Patchwork Times by Judy Laquidara
Sharing the Good Life
Whatever time of night I post the progress reports, that’s about the time I’m leaving the sewing room. I must have more energy tonight because this time last night, I was trying to figure out a way to get in bed!
Here’s what was on the design wall this afternoon (I never made it to the sewing room this morning). 17 blocks were made.
Not a terribly productive day but I ended the day with 21 blocks done. I’m close to having at least 4 more completed.
In some ways, we eat better than a lot of families because we so rarely go out to eat and hardly ever eat fast food. Even though I cook most of our meals from scratch, there’s a whole lot of butter and cream that go into those recipes. We’re on Day #3 of our Weight Watchers plan and though I haven’t been hungry, I miss sugar! There’s a whole lot of energy produced by the amount of sugar I consumed. Not only had I been drinking too many Dr. Peppers each day, but I love hard candy and almost always am munching on candy of some kind. That all ended . . I’m down to one Dr. Pepper per day (which I haven’t had yet today). Don’t suggest I switch to diet. My feeling is that if I’m going to have to force myself to learn to like something, why not just learn to drink water. Not only is it better for me than diet soda, it’s free!
The only thing that’s bothering me terribly is my energy level. Yesterday I was ready for bed by 7 p.m. I sat down and figured I’d knit but never even picked the knitting up. I’m smack dab out of energy! This morning I thought about going back to bed but figured it took so much effort to get out of bed the first time, I wasn’t doing to do that again so I stayed up.
WW suggests taking a multi-vitamin and I’ve never taken vitamins so I went by the health food store and go vitamins and took one. I’m sitting here waiting for a burst of energy. 
My jeans are loser though I’m not weighing myself. The scales are in Vince’s bathroom and I don’t think I’m brave enough to go in there so I’ll just let my jeans be the judge and I already know where the box is that has the jeans that are the next size down. I can see that Vince has lost and he’s not complaining.
Last night for dinner we had a recipe that had grilled egg plant, asparagus, red sweet pepper, feta cheese, pasta, fresh tomatoes and a lot of fresh basil. It was delicious! I told Vince this looks like something we’d get in an Italian restaurant. He said it was delicious and added that food tastes better when you’re really hungry so I’m not real sure if the food was good or he was so hungry anything would have been good! Tonight we have grilled chicken on a bed of greens with feta cheese, chickpeas, cucumbers, Kalamata olives — kind of a Greek type dish. We’re doing good!
Have gas prices in your area taken a huge jump? No doubt ours are cheap compared to some but when Chad and Nicole were here just a few weeks ago, they were saying the prices in their area was under $3. At that time our prices were about $3.12/gallon of regular unleaded. Over the weekend, they were $3.49 everywhere around here.
Today I went out and the gas was $3.59 where I usually get it. I was heading down near Wal-Mart and their gas is usually a few cents less than most places but it was the same price there too. In fact, I shopped at several locations and by the time I got home and passed the gas station where it had been $3.59, it was already up to $3.69.
Do you cut back on your driving when gas prices go up? How much difference does it make? Do you try to combine shopping trips or do you go so far s not taking long road trips such as to visit family or take a vacation? Just a little bit of figuring, if a vehicle gets 20 miles per gallon and we’re taking a 500 mile trip, that’s 25 gallons of gasoline so if the price has gone up .50, that’s only a $12.50 increase. I think for me it’s more of mental issue than a pocket book issue.
We had planned to go to Abilene this weekend, which is about 100 miles from our house. A 200 mile round trip will cost us about $32 in gas if the gas is $3.69. $32 isn’t a big deal but we didn’t really need anything in Abilene . . just wanted to shop at a larger grocery store and probably visit Academy and Target. Will we still go? Probably. Will the $32 hurt too badly? Probably not but it definitely makes me question whether or not we should go.
I hear gas prices could get to $5 or $6/gallon. I feel very badly for those who have to drive long distances to and from work, and for those whose businesses take a hit when gas prices rise. In the end, there’s only so much cash in that bucket and if it’s being spent on gasoline, that’s some that isn’t being spent on other things. Makes me real happy to have most everything I need right here at home and except for a few groceries every now and then, I rarely need to leave the house.
Last week when we went to the quilt shop in Santa Anna, I purchased fabric, which I mentioned on my Stash Report on Sunday. The shop there, Quilters’ Patch, is a small shop but I love almost every fabric that’s in there. They have good sales and they gave us a group discount so . . I couldn’t NOT buy fabric!
The light blue piece is part of the statewide shop hop fabric. I had bought some of that to make Vince a quilt and will use the blue for the backing. It says “Texas” on it. The patriotic fabric above that will make a good backing for a QOV. The red is a Moda that was on sale. It’s an orange-ish red and I love it. The squares are a panel . . Texas obviously and the border print is a coordinate. Not sure what I’m going to do with it but I seem to love all things Texas these days! It makes me laugh every time I think about telling Vince I’d move anywhere in the south except Texas! Now I think we’ve found our spot and will probably never move away from Texas.
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