Torianna's Corner

Today, I worked on “Stars”, my current “quilt-along” project. As the title of this vanity post indicates, there’s definitely “some assembly required” when it comes to quilting! I spent some time assembling “block kits”, which are all of the pieces needed for a particular block of the quilt.

“Stars” will be made from the following three different blocks:

• modified log cabin blocks;
• dark star blocks; and
• light star blocks.

As of today, I’ve finished sewing ALL of the modified log cabin blocks, which were fun to make, as well as fourteen dark star blocks and eight light star blocks, both of which involve “flying geese”. This means that I’ve still got to make 24 more dark start blocks and 26 light star blocks. The other day, I assembled 15 complete dark star block “kits”, and today, I assembled 11 light star block “kits”. This means that I’ve still got some more “slicing and dicing” to do since I ran out of several key parts needed for assembling blocks. Once I get all of that done, I’ll be able to start assembling the remaining blocks!

So, yeah… The phrase “some assembly required” definitely fits the creation of quilts!

Yay! I’m happy to report that I FINALLY had my “I can see clearly now!” moment! Sweet Thing and I went to town yesterday, and we picked up our new prescription eyeglasses: He got a pair with flip-up shades, and I got a regular pair of glasses as well as a pair of prescription sunglasses (The separate “shades” proved to be one too many things for me to keep track of in the past, so I opted to get both.)

Instead of being at a scenic overlook while I was taking a driver’s education class in high school, yesterday’s “I can see clearly!” moment of mine happened in the Vision Center of my local WalMart. Instead of being able to see a bridge in the distance, I was able to clearly see signs on the other side of the store! In addition, everything in the store was sparkly and bright instead of blurry and dull! Such an improvement!!!

Now that I have my prescription glasses, I’ll be able to read the locator signs in the store — from a distance (like the ends of the aisles) without having to be practically underneath them! So much better for shopping! Seeing/reading the locator signs for the first time in quite some time was great, but I discovered while shopping that I had to take my new glasses off in order to better read things like the price tags on the shelves — since I don’t need glasses for reading things up close. So, yeah… No reading glasses for me. Just “driving” glasses — both regular prescription glasses AND prescription sunglasses!

If you wear prescription eyeglasses, I’d love to hear about your “I can see clearly now!” moment after you got your first (or a new) pair of prescription eyeglasses (either regular or sunglasses), so please take a moment to leave a comment below.

This is my official “I have nothing worth writing about and/or no time to write it” vanity post. From now on, whenever my schedule is so busy that I don’t feel I have time to come up with something interesting in a timely manner, I’ll publish “Vanity Post #14” — my version of Chuck Lorre’s vanity card #111.

NOTE: your “regularly scheduled” posting will resume shortly — barring no more “technical difficulties” OR busy schedules — even if I have to pre-schedule a darned post!

“Technical difficulties” and MORE “technical difficulties! The past couple of days it seems as though I’ve been dealing with nothing but “technical difficulties”, AND I’m tired of it!!

First, I was trying to add some pictures to my previous vanity post, but Zenny (my laptop computer) ended up crashing — hence the “technical difficulties”! After a not-so-good night’s sleep, I tried to open a browser on Denny (my desktop computer), but it refused to open. Well… More accurately, it would briefly open and then close again — all in the blink of an eye. At that point, Sweet Thing took a look at it, and his verdict was that my camera/mobile phone had corrupted something on Denny when he had transferred the pictures from it to Denny after Zenny crashed — the “and MORE ‘technical difficulties'”!!

So, yeah… I’ve been dealing with “technical difficulties” and MORE “technical difficulties” for the past couple of days — well, probably for much of my life, if I’m being honest.

All right, my rant is over, and your “regularly scheduled” posting will resume shortly — barring no more “technical difficulties”.

I’ve got good news and bad news, so which do you want first — the good news or the bad news? Since I usually prefer to hear the bad news first (to get it out of the way AND to save the best for last), I’l tell ya the bad news first.

In yesterday’s vanity post (#90), I shared the good news that we’d be picking up our new prescription glasses today. Well… Today’s bad news is that we postponed our trip to town for this purpose because we thought that the vision center was closed on the weekends. (Found out later that it was actually open until 6:00 PM, but I didn’t want to make two trips into town.)

