Birthday Post

On Thursday we celebrated Grandaddy's 76th birthday.  I thought this deserved a little post on this here little blog.  If you know me..you know I love and adore this man.  I have never met another man like him.

Grandaddy left his family and came by boat to America in 1957.  He couldn't speak English and only had a handful of family members in the states.  I still love to hear stories of Grandaddy's life growing up in Italy during the war, his wild rides on his motorcycle, and the requests made for him to join the "Mafioso" (he declined them all).

Grandaddy is a treasure like no other.  He is the hardest worker I have ever met.  Grandaddy knows how to do anything.  

I just love this note that I found on the back of a picture.  He met my Grandmother on a blind date 53 years ago.  They were meant for one another.  

Happy Birthday, Grandaddy.  We all love you more than words can explain!

Don't worry, Grandma! I will do a post about you too!

Sew Many Squares!

 Sorry I haven't posted in a while.  I guess you could say life took over.

I am back, and I have so much to share with you.  As some of you may know...I am a quilt nerd.  I taught myself how to quilt almost two years ago.  I will have to fill you in on how this little journey began in another post.

Tonight I want to share my lastest quilt project with you.  My sister has been whining asking me for a while to make her a quilt.  She feels left out since her son, my mom, myself, my grandma , and a few other special people all have quilts.  I finally decided that she should have one too.  It was supposed to be her Christmas present, but life happened and needless to say her quilt was not finished started.  I had a stressful week a little while back and new that I needed to get out my fabric, rotary cutter, and sewing machine.  Who knew cutting fabric, sewing it together, and actually creating something could be so therapeutic.

I had picked out a bunch of fabric (just call me a fabric addict) but was having trouble coming up with a pattern that I liked for her.  I am funny about reusing patterns...not sure why.   I googled modern quilt patterns and landed on this blog.  This wasn't my first trip here and when I saw her Chopped Rhubarb quilt, I knew that was the pattern I wanted to use.  Even better...there was a link to a free tutorial from Quiltville's Quips and Snips!!  I love anything FREE and have made some of my favorite quilts from free tutorials.

So I thought I would take you along on my sister's quilt journey.  This quilt is a little on the adventurous  side...so bear with me.

After reading the tutorial I realized I was going to need A LOT of fabric.  So off I went to all of my fabric hiding spots and made a few little stacks.

Once all of my fabric was nicely ironed, I got out my handy rotary cutter, ruler, and mat.  Here is where the fun began.  I needed to cut one 2.5 in x 16 in strip from each of the 120 different fabrics.                      

After about 3 hours all of my strips were cut.  Aren't they pretty!

My next task was to sew the strips together in groups of six making sure I used opposite colors for the first and last strips.

Now, I like to sew a bunch of blocks together before I do the next step.  This way I do a lot of sewing, then take a break and do a lot of ironing pressing.  Here is a picture of my pretty seams.  I like to press my seams in opposite directions.  This helps there to be less bulk on the back of the quilt.

Here is a picture of my next step.  (Again, follow the tutorial I gave you above for much better directions).

Once you have your "tube" sewn together, square up make one end nice and straight using your rotary cutter and ruler.

Now you are ready to cut 6 cute little 2.5 inch rectangles out of this strip.

The next part of my project made me second guess this pattern.  The tutorial said I had to use my seam ripper and pick out a seam on each strip.  The kicker was that you had to make sure you chose the correct seam so that the stip would open up with the right square on top.  Yikes

I then had to sew these six strips together to make 1 block.  Here is a picture of my first finished 12 inch square.  How many more to go??

I will keep you all updated on my progress.  Check out Crazy Mom Quilts to see her finished quilt.  Hopefully mine will look similar.

Nighty night, friends!

Over the weekend I...

Since today is Monday I thought I would give you a weekend update.  Every Monday I have my students give me their weekend update, and since I was lucky enough to have today off (thank you Martin Luther King, Jr) I thought I would keep the tradition and share my weekend with you.

This weekend was eventful to say the least.  It began with a surprise snow day on Friday.  Hooray!  I think I am worse than the kids when it comes to a snow day.  There is something exciting about the anticipation of seeing Henrico County under the school closing list, or getting that phone call from Andy Jenkes saying I get to sleep in the next day.  This one was especially fun because I was supposed to have a substitute on Friday.  Why you ask? Well let me fill you in... 

 I had made plans to travel to Blacksburg to help with Virginia Tech's ZTA recruitment.  I was planning to leave Friday after work, but once I saw the weather forecast I decided that it might be smarter to leave earlier in the day.  I took Friday off (even though I ended up not needing to) and started packing.   While I started packing, the snow started falling.  Thankfully I was riding with another advisor friend who has a 4 wheel drive Suburban.  We closely monitored the weather and decided we would leave around noon.  The drive to Blacksburg was beautiful!  There are few things I find more pretty than snow white trees and land.  We took it slow and made it to the ZTA house in one piece.  We quickly ran inside the house and got to work.  There is such a positive energy throughout a college sorority house.  I love going back and reliving a little bit of my college experience every now and then. Although, as an advisor my nights in a college town are a lot more boring than they used to be.   After the recruitment parties were over and all of the ladies had retreated to their rooms to rest up for day 2, the other advisors and I thought we would try and find some dinner before checking into our hotel.

