A weekend of Selfishness?

I get a whole weekend to myself this coming up weekend. Peg is going to visit friends in New Hampshire and I get to stay at home with the cat. Yay, me!

Every once in a while, I think I just need to take time off and cloister myself away. This seems to recharge my creative batteries... as long as I ignore that "should be working on" list (which, also for me, is very, VERY long.)

My should list includes: Images/Lowell Quilt Festival. I love going to the show and seeing other people's work. I love shopping. I even have a list of things I should get for the class I'm taking at A Quilter's Gathering in November (never too early to start prep!) Am I going? Probably not, because the times that I can hang out by myself in my apartment (with just Ed, who sleeps a lot) are rare and precious.

I should be marking and quilting three quilt tops: The mini Amish that my mother pieced (above), "Don't Worry, Be Scrappy" (to the right), and "Omiyage" (to be photographed.) Will I get them marked and/or started? Probably not.

I should cut out fabric to replace my pink Tencel jumper. I bought a sage green tencel at the same time, intending to have two dresses. (I wore the pink one as sleeveless dres, but I never got the green cut out, so now I can use the fabric to replace the pink one which got to be too worn and stained to be worn in public.

Of course, there's the ongoing struggle to update my jewelry web site and etsy store... maybe the less said about that the better!

...And the Chelmsford Quilter's Guild page....

I have a ton of research to be done for a variety of project, one of which is a Quest to find an ophthalmologist or even just a place which will sell me a new pair of glasses and takes my insurance. (Insurance supposedly pays for a free pair every two years, but the problem has been finding someone who takes it. My soon-to-be-former guy takes the insurance but not my particular policy. *sigh*)

What I will end up doing? If I want to be rested and refreshed after this weekend I'll probably go out for "supplies" (Diet Barq's, Uno's Potato Skins, KFC, Wheaties), and hunker down to watch Nero Wolfe episodes or "Pride and Prejudice" (with Colin Firth!) with breaks to do a bit of weeding outdoors, and maybe peek at email and Facebook (hoping not to get sucked in). If I get to any of the other projects, maybe I'll count that as a plus.

But I really should find a place to get a new pair of glasses...

Diggin' It

During the Great Gap in my blog (May 20 through June 12), I went to visit my parents outside of Pittsburgh, PA. Since I live in Massachusetts, this should actually not be a big deal, but the airlines always seem to make it so.

There are no direct flights, and the options to layover are Philadelphia (which was kind of a dive of an airport last time I was there), LaGuardia (really, really busy, and no fun to be stranded at), and Newark.  (Also Detroit and Washington Dulles, but I just can see flying all the way past Pittsburgh only to get on another flight to, essentially, backtrack.)

This time I chose Newark and had beautiful weather and no problems with delays.

I go to visit my parents once a year. It used to be at Christmas, but I hate traveling in the winter, and with the craziness of the holidays, I prefer just to hide until the groundhog sees his shadow (or not.)

This, of course, means that "lists get generated." Lists of things I need to do when I'm there, things I need to bring, things I need to fix, things I need to teach them, places we want to go to, shopping trips, museums, etc.

I'm usually only there for a week or less, but to finish any of these lists would probably take much longer than that, and I really just want to hang out with my parents and take up space.

Well, this year, we had a warm spring, and I was itching to plant, but couldn't because I knew I was going to visit my parents in June.

I did manage to restrain myself, but then my mother decided to unleash the planting frenzy while I was visiting. I did all their containers, and, returned to Massachusetts in a dither to plant all MY containers.

I have alot of containers.

Today I finally finished (I think...I have a couple more 6 in pots that don't have plants in them, but I'm not sure where I can put them...) 

I have a new planting strategy.  Just one tomato plant (since I can't eat them raw), two kinds of Basil (spicy globe, and Tulsi), thyme, rosemary, Roman chamomile, and flowers.

But, I couldn't leave well enough alone. I planted ornamental grass to block some of the sun from the porch which gets really hot in the afternoon, in addition to morning glories on trellises. And flowers.

Did I mention flowers?

I hope to have a better picture of the whole porch when everything gets sorted, but at the moment, I'm a bit tired...kinda frenzied out.