Randomness tied together

So I've had 4 or 5 posts swimming in my head this week, but I haven't taken the time until now to type them down. The kids are in bed and Ryan is at the Temple.

Sisters:
Last Sunday night, I went to a fireside that our Stake Relief Society put on, entitled "Sisters All Are We". It got me to thinking how much I love my 3 sisters.

• We sing Barbershop together. We've done some hilarious renditions of songs at weddings with altered lyrics ("In the Good Old Summertime" for Holly & Bob and "Last Night on the Back Porch" for Keturah & Brook)
  
• Growing up, I would take their clothes from their closets and wear them. There are few advantages of being the youngest sister.
  
• Milaka was not only my Bradley Childbirth Instructor, but also my "doula" when I had Sabrina.
• Shanda was game in planning a trip to Europe to pick up Keturah from her mission. I provided the cheap plane tickets. She provided the cheap hotels.
• Keturah helped me go to the store on Valentine's day 1995 to buy a gift, after Ryan had called and told me he had something to give me. (It was the book "Believing Christ". I made him sit in our front room and write something to me on the inside cover of the book.)
• The first quilt I ever pieced together was for Shanda's oldest boy. She gave it back to me when he was 2 because she said it meant more to me than to him.
• After Keturah and Milaka got hooked on watching "What Not to Wear", shopping together became even more enjoyable.
• We all went to see Harry Connick, Jr. in concert in SLC after eating at the Melting Pot.
  

I really love my sisters. Its hard to live far away from them. I'm happy I get to see 2 of them this month. FYI this photo was taken of me and my sisters at Lagoon in 1991.

Soccer:
Can you believe the soccer season has started again? I thought Sabrina's coach was kidding in his email three weeks ago that it was time for practices to start up again. (There was lots of snow on the ground at the time.) He was serious. For the first two weeks of practice, they met in our church gym and played. This week they were outside at the elementary school and the first game was today! After a warm front pushed through here for the last 2 days, we got back to cold, wet weather. It said it was 40 degrees this morning, but felt like 19 with the rain. Ryan stayed home with the boys. I got to be the line judge. Sabrina played defender and goalie. The ending score was Blue Dolphins (Sabrina's team) 7, Red Devils 2.

Quilting:
So my last quilting class was on Tuesday. We learned how to make binding and bind the quilt and how to blind appliqué with a machine. Really cooll stuff. My sewing machine has sat on a corner of my kitchen table for more than a week now because I REALLY WANT TO QUILT MY QUILT, but that hasn't ever made it up to the "Better" list. Perhaps this week? Probably not due to our trip to Utah on Thursday for Allison's wedding.

Volunteering at School:
Last year, Sabrina entered a musical composition in the school's Reflections contest. She won first prize. It went to be judged at the district level. She won first prize. It went on to the state level. She won Honorable Mention. After the award ceremony for the state prize, she was bawling because our school had just stopped being members of the PTA, so we would not be eligible to participate in Reflections again, and she would not be able to win any more medals. In steps Mom. I single-handedly created, organized, etc, etc, etc the 2008 Trail Wind Elementary School PTO Art Contest. The entries were due last Friday. The awards ceremony was yesterday. There were 124 entries in 6 categories. Sabrina entered a musical composition. She won first prize. (I was not the judge.)

Transmission:
We got to get a new transmission for our 2002 Honda Odyssey. As the service manager at Larry Miller Honda said, "Your transmission needs to go to heaven." Driving home from Roderic's tumbling class last Monday, I couldn't go faster than 25mph. Even with the engine doing 3000rpm. Then the malfuction indicator light turned on. Then the TCS light turned on. Then the D (for drive) light started flashing! It was scary to drive the van like that. The good news is that it was part of a recall (that I don't remember hearing about but my neighbor with a 2001 model does) so we paid $0.

Pipe Organs:
Yesterday afternoon, Sabrina's violin teacher organized a special treat for all of her students. We were invited to Immaneul Lutheran Church downtown for an organ demonstration. In their group lessons they've been talking about Bach and she thought it would be neat for the students to get to hear Bach's music on his primary instrument. I learned so much. Did you know that they control the volume on pipe organs by opening and closing shutters that lead to a room with pipes in it? Did you know that every rank has one pipe for every key on the keyboard? Did you know that organs can get out of tune? That church's organ was out of tune. Aparently there is no organ tuner in Boise, they have to fly in from SLC or SEA. Our ward organist is holding an "Organ Workshop" to teach interested people to play the organ. It begins on Tuesday. I'm planning on going.

