I got your back!

So did you sign up for the Canadian Quilter's Association Mini Swap??  It's going to be so much fun!! Hey - quilting is our hobby - we'd better be having fun with it or we need to find a new hobby. How many quilts can you make for you or your family?? This is something new and you get to make a new friend. I hope you signed up!!! 

I know that Nine did as she sent me an e-mail. Good morning Nina!!  She also sent me a link to her blog where she sewed the same backpack (well - the slightly larger one). She made some changes - we did not, but the next time we will.

Yesterday was a wild day! Ronda and I were determined to get our backpacks DONE. There will be no (or little) creating new UFOs when there is so much that needs to be finished already. She arrived bright and early and we set up the sewing machines. She was sewing on the Husqvarna Viking Designer EPIC and I was sewing on the PFAFF creative icon. This will become important in a minute.

As usual, there were lots of learning moments and I'll share a couple of them with you. I'll also say that it's a good thing we weren't live streaming our sessions because there were a few times when - let's just say the air was blue! And it wasn't from cigarette smoke!

When we had gotten together the last time (you can read about it here), we managed to get all the pieces prepped. Oh - we had high hopes to make the backpacks in one day! HA - what foolish girls we were to think that!

So the appropriate color threads got loaded onto the sewing machines and we were off. We pinned the pattern to that stack of quilts (which are still waiting to be trimmed) and started to make the backpack back. Ronda did NOT put straps on her back - only the carry handle at the very top and she did NOT put any inside pockets in hers either!

This part of the bag went together fairly easily - it's the back of the backpack with a handle, shoulder straps (and the tabs for the straps at the bottom) as well as an outside zippered pocket.

The backpack back

You'll notice that the backpack is no longer a rectangle but has been shaped. That was an interesting task, but we made out just fine. There is a slip pocket on the other side.

Then we moved onto the front. A little finagling and we managed to get the fronts made as well. We also had to shape the backpack front and that was a task cutting it with the rotary cutter. Next time - we'd better put in a new blade. That's a LOT of layers to cut through. Just wait until we get to the sewing part!  I also would change the position of the magnetic snap on that flap.

Many, many layers!

There they are - the front and the back!! Shoot - I should have taken pictures of the insides with their many pockets as you can't really see them once the backpack is assembled. 

The front and the back of the backpack

Next up was making the gusset. This included another zipper. Oh no - I remember the zipper experience from last time. I couldn't get the zipper slide on the zipper tape if my life depended on it. Thank goodness Ronda was here and helped me out.

We learned two things yesterday about zippers. If you have a buddy, then one person can get the zipper slide on the zipper tape and the other person pulls the zipper slide to make the zipper. 

One way to add the zipper slide

But if you happen to be alone, it's a pain in the butt. So I gently put the zipper slide onto the zipper tape. Then I VERY CAREFULLY pinned it to the ironing board. 

The zipper tape is pinned to the ironing board

Then VERY SECURELY hold both sides of the zipper tape with one hand and gently pull the zipper slide with the other. This was FAST, FAST, FAST.  I'm not afraid to make my own zippers in the future. Notice how the ends are perfectly lined up? I find that if I do it in my hands that one side is off. No more wonky zippers!!!!

A perfect end to the zipper

I shall not tell you what happened to Ronda's zipper but we had to redo her zipper slide. Let's just say that there are NO STOPPERS on either end of the zipper. Ooops!!!!  In fact, we made a two-way sliding zipper so the zippers meet in the middle of the backpack rather than start at one side. Oh yes - we're good!!!

Another great end to the zipper

Once that gusset was made and that involved more trimming and the insertion of the zipper, it was time to do the final assembly. We started by sewing the gusset to the backpack back. The seams were finished with bias binding. I thought it was going to look terrible, but it actually looks pretty neat. I didn't get any pictures of it. Why? Too focused on getting those seams done. I did have to redo the bottom two corners when I sewed the last part of the bias binding down as it didn't sit right. And if Shelly happens to look inside - well, we wanted our bags to be Shelly worthy. You see, Shelly is a bag maker extraordinaire and we're trying to get into her league! I think we did a pretty good job yesterday!

