Use it up, wear it out, make it do, or do without!

I got up this morning and vigorously and enthusiastically attacked "my list".

1. Transcribe hospital account.


2. Transcribe clinic account.


3. Paint picnic table parts.


4. Cover chair for Michael.


5. Hang dining room curtains.


6. Replace living room curtains.


7. Hang living room blinds.


8. Cut slip preventing pads for under downstairs rugs.

As usual, my optimistic outlook for the day far exceeded the reality. I got the transcribing done. And I blitzed right past that #3 by declaring it to be "too hot" outside in the sun. Yes. I am a wuss. Moving on, I tackled the chair project. I have picture of this chair "before" I got the bright idea to fix it.

I had taken it apart.

















Then, in keeping with my optimistic "bite off more than I can chew/do" attitude, it sat in pieces on the fireplace for eight months a long, long time. Today was the day I was determined it would get reborn. Of course, I was determined to do a lot of other stuff today too. Yes, well...

First, I used highly sophisticated materials to repair all weak spots and splits in the aged Hide of the Nauga (one of my dear Dad's expressions, meaning 'cheap plastic').















Don't laugh. There is a special place in Heaven for the inventors of both duct tape and WD40. I can't live without either one of them!

I covered the repaired seat with two layers of lo-loft quilt batting which I had handy and no longer use.

I covered that with a layer of cotton canvas material and covered THAT with the actual navy plaid I had chosen for the chair. I screwed the seat onto the frame with Michael's assistance. Note to self: #9. Work out more, need more muscles!

That went well, so I continued. Similar techniques were used to cover the seat back. And then the board covering the seat back was covered and screwed into the seat back and the seat back was mounted on the chair frame.



















The final hurtle was the arm rests. They came off easily, were hard plastic, and were basically not very cooperative. I finally wrapped the materal around them, duct taped it temporarily, stitched the top and bottom of the tubes that were formed, cut holes in them where screws needed to go, slapped them on the arms, and screwed them into place.

After more sophisticated upholstering techniques were utilized, they were placed on the chair frame.














Upon testing the seat, I discovered I could quite easily fall forward on my nose, but not lean back. One of my favorite things about that chair was the ability to lean back in it and stick my feet up on the table....ahem. I quickly unscrewed the base and rotated it 180 degrees, reattached it (all by myself this time!) and voila! A working chair ready for the ultimate test:

Mr. B and Max the WonderDog gave it the thumbs-up! Or maybe Mr. B liked the chair and Max liked having his head scratched....... Later, Max attempted to look willing to help me clean up the disaster that was left behind.



















I took one more picture to record this for posterity, because normally my "projects" don't:

1. become FOs (finished objects, as opposed to UFOs).


2. work out this well!

I'm on a roll, baby. I'm eyeing the dining room curtains next!

Would I recommend medical transcription as a career today?

My dear sister gave me a heads-up that my nephew's new bride (Heather) was contemplating going into medical transcription, and might call me for my input. I quickly dashed off a response to her that she could print and hand them (I don't have their email addy at their new home just yet) and then as I thought about it, I decided to post my response here. What started to be a few sentences was much longer and apparently, I'm not very happy with my chosen field.....I'd be interested to hear what anyone else has to say. Comments are moderated, but I only keep out obvious spam, so if anyone lands here for the first time - feel free to leave a comment. I am hoping to get some other MTs' viewpoints which give her things to consider.

Here's the gist of my email response with a few edits:

I would be happy to give Heather my impression of the job/business, but I am afraid its not very positive. It is hard, with long hours, difficulty getting paid well, and we are losing business to off-shore (India) operations daily.

It is my hope that my business and my ability to provide jobs for a few MTs, runs out at about the time all the "old guys" (dictators) retire. The new guys seem to be using voice recognition software, and having someone in their office edit, or they are sending it to India to get the work done for pennies, and also having someone in the office edit it....or even using programs that key in their findings into an electronic medical records system. Where I am able to keep business, is in small accounts, with older doctors mostly, or small surgicenters, etc, and being willing to drop everything and do what they need immediately. (I've lost accounts to India and gotten a few of them back when the work came back looking like "Swiss cheese" with all the holes in the dictation....Smaller clients have proved more loyal, so that is my focus rather than hospitals).

