Stormy Sewing and Cracking Tile

I'm not talking about my attitude, although it does get a little stormy sometimes around a sewing machine.

It's this unseasonal but exciting thunderstorm with lots of wind and buckets of rain that just descended on us.  Thunder and lightning too!

 I'm just trying to do some mindless sewing today, making some plain burp pads and bibs, although putting on this much binding was not too fun.  Worked out nicely though.

I'm loving it and am going to get a cup of coffee and TRY to talk myself into getting some of the trip pictures on this blog.  If not, they'll get forgotten just like the ones in April.  I might even find some from April.  Hopefully by the end of the year, I'll get that task finished.

I'd rather sew.

And this is what's happening in the kitchen.

Ever since I moved here, this tile in the kitchen has bugged me.  The grout needed cleaning first of all, which I half-heartedly tried to do a few times, but mainly about 15 of the tiles near the stove and refrigerator had some sort of flaws in them, some bigger than others.

Some of these places are debris from the other work and the tape is one of my markers on the ones I hate, but this is what one of the worst ones looks like.  Others have maybe only one gouge or nick, but I notice them all the time.

Finally we had one of the tiles to crack.  Luckily I had found a box of matching tiles in the storage house, so Mike replaced it, and it went so well he has undertaken all the ones I marked with tape.

It looks like too much work to me.  And it is, sitting on a low stool chipping and drilling and sawing.  But I guess it's a good way to take out your frustrations.  I'm staying out of the way.

This is my favorite part so far though.  Cleaning all the tiles in the breakfast room, pantry and bathroom off the kitchen.  It looks so good.  Then he might paint the grout and will definitely seal it.

 I should have before-and-after pictures, but that's too embarrassing.  Or see the first picture.

I kind of like this new handyman stage.  I wish it would rub off on me.  

I did make this giraffe pillow using a new method for putting on the piping.  It makes the corners look rounded, and I don't like it, but it will do for the little rocking chair in the nursery, I think.  Since the chair is so small, I didn't have a small enough pillow form and just stuffed it with batting.  It needs a little poking and pulling, I think, to even it out.