Today was one of those days. You know the kind… you have plans to get a lot done and then things happen. My day wasn't a total loss—I did get some writing done—but other stuff (mostly of my own making) kept popping up..

We needed a new screen door on the front of the house. We bought one a week or so ago and it needed to be painted. It's going to get cold tomorrow so I thought I'd get the thing painted. No big deal! The painting went pretty quickly, about an hour. I also made cookies because we have folks coming for dinner, another hour.

Then I thought to myself "Self, surely you can hang that screen door!" And as it turns out, I could. And then it got interesting.

We had gotten a 2-part screen door. The door itself has two openings. The bottom one is designed to accept a decorative/supporting wood insert. The insert was painted and ready but when I set it in, it didn't fit! It should have fit, every bit of paperwork said it would. But it did not.

Back to Lowe's where I got a different one. Luckily, I checked it this time before I painted it because it doesn't fit either. Sigh.

So, it was my own fault that I lost a good part of the day but the screen door is in place (without the insert, but there you go) and the cookies are ready.

Tomorrow should be a more productive day. By that I mean a day in which I focus on work and ignore the other stuff. (I have to ignore the instant gratification monkey.)

My mom has been working on a Welcome to the North Pole quilt for a little more than a year. She finished the blocks about a week ago. I had promised to set them together for her, which I was able to do last weekend.

It's pretty great, don't you think!

When she started this quilt, I would do my 'applique teacher' thing and make suggestions about how to do one thing or another. Sometimes she took my suggestions and other times, not so much. She made a lot of stuff up on her own—and it works!

I had gone through my fabric and taken her a variety of choices that I thought would work in her quilt. Darned if she didn't make it work. 

Mom thought about using felt for the reindeer and the antlers and that worked well. She went to JoAnn's and got some fuzzy stuff (minky?) for beards. It's cute! She'll do more embellishing after I get it quilted. That will be in the spring, after I get the color book finished. This year she's going to hang the top as it is now. 

Now she's ready for a new project. I've drawn a pattern for her from an antique butterfly pattern. Eventually that will go up on the website because if mom likes it as much as she does, I'll bet some of you all will too :-).

Have a great weekend!

Lori F. won the copy of Quilt Essential and I have sent her an email. Lori, all we need is your address and the book will be on its way to you. Congratulations and happy reading (and sewing!)

Suzanne won the copy of Making Quilts. I can hear sighs from those who are not Suzanne, so how about another give-away!

My publisher sent me a copy of Quilt Essential which is a very nice book ideed! The quilts have a modern/contemporary flavor but even if you prefer traditional quilts, there is a lot of good information to be found between the covers of this happy book. I have enjoyed flipping through it—very gently—now it's your turn!

Leave a comment below to enter the drawing. I'll have my random number generator choose a number on Friday. Good luck!

I subscribe to Chuck Green's Ideabook newsletter. While always interesting, every now and then he links to something that really resonates with me. Yesterday he linked to a post from wait but why about procrastination. It's a quick read that you may enjoy as much as I did.

I have to admit that I am not as good at staying on task as I imagine myself to be. Now I can picture the invisible but energetic instant gratification monkey that lives with me and who is often hard to ignore. But I'm going to try to put him on a leash today! 

The blog, wait but why, posts once a week on Tuesdays. Because I am not going to spend the day procrastinating, I won't look at past posts until later. Maybe much later :-). So I've added a link to wait but why in the list of my favorite blogs at right. That way we can all find it when we time to kill spend.

PS—if you haven't entered the give away from my last post, you have until Sunday, 11/3 to enter. Leave a comment on that post, not this one, to enter. Have a nice weekend!

In celebration of the day, how about a give away? I wrote about Kathy Doughty's wonderful new book earlier this month… would you like to win a copy? If so, leave a comment on the blog and on Sunday I'll choose a winner at random. If you leave a comment, be sure tocheck back Sunday afternoon or Monday morning to see if you won. Sometimes there's an email link to you in your comment, and sometimes there isn't. If I don't know where to send the book, you might miss out.

And because it's Halloween and because Steve and I did dress up on Saturday (with friends) to attend a Halloween wine stroll in downtown Sherman, I thought I'd share a photo. The six of us were mad scientists. Steve stuck to type and went as a mad bug scientist. I channeled Marie Curie and was radioactive-ish. I added glow-in-the-dark necklaces and bracelets after this photo. Our group won the adult costume category!