Now if you've gotten to the end of this, and still don't see how all of this randomness is tied together, please realize that I typed it thus it is together.

Ohio Star, revisited

Last September, I took a beginning quilting class at The Quilt Crossing. If you don't remember it, you can read all about it here. Well, I was supposed to sew together the 6 blocks and sign up for the second series of the class before October 23. With our super-humanitarian-project-Saturday, that I was in charge of and needed to make 10 pair of pjs bottoms for, I didn't get around to it until 6 days before the class was to start. Not enough people signed up for it, so they cancelled it the day before I called! Talk about being sorry for being a procrastinator (no matter what the excuse is). The store didn't offer any more Tuesday night classes until now. As soon as I found out the dates, I called to sign up. I didn't want me to be the reason of a class cancelled again.

At class 4 (having done classes 1-3 in September), we learned how to attach the sashing and borders. I decided to have cornerstones in my sashing and I really like how it turned out. Before I had the borders sewn on, I had it hanging on the wall in the kitchen with straight pins, so people coming over could comment on it (and they did!). After finishing sewing on the borders, I took the completed quilt top to my bedroom and hung it on the wall with masking tape, so I could see what it will look like when I'm all finished. (I was a little worried that the turquoise of the quilt and the blue of my bedroom wall would clash.)


At class 5, we learned how to do the actual quilting. We took in two 12" squares of fabric so that we could practice on something before puting it on our quilts. The walking foot and darning foot are REALLY neat to sew with. Learning about these two feet alone have made this class totally worth it. I've decided to "stitch in the ditch" on the blocks of the quilt, do a puzzle quilting technique on the sashing and cornerstones and then go to Stacy's fancy embroidery machine to put on a pattern. I'm thinking about a braid right now.



Class 6 is next week, where we'll learn how to bind the quilt. Once again using the 12" "quilt" from week 5.

Lifelong learning!

2 Minutes with...

Hyrum!

Today I followed Hyrum around with the video camera. With no prodding from me, he did almost all of his tricks.

Roman Shades

Before and After

We've lived in this house for almost 3 years. The only backyard neighbors we have are rabbits, quail, hawks and an occasional owl. It hasn't been a high priority to get shades for these windows in our "Great Room". Standard curtains were out because we all enjoy the view from these windows and since the windows have decorative moldings around them I wasn't sure how to hang a curtain rod, anyways. I don't like vertical shades. At all. I thought horizontal shades would look odd. That left me with roman shades. Since these windows aren't a standard size, any pre-made shade would have to be special ordered at a great expense. After doing a Google search on home-made roman shades, I found make-roman-shades.com where they walk you through the whole process. I bought some unbleached muslin at Joann Fabric (at a killer price of 50 cents a yard) and purchased 2 kits (one for each window) from make-roman-shades.com. The kits came with liner fabric, and all the hardware for making the shades (everything was pre-cut, so I just had to sew and install).
I am really pleased with how these turned out!

Peek-a-Boo

I have been trying for months to get a picture of Hyrum playing peek-a-boo with us. But everytime he sees me with the camera, he just gets all smiles. And now today, as I was making dinner, he was playing with me and I got it! I love how he uses the palms of his hands to cover his eyes compeltely. Usually he mumbles a bit as well. I should get it on film. He is so cute.

Can you see me now?

Last October, Sabrina came home from school complaining that her teacher wrote blurry. Happily that was before insurance registration, so we were able to add her to our vision insurance effective 1-1-08. (Interesting note: The day after I called to schedule an appointment for her, the school nurse called and told me that Sabrina had failed the vision test at school.)

At her vision appointment, we learned that Sabrina is near-sighted and should wear glasses all the time, so she picked out a pair, with a little help from Mom. And now after 10 days of excruciating waiting, Sabrina has new glasses and is SO excited to see the world clearly.

The Proper Way...

Roderic had a friend over yesterday and they both decided that this is the most comfortable way to watch TV.