hither, yon, and dale . . .

Because I'm all *over* the place in this post!!

My goodness . . . how did March arrive so quickly?!  True to form, it's 'marched' in like a lion -- we have *cold* temps and snow in our immediate forecast!  Which is quite funny when you consider my next few photos . . .

Todd and I took a golf cart ride earlier in the week and noticed a bit of Spring making a showing . . .

Those sweet little flowers sure weren't counting on snow falling on them. We spotted them as we traveled down to Hidden Creek -- I hadn't been down there in ages!  

When we got down there, I noticed that someone (probably Sam, one of the Camp's top committee members) had cleared a huge swath of land from the very invasive bamboo that grows down there.  

If you look at the above pic, you'll see a little jut of land sticking out in the center of the creek.

I've always wanted to walk up there -- and now I could!  It's such a sweet little spot, too.  And Todd and I noted that though the bank is a little steep, there are natural steps cut into the side here.  Add a rope and I imagine Sawyer and I will add this to our favorite "spots", come summer.  Especially since in the summer months, the creek is a little calmer and there's hardly any water flow on the bank side of the spot.  But not today -- listen to the creek roll here!

Gosh I do love that sound!!  From the big creek, we headed across the camp to the little creek -- Crawdad Creek.  As we headed out, I noticed how much water has overflowed out of the creek, into what's typically dry paths . . .

Usually that's all dry ground.  We've had a LOT of rain in the last two months, that's for sure.  By summer, it will be all gone.  Crawdad Creek, though small, never stops flowing . . . 

We figure that, like the ponds, it's spring-fed.  I wish there was a way to eliminate mosquitoes down there -- I'd spend a LOT more time there, if there was!

And I had to share this funny picture . . .

What makes it funny is that this is a picture of a purple finch surrounded by goldfinches.  Only the purple finch is decidedly red while the goldfinches are decidedly olive.  They make me laugh!

At Joc's on Wednesday, I decided to throw down a challenge to see if Leia would make a good quilter's cat.

It appears that she would, indeed, make a good quilter's cat.  I figured that was the case, but just wanted to make sure.  Leia's sitting on one of my NewFOs for February, by the way.  That was my February doll quilt swap piece.  I also had a cute little NewFO/finish in the mug rug I made for my pastor's wife:

And I consider my CQ block a NewFO, too!

I got my spider web on it and that ended Lesson 5.  Lesson 6 starts us on beading.  The first thing we do is pull out the matching pincushion and treat the seams on it.

Next up will be the actual beading!  

I've got my beads picked -- I'll work on that today.  From there, I'll go back to my block and add the beading to it!

Ellie's little broken leg isn't keeping her down.  In fact, though she was aware of it the weekend I stayed with her, by the next weekend she was walking on it again.  Evidently Leia wishes it had slowed her down a bit more . . .

She was hiding from Ellie.  Ummm, yeah.  Gotta love cats!

Ellie was quick to help Leia out, by showing her the error of her ways.  I can just hear her, "See Leia -- it's all open.  I can see *all* of you!"

I suppose, since it *is* March, I could come up with some goals for the month. Let's see . . . number one on the list is the March doll quilt swap. Number two? FINISH my crazy quilt course! Number three. Hmmmm. I really would like to finish up some of the UFOs I've got lying around. To that end, number three will be finishing off the center of the quilt-as-you-go pineapple quilt I resurrected last year.

I need to trim the red to the black center and make sure it'll fit inside the rows of blocks!  And number four--start quilting on Joc's quilt.  Wow.  That's pretty industrious for me!  Especially when you consider that in the first half of the month we'll celebrate Joc's, Kim's and Sawyer's birthdays, Kim and James's anniversary, and my folks will come down for a visit!  In addition to the fun family stuff, Todd and I will head to Shocco Springs next weekend for a missionary training weekend and the following Saturday is National Quilting Day (March 16) and our guild has BIG plans.  Whew!!

I guess I'm out of here for the weekend.  Linking up today's post to the February NewFO linky party over at Cat Patches, the March "Get 'Er Done" post at Patchwork Times, and the Feline Friday linky party over at Sarah Did It!!!

:)

the longest post ever . . .

And I'm not even *joking*!  You'll see.  I finally realized that what happens when I go more than a day without posting, all the things I want to share build up bigger and bigger until all of a sudden, it's a post-a-palooza!  [snicker]

It's been a great week.  I didn't completely cut out blog reading, but I did cut back, and I also broke the comments down on my giveaway post and answered them in manageable bites.  That giveaway is still open, by the way ... so feel free to jump over there and get in while the getting's good!

I put into play some of the items on my *list* of goals for 2013.  Back in 2011, I wrote a series of posts on Time Management -- four, actually -- here, here, here, and here.  I decided to put into practice (again) what I'd preached!   To take liberties ... blogger, heal thyself.  To that end,  A Holy Experience had a darling document for planning out your day.  It had all the components on it that were important to me ... domestic stuff, daily chores, have-to-do (or as she notates it, "The Day's Dire"), food/water, etc.  It's very nicely laid out.  You can get you own HERE.

