Carpet Powder

When limited finances and tough odors collide, sometimes you are forced to live with the nastiness. However, it doesn’t have to be so.

I am not a big fan of smells that do nothing more than cover up other less pleasant smells. However, after living with the disgusting odor emanating from the carpet for longer than one should and after spending a ton of money having them professionally cleaned and deodorized, I decided to break down and buy a two dollar bottle of carpet powder. After sprinkling a generous amount of Glade Tough Odor Solutions on the living room and hallway carpet and letting it sit for about ten minutes, I pulled out the vacuum cleaner and started vacuuming. The smell was immediately gone and replaced by a clean scent. I even did the ultimate sniff test and dug my nose into our nasty carpets and breathed in deeply. After not detecting even a hint of grossness, and after rinsing my nostrils out completely because, ew, I think I may have found at least a cheap and temporary solution to cover our problem.

Now I suppose the next challenge I’m going to place this product under is the sofa and chair-and-a-half. I normally use Febreeze about once a week on these because, well, we have pets who use them and, even though I have pet quilts I made covering the seats and on the chair-and-a-half over the head rest where our cat Dexter likes to lay, they still smell. Hopefully it will work as well as it did on the carpet. However, the real test will be how everything holds up in a week or two.

Patterns

Sometimes finding patterns is a good thing. Other times you find that the patterns you’ve formed in life are not so much.

While searching for the quilt pattern I had decided on last year for my Christmas Quilt on the Moda Bake Shop, I noticed a familiar pattern of my own. I do a lot of research with little end results. I can freely admit that I love looking at beautiful quilts and ones that catch my eye I remark that I’d like to make one similar, but when it comes down to actually making it I tend to panic. I’m not sure if it is trying to follow directions, or in my case adapting the pattern to fit the amount of fabric I have with as few cuts as humanly possible, or the act of cutting into the beautiful fabric I’d been hoarding for years, but something has got to change.

My plan yesterday was to start on the Christmas Quilt and at least get most of the cuts made and piled together for easy chain piecing when it came time to sew. However, my husband couldn’t find a job for the day and it was my day off so we instead went to the post office to mail off my nephew’s baby blanket I made months ago, saw Captain America at the three dollar theater and got some goldfish at the pet store for the pond in the front yard. Alas, that meant little time to actually find the pattern and finally start on this project before my Wednesday night television lineup started.

Now, if I really wanted to I probably could’ve started the quilt after locating the pattern, but honestly, I couldn’t remember the pattern that I’d wanted to use. All I could remember was there were stars. Ugh. After searching through the various patterns my search brought up regarding “stars” I found two patterns that looked vaguely familiar and printed them off. I also decided to go ahead and print the patterns for two other projects I’d failed to start as well. However, after looking at the Figgy Pudding charms and yardage I’m planning on using for this quilt, I’m not sure if I like either of them as much as I may have before.

Does anyone else spend and incredulous amount of time overthinking a project rather than just start making it, or am I alone in this? I swear I waste more time perusing quilt books and the internet for inspiration rather than simply let the fabric inspire me to find a pattern for it. Then again, that might be the problem; it just looks so pretty up on the shelf that I’m afraid of ruining it.

I Hate Carpet

There are few things in the world that I hate. Carpet is probably number one on that list.

Hate is a strong word and one that I was taught as a child never to use. We could say practically anything except, “I hate you!” to each other, which is probably why my vocabulary is, well, colorful. Let me just clarify that I am typically okay with area rugs, since these are much easier to keep clean, but carpeted floors are a different story. With two guys and three animals roaming the house, it doesn’t take long for crappy carpets to look (and smell) crappier.

Here is the deal with the carpet in our house; it’s bad. I mean really bad. Like maybe it should’ve been replaced five years ago bad. It is mostly one, large matted mess that whenever it gets a little damp a new stain appears, signs that the pad beneath is filthy. I mean, I know we had them professionally cleaned and the guy used a ton more solution than normal as well as spent about three times longer than he would on a normal job, but even he was doubtful that was enough to do the trick. It also seems to have taken on a disgusting odor as of late, one that just does not want to go away. I can handle stains, but the olfactory assault is a little too much. Okay, a lot too much.

So while I was at the grocery store yesterday I wandered into the cleaning supply aisle and decided, what the hell, I was going to get a bottle of deodorizing carpet powder. I plan on sprinkling some down today and letting it sit for a good ten minutes before vacuuming it back up. Something tells me it will be a little more difficult than that, but at the same time, even if it only helps a little bit I’m okay with that.

Grocery Lists

When I go grocery shopping I make a list, but not just any list, an organized list. Let me explain.

The dreaded grocery store. With all the rain, however, what else am I going to do? So I suppose that means I need to make a list of all the stuff we need and/or are out of. I’ve been making my grocery lists the same way for years, but it hasn’t dawned on me until recently why my organized lists are set up the way they are until recently when I sent my husband out to do the grocery shopping. You see, I write them in order of where they are located in the store starting at the entrance and ending at the checkouts. This has always seemed logical to me. However, my husband noticed that I use what is apparently called the “Racetrack” method in which I rarely veer off the perimeter of the store where it is mostly fresh and refrigerated goods. I never thought about it that way, but more in the sense that if I don’t write it down in this order the chances of me not getting it or missing it on the list increase by tenfold.