The gusset is sewn to the back

Then came the final seams. Sewing the gusset to the front. This is where the air turned blue pretty quickly. That was a challenging seam to sew, although I noticed that Ronda was not having the same issues as I was. Perhaps, she's just not as vocal. But I had extra layers with pockets and straps and it was "fun".

Not only were we going through many, many layers of foam and binding and fabrics, but the curves were tight and the backpack is stiff. But not so stiff that we couldn't manipulate it. My arms were getting tired as I manhandled that bag.

Challenging curves to sew

Trying to get that last binding seam around the curves. 

One last challenge around the curves

Now here's the thing. Ronda sewed on the Husqvarna Viking Designer EPIC and I sewed on the PFAFF creative icon. Those are both top of the line sewing machines with HUGE penetration power (they both can sew through 14 layers of heavy denim or basically whatever thickness you can actually put under the foot). They both have significantly more space between the bed of the machine and the head of the sewing machine - it's about 3 - 4 inches than a traditional sewing machine.

Since I had more straps and pockets and therefore more layers, the PFAFF creative icon at times, said - "you have too much fabric under the needle". But I talked gently to it and it agreed to continue sewing with no skipped stitches. How could one ever sew this on a traditional sewing machine? I've no idea. I'm sure that people do, but those last parts were a challenge. I wonder what kind of sewing machines they use at byAnnie.com???  They must use industrial machines?

Anyway - I think the thread broke only once or twice for each of us which is amazing and that's thanks to these high-end machines. We didn't even use topstitch needles which we should have done for the assembly part. And there were NO broken needles. And once or twice the extra penetration power kicked in on the PFAFF creative icon and scared me to death with the noise!

Bottom line - we are done!!!!! The excitement was building as we approached the finish line. I guess you can tell which one belongs to me and which one belongs to Ronda.

Backpacks are DONE

The front of my backpack.

The front of the backpack

Here's the back of my backpack.

The back of the backpack

Here's Ronda's.

The front of Ronda's backpack

It was an awesome day! I highly recommend that if you've got a challenging project to make and you know someone who wants to make the same thing - do it together. There are a couple of spots where I would have taken a break, but because we egged each other on - we kept going and there is NO UFO.

I should mention that the pattern we used is from byAnnie.com. It's called Back at Ya. Now we used the original version of the pattern which was released in 2014. I believe there was another version released in 2018 (called Back at Ya 2.0) and this latest release is Back at Ya 2.1. I wonder how many of the issues we had have been revolved in the subsequent releases. Personally, I think that anyone who bought the original Back at Ya should get the Back at Ya 2.1. I shouldn't have to buy a new pattern just because the original was badly written. I'll be sending some pictures and thoughts. Here's a video so you can see some of the insides of the bag.   And if you check out this video - you get to see the other versions of the pattern. 

I'm super excited and I pulled out my yoga bag (also byAnnie.com pattern) so I could start on that. However, I have a ton of admin stuff to get done today and hopefully work on another sample because I hit the road tomorrow for meetings and training for a week. It's all about sewing and serging so it's going to be fun and to spend the week immersed in new stuff that coming down the pipeline of which I cannot breathe a word - you'll have to wait!!! 

This is my FIRST FINISH of 2020. There's going to be a whole lot more as well. I'm pumped, I'm committed to myself and I will make this happen.

As for my virtual challenge? We had sat around Studio B for most of the day so I was about 7,500 steps at dinner time. That's not good enough - I need to hit 10,000 steps for the day or I'm going to be behind the pace for the challenge. I took the girls out for a walk last night - they were thrilled. The weather was gorgeous. I see from the stats this morning - that I'm .9 of a mile behind the pace. No big deal. I could make that up today. It's going to be a challenge next week sitting in the meeting room, but last year, I went for a long walk in the morning and I see the weather is going to be good so I plan on doing that again!!!

On that note, I'm out of here!!!

Have a great day!!!

Ciao!!!

