Water Woes

Funny thing lately as I read blogs. Lots of water problems! Karen had an issue and I just read nanflan's blog and it seems she had an water woes too. I joined the water woe club yesterday. We suspected (for a few weeks) an element was out on our water heater. Now, that water heater seemed fairly new but it was actually 10 years old! So it didn't make a lot of sense to repair, rather replace. To a tune of $775 dollars that is. Then the quote for dishwasher installation was $225. Uh, no thanks. That's almost the price I paid for the dishwasher!!! So I called Sears to get their price and the plumber matched it. I guess it was a good thing. The hot water pipe under the sink was starting to leak and the copper piping to the dishwasher was corroding. So we got that replaced. 5 hours after the plumber arrived, he was done with a nice bill to the tune of $1,181. That's a big ouch! However, it will finally be nice to use a dishwasher since I haven't used one since Thanksgiving Day 2006. Yeah, the year 2006 is correct, which means about 15 mos. without a dishwasher. Let's just say we've been using a lot of disposable plates, cutlery, spoons, and bowls during that time.

On the sewing front, yesterday, I was cleaning up and organizing our basement family room so I can install a pitching contraption for DD#2 and DS#1. I had a lot of fabric piled up on a table along with stencils, fabric paints, slopers, and sloper patterns I've created the past two years. I think one more rubbermaid tote would be good to store all my fabric remnants. Last night I was researching what I could do with all those smaller pieces, not enough for garments, but too nice to throw away. So there's 3 piles of remnants, two of smallish pieces, one with larger ones. Once that gets cleared out, I think my sewing corner will look much more organized. DD#2 did notice I put up a huge pair of paper mache scissors she made in art class. She said the teacher told them to make an item dealing with a school subject and she chose art class--thus a pair of scissors. (Darn, I wish I could say sewing class inspired her but that's not the case.) I'll try to take a picture of that later.

For my four upcoming sewing projects, I cut out all the pattern pieces needed for the projects. Today I'm going to the dollar store to get several packs of tissue paper for tracing. My first project to be cut? My Burda coat! I was thinking about black leather welt pockets, then changed my mine to self-drafted side seam pockets. Now I've changed my mind again after seeing Pattern Review member lilyofthevalley's coat. Check out this awesome pic of it: http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2384/2287875316_6584e3133f_b.jpg . Not only is that houndstooth fab, look at those leather welts! So...I changed my mind and I'm back to black leather welts again. Thanks, Lily! Your coat was incredibly awesome! I even purchased some nice black fancy style buttons at JoAnn's the last time I was there just for this project.

Off to household duties now, and I can't believe the kids are off school today AGAIN! Hardly any snow and it's supposed to be a high of at least 40 degrees. Happy Sewing!