and the domesticity continues

I finished my first quilt top yesterday. I started a quilt last year but didn't manage to even get all the strips sewn together- so Gwen saved the day and finished the practically the entire thing for me. So, I am considering this my very first quilt top. It's just a little one- crib size. I will take a picture of it with my new camera (which is amazing by the way) and post it later. I am going to take a class at the quilt shop in November to learn how to machine quilt the top, batting, and bottom together. The lady teaching it has some quilts on display at the shop and they are fantastic. So that is my reason for not finishing the entire thing right now. For the record, I did already buy the batting, backing, and material for the binding-- which is definitely farther than I got last time with the other quilt!

I love not having a job. It's awesome. I realized last night that I have only been "not working" for 10 days and it sort of feels like 10 weeks so I'm crossing my fingers that I can still love not working until January. In the meantime, I am learning how to actually be helpful in Jeff's parent's kitchen. Normally, I feel like I am just getting in the way, which I'll admit comes in handy after big Sunday dinners so that I have an excuse to sneak off and take a nap, but I am slowly learning how his mom works in the kitchen. I learned how to de-seed a watermelon the other day. My family just always ate the seeds- Jeff's family will spend 3 minutes digging one seed out of the bowl if there is a possibility it snuck in.

I wish that I would have spent more time at his parent's house before we got married. Or at least I wished I would have paid more attention to some things while I was at his parents house before we got married. For example, when Jeff and I were first married I worked really hard to keep the house clean. Growing up, we were never supposed to leave a dirty dish in the sink. If the dishwasher was clean, we were supposed to empty it, and then put our dirty dish in the dishwasher. If the dishes in the dishwasher were dirty, then obviously, one should add his or her dirty dish and start it if it was full-- but only if it was completely full. So I naively went into our marriage thinking that was normal and therefore right. Hence, I spent the first 6 months getting frustrated because I was constantly loading and unloading the dishwasher. I would come home to one dirty butter knife smeared with peanut butter in an otherwise empty and clean sink about every other day. That dirty butter knife in the sink was enough to make me want to scream and throw things and then cry because I was sure it meant that Jeff didn't love me because if he did he wouldn't just leave it in the sink, he would take two seconds to put it in the dishwasher. Finally, we talked, about 5 times, and Jeff started putting his dishes in the sink more often and I didn't take it as a personal affront when he didn't.
Two and a half years later- we live with his parents and I've finally learned that they deal with dirty dishes in a different way than my family. His family doesn't stress out about dirty dishes in the sink, when the sink gets relatively full, one of them (usually his mom) will empty the dishwasher, put the sink full of dirty dishes in the dishwasher, and then start it, even if it only half full. It all makes sense now. He probably thought I was the biggest spaz on the planet every time I freaked out about his dish in the sink. Now if I could just get over my neurosis I won't be spending an hour of everyday loading and unloading their dishwasher.

**As I was typing this post I watched Jeff's younger brother, Jace, and the girl he is dating clean up the kitchen after making breakfast. (She loaded the dishwasher). After they were done, Jace filled the sink with soapy water, and started to wipe off the kitchen table. She asked him why he was filling the sink up with soapy water. He couldn't answer her question-he sort of muttered something about it being there so that when someone later has a dirty dish they can rinse it in the soapy water. So of course I piped in and explained to her that it is just what their family does- They fill the sink up with soapy water and wipe down every surface in the kitchen that may or may not have had food, or a dish holding food, on it. When my mother-in-law came in the kitchen Jace asked why they fill the sink up with soapy water and she gave him the same answer I had- it was to wipe down the counters. It's funny that we're raised and pick up certain habits and ways of doing things and to each of us our particular way is just the way it's done- even if we don't know why we do it that way.