What I did this weekend

Let's start with sewing. I worked on the project I can't show you and I pieced together some scraps of some silk screen prints on a heavy cotton to make some potholders. The one potholder I have is awful so I needed some new ones bad! I got one done. It is a bit too big, but it works.

I used these buttons which were in my Grandmother's sewing stuff to attach a loop.

Here are the other five I have pieced, but I am going to cut them down. They are just too big.

I worked on trimming up Bubba Jr. Friday, Saturday, and Sunday. I just keep nipping away at it until I get it just the way I want it. I just keeping taking little bits off then stepping back and looking at it to see how far I want to take it. Here is what it looked at the beginning

and here what it looks like now

I brought three rocks home from work. When the contractors are digging around on the site, rocks show up! The big one was way heavier than I thought. Once I picked it up I wasn't about to drop it so I walked to the car as fast as I could. Oh my wrists were sore all weekend especially my left one.

The little ones came in handy. Here is where I put them.

I transplanted some Shasta daisies into the center flower bed.

and I move rocks to where I am going to need them to finish the edging around the center bed. I will have to dig out the edge a bit and set all the rocks, but having them moved to where I need them helps.

So all the rocks that I had in the driveway

are now down to this small pile

Bubba gets a haircut

I was tired last evening from being woken up by the water department flushing the fire hydrant at 11:51 p.m. Wednesday night. I am on what is call a dead head hydrant. This is a hydrant that is not on the loop but an off-shoot. When they open the hydrant fast is causes a phenomena called hammering. This hammering or vibration from the pipes shaking transfer into my house and it sounds like a NASCAR stock car is revving it's engine in my bedroom! Needless to say it wakes me up abruptly! This has happened in the past and I have called the water department to complain. They do a better job of slowly opening the hydrant or flushing it during the day, but then that stops and they do it in the middle of the night again. So in a nutshell is what I did to try and get some action:
1. called the water department at midnight to complain and they guy had me leave a voice mail for the supervisor
2. I call 311 around noon - the city information line since I had not received a response and they transferred me to water department. Somebody answered the phone, but everyone was in a meeting.
3. called the police department to file a complaint against the water department for disturbing the/my peace. Unless there was damage or something criminal no charges could be filed.
4. Called the city council lady - EUREKA! She was great. She listened to my issue and was sympathetic. She said you must be having a hard time at work with the lack of sleep. I said yes. It took me a while to get back to sleep after being startled. I gave her the history of my dealings with the water department over this issue for the last 15 years and she was impressed that I had three solutions to the problem. She is now trying to resolve the problem. Yeah!

Since I was tired I didn't want to do anything too strenuous in the yard so I decided to give Bubba a haircut. I have needed to do this so now was the time. Here are the before and after. You can hardly tell I did anything! LOL!! This is just the start of the haircut, but I did get a wheelbarrow of stuff cut out of the center area.

When I was working on Bubba my neighbor came home and I asked him if he heard the racket Wednesday night and he said yes. He had no idea what was going on. I gave him the council lady's phone number and asked him to call her to back up my story. He said he would so this might help the cause of solving the problem.

At work the concrete contractors are installing curb and curb with gutters. They were rockin' it yesterday! It is fun to watch the extruding machine that makes the curb.

The MRI room is getting it's next layer of FRP -fire resistant plywood - over the steel sheeting. The copper layer is starting on Tuesday so the guys have to get the FRP done!
Here are the sleepers they will attached the 4 x 8 sheets to.

Have a great weekend! I took two Excedrin to get thru today and I am looking forward to getting some sewing done this weekend.

Lavender in the ground

It was another beautiful evening so I decided to spend an hour working on that center flower bed. I moved 8 half wheelbarrows of dirt, set some rocks, and now the lavender plants are in the ground! Here is where I left off on Tuesday

I had to tear out more of the plastic edging that I am replacing with the rocks

And this is what it looks like now. I plan on transplanting a clump or three of Shasta Daisies to the left of the lavender to fill in that area.

The new lavender plants are placed in the middle behind the three plants I already had. I fertilized all the lavender and gave them a big drink of water.

I ended up spending 1 hour and forty minutes, but I am happy to have gotten so much done. Here is a shot of the bed from another angle so you can see what I have left to do. I only have a few of the bigger rocks left so I will have to be creative and transition into using smaller rocks.

By the time I cooked food for lunches and got a shower there was no time to sew. Maybe tonight.

Oops I did it again

You would have thought I learned my lesson by working in the yard 4 hours on Sunday and getting so sore. Yes, everything from my chin down hurt. Monday my legs were really hurting. But no! When I got home from work yesterday it was so nice out that I decided to spend an hour working on that center flower bed. Well, 2 1/2 hours later I finally stopped. LOL!!! It was hard getting out of bed this morning so I took two Excedrin so hopefully that will be enough to get me thru the day. Tomorrow I will know if I did it again and overdid it.

Here is what the bed looked like before

After weeding, hauling and spreading 8 wheelbarrows (half full) of dirt, and moving rocks here is what it looks like now.

It looks a bit bare right now, but I need to add a bit more dirt before I transplant the three lavender plants I bought months ago. My neighbor was out and he helped me move a big rock that was sitting on the dirt pile. It was just to heavy for me to move. Here is a picture of the rock with my foot beside it so you can have an idea of the size. It had to weight 80 or 90 pounds. Together it was not too bad to lift. I would guess I am about 1/3 the way done with this bed. I still need to add mulch, but I will wait until I get all the rocks set. The mulch in under a tarp in the backyard and I have to push it uphill. Talk about loads of fun! LOL!!

So, no sewing happened.

All sewn together

I got all the blocks sewn together. Tonight I will press them. Yeah for progress!

Getting stuff done

I was so tired Friday after work and Saturday I only managed to work on the pink and lavender flannel quilt. I got the rest of the pieces sewn together so that the next step is sewing the two halves together to make the four patch. Here is my stack of units paired up.

Sunday I was feeling better and I needed to make up for slacking off on Saturday. I did four loads of laundry, worked on the project I can't show you yet, and cooked food for lunches. I headed outside and four hours later I had mowed the grass and worked on the center flower bed. Here is the before

I moved all those rocks again since I didn't think they stuck up above the grade of the grass far enough. I dug down a little bit and put a brick under the rocks to elevate them. My arms are sore from moving them around. I added five wheelbarrows of dirt and finally planted the coneflowers that have been in pots for months.

I still need to top the dirt with sweet peat, but I will wait until I get a bit more done. I figure I am one quarter the way done. I need to get enough done at this end of the oval so I can get the three lavender plants in pots into the ground.

Thank goodness it is Friday!

What a week. I was so tired after finally getting home from work all I could do is make some dinner and take a shower. With running around and pounding on the computer all day, when I get home I just want to stop and do nothing.

It is FINALLY cooler! The humidity is still high - 69% - but it is 49 degrees and it feels wonderful! It is suppose to stay cooler all weekend so maybe I can go out and work in the front yard. I need to get the rock edging done on my big flower bed, plant the coneflowers and lavender plants that have been in pots for months, and get rid of this pile of dirt that has been in the driveway all summer.

Much of that dirt will be going in the big flower bed. I just need to get it out of the driveway before the snow flies in a few months.

I want to work on the project I can't show you too. I have a feeling the weekend is going to go quickly! Have a great weekend!