Change, soon?

It's been nearly a year since my last post and that's in part because I've had nothing to say.  I've had all my fabric, quilts and other sewing stuff in storage for about 15 months.  Within the next few days we'll be moving, finally, to a new state, and the movers will deliver it all.  It's exciting because I will finally be able to regain some sanity with setting up a sewing room again, joining a new guild again, and having the peace that being surrounded by my stuff brings me.  But it's frightening because this move is a risk; we still don't have jobs, and we have the banged-up egos that being unemployed for over a year tends to give people.   But I guess this is a little like the orchestra playing as the Titanic went down ... it let the doomed focus on something slightly more pleasant than their impending demise.  So maybe I will be sewing and even posting again before the year is up.

nothing happening

I'm still kicking, but that's about all I have to say.  We were fortunate to sell our house less than a week after listing it for sale this past summer, but that's where our good luck pretty much ended.  We sold about a third of what we own, put most of the rest in storage, and moved just clothes, food and bare necessities into my dad's house at the end of the summer.  "Bare necessities" includes toiletries, computers, financial documents, and, for me, one sewing machine, a basket of notions, two WIPs and some fabric scraps.

The rest of my sewing room - fabric, books, notions, and every quilt I own - is in a storage unit in North Carolina somewhere, along with all our Christmas decorations, furniture, personal memorabilia, kitchenware, family photos, etc., etc.  I'm far more fortunate than the refugees I see in the middle east fleeing their homelands for safety with only the clothes on their backs, but I do worry that I'll never see my belongings again.

Neither of us has had much luck finding work in the almost seven months since my husband was let go, despite job searching being our full-time jobs during these past three months since the move.  We are grateful to have a free roof over our heads but the stress is leaving us struggling to find hope - rather than fear - in what might come next.  I have little momentum and space to sew, so if life doesn't change for us soon, this blog will probably end up being pretty pointless to maintain.

chaos

About a year ago today, I was still dealing with the news that we were going to have to sell the house we'd just purchased and move from Virginia to North Carolina as my husband's company was relocating its executive office employees.  We spent six months in a rental apartment while getting to know the area and finding a new house that suited us, and we closed on our new home in mid-March.  I had some good job interviews and came close to working, but no offers.

Two months after moving in, my husband went into work to be told that his position was being eliminated effective immediately.  Although he negotiated a severance package that leaves us able to make ends meet for the near future, I will be spending the third summer in a row preparing a house for sale and moving.  Obviously, we are both annoyed that they couldn't make this decision before we bought the home.  In the long run, I think it will end up being a good thing, but I won't be able to say for certain until we land elsewhere.

We will most likely return to the Baltimore-Delaware-Philadelphia area to be closer to our kids and family.  We'd really like to sell the house during the summertime when people are relocating before the school season starts, and the market has picked up since we purchased.  Still, we had a lot of plans for this house and have to finish up the things we've started and take the direct route to being ready to list for sale.  My sewing room has not seen any quilting happening, as I've been focused on curtains and other home decor projects instead.  It has been challenging to find the emotional energy to do something fun like quilt, especially if I wonder how long it will be until I can unpack in a new sewing room somewhere again.

Move is now imminent

And I will confess:  my stress level is through the roof.  Let's take a look at how things are unfolding, shall we?

This past weekend, my husband and I had a wonderful weekend away at a B&B which was a wedding gift we finally redeemed more than 18 months after the wedding.  It couldn't have been more relaxing.  Then first thing Monday morning, off he went for his work week in Raleigh.

Monday, 9/23:  I took the cat to the vet to be declawed.  No, I didn't want to do this, but he loves shredding carpet and as long as we don't own the place, that is a big no-no.  In the afternoon, I met someone at the dog park who was interested in adopting our big 75-lb anxiety-ridden dog whom we JUST got to believe that we won't abandon him.  I met this person because now we have to abandon him.  Not only would no apartment take a dog as big as him, but he hates being enclosed and would lose it if he couldn't spend a lion's share of every day outside.  Monday evening, the dog park woman emailed to say she probably isn't ready for a dog in her life yet after all.  Sigh.

Tuesday, 9/24:  Picked up the cat from the vet and have been trying to keep him medicated, quiet, and not climbing.  I didn't realize how many things he climbs on in our house until I had to keep him off of them.  He was bleeding when he came out of his carrier too, so cleaning up after him was necessary.  He's been staying in a little storage area with linoleum in our basement and seems groggy but okay.  I also called the movers and got them on the schedule after my husband's company okayed the estimate.  I also got the scanned lease from the apartment company and had to print, sign, scan and return along with an image of my ID and proof of renter's insurance.

Wednesday, 9/25:  Today I've been calling DirecTV, Verizon, Frontier Communications, power company, etc., etc. to get service moved, connected or disconnected as appropriate.  I've been making appointments to see local professionals a last time or to pick up records to take to new people in Raleigh (like my mammogram images).  And I've started making other lists so I don't manage to forget something important.

Thursday, 9/26:  We have a house showing scheduled for 5:30 so my day will be spent cleaning around the animals, then loading them both into the car and disappearing with them for about ninety minutes.  We don't have recycling pickup here so I'll probably also take the garbage can full of glass we recycle up to the one bin about 20 miles away.  I also need to go to the post office to file a whole bunch of mail forwarding orders (don't ask).  Then I'll pack for the weekend.

Friday, 9/27 - Monday 9/30:  Going to my dad's house to spend the weekend with the kids and see my husband again, who will be driving up separately.  I'll have to take both animals with me, since dog doesn't have a new home and cat's healing needs to continue to be monitored.  I'll have to leave the house pristine in case it needs to be shown.  Remind me to take anything my husband might need for another week in hotels in Raleigh, and probably most of the contents of the freezer to keep and prepare at my dad's since we cook big meals there for him and the kids.  The weekend will wind down Monday while I stay an extra day to watch my son play soccer for his middle school varsity team in the afternoon, then a five-hour drive back home with the animals.