Heather has a degree, more than one, in fact. I turned to this business because I did not. I made a good income because I worked way more than 8 hours a day, and way more than 5 days a week. I would not wish this on anyone. Its my dream to semi-retire and go to work for someone else, part time, and when I leave work every day, I'm done! It won't call me from the kitchen or my sewing studio, it won't get me up at 4 a.m., and my check will always be there on time - no waiting two months and arguing with an account to get paid.

She would have to take a medical terminology course, purchase tons of equipment (if she chose to be an independent contractor) and work for very low pay initially. She would discover that the course taught her only a fraction of what she needs to know. She would likely learn on tapes that were relatively perfect, and then start working for dictators who were not. This would for example include dictators who are tired, mumbling, dictating through cold pizza at 2 a.m., dictating while driving on a cell phone, dictating while waiting at a train crossing with the car windows open, dictating while in bed - whispering so as not to wake up the wife, dictating with screaming two year olds in the background, dictating while peeing (yes! been there, done that!), dictating with psychotic patients yelling at them, etc. Then throw in the fact that a large percentage of the above mentioned dictators are also speaking English as a second language.....barely.

Once you take the course, and find someone to let you start (normally a hospital setting or a national service would give the best "in the trenches" training and extremely low pay) you end up making copious lists of new words the transcription course never taught you. Words that just got invented last year. Names of forceps that are not included in the 14 pages (two columns per page) of forceps in a surgery reference book.

I will say, that I no longer use my reference books. Google is my new best reference source. That saves me approximately $39.00 per book, per specialty (gynecology book, ophthalmology book, orthopedic book, pulmonary book, psychiatry book, plastic surgery book, etc). Those books were being updated and getting bigger every few years. I had about 10 specialties I kept up with. No more!

The courses you see ("become a medical transcriptionist and make 30,000 a year at home!") are often rip-offs. In many cases, you get basic anatomy words, a few somewhat-perfect tapes, a certificate that means nothing to any medical records director in any hospital, and you're out hundreds of dollars. In my humble opinion, a course through a local college can be slightly better if it is taught by someone (seasoned!) with actual transcription experience. I believe there is an online course recommended by the AAMT (American Association of Medical Transcriptionists - which recently changed its name to something I don't remember) which is excellent! One of my transcriptionists took a similar course from a company that was affiliated with AAMT 15 years ago, and was very well prepared to start. It cost her a pretty penny and it took her a year to complete it while her son was small. However, even she found out quickly while working for me, that she was learning many new words daily that her course Just. Didn't. Cover. (She remembers crying frequently over her first accounts!)

I have also found that becoming certified in this field is not necessary. It is touted by the association, but it rarely (in my personal experience) makes any difference with an employer or a national transcription service. I have never been asked if I was certified, and I have never asked anyone I contracted if they were certified. (Every job I ever got, I got after testing on the premises. And that was the procedure, per those companies, whether I was certified or not. Likewise, nearly every job I ever gave anyone, rested entirely on their performance on a test dictation I provided them.)

Certification, I have been told (so this is hearsay only) involves being tested in a room with no reference materials, no spell check, no nothing except you and the word processor and the dictation. I don't feel that is a good measure of a person's ability. Its not so much knowing everything, as knowing how to use the tools we have at our fingertips and our knowlege of how to FIND what you need. I had a certified MT working for me once whose work was the "weakest" of my team. So in my humble opinion, an MT can just save the money and save themself the stress of testing for certification.

That having been said, I will say that for me, MT was the right thing to do, for my family, at the time. I never got to nursing school, and this was at least a way to be in the field that interested me. I was able to stay at home with my kids, working out of my home, and was the mom on the block who handed out cookies and band-aids and carpooled and watched everyone up at the neighborhood pool, while other moms worked in a regular office somewhere in Corporate America (this was while I was living in Chicago and Texas). I typed between mommy duties. I have never missed a day of work, because when my little darlin' was vomiting, I was there with her and when she slept, I typed. I have worked every holiday, in those 27 years (normally very early in the morning so that I'm done when the festivities begin). People still get sick and have emergency surgery on Christmas day. (I GET SICK, and four hours later when I can leave the bathroom, I'm propped up typing again!) I worked before flying to San Fran for Michael's dad's funeral, and worked after I flew home that night. I work from mom and dad's in Wyoming when I'm "on vacation". I worked those extra hours, and my income way surpassed that of what I would have made in an "in-house" job. I did the grunt work for years and years, and then bought my own system and started hiring people when I got to CA.

