FINALLY! YAY!

 

I made 12 of these for Christmas gifts for friends.  They are little pillows - it's hard to tell from this picture.

 

 

I made 10 of these - Christmas gifts for family.

I also made 12 of these - for friends and stuffed them with pine.

 

I made 12 of these for my staff.

 

 

And this I made in the fall from a class I took.  I hung just the top and it was too big for the space I have to hang it.  So, just recently, when I got ready to add the batting and backing - I ripped off the outer border so that it fits in the space I have.  I still like it, but really liked it with the boarder.  This is something I have to learn how to do - make the pattern to fit the space I have to hang it.

 

 

I have had a lot going on in my life over the past 3 weeks!  We had lay offs at work and three of my staff got laid off.  And two of my staff got bumped out of their jobs.  Then one of the people who bumped them decided she really didn't want to do that job, so the person with more seniority that got bumped out of their job - bumped the other person.  It's been like a roller coaster.  Still don't know if it's official that she bumped - might not know that until the end of this week coming up.  So, my boss and I have been meeting to try to figure out who is going to get what job duties of the people that left.  Then this week I found out that since I am eligible to retire this year, if I don't then I'll lose my option to buy health care unless I work for the county for 32 years.  Well, that's not going to happen - I don't want to be 77 and still working!  However, I had thought of staying on another five years until I could get Medicare, but things are just too unstable at work and I could very easily get laid off before then so...looks like I'm retiring in August!  Darn...  :)  Things might be a little tight for a bit, but we'll do okay.   Even though I had been planning/hoping to retire in December I now feel like this wasn't my choice...wierd right?! 

 

Yesterday I pinned batting and backing to a small quilt top that I had made many years ago.  Then I ironed fabric for a baby quilt that I'm making for one of my staff.  Today I will cut the fabric and hopefully get some of the blocks sewn.  I've also been working on my brother's afghan hoping to get it finished before we got to Tennesse in March.  I have some cross stitch that I want to get started on as well as start hooking on a mat that has been on my frame forever!

 

Hope you have a good week!

 



Lay offs

Well, for those who checked in yesterday - I did not get laid off.  But sadly three of my staff did as well as 11 other people throughout our agency.  My staff have been in my office most of the morning while we talked and cried and laughed and cried some more.  I feel soooo bad for them....  I'm not a happy camper right now.

New beginnings....

I hope everyone had a nice holiday!  I enjoyed Christmas Eve with my children and grandchildren immensely.  My grandson, Dominic who is 2, and one of my other grandsons, Liam who is 4 were quite entertaining.  Liam is basically an only child as his big sister is living in Florida and going to college - she's a sophmore.  Any way - he tends to be on the shy, quiet side.  Dominic who is the youngest of 6 - his brothers and sisters are 20, 18, 16, 13, 8, and then Dominic at 2.  He tends to be a miniature while man.  He had all sorts of energy and was running from the kitchen, through the living room, down the hallway and back into the kitchen.  Liam was just standing laughing at the craziness when Dominic stopped and said, " 'et's go Booby, 'et's won!"  (for whatever reason Dominic can't or won't say Liam so he calls him Booby!) then he grabbed Liam by the arm and started dragging him as he ran.  Pretty soon they were both running like wild indians.  I was sitting on the floor because I'd been play with my great granddaughter.  All of a sudden Dominic comes to a screeching halt right in front of me, throws his arms back and roars at me.  I pretend he's scared me which causes him and Liam to laugh and laugh and of course do that to me repeatedly.  So I showed them how to flex their muscles when they roared.  I laughed at them so much.  My son got a kick out of Liam actually taking part in playing and his wife got a kick of me crawling around on the floor with them.  Needless to say - Christmas day I was sore!  And my face hurt from all the laughing I did.  It was wonderful.

New Year's Eve and Day was not such a lucky day - I was sick with that respiratory flu that everyone in the nation has or had!

Today I'm on my lunch break at work.  Our agency will be laying off 14 people probably some time this week and I could be one of them.  I have mixed feelings about being laid off.  I had been tentatively planning on retiring in August pending paying off a couple of bills so if I got laid off now I'd collect unemployment until August when I'm eligible to retire.  I called our public employee retirement system and they said this is what I'd need to do.  But then on the other hand - I really wanted to get those bills paid off so money wouldn't be so tight.  And if I don't get laid off - how many of my staff will get laid off....what kind of work will I have added to my already over burdened work load...who in my unit will get laid off - are they the two that got laid off before that we called back!?  Not happy times here this week...  :(

Thanks for listening...   I promise I'll be posting pictures soon of some of the things I made as gifts for Christmas as well as pictures of projects in progress!