Jenyfer Matthews

Here is it – I finished the large commission quilt up shortly after I posted about it on Monday.

I always have mixed feelings about commission pieces. On the one hand, it’s always nice to have your skills appreciated and sought after (yeah me!) On the other hand, there is a fair amount of stress that goes into making something for someone else, that may or may not appeal to your own tastes. Did I interpret their request properly? Will the finished product live up to the vision in their heads? For instance, I would have preferred putting a black binding edge on this quilt – in my mind it would have balanced the bolder blocks of color in the center nicely as well as being more dramatic. However, the person who commissioned the quilt was quite specific about wanting me to use the lighter, neutral backing fabric as the binding. They also said that I was free to do as I wished so I went back and forth on the point the entire time I worked on this quilt. At the end of the day it’s not my quilt so I went with the lighter fabric. It doesn’t look as bad as I thought it might.

This is also the cleanest quilt ever now. Ironically, rather than using pencil to mark my quilt lines as I usually do, this time I decided to be cautious and use chalk because it would be less likely to stain. Imagine my alarm when I took it from the washing machine and found blue chalk lines still visible – even after two washings! I ended up having to take stain remover and a tooth brush to all the lines and then wash it again before it came out satisfactorily. (I can still see it in places, but you’d really have to know where to look).

Now I can turn my full attention to finishing the Noah’s Ark baby quilt.

I ordered a dance light for my daughter’s birthday present on Sunday and picked it up today – only to discover that it spins from the bottom post but does not rotate on its top axis as it should. I decided rather than take it back to the shop to make them exchange it, I would take it to my favorite repair place instead. Why? Because they special ordered it for me and I assumed that if I took it back to the shop, they would first argue with me that it was fine as it is (as they did when I took it) and then next would likely try to fix it themselves, further mucking it up and dragging the process out more. Yes, I’m paying to fix a “new” item, but also skipping a step (and a headache) As we say in Egypt mahlaysch (nevermind)!

With all of my recently enforced home time due to my mystery illness, I am at least a week ahead of schedule on my quilt projects. I’m about 20 inches from being done on the binding edge on the queen sized commission I’m working on and just about done with the Noah’s Ark baby quilt as well. I am determined to finish up the queen sized quilt today so I can wash it tomorrow morning and hopefully deliver it by the end of the week.

What a load off my mind that will be. I’ll post pictures as soon as I wash off the chalk marks.

As if my children’s tennis schedule wasn’t onerous enough before, it’s recently been increased. I am now sitting at tennis practice for 13 – yes, I said 13 – hours a week. I anticipate much bonding time with my netbook (her name is Rosemary). I took her along last night so I could do a little editing during my long vigil. If I can reclaim even half of that time every week, just imagine what I could accomplish?

And because you can never start shopping too far ahead of time, I ordered my daughter her very own multi-colored rotating dance ball for her birthday next month. Now we can have a disco any night the mood hits. I also ordered a Nintendo DS for my son to be delivered to me in the US this summer, for his big Christmas present. I even scare myself when I get this efficient.

I spent the weekend flat on my back in bed, alternatively reading and napping. Doesn’t sound so bad til you add in the fever and muscle aches. At first I thought I must have some mild flu, but four days later – and in the total absence of respiratory symptoms – I finally decided to go to the doctor. He seems to think that I ate something bad / tainted. That fits since I worked at the library on Thursday last week – they provided lunch AND that’s the evening symptoms started. It is Egypt after all. I should really know better by now.

I have medicine now. Here’s hoping that I can sneeze without excruciating muscular chest pain in a short while.

When I got tired of reading in bed, I dragged myself to the couch to convalesce on the couch while watching TV – BBC Lifestyle to be exact. It’s amazing to think about the sort of window into a place you get from only watching TV. If I didn’t know better, I might get the idea that the Brits have houses stuffed with priceless but unrecognized antiques (Antiques Road Show, Cash in the Attic), a taste for fine food (countless celebrity chef shows), and are all itching to buy a house / start a business in Spain (Living in the Sun). Where are the fish and chips? The soccer hooligans?

On the flip side, with TV as the view, it’s no wonder that Brits have the idea that all Americans either have a NY or Texan accent. (My own accent is so nondescript middle-America that I could be a news anchor. I’ve had Americans as me if I’m British!) The Brits who travel have already gotten over the idea that real, every day Americans are all tall, willowy, and blond.

