The Next Fifty Years

Cat Versus Rug

2012-02-06T13:06:00.060-06:00

GrandmaK reminded me that I haven't talked about the cat lately, so I thought I'd tell the latest stories. But first you have to know that Hubby always refers to the cat as my cat, even though he spends as much time or more with the cat than I. When the cat got himself into a tight spot one day, Hubby called him a big dummy, and the cat ran to him, so now Hubby calls him that all the time, and the cat comes to him, even without food. So add that to the list of names this cat has, Cat, Kitty, Tom, Buddy Boy, and now Dummy, or Big Dummy. Like I've always said, it doesn't matter what you call him, the cat doesn't care as long as there is something in it for him.

This cat is so domesticated now that you would never believe he was once a scrawny, fearful cat who was usually covered with wounds from fights with other cats and probably escaping the many traps that were set for him in our neighborhood. As you may know, the cat now has a bed and a window perch in the garage where he spends most of his time dozing in the sun.

When we first took him in, he didn't like confining spaces and wouldn't go in the garage at all. But as it got colder (and last winter was really cold), he threw caution to the wind and decided to venture into the garage and found he really liked the bed I made for him, a Rubbermaid tub with a pillow in it - his own little man-cave. As the winter wore on, he even came into the house, where he was restricted to the kitchen. But for some reason, he wouldn't go into the office, a small room at the back of the garage. That changed sometime this fall when we took the sheetrock off the wall between garage and office and his curiosity got the better of him. After we moved the wall and put the sheetrock back up, he came into the office and would stay in there as long as the door to the garage remained open, but he was quick to run out into the garage if something startled him.

Now Hubby claims that this is my cat, but if he is in the office with the door closed between the garage, the cat will paw the door until Hubby opens it, and then Hubby will leave the door open even though it lets a cold breeze through. Not his cat, yeah, right.

And then the cat discovered how to play.

Other than batting at a string or a toy mouse for a few seconds, we have never seen the cat play with anything. I guess staying alive out in the wild leaves no time for play. After I bought the little squeaky mouse, he pounced on it a couple of times, and then decided it wasn't worth any more of his attention. But after he got over his fear of the office, he noticed a little rug inside the door. The rug has a rubber backing, but over time it hardened to the point that it might as well be teflon. At first the cat avoided the rug because it sometimes slips underfoot. But one day he took a long run at it, dug his claws in, and wrestled it around until he had rolled himself up in it. Then he calmly walked out from under the jumbled rug and went to his bed.

So Hubby straightened the rug and put it in front of the door again. The cat sat in the doorway pondering the situation and then made another run at the rug. When he had it sufficiently wadded up, he again calmly walked away from it and over to Hubby's chair and then meowed as if to say he had done Hubby a big favor by getting the danger away from the door. His reward was a Dorito, which he sniffed and then rejected disdainfully. Not the reward for conquering heroes he had in mind.

There's another rug on the garage side of the door, but it is bigger and it's rubber keeps it from sliding. It's no fun at all.

After that, it has become a daily ritual for Hubby to straighten the rug so the cat can roll himself up in it, push it around, or crawl under it. The other day Hubby said the cat began running from the far side of the garage, grabbed the rug and skidded across the floor with his back feet flailing wildly as he tried to stop before hitting the refrigerator. Thud!

Since he has started playing with the rug, we've also seen him playing with the squeaky mouse by himself, and bits of wood scraps. I've tried to catch it on video, but when the cat sees me, he usually quits. This is the best I've been able to get. (Warning, the radio was on when I recorded this.)

The cat loves to have his ears and jaws scratched, and will often revert back to his wild ways and try to scratch the hand that stops scratching him. I am always on guard for that and give him a stern warning when he tries that. He had gotten a lot better about trying to scratch until the last few weeks, and I think I know why now. Where I pet the cat, Hubby harasses the cat. He scratches his back (which the cat loves), but then lingers on one spot that drives the cat nuts. He used to do the same thing with our dogs, finding that one spot that made the dog thump her leg on the ground. The cat's leg doesn't twitch, instead, his eyes cross and he makes a funny "thwitt" noise with his tongue. It is funny, but since I'm trying to encourage him to be gentle, I don't do it. However, Brownie has followed her father's lead and thinks the cat likes it. I am holding the camera while she tickles his spot. He's ok with it, until the end....

when he tried to take a swipe at the camera - and me!

