Too much work!

I've been working too hard lately! It's summertime and the living is supposed to be easy, but not the past week or so. 

For one thing, the project Paul and I started a few weeks ago to make a cushion for a window seat in Paul's new apartment turned into a real challenge.  Everything seemed to be going well until I sewed up the last seam and realized the top and bottom pieces weren't matching up, leaving the top askew.  I rewatched the video I was following, checked the measurements of the pieces, ripped out my stitching, decreased the amount of pressure on the pressure foot and tried again.  Still askew.  Grrr.....  On the third try I painstakingly pinned the pieces together, matching up the corners carefully and placing pins every quarter inch or so to ease in the excess fabric.  Success!  It only took three days of presevering, but it was finally finished.  Cheers all around!  

And it looks great on Paul's window seat. 

Second, our sour cherry tree has a bumper crop this year and I've been picking the wonderful cherries, which is quite the little job.  After picking them you have to clean and pit them.  I made this messy job more pleasant by watching the newly released season 3 of Virgin River on Netflix while I worked.  

 

And then comes the yummy part, using the picked, cleaned, and pitted cherries to make delicious treats.  Hmmm... good!

July 17th was Paul's actual move in date.  I thought it would be done in one hot, sweaty, busy day, and it was.  Paul did a great job of planning his move and it all went well but it was just was a lot of hard work since we didn't hire movers.  Now it's taken several more days to clear out of the old rental place.  The other two roomies and their families were leaving town and Ben and I volunteered to make sure that the final cleanup and walk through got done.  As you may recall from your own moves, "empty" doesn't really mean empty.  It means empty of all the stuff you want, not all the stuff you don't want, like surplus food in the kitchen cupboards, trash, and assorted unwanted furniture and belongings.  The kids did a pretty good job, but making the final sweep has taken some effort.  On Ben's part, it's meant moving some furniture and boxes; on my part it's meant clearing all the unwanted food and "stuff" out of the kitchen.  We hope to wrap this all up soon.   

Well, not all my recent efforts have been "too much work."  I've also been working on my sunflower piece, which is both challenging and lots of fun.  Here's a few peeks. 

The photos I'm using in this piece were taken last year in a lovely sunflower garden down the street.  Here is a shot next to it taken just last week.  I do love sunflowers!