A Recipe For Disaster (and zucchini report)

RECIPE FOR DISASTER:
1)  Start with one of these.  It doesn't have to be a zucchini, it could be any fresh vegetable.

2)  Get a cutting board to chop up the vegetable.

3)  Take the cutting board and the chopped vegetable over to the stove.

4)  Ensure you have the cutting board UNsecurely held, and then drop it on one of these.

5)  Voila.  Chipped bone.

In case you are unaware, you cannot prop yourself up on crutches AND push a quilting machine around.  So now you must call your customer and explain that her QUILT will take a bit longer than originally discussed.

When DH drove me to the emergency department, again, I was quite surprised that there was no 'reserved' spot for me.  sigh.  I have an appointment at the fracture clinic on Monday (which is how "LUCKY" DH gets to spend our 30th wedding anniversary) and I am being optimistic that the ortho doc will tell me to stop with the cast and crutches as soon as it stops hurting.  The blessing this time is that the cast is removable.  Oh, sorry.  The $169.00 air cast.  Yeah.  Not all of our health care is exactly free.  But I'm still not complaining.

So, with my current  incapacitation I have finished the hand binding on the 'gift quilt'.  I finished a book by Wiley Cash (he has 2 books out - both VERY GOOD).  The other book I just finished is called Flash Boys by Michael Lewis.  LINK  That one is NOT fiction and also VERY GOOD - about a trader from Royal Bank who opens a new stock exchange in an attempt to combat the unscrupulous bastards running the other exchanges.  Because I have limited knowledge of the stock market I had to keep reading the book or I'd forget some of the terminology and have to go back to re-read parts.  If you google Brad Katsuyama you'll get an idea of what the book is about.  Frightening, really.

While I'm on 'light duties' I plan to work on the bookkeeping which I have not touched all year (bad Helen, bad!!) and get our new mailbox painted.  Hopefully I can quilt a bit from my drafting chair - one hour with my foot down, then take a break with an ice pack and spend a half hour with my foot elevated while I do ... something.  Poor DH is doing everything right now, as you can see in the above pic of the cooktop.  OMG.  So dirty.  He doesn't mind cooking, but cleaning is NOT his forte.  Hopefully we don't have to push each other to the emergency department with food poisoning in the coming weeks.  :-)

ZUCCHINI REPORT
Picked this week:  4
Picked YTD:        17

TEXTURE MAGIC Flowers, Poverty, Zucchini Report

These flowers are very interesting.  They were made using Texture Magic.  Here's a link.  The taupe fabric on the right side is silk.  What a gorgeous look when it's quilted.

Pretty much every morning I spend my breakfast time checking out Facebook and a couple of forums and blogs.  This was a link on Facebook this morning.

Sipping my coffee and reading the story got me thinking.  Slow, morning-fuzzy thinking.  When was the last time I raised MY rates?  Two coffees and a bowl of oatmeal later, I blew off the dust from my 2010 shoebox of bookkeeping.  Yup.  January 2010 was the last time I gave myself a raise.  Just out of curiosity, I thought I'd check on some of my annual expenses over those years.

• Property taxes increased $350
• hydro costs increased $240.  And now I have to wash my underwear at night.  In the dark.  Using cold water.
• house insurance increased $420.  Never had a claim.
• car insurance decreased $35 (huh? clearly a mistake by the insurance company)
• business insurance increased $100.  Never had a claim, but DID increase my coverage.  It's costing you gals a whole lot more to buy fabric, which increases my exposure.

Every time I get on the subject of money, my brain goes STRAIGHT to Executive Compensation.  I am a former Royal Bank employee, so I like to pick on them.  Even though my years with them were pretty much okey-dokey.  They decided to get all fancy a few years ago and morph into RBC ROYAL BANK.  Poor Mr. Nixon.  Having to get by on a measly $12,700,000 last year.  Let me spell that out for you.  Twelve million, seven hundred thousand.  Dollars.  Per year.