I’m going to continue to lay low the rest of the week and hope that I can enjoy NEXT weekend a bit more. What will be my excuse for watching BBC Lifestyle all day then?

My son is only seven, in grade two in the British system. Every year since he’s started school his teachers have expressed concern about his handwriting and his ability to “express his thoughts” in writing. When I tried once to respond to this concern by saying I thought it was quite common for little boys to have poor handwriting and that we were practicing writing his name at home, his teacher at the time gave me a serious look and said “you did give him a really long name.” As if handwriting should have been on my mind when I chose his name!

Of course, things have only progressed as he’s moved up through the grades. His handwriting hasn’t improved much, nor has his spelling, and asking him to sit down and write a couple of sentences for homework is pure torture – for both of us. This week’s assignment: Imagine a new planet where (pick a scenario) time runs backward, there is no day or night, people are tiny, etc and then explain how life is from when you wake up in the morning to when you go to sleep at night. What things are easier? What things are more difficult?

I know adults who would have trouble coming up with a decent response to such an assignment let alone a seven year old boy who’d rather be doing just about anything else but sitting still and writing an essay after a long day spent at school sitting still and doing work.

What makes it all worse is that I know my son could do it if he wanted to. He has the fine motor skills to trace detailed pictures and to color elaborate illustrations inside the lines. There are even times when he will sit down with a notebook and write himself a story out of his head, complete with illustrations. What’s the difference? Motivation. He wants to do his thing, not theirs. I get that – I can’t write someone else’s story ideas either. I, however, was always a good student and did my assignments well to please my teacher if nothing else. Hard to know how to instill that desire in my own children.

Every year I tell myself that I’ll work with the children during the summer to improve the subject they are having the most difficulty with: math for my daughter and writing for my son. Then by the end of the school year I’m so tired and fed up with fighting with them both to get through the required school work that I let it slide… for the whole summer. When will *I* learn?

As we come up to the last month of school and the end of the year, I’m dreading the next parent teacher conference where I’ll have to sit and nod while the teachers tell me about my son’s failure to perform up to their (in my opinion, ridiculous) standards in writing and how my daughter knows the math but doesn’t test well. Blah blah blah. Both of these things are well documented already. Surprise me and tell me something new, please.

Five weeks of school left and counting…

My daughter’s tenth birthday is in mid-July but we had her party on Friday so she could have it with her friends before school ends. All in all it seemed to be a success.

I was fairly stressed out during the planning however. I know it sounds stupid – it’s just a child’s party after all. You’d have to have seen some of the parties I’ve seen here to understand.

Many of the families at the school my children attend work in the oil industry – a more lucrative career choice than academics. In my time here I’ve seen parties where the parents take the entire class bowling and out for lunch at Chilis. Parties where the parents rent space and hire bouncy castles and/or bungee jumping trampolines. In addition they might also hire clowns, magicians, DJs, bubble machines, popcorn carts, cotton candy machines, and face painters. There are party planners you can call and get complete packages – pay them enough and they’ll even manage the games for you. One party we attended was catered by a rather swish Indian restaurant.

Then there’s me with the at-home do-it-yourself party.

I truly do believe that simple is better and that while the children find all of the above options fun, they aren’t really necessary. Ever see a kid play with a stick? Or a rock? I apply the same concept to the birthday party, though I admit I do worry about the consequences of my choices. No one wants their child to be embarrassed by their parents. On the other hand, how do you continue to top yourself from year to year when you set the bar so high, so young?

My daughter and I decided on a dance party and invited fourteen girls. I compiled two disks of music from our CDs and iTunes, cleared the living room of furniture, picked up the carpets, and borrowed a multi-colored dance globe. I littered the floor with balloons and hooked the video camera up to the TV so they could watch themselves dance. I hung a small disco ball over the food table and a ran strand of twinkling white lights on the side board near the stereo.

Since I didn’t rent a dance hall or hire a DJ, I decided to wow them with hard-to-find American junk food: mini bagel pizzas, popcorn, puffed twisted Cheetos, four flavors of Kool-Aid, and watermelon and instead of cake I planned to serve build-your-own ice cream sundaes complete with choices of M&Ms, Oreos, sprinkles, chocolate or strawberry sauce, whipped cream, and maraschino cherries. I figured if I supplied enough sugar, they would supply the fun

In spite of the fact that everything was coming together nicely, the night before the party I woke in the early hours of the morning from a vivid dream that the party was over but that I’d forgotten to serve the ice cream sundaes!!