The silence is deafening

I finally got off my butt and had our furnace serviced for the upcoming (OK - we live in Ontario - we've been using the furnace for a couple of months) winter. Isn't today the first day of winter? Anyway, the furnace is 23 years old and for the last couple of years, the service technicians have been strongly suggesting that we replace the furnace. Not ready to jump into things, we kept putting it off. I had visions of HUGE expenses and wasn't prepared to cough up a lot of money.

The furnace

Besides getting a wee lecture on keeping the filters clean, everything was fine. We have a maintenance plan and the service guy was out the door in quick order. But NOT before I agreed to have a salesperson come visit the next day which was yesterday. Like the service tech the day before, the salesperson arrived an hour EARLY.

After walking through the information, I decided that it was definitely worth our while to get a new furnace and A/C (although we don't use it - but for resale at some point down the road) and it was only going to cost and extra $100 (more or less per month). That's not bad and way better than I envisioned. In total, that appointment lasted a couple of hours and we got the pre-inspection done, the parts are ordered and the install date is set for Christmas Eve. Yipppeeeee!!!!

I did note during the day that I was cold. Colder than usual, but it was a sunny day and the furnace doesn't kick in a lot when the sun shines. However, by bedtime, I thought I better have a look at the thermostat to see if they had changed the temperature when the inspection guys were messing around with stuff.

Oh boy - big trouble. The thermostat is DEAD. I've searched the sides for an On/off switch and I don't see anything. It's quite loose on the wall where it wasn't before and I bet with all the inspecting, they've loosened or disconnected something. Guess what that means - we have NO FURNACE.

The thermostat is dead

So at 10 PM last night, I was on the phone trying to book a service call. The dispatcher came back with an appointment on Sunday. WAIT A MINUTE - it's winter and you want me to live without a furnace for two entire days?  I think not! I did manage to get a service call for tonight at 7 PM. It's amazing how NOISY the HVAC system in the house. It's so quiet with no fan blowing. Let's hope that the guy is one hour early like the previous two appointments!

In the meantime, I guess I'll be resorting to an extra sweater. Thankfully, the weather is going above zero today with sunshine so that'll make the house warm. The pilot light in our gas fireplace is out and I'm terribly afraid of anything gas. So when the guys come tonight, I'm going to get them to relight the pilot light!

Here's the deal - if you've been hesitating to get a new furnace, I'd go for it! Yes - it's extra money each month, but hopefully, the new system will be way more efficient. I mean - the current system is 23 years old. There's bound to be new. It means a whole lot of changes in the furnace area - new ductwork, new venting, new, new, new. It appears (and we know this as the gospel truth) that when a builder builds a home, they put crap in and don't care about most things. There are a lot of things wrong with the way our furnace was installed. We're lucky that we got 23 years out of it!

As a result of all that, I lost several hours that I was going to work on my UFOs, but it's all going to be worth it in the end. If we survive today! Way back when I lived in Quebec, my furnace died on me. Not a fun day. I had just had my wisdom teeth taken out and when my friend dropped me off at my house, I was flying higher than a kite. The house was frigid - it was January in Quebec. And to top it off? The dog had destroyed a couple of pillows so there was pillow fluff all over the house!! Now how can you ever forget a day like that? Fortunately, my friend stayed and cleaned up the pillow mess, called the furnace repair people and put me to bed! Oh, what fun!

I've been busy at the long arm for the last couple of days as well and happy to report that all the customer quilts for the year are quilted! I still have to sew on a binding later today.

Customer quilt - DONE

Customer quilt - DONE

And here's the third one.

Custome quilt - DONE

Things were going so merrily along with that third quilt - I should be done by dinner. BUT when I advanced the quilt to do the third row, I almost had a heart attack. What the heck???? This is what I saw. NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!

Eyelash stitching on the back

This is not good and it was for half of the row. That is a good thing as you'll see. I looked at the first part of the row. Hmm - no eyelash, but not good stitching. That was for about 3/8 of a row. The first 1/8 was fine.

