I am EXCITED

A little break from the norm. But I am EXCITED! LOL I know maybe a lot of you this won't be exciting but I am a big NASCAR fan. I got my renewal forms today in the mail for the June and August Michigan race. I have been a racing fan for a long time but just started going to the races nearby in Michigan in the last 5yrs. Well not really nearby its still a 3hr trip. My mother and I have been going and this past August my oldest daughter and my sister went with. We leave around midnight on a Sat night so that we can be at the gate when they open at 4a for the Sunday race. If you don't get there right around that time a 3hr trip can turn into a 5hr+ trip and thats just to get into the parking lot. I think the last race they said there were 120,000 people there. Thats a lot of people in one place at one time. But I LOVE it.

Here is a view looking left from my seat. See lots of people.

This is a pic of my mom, sister Lisa, daughter Amanda and myself sitting in the stands before the race in Aug 08. I now have my daughter hooked as well on going to the race. I have always watched the races on TV and tape them if I am not going to be home and after this race my daughter watches also. We are planning on going again in June & August. But we are also planning on going to Daytona for the July 4th race. When my daughter said she wanted to go there also and asked if that would be something I would want to do, it was hard to contain my excitement. But I did a good job and said "sure that would be fun" but inside I was jumping up and down, screaming with excitement like a little kid. LOL

This is my favorite driver as he is flying by. It really is a flash of color as the cars go by and the sound is loud and boy they sure do stir up the wind. But you gotta love it. I know I do.

Well I will end this and I hope you enjoyed a little bit of my other personality LOL

Have a wonderful rest of the day and please stay safe.

What I have worked on Wednesday

I have finished a few projects this week. I forgot to take a picture of the scarf I made for my mother and the hat I made for my daughter. I guess I just didn't think about it. Shame on me. What I did remember to take a picture of is the wool bag I made for myself to carry my scriptures and sunday school manual in. It turned out nice. I also made a stiff bottom piece for it so that it would stand up better. I really like it. And for the cost I can't beat it. Probably came to maybe around $3 and that includes the wool skirt I found at TS for the material & the thread I used for the embroidery. Can't beat that. The other project I finished was my Cathedral Window Quilt I am using for a runner on my hutch. I really like how it turned out.

Now I will have to find another project to start. I seem to need to be busy at all times. Especially at work. But the advantage of this is I get a lot of projects done that I have been wanting to do over the years. Hmmm what should I do next?

Quilting

I had decided that this year I was going to learn how to quilt and hopefully make my family a quilt for Christmas. I am still working on getting this started. But the other day as I was driving home from work I remembered that many many years ago I had gone to Relief Society Homemaking Night at church and one of the ladies taught us how to make a Cathedral Window Quilt. I kept thinking about that and tried to remember on how to make this. While sleeping that morning I dreamt about this. When I woke up it was still vividly on my mind. So I googled it to see if I could find the pattern to see if I indeed did remember how to do this. I found a couple tutorials and yes it did turn out that I did remember how. I already had the muslin and some print fabric scraps so...I decided I didn't have enough to actually make myself a big quilt but I indeed did have enough to make a runner to use on my hutch, table or on top of my piano. So I got to work and cut the material out and got things all situated and I took it to work with me. It's so nice to be able to do these things at work inbetween my responsibilities and it sure makes the night go faster and I am able to stay awake. I have the 6 big squares put together and now just have to join them into the runner and then finish them off. This really is an easy and quick portable project. Here is a pic of one of the big squares, which is made up of 4 small squares.

I also wanted to make a new bag to carry my scriptures in. I have the large print ones and I really needed a bigger bag. I wanted to make it out of wool and then embroider on the front. I found a wool skirt for $1 at Goodwill and knew that would work out great. The skirt was lined so I lucked out as to not have to find anything to line the bag with. I cut the pieces out and now just have to sew it all together. Here is the front of the bag.

I will post again when I finish both of these projects. Hope you enjoy.