We ended up having nearly 100% attendance – only one girl couldn’t make it. Picture it: fourteen little girls dancing and playing in my living room sticking balloons to their heads with static electricity. They even initiated and ran a game of musical statues on their own. My main function was to serve food and stay out of the way. My daughter really didn’t want me to join in the dancing, though I admit to bopping around the kitchen a bit.

I did not forgot the ice cream – believe me, I was very focused on that – but I did forget to carve and serve the watermelon!

The only thing that would have been better would have been if I’d had the party at night to maximize the effect of the dance light, but since we have floor to ceiling windows covered only by sheers and it doesn’t get dark now until nearly 8pm that wasn’t really an option – at least not until she turns sixteen!

The dance light and the music brought back fond memories of my own birthday parties at the local roller rink. When I told my daughter about it, she thought it sounded really great and it’s sad to think that roller rinks don’t seem to exist anymore. Whatever happened to them, do you think? Out of fashion? Too big a space to rent? Too much liability insurance required against injuries? How many of you remember doing the Hokey-Pokey on rollerskates?

I had planned to write a thoughtful book review of The Kite Runner for today, but what with birthday party planning, manic quilting, and the usual daily chores it didn’t happen. I thought I might even be able to write it up this morning but not only didn’t I have any coherent thoughts in my head, other things got in the way.

6am – 7:30am: Get up, get the children up and ready for school
8am: Remember NOT to eat breakfast or have my morning tea because of a physical with blood work at 2pm
9am: Tennis lesson
10am: Buy birthday present for party my daughter is attending Thursday after school
11am: One hour commute to campus (where physical will take place)
12noon: Arrive campus, finally get my campus ID
2pm: Physical
3pm: SNACK
4pm: Commute one hour home
5pm: Homework, dinner
6:30pm: Yoga class (think I’ll actually make it???)

The plans for the dance party are coming together well – I have most of the food, a play list for the dancing, and a disco ball. Not making a cake – we’re doing build-your-own-sundaes. I’m supplying the space, the music, and the sugar. The children will have to supply the fun!

We had a beach holiday that was actually spent at the beach and was wonderfully relaxing as well. It’s amazing what only a couple of days away can do for your mood.

(Click image to enlarge)

We’ve been to this hotel before so I knew pretty much knew what to expect. We arrived mid-afternoon the first day so we grabbed a couple of sun beds near the back of the beach under the shade of a thatched hut and commenced relaxing. I entertained myself with my nifty camera and it’s super-cool zoom.

I didn’t remember there being so many Egyptians there last time, or at least not in Islamic bathing suits. Made me wonder if they were Egyptian or from Saudi Arabia?

It was hot in the sun. Hot enough that I finally took my first swim in the Red Sea (the water was lovely). Even the birds were hot.

But I can’t quite see the point in this. It’s one thing to be modest and cover, but is that really any fun to wear once it’s wet and clinging to you?

The water at this beach is much shallower and calmer than the beach in Dahab where my son and I were last month. However, the bottom is sandier and there isn’t much to see either. Didn’t stop him from finally going snorkeling!

His proudest find was a dead sting ray, which he gave a decent burial after showing it off to anyone who would look. He was also quite pleased with this crab.

I also finished The Kite Runner over the weekend. More on that later. Right now I have to take a disco ball to the repair shop in preparation for my daughter’s girl-dance party this Friday. A mother’s work is never done…

I haven’t been in a great mood this week. Not sure what is up exactly – at least some of it is hormones and some of it is the hot weather. The rest? I think it boils down to time.

For me, there is always a balance between finding time to get all that needs to be done accomplished and finding time for me. If I am too busy, I get stressed out. If I don’t have enough to do, I get antsy and find myself merely killing time rather than enjoying the moment which is depressing. I like to feel productive, BUT if I have too many things that are in service to other people, I start to feel resentful. If I let too many things slide in order to make more “me-time” then I feel guilty.

But wait! There’s more.

If I have to spend too much time out and about socializing, I start to feel frazzled. But if I spend too much time alone, I feel flat.

