Spend less than you earn

I bought an Aqueon Water Changer at PetSmart on Friday to make cleaning my pond much easier, as I have been watching it in use for months now, and can see how well it works. Pricey, but worth it.
However, Saturday my Viking Sapphire went on the blink and I have to take it to be serviced this week, SOOOO, the Aqueon has to go back for my money back. Good thing I didn't get around to using it right away. It hasn't even been opened. People do bring things back that have been opened and even used and expect their money back, but I am not one of those people. It is against my outdated and unwelcome moral/ethical code and that's that.
Damn, I sure liked the days when I had enough money to do both at the same time. Course, I guess I didn't really. I just used to use the credit card for one of them. No longer an option. Those days are gone forever.
We finally paid off my foolish credit card balances and I have learned my lesson. Sure, I remember an item here and there that I bought on credit, but guess what. We are mostly not living any worse without my credit card purchases than we were with them, and now we don't owe anybody anything.
DH has been harping on this for years; that is why they were MY credit card purchases and I can only feel lucky that he did participate in helping me pay them off after he lost his job and I had to start paying for living expenses as well as whatever I please.

Quilting, finally

With my un-precedented 3 days off in a row, I am trying to get some actual quilting done, on the Medallion top I just finished in the quiltalong. Yesterday I got it pin-basted and the edges overlocked, so today I will start to quilt. DH and his friend are working on a handyman-construction job, so I(yay) get to do whatever I want with my time until he gets home at night.
My back is already hurting, though, so I plan to sew for a couple of hours and then do my Healthy Back Yoga DVD before I do any more. If all else fails, I can go to the chiropractor tomorrow afternoon.
I just want to quilt; I don't want to mark, and I don't want to have to do a lot of thinking about it, so I will just start and see what looks good as I go along. Later.

No more new quilt tops

Not that is, until I quilt at least one top already done, and maybe two. My pile of quilt tops waiting to be quilted is almost as high as the pile of completed quilts.

Medallion Quilt top finished!

But I will try and take more photos after the sun goes down to show its colors better. I hung it up on the south side of the screened porch because that was the best sized flat place I could find, but you can see the post behind showing through, and there is WAYYYY too much light. Kuku likes it though.

Medallion Quilt progress

I have finished the next-to-the-last border on this Medallion Quilt that I have been sewing along with some others in a Quilt-A-Long. I think I am behind, but there is only one border to go after this.

Quilting in the Desert

I attended 2 classes at QID in the last week. It is held at the Crowne Plaza Hotel and the classes are at Ottawa University, very handy to I-17 for commuters. Thursday I sewed at Sue Nickels class, Stitched Raw Edge Applique, and practiced her machine applique method. I think I will be using this method most of the time from now on, and Sue is a great teacher and a very nice person too. My block is less than 1/4 stitched, but I did finish the fusing on Friday and will stitch it as soon as I finish the hearts I have at the machine now.
Then on Saturday I attended Cristy Finchers class Suzie-Q, which is a large black-eyed susan using Sharon Schamber's(Cristy's mother)Piece-lique method. It is fiddly, for sure, but worth it if you are making something one-of-a-kind. I sure wouldn't want to do it if I was making 100 blocks! But look at what I made! DH asked what I am going to do with it, but I have no idea. Its enough right now to hang it up until I am ready to stitch it. It is just all glued together right now, as I somehow managed to lose my sewing machine power cord between Thursday and Saturday.
When I unpacked on Saturday, I just figured I had left it at home since I had to unpack and repack before the Sat class, but looked when I got home last night and its not here either. I must have left it Thursday at the first class. I will email Audrey to see if anybody turned it it, but I don't have much hope of getting it back. It shouldn't be too hard to find another (famous last words), but darn I hate losing stuff that way.