What a Week!

It's been a crazy one here, more busy for me than usual, so I'm very glad it's the weekend! My family is in and out all weekend, but other than church and possibly a softball game on Monday night (rain is predicted) I get to stay put!

This is finals week for my daughter, who is in cosmetology school. Her practicals were Monday and Tuesday and Wednesday through today are written tests. She's done very well (she finds out each day how she did on that day's test) and, once today is over, she just has to complete her 1500 hours, which should happen midday on June 10th.

I had extra babysitting this week, in addition to being one of the people she worked on for her practicals. Add in errands, a (wonderful!) visit with a friend and walking and I spent 3 whole days busy with things that didn't include much in the way of household tasks or sewing. Thankfully the house isn't in too bad of shape and that means much of my weekend can be spent doing enjoyable things and recouping from the busy week.

I have a huge list of things I want to do this weekend. I plan to bake some today and tomorrow for Memorial Day. When I bake, I bake in bulk so it should last most of the week. It's sunny but chilly here, so I'm hoping the it's warm enough to spend a bit of time outside today. My husband plans to work on the garden when he gets here sometime after lunchtime and I will light up the firepit to burn up some of the branch trimmings from last weekend's work. It's a little breezy, so between that and the chill in the air I'm hoping that I can still do a bit of hand sewing outside while I work on my burning project.

I do plan to get the current table topper finished (I'm now quilting on the braid that goes around the outer edge) and begin the next one. I need to quilt a bit on the album quilt and I also hope to do some cutting and prepwork on two bags that I need to make. I'm having a sewing night next Friday with a friend (we get together around dinner time and sew until we drop) and if the bags aren't finished by then, they will be my primary project.

Weather permitting, tomorrow will be spent much as today. Putzing with household chores, lighting the firepit, sewing, cooking, baking and hanging out with whatever kids are here.

Pincushion Swap. I'm going to switch gears for a minute. I joined a pincushion swap on Teresa's blog but only a few people signed up. She agreed to leave the signups open until the end of the month so I could post it here to see if we can find a few more people who are interested. You only need to make 5 pincushions (but can do 10 if enough people sign up) and they aren't due to Teresa until July 1st.

While I love my walking, it really seems to sap my energy some days. We don't walk on weekends, mostly because we're busy with family things, but I feel like my poor old body needs time to recover. I have more energy today than I think I've had all week and I'm hoping that continues for the weekend so that I can get a lot of things done. The fact that I'll be home most of the weekend helps immensely as well, I truly am a homebody!

Ruthie mimics everything these days and thankfully she has a bunch of wonderful role models to imitate. She attempts new words every day now and she loves to be outside. Though I'm not an outdoor person, even I am hoping it begins to warm up a bit more than it is because I know the days will be a lot more fun and interesting for my two youngest if we can spend more time outside. In the meantime, she manages to keep herself quite busy inside. There was supposed to be a video here of her diapering one of her babies, but uploading videos with dialup appears to be a hit or miss operation. Two attempts and about an hour of waiting for them to upload and no success, so I'll try that another day! In the meantime, we'll have to "settle" for stills.

Happy Memorial Day weekend and may it be a quilty one!

Sue and Ruthie