Now, my little corporation bills a fair amount a year and I gross less than half of that because I pay a large chunk of that to my transcribers who are independent contractors to my corporation.

I type a little less now, because I'm also proofing other people's work. When proofing, I make an extremely good hourly wage (if you look at it from that angle). I have one account for which I rarely type anything but the occasional correction. That is easier income for me, as an editor. Its a nice break in between the accounts I actually transcribe myself. But I'm afraid to take on a lot of accounts like that, because in the event of several transcriptionists being unable to work one day, I simply could not make up the difference. I also am afraid of losing the rapport with the individual clients and my ability to truly give them the attention they want.

But MT (as any career) can be a pain. I argue with accounts to get them to provide patient information for the work that they want to come back to them with that information included (medical record numbers, properly spelled names, etc). I juggle their changes in days dictating with my staff's days available. I argue with accounts over waiting 60 days to pay me. They want their work in 24 hours (or less! my radiology account gets 4 hour turnaround). Well hey, I want my check in 20-30 days. Go figure.

(I've had to learn my way through small claims court when a psychotic doctor didn't want to pay at all. I won!)

I get phone calls from accounts at 7 AM that want to know where a report is, and find out the dear doctor dictated it in a stupor at midnight the night before. (I of course was unconscious at 9 pm asleep at midnight!) And I have daily adventures in coming up with enough staff to get the work done. On any given day, one of my seven "peoples" (whom I love dearly and are all good people) might have an emergency, a vomiting child, an elderly parent in the ER, a teenager issue, an urgent parent-teacher conference, a flooding washer, a wrecked car, a power failure, a computer failure, an equipment failure, an internet failure, or a pet that needs to have medical attention. When this happens, if one of my "peoples" cannot pick up the slack, the ultimate responsibility is mine.

Still, its all I know how to do. And I do a good job of it, with the help of good "peoples." We get business without advertising, by "Word of mouth on the Golf Course" or "Word of mouth in the Operating Room" or "Word at the Networking Breakfasts" from satisfied and enthusiastic clients.

And until I can get Mr. B to decide its "Time" to semi-retire, I will keep doing it. (Even after that "Time" arrives, I foresee continuing to do this in an abbreviated form, from a different location!) It pays the bills. His present job is only part time (about 30 hours weekly) and along with income, provides us with medical benefits, and contributions to our 401K and other retirement accounts. It works for us! I value the benefits very highly, with my diabetes!! He works very hard around here after he gets home every day while I keep typing. I have not seriously grocery shopped or explored the shelves at my "walmarts" more than once a month in a long time. I hand him a list and the stuff appears in the kitchen. He pays the bills and manages our affairs, handles my payroll, handles my gazillion pages corporate income tax return, and typically cooks for himself, does his own laundry and deals with our emergencies.....I keep typing. I cannot tell you how helpful that is!

For the last 27 years, this has been good for me and bad for me. I have not had a holiday come around in 27 years that I was not toooo tired to enjoy celebrating. But my kids have been well fed, clothed, educated, and I have been HERE for them, all day, every day. Sometimes their perception is a little different. I heard a lot of "You're always working!" and still do! But I have reams of pictures upstairs waiting to be scrap booked that point to my ability to get to games, get to school presentations and plays, be a Brownie Cookie Mom (and Dad!), be a Room Mom and throw Christmas parties (back when we could call it that!), manage sleepover parties, create costumes, bake for bake sales for various causes, etc, over the years. Some of that would have been a lot harder if I had worked in the Land of Suits, Pantyhose and Long Commutes. We've paid off a home, achieved an excellent credit rating, and we've saved a small chunk of change for retirement.

It has been a good job for me. And I've met and worked with some absolutely fantastic medical transcriptionists. My current team is amazing! I have a group of real "do-ers" who are WILLING and share my work ethic. They make my job much easier and more pleasant! The comaraderie is certainly helpful and most of my "peoples" truly try to step up to the plate when one of us has one of those pesky emergencies - I have been very blessed!!

But I still wouldn't recommend MT to anyone. At least without giving them an earful of information that they will only hear from those of us who deal with it daily. A good source for her to read would be MTStars.com.

