Journal - January 29 and 30

I'm so over the cold weather. We've gone extended days in the teens. I'm tired of leaving my water dripping constantly. I'm tired of fearing frozen pipes. I'm tired of the continuous running of my heater.

I'm very thankful for my warm home with a garage. I am very very thankful that I don't have to get into an extremely cold car first thing in the morning. 41 degrees seems to be the coldest my garage has been. It the coldest my thermostat has read when I start the car. Driving to work in 4 degree weather is a little startling. I was so shocked Tuesday when I got in the car and it was 16 degrees. I stayed cold on most of my drive to revival. Wednesday the sun was shining and even though it was cold, the sun had warmed the interior of the car.

I'm also thankful for warm coats, hats and scarves. I'm so happy I learned to knit and have been wearing my own creations. Now I just need to learn to make socks and gloves. Maybe by next winter.

Journal

Jan  25

Saturday a day of knitting and rest

Jan 26

Church and then a nice afternoon at K's with baby Katie Belle. Sewing and catching up on family!

Jan 27

School

Revival at The River - Code Blue with Dave Edwards

Jan 28

School

Revival at The River - I'm only doing two nights of revival. Wednesday is for the youth and it will be standing room only. I would rather a kiddo have my spot and hear the Good News.

Journal - January 24

Normal day - had great Chicken Delight for dinner.

Journal - Jan 23

Went in an hour late. Just a normal day.

Journal - Jan 22

Snow day 

Very cold. Had lunch with Jeff and Denise. Did a round at Walmart and came home to put a new closure on my desk. Used the good old DeWalt!!! Sewed a couple of rows on the tshirt quilt.

Journal Jan 21

Made cinnamon rolls with the extra dough. Very yummy. Back to school. But huge temp drop along with precipitation sent us home at 12. Spent the afternoon reading.

Journal - Jan 19 &20

Jan 19

Great morning at church, I wasn't working media and I sat in a different part of the worship area. I was closer to a speaker than I'd been in months. I could really hear the music and it was awesome! A quick lunch and I decided I was going for a Sunday drive. I really took the long way home and drove out to an area near the lake and I think I may have found a new "peaceful" getaway. It is only 25 minutes from the house and I used to make the drive all the time because is was near my parents farm. But yesterday was the first time I remember driving to the boat access area. The water was so quiet and green yesterday. I will have to go back again.

I spent the rest of the afternoon at my friends house and played with baby Claire. Nice day!

Jan 20 

I spent the day reading and trying to make bread. It hasn't done a lot of rising and I'm really thinking it won't turn out the greatest. I'm going to make a stomboli for dinner using the dough. I'm going to put a twist on it and use a tex-mex filling. We'll see how it turns out. I also did a little productive sewing today. I made a new ironing board cover for my pitiful ironing board. It is extra wide which is great for quilting but hard to find a new cover. I could have ordered one from Amazon but I decided to whip one up myself. I love it!

Journal - January 18

It was a stay at home day. I felt crafty and was ready for some instant gratification. So I made a quilt caddy which you can see in the post below. That took up the morning and after a quick lunch I spent the afternoon knitting on a scarf. I've been working on this scarf for a while. I keep putting it down to work on other projects. I want it to get really long for two reasons, one - I'm a large lady and really need extra length and two - I want to tie it or wear it looped. I've got a lot of knitting left to do, I want to double the length that it is right now. I've already knit a hat to match!

Quilt Caddy

I decided I wanted to do something crafty today. As I was going through Bloglovin', one of the bloggers I follow posted a little machine quilt she had made out of orphan blocks. I've been wanting to make a caddy for machine for quite some time. So I Googled quilt caddies and looked on Pinterest. I found lots of tutorials and one suggested using two fat quarters and simply turning the end up for the pockets.

So I measured my machine to see if fat quarters would be wide enough. My machine is only 16" wide, so a fat quarter would be perfect.

