Quilty Thankful Thursday #13

Lucky number 13, did you know that tomorrow was Friday the 13th too. Well the way my week has run, it feels like it. I have wanted to beat my head against a wall more than once, but each time, I try and think about the positives. And so today I'm going to give you five reason I have to be thankful.

1. A vehicle. I know this isn't quilty, but thankful is thankful. Sunday Sharla and I went to run an errand and before getting out of our neighborhood the van wouldn't change gears. We were able to get back to the house. Now the van is 17 years old, and we knew it was time to get something else. So we first looked at our budget, which didn't have much room in it for a car payment, then our savings. We determined how much money we could spend without going into debt and started looking for a car. I had to request shares be sold, so we knew it would take a week or so to get the funds, but we wanted to see what was available. In the mean time we're sharing Sharla's old car with my nephew. I really sat down on Tuesday and started printing out prospective vehicles and found one that was really promising, but it was further away. I called my brother and asked if he could go look at it, since it was fairly close to his work. He went over at lunch time and thought it looked good, but they had just reduced it and he wasn't sure if it would last until our money arrived. I called the salesman and asked if I put a deposit down would they keep it for us. He said yes. so Sharla and I head over after work on Tuesday. We liked it, so we put a deposit down on it. It is used, but much newer than what we were driving. Hopefully my money will arrive soon and we will be driving this baby.

2. Bee Blocks.  With all the car issues, and just general busyness, it seems like I don't have any time to sew. But lucky for me I have bee blocks to do. They require much less time, so I can work on them in short burst and still feel like I'm getting something accomplished. I've finished my blocks for the Compass Quilters and Stash Bee for March and have the block for The Bee Hive ready to sew. I hope to have them all ready to show you on Friday.

3. My Stash. On Monday I was bummed about the van, it was rainy and cold and I really just didn't feel like doing anything. As I was searching around the internet I came across a sewing machine cover. I've been wanting to do one for my machine. It has a hard cover, but that just gets in the way when it isn't on the machine. So I went to my stash and pulled a couple of fabrics and very quickly I had a cover. It is far from perfect and I want to do another on that is actually quilted, but this was a great test cover. Also on Sunday we pulled fabric from the stash for Sharla to do a cover (and it will be quilted). Now I realize I could probably buy a newer car if I didn't have a stash, but I'm happy to drive an older car and have fabric ready for whatever I need.

4. Sunshine. They talked about on the news here that we had rain or snow 15 out of the last 17 days. Now this is great for the low lake levels, but it is depressing for us humans. But yesterday the sun came out and it was so nice.  It felt good on my skins and I was happy.

5. A Working Oven. Now this is something I don't have at the moment, but hopefully on Saturday I will have an oven again. We ordered a new stove several weeks ago, that was supposed to arrive that week. But the day of delivery came and no call to schedule the time, so I called and found out the stove was back-ordered...we were bummed. We were told it would not ship until April 3rd. We had got a very good deal on it, and didn't really want to change to a different model, so we decided to wait. Then this week they called and said it would be delivered on Saturday. Ever since the oven stopped working, I've wanted dishes that were oven baked. If it arrives on Saturday as planned Sharla is going to make me homemade mac-n-cheese.  Yummo!!!!

That is my list for this week.  I will admit I was a little down at the first of the week, but looking for the positives really does help.  I'm linking up with Yvonne at Quilting Jetgirl.