All of this being said, if she is still interested, I could get a course name recommended by AAMT that is the good foundation, and obviously, if she did wish to do this and completed the course, I would LOVE to be able to provide her some work. I will be at this job for several more years....so at least if she decided to go this route, she would know she would have some opportunities to start with. Getting started is very very hard.....it seems like every job opening I see calls for 2-5 years experience ..... But I'd be thrilled to help with that. If she still wants more information, let me know....I can send the course name, and also some idea of the equipment she will need so she can consider price versus earning potential.

She may wish to consider learning to be an MT but then functioning as an Editor. And medical billing is also possibly something she would want to consider.

Well, gotta get back to work!
Love,
Joy

I think she got more of an answer than she bargained for!! The above opinions are just that: OPINIONS. They are mine; they may not be yours. I would love to hear other MTs' opinions about this career choice. Thoughts, anyone?

First Day of HandiQuilter Kindergarten

I used my HandiQuilter frame and Janome 1600PBX together today for the first time!

This kicked my butt big time! I had fits getting it to work, had to dig around for better than half a day in my sewing studio to see if I could find the manual in case I was making a threading error....

I could not get it to just take a few stitches without becoming unthreaded.

The only thing I could find in the book to do differently was to thread the needle from right to left instead of left to right. I had reached a point where I was willing to try anything. I'm not convinced that it was the threading of the needle, as I also loaded and unloaded my bobbin, and might have corrected a tiny error there also.....who knows. Whatever it was, WORKED! I was able to make stitches.

I raced to my office and made a couple copies of a simple design I had seen on many websites. I obviously would do a better job of making a pantograph, or even better, purchase one, if I were working on a real quilt, but I was just in a hurry to try SOMETHING.

I taped several sheets together, slapped them in the bed of the HandiQuilter frame, turned the machine back on, and attempted to just follow the lines with the stylus.















Wow. I felt like I was back in grade school. Kindergarten even!! I could not stay on the lines for love nor money...as evidenced by my sample below. If you click twice on the picture, you will get an embarrassingly clear shot of my first attempt. Demoralizing.






























Never the less I yanked Karen out of her room where she had been relaxing after a long day at work. I planted her in front of the machine, told her which button to push and where the stylus to watch was located and turned her loose!

First words out of her mouth: "Mom, this is hard!! But its so much fun!!"

After a couple of passes, she turned the Handi-Handles back over to me and grabbed the camera and started to take a video. I was actually following the lines half decently, but just before I could get smug, she announced I had parted company with the top thread and was "practice sewing." Sigh.

Video: Machine Quilting 101

Does a cleaned garage count as an FO (finished object)?

Not that I'm slow or have too much to do or anything......but I finally pretty much finished Project Garage 2006 with Karen today. If the linkie doesn't work....I give you the "before"....

And the "after":


































Thanks for all the help and the giggles, Karen!

Here's one idea I was pretty proud of. After tripping over this ladder for a year pondering a way to keep this ladder out of the way, I decided to bungie-cord it to the front of shelves filled with stuff Mr. B. cannot part with, but rarely goes through.

Voila! Let an earthquake try to dump those shelves! (scurries to the door to knock on wood......scurries back!)




















Another idea I came up with was to elevate the garbage cans we used to house our recycles (one is crushed 2 liter bottles and one is crushed aluminum cans). Bungie cords again came to my aid, and I have the big black trashbags in these cans, so when they start getting full, I yank them out, put a twistie on them and heave them into the back of The Freighter, and they are out of sight-out of mind, but we're thinking green (and netting about $25.00-35.00 quarterly from the recycling place in Anaheim)!!

What???

"That's a lot of cans and bottles," you say?

Ahem. I can solve that mystery right now.

I give you Exhibit A:




















and Exhibit B:















Hey, the price was great! There was some serious shopping done and serious savings enjoyed. Well, it sounded prudent anyway....

(there are about five 12-packs behind the row you see at the front......there's more Coke than there is dog food!! Sheesh!)

And, there would be three more up there, if it hadn't been for the carbonated adventure I had when I first lifted a 12-pack down off the top shelf and the glue on the box failed, sending three flying before I could recover. They hit the concrete and we had Instant Indoor Sprinklers! It was a wet beginning to the day, and I contemplated just going upstairs to sew instead.

I tried to focus on the happy thought that it was Diet Coke, not regular.....so the ants would likely not send out a "Party at Mr. B's House!!", to alert all neighborhood ant villages. After I cleaned the ceiling, door, shelves and myself.....I got back to work.

(Any idea whether they have a Diet Cokes Anonymous? Mr. B could use a meeting!)

