Plandemonium

Good morning, my friends. Did you see I made up a word for my title? "Plandemonium." That's when your plan goes off the rails and you end up with pandemonium. I figure we should be frugal with our words in these hard economic times.

So here's what happened. I had a whole plan for my day...walk on the treadmill, cook meals ahead for camping, make progress on the quilting, purge the office supply cabinets in my office. After breakfast, I started in with the purging. Probably I should have done some other things first because once I got going on the purging, I didn't want to stop. Have you noticed how you can dread a task, procrastinate, and drag your feet, hating the idea of it? Then, you finally get started on said dreaded task, and then you can't help but power on through until its finished. And that's what happened to me. There was way more stuff in those cabinets than I realized, and I ended up generating another four boxes of paper for recycling. Oy.

That was okay, Mike needed to drive into town for some things, and so I rode along. We took one more box for donation and then recycled all the papers in addition to the other errands he had in mind. It didn't leave much time for anything else in the day. Nevertheless, I finished stitching the second block for "The Story of My Day."

The first block was finished last week.

These aren't finished just yet. I still need to add scrappy sashings to each. Here are the other blocks I have for this quilt, in case you've forgotten what they look like when the sashings are finished.

Adding the sashings is a little like putting a puzzle together, but they're fun to do.

Okay, and so we ran a couple more errands in town, including picking up some storage bins at our local megamart. In our purging, we've cleared off almost an entire double bookcase in my office. I'm going to use it for sewing items since my office doubles as my quilting room. The bins were for storing thread and practice pieces for my free motion quilting. And all of that to say I used up more of my time reorganizing all of that. 

It didn't leave much time for quilting. Nevertheless, I was able to finish off the dark brown sashing, and get a little start on the leaf border.

Smitty was appawlled we didn't get any sewing time in. He wanted to sew.

It's okay, Buddy. Things will go better today. I know because I won all my word games this morning.

So no more messing around today. For one thing, purging is off the list. So is walking on the treadmill. I simply must get those make-ahead meals done, and then I'll do a little bit of packing. We're taking off on our camping trip tomorrow. Fortunately, we aren't going far, and so we don't need to leave home until around noon. That will give me a little time to pack my personal items tomorrow morning. And that means I should have a little time left over for quilting today. It would be nice if I could get those sashings sewn on The Story of My Day blocks too. If I can get that finished, I'll feel as if I've left my sewing projects in good stead.

This camping trip has functions beyond forced relaxation. First and foremost, it's a bit of a shakedown cruise to make sure things are in proper working order for our big trip that will start next March. I'll talk more about that as the time grows near, but here's a teaser: Solar eclipse, Paducah Quilt Show, Missouri Star Quilt Company. Intriguing, no? Secondly, we're going to see how well our new Starlink set up will work in a no-wi-fi-and-no-cell-signal area. Can we stream our television shows? Can we get on the internet? It'll be a good test for that. 

So, I'm signing off for about a week. I'm taking the laptop and hoping for internet, but I'm taking some time off anyway. I *really* need to get going making some reservations for our March trip. If I'm doing anything at all on the internet while we're gone, it will be choosing places to say and making reservations. 

As for sewing, I'll take the Ties & Tails quilt to finish the binding, and I'll take the next Joyful Journey block for embroidery. That should keep me busy during my period of forced relaxation. Of course, I'll be back to tell you all about Cape Disappointment. Look for me on Saturday, for sure. We're home before that, but Mike's truck has to go in for service, and it's time for me to get the annual big squash...you know the one. With unpacking in the mix, there won't be much time left for blogging.

Stay out of trouble while I'm gone. I'll be back later in the week to tell you all about it.