After my quilt room reorganization, finding batting scraps was oh so easy! But naturally, none of the scraps fit. Some were the size needed for baby quilts, so I didn't want to cut into those and this one was just a wee bit short. It was also long, so I thought I'd pull a Bonnie Hunter and piece my batting. Then I remembered I'd be cutting the width to make the pocket and this piece was just right. I cut off the length and use it for the pocket batting. 

Next I decided I really wanted to quilt the entire caddy. I've not done any machine quilting for quite some time and I really haven't done any cross hatch quilting because it looks so boring. But I decided this was a great practice piece and I drew my lines 1" apart and away I went.

Really don't like how Blogger lays out photos!! So I'm trying a new editor.After cross hatching, I decided the pocket needed to bedifferent, so I drew horizontal lines and quilted it. I knew I wanted to be finished today, so I machine sewed the binding front and back. I don't really like the look on the back. I won't be using this method on a quilt.

Final product  - Love It!

January 17

Oops, forgot to post this last night.

Two hour snow delay for school. That's great but my awesome worship leader and drummer were coming to FCA to give a devotion to the kiddos and do a little slammin' worship! Luckily, I caught Jimmy before he made it to Cookeville. Bless him, he was coming from Livingston - hour away, on his birthday! Again Awesomeness right there.

We had a surprise baby shower for a coworker after school and then the snow really started falling. But it was over by the time we all made it home. Supposed to be a cold, snow shower filled weekend. Which probably means just a lot of cold for us.

January 16

Work - busy day, proctored tests for a district competition. Took all day and then the internet went down and we have to wait until tomorrow to upload! A little stressful, but the kiddos did well.

I then went shopping for a baby shower present and home to watch American Idol!

Harry Rocks is all I can say!!!

Journal - January 14 & 15

I'm finding the journal is great when I've actually done something. But the days I go to work and come straight home, there really isn't anything for me to write about.

I did stay later at work today to administer the FBLA test. But that is really the most excitement I had.

Good days!

Journal - January 12 & 13

Sunday - church, lunch and quiet day

Monday - Quiet day at work as well, students were ready to get to work for the most part. We were notified of a coworkers death. Karen had been out almost all of the fall semester and passed away Saturday. We didn't know she was back in the hospital. Sad day. Funeral is Tuesday and visitation is just before the service.

Journal - January 11

Quiet Saturday. Watched a movie and did a little knitting. I kept dropping stitches and having to rip out. I am hoping I don't do it again.




Spent the evening working media at Rising Above's monthly worship service. I really love working with this ministry.

Journal - January 10

First day back from winter break was a good day.

Went out for dinner and ended up being joined by friends Mark and Kathy. They were being seated right by me and so we joined and had a nice chat with dinner. Came home and watched Donovan's Reef with John Wayne. Nice evening.

Journal - January 8 & 9

January 8

We managed to have a professional development day. The temperature went into the low 30's and I finally turned off the water. I'm sure my bill will be high next month.

After the PD day, I went for Mexican for dinner and after reading through my blogs on Bloglovin' I found a post about this scarf. The original was made with variegated sock yarn. I didn't have any but I had self striping and I started the scarf. So far I'm loving it. I learned two new decreases and I can't wait to see how it turns out.

January 9

No school. Not enough ice melted. I went to work anyway and have my 8th grade class planned and xeroxed for the next unit and I have the next 10 lessons for world history planned but do not have the parts and pieces ready. I'll work on that tomorrow.  We do have school tomorrow. My fish pond is still solid ice and I didn't think to take a picture when I went out to check on it an hour ago. I hope to put more stitches on my scarf tonight.

Journal - January 7

Today was another very cold day. We had professional development at school. Made it in with no problems, very thankful the roads were ice free.

Home and reading Believing God by Beth Moore. I'm also doing the devotional that goes with it as my devo for the year. I have it on all technology so that I can access it anytime and have zero excuse for reading daily.



Sweet kitties fill my evening.

Journal - January 6

No going to work today. Snow and temperature was too much for us southerners.

