  We'll see how this goes.

I, on the other hand, am tired of carpet bugs (which seem to come in waves every few months as the gross creatures hatch) and I have decided to make the investment in the house and get rid of all the carpet.  We went to look at hardwood samples and are trying to determine if we should try to do it ourselves (we have the tools, so that part's take care of) or if we should hire it out.  Or rather, if we can afford to hire it out.  We'll have to hire out some of it, like the stairs, but I think we can do the rest of it ourselves with a little bit of practice.  I figured I'd start with my closet, which doesn't connect to any other room but the bathroom (and we're keeping the vinyl for now--we'll probably upgrade to tile eventually, but it ain't broke, so...).  If it looks HORRIBLE and I don't have the confidence to do it, I'll hire it out.  It's a good place to start, I think.  First, however, we'll need to gut the house--sifting through closets and drawers, pitching old clothes, organizing and hanging and boxing (into Rubbermaid toters), and then moving furniture into the garage (after gutting the garage, too) or working around furniture to get it done.  It's gonna be a big project, and it may take weeks to get done, especially if we do it ourselves.  I'm leaning toward hiring the guys to do it, especially for downstairs, but we can't drop $8000 on flooring (yes, this is for the whole house at about $4 sq/ft for red oak with the 100 year warranty) and then having to pay the guys another $8000 to install.  We may have to do it room by room.