Sunday Sevens 03-22-15

Tags

cats, cooking, Hermiston, Oregon, Pendleton, recipe, sewing, Sunday Sevens, Thimbles Fabric 'n' More

Where has the week gone?  I feel like I spent the entire seven days doing boring, unphotographable (if that wasn’t a word before, it is now) things like hauling my mother to medical appointments.  I did finish my sister’s birthday present on time (barely) and I completed the fleece jacket UFO, though, so some productivity did happen in between all the running around.

(Sunday Sevens is a weekly post series with seven or so pics of things you’ve been up to that don’t merit a whole blog post.)

Sunday afternoon, my honey and I got back from our weekend in Seattle.  I guess it had been a while since we’d spent two nights away from the cats, as Sunday evening and all of Monday were spent with them following me around and yelling at me, resulting in massive cuddling sessions.  It was TOTAL PANIC because their people were gone FOR LIKE YEARS and even though they had plenty of food and water, THEY ALMOST DIED.

Monday afternoon they finally settled down into their usual catatonia.

Much contemplation of fabric and rifling through patterns happened this week as I played around with spring sewing ideas and did some reading on burn tests and tissue fitting.

I had some leftover corn tortillas from pork carnitas tacos last week, so a batch of Chilaquiles had to be made.  (Caution:  that recipe is seriously hot–I eliminate the jalapeno and reduce the chipotle chilies to 4 when I make it, and it’s still pretty hot, especially if your sausage is spicy.)

I’ve got some spring plant plans in the works, as it now appears I won’t be going to Paris with my honey this summer after all.  I’m (mostly) okay with that; it helps that he’s informed me that we’re going to Scotland next summer so that he can do a 1300k bike ride on the western coast.  (As he put it, “I appear to have accidentally signed up for that ride in Scotland; you want to go?  They need volunteers and you can have fish and chips!”  He knows me too well.)

I spent Saturday helping out with the 300k (180 mile) ride my partner organized in eastern Oregon.  I expected the experience to be rather tedious–hours spent sitting in the car waiting for riders to show up so I can sign their cards?  Um, woot?–but it was actually a pretty fun day.

The ride started at 6:00 in Hermiston, and I got to the first control point at the Pendleton Safeway at 8:00 to meet them.  The whole group of 6 riders showed up at 8:45, then headed out again.  I had a few hours to kill before the next control, so I went to the local fabric shop, Thimbles, Fabric ‘n’ More, to look for fabric for my next gift project.  They didn’t have what I needed for the gift, but I did find a little something for me in their nice selection of quilting cotton and vast notions area.

Then I went next door to the park and took a long walk along the river.

Bonus picture of a butterfly just because I like it:

I was able to finish up the hand sewing on my fleece jacket while waiting in Hermiston for the riders to show up.  Then they were off again, and I headed home.

Have a great week, everybody, and I hope you’re able to do something fun for yourself this week.

STH

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Sunday Sevens: 1-25-15

Tags

bags, cats, Columbia River, cooking, Hermiston, Howard Amon Park, Oregon, recipe, Richland, sewing, Sunday Sevens, travel, Washington

So I thought I might try something a little different and start doing a Sunday Sevens post every week.  The idea–and thank you to threadsandbobbins.com for starting this–is to take a picture every day and post them together at the end of the week as a way of sharing a little bit more about your life than what you choose to write blog posts about.  I thought it would be a fun way to get some photography practice while sharing some hopefully interesting bits and pieces from life over here.

Because I’m doing this whole blogging business for fun, and rules tend to make things a bit less fun, I’m going to be flexible about the whole taking-exactly-one-picture-a-day thing.  And if the only thing I accomplish in doing this is to firmly establish how utterly boring my life is, I’ll stop doing it.

So here we go.

Early in the week, I finished the last big section of quilting on my travel bag pieces (this is the “before” shot–scroll down for the “after”).

Here’s Pooh, wiped out by a full night of sleeping on the bed with us, getting some much-needed rest on the back of the couch.  (Peeking out from under the fluff is a quilt I made several years ago from Laurel Burch flannel.)

I took my mother out for a walk on Thursday morning.  This is Howard Amon Park in Richland, WA.  Columbia River on the left.

I don’t think the best food stylist in the world could make Butter Chicken look sexy, but it sure tasted good (recipe for Butter Paneer is here; I subbed chicken breast and some veg for the cheese).

Shelby playing with one of her ten million little pieces of fabric.

On Saturday, my honey and I drove part of a cycling route he’s developing for a ride in March.  This is outside Hermiston, OR.  Look–blue sky!

The gray day has leached the green color out of my fabric, but I wanted to show the quilting on this.  This is the side of the travel bag with the zippers in.  Why do I always stress out about zippers even though they always go in just fine?

Oy, brains are troublesome things.

Have a great week, everybody.  I hope you have some sunshine wherever you are.

STH