Update w/ lots of pictures!

Wow, lots going on and very little time to blog about it...but here's the update with photos!

I started working on nights (7p-7a) at the hospital on August 19th - on the Neuro/Spine unit.  Our typical patients are hip & knee replacements, spine surgery, stroke or suspected neuro damage, and trauma step-down.  There is a lot of new equipment to learn, new policies to remember, etc. so it's very interesting and challenging.  I'm loving it!  It is an adjustment switching over to nights and then flipping back to "normal" hours on my days off, but it's worth it.

My birthday was August 21st...and lasted for about a week, which is nice.  Dinners, balloons, flowers, cake, cards, notes, gifts and gift cards.  Here are a couple of pics:

I *love* owls...closest they had to an owl birthday balloon!

Flowers and some of the cards.

Our message board in the kitchen... :-)

Short, summer hair!

And before all of this, I started remodeling the closet.  Sounds exciting, doesn't it?!  LOL...actually I turned 1/2 of the spare bedroom closet into a sewing area for my quilting.  Luckily, the closet runs the whole length of the room, so I had some space to work with.  After emptying it, assembling organizer cubes into a desk, staining and sealing the desktop, buying some $1 store baskets, installing the light fixture...it's ready to use!

Left side of desk

Right side of desk

Baskets hanging above pegboard

Thread holder on right side wall

All my quilting rulers hanging up

$1 store baskets holding most of my fabric stash

View from outside the closet...bright overhead light!

I also have a wooden TV tray that I can pull out and top with a pressing mat to iron my seams as I go if I like.  For my cutting and actual quilting (especially larger items) I would have to set up at the kitchen table, but for now I love that I have my own little nook to sew in and be creative.  Roger loves it because when you close the doors, the room looks all neat and tidy!

There's also a "design wall" - which is actually an inexpensive flannel backed table cloth with the flannel side out, tacked up with push pins.  Before I show you what I had up on it, here's a clue.  I needed a handwork project earlier this month and this is what I ended up with at the end of the week:

Hexies!!

112 - 1-1/2 Hexagons paper basted!  I just love looking at them all lined up like a rainbow.  So, I only need 440 or so more to go to get a decent sized throw.  Well, there's lots more work in that since they all have to be hand sewn together too.  Trying to decide on a layout will be the biggest challenge.  Here's the traditional "flower" layout:

Flowers

On the design wall

I have some more fabrics cut out to fill in and try a more color gradient style layout...burgundy, pinks, gold, olive, dark green, light blue, navy, lavender, brown, black, etc.  We'll see how that goes...the sewing has slowed down a bit since I started working, but it's easy to pick up and put down.

Hope everyone is well!  Hugs!