Having solidified my reputation as having an extremely unexciting life, I'll get back to work. Hopefully I will get a day in my sewing studio tomorrow. :)

The first official Second Friday

First, Patrick moved out. Then five months later Laurie moved out. Our electric bill and hot water bill promptly plummeted! With the savings,
I looked for a way get the family together on a monthly basis to keep us close and bring us up to date on the happenings in each other's lives. I picked the Second Friday of each month to be a repeating opportunity to get us all together.

Second Fridays may be a cook-out in our back yard, a lasagne in the kitchen, or a dinner that we meet at a restaurant to enjoy. If one of us can't make it, its okay. There will be a Second Friday the next month. If there is an event (birthday, raise/promotion, anniversary, shoe sale) during any given month, that will be one definite opportunity to celebrate it....We had our first Second Friday today!











For a myriad of reasons, including waiter's lack of familiarity with my camera, our picture of our very first Second Friday is less than great - but it is preserved for posterity. Michael and I joined Karen and Laurie for dinner at Tony Roma's. It was delicious, it was fun and it was of course, all too short. But that's the point. We eat early, and enjoy each other, and then the young folks scatter for the rest of their evening and we elderly types totter off to bed!

Patrick, we hope you can make it next time!! It will probably be in our back yard for a cookout!

Le Tigre

I call her "Le Tigre" sometimes. We said, back when we got her, maybe her formal name should be Tiger Lily. We've had her almost seven years. She is a pit bull with a heart of gold.















She still loves her stuffed animals.















Especially if she can make them squeak!

"Okay, if you insist, I will act dignified for a moment...."

But its soooo hard!

Moments later......

Hide 'n Seek anyone?

"If I dejectedly lay my head on the step, will that persuade you to play?"

"Still no? (sigh) I guess I'll take a nap!"

Blooms and Fruit

Tomatoes are, I think, technically a fruit. Hence today's blog entry title.

I love early summertime in SoCal. I am not too crazy about late summer or early fall (tooooo hot!). But early summer when everything is blooming and there's a promise of a homegrown tomato on the back porch? Good times.


































From here on until I get to pick them, I'll be checking daily for those funky big green hornworms.....or whatever they are called.

I Googled and checked wikipedia.org. The tomato hornworm (Manduca quinquemaculata) is a green caterpillar, the larval form of the five-spotted Hawk moth of the Sphingidae (Sphinx) family. Eeeeeeeeeeew!!

On to way more pleasant things. My dear friend Helen sent me a beautiful miniature rose bush at Christmas and I read that I could grow it in a patio container. So I gave it a whirl. I've been speaking encouragingly to it, and I've watered it and treated it to Miracle Gro. Success! Today's blooms:















I also got a lavender plant on an impulsive whim at Home Depot not long ago. I need to read more about this one, as I am not sure if I should pinch it back so it will bush out a bit, or not. (If anyone knows, please feel free to comment!!) But today, the first bloom started to open!




















And about a year ago, my dear friend Deborah moved from sunny SoCal to the beautiful state of Pennsylvania. Before she left, she gave me some of her backyard plants and I have done my best not to kill them. I especially like how two of them are currently being used.

This spikey one is now by the front door and I think it looks really pretty there.

And just off the front porch, the jasmine I planted last year has thrived and is blooming! I have another jasmine winding its way around the posts of the porch fence and the smell of the two of them this morning was intoxicating. I do love me some jasmine!















('Scuze the appearance of the columns on the front porch. That is Himself's Summer Project 2007C: Scraping, Filling, Priming and Painting the sun-damaged portions of the front porch....yet again! It seems like that is a recurring project Every Blessed Year because that portion of the house gets so much hot late summer sun.)

I'm off to transcribe my heart out (stopping just short of wearing down my first distal phalanges), do a lot of dishes and mop a kitchen floor. If I'm really, really productive today, I might get to send myself to "my room" tomorrow and sew/quilt/embroider!

Update From the Sewing Room: Emma (my Janome 9500 embroidery machine) and I are getting to know one another.

Janet (Teacher Extraordinaire) gave me a hint and also connected me with Karen at Leah's Fabric Gallery, who gave me another hint regarding putting the downloaded files into a certain folder (previously unmentioned by my instructions). She also mentioned something regarding format which made me recheck some information I had gotten from an apparently incorrect source regarding format to be used for designs downloaded from the internet! Now that I'm attempting to speak with Emma in JEF format instead of SEW format (loosely, the equivalent of speaking French to an Italian), its amazing! She beeps and moves and lines up and is ready to embroider!




















