01-26-2009

Day Twenty-Six



This is a key chain light I bought for my husband on a trip. He loves cows, so it was a perfect choice. The funny thing about this picture is I was in school this day so I asked hubby to snap some pics while I was gone. This is what he chose to take a picture of. Not of him and our son playing Star Wars, not of him and our son making dinner for themselves, oh no, he had to snap a pic of the silly cow key chain. I love that man. :)

Rachel

01-25-2009

Day Twenty-Five



I am working on my bachelor’s degree in business, and because there were no actual business classes available this semester I had to take an accounting class, which I really don’t mind since math is my second language! :) The class I am taking is Taxes I, where we learn how to file personal income taxes. Very apropos for this time of year!!

Rachel

01-24-2009

Day Twenty-Four



This is my orange tabby, Ciao. We rescued her a few years ago. She is female, which I guess is very rare for orange tabbies. My vet didn’t even believe me when I told her! LOL She is very protective of me, and will not allow the other kitties come near me when she is around. :)

Rachel

01-23-2009

Day Twenty-Three



This is our little 15 inch TV. It is set up in our bedroom, with our playstation 2 as our DVD player. This is the only TV we have in the house right now. We got rid of the TV for 12 months last year (we were TV-aholics prior) and now we just aren’t as interested in watching it as we use dot be. We watch cable shows online and movies here. It’s great!

Rachel

01-22-2009

Day Twenty-Two



This is hubby working at his second job. He picked it up to help pay off a few bills, but the free rentals alone totally make it worth it! The job is fairly easy, and he has a lot of fun doing it. :) :) (Sorry the pic is out of focus, I didn't take it and there were a bunch taken in the store, but this was the only one of him :) )

Rachel

01-20-2009

Day Twenty



A very historic day for our country. We have come a long way and I am excited for all the things our country has in store for it. Not only through his presidency, but through the opportunities that his election has opened for anyone of any background to come forward and shake the government up a bit.

Rachel

01-19-2009

Day Nineteen

Our 6 year wedding anniversary is on the 21st. Since we will both be busy, we decided to celebrate today. We went out to breakfast at our favorite little hole in the wall place. It only has a few tables, terrible service, but wonderful food. We love it so much!! It was nice to have a quiet breakfast with my sweetie! This is a self portrait of the two of us outside the restaurant.

Rachel

01-18-2009

Day Eighteen



Let me set this scene for you. I am sitting innocently on the edge of my bed working on my computer and my husband and son walk in. Husband says "Look Joker and Mr. Freeze stole the Bat Mobile and ran over Batman and Mommy didn't do anything to stop it." I turn around to see this, and lots and lots of giggling ensues. LOL Before my two boys I could have cared less about any super heroes, now I can't imagine my life without them.

Rachel

01-17-2009

Day Seventeen



This is my small stack of books next to my bed. The bottom one is River God which is a series suggested by someone at DST, though I am not very far into it yet it seems good. The second is a how-to book for Lightroom 2, which has been super helpful. It was a Christmas present to me from my hubby. The top one is Scott Kelby's book on Digital Photography, I have only flipped through it so far, but it looks like I will be able to learn a few new things!

Rachel

01-16-2009

Day Sixteen



We had our holiday party today. It was supposed to happen before Christmas, but it got cancelled due to the wicked ice storm we had. This is me with all the girls from work!

Rachel

01-15-2009

Day Fifteen



Yes this is Halloween in January. This is a piece of my permanent Halloween display that is up in our bedroom. My husband and I love Halloween so much that through out our house we have Halloween items up year round.

Rachel

01-14-2009

Day Fourteen



This is my coffee mug that I use every day at work. They gave it to me when I started there. I haven't always been good about drinking alot of water, but since losing my weight last year, I have been much better about it. I probably drink at least 4-5 mugs full of water while at work. It's a good excuse to get up and out of my chair every so often!

Rachel

Stripey Quilt Formulas

The quilt I was basting above was inspired by a quilt that was made by Finn Leah, who was inspired by Jane Weston. It's a super easy stripey quilt that involves a bit of math to get the quilt to be the size you want it to be. Check out those two links to get the idea of HOW to sew this quilt. Below is the math for you to figure out how to cut the fabric and sew the intial strip. If you decide to try this one out, I'd love to see it!

I am a math person, so hopefully I can explain this well. First off, remember that your quilt will always have to have 8, 16, or 32 strips (unless you want to add more on the sides). Let’s say we want 16 strips. Next, determine how wide you want your quilt to be. So let’s say we want it to be roughly 60” wide. Now we divide 60” by 16 strips and we get 3.75, that is how wide our strips have to be after seam allowance if we want a 60” top. So you would cut the fabric to 4.25” to account for seam allowance. Now you determine how long you want your quilt to be, so let’s say we want it 90” … to get how long our super long strip should be, we multiply the number of strips (16) by the ending length (90”) and we get the length go our initial strip … 1440” .. So if we cut a 1440” strip that is 4.25” wide, we will end up with a 60x90 quilt.

