Stitches and unraveling

Well, the sewing machine still works. And here's proof:

Orrin was kind and thoughtful enough to have procured a transformer so I don't fry the motor over here. And he and Silas took the whole thing apart and oiled it for me. Silas really liked pushing all the buttons and turning the knobs. Looks just like a toy to him.

unfortunately, this means that any problems I have with sewing are 100% user error. I hate not having anything to blame but myself. And since I haven't sewn anything since I made Silas's Halloween costume and Rachel and Trey's wedding quilt (it's not as bad as it sounds, it's worse, their wedding present was only slightly over 3 years late), the user errors were frequent. And me without my seam ripper. Thank goodness it was only a small baby quilt, and I decided to tie it rather than actually quilt it. I rather impressed myself in that I completed the whole thing in less than 3 days time. Although, when you work in crappy job mode, things generally do tend to go faster. I had a deadline though, to have it completed by the baby shower tomorrow night, so I didn't really have much choice. If only I could crank out all craft projects as quickly. *sigh*

And I know, Baby Ellis, I still owe you a quilt. It's next on my list. Then Lucy and Josh's- you don't mind waiting three years either, do you?

The picture reminds me though that I should start looking for halloween ideas for this year. Or maybe I should confirm that there actually is a Halloween over here.

This afternoon I am going to the horse races with American neighbor lady. She claims it is "such fun." To which I wanted to reply, "It will be amusing or diverting, not such fun" (I actually couldn't find a website that included that line as a memorable quote, can you believe it?). Anyway, I'm excited. But I feel like I should have an enormous ridiculous hat to go to the races. Instead, I'm going in capri pants and a stripey polo short lifted from Orrin's closet. But I have my cute red sneaks on, so you can tell it's a special occasion!

Oh, and I'm trying out some yogurt culture Linda bought for me while we were home. I'm making soy milk yogurt with it. I hope it turns out ok. I'm not too good at the whole, "making sure everything is sterile". Everything was clean, but sterile? Meh. We shall see.

Tonight, I have to call the insurance company to see about getting the roof assessed for hail damage on the Minnesota house. Tennis ball sized hail. Yikes! The roof isn't leaking as far as I know, but it would be nice to get it repaired if it is damaged. Then there are loads of other paperworky type stuff to be dealt with this week. But as is typical, I am putting it off until it can't be put off any longer. Which actually may be pretty soon since I was up until 3 am last night making mental lists of the things that need to be taken care of.

Ok, enough of this pointless rambling.