Distractions and Temptations

This weekend is entirely devoted to finishing the first draft of my Master's thesis, which was supposed to be finished on Friday, but that didn't happen.  So here I am, for the second day in a row, at Starbucks because I can't stay focused at home.  There's always someone (namely Herbert) who wants to be in my lap, the TV staring at me, and persistent quiet that I feel the need to fill with said TV.  So when I really need to get things done I head out, usually to somewhere with a good level of ambient noise and free wi-fi.  I've been doing really good, staying off facebook and making significant progress, but I do allow myself some breaks every once in a while.

This most recent break, however, is testing my resolve.  I clicked over to my Google Reader page, and saw a post that almost made me jump up and run to the fabric store.  Dan from Piece and Press posted some pictures of his latest quilting project, and I think I'm in love.  He is testing out a new line of fabric from Thomas Knauer with a paper pieced New York Beauty block, and I think it is fabulous.  I love the birds in the yellow print, and the colors of the other prints are calling to me.  I also totally hear his frustrations with paper piecing, I tried Anina's (of TwiddleTails) Geese in the Forest quilt, and it was a total disaster.  I gave up after making two blocks that were way short in seam allowances, and with more fabric wasted in trimming than actually ended up in the block.  However, after seeing how wonderfully his NYB block turned out, I may have to find a pattern and give this one a shot.  The Flock line is set to ship out to fabric stores this month, I can't wait to track some down!

However! I've already got two projects in the works (Leila's Skill Builder Quilt Along and a yoyo quilt) and haven't had time to even make desired progress on those, so starting another project is probably ill advised... Maybe once I get this monster of a paper turned in I'll start planning something with Flock...Maybe something with 4-5 paper pieced blocks and the rest whole cloth? We shall see!

Now back to bike-sharing.

Whoops!

I recently discovered (or rather caved in and tried) Pinterest.  It's been a fun time-waster, and I've been gathering a random assortment of pins, including recipes, hair styles, and color palates for future quilts. However, it is the kind of site where you can find yourself saying "now how did I get here?" Today, for instance, I found myself looking through pins themed "kid", "baby", and "pregnancy."  It's no secret in our house that I can't wait to be a mom, but my husband and I know we aren't ready at the moment.  We have a set of criteria that must be met (minimum income, housing situation, stable jobs, etc), and a hopeful timeline surrounding TTC, but for now I just indulge in all things baby every once in a while. Anyway, so I'm on Pinterest, pinning random things like cute styles for nurseries and fun photo slideshows, when I pop over to facebook to find not only has everything I've pinned shown up as a post on my wall, but my Father-in-Law has commented on one of them asking if there's something I'm trying to tell them! Eeek! I told him no, and not to worry, and promptly disconnected my Pinterest account from facebook.  Serves me right for not working on my thesis!

Here we go...

Over the past several months I've started reading an assortment of blogs, mostly quilting, but some Mommy blogs as well, and I've found myself thinking about what I would put in a blog.  Maybe I would talk about my quilting projects, or maybe about my frustrations with graduate school, or maybe just about my thoughts about the future.

My plan is to at the very least talk about quilting, since I don't have any local quilting friends (yet).  I try to share my excitement with my husband, but although he is well trained to smile and say "very nice dear," it would be nice to share my excitement with those who understand.  There will also probably be some discussion of my constant battle to keep everything in balance, and my successes and failures in those efforts.

At least for now I don't plan on sharing this blog with people I know locally, which will allow me a little more freedom to write about what I want without worrying about how people I know will judge me. Maybe that will change eventually.