Better but not good enough

I finished the quilt. Then without removing it from the long arm, I unrolled it and got out a chair and the seam ripping tools and I ripped and I ripped and I ripped. It took as long to get rid of that perfectly stitched 1/8 as it did to get rid of the bad stitching. I wasn't sure how close I could get the quilting matched up - well - I could get it perfect, but I thought it would be better to rip out the entire row. It took FOREVER!!!

Ripping and ripping

I've no idea why that happened. Unless it was at at a bobbin change and the bobbin wasn't inserted properly. You can believe that I watched that quilt like a hawk to see if it happened again. It did not.

Once the row was ripped out, I rolled the quilt back up. You see, little tiny registration marks are added as each row is quilted. That made it pretty simple to get that row back in place.

Thre's a tiny blue dot as a registration mark

And now the quilt is lined back up after I adjusted the computer to match the row on the quilt although all rows were the same - I restitched the second row.

The second row is ready to restitch

The stitching should look like this. AHA - you can't see the stitching and that's what I was aiming for.

Really good stitching

That put me back a lot and I was so focused on the audiobook and the ripping, that I didn't notice the temperature in the house had dropped until late! Oh yes - yesterday was a comedy of errors all around. I did go for a walk, but I was almost afraid to go out in case something happened. By all standards, it was a boring walk and I was just fine with that.


I did get some sewing done for me  - not a lot, but I did get some. I managed to get the sleeve made for the plastic bottom in that Weekender bag that Shelly finished off for me.

The sleeve for the plastic bag bottom

And it's inserted into the bag. Done!

The bottom is in the bag

On that note, I'm out of here! I did accomplish a fair bit of paperwork yesterday. I see there's more to do today - yippee!!! And then I have another quilt to tackle this afternoon. Oh - there's loads to say about the quilt (don't worry - it doesn't belong to any customer). You'll get the whole scoop tomorrow - should I survive the deep freeze which is our house! Hmm - this would be the perfect day to box up the junk in the office. I need to keep moving in order to stay warm. Let's see what happens.

Have a super day!!!!

Ciao!!

It's tidy up time

I had a very productive day yesterday. I'm working on my blog posts for QUILTsocial and I had so much fun making stuff. I can't wait to share with you what I made and what machine I made the projects on! It would spoil the fun if I told you now. I think I'm almost done all the making and photographing so that leaves editing photos and writing. I can do that anywhere.

I figured since I'm constantly lamenting about cleaning up that I should just get off my butt and get something accomplished in that area. No one wants to hear me constantly whine about something that I have complete control over. I was in the backyard sneaking a few moments with some watermelon and a book when I thought I should tackle the shed.

It's a mess. I remember when M was much younger, that she and a friend were going to spend the night in that shed. It's finished inside so it looks like a little playhouse. I don't think they made the entire night out there, but let's just say that at one point, it was pretty neat and clean inside.

And last year, a friend of mine was getting rid of a plastic storage shelf and did I want it? Yes - the intention was that it would go in the shed, however, it's sat in the garage for a year.

So this is what happened. Sorry - no before picture - I just went for it!

I tossed everything out of the shed except for the tub of sand that was in there. Actually, it was in a plastic bag that was disintegrating so I scooped all the sand into a plant pot that I found and it got rolled into a corner. The sand is for the interlocking driveway. There were furniture cushions, patio chairs, gardening stuff, and junk. Lots and lots of junk.

Emptying the shed

This is what the shed looked like once most of the stuff was removed. It's not totally waterproof as you can see from the floor, but it keeps things pretty dry. As I was sweeping up the sand, Miss Lexi was not too pleased as the sand was going between the floorboards into her space.

Inside of the shed

I filled two big black bags of garbage. Why did it not get put in the garbage before???  I found three shovels, two hoes, and a HUGE number of gardening gloves. In the picture below, can you see the blue bucket on the shelf? It's filled with gardening gloves. I don't garden much. I probably don't need them all, but I kept them. They are neatly placed in that container on the shelf.