Tuesday, 10/1:  This is my day to make sure I have all my ducks in a row before movers come to pack and load.  They'll be doing most of the packing but I still would like to move various things around so they don't get forgotten, and maybe pack a few items myself.  Remember, we're only moving about half the house into the apartment; the rest will stay furnished and staged until it sells. I'll also do all my laundry from the weekend and pack a new bag for the move.  The dog will HAVE to have a place in the shelter (we adopted him from there so they have a guarantee to take him back but haven't had room) or a foster family to go to from here no later than this day or the next.

Wednesday, 10/2:  Movers arrive bright and early.  Thankfully my husband insisted the company pay for the packing so I don't have to do it all again when I just did it all about six months ago.  I will focus on cleaning the place to leave it for an unknown period of time and making sure we don't forget anything, since it's a six-hour round trip to come back for it.  I'm keeping my fingers crossed that my husband can take off work to join me for this day.

Thursday, 10/3:  Movers arrive at apartment in Raleigh, so we'll have to pick up keys before then.  With luck, power and internet will have been activated right on schedule and we'll have both by evening.

Friday, 10/4:  Unpacking and getting settled; DirecTV arrives for installation in the afternoon.  I'll probably have to find a grocery store and unpack the kitchen so we can be cooking by the weekend.

Saturday, 10/5:  The local quilt guild participates in something called "Heritage Day" with an auction and boutique to benefit a local park restoration project, and I'd love to make it there if we're unpacked enough.  I think my cabin fever will be running high by then so if I power through with unpacking we should be good to go enjoy a nice day in our new city.  Come Monday morning, my job search will have to take center stage as I map my return to the land of the productively employed.

I am happy to report that my darling husband made sure to get us an apartment with plenty of space for my own sewing room, which will be part of what is loaded on the truck on Tuesday.  He knows too well that he doesn't want to live with me if I don't have my fabric and machine to turn to when I need to de-stress.  I am also excited to try to attend my first meeting of the local guild later in October.  These things are what I'm looking forward to in order to power through the next week, including the sad farewell to our dog.  With luck, nothing will go horribly awry with the plan.

A long hiatus

I know it's been MONTHS - really, half a year - since I last showed up around these parts.  On one hand, I have no excuse.  I'm still not working so I have plenty of time to blog.  But on the other hand, I'm not working, so I don't spend a lot of time on the computer.

In that time, we've packed up a house, sold it, bought a new one, moved, and unpacked.  I love my sewing space in the new house.  I helped our quilt show committee by doing the program for the show, completed (and messed up) my challenge quilt, and won second prize for it anyway.  The theme was, "how do I celebrate quilting" and the size was 20" along one side by 13" along the other (for 2013).  This was my entry:

The half square triangles around the edge were blue and red before I tried to remove some fabric bleed from the white and sucked pretty much all the color out of the quilt.  But I guess I was the only one who knew the before and after!

I put four other quilts in the show too but nothing that won any ribbons.  After seeing the quilts that did have ribbons hanging on them, I decided to start a few new projects.

Also, I taught a class based on this quilt by Cotton Way at my local quilt shop:

For the first time ever, I walked out of a quilt shop with more money than I walked in!  I'll be teaching it again in June.

Finally, I won a great prize from McCall's Quilting's Facebook page:  a fat quarter bundle and tote which was a wonderful surprise:

I completed a few projects and started a few new ones also, including some great blocks with a charm pack of Moda's "Get a Clue with Nancy Drew":

And I took a class to try out the Learning Curve ruler, which was a lot of fun playing with curves:

There are a few more projects in the works as well, and more fabric in my stash than I can shake a stick at.

However, the biggest news, which has me frozen in a kind of paralysis that just gets me from day to day, is that even though we are still getting settled in this new house, my husband's job has been relocated three hours away to Raleigh, NC, so we are going to have to move.  Again.  Very soon.  Until we made a day trip there over Memorial Day weekend, I'd only ever been in the city once, so I'm a bit at a loss.  I'm just keeping myself sane playing with fabric and doing a little bit of sewing every day.

The kids will be here off and on throughout the summer so hopefully I'll keep my sanity through the move.  If I manage to blog again before it's all done, I'll be amazed.

Impediments

Last night I finished sewing and trimming all the HSTs for the border to the Civil War Chronicles quilt.  I have half of the blocks done, I think, and will work on sewing the other half and attaching the border this weekend.  But things don't always go as quickly as planned in my sewing room.

Hi mom.  Remember me?

The main reason I gave into the kids' pleas to get a feline companion for our poor anxiety-ridden rescue dog was that I often feel rather lonely squirreled away in the basement sewing alone.  The dog prefers to spend time in places where no one else happens to be - if you walk in, he gets up and leaves.  Eventually, that gives a person something of a complex and I thought it might be nice if I had company in my sewing room for a change.  Well, I had no idea what I was getting myself into.

You didn't need those pieces that are now on the floor, did you?

Jack the cat has some lovely ways of distracting me from making progress.  Trying to push my sewing machine out of the way is only one of them.  He also gets up on the chair behind me and tries walking up my back.  He hops up on my cutting table to lay down on my fabric.  He tries grabbing at the cord on the iron.  He kicks over my trash cans and he chews up pieces of paper that have instructions on them. 

While I do sometimes enjoy the presence of another living creature in my space with me, let's just say that I don't seem to sew at the same pace as I used to.