Cracked

The saga of the cracked windshield continues today. On yesterday's agenda was to get my cracked windshield replaced. When I arrived at the glass place, I learned it was going to take five hours to do the work. WHAT!?!?! Well...I was prepared to wait a couple of hours. After all, I had downloaded some TV shows to my iPad...I was set! But five hours? No way. I apologized profusely, but ended up rescheduling to a time when Mike and I can drop the car off and I can come home. Geez. There's important quilting business to take care of. Who do they think they're dealing with? And besides...there's a cat at home who's tapping his kitty paw and waiting to go outside. Seriously.

So that meant I ended up with a lot more time in my day yesterday than anticipated. Grocery shopping was next on the list and that was finished before noon. And then....my day was my own. It's like a little mini vacation right in my own house! So the first thing I did was to make dessert. Dessert is very high on my list of priorities. This is the Lemon Cheesecake Mousse I made a few weeks ago. Since I'm only making half the recipe, I had half a jar of lemon curd sitting in the refrigerator, not to mention some leftover cream cheese from another recipe, not to mention some whipping cream. Well. I'm nothing if not frugal about my leftovers, so voila!

These are so light and tasty. They're not hard to make, but they do dirty a lot of bowls. Fair warning.

When those were chilling in the fridge, I got to work sandwiching the Live, Love, Teach quilt. This one was small enough to sandwich on the ping pong table in my sewing room, and that meant I was going back and forth, in and out, spraying basting spray and then smoothing. I let Smitty out while I was doing that, checking on him from time to time. He's been really good about staying right beside me while we're out. And now this quilt is ready for quilting.

My plan is to stitch in the ditch around all the blocks, then straight line quilt in the sashings and borders. It should be simple enough. We're going to be gone for the weekend, and so I'm going to put this on hold until Monday. 

There was a little time left over before dinner and so I hung out with Smitty in the yard. When it was time to make dinner, he trotted right inside with me. It's pretty amazing, actually. He's still young and kittenish, and he's been surprisingly patient and well-behaved about his restrictions. For dinner last night I tried this Melt In Your Mouth Kale Salad from the Food Babe. Folks in the CSA Farm-ily have been making this all along, but I was suspicious. Melt in your mouth? Really? Kale? Well. I'm not so easily swayed by such predictions. Nevertheless, I'm being downright audacious with the greens this year, and so I decided to give it a try. Oh. My. Gosh. How have I lived so long without enjoying greens so much? Honestly. How?

As one of our members pointed out, you can substitute any green, any dried fruit, any nut, and any hard cheese in this. It's easy, delicious, and oh, so healthy. And now, I'm having a hard time resisting the urge to leap tall buildings in a single bound.

This morning I did some more work on Mumm's the Word. Today's stitching was more free form. Those little squares and little flying geese were this morning's victims. The little squares are only an inch, and so using the Tiger Tape to keep the stitches even is a little more tedium than I want to mess with. They're stitched free form as straight and as evenly as possible. This is a good quilt to be learning on because I'm not terribly invested in it. It's giving me room to experiment and practice.

Mike brought the truck camper up next to the house last night, and so today I'll be packing food for our weekend adventure. To be clear, we've rented a house on the beach for a family get-together. The house can sleep six, but two of the beds are twin beds. The kids are sleeping in the two queen beds, and Mike and I will be happy sleeping in the camper bed. Other than that, we're using the house for cooking, visiting, and everything else. 

As I shared with a few of you this morning, we realized that we didn't have the code to the lockbox, and therefore couldn't enter the house until the owner got back to us. He's been less than responsive during this whole process, and so I was lying awake last night worrying over it. Mike called early this morning to say he'd spoken with the owner and had the code. (Terminating gnashing of teeth now.) 

It shouldn't take me too long to pack the food, and then, I'd like to get to work making a quilt sandwich for a Facebook quilt-along. So here's the thing: even if you don't like the whole Facebook idea, there are some great groups available if you have a page. You can even keep your page completely private, and still join in the groups. I'm not selling Facebook, you understand, just providing information. So, one of the groups I've been enjoying is the Sit Down Free Motion Quilting group. Some of the members have organized a quilt along of this sampler that is available on the group's page.

We'll be doing a lesson per week, and it started yesterday. I haven't yet made my quilt sandwich, and it's doubtful I'll have time to do any quilting before next week, but I'd like to join in anyway. I have until next Wednesday to complete the first lesson before the rest of the group will move on. And all of that to say, I want to get the sandwich made today. Quilting can happen later. And you know that there is a dearth of projects already going on in my sewing room, and so I need this. I need it badly.

Aside from that, I'm tackling Mt. Laundry. We're expecting rain a little later, and so it seems I'm relieved of watering for the day. The birdfeeders are empty, however, and so that's next on the list...before the rain starts.