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Bad / Good Day

You know what I mean when I say Bad things happen in threes?

Yesterday I was brought nearly to tears when I went outside to start working on my patio, when I realized that I’ve probably made a huge, costly, and time consuming mistake. I dug out the space too deep, then added way too much sand, and now I’m hopelessly in over my head on that project.

free motion quilting | Leah DayI really wasn’t attempting to create a miniature beach in my front yard, complete with lake, but that looks like what I’ve done. This photo was shot two days ago, before my “pond” filled with water.

Josh tried to cheer me up by driving to the store to get some dessert, but halfway out the driveway, he blew a tire!

So instead of driving to Charlotte today for a Fiber Art Options meeting, I instead spent 3 hours getting four new tires because the old ones were shot beyond belief.

Since I’m ever the clever girl who knows when a long wait is imminent, I took my laptop along and got to work on the last chapter of the intermediate level book in the waiting room.

I had ALL THE CONTENT WRITTEN, every single blasted word, and then….yep…you guessed it…I LOST IT ALL.

NOOOOOOOOOOO!

Yes, I had backed this file up. Yes, I do know better than to only have one version of such an important document, but sometimes I’ll wait to back up for 3 days or so, and that can amount to 3-4 chapters worth of material. Stupid mistake!

Fate then decided that I’d been thoroughly punished enough and my car was promptly ready to go.

I flew home on new tires, which are really quite nice and hopefully will improve our gas mileage this summer, raced into the house and immediately went to work trying to find a program that will recover corrupted Works files.

Luckily, there is such a program. It’s called Recovery for Works Word 2.0 and while it didn’t save my formatting perfectly, it did save the WORDS I’d written and that saved me about 3 days rewriting those last chapters.

So for the last three hours, I’ve been copying and pasting and getting a new file back together and finally, yes, finally I can say that the content of From Feathers to Flames is DONE!

All that’s left is editing it for grammar and spelling (Josh’s job) and creating the images for the book (my job), and this book will be ready to roll.

So while it’s been a horribly bad day, at least I didn’t lose the whole thing.

And meanwhile downstairs the Intermediate quilt is already stretched out on the tables being basted.

free motion quilting | Leah DaySince blue was the theme for the beginner level book and DVD, red is the theme for this one. I can’t wait to get started quilting all the designs in the blocks and sashing!

Okay, I’m off to answer all the email I’ve missed this morning and then hopefully, fate will give me a bit of a break before it hits me with another set of three.

Now I just need to figure out what to do with that pond I’ve dug in my front yard…

Let’s go quilt,

Leah

LeahDay

Leah Day has been teaching online since 2009. She's the creator of the Free Motion Quilting Project, a blog filled with thousands of quilting tutorial videos. Leah has written several books including 365 Free Motion Quilting Designs, Explore Walking Foot Quilting with Leah Day, and Mally the Maker and the Queen in the Quilt.

7 Responses

  1. Oh Leah!!!….I feel for ya..all that work inside and out…it can be so discouraging, but it will all work out in the end….we have soaking wet spongey grounds here right now too….I need badly to mow grass and it is soooo very wet…I'm afraid even if it clears; I could lose the lawn tracter around the pond area….it is just so wet…

  2. Mrs A says:

    there are always gold fish to add to the pond! Seriously it will be fine, maybe if you put some cheap crushed gravel down and compact, it will fill it up and then you can pave it! happy quilting!

  3. Charlene S says:

    Well, down here a pond appears anytime we dig more than six inches deep. As the sand packs the water level will go down. It could be worse – you could live along the Mississippi River.

  4. debbie says:

    Glad you weren't driving down the highway at 65 mph when that tire blew!

  5. Quiltluver says:

    Sounds more like it was your lucky day. The tire that blew out could have had much more serious consequences if you were driving fast down a highway somewhere with your child in the car. Instead, it happened in your driveway. And you did get most of your work back. Yes, I think it was a lucky day…

  6. Lis says:

    Ponds are very good for attracting wildlife….. 🙂

  7. andrea_r says:

    Well I just bought From Feathers to Flame! 😀

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