Even though it obviously annoys the cat, sometimes I pick him up and carry him around. I know he doesn't like it because he pushes a leg against me to get as far away as possible and refuses to look at me. But I discovered one day that he likes to be bounced like when holding a baby, and he started purring. He will sometimes even turn his face to mine and touch nose to nose. When I sit on the floor, he likes to sit in my lap, but I haven't been sitting on the floor since it got cold. He's never liked sitting in my lap while in a chair, but the other day he walked into the office, went over to Hubby, and put both paws on Hubby's knee and meowed. He acted like he wanted to jump into Hubby's lap and since he can't seem to understand not to use claws when jumping onto anything, Hubby picked him up instead. The cat couldn't find a "lap" and finally stretched out on one of Hubby's leg's with his tail in Hubby's face and his head hanging off of Hubby's knee. Not the best arrangement for Hubby, but the cat seemed happy with the arrangement.

Hubby's usual morning routine is to go out to the office to make his coffee. We've been locking the cat in the garage at night and Hubby lets him out in the morning to do his roaming. He usually doesn't go far, and when it's cold, he might not even go out at all. Then, when Hubby leaves for work, he opens one of the garage doors just enough for the cat to get in and out, but not enough for roaming dogs to get in. Sometimes Hubby doesn't open it enough and the cat can't get out. Or, like the other morning when he opened it just enough for the cat to get stuck.

When I opened the blinds in the kitchen, I saw the cat on his perch, and he saw me. I saw him stand up, stretch, and jump down so I knew he would be coming to the back door. I thought the garage door looked a little low, but the cat stuck his head under it, and wiggled his front two feet and shoulders under it, and then stopped. He tried to wriggle forward and then tried to wriggle backward. Then he just stopped and yowled. Even though I had a controller in the house, I couldn't punch the button or it would close on him even more. While I was trying to decide whether I should try to go out and push or pull him (I still bear the mark of the beast from elbow to wrist from the last time he was startled), he managed to wiggle on through the opening. He ran over to the kitchen door, and when I let him in, he followed me around meowing insistently. I'm pretty sure he was griping about the garage door opening.

Now we have another cat visiting. Hubby and I were in the house watching tv and we heard a sound that could only be described as a dying water buffalo, if I knew what a dying water buffalo sounded like. We muted the tv and listened, and sure enough, the sound was coming from the driveway beside that room. We rushed out, certain that something horrible had happened to the cat, only to find him sitting by the car warbling like that and another cat sitting in the driveway. Our cat was NOT happy and the other cat would NOT leave. I tried to shoo it off, and it just sat there watching me. Finally, I got a broom and it ran off. We don't know if it is a male or female cat, but it wants to be here with the cat. Hubby heard the wailing again a few days later when he was in the office. The cat was on his perch, and the other cat was outside looking at him. Hubby had to get aggressive to get the other cat to leave. It doesn't have the characteristics of a feral cat, or at least not like our cat had when he was feral. I think it would like to stay here too, but our cat has made it clear that he does not want to be part of a two cat family.

I was going to end this by saying that the cat doesn't bother anything in the garage when he is shut up in there. That was, until I was out today and saw these marks on my car door.

Bad Puddy Cat.

So there you have it. The cat rules.

Lucky Me! Look What I Got in the Mail Yesterday!

2012-02-03T11:46:00.000-06:00

Pat, from 501 Quilt Blocks picked my name for a random giveaway. She can probably explain it better than I. When I opened the mail last night, I showed it to Hubby and told him another blogger made it and sent it to me. He admired it and then asked what I had to send. Nothing, I said, it's not like a chain letter. She just decided to pick twelve names to do a giving project and she picked my name. Why, he asked. Because she wanted to. He looked puzzled, but didn't ask any more questions. So obviously I can't explain it well. So, Hubby and others who still don't understand, read Pat's post here.

I've decided that my word of the year should be gratitude. Receiving this gift yesterday, along with a lovely dinner out last night made me realize that I don't show true gratitude even when my heart runs over with it. So that is what I am going to work on this year, beginning with this wall hanging.

Thank you Pat, for the thought that went into this, the detail, and all the hard work. The wallhanging is absolutely perfect, and I can see that you looked back over my blog to find just the right colors, and you included our big, spoiled, rescued cat who has become the center of our little lives lately.

See how well the colors match? I've been trying to decide what to put on the wall behind this sofa, and the will fit perfectly. Thank you again!

