The One Where I Blogged Twice in December!

Yay! A second post in December for me! I know it is nothing big, but a good little step for me as I have been so busy with life and so unmotivated to blog.

I have been busy sewing up a storm... well, compared to the non-sewing that I have been doing lately. I have been very upset and saddened about the recent events at Sandy Hook Elementary School and I sought out a group on Flickr that was making pillow cases for the children of SH Elementary. I sent out 6 finished pillow cases, I really hope that they provide some warmth and love to a little heart this upcoming year.  

Sorry for the  terrible lighting, but I have been working some long days and it's not light enough outside when I leave for work OR when I return home. I tried to use up pretty fabrics for both boys as well as girls. I used All People Quilt's tutorial which leaves the inside of your case with finished seams - so no fraying.I just loved how they turned out. The oranges did not turn out well.... they look solid red. Be advised, the only red in this grouping was the top of the Heather Bailey case, I just do not have much red in my stash.

Speaking of stash, I was going through mine while skyping with one of my PMQG pals Danny who blogs over at Mommy For Reals and I have determined that my stash truly needs some work. I have ALOT of fabric that has been handed down to me and goes with nothing or is really just teensy tiny pieces. I think that I might donate a bunch of the tiny and non-matchable fabrics to a lady who uses the fabric scraps to make dog beds for the animal shelters here in Phoenix. Oh, be still my heart. I just love the thought of my quilting scraps keeping a pup-pup warm and somewhat comfortable while they are waiting for their forever home. <3

I have also finished up the top of my latest dGS quilt - It has truly taken me like 5 months. I really need to get my act together before my turn comes up ... AGAIN!

I honestly love how this quilt top has turned out. I asked the girls for gray background with turquoise, medium pink, red, and golden yellow in any triangle/flying geese arrangement their little hearts wanted. I wanted to go with something random, I thought it would be really easy and look amazing! Instead I was frustrated and at a loss for how to put this top together to do everyone's blocks justice. I ended up getting sick over Thanksgiving and my mom helped me finish it up. Thank-you, Mom! I love you, Mom!

I also managed to make a few improv blocks for Leanne in the Always Bee Learning group. She asked for us to create asterisk/math symbols for her quilt in any size that we wished. Excited and nervous to cut into her gorgeous fabric, these are the blocks that I came up with. My mom is also in the same bee and she left me some of her leftover fabric, so I was able to use 3 fabrics in one of my blocks!

 

This square root symbol is my favorite. Far from perfect, but my favorite.

 

Of course my tri-color asterisk.

And an offset cross-multiplication symbol. Loved this Madrona Road text print!

These three blocks will be heading off to Canada within the next week!

Work has been keeping my attention for the most part. Lots of balls in the air there and not a minute to change focus. We might be hiring a new Chief over my department. Fingers crossed that good things come our department's way, we have lots of talent and enthusiasm to the moon and back.

Our project house is newly wired with modern electricity! This is super duper exciting as we discovered that the house had not been converted from knob and tube. Yea. Our electricity was 1930's technology with no updates. I'm talking cloth wire that has decayed so wiring with NO insulation... recipe for disaster and fire. Pretty sure that State Farm was not aware, we would have been paying way more for insurance, haha!! We are very lucky our house did not burn down. Anyhow, crisis averted! Now we just need to finish up the tile in the kitchen!

The white porcelain with the wiring is the knob and tube wiring.

This is our house, you can see some of the porcelain in the lower right hand side. Le Sigh.

On the personal front, I am having a bunch of testing done to make sure that I can have children. The reason for all of the testing, I guess, is because I am close enough to 35 years old (I'm only 33, but whateves) and the closer you get to trying to conceive for 1 year without success while being close to 35 years of age, the more likely it is that you have a problem somewhere and my OB doesn't mess around. Be it ovulation, thyroid, PCOS, no estrogen production, an infinite amount of options in where the problem may lie. So when I went to my doctor's office 2 days ago to get the full gamut of tests (no kidding, 10 vials of blood!) and as I was getting up to leave, the lab technician tells me 'Congratulations!'. I was dumbstruck, all I could respond with was, 'Excuse me?' To which she grabs my paperwork to see that there truly is no way in God's green earth that I could possibly be pregnant. I tried to bow out gracefully so she wouldn't feel bad, but it was all I could do to not have her see me cry when I responded, 'Nope, trying to find out why not'. And then I scurried off as quickly as I could.

You know, not being able to get pregnant is not something that I hide from anyone. If a co-worker asks me when Mike and I will have kids (we have been married almost 3 years - in 2 weeks). I respond that we are working on it and whenever it happens, it happens. Every now and then, maybe every 3 months or so I get upset enough to sit down with Mike to discuss where we are at and how we would like to proceed, but I don't really get that worked up. It hasn't really seemed that real to me that I have not gotten pregnant. This day really sent it home. It was pretty quite depressing.

My mother will probably roll her eyes when I say this, but I don't really think that 'Everything happens for a reason'. I just don't. Too many terrible, horrible things happen on this earth... to good people. I am a scientist. It would be very difficult for me not to admit some sort of divine intervention, but I would find that intervention to be minimal  in regards to my current situation. Call me a skeptic. Call me bitter. Call me whatever you want. It is what it is. And while I'm at it, I just found this post on babble.com about The Science of Getting Knocked Up. I might have to check out acupuncture. More to come and someone buy me this woman's book? Clearly I need some help in her department. xoxoxo <3 <3