quilt:1, me:0

So, for those who haven't heard, the quilt beat me; I actually gave up on it. I gave it a valiant try, but it just wasn't coming together at all. I''d made a hexagon pattern, and had to sew each hexagon to a different one individually, which, since it used to be done that way, wouldn't have been that bad, except for the fact that the pattern itself was not perfectly shaped, which meant there was no one the finished "flowers" were as precise as is needed to get a quilt to lay flat. I saved some of the flowers to make a pillow instead, and pandy's going to choose a different quilt for me to make, one that involved nothing more complex than squares and triangles. And, now I know why you rarely see complex patches in a quilt . Since I know have one less project to complete, even if I'm still feeling the guilt of not finishing this one, I've moved onto the next project to be finished, which involves the 2 knitted blankets I've been making. One of them is about halfway done; I've used 6 skeins of yarn, am on the 7th, and 4 more after this one. I've figured out that if I can sew 3 rows a day, I'll get it finished in about 2 months, which is currently my goal. Sooner would be better, but I'll be happy to have it done period. The other blanket is a dark blue Chanel yarn, which is soft, gorgeous, and not too bad to work with, as long as I keep the knitting loose. Then, since I've finally gotten to the point of not starting a new project until the old one is done, I'll work on the 2 quilts I have lined up to be next :-)

I'm just wishing that I had brought the shorter blanket into work today so I'd have something to do, as I left my book at home, it's unbearably slow right now, and the system I need to use to catch up on my work stuff is down for maintainence. I'm really not in the mood to read the 2 non-fiction books I have sitting at my desk waiting. Granted, I like anthropology, but I'm still half asleep, and it's a bit unreasonable to expect myself to learn anything when I'm asleep (or at least that's my excuse, and I'm sticking to it :P). I suppose I could start making phone calls to other random members of my family that I've never met, and in this case have probably never even heard of me, but I don't like doing that at work. I'm hoping that if enough of us put our heads together, we can find some information about my grandmother's family. I have a place name in Russia, I've even looked it up online, and from what I can see, they'll likely be happy to help us to learn more, but I need to have their names first to do so! I haven't even been able to find my great, great grandmother's 1st name, which is highly annoying, since the last name I have is one that she was given at Ellis Island, and thus is of no use when searching ship records. And, one night a week spent banging my head against the wall of ship records is enough for me, at least until I have something new to work with, though it will become tempting again today as I grow more bored.....

Please give me the strength to not die of boredom at work today... :P

post holiday update

The holidays this year were all really quite good! I had "Christmas" several times, and still have one time to go, since the quilt I'm making for Pandy didn't get done in time - the pattern I used has proven to be a pain! I have to say, I think the gift my roommate got me is my fave; as he got me a membership to Phipps, complete with many frills attached. Since it's for a household as well, and we both like Phipps/it's close to work, we have plans to eat lunch there on a regular basis, which means being surrounded by green growing things a lot :-) We did go once since the holidays already, and got to see the new exhibit, which will be changing every 2 years, and we were both impressed, though I'm looking forward to seeing it in 2009 when it's the Amazon! Other than that, we had a New Years eve party that all invited seemed to enjoy. I much prefer having smaller parties, so we had a good number of people there, we talked, played games, etc, and no one got drunk, which was wonderful!

Aside from that, we both had birthdays to celebrate, and so ate out, once at the Oxford Room, which was tasty, and once at Olive Garden, both of which I've never been to before, though my roommie has been to Olive Garden frequently. Both places were nice, though I think we'll be more likely to go back to the Olive Garden, as it is both less expensive, and more convenient.

Speaking more on the subject of roommates, for the first roommie I've had, this is going really well! We getting along well, the house is staying clean, I'm not having to clean up for hours each week, nor do I feel like my house has been "invaded", which since we work together as well, was a subject of some question. But, we seem to be getting along fine, and have not even had a fight yet, let alone any major issues. He's currently having much fun with his new computer system, since he just got a new video card and is now able to play some of the games he's been waiting on.

Aside from the home front, work has been hell for the last 2 weeks, though it seems to finally be slowing down. The amount of work we had was completely unexpected, and it really was starting to wear on us all, and our normal duties weren't getting done in the wake of it either. but, I have hopes that I'll be able to get caught up to normal finally this weekend, and as long as the on slot doesn't continue, I'll be good to go! We've hired 4 more people, and have some expansion plans in place, and my manger told me she wants me for a supervisory position, which is what I've been aiming for, raise or no raise, I want that title on my resume! So, I'm holding on tight, and haven't been washed away yet!

Now if I can only drum up the energy to finish this quilt - I'm on the last "hard part" now....