Catching up

Oops. I see it’s been a while since I’ve blogged. Things have been unusually hectic for the past few weeks. First of all, I changed jobs. It’s a good change, but it’s always a little exhausting to learn how a new office works and what all of my new responsibilities are. Secondly, we’ve been on a couple short trips during that time.

For my birthday, we went to Savannah for a long weekend. Here’s our sweet ride:

(Yes, Shawn rented the car.) Savannah was gorgeous and so much fun. We just explored — both on trolley and on foot — and enjoyed being back in the US for a while.

For Memorial Day, we took a trip to Harbor Island (or Briland, as they say here) with a group from the Embassy. It was a long day, most of which was spent on the ferry from/to Nassau, unfortunately, but it was so relaxing while we were there. We were still in the Bahamas, but it felt like a different world. Things were much slower, but in a good way. They have to be when your main mode of transport is a golf cart! And the “pink sand” beaches were amazing. I’d heard that some people were disappointed by the sand after all the hype, but I was impressed! It definitely has a pink hue, and it’s powder soft. Again, so different from New Providence Island.

June 1 was the official start to hurricane season, and it has definitely felt like it. We’ve had rain and thunderstorms for at least part of the day every day since then. Unfortunately, we’ve learned that Laika is absolutely terrified of thunder and heavy rains. (I blame the dumb GWU students who decided to set off fireworks 5 feet from our front door last July 4th.) So…I’m not sure how we’re going to deal with this all summer. I was up from 3am to 5:30am last night — first trying to calm her, then just trying to get her to quiet down enough that I could get some sleep!

In with all of this, I have had a little time to do some sewing. My fabric finally arrived for my challenge quilt for my quilt guild:

That’s pre-pressed, obviously. Since the guild members take this challenge very seriously and the finished quilts are to remain secret until our Christmas luncheon, I can only tell you a few things. As you can tell, it’s a monochromatic challenge (I picked blue), and the finished dimensions are to be 36″x48″. It has to be done with only log cabin blocks (of any variety). I’m about halfway done at this point. I’m really happy with how it’s turning out, but I have had to put my math skills to some serious use. Lots of drawing and measuring. I’m stealing Norm Abram‘s motto: “Measure twice, cut once!”