Obviously, it’s a fairly delicate balancing act on a good day – throw some hormones in there and a couple of smart-mouthed children and I guess I have the answer to why this week has been less than satisfying for me so far.

Good thing I’m going to beach on Friday…

I never participated in sports as a kid. First because the Catholic school I attended until eight grade didn’t even have PE class. Later, I was much too self-conscious to admit that I didn’t know how to play various games which was necessary before I could actually learn to play anything.

What it boils down to is that if I can’t be sure I’ll do something well, I just won’t do it at all. Instead of sports, I concentrated on my school work and was on the honor roll rather than a team.

Never in my wildest imagination did I ever expect to have two such sports-gifted children. They are amazing to watch. And after two years of watching them play tennis and making it look easy, I was sucked in to my own lessons at the suggestion of a friend.

I really ought to have known better.

It’s not that I’m bad at it. I’m okay for a beginner, even if it isn’t as easy as the children make it look. It’s that I let myself get intensely competitive about the whole thing. I want to be the best. Except why does it matter? It’s not as if I’m ever going to be a champion tennis player at my age. I’m an adult and supposed to be more mature than that, so why can’t I just relax and have fun with it instead of channeling my inner McEnroe?

The experience has given me new insight into my children’s mentality with their own tennis lessons, and not always in a good or comfortable way. Funny to think that I was on the right track as a young person by just avoiding the whole thing…

I am finally turning my attention to the commission quilt I accepted back in November. It’s a queen sized quilt and I wasn’t super enthusiastic about taking on such a big project at the time – I even tried to put them off by saying I had other projects I was working on and that it would take me at least six months to finish. They didn’t mind. How was I supposed to know that I was going to move to a new house and take a medical trip to the US in the meantime? It really is creeping up on six months now and I’m not finished.

I did set a personal record and got the entire quilt pieced, pressed, and the layers basted in two days last week – just before my weekend in bus hell away.

I switched the quilt on my own bed this week and it happened to be another quilt that I made at a time of many life disruptions back in 2006. I took an online class and my plan was to finish this quilt before summer vacation. Little did I know that my husband was going to get a new job and that I’d be organizing an international move before that summer too. I ended up finishing the quilt top and packing it up in my suitcase along with the very colorful pieced backing I’d constructed to go with it. My plan was to lay it out in my mother’s living room and get it basted and ready to quilt when we got to our new home in Egypt.

While I was in the US, I started to worry about the colorful backing – the front was fairly light colored and I didn’t want the colors from the backing to bleed. So I decided to wash the backing with a color fixer called Retayne. Mistake! The colors might have been permanent after the wash, but the seams frayed so badly I would have had to cut it the pieces apart and reconstruct the backing. I decided to just buy some other fabric for the back instead.

If that wasn’t bad enough, I took the quilt top out of my suitcase to start basting the layers together and discovered that the sewing machine oil that I’d tossed in my suitcase (in a baggie) at the last minute had leaked onto the quilt top!! Having learned my lesson about washing things from the having ruined the original backing, I treated the oil spots with dish soap and spot cleaned it the best I could – and kept my fingers crossed the rest would come out when I could eventually wash it.

Once we finally made it to Egypt, it was quite a while before I had the time or the energy to do any hand quilting in the evenings, though the quilt was finally more or less ready to go. I hadn’t been working on it for very long when I stood up after a couple hours of quilting and ruptured a disk. After all the heavy lifting and hard work I’d been doing all summer long, it was sitting on the couch in one position too long that did me in.

I was in bed for about six months with my back injury but I did eventually get back to the quilt. I stitched in the ditch around every single piece with variegated rainbow colored thread. I made my own template to fill in the “blank” areas. I scribbled all over it as I tried one pattern and changed my mind in favor of another motif before I sent an SOS to another quilt friend for advice. She gave me a great idea and I was finally able put the last stitches in it. I can usually finish a large quilt in a couple of months, hand quilting. What with delays and injuries, this quilt took me closer to two years!

It was the singular most troublesome quilt I ever made for myself, but it’s so pretty I think it’s almost worth all that trouble.

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I change my quilts for the seasons and this one is early summer.

I actually like the plain backing a lot – really shows off the rainbow stitching!

I’m hoping that the commission quilt won’t be quite so much trouble as this one was to finish. At least I’ve learned my lesson about sitting for too long at a stretch!