I'm TIRED!

What a weekend!

Our son turned 21 on Saturday. They had a "Nerf War" at church for all the young men from 13 to mid-20's. There were about 20 of them running around with nerf guns and they had a great time. They had him stand on a chair while they sang Happy Birthday and pelted him with nerf darts. A great time was had by all. (Below is Ruthie with one of her brother's nerf guns.)

Because of this previously sheduled event, his party with his friends was yesterday. Mostly it was about food, he loves to eat! They watched football and played games and once I started getting food ready at about 2:00 I was working at it constantly until 8:00. That's after spending most of the day Saturday prepping it.

I got a deep fryer for Christmas, so the highlight of the day was trying the different things we attempted to fry. All actually came out really well. I had several different batters made and used whichever seemed appropriate for the different items. We did Li'l Smokies, onion rings, homemade chicken nuggets, cheesesticks, snickers bars and twinkies.

We also served homemade venison sausage, a crockpot full of meatballs, some baked mushroom snacks, popcorn, homemade caramel corn and a couple of dessert items. We never did get to the frozen pizzas (which were mostly purchased as backup in case we needed more food or had more kids show up than I expected.) Everyone was raving over the food, even one of the friends who is a picky eater tried many things we didn't think she would...and she liked everything she tried.

When the cooking and dishwashing was finally finished, I put in a movie and quilted for a while, which is how I plan to spend most of the next couple of days.

I have to babysit this afternoon and tomorrow afternoon but I figure by then my fingers will need a break...and everyone here loves babies so I'm sure I'll be relieved a bit here and there. Our van is still not running, so I can't go anywhere (gee, darn) which should leave me a lot of quilting time.

In addition to the frame quilt I showed in the previous post, I'm working on this one in a hoop. I have a wonderful spot in our bedroom that I can sit and sew and watch TV or DVDs. I often sit here after everyone goes to bed at night while I'm waiting for my husband to get home, or if I want to watch something different than the kids are watching or just to sit and curl up in a comfy spot. While I love my frame, sitting there to quilt just isn't as comfortable as having my feet up!

I normally have this little DVD player plugged into an outlet in my sewing room in view of my work spaces, but it can be unplugged and used cordless for few hours. Ruthie occasionally asks for it to be at her spot at the table, where she can eat her lunch and watch. This particular time she watched the entire movie, with several small bowls with different snacks, while I worked on making party food.

Right now, she's happily watching in our room and having some pasta for lunch. It's a good time for me to get quilting (after I fix pizzas for the boys that ended up crashing in our family room last night!)

I'll hand quilt for a while for sure, but I may work on some celtic, too. I had it at church with me yesterday and while showing it to a couple of women there I realized that I've made a good dent in the border work and it's given me motivation to work on it some more. It's lightly snowing and my frame faces the window, so it's a perfect day for settling into my sewing room.

Happy Quilting!

Sue