Saturday, December 10, 2011

... such a busy time of the year!



. . . but really most all of the busy-ness that I've been experiencing 
has anything to do with the holidays!

. . . it's just been a busy, busy week!

. . . which means, I've been keeping myself out of trouble. . .

. . . I think.

Let's see what's made this week such a busy feeling one:

I made this little quilt for my newest little grand-niece, Olivia. 
I have had the pieces cut for well over a month. . . 
but I finally sat myself down to finish piecing & quilt, & bind it.
All the fabrics for this little quilt are from my 'Georgia Lou' fabric line. . .
. . . which is perfect, as Mom (Georgia Lou) was the owl lover & this design was made with her in mind. . . for the great-grandbabies that she never got to snuggle with herself.

Olivia will be getting her quilt on Monday. . . 
when Dad & I are flying out to San Diego to get to finally meet her!

Oh. . . by the way. .  this is the adorable little Olivia. . .



 Seriously. . . I could almost eat her up! Isn't she a sweetie-pie?!

So. . . for the rest of the busy-ness for the week. . .

I finally got my substitute teaching certificate. After teaching for 15 years, & then not teaching for the last 3½ years. . . I have been really missing the kids (I taught high school), . . . . so for the last few months, I have been going through the process of getting my sub certificate.

After some delays (I had to get finger-printed all over again. . . it had been so long!, & then waiting for transcripts. . . (again)), I finally had everything in hand & went down to the Dept. of Education office on Monday & while I figured I'd have to wait several weeks more. . . they handed me my certificate right then & there! Since I had it & would be driving right by the campus, I stopped by the school where I used to teach (. . . the only place I want to sub at). . . & dropped off a copy of the certificate. 
To my surprise, & got a call that evening to see if I would like to sub for one of the science teachers for the next two days. . . and, after shuffling a couple of things, & said yes & I jumped in!

. . . Also, this week was the week that I'm starting the process of updating all of my computer's operating systems. (ugh.) I'm a Mac girl & I have a desktop computer that lives in the office that I've had for a couple of years, & then I have my MacBook Pro laptop that I use for all of my designing. The laptop is 4 years old. . . what is now considered ancient for a laptop's lifespan - but my laptop is still working well & so I'm not going to replace it until I have to. But. . .

. . . because of the fact that my Macs are more than 2 years old. . . it means that the operating system I had (Leopard) is now way outdated - with the recent release of Apple's latest operating system, Lion. In fact, with it's release, I was then using an operating system that was two generations old. What that means is that any new updates for applications weren't working with my older system. (sigh)

So, I've had to update to Snow Leopard. . . & will have to update again to the new Lion by early next year. . . when I will need to update my iPhone. I'm still using my 3G model. . . & now it's 2 generations old as well. . . & is really slowing down.

. . . I'm really trying not to be bitter about having to do all of this. . .
. . . but I must admit that I'm not keen on the fact that I feel like I'm pretty much forced to keep upgrading (& re-paying) for something that was, honestly, working just fine for me. But. . . I do understand that with the faster & faster advancement of technology, this is going to continue to happen. So, for now, I'm just trying to grin & bear it.

To add to the busy-ness of the week, with the upgrading of my Mac operating system, suddenly I wasn't able to print my postage for shipping on the USPS website. I wasn't able to get in touch with anyone to help. . . so for several days - all shipping slowed down to having to hand print labels & then deal with the lines in the post office. (when I print from home, we simply can drop them off. . .) Thankfully, I was finally able to get in touch with someone online at USPS today (. . . & on a Saturday too!). . . & all is well now. (I needed to switch to a different web browser - as the USPS website hasn't been able to work with the updates that the new Mac operating systems have.) So, actually (& thankfully) it was an easy fix. . . it was just that I needed to 'talk' with a human!)

. . . Then there was my day at the quilt shop, & yesterday I hosted a quilting/stitching 'bee' at my home & we had such a fun day!

. . . Today, Dad & I got up & braved some Christmas shopping. Thankfully, the crowds weren't as bad as I feared. . . & we actually got everything done very quickly!

. . . & now for the rest of the day, I'm going to put on some Christmas tunes. . . get out my stitchery basket & light the cinnamon candle that I got this morning. . . & sit next to the Christmas tree & stitch away the afternoon & evening. 

Sounds like bliss to me!

Hope you have a bliss-full weekend & week ahead!

Bren

4 comments:

Sewn With Grace said...

It sounds like you've been very busy! How did subbing go? Praying you'll have a restful weekend!A

Mary on Lake Pulaski said...

Sounds like a very busy week. Glad you get to sit and stitch the rest of the day. Your grand-niece is adorable and so is the quilt for her.

Louise said...

What a cutie patootie..I bet you two will do lots of loving on her when you get to San Diego..Congrats to you for getting your teaching certificate.
Safe travels!

Samantha said...

Stitching away the afternoon and evening... that is my favorite thing about winter....
Have a wonderful and blessed Christmas.