AND, my thread has also arrived from ThreadArt (fantastic ebay company with great prices), and we are good to go!

Emma and I, we're fighting

I've named my new embroidery machine Emma. Not very original, but I thought naming her(!) was cute, and envisioned Emma and myself sharing many happy moments, bonding over beautiful embroidery designs.

As an aside, whenever Sadi (my daughter's dog) chews up yet another item of clothing, Laurie informs her, "Sadi, we're fighting!" This usually only lasts long enough for Sadi to solemnly sit down and look up at Laurie with her most innocent expression, manufactured at will, to get herself out of trouble.

Well, I spent some time with Emma today. My parting words to her were "Emma, we're fighting." In retrospect, I am not sure that it is Emma's fault.

Actually, truth be told, I am absolutely sure it's pilot error, or memory card failure.

But repeatedly, after carefully discerning which format to download, and following instructions from the manual, etc., I put the memory card into Emma and received an error stating that I had a "fat file error". Further investigation on "the internets" suggested that I needed to reformat.

That's the story of my life. I have a "fat" error and I need to "reformat".

But I won't go down that rabbit trail. I reformated several times. I formatted it in FAT32 format and just plain FAT format. At least with plain FAT, Emma accepted and opened the memory card. She just found it blank. It left my laptop with an embroidery file on it. In the three feet it traveled to enter Emma's sleek silhouette, it "lost" it.

Several times.

I will consult my Teacher Extraordinaire (the Esteemed JanetSalcido!) about this and also call the company that sold me the machine and memory card. I know deep in my gut this is pilot error. I'm doing something dumb....or overlooking something major, somewhere along the way.

(It really was a reflection of the rest of my day. I tried to work on Project Number Four Thousand Eleventy-three this afternoon. I had moved all the wood for the picnic table to the backyard, and propped the bench seats over bins and was slathering the stain/sealant/weatherproofing on them when I jostled one and bumped another and upended the entire can of $11.99 stain/sealant/ weatherproofing on the grass. It hasn't been my day.)

I decided to abandon the downloading of embroidery patterns and just go with seeing if I could get Emma to do a simple monogram or name. Success!

















I'm stopping while I'm ahead. Tomorrow is another day. In the meantime, "Emma, we're fighting!" But I still think we have a future together!

Daisies

Project Number Four Thousand Eleventy-Three (using the Crazy Aunt Purl numeric system):

When the weatherproofing/sealing/staining coat is completed, it will be turned into a picnic tablet for the back patio.

And look what Mr. B. brought me!

I love daisies! Any kind of daisies, or daisy-like flower. White daisies, yellow daisies, dyed daisies, etc. They are such happy flowers!

I want to have some in my yard someday....but the yard is Project Number.....I don't even think its been assigned a number yet.

I Miss Laurie Lou Lovebucket!!

Its only been a couple of hours. I knew this was coming, and I was such a pile of churned up emotions about it. Laurie and Amber have been working very, very hard. They've saved the first month (and the deposit) and they've counted the days.

I'm so happy and excited for Laurie. My time as a young single woman ("back in the day"......just shortly after dinasaurs roamed the earth) rooming with girl friends, learning to budget, having my own place, learning responsibility, having pot luck dinners with friends, getting to work (two jobs!) on time.......those were some of the best years! I still had the energy to tackle life head-on, and it was sweet. I am happy for her to step out there and experience this. All of it, the good, the difficult, the satisfying!

One 9 foot by 9 foot bedroom......filled her car.....






























and The Freighter!































And she even got the doors shut!! We did it!! Mr. B not only helped load, but did the driving honors and we caravaned down to her new rented condo where Amber was already waiting with their friend Mark, who was a true knight-in-a-teeshirt helping us haul everything inside.

Laurie's place is so cute! She has a great bedroom, nice ocean breezes, an adorable downstairs with living room, dining area and a really nice kitchen. They have a two car garage and lots of storage space. She's painted two walls in her room and working on the last two tonight. I'll take more pix next time I visit.

It was hard to leave - she was sad and we were sad. But I bet by now she's unpacking her dishes and smiling that beautiful smile, and settling in.

I love you Laurie! You Can Do This!!