Wordless Wednesday

2012-01-25T06:59:00.000-06:00

Kate's Challenge

2012-01-24T18:25:00.002-06:00

I didn't get much done this week, but tried to sit down a few evenings and put some stars together.

The Story Behind the Latest Project

2012-01-23T22:22:00.004-06:00

Remember the back door we put in three years ago? Well, it leaks, and has leaked probably since the very beginning. The first time it happened, I told Hubby he put the door in wrong. I know, I know. It was the wrong thing to say and I knew it the minute it came out of my mouth. So naturally, he dug in his heels and refused to even talk about redoing it. Eventually though, he relented and agreed to redo it when we put on the dining room addition. And then that kept getting put off.

As time went by, I just stuck a towel in front of the door every time it rained and tried to keep the water from spreading. That didn't really work though because the water ran down the grooves between the tile. After a heavy rain, there was a musty, wet-wood smell, and after being gone from the house for even a short weekend, a strong, moldy smell hit me when I walked in the door, and the smell inside the bar cabinet was also really strong. But the last straw was right before Christmas. While mopping the floor, I saw something that looked like marshmallow cream growing between the cabinet base and shoe molding. It was a fungus, the indoor version of toadstools I suppose.

So at a time when I should have been baking, shopping, and cleaning house, I was on a mission to find the mold and get it out.

Since the bar section was a separate unit, I thought I might be able to just unscrew it from the wall, pull it out, and put a couple of legs under the bar until we did the big remodel. But of course, nothing is ever as easy as I think it should be. The cabinets were screwed into place from the top before the counter was put on, and no other way to get to the screws. On to Plan B, if only there was a Plan B.

So I did the next best thing, and decided to start the kitchen remodel. We had never finished the kitchen fifteen years ago. After ripping off the wallpaper, I just slapped some paint on it to cover the rips and gouges in the sheetrock and we planned to do walls and trim when we did the addition. The addition that never happened.

This is what happened next.

And the bar cabinet? When we finally got it out, this is what we found.

The cabinet had a stack of drawers on the front side, and a single door on the back side, under the bar. The damage was contained to the back side next to the wall, and the base. That was good because I wanted to rebuild the cabinet, reusing the drawer stack and making a pullout with part of the carcass that had been in the corner.

It didn't take long to cut off the damaged side of the cabinet, pull off the base and rebuild it. Then I started stripping. I finished that this afternoon and tomorrow I start sanding.

The best part is that we were gone for a few days after Christmas, and when we walked in the door, the house smelled fresh and clean. Yes!

So now you know what I've been doing lately.

Strip Tease

2012-01-23T11:04:00.000-06:00

I know I haven't been posting much lately. Another project is taking up my time. I'll tell more about it in my next post. This is just a teaser.

It's not going well either. I started with Citrustrip, and while it worked, it still left a lot of finish behind. So I bought Stripeze, and it didn't work any better. In fact, it didn't work as well. And neither of them removed any of the old stain. You probably can't see in the second photo where there are big streaks of dark stain where the cabinet joined in an "L" with another cabinet.

So it's back to stripping for me now. Thanks for taking a peek.

Dear Congress

2012-01-18T10:09:00.021-06:00

I have concerns about the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) and Protect IP Act (PIPA). I understand that online piracy is rampant, and have experienced it myself, but these acts are not the answer. These acts will impose unfair censorship on many innocent websites such as wikipedia and google, websites that compare and review products, blogs such as mine, and forums where people gather to exchange ideas.

There are already laws in place to protect copyright, so let it be. Don't censor me.

I don't want my blog to look like this:

Today I want to show you this amazing Pottery Barn Knockoff. Annie from Knockoff Anyone (made up blog), shows how to take an ordinary piece of cardboard to create a dough bowl that is so realistic that you won't be able to tell the difference. The cost at Pottery Barn? $250. The cost of Annie's project? Zip. Zero. Nada.

When it should look like this:

Today I want to show you this amazing Pottery Barn Knockoff. Annie from Knockoff Anyone (made up blog), shows how to take an ordinary piece of cardboard to create a faux dough bowl that is so realistic that you won't be able to tell the difference. The cost at Pottery Barn? $250. The cost of Annie's project? Zip. Zero. Nada.

For more information about these proposed bills, read here.

Then, write your congressman, sign this online petition, or both.

p.s. This is a duplicate post from my other blog.

The List

2012-01-16T23:15:00.007-06:00

Thea at California Dreaming made a list of things to do in 2012 instead of making resolutions. I like this as they don't become broken resolutions, and I would like to join her, albeit late with my list. So here it is, in no particular order.