What the shed looks like now

Seriously - I found stuff in there that blows my mind. I found two nice hanging candle holders - never taken out of the original shopping bag. Didn't find a receipt, but that's got to be over 10 years ago that they were purchased. I found two full containers of weed control stuff. And one morning as I had been reflecting with the fish and noticed how clear the bottom of the pond was and trying to figure out a way to keep it that way once the leaves start to fall, I thought we needed some kind of a net. Guess what I found in the shed? Yep - a never out of the box netting for the pond.

That's just wrong and it's totally my fault!! I'm over it, but it just amazes me. And I think my mother is bad. I just have to look in the mirror! However, I'm trying to do something about it - she never did. That's how I can justify the situation.

Anyway, I put four chairs in the garage to go out on garbage day and put the other four back in the shed. It was only while we were eating dinner and I was explaining what I had found in the shed when I realized that we don't have cushions for that set of four chairs. I guess they need to go in the garage as well. I did a wee bit of tidying in the garage, but that should happen before fall and really I should call one of those junk people to come and pick up some stuff. We don't have enough to fill a truck. I should call for pricing - just to get it over with. It would be nice to have a wee bit more room in the garage. OK -- I'm going to book an appointment for when I'm back from the road trip. Imagine how nice it would be to have space!!!!  Enough of this messing around.

We have an umbrella stand for our table. We have the bottom stand and the umbrella - but what happened to the middle piece???  I think that will go as well. Good grief. Enough is enough.

Guess what else I found in the shed? M will get a kick out of this. Once when we were on vacation in BC, we bought this wooden toy for her. It's a BC Ferry. We used to float it in our pond. It's a little worse for wear. What do you think??

Sunken ship

Thanks to National Geographic for the picture.

OH -- here's the ferry!!!!

M's ferry

The wood is all disintegrating and it's lost one of the things on the bottom. Sadly, it will go in the garbage, but I took a picture and it'll bring back lots of memories. That's enough!

Now back to the studios. This is my Tonga Rapsody that I'm trying to get finished. It's one of the UFO items on the 2018 list. Now that I have the fabric, the quilt top, and the pattern, it's time to get this done.

Tonga Rhapsody

Thank goodness for making a fabric key. Without that, I would have had to make up what fabric went where. The top is together - it just needs the five borders added and some of them are pieced.

Fabric key is a fabulous tool

The five borders are now cut out and ready to be sewn. Once I'm back from the road trip, I'll have some free time and hope to get working on this as well as more samples! You can never have enough samples.

The borders are cut for Tonga Batik

I also did a wee bit of poking in the stuff that is sitting in that corner. I found three pieces of material that are up for grabs if anyone wants them. These first two are heavier  - decorator fabric and I believe it's 54" wide. It's like a canvas, but it's not canvas. They would both be awesome for tote bags. I have so much that I don't need these two pieces.

Two pieces of decorator fabric

I also have this roll of upholstery fabric. I have a large ottoman upholstered in this fabric and technically, it could be reupholstered since it's faded so badly. But I will put something different on it. I think this was going to be used for roman blinds or something like that. I don't want or need it. Can anyone use it???

Fabric up for grabs

There has to be someone who uses decorator fabric. So many of us have decorator fabric that we no longer want and we need to find a good home for it. I really think these (especially the first two pieces) would be awesome for tote bags.

Then I found this bucket which is filled with bits and pieces of bags. It's not just fabric - the pieces are cut out, zippers are in the box as well. I'll be going through this slowly to try and make some sense of it. I'm overwhelmed as I look at this mess - imagine how someone else would feel???  Yep - this lot would be going in the garbage if someone else found it. I do NOT want that to happen so that's why I'm going to work through the stuff. I'm having fun so no big deal.

A bucket of stuff for making small bags

I've no idea why I would cut many of the same things. These were for the Humbug bag (which I no longer like). Each piece consists of a lining and an outer piece and they are stitched together with NO interlining. Hate that!! So today, while the embroidery machine is chugging away, I'll be ripping this out. I know - most wouldn't, but I find that the entire process of recycling stuff and making it work differently is extremely satisfying and relaxing. There's ZERO stress in ripping out. Call me crazy - it's the pioneer spirit in me. And NO - I don't need your off casts projects - I've got enough of my own!!!