That moved by brain along to "I wonder how much the normal people at THE BANK earn these days?  You will see from the chart below that the customer service reps who actually look after you at the counter earn between $12 and $15 per hour.  On those wages these people are expected to dress professionally?  Um. 
Mr. Nixon!  Shame on you!  A LIVING WAGE is $14 per hour.  Anyone paid less than that is living below the poverty line.

All this financial pondering brings me to the weekly zucchini report.  Feeling as impoverished as I do right now, I regret going out for a cheap (but yummy) dinner at Bangkok Temptation last night.  Today I will eat my free zucchinis.

ZUCCHINI REPORT
Picked this week:  7
Picked YTD:       13

the Gift Quilt, Stash Report, and the first Zucchini Report !!

The gift quilt is done except to finish the binding.

I had some fun with the feathers.

The lightning zigs were first s.i.d. then quilted with 1/4" inside lines.  Then I added the cutest border design. (click on the pic for a larger image)

A few leftover blocks for the back.

STASH REPORT
Used this month:  19 m
Used YTD:          64.2 m
Added this month:  0.  Zero!!
Added YTD:       115.75
Net YTD:            +51.55

Now, we've waited all winter for this.  The first...
ZUCCHINI REPORT
Picked this week:  6 (teeny, finger sized fruits - just right to chop into the salad)
Picked YTD:        6

DH will be accepting donations of non-zucchini-laced food items on Tuesdays and Thursdays between 2 and 4 pm.  ha ha ha... bad wife...

Scrappy Quilt, Gift Quilt, Strawberry Jam, Stash Report

Here is a "Majestic Mountains" quilt that I made with the Scrappy Club.  Link to pattern here.

This was a nice easy quilt to make, but use caution - all the block edges are BIAS.

I used up some crap unfavorite fabrics on the back.  ($1/yd for the red stuff, about 10 years ago - the only thing I loved about that was the price)  Now it just needs binding.

Here's one that I'm making as a gift for my friend's daughter.  This is really cute (if I do say so myself, ha ha ha).  This is based on one I found on the internet, then I made up a pattern.

I had a little OOPSIE with the pattern, not realizing that EQ thought the blocks were 6" when in reality they are 5".  Yeah - technology is only as good as the operator.  The whole quilt was too small, which meant more blocks were required.  I have ideas for quilting floating around in my head.  Now to get the ideas OUT of my head and INTO my quilting machine.  Easier said than done sometimes.

On the ACTIVITY front:

• made 15 cups of Strawberry/Orange/Banana jam.  Mmmm... Today, to celebrate, I had toast & jam for breakfast instead of oatmeal.  Did I already say "mmmm..."?  I made mine from the Bernardin Canning book, but here is the SAME RECIPE on the net.
• Weeded, then shoveled about 10 carts of mulch around the yard.  Still much more to do, both weeding AND shoveling.  Last night I made a lovely chicken-ceasar salad with red and green romain lettuces from the garden.  Yum.
• Assisted our niece with move number 13 in six years.  Seriously.  I have never met anyone who moved so much.  This time she moved for a real job though, so hopefully she will be staying put for a while. Downtown Toronto. Ick.  Not a fun place to drive. My duties (since I had brought a book with me) were to sit downstairs at the loading dock/garbage dumpsters area where our trucks were parked.  I was to phone my b.i.l. upstairs if the garbage men came to empty the dumpsters, because our trucks were in the way and they'd require moving.  Whew.  Almost broke a nail. :-)
• Quilting and quilt-making, as you can see above.

STASH REPORT
Used since last report 9 m
Used YTD               54.2 m (averaging 9 m/month!)
Added since last report   0
Added YTD            115.75 m
NET 2014               +61.55 m  - it's coming down bit by bit.

On the I-Am-Such-An-Idiot front:  While carrying out my 'sit in the truck' duties I threw a bottle of water in my purse.  It was 3/4 full.  I had not closed the lid.  I noticed when I wondered why my leg was wet.  Pfftt.

Happy Canada Day!!

I'm so grateful to live in this wonderful country.  A roof over our heads.  Plenty to eat.  We go to bed safe at night and wake up safe in the morning.  Very blessed.