I've read on a few books, stayed on my iPad and phone too much. Curled up with the kitties for a little while. I did laundry and ran dishwasher to keep water flowing. I fear frozen pipes. Right now the kitchen sink is dripping. Single digit temps really aren't fun.

Work is scheduled for tomorrow. Need to plan a warm outfit because I know the empty schools will be cold.

Journal - January 5

Woke up early enough to make it to first service of church! I really like doing that when I'm not running media for the services. Out by 10:30 and off to shop at Sam's. Ate lunch at El Corral and then tucked into the house and played on my computer or read for the rest of the day.

Evening rolled in and the cold finally began to slide in, rain started and turned to a quick snow. In-serviced called off and we have an extra day off. Temp supposed to be in single digits tonight. I've decided to also post books I read during the year. Probably will only post new reads and not rereads. I tend to reread favorite writers. No knitting, really having trouble with hands after knitting so much. :(

Journal - January 4

Today, I decided to take apart a hat I knit. I didn't like the fit. Then I searched Ravelry and found a pattern I liked - The Bowler. I knit the hat in around four hours, I'm a slow knitter and it probably would have taken a faster knitter two hours to stitch the 30 or so rows. I extended the hat just a little and it was a tight fit. So I blocked it and hopefully it will be a little bigger when it dries.

I also made a large pot of veggie soup and cornbread. The kitties have laid beside me all day, it's very cold and we are expecting a couple of inches of snow tomorrow evening. Monday the high is supposed to be around 7, very cold for TN. Teachers are supposed to go back to work Monday, but we will have to see what the weather holds for us. The weathermen can't make up their mind on anything but the cold.

Journal Jan 3

In order to catch up and I'm doing three days in one.

January 1 - spent the day going shopping. I really don't like shopping for clothes. I'm a fat girl and shopping just really emphasizes that in my mind. Yes, I need to do something about it. More about that in later posts.

My sweet sister gave me a gift certificate that I spent and now I have a few new additions to my wardrobe.  I also had to purchase more yarn for a hat I was making. I finished the hat late this evening.

January 2 - continued to enjoy my winter break. It was supposed to snow and all day the winds howled, but very snow fell. I read a little and continued my marathon of West Wing watching.

Rearranged the living room, not really liking it, but don't have the desire to put it back. I'm adjusting and maybe that's why I don't like it. The kitties love being able to lay on the back of the couch and the fact that I have freshly washed quilts and throws for them to curl up on.

January 3 - continued to clean in the quilting room. Finished cutting the last blocks for the baby quilt. Now I just have to add borders - again. Hopefully, I'll like them this time. I also ironed the top of the second baby quilt that needs another border. I have a third baby quilt that needs to have the quilting finished. Three babies in my world and if I don't get busy they will be in elementary school before they get their quilts!!!!

Tonight I'm working the basketball gate. Need to be at school by 4:45. Will dress warm, it's very cold out and that means the wind coming through the open doors will be fierce!

Techy Journal

I follow Susan Branch and read her blog regularly. She wrote about the blizzard that hit the Cape Cod area where she lives and she talked about keeping a daily journal. Nothing really deep, but just enough to remember her daily activity because time goes so fast.

My momma kept a 2 yr calendar in her purse and used it to jot down the little things of life. I tried to keep all the ones I could find when we closed her house. I ran across the last one she kept while cleaning out my quilting room this winter break. The notes were short - phone call from Carmen or met Jackie for lunch. Little things that mean so much to me now. I realize I don't have children to treasure these and that if I started my own, sis would just have more stuff to sort and to throw away.

So I'm going to use this blog as my record keeper. In knowing me, this may only be done for a few weeks. But I'm hoping it strikes a cord with me and becomes a great habit. If this becomes too intimate or private, I'll keep the posts unpublished. But I'm excited to give this a try.

It doesn't mean I will post only journal items. I'll still post about things that strike me and my crafting projects. I can also never have enough posts about the kitties!