Bag sections to rip out

If only we had the same experience and knowledge when we were younger that we have now. It's the same with life in general - if we only knew - we'd be brilliant!!!

I see the book sale season is going to be upon us soon!!!! I saw a sign for the Mississauga Symphony Book sale. Here's the information for a couple in Mississauga for those of you who live in the area. I need to find out when that big one is in Guelph. AHA - a quick search and VOILA. Here are the dates for the Guelph book sale. This is a HUGE one. ACK -- I might not be able to get there unless it's open late.

On that note, I'd better run. I've got company coming today and the embroidery machine is going to be fired up. I didn't quite get all the cutting done that I was supposed to do! You have to wait to see what we're making.

Have a super day!!!!


Ciao!!!

Getting stuff for free or almost

Like all of you (well most of you), I own a lot of quilting stuff. I'd like to say that my stuff is all organized and labeled and I could dig out pretty much anything you ask for. For the most part, that's true, but there's a lot of stuff.

I've been quilting in Studio B, the last couple of days and while the machine runs, I've been poking around in some of the bags. Oh boy - there's a lot of stuff.

I came up with an idea of what to do with some of the stuff. You'll have to wait for that. I think it's pretty exciting. At least, it's a plan on what to do with all of it.

Not only is there a lot of fabric, but there are lots of UFOs (that's the one that bothers me the most), there are supplies, notions, tools. You name it - it's downstairs. Each time, I come upstairs, I'm starting to bring up a bag of stuff. I'm taking it right upstairs (got one bedroom set aside to take all this stuff!). My plan is to sort through it and label it and find a more "permanent" home for it rather than an IKEA bag where it's been forgotten. The less that we have to deal with when they start the floor, the better. I know that it's going to be a mess for a couple of weeks while they work. No start date yet, but we're negotiating right now.

But the other day, Ronda was over and we were looking for some hardware to make some little zippered pouches. Hmm - I think I have some hardware. I went to one of the storage closets and pulled out a box. OK - so I found two boxes of bag hardware. One of them was half filled with fabric that I was going to make into bags.

I spilled the contents of both out onto the kitchen table. Oh boy!

Bag hardware

I found this many packages of NEVER OPENED swivel hardware.

Packages of swivel hardware

Then I found a whole bunch of lanyards from various trade shows. Even DH brings home his lanyard. HEY - there's good stuff on many of those lanyards.

Lanyards with good hardware attached

I even found some shoulder straps for purses that I had bought at ValueVillage. I mean - TWO swivel hardware pieces for NINTY-NINE cents???  That's practically free!!!!!

Shoulder strap for a purse

One of the shoulder straps was still in the plastic wrap. It had never been used.

Brand new shoulder strap

With my trusty scissors, the hardware was soon separated from the lanyards and straps. That takes up a whole lot less space. I'm not sure I'll use those clips in the top left, but I kept them - just in case. Each category has been stored back in one of the boxes in a separate bag.

Four different types of hardware from the lanyards

Then the fabric and bag handles (new ones) and a few other trims were put back in the big box.

Bag stuff back in the box

When I was in the closet to get something else, I discovered ONE MORE BOX of bag hardware.

The third box of bag hardware

That got dumped out on the table and then integrated into the other two boxes.

More bag hardware

Actually, I think there are still three boxes of stuff - just much better organized. That's my plan with the house. Get the like stuff together, then it's easy to deal with. If things are scattered, how can you take inventory???

 These are the kind of swivel hooks that we were looking for and guess how many loose ones we found in the box or that were attached to the lanyards???  Yep - all of these. That's totally crazy. But not that much. Let's just say that a few of these got used in the last couple of days. Can't show you yet. But super cute!!!!

Swivel hooks for bags

I'm definitely a morning person and taking total advantage of having the house to myself. I'm quilting away on the long arm which I love doing first thing in the morning. The light is much better in Studio B, while the light in Studio U is not great when it's dark outside. Hmm - so what about the noise when I'm not alone? I've tested it out. While you can hear the long arm working even with the bedroom door closed, I bet DH wouldn't hear it. I might just start quilting first thing in the morning!!  I've been making great progress in the quilting area and will share that with you another day.

