We are still navigating my recent retirement. In some ways it's been harder on My Guy then me. My entire routine has changed, but his basic routine hasn't changed much. He goes to work at the same time, at the same place, has the same office, though his job has changed somewhat due to the restructuring. But now I don't ride to work with him. I'm not just upstairs in my office if he wants to compare notes on a technical problem, wants coffee from my Keurig or is ready to go to lunch. It's ...
read moreOctober wasn't a great month for finding my way to the sewing room. This year has been challenging on a number of fronts and that's not going to change anytime soon. Rather than be disappointed, I'm going to celebrate the progress on projects no matter how little it may be, because there's no point in beating myself up for what's beyond my control. Any progress on my PHD in 2021 will make working towards a PHD in 2022 that much easier.
There aren't any updates to my PHD report this month.
No finishes, but ...
read moreIt's been a very nice week. We took off most of last week and took a trip to Eureka Springs, AR. It's a touristy town, but a very laid back one. We rented a little cottage not far from down town and pretty much just hung out. We walked a lot, ate a lot, read a lot, and I stitched a bit. The cottage had a wonderful front porch.
It was well sheltered from the rain. Since it rained a lot, we did spend a lot of time out here or in the cottage. I worked on my ...
read moreHard to believe it's already July 2021. The last two months have passed really fast for me. My work-life balance was pretty much non-existent during that time. Thankfully, things have improved and I have hopes of making more progress this month. So hopefully next month's PHD report will look a lot better than this one.
- 15 minute days/week = 7/7 days
- 15 minute days/May = 12/22 days
- 15 minute days/2021 = 122/142 days
- Success rate = 85.92%
Yesterday was cold and rainy, just really yucky. Walking to the car after work was really miserable. I'm hoping spring is going to get bolder and warm things up a bit more before unleashing torrents of rain. But that's not happening this morning, more rain on the way, though it won't last all day.
We had a good holiday. How about you? We did spend some time with family, but everyone was fully masked and socially distanced. It was important to my mother that we all get together, even for a just a brief time over the holiday.
Last week was the last full week in 2020, week 52. Hard to believe that 2021 is only a few days away. My last full week was reasonably good on the stitching front.
- 15 minute days/week = 7/7 days
- 15 minute days/Dec = 20/26 days
- 15 minute days/2020 = 319/361 days
- Success rate ...
For some reason, last week just didn't go very well in the sewing room. Mainly because I didn't speed much time there. What time spent with needle and thread was spent doing embroidery. I did make some progress on that front.
Half the butterfly is finished, so now I can move the hoop to start on the second half.
There was no change in Unity.
Unity, 2020 Bonnie Hunter Sew-In-Place Quilt Along |
Step 2 is still in progress. I'm hoping the rest of the steps don't take so long or else this is going to one ... read more
I head back to the office tomorrow after seven weeks of working from home. It's going to be weird. The last time I was out of the office for that long was when the Scientist in Training was born! I've been working from home, so the biggest change will be in my view and my access to the refrigerator. (Being farther away is not a bad thing!) Getting in my 15 minutes of stitching time a day shouldn't change much at all. How about you, are you going to struggle more with finding those 15 minutes to ...
read moreIt was a long week, working from home has its own challenges. Plus work was just really busy this week. That cut into my stitching time more than usual. How are you doing at fitting in at least 15 minutes of stitching time each day during this time of working from home and social distancing?
It's been a busy week on the work front, but I got one big project finished. That felt really good. Unfortunately my day off turned into just a half day off, but I still got to spend some extra time in the sewing room on Friday. How hard was it for you to get in your 15 minutes of stitching time this week?
I ended up working late one night this week, but still managed to get in my 15 minutes of stitching time before heading to bed.
15 minute days/week = 7/7 days
15 minute days/April ... read more
How is it already mid-April? We've been working from home for pretty much a month now. We've got a routine, but I'm not a fan of working from home. You'd think there would be some time savings with no commute, but I find it's harder to end the day on time.
So my stitching time hasn't increased. Add in making a few face masks for family and friends means that time for project sewing has actually been lower this month. But there has been some progress with the PHD program.
Binding and label are ...
The first quarter of 2020 is over. It's definitely not been the year I was expecting in terms of work and general life. The stuff going on the sewing room has been progressing almost normally. So I'm going to concentrate on what progress there's been there.
My 2020 Quilting Ambitions were pretty simple.
The big push this year is to finish a few quilts. I signed up with Quilting Gail's 2020 PHD Program to help keep me motivated on that front. And I can finally show some progress on that front.
A finish finally! The last ... read more
Learning to work at home has been an experience. But I'm grateful that we are all together and are able to social distance. After a week and half, I think we've got our work from home spaces figured out.
Sorry there was no 15 Minutes to Stitch linky party last week. My heart and head just weren't in it last weekend, I couldn't figure out a way to even start a blog post. So rather than force it, I just let it rest. So this week you can share how the last two weeks have gone ...
It's been very, very different the last week. I've been working from home since last Wednesday. The Scientist in Training has been home for spring break. It's been good to have her hanging out with us, though all of our shopping and family outings were canceled. I've been AWOL from the blog and the sewing room for the last week. It's been hard to adjust to the new normal. After spending all day working on the computer and coping with the news, we've chosen to spend the evenings and last weekend together as a ...
read moreIt's been a weird week at work. Unfortunately, that's likely to continue for a few weeks till the spread of Covid-19 slows down. Most meetings have been moved to remote access to limit the number of people in the same room and business travel is restricted. We're not working from home as yet, but that may be coming. But so far all the weirdness is not impacting my ability to work in 15 minutes of stitching time.
This week was really good on the stitching front.
15 minute days/week = 7/7 days
15 minute days/March ... read more
I'm about 70% back to normal after a week of having the flu. I'm still coughing to the point my chest is sore and my energy levels haven't returned to normal yet. But I'm doing much better than I was for most of the week. Hopefully your stitching efforts this week were much more productive than mine.
I didn't really feel really bad till Monday night when the high fever kicked in. Hand stitching was doable most of the week, except for the one day that my head hurt so bad, not much of anything ... read more
After hitting a fever of over 105 F on Monday night, My Guy decided it was time for a trip to the emergency room. Turns out I don't have a cold, I have the flu. That's even though I got the flu shot. All I've done today is sleep. My head hurt so bad, doing anything on the computer was pretty much off limits. But I'm going to try to get this post done before I head back to bed.
I actually didn't feel too bad on Monday, not well enough to spend time in ...
It was a really good week on the "To Do List" front. Last week's list shows three check marks.
Weekly To Do List (02/11/2020)
1. Winter Quilt Along: Package and ship out for quilting ✔
2. Frolic: Make six half blocks - progress
3. Wild and Goosey: Make an orange block ✔
4. Mosaic Mystery: Finish sewing blocks and rows together ✔
The quarter blocks for Frolic weren't on the to do list for this week, but it just seemed smart to roll those in with the half block construction as they use left over bits from the blocks. So ...
After having a fun week off to spend with family, I'm not ready to head back to work this morning. But once I get through this week, things should calm down for the rest of the year (fingers crossed that's actually true). Though I expect this week to be pretty rough with a number of long days.
There wasn't a lot of sewing room time even though I was off work. There was lots of prep work that went along with all the family time. But I did get in some time with the embroidery project.
The ... read more