Making curtains

When JoAnn Fabrics had all of their home fabrics 50% off, I bought enough fabric to make curtains or valances for 9 windows. That includes the living room, dining room, breakfast room, family room and master bedroom. I decided that I should start with the master bedroom because there won't be as many people seeing those curtains as in all the other rooms.

Yesterday was the first day that I had a chance to start working on them, so the very first thing that I needed to do was cut the fabric the right length and cut down the width. It turns out that the fabric we picked for the bedroom is 60 inches wide instead of the usual 54 inches wide. Now, I am not a seamstress by any means so maybe I just don't know what I am doing, but cutting the fabric is much harder than I thought it would be. Of course, maybe it is also easier when you are just cutting the selvages off the edge instead of having to cut 3 inches off each side, but it is so hard to keep the fabric straight. I am using a rotary cutter and a 24"X36" cutting mat (which BTW, is one of the largest that they sell) - but considering the fact that one curtain should be 81" long and 54" wide, that mat is hardly big enough. I have this fear that once I start sewing I will realize that what I worked so hard to keep straight is not straight at all.

No wonder most people just buy curtains at Bed Bath and Beyond or somewhere.

The past few days

This past week has been pretty busy for both me and Justin. Well - I guess Justin's weeks are usually pretty busy seeing that he works full-time, mine on the other hand typically have more flexibility.

I agreed to analyze someone's dissertation research data and I put in long hours last week on Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday morning trying to get it all done. Much to my disappointment though, I am not being paid well for my work. We had decided that we could work out payment once everything was done - bad idea. She seemed to think I was greatly overcharging her when I told her she should pay me between $15 and $20 an hour for the work I did. Even after I explained to her that the going rate for the work I did is at least $40 an hour. End result - she told me an amount that she would pay me which comes out to only about $13 an hour for the work I have already done and doesn't include the fact that she has asked me for more analysis and work since we met on Thursday.

Anyway - things didn't help that I woke up on Thursday morning with some kind of stomach flu and was running a fever and not able to keep anything done all day. Luckily - it ended up being a 24 hour bug, because I was at a Stampin' Up! seminar all day on Friday and we had some company fly in from out of town on Friday night.

Saturday both and Justin and I did a lot of driving. I drove to Austin and back to go to my sister's bridal shower. Justin drove our guests down to Galveston for a cruise and then drove up to Montgomery to get a family heirloom dining room table and then bring it back home. We unloaded the table and then had to drive to the airport to return the minivan that we rented for the day. All in all - we each drove about 360 miles by the end of the day.

Now - Justin has a cold and stayed home from work today. At least we aren't both sick at the same time, but we are ready for some relaxing days.

Valentine's Day 2007

Justin and I have never gone out to dinner for Valentine's Day. Our reasoning? The restaurants are always too crowded and some of them have special (and more expensive) Valentine menus.

Last year for Valentine's Day I had a soccer game and Justin made it to my game from work a bit late. Quite romantic, right?

This year we went all heart-shaped. I woke up extra early and made heart-shaped pancakes for Justin for breakfast.



And then for dinner it was heart-shaped pizza (as well as I could make heart-shaped pizza without a heart-shaped pizza pan). And for dessert we had miniature heart cheesecakes.



In Justin's words - we had a hearty dinner.

The last of the furniture arrives!

By 1pm today, the last of our furniture arrived. Now, we have a nice complete bedroom set. Do you like? Now we are just waiting on some material so Julie can make some curtains.

The long road home

This week (and for the next couple months, I believe) Justin is working in the Galleria area of Houston. We are both very happy to have him home during the week since he was working out of town almost every week since we moved to Katy 6 months ago.

When Justin works downtown, he usually does the Park and Ride. Although it does not save him much time on his commute, he does save us money in gas and wear and tear on the car. Today Justin decided to try doing the Park and Ride into the Galleria area. It is almost 6 pm and Justin called at 4:15 to say that he was leaving work. I called him about 10 minutes ago and he still had about an hour to go before he made it home.

When the bus ride is this long, I realize why people choose to sit in traffic instead of using public transportation. I really thought he would be home 30 minutes ago - he would have been had he just driven himself. This is ridiculous. And here we are trying to be good citizens and ride the bus.