Put that along with my 2013 planner (a very cheap and scaled down version from last year's), and my days are a little more organized and focused, and things are getting done!

I'm also participating in the Siesta 2013 Scripture memorization.  My dear friend Melissa, from The High Altitude Tea Duchess, put out a call to anyone interested in joining her in the challenge.  I've watched it for the past two years (over at the Living Proof Ministries blog) but never participated.  I decided to join Melissa (and from what I've been able to gauge, at least 5,000 others) and memorize some Scripture this year!  Two a month -- nothing huge -- and you choose your own passages.

To that end, I got a cute little spiral book to record my Scriptures.  Sometimes fun little things like this help keep me on track!

Another of my goals (I think I mentioned in my New Year's Day post that the list was quite extensive) was to read through the Bible in chronological order.  And in order to really make it mean something, I wanted to not just read, but to jot down any thoughts, questions or revelations I had about the day's reading.

Read the Bible in One Year has an assortment of reading plans in different translations.  I copied it to a pdf and sent it to my Kindle, so I can easily keep up with where I'm supposed to be each day.

I've also had plenty of time for crafty, quilty things.  Joc and I played with her Silhouette -- it cuts fabric!  

She cut out some letters for me and then she cut out the means to make this darling little onesie for Ellie.

This will be her 'smash cake' outfit!  Isn't it darling?!?

She also used her fancy machine to make the paper flowers for this wreath . . .

When it's finished, there will be a little pendant banner that reads, "Time for Tea" in the middle.  She'll hang this on her front door on the day of Ellie's party. Sweet, non??!  Such a crafty girl!

Joc also let me borrow her mod podge.

I had an ugly, plain old clipboard to keep my daily list and I wanted something pretty . . . 

A (really, really, REALLY) pretty piece of fabric and some mod podge later, voila!

Of course, there's been time for grandbabies, too . . .

Oh how I adore my sweet little grandbabies!  Yes, that's my son piled up in there between Sawyer and June.  What a crowd!

And then there's *always* time for fabric, right?  I've made a very bold statement on this, the first stash report of the year, that's for sure.  One of our LQS's had a major sale on New Year's Day.  Who could resist?

This was all BOGO fabric.  So two yards for the price of one ... ten yards, right off the bat.

This was all heavily discounted fabric.  One yard each, coming up!

And I couldn't pass up this darling Christmas panel and coordinating yard from Timeless Treasures!  Two more yards.

And then, for good measure, a handful of purple fat quarters and some new tools!

Used/donated this week: 0.25 yards

Used/donated year-to-date: 0.25 yards

Purchased/added this week: 16.75 yards

Purchased/added year-to-date: 16.75 yards

Net used/donated for 2013: -16.5 yards

Oh well.  :)

I really enjoyed the NewFO Challenge in 2012, held by Barbara over at Cat Patches and I'm so glad she's decided to continue the challenge in 2013! December wasn't the busiest of months, but I did have two NewFOs ... first there was my doll swap quilt, the Christmas Shoo Fly . . .

And then there was Ellie's stocking . . .

I shared that stocking in Patricia's Christmas Stocking Hang Out linky party, over at Quilting Lines, and was rewarded with this darling little Daddy Longstockings pattern for participating:

Aren't these cute?  I especially like the one with holly traveling down the front!

And I've had time to start a few new things, too.  One is an all stitching project and the second is a combination of applique and stitching . . . 

And I'm only showing you pieces because I hope to have them *both* finished for the In Your Words blog hop, which starts MONDAY!  As in TOMORROW!

My day is Friday, January 11, so these two pieces are both my Slow Sunday Stitching and my design wall, too!  

Speaking of design walls (and hence Patchwork Times), I was a complete *bust* at the UFO challenge.  But this year, instead of tackling an entire project each month, Judy's tossing out a monthly challenge called "Get it Done," or in good ol' Alabamian terms, Get 'er done.  The idea is to set a goal of four quilting-related things you want to accomplish for each month.  That's so much more manageable for me!  

For January, my Get 'er Done list is:  (1) finish my two "words" projects, (2) complete a 6" crazy quilt block (for the CQJP Challenge), (3) my January doll quilt swap, and (4) get June's quilt top finished.  Whew! This is *so* do-able!

I think I see that letting an entire five days pass between posts isn't the best of ideas.  LOL!  I end up being wordy-wordsmith and taking three hours to write a post and get in everything I want to share, in!  I won't let it go quite so long next time.  In the meantime, enjoy your Sunday (and Monday and Tuesday) and your stitching, whatever it may entail!

Linking up today's post with Cat Patches' December NewFO Challenge, Patchwork Times's Get It Done Challenge, Kathy's Quilts' Slow Stitching Sunday, Patchwork Times's Stash Report #1 and Design Wall Monday!

:)