Now, as you read earlier it had snowed (A LOT) and the roads were icy.  We carefully walked out to the car. I was wearing Uggs, Sandy in her new North Face snow boots, and Stephanie in super cute fur lined moccasins (this will come into play in a minute).  Stephanie needed to get her luggage into our car and began tip toeing over the snow and ice so she didn't fall.  This is where Sandy thought she would save the day!  Since she had on her brand new snow boots she jumped out to help Stephanie.  The next thing I know I hear "Oh, Sandy!" and look out the window of the car.  Take a guess at what I see...  Yep, I see poor Sandy's two little snow boots sticking up in the air.  Sandy had slipped on black ice and fell flat on her back.

Now...a little thing you should know about me... I laugh uncontrollably in situations like this.  I don't know if it is because I am scared, uncomfortable, or just plain mean, but I laugh.

And, unfortunately for Sandy I laughed at her.  This caused her to start laughing and then I knew she was ok.  We got her up, checked her head, and helped her get her glasses and put them back on.  This is a situation that you would have had to be there for.  We laughed over this for a good 10 minutes.  I tried to make her a millionaire by having her lay back down and call 911.  We decided against it.  It did however make us a little concerned that the university had not spread salt or sand on the roads.

This little situation gave us great comic relief throughout the rest of the weekend.  I am actually laughing right now as I share this very short version with you.   Here are a few pictures from my weekend!

A snowy Zeta House 

Preparing for the Philanthropy round.  I was LOVING the pink!

The chapter room is ready to be filled with PNM's (prospective new members).

Fast forward to Sunday night....

Sandy and I had planned to head home around 9:00 pm....we actually left around 12:30 am (recruitment seems to take a lot of time).  Because it was so late when we left,  I did not take my Dramamine.

Something else you should know about me...I get car sick VERY easily.

I thought I would be fine, but about 30 minutes into our trip the story changed.  We stopped at a gas station (after driving through mountain towns for WAY too long trying to find something that was open) and I knew I did not feel well.  This is where Sandy got her pay back.  I went into the bathroom (Yes, at a gas station) and did my thing.  When I came out Sandy had a Coke waiting for me (bless her).  We paid for our chips and candy (I thought I could eat something) and before leaving I asked the cashier for a bag (just incase).  She looked at me funny and I politely told her "These mountain roads do not agree with my stomach and I get car sick very easily".  This made Sandy burst out laughing and the cashier looked at me stranger this time.  Needless to say this put Sandy and I back into one of our hysterical laughing fits. See... that's what I get for laughing at her when she fell.  After a few more stops we finally made it home at 4:00 am.  LONG DRIVE!!!

So, what did you do on your long weekend?  Hopefully you didn't fall or get sick!

Happy Monday friends!

Things You Should Know About Me if You're Gonna Read My Blog

Welcome to Glitter, Glue, and Flip Flops!

I am thrilled a little scared that you found me.  Here are a few random things that I think you should know before you start following this little thing called a BLOG (Gasp!!).

1. I don't like to write and I am great horrible with grammar.  Readers beware!!  Do I have a volunteer to be my comma police?

2. I have a few dear friends (you will meet them later) who have FABULOUS blogs.  They are who inspired me to welcome you into my little slice of the world.

Now a few personal items....

3. Pink is my FAVORITE color.  Are you familiar with the book Pinkalicious?  If so, that's me (25 years ago).

4. Although I don't REALLY have any children of my own, I have 16 little ones that I help to care for each day.  14 of those little ones are my sweet Kinders and the other 2...well you will find out more about them in random item number 5.

5. I have recently inherited what my mother calls an "insta-family".  What she means is that I play a large role in the lives of my boyfriend's two children.  Kiddo number 1 is 10 years old, hates the color pink (tear), a straight A student, and a bookworm (love).  Kiddo number 2 is 9 years old, hates to read (tear), has a HUGE personality, and shares my dislike of math.

6. Now about that boyfriend... After a few sticky situations (hence the term GLUE in my bloggy name), I have found a handsome and loving new "friend".  I am pretty smitten with him!

7. I also must mention my two "fur-children".  Beach is a 1 year old Vizla.  He is the color of sand, shares my love of flip flops (although he likes to eat them), has more energy than anything or anyone I have ever seen, and is the most snuggly pup ever!  Sadie is an 8 year old Yorkie-Peeka-Poo  expensive mutt!  She is my first baby and is the best dog in the world.  She is laid back, unless her brother comes along.  You will get to know them soon enough I am sure!

8. I would live at the beach if I had the choice.  With the way teaching is going...and the increasing decrease in my paycheck...becoming a beach bum is looking better and better.

9.  Hmm.... what else would you like to know?

10.  I am already running out of things to say.  Am I really taking this journey into "Blogger World"?


Well...I am a little excited!  I just published my very first "Big Girl" blog post.  Now...it's bedtime!