I feel blessed

As some of you may know we got bombarded with lots of snow and ice cold weather the last couple of days. And according to the weather the cold is here to stay for a while UGH. Well yesterday my daughter and I cleaned off my driveway so that it would be easier for me to get in and out. I went to work last night, and it snowed most of the night and I was heartsick knowing my driveway would be covered up again. Well sure enough I got off work, waded through the sidewalk and parking lot in snow almost up to my knees, cleaned off my car and drove home very slowly. I got home and was going to try and go up my driveway at least to get my car off the street. Well I got stuck at the end of the drive half in and half out in the street. I was able to get myself unstuck and I parked in front of the house and waded through knee deep snow to get in the house. I decided I would get some sleep since I worked all night and then when the sun came up I would tackle the drive as best I could. Well I got up around 10:30a or so and looked outside to see if we had gotten any more snow and I about fell over. Someone, no clue who had cleaned my driveway off. Someone with a plow to their truck had CLEANED MY DRIVEWAY. I could actuall see cement. I went over to my daughters house and asked if she had contacted someone and she looked at me funny and said "no why" I told her to come look. She was as shocked as I was. She pulled my car into the driveway for me since she was dressed so that it would be off the street. I said a prayer and asked the Lord to bless whomever did this. I still have no clue, but I am very GREATFUL. I cleaned off my sidewalk, step and the path to my car so that I could get into my car without being covered in any snow. My back is so thankful to this nice, very nice person. I like waking up to those kind of surprises.

Then & Now

Just a small update. A good friend of mine reminded me that she hasn't seen a new pic of me in awhile. Even though I still really do hate my pic taken, I had my granddaughter take one. I really never know how to smile, and I do better when you catch me off guard but... My smile is goofy because she was making faces at me. Ya gotta love em. LOL I had weight loss surgery May 07 and now 170# later and more to go I feel great. Oh I still look in the mirror and see that fat person and probably always will. But it has been a long journey but one that I am glad that I took. I will be happier when I have the excess skin removed from my stomach area. The first pic was taken in June 07 at my daughters house, that was probably around the 1st time that I even felt like getting any clothes on. With having a big incision down my stomach from this surgery and having my gall bladder removed, living in my nightgown and robe was about all I could tolerate. The 2nd pic is the most recent one Jan 09. The pants I have on are too big for me and I only bought them like 2 months ago. The sweater is one of my great Goodwill finds for $3. I love those kinds of deals. The sweater is so soft and warm and it has bead work and embroidery along the top half but it doesn't show up in the pic. My granddaughter says it looks like a grandma sweater, and I just laugh and say "its a good thing then, because I am a grandma" She just rolls hers eyes. Teenagers LOL

I tried to get these two pics to be side by side but for some reason they keep going back to this. Oh well at least I got them posted.

I will try and be better at taking more pics to show my progress. Try being the operative word here. LOL

Have a great day and stay warm.

A New Year

I have all my Christmas decorations taken down and put away in the shed. I can't believe how empty things look. I still need to vacuum all the little pieces of styrofoam that fell out when I was packing things away. I will leave things like they are for a few more days and then put up my Valentine things. The top of my piano looks so bare, but thats ok. I am sure when I start getting out all the valentine items it will be full again. Now that I have a few more surfaces to decorate in my living room I need to either make or buy more things. Hmmm such a hard things to do LOL. I have about 4 projects going on at the moment for family and my house. So I will be kept busy during these winter months. I went to Hobby Lobby today and bought more yarn because it was on sale and some material to do some embroidery on. I ordered some embroidery patterns and they should be here in next couple days so that also will keep my busy.
I find that if I am busy I don't tend to snack. I always have something to drink next to me, either water or ice tea but thats ok. Even though I have had weight loss surgery you still have to watch what you eat. There are still a lot of things I can't eat because they make me sick, but thats a good thing because I probably shouldn't be eating that stuff anyway. I haven't lost anymore weight in a while now and the doctor said it is because my sleeping is off because of working the midnight shift. Its a scientific fact that our bodies are programed to sleep at night and that our metabolism is programed to work harder in the mornings. Which for me that is the time I am sleeping and I don't eat till later in the day and evening. Which is when your body slows down, which doesn't help with losing weight. Ah such a vicious circle. Oh well I am happy so far with what I have lost. Pounds and inches. 170# and 70 inches. I need to take an updated picture of myself to add to my blog but I didn't get one yet. I will do so in the next couple days. I bought myself a dress at Goodwill last sat on half off days. I like the dress, my granddaughter said it was ugly. But what does she know. I like it and I got a lot of compliments on it at church. I like how it fits. I was really surprised when I looked at the size tag. When I started out this journey of losing weight I was wearing a size 5x or 52. This dress I bought was a size 20. Which is like an XL. I almost cried. Yes the clothes I have being buying have been smaller but I haven't bought anything in a long time so I was so surprised. No wonder the clothes I have don't stay up much anymore. I need to really work hard at losing another 40lbs and then I can go and have my hernia repaired and have my excess skin on my stomach removed. I would like to have all this done before my son gets married, and that should be either this fall or next fall. I would like to look nice for him and the pictures. Ah so close yet so far. Either way I am happy and thats a GREAT THING.
I will also try and post some pics of some other decorating and crafts I have done in the near future. And yes I will also post a recent pic.