Now, this isn’t to say that I never go into the center aisles where those well preserved shelf products are, because I do. But it isn’t where a majority of my shopping is. I mean, one must gather provisions in the baking aisle every now and then! I also venture into their confines to get pasta and spaghetti sauce and cereals and such. Staying on the so-called “racetrack” also reduces my shopping time, along with having an organized list. That way, if you are like me and tend to wander into a quilt shop before going grocery shopping, you’ll have more time to drool over your latest finds.

Desperate Housewife's Quilt: Block Ten

Your eyes aren’t fooling you. I skipped Block Nine… for now.

After looking over the instructions for the ninth block in the Desperate Housewife’s Quilt series, I decided to skip it for the time being. For one, I didn’t feel like searching through the garage for my fabric glue and two, I had no idea if the glue was still any good as it is pushing a decade. I just don’t use it. So when I saw that the block called for gluing before stitching I simply set it aside for later.

Block Ten was also a little different in that it called for making two blocks then cutting them in half and sewing them together to form a completely different look. So while making Cheese Zombies and Tomato Soup (all from scratch, mind you) I cut and pieced and ripped seams and restitched correctly. I’m not very good at stopping and picking up where I left off, it is a recipe for disaster. My Cheese Zombies and even my Tomato Soup were not, so apparently this doesn’t apply to my cooking, just everything else. Maybe it is because I’m used to working on other stuff while cooking, whereas not so much when crafting.

Anyway, after making the two smaller blocks I decided I really like the look of it and may have to make it for another quilt in the future. But, I will say that once cut on the diagonal and pieced back together, I really like the look of the finished block. Maybe that means I should search the garage for that glue sometime tonight after work. Ugh.

Pond Update

After much pushing and prodding, I finally got my husband outside to help with the pond. We didn’t get a lot done, but about as much as we could.

First off, let me just say that trying to buy pipes to make a waterfall system can be hazardous to your relationships. It isn’t nearly as simple as buying a pre-made waterfall, but decidedly quite less in cost. After scouring the PVC section at Home Depot for what seemed like a half an hour, somebody finally helped us figure out what we needed. However, me being me, argued that we had quite a bit at home and should just get what we need to make that work. That wasn’t going to work anyway, now that I think about it, as those pipes are indoor drain pipes and not thick enough to withstand colder weather.

So, we had our pipes, we had our adhesive foam to make the center waterfall work where the upper pond connects to the lower pond, and it was time to get back home to finish this project once and for all. I foamed in the rocks where I wanted them after carefully wiping them off, only to have the foam ooze out from everywhere it possibly could and it got all over my hands and I couldn’t find the acetone and had gross tar-like hands until my husband pointed to the large can of acetone next to his workbench in the garage. Figures. I was looking for the fingernail polish remover… not that we keep that stuff lying around the house or anything, but I just thought we had some leftover from when my sister would come over to paint her nails and put on makeup and learn how to become a lady. Yes, from me. [sigh]

After I was fairly certain all the residue was removed, I returned to help with the waterfall wand itself. Basically a one foot by one and a half inch black PVC pipe with a cap on one end, a hose connecter on the other, and holes drilled to allow water to come out. I hope it works because I wedged that sucker in pretty good and it’ll take a miracle to get it back where it should go after all the rock finagling I had to do just to get it where we wanted it and nearly invisible too. Alas, I was far too focused on trying to get the damned thing where we wanted it, I didn’t go inside to take a picture for all you Do-It-Yourselfers out there. Maybe I’ll draw you a picture, or better yet, wait until it is all done and water flowing through it before doing so. You know, just in case this was all for naught.

However, one good thing came from all of this so far, and that is that the neighbor loves our progress and offered up her plants by her backyard pond for us to thin out and use. I love having awesome neighbors, and while I miss the neighbors we had at the old house, I’m equally impressed with the ones we have here. Well, most of them anyway. The ones directly across from our driveway leave a lot to be desired.

Weekend Warrior or Saturday Sloth?

I have a Saturday off this month and it is today. Should I make the most of it or do nothing and relax?

Part of me really wants to finish up the pond in the front yard and maybe harvest the rest of the tomatoes in the back garden boxes so they can be prepped for next year. However, a bigger part of me wants to simply do absolutely nothing but sit on my ass. Something tells me with this being the last not rainy day in the foreseeable future until next August I should probably get out and work on those projects that need to be completed.

First of all, the pond is practically done thanks to all the work that was already done previously, we just need to build up the center portion slightly for a more obvious waterfall and rearrange the rocks around the edges. I suppose I should also go ahead and plant the rest of the irises before they rot, if they haven’t done so already. Ugh. All this means I actually need to get out of my pajamas and into some work clothes and outside. Perhaps watching endless hours of mediocre entertainment is more appealing. Or better yet, figuring out if I want to use a pattern for the Alexander Henry prints I recently acquired or just cutting out a bunch of squares and sewing them together for a simple quilt. Hopefully this project won’t turn into another Uninspired Quilt, which, by the way, is still sitting on the shelf waiting for final sandwiching. I don’t know why, but the Uninspired Quilt is so uninspiring. Perhaps it’s the name I gave it because, well, I felt so incredibly uninspired making it.

(In case you don’t know what I’m talking about as far as the Uninspired Quilt goes, just do a search at the top of my blog page for Uninspired Quilt. A multitude of posts will pop up. It was a major topic last year and earlier this year.)