The Short Version:    

     Hi!  I'm Quilt_Mommy a.k.a. Valerie.  I'm a 25 year-old stay at home Mom of two, McKenzie and Abbey, and devoted Wife to my handsome Hubby Jason.  My latest addiction is quilting, though I also enjoy knitting, crochet, painting, and tootin' around on the computer.  Glad you stopped by!  :)

     The Long Version:

     Hi!  I'm Quilt_Mommy a.k.a. Valerie.  I'm 25 years old, and I stay home with my two children McKenzie who is 4 years old and Abbey who was born on December 15, 2005. 

   Our family resides now in a small town in Ohio, near Lake Erie, where my Husband and I both grew up.  Both families have strong roots in this town, though I also have family roots in north eastern Pennsylvania.  We live in one of those small towns everyone tries to escape from as a kid, only to discover no other place on earth feels more like home.  Being away was exciting for a while, but I don't ever want to live anywhere, but here.  :) 

   Prior to staying home, which I have done since McKenzie was 2 years old, I worked at various places.  None of those places did I stay at for longer than 2 years, but through them I have acquired some interesting and sometimes useful skills.  The job I stayed at longest was working for a small company owned locally, who sold wholesale printers and printer parts.  I ran their small Accounting Dept., but also had many other duties, like handling all incoming and outgoing shipping, cleaning, and for the first year, watching their young daughter who was only a few months older than McKenzie.  The owners were sort of *hippies*, and that's fine by me, but you would be safe to assume they ran their business in an unconventional way!  It was a good job, but very stressful, so I eventually left that job and worked for a short period of time, before making the decision to stay home, at a local radio station.  Well, actually there were four stations in one building, all owned by the same very nationally well known company.  I was sort of a runner there.  I assisted the accounting dept., the promotions dept, and the sales dept., though I often ran odds and end errands.  I think of myself as a pretty creative person, so my favorite job at the radio station was "copy writing", or commercial writing.  I was proud to be a favorite writer of the sales staff, as they would take my commercials to their existing or potential customers to encourage more buys.  It was a lot of fun working there when my co-workers didn't let their personal lives interfere.  I suppose you have that everywhere though, right? 

     The decision to stay home was a tough and complicated one.  My Husband, Daughter and I relocated to a more southern part of Ohio for my Husband's job at the time.  We lived there only 7 months, and the heavy work load he had jumped into, my crazy work schedule (I took a part time job working at a movie theatre so I could spend the days with McKenzie, so that she would not have to have a sitter) took it's toll on all of us.  So, we decided the best thing for our family would be to move back home, and for me to stay home.  It's not been easy, because though I love being around my babies, it does get lonesome at times!  I also can't say that Stay at Home Mom's make a lot of money either, but we get by.  Our kids don't want for anything, and lucky for Jason and I, we have a great supportive family, and it has made a world of difference.

     Now that's how I came to stay home, and a lil' about my background before I stayed home.  As far as personality wise, I think I'm creative and sort of an artsy fartsy type girl!  Lol*  I'm fairly positive, sometimes self-conscious, goofy, and cheery when I wanna be!  :)  I love any type of creative arty type thing...like painting, writing, sketching, most crafts, scrap booking, soap making, knitting, crochet, and all that type of stuff!  Those who are close to me know that my interests change as often as Ohio weather. 

   My most recent passion is quilting!  I discovered that I liked piecing together quilts about a year ago, March of 2005.  I had been wanting a new sewing machine, as the one my Mother passed on to me when I turned 18 had been through too many moves, and was missing pieces and not in too good of shape.  So for my birthday my MIL and Hubby picked me up a used Euro-Pro at our local sewing center...a small, family owned sewing store.  I had been making all sorts of things for our home, curtains, a costume for our daughter and all that, and I thought it'd be fun to make a quilt.  Or at least make something that resembled a quilt to hang in the living room to make the home we'd only lived in since February of that year look more like our home.  I did make a few little items, but never actually quilted them.  I did back them and hang them though.  I didn't have a cutting mat or a rotary cutter then, so I measured, traced, and then cut all the squares.  If you are a quilter, then you know the accuracy that type of cutting and piecing takes!  Let me tell ya, I sure don't have it!  Lol*  My first attempts aren't anything I'd be proud to display here!  Lol***  Anyhow, I did that for a bit until March of this year, 2006.  My Mom and I took a trip to a local quilt show and wheeeew!  I didn't realize that I would enjoy it so much...we'd just gone to sort of spend some Mother Daughter time together, but both ended up having a ball, and I discovered a new fun hobby!  Lol*  So I've gotten quite a bit more into it since the show, working on quite a few projects.  As I get them completed, I'll put my favorites in the quilts photos section of this site.

   So that's me!  Pretty much all about family and quilts!  Lol*