But seriously, I get it that some people aren't morning people, but I'm so a morning person. I saw a saying the other day - "If you get up late, you're considered lazy. Are you lazy if you go to bed early?"   That's me then - lazy!!! But after a good sleep, I can tackle anything. Obviously, I had a good sleep last night as I have half a large quilt already quilted this morning! I will NOT tell you what time I got up, but the quilt was already loaded!

They say that it takes 6 weeks to change a habit or to create a new habit. I used to go to Tim's for a tea (or previously a hot chocolate) every day. Sometimes several times a day. I switched from hot chocolate to tea a while back. And when I wanted to get rid of even more refined sugar from my diet, I switched to decaf tea. I had two sugar in the steeped tea and none in the decaf. Yet, I have tea at my house and how hard is it to make tea??

So for the last year or more, I've been making tea at home. I know - do NOT judge me! I'm merrily working my way through the various tea chests and bags of tea that have accumulated in the cupboard. This is the box I'm currently working on. It's filled with a variety of different teas. Each morning is a surprise!

My small tea chest

 I had to laugh because on the morning that that e-mail came in, this was the tea right up front in the tea chest. A soothing herbal tea!!!  It must have worked.

A "calming" herbal tea

One very important thing that I've learned about tea. I used to drink the steeped tea from Tim's and it's so bitter that I needed to put sugar in it to make it drinkable. When I switched to the decaf, I didn't need sugar. Why? I seriously feel that the steeped tea is burnt. I know - hard to believe, but that steeping process at those hot, hot temperatures just burns the flavor. The decaf tea (from a tea bag) doesn't get the same treatment.

I've found the same thing at home - if you pour pouring water over most tea, they end up tasting bitter. That's why if you're a tea drinker, you NEED one of these kettles. It has different temperature settings and it's the best thing ever!!!

Kettle with various temperatures

Thanks to M who, years ago, introduced us to this kind of kettle. There is only one thing that I dislike about this kettle. It has a "keep warm" function. DH tends to put water in the kettle, hits the temperature setting, then "keep warm", and then "start". He then walks away and will come back much, much later because he has forgotten or got involved with a phone call. Could you take a few minutes to just wait for the kettle, make the tea and then shut it off???

Anyway - I feel better that I'm using stuff that we have in the house and I'm saving money (and the environment) at the same time! No cups are thrown out. I do treat myself once a week for Tim's decaf tea.

The other thing I've learned about sugar - refined sugar that is. We make jokes that if we eat something sweet that it'll go to our hips. Come on - we've all said that. Well - it's true. Except the sugar goes to my waist. I can tell if I've been cheating and overindulging on the refined sugar (and trust me - I don't eat a lot), but my waist is puffier when I eat refined sugar. That's how bad it is for you and how literally, it'll go to your hips. My weight is stable - just body content changes - less lean and more fat!! I know cause I also checked it on the scale at the gym. UGG!!! 

As I was puttering in the basement, I found another stack of cloth bags! I know - where the heck did they all come from. They are grouped together and I'll be letting Jane know so she can use them for the food bank.

More cloth bags

Holy - I wonder what else I'm going to find as I search through that stuff down there.

I even managed to get out and do some gardening yesterday. OK - so I dug dandelions from the front. Took me about a half hour. I'm going to dig them from my neighbor's small lawn today. That's the extent of my gardening, except that I really, really need to get some mulch. I might do that today. The rest of the time that I spend in the "garden", is in the gazebo - relaxing!

Oh - I'm reading a book on my iPad. I'm so not used to reading e-books, but I don't think that's the problem with this book. I'm reading The Thomas Berryman Number. It's the first book by James Patterson that he wrote in 1976 or something like that. It's so damn confusing. I have no idea what's happening in the book. Thank god he changed his style!!!!  If you read the reviews on that link, I'm not alone. Thank you!!!!

On that note, I'm out of here!!!

Have a super day!!!!


Ciao!!!