Gotcha!!

I caught him!! I didn't manage to get him with his head up, in all his bee-yoootifull flashy glory....

I wish it had been a sunny morning. He almost looks dull today. And, shooting through the screen did not help! If I didn't know better, I might confuse this picture for one of the grosbeaks!

But there is my hooded oriole!

He announces his presence now. He plops his 'stylin' self ' down on my feeder and squeaks at me as if to tease me......"Hey Joy! Neener-neener-neener!!" and starts sucking down the sugar water!















I at least got a pic of him slurping away! Two quick gulps and he was gone!

Edit: 4 hours later! Caught him again!














So pretty!

Monday....ick.

I don't want to transcribe today. I don't, I don't, I don't!!

I want to be in my room! Please, somebody send me to my room!






























This side still needs a little help, and of course, finishing a few dozen UFOs would clear the shelves a great deal....
















Sigh. Back to work for me. (I hear my machines calling me!)

Progress :)

Progress - be it ever so slow!














I have the tables rearranged, and added a bookshelf at one end of the table so that I could extend my tracks and hopefully, always be able to quilt up to a queen sized quilt. If I make a quilt bigger than that, I'm going to have to send it out.

I got everything nice and level, and actually put my machine on the track briefly last night just for grins.....and I definitely was grinning! Its going to be so smooth and fun! Today, I hope to eek out a bit more time in the room, putting velcro on the poles and then attaching the leaders, and maybe, just maybe, setting the machine on the tracks for real and permanent!

But first, I have to type about 4,592 reports, proof the work my fantastic "peoples" have turned in over the weekend, and then I have to do my Domestic Goddess title maintenance work (vacuum and mop the floors downstairs since the dog hair is swirling around my ankles, and get to the grocery store.....) After that, I'm clear to hopefully get a tad further with the HandiQuilter set up.

She needs a name (the machine). I'm silly that way. Actually, I'm silly unique in a lot of ways, but I digress.

Sigh. Work is a four-letter word.

Halloween is over, finally

There is hope. It is no longer Halloween in our kitchen.

The tablecloth that has languished past Halloween, through Thanksgiving, Christmas, New Years, Valentine's Day, St. Patrick's Day and Easter.....















And the new super-deluxe all-season "Walmarts" special, currently relaxing from its tightly packaged and wrinkled condition, "becoming one" with the table it protects....















I like these flannel-backed vinyl tablecloths.

1. The table is protected.
2. They clean up easily.
3. Spontaneous "projects" undertaken by other members of the household do not cause me to have a panic attack.

(They are hard to find sometimes. And let's face it, its even harder for my brain to remember to even look for them when I make my exciting trips to "the Walmarts". Hence a Halloween cloth in May!) They aren't fancy, but they will suffice until I get my super-organized self into a position to create lovely quilted tablecloths that I wash and iron and coordinate with the seasons.

(Yeah, right. I'm hallucinating again! As much as I love that look, I am not sure there are ever going to be enough hours in the day.)

Now. I'm on a roll. Maybe I can get those Christmas ornaments properly wrapped and put away....by June 1. (Hey, they're off the tree and in a box.....at least they are not still visible!!)

Happy Birthday Karen!

Karen turned........(drumroll please......) 27 today!

Now I ask you, how can this be? I'm only 25! I clearly remember the candles on my last cake, a mere two weeks ago. Some things just aren't meant to be understood I guess. Math never was my strongpoint anyway!















She and I ducked out tonight for a girls' night out, a yummy Chinese buffet and then an exciting run to "the Walmarts". We will do a family dinner out with Mr. B. and Laurie another evening.

We did, however, enjoy her cookie (cake) and she opened a few gifts tonight. The best giggles were heard over this cute little doll that Mr. B. found her. It sings (raps) a birthday song!


















Happy Birthday Karen!


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In other good news, its The Weekend! This means I can continue setting up my quilting room.

I thought I had it like I wanted it. I sewed in it a few times, and now I have a few ideas to make it work better for me.

I also viewed my video that came with my HandiQuilter frame, and that sold me on the idea of having my frame up all the time. It is going to be something I will use a lot, so I'm not going to want to have to set it up each time (although the video made it look awfully easy.) I promptly finished building my last table, and Bestest Buddy happened by for a visit just in time to help by painting it for me!
















So tomorrow, I will completely mix it up and the room will look different! Pictures will follow when the dust settles.