How much is your time worth? how much!??

Three things to be happy about:
(1) a compliment on a good hair day
(2) knowing a recipe by heart
(3) a quiet snowfall...

... especially when it's somewhere else!  The snow we were warned might come to the area didn't, woo hoo!


One day last week I got a letter from a media research company with a dollar enclosed.  They wanted to call me in a few days to do a survey and wanted me to accept the dollar as a small token of their appreciation.   hmmm... talk about priming the pump - not! 

They called me a couple days ago and I cooperated, answered their brief questions about the tv stations I watched that day and the radio stations I listened to - took about ten minutes.  She said they wanted to send me a small token  of their appreciation, "just enough for a cup of coffee and donut!"  Well, I wanted to know if it would be for the senior priced coffee at ... say ... McDonalds, or would it be the coffee regular people buy.  Well, I got the small token yesterday... what do you say...

senior or regular??

At this rate, I guess my time was worth about $12 an hour.

On the other hand, how much is an electrician's time worth??

I've been having problems with my printer for about two months... sometimes when I print, especially in color, it gives an error code and stops dead.  The only way to fix it is to turn it off and back on, or in some cases turn off the surge protector it's plugged into.  I know I need a new one but I just bought ink and wanted to use it up because that ink is NOT cheap.  Well, day before yesterday I turned off the surge protector and when I turned it back on - no power!  Not anyplace on that wall, and my ceiling lights went off.  Oh. No.

Long story short, I had to call the electrician to look at it ... on the right is the outlet where my surge protector was plugged into, which included my phone, PC and Verizon box.

He looked at that outlet, two other outlets in the room... he went into the kitchen, down in the basement, outside...

He moved the refrigerator, took the covers off 4 separate outlets, all the while mumbling and shaking his head.  You NEVER want to see a serviceman shake his head, there's nothing coming after that but BAD news!

Evidently when I had my kitchen and den redone in 2006 the electrician didn't know what the heck he was doing.  In some cases John (the electrician) found where the junction box that the wires are supposed to fit into had been CUT OFF at the back to make it fit into the space.  That's not a box, it's just a frame!  One purpose of a junction BOX is to protect against fire spreading if the wires short out!

Where there should have been two wires in a box he found only one and wondered how the heck it worked for six years!
He was here for two hours trying to figure out what the person did, he doesn't know if there's some kind of box inside the wall (which wall???) or what.  The reset button on the garbage disposal switch doesn't work and probably never did because I never had to use it!

In any case, the problem has to be fixed and it's gonna cost me $$ to get it done.  Probably will involve going inside the walls, which means a plaster repairman.  

I swanee I thought I was ahead of the game by not buying a lot of fabric last year - guess I'll have to dig into that little bit of savings and put it towards the electric repair! 

That's my rant for today; it's guild day so maybe something will happen there to make me smile!  Sew forth and sew on til later

Great day in the morning!

Three things to be happy about:
(1) bright colored fabrics
(2) the new moon
(3) sandwiches made on baguettes

I've been a fan of those tiny little slider sandwiches, especially if they're turkey burgers, so I started looking for the slider buns  but I couldn't find any.  For over a year.  A regular dinner roll cut in half wouldn't do, it had to be the authorized version of the genuine slider bun.  Then I was having lunch with my friend Renea last week and she said they have them at Shoppers Food Warehouse.  Well, by that time I'd given up on finding any so I'd stopped looking, but yesterday when I was in Wegman's I looked, just because I was there.  Guess what - I found some, yeah!  Now I have to get some ground turkey to make my burgers ... looking good!

Yesterday was such a dreary, rainy, drippy, overcast day but it was saved by a visit with my friend Sandy (http://sandyhassan.blogspot.com/) where we tweaked her blog, then made a beeline for her quilting studio for a sew-in. 

Sandy is a new blogger, visit her blog and show her some quilty love!  She's also a very talented member of my guild, Uhuru Quilters Guild.

See all those gorgeous bright fabrics behind me?  I love the way Sandy has her fabrics organized by color, it helps make the studio a happy place to work in!

While I worked on a paper piecing project, Sandy finished up a fabric basket (another project for my must-do list!).  This can be a great take-along project because you can wind the fabric strips around the cording anytime, any place.  Then the final stitching is done at the machine.

You can see more of Sandy's baskets here, where I found them at a craft show before Christmas.

It was a great day, it's more fun sewing with a partner!  We talked and laughed and oooooh'd (well, actually I oooooh'd over Sandy's quilts!)  She gave me a quick-and-easy lesson on making the crescent moon quilt she just finished - a picture is posted on her blog.  I can't wait to try it out!

That's it for now, have a great Wednesday - sew forth and sew on!

Starting the year with a BOM

Three things to be happy about:
(1) a TV show worth watching
(2) romaine salad with caeser parmigiano yogurt dressing
(3) barbequed ribs

 As I was working on a quilt block yesterday, my neighbor Mike popped in with some ribs he'd just barbecued.  He has a smoker and a drum-type bbq out back, and he uses a dry rub on his ribs - yum!


It's been awhile since I've participated in any bloggy stuff because I needed to back off and minimize, but now I'm at a point where I can get back into the swing of things. I'm getting in on the Quilt Doodles 2013 BOM, it sounds like fun!  You can click the button on the right hand side to get to her site; she has a page tab for the 2013 BOM.

I thought I'd dig into my black and white stash for this BOM, since I'm not sure what each months' block will be... white-and-black for the background, and black-and-white for the foreground.  If I need a third color I always have the option of using a solid or textured black.

January's BOM is the Monkey Wrench; for some reason I've never made one before - hmmm...  First you have to pay attention, though - I cut my units 1/8" too small the first time but luckily I caught it before I started sewing!  Not used to that 7/8" deal.

It's an easy block to put together, I think another name for it is the Snail's Trail.  So here's the finished block...

black and white is always a classic combination!  I'm adding it to the 2013 BOM Flickr group here

Have a great Monday, sew forth and sew on til later...