My Vacation from Work

Hello everyone! I have had yesterday and today off work, which made for an amazingly stress-free 4-day weekend! I haven't felt this way for such a long time.
General Conference was so enjoyable for me - I especially liked Elder Scott's and President Uchtdorf's talks. Why is it that it's sooo extra hard for me to stay awake during conference? I admit this even though I know there are many who probably feel as if they could never allow themselves to sleep during conference. Have you ever done it though?? There is something so peaceful about sleeping with conference playing in the background. Aside from that though, I get so tired just sitting and listening (it's hard work, you know). This time, on Saturday at least, I kept myself fairly busy cleaning my bathroom, doing laundry and stuff. With a different TV playing in almost every room of the house, it makes listening really easy. Staying busy served the dual purpose of keeping me awake so I could hear the talks and getting necessary tasks done at the same time (I love multi-tasking!)

Anyway, later on during the second session, I started working on a project that I've had pending for awhile. A couple of months ago I went shopping for the 'ingredients' that are required for school kits donated to the Humanitarian Center (4 pencils, a 12” ruler, blunt scissors, an eraser, a pencil sharpener, a set of 12 colored pencils, and approximately 450 sheets of paper). Then I got some fabric to make the bags and then set it all aside for awhile. On Saturday I decided to pull it all out and get it done. Overall it went pretty well, though not quite as I had hoped. I went to the clearance section at Hancock Fabrics and found a boring looking gray fabric - sturdy, and with one side being kind of velvet-like. I wasn't looking for something boring, but I didn't really want denim and I couldn't find much else that was sturdy, but I thought that it would be fun to use some of the decorative stitching on my mom's great new sewing machine to brighten up the plain look of the bags. I'm kind of disappointed in the result though, because some of the colors of thread that I had didn't show up strongly against the gray and I didn't have enough patience to spend a lot of time doing more than just accents (especially when I was hurting myself every five minutes). I’m not impressed artistically either - the accents aren't even particularly good-looking - which makes me a little sad. In all seriousness though, they were made with a lot of love and thought directed to whatever children will use them. I hope that Heavenly Father will compensate for my meager efforts to provide something pretty and fun for these kids who may not have a lot to call their own.

I enjoy projects like this, and have thought that I would like to do a few every so often, but jeez - I sure injured myself!! I can't be 100% sure, but I believe that I punctured the end of my left forefinger from one end to the other with the sewing machine needle when I foolishly reached towards it in an attempt to rescue some bunching fabric. What I know for sure is that I heard a noise, my finger hurt and I yelled, and when I pulled it away it was bleeding on the top right next to my nail and had a perfect drop of blood forming on the edge of my finger directly underneath. No damage in between, and I can't think what else I could have done. Fun huh?
I have to say, that I'm really terrible at working with this blogging site for some reason. I don't consider myself technically illiterate at all, but I really hate trying to post pictures on my blog. They never go where I want them to go, and they just make me crazy! But I want to record pictures of my little school bags (and maybe my finger, though it really doesn't look like much) so I'm going to try. If it looks retarded, credit that to my lack of patience in messing with it!