Christmas Eve 'till Now

We spent early Christmas eve with my best friend and her family, with a light potluck and exchanging gifts. This has been about the 5th yr we've celebrated together, since Mom and I don't have any family in OK.

Later Christmas Eve, my computer caught a virus/bug. I tried for over 10+ hours trying to de-bug it, re-set, and systerms restore. Nothing worked. Thankfully a man a church fixes computers professionally, so he said he'd like to take a look at mine. I also have a spare box that so I can run my computer, after having updated the printer/fax, firewalls, virus scant, etc. I've been up and running ever since!

On Dec. 26 and 27, Mom spent 2 days in respite care at a lcoal nursinghome while I attended a quilting retreat sponsored by my small group, the Piecemakers in Mustang. I got there at Noon both days. We were working on the pattern, Slideshow by Atkinson Designs, www.atkinsondesigns.com, unless we had other things we needed to work on. I was busy cutting out teals and teal/brown combos for my pregnant neice's quilt. I also began getting my Old Tobacco Rd, http://quiltville.com/oldtobaccoroadintro.shtml
It's a Bonnie Hunter mystery quilt, and finally had a quilter get the "REAL" printout about how it was to be laid out. I was trying to start with bricks on the top and left side, but that was't Bonnie's plan and I couldn't figure out what I was doing wrong till I saw the setting pictures. The OTR is set on the diagonal as it's put together. Now I've got some frogging to do on the piece I goofed on.

At the retreat, I brought enough fabric to work on about 5 quilts. One of my friends even bought a tan, that I was intending to use as the background for my teals, since she didn't have one. I had other tans I could use at home. I jokingly called my self a "Turtle" since I brought so many things with me that the other quilters had forgotten, like seam rippers and extra fabric. LOL!

My New Year's resolution is to get a new job, beginning Feb. 2, 2009. I put in 4 applications to a nationwide bank that has many offices in the OKC area. I'll be putting in more applications later this week. I also need to review and change the answers to the interview questions. Somehow I've been blundering thru the interviews, but haven't been offered the jobs I've tried to get. My current work is having me be off work at 7pm or 7:30pm, but the adult daycare Mom attends closes at 6:30pm. I've been doing really great, picking Mom up during the week. On Saturdays, I've had to arrange Mom-sitters to pick her up, since the daycare closes earlier. Since Nov. 1, I've been having to recruit Mom-sitters to pick her up *EVERY* time that I work. This has been a tremendous stressor for me, because once all 4 Mom-sitters were unavailable. I became sick with the stress (another Sinus Infection) and stayed home that cay. I feel like my work's having me choose between Work and Mom. That's a great incentive to begin a career elsewhere. I've done 20 yrs and 6 months where I'm currently employed, having worked in 3 states and 5 different buildings. I'm off to work now and need to cut out brp cloths when I get home. http://homemadebyjill.blogspot.com/2008/01/burp-cloth-tutorial.htm