Two New Roles

This new year brings two new roles for me. In March, my dearest and only brother and his wife are expecting their first baby. I am so excited about being an aunt!!! I wasn't able to be at the baby shower yesterday but of course, I sent a big box of goodies to Michigan for my future niece (nothing pink though, I don't do pink).
Yes, there was a quilt in that box. A sweet little 30s nine-patch.
I quilted it myself too.

The second new role was unexpected. I was promoted to a newly created management position at my day job last week. So now I am officially middle management and officially a Dilbert cartoon. In keeping with this economy, I got a very itty bitty raise with the promotion, so am still stuck working two jobs. But I am grateful for the opportunity and the challenge.

We Now Return to Our Regularly Scheduled Stella Bella Blog...

Hello! Do I still have any readers left out there in blogland? I have been absent for too long and I apologize for being incommunicado lately.
I wish I could say I was out being wicked....

Or on vacation to some exotic place...

Or dogsledding with Jack and Shiloh...

Or that my laptop was hijacked by Morph...

Or that I was hibernating with Edgar and Stella...

Or solving the world's problems with Gomez...

But really, I have just been busy with life and taking care of people who needed my attention. So I am back in blogland

AWOL

Yes, I have been AWOL from blogland this week. It's been a busy week--not much sewing done, not much of anything done, just busy with work and life. Saturday was our Silver Thimble Quilt Club. I grabbed whatever project was in my bags and worked on it. I made the pieces for 130 3" nine-patches for the Double Delight quilt and that took most of the 5 hours. Check Pat's blog for some photos (I forgot my camera). I need to get caught up on everything and post some photos. Hope to do that soon.

Today was a day off for Martin Luther King, Jr.'s birthday. I have a million things to get done today. One project (ordeal???) was taking Gomez
to the vet for his annual check up and he is now rather annoyed with me. Here he is looking sweet. I think I will get snubbed for the rest of the day.

OK must get back to chores...

Hibernating!

I'm sure everyone has heard or seen Atlanta's continuing ice and snow. I bet even the researchers at the Antarctic research station have seen the footage of Atlanta drivers sliding and crashing into each other. We still have below freezing temperatures and scattered snow left in shady spots. I don't remember ever having such a long period of really cold weather here in the South. At Chez Crazy Cat Lady, we are all in hibernation mode. Nothing much going on here but staying bundled up in quilts.
This is the amount of snow that can shut down Atlanta (about 1/2" or so) with a little ice underneath.
My oak leaf hydrangea in the snow and the poor camellias that are probably a lost cause.

One way to stay warm is to do some major cooking and hang out in the kitchen. I decided to make some hearty comfort food--Shepard's pie. Lots of fresh veggies

Mashed potatoes and parsnips mixed with non-fat yogurt instead of butter and milk
Here it is ready for the oven.
Super yummy goodness and there's lots more for the rest of the week until we thaw out.

Snow, Ice, Windchill is Zero..

all schools canceled, and....no snow day for me.....not happy. Grrrrr....

Wishing for a Snow Day

Very short post tonight (problems with the internet--maybe the tubes were frozen...). I am hoping that tomorrow brings snow snow snow and cancel cancel cancel for work on Friday. Let's all wish really hard okay....ready....SNOWWWWWWWW!

Thank you! More from the frozen ATL soon.

PS: it was colder here than in Anchorage, Alaska--what is up with that???

Starting the new year

I started off the new year busy sewing. Although I am not making it an official resolution, I am going to be diligent on getting UFOs finished. Starting off, I finally got around to putting the borders on my Mardi Gras quilt (aka Bonnie Hunter's Orange Crush mystery quilt).
(This is half of the quilt--too big to get the whole quilt in the photo--and the backing fabric). This will be the next quilt off to the long-arm quilter...

I also finished another quilt top (photo after it is gifted sorry!) So that is TWO quilt tops finished and it's only January 4th! Yea!

While I was in Michigan, I made a zillion of these for Bonnie Hunter's Double Delight quilt. Still need to make a zillion more I think. I also have pulled fabric for the Carolina Christmas quilt, got caught up on BOMs, and cut all the strips for my fabric swap. Whew! We are on a quilting roll so far!