To-Do #120 Weekly Progress Update

This is the 120th edition of our weekly to-do list.  We usually share this post on Beth’s Cooking Up Quilts and at Becca’s What I Made Monday website on Mondays and on Christine’s Stitch All the Things and Dione’s Clever Chameleon website on Tuesdays.  Check out what our friends are sharing!

To-Do for the week of July 22nd through 28th:

1. Get the a/c fixed – it happened on Wednesday – √ done
2. Finish the July color block – √ ready to be sewn
3. Finish the beehive blocks – √ done

To-Do #1

The weather broke!!  Thank the Lord, the weather finally got less humid and lower temperatures.  We had no a/c for ten days.  It’s amazing the things you can do to keep your house cooler when you have to.  Here’s how we coped:

• don’t turn on any lights until it is pitch dark – you can do almost anything in dim or very little light!  What color is this underwear?  Oh, who cares – it won’t show anyway and I’m not getting in an accident requiring new unders like mom said
• shut the door on any room that we don’t NEED to go in – unfortunately, that includes the sewing room 🙁
• showering in cool water feels really nice, especially on your head – ummmm
• wear lightweight and light-colored clothing and having bare feet really helps (I hate walking around barefooted so I kick off my slippers when sitting)
• cooking light and having plenty of nice, cold beverages helps as well
• enjoy a/c at work (or anywhere you can) is fabulous during the day, but remember you must get acclimated on the drive home so that it isn’t a shock to go back in the house!
• appreciate that it really IS cooler in the house than it is outside
• cloud cover REALLY keeps the house cooler and having the blinds shut tight also keeps the sun out – although my plants were in shock with no light
• we’re thankful for our family and friends that offered to have us stay at their house!  We didn’t do it but we are grateful for the offers
• fans – ceiling, floor, and table oscillating fans were all used and very much appreciated
• we’re both old enough to recall the old days without a/c <gasp>, and we are very thankful that we didn’t have to go longer than ten days without it!

To-Do #1A

• we picked up a portable a/c unit last Thursday night, just before the 99-degree day with 110 heat indices.  It couldn’t cool the house but it cooled one area so we could live more comfortably.  Here’s what the setup looked like – it had to be returned because we couldn’t adjust any of the settings.  The buttons just didn’t work – thankfully it turned on in COOL mode instead of FAN.

That’s Rocky the tiger on the hearth holding the hose in place.  The hose they neglected to say wasn’t included in the purchase.  We added painter’s tape to the adjustable window thing – otherwise, the air just poured in around it.  It whistled so that it sounded like a blizzard was raging outside.  The last touch was the Shamoo towel in recognition of Shark week!

• portable is defined differently by others!  The setup above doesn’t look very portable to me, although the heavy unit does have wheels.  It took us 30 sweat-filled minutes to get it set up and plugged in.  We were very thankful to have it but not enough to turn it off and move it to another area.
• Last Wednesday, Sue came to work with me and Friday, we spent the whole day with the littles.  Being cool during the whole day makes it so much more bearable.

To-Do #2

I almost forgot about the color of the month block for July!  We discussed switching up the ‘background’ fabric with the geese/featured one.  But alas, we finally decided not to do so in spite of the fact that there is more background than feature color in this block.  An article about the Aqua July Monthly Color Challenge Block posted last week.

To-Do #3

Good ‘ole Fizzy blocks or the July IG Honeybee blocks for Barbara are done.  Woot woot.  Just when I thought we were going to be late, a trait that I try never to be.  The fabric choices we made were a bit tricky to overcome.  I had to use the rotary cutter for all of the black fabric pieces, and amazingly I didn’t slice off a finger. 

An interesting side note is a new project we discovered for this block in a different layout.  Back to the topic at hand, here are our blocks.  They went in the mail already so Barbara should easily have them by the 31st.  Another post with more details will be posted tomorrow

July OMG

Our July OMG (one monthly goal) was to quilt and bind our July OMG is a Harley Happening and it is all complete.  We linked this goal on Patty’s Elm Street Quilts website and linky party.  I’ll share photos from the delivery event later.  It’s time to think about an August goal now.

To-Do for the week of July 29th through August 4th

August already – no, it can’t be!  The start of school isn’t far behind . . .

1. Get the Cind-erella quilt top together – August OMG project
2. Select fabrics for Alpaca/llama pattern from Sew Fresh
3. Deliver table runner and Harley t-shirt quilt
4. Additional applique on Quite Book

Our other Linky Parties can be found by clicking the link above or along the sidebar on our website for more quilting fun – check out what our friends are up to.  Like/follow us on our Facebook page and you can share your photos of what you’re working on.  We would love to see them!