So, yeah… My “I can see clearly now!” moment was postponed for a couple more days. That’s too bad ‘cuz I could have used ’em today — when I watched (as best as I could with my uncorrected vision) hummingbirds eating at and fighting over our hummingbird feeder. Once was just after I’d woken up — spotted the little guys (or gals) when I glanced out the window (even took a video of ’em!) — and again later in the afternoon when I was working on the front porch, which…

brings me to the good news: I managed to (almost) completely clear off a section of the porch that’s been collecting junk for years, and this wasn’t even planned! I had gone out to the porch looking for my “Insect Shield” hat that I’d misplaced the last time I worked on the porch. I knew it was missing because I normally put my work glove in it and leave it on the hall tree near the front door. So, yeah… I went outside to look for it, but I got distracted by first this and then that. Between this, that and a lot of other things I managed, as I said earlier, to (almost) completely clear off a section of the porch!

At this point, I’m going to try to include “before” and “after” pics in today’s vanity post. If I’m successful, you should be able to see ’em below:

“Before”

“Technical difficulties”… Stay tuned for pics!

“After”

“Technical difficulties”… Stay tuned for pics!

And this is NOT all of the good news! A while ago, we purchased a ten-pound box of “irregular slices” of bacon, and I was pleasantly surprised when I opened the box to “process” (read: vacuum seal) it today! This kind of a purchase is always a gamble because you can’t tell what you’ll be getting. I remember one time when I opened the box and was VERY disappointed because I got ten pound of bacon BITS in a box. NO SLICES whatsoever! This was why I was surprised to find a whole box FULL of slices! Here’s the proof:

SLICES of bacon

“Technical difficulties”… Stay tuned for pics!

BLTs, anyone?

MORE good news! I did NOT lose the draft of this post due to the aforementioned “technical difficulties”! So… Once I resolve said difficulties, I WILL add the pictures.

At 9:34 AM yesterday morning, we got some good news: Our new eyeglasses (AND my new sunglasses) are ready to be picked up in town!

They were originally supposed to be ready for pick-up this past Thursday, but I suspect that my “add-on” order for a pair of prescription sunglasses put a wrench into the delivery plans. Oh, well… At least we’re FINALLY getting our new prescription glasses! I’m looking forward to yet another “I can see clearly now!” moment AND Sweet Thing is looking forward to being able to renew his driver’s license.

In Vanity Post #75 (published on my nephew’s birthday — 14 August), I started transcribing a list of things (movies and series) that were in my “Watch it again” Netflix category, primarily because I didn’t have anything else to write about that day. Well… I’ve found myself in a similar situation, so I’m going to continue transcribing that list. Here goes…

• Dream Home Makeover;
• Country Comfort;
• Tiny House Nation;
• North of North;
• La Brea;
• Broadchurch;
• Sullivan’s Crossing;
• Falling Skies;
• Leave the World Behind;
• The Adam Project;
• The Great British Baking Show — Holidays;
• American Primeval;
• The Life List;
• Sandokan, the Pirate Prince;
• Happy’s Place;
• Enola Holmes;
• Enola Holmes 2;
• Free Rein;
• The Mother;
• Harlan Coben’s Fool Me Once;
• Queer Eye;
• Matilda;
• Is It Cake 3?;
• Black Doves; and
• Man on the Inside.

So, there you have it: Part 2 of my “Watch it again” list. As I mentioned in Part 1, I’d love to find out whether you’ve watched any of the shows on this list AND what you thought of them. So… Please leave me a comment below!

I continued working on something that I started on the day I missed this week’s “quilt-along” session:

I did some more figurin’ about how much “slicing and dicing” I still need to do for “Stars”, my current “quilt-along” project. By the time the calculations were complete, I was…

SO DISAPPOINTED!

I figured that I still need anywhere from 6 to 60 pieces in four different fabrics and sizes, AND I discovered that I have to purchase more fabric — for the SECOND time!!

So, yeah… I was so disappointed when I made this discovery. I guess it’s a good thing we’re planning to go to town within the next day or two.