Wow. I have 14 of the 30 horizontal rows sewn together into one hunk that’s approximately half the new quilt.

Took forever. Wasn’t particularly fun. Lots of thread everywhere. Worry about seams popping open too far. Nothing much good on the TV. Seam after seam after seam. My practice: to use the clover seam ripper to open about five seam connections at a time. Align and sew for that distance, an inch and a half at a time. Open the next bunch. Sew those. Repeat. Repeat. Repeat.

Darn what an exciting life I lead!

Had a nice day at my parents visiting with my brother and his family and my folks. Made PB cookies for my brother as a belated traditional birthday present. Thank goodness for the Kitchenaid!

aaaaaahhhhhhhh……… hear that? Righto – relative quiet. Spent a short while this morning getting my muffler fixed. Felt so good about it had the oil and windshield wipers changed as well. Is that bliss or what? Now I can spend my time riding around listening to selections from my iPod. Finally figured out how to shuffle the tunes. duh.

What else have I done? Put away a little bit of stuff. Answered some email.

Oh and speaking of email – the seasons quilt (now “The View From Here”) won second place at a show. whooo hooo! And at what I would consider a fairly conservative show too so that pleases me. Well, it always pleases me to win something or other. Just an ego thing I guess or some validation that maybe it was worth taking the extra time to make something match or to undo something and redo it. Yes indeedy. OK – anyone care to join me for a round or two of the happy dance?

OK, this TOTALLY rocks if you have an iPod.

Please note – it’s totally un-apparent, but the thing takes two AAA batteries. According to the specs on the web site those batteries will last about 20 hours, twice as long as a single charge of the iPod! I might give up listening to the radio altogether…. So yes, great. And yes, it takes batteries. Now ya know.

1000 songs. In your car. On your boom box. On your clock radio (probably not the best sound provider). On anything with a tunable FM radio. All without CD’s. How cool is that? Very.very.cool.

Another day come and gone. Loooooong day. Very long. I did another seam of my quilt (see 3/26 entry) yes indeedy it’s come to this: sewing a fairly good sized quilt 1.5 inches at a time.

I paused from this exciting task to sew a little rice bag for our cat, although I’m using it at the moment. Actually I might have to make another one for me! You know rice bags right? You take a nice piece of flannel or other fabric and you make a little pocket or bag with one end open. A simple thing, like a pillow case. Fill about half or two-thirds with regular uncooked rice. Carefully sew shut the open end of the bag. You’ve got a rice bag!

Why do you have a rice bag? OK, put it into the microwave and nuke for about two to three minutes. Remove. Make sure it’s not TOO hot. You’ll figure out how long to cook it, the first few times. Nice and toasty warm? OK – apply to sore body parts! Or slide between cold covers and sheets, down where your feet are going. Apply to stiff neck.

In my case, wrap in light towel and place in carrying case of small cat going to vet for his little operation. Yup, tomorrow’s the day for little Gus (aka “The Dink”) to be altered. Last time, when he had his hernia repaired, the tech suggested rice bags rather than a bottle of hot water. Makes sense to me, not so cold after it cools off!