Righteousness?

I am feeling very righteous today. I managed to bang out almost the whole guild newsletter yesterday, laundry is chugging away, I've taken the dogs for a walk, I haven't eaten any chocolate (so far!), been to the farm stand for produce, and delivered the garbage and recycling to the "dump". They call the local garbage/recycling drop-off locations, Convenience Centers, but it's just way more satisfying to call it the dump. :-D Granted, it's quite convenient, clean, well run, and only a few miles up the road! Then there are the big North Wake and South Wake "Solid Waste Management Facilities" for hazardous waste and such. Kinda makes me want to wear my "Domestic Engineer" hat when I go there! LOL

On a whim, Saturday, The Tramp and I stopped at the Cause for Paws Thrift Shop. We were surprised to see the interior had been completely reorganized. It was pretty junky, still is really, but much better organized and pleasanter to shop in. And!!! It was 50% off! So I bought a whole armload of shirts and stuff to cut up.

They're washed and ready to go. The left overs of the first bunch I bought, for the Blue Ridge Beauty quilt, are in the basket. I think I'm going to need a larger container for it all! I'd like to use some of this fabric for Bonnie's upcoming Old Tobacco Roads mystery quilt. Now we live in tobacco country it's going to have some meaning to me. New Jersey, The Garden State, is known for it's truck farms but you just aren't going to see fields of peanuts and tobacco and falling down tobacco barns around every corner!

I've also been trying to keep ahead of my scraps. An impossible task! They're all (well most of them) sorted into bins but some of the bins are overflowing! The Strings and Crumbs bins especially. I don't want to pack the fabric in too tight!

So I decided to make some nice bright placemats from crumbs and strings. This is the initial effort, stuck up on my design wall. They are just random 3.5" squares but to my eye it looks like I arranged them up there in four 9-patches. Odd! So anyway, I have a long way to go, I barely made a dent in the bin.

I also managed to sew through my finger with the sewing machine last night. Ouch. A few weeks ago I tried to cut off another finger with a knife. So now I'm going to worry about the Rule of Threes and wait for the other shoe to drop. I think I better get one of those special gloves to protect me from my rotary cutter...quick! You think?

I whipped up this little sling bag the other day. It's just the right size for my wallet, phone, keys and lip gloss. I love it!


On a side note, the Cardinals are apparently still breeding, though it seems late in the season for it. While I'm typing, I'm watching a Dad feed his begging youngster in the little Japanese Maple outside the window. Cardinals were always just Cardinals, but now I've had a whole summer to watch them outside the window, I can see the same individuals over and over and watch their coloring change over time. They're a pretty scrufty looking bunch! :-) The same with the House Finches, Goldfinches and hummingbirds. Nothing new really, but it keeps me amused.


This morning The Tramp sent me the link to this article. I think it's more than a bit negative and the author has a chip on his shoulder, but it's interesting nonetheless since we're both introverts and it can be a challenge sometimes.

Oh...and Ivy would like to report that she really really tried very hard to stay away from the wonderful digging hole in the yard...but yesterday she forgot! She had to deal with being washed down with the dreaded hose and we're hoping the association might begin to mean something. After catching her one more time, The Tramp filled the hole with some concrete cylinders. As usual, when you try to refill a hole dug by an animal there is nowhere near enough dirt to do the job. Where does it all go??? (besides what comes in on said animal of course) We were going to go out and buy dirt and patio blocks when I remembered the pile of concrete thingies. Good enough for now.

Can't you just hear her saying, "Who? Me?"


Well....off to continue the righteousness...with supervision by the dogs. More laundry!