So to recap:

You Choose:
Width of Quilt desired = X
Length of Quilt Desired = Y
Number of Strips Desired = Z (Must be 8, 16 or 32)

Calculated using formulas below:
Width of strips w/o seam Allowance = A
Width of strips w/ seam Allowance = B
Length of First Strip that is pieced = C

X / Z = A

A + .5 = B

Y * Z = C

Now go cut B sized strips and piece them together to from a length of strip that is C long, and sew as directed and you have your quilt!! :) :)

Please let me know if that helps you and your readers!

If your A (strip size w/o seam allowance) size is not a nice even number, you may need to change your quilt width by a few inches either way until you get a number you are happy with!

Rachel

01-11-2009

Day Eleven



My weekend away allowed me the chance to visit Valley Forge National Park, where I had the opportunity to see a large private collection of Revolutionary war Era artifacts. We also took the chance to drive around the park and see what it was all about. This picture was taken inside a church that was built in the 1900’s on the spot where it was thought that Washington went and prayed during his time here at Valley Forge.

Rachel

01-10-2009

Day Ten



This weekend I went away for a RevWar meeting and usually I am good about bringing my own food with me on trips, but I did not do that this time. So I had to buy all my meals while I was gone. This is a picture of the Bleu Chicken Burger I had at a 50’s restaurant we went to on Saturday night.

Rachel

01-08-2009

Day Eight



This is my air popper. I have had it for almost 10 years. My mom gave it to me when I left for college, because growing up we had one just like it. We would pop popcorn and top it with butter, tamari and yeast flakes. So yummy!! So she gave me this so I could enjoy popcorn in my dorm, which I did quite a bit! I recently pulled it out of the closet and have been using it to make myself a snack each night. After traveling around the country with me for 10 years, this thing works just like the day I got it!

Rachel

01-07-2009

Day Seven



I started a new quilt yesterday. This is a picture of the safety pins I am using to baste it. This is a small quilt that will be used to keep me warm at work. The top was super quick to make up, so I am sure I will be making more of these. I used to only make my quilts King size, which I think is the reason I stopped quilting for a while. But now that I am willing to make smaller projects, I think I will be doing a lot more quilting.

Rachel

A Little Lightroom Magic!

Recently I picked up an awesome book to help me with Lightroom. Adobe Photoshop Lightroom 2; How-Tos - 100 Essential Techniques. By Chris Orwig. I picked this one because it's a short book that gets to the nitty gritty of how to use LR. Things like what clarity does or how to use white balance. These are the things I need to know!

Even though I don't necessarily feel I need to take a stellar picture everyday this year, I do want to take the oppurtunity of this project to learn how to take better pictures and how to process them better as well. I only have a small point and shoot, and my camera has terrible white balance indoors, so it's great to be able to fix these things up in Lightroom. Above is today's picture, on the left is the before and on the right is the after. The biggest thing I did was fix the White Balnce, then I sharpened and upped the clarity a bit. I think the difference is huge!

Rachel

01-05-2009

Day Five



At the start of 2008, my husband and I went on a diet. It wasn’t any special diet, we just counted calories and actually wrote down how many calories we ate each day (writing them down was the key). He kept his intake to less than 1800 a day and I kept mine to less than 1400. Doing this he lost 40 lbs and I lost 25 lbs! Since we don’t have a scale in the house, to mark our progress, we both measured around our stomach (the real problem area for both of us), to see how many inches we were losing. It was so great to watch that number drop over the months. Well we both stopped counting around October of 2008, and though we have gained very minimal amounts back, we have decided to go back to counting. Hopefully we can continue on with the progress we have already made.

Rachel

01-04-2009

Day Four



This is our (not so) little kitty. She is in love with my husband and every night she sits on his tummy and reaches out her paw asking him to pet her. Although she sleeps by my feet at night, he is the only one she asks to pet her. LOL It is the cutest thing!!

Rachel

01-03-2009

Day Three



I learned how to quilt about 7 years ago. I love the look and feel of fabric, but I haven't had time in the last 5 years to really quilt anything. Recently I pulled all my fabric out and displayed it on this bookshelf, and 3 weeks ago I made my first quilt in quite some time. A Christmas quilt, which can be seen on the top shelf. It makes me so happy to create something by hand that is useful for my family.

Rachel

A Colossal Undertaking

So many people have decided to do the 365 Picture challenge this year. I have decided to give it a go myself as well. I will put a post up for each picture, but I am sure it won't be up on the day it was taken. I may just post them all at the end of the week. We'll see how it goes. This should be a fun and interesting challenge! Be sure to take a look at my links to the left to see who else is playing along! Cheers and Happy 2009! Rachel