Edited January 27 to add more to the list, after I found a huge ToDo list on my fridge.

1. Make a new friend
2. Join a quilting circle - DONE
3. Learn to dance
4. Make curtains for Lil (before her comforter wears out)
5. Take a photography class
6. Join a church
7. Replace door trim on garage
8. Get fireplace inspected
9. Get attic door blanket
10. Finish Jacob's ladder quilt or recycle it
11. Finish pillow shams for my bed
12. Make wrap quilt for my bed
13. Fix drawer in antique chest
14. Finish window trim on porch
15. Paint porch ceiling
16. Walk a half marathon
17. Rebuild console table top
18. Repair and refinish old desk
19. Learn turned needle applique
20. Make curtains for den
21. Repair wall crack in corner bedroom
22. Finish laundry room cabinet
23. Raise dining table top or sell table
24. Refinish den table
25. Declutter old VCR tapes
26. Get old family videos transferred to DVD
27. Move or replace broken sidelight
28. Get mom's sewing machine serviced
29. Get grandmother's ring resized
30. Locate and clean refrigerator and freezer coils (4 appliances)
31. Build shoe rack
32. Refinish bedroom picture frames
33. Paint entry
34. Build shelves in living room
35. Rebuild & refinish kitchen bar cabinet
36. Rebuild & refinish kitchen pantry cabinet
37. Refinish and switch kitchen upper cabinets
38. Replace drawer slides on old kitchen drawers
39. Repair kitchen faucet
40. Add water line and filter for ice maker
41. Learn website software
42. Organize printed photos
43. Cull out unusable wood in buckets
44. Put up pictures in den
45. Frame dog pictures for Brownie
46. Learn to use router
47. Learn to use picture framer
48. Propagate sage
49. Find tv antenna for attic
50. Find a way to conceal bedroom tv
51. Build drawer dividers
52. Volunteer at a hospital
53. Prune apple trees
54. Do something about the light on the corner of the house
55. Fix rototiller
56. Caulk shower
57. Get foundation examined
58. Fix wall & ceiling cracks in kitchen and master bed & bath
59. Finish laundry cabinet and doors
60. Replace outlets and switches in master
61. In spring, exterminate for carpenter ants
62. Repaint hall bath & get Hubby to paint base behind toilet
63. Find a place for quilts
64. Find a sewing corner

More Signs for Your Viewing Pleasure

2012-01-16T16:11:00.003-06:00

Or just for mine. What can I say? I get a kick out of signs.

For those of you who wanted to know why Andy Griffith dropped out of show business.

And you thought your parents had a wacky sense of humor.

Is it legal without the red stripes on the lane? Oh wait, what lane?

Not just any fill dirt, it must be FIELD dirt.

Would that be a trailer reconstruction test?

Firefox and I Are About to Have a Parting of the Ways

2012-01-09T23:35:00.002-06:00

I have been getting this popup for quite a while.

Closing and reopening the application makes no difference. Updating made no difference. Uninstalling the old version and installing the newest version made no difference. Some websites load like cold molasses, especially if they have big photos or music. And I've had enough.

The problem is that I have a ton of favorites saved onto Firefox. You know how easy it is to save something to either read thoroughly later, or save as a future project idea. The annoying thing about my favorites list is that I can't tell what is what just by scanning the list, and have done repeat searches for things I thought I saved, only to find that I really did have them saved, but the title was so obscure I missed it.

So I started a new blog for all the neat tutorials and patterns I saved, coincidentally called Tutorials and Patterns, and I am transferring everything else to another website favorites list.

I also joined Pinterest. That has been a trying experience as well. I don't really understand the appeal of it, but I've noticed on my sitemeter that a lot of people are pinning some of my projects, especially the headboard bench, so I thought I'd see what it was all about.

For one thing, if you go to the Pinterest main page at pinterest.com to request an invite, it takes weeks to get it. If you know someone, it just takes a few minutes. They say the enrollment is easy, but of course it wasn't for me.

Here are the screens that walked me through the process.
The first screen:

So there's the first problem. You have to have a Facebook or Twitter account. I have a Facebook account, but it's got my real full name on it, including maiden name, and I didn't want that on there. So I opened an account for this blog. Then went back to register at Pinterest.

The second screen:

Easy enough. I put the email for my new Facebook account, and it's password.

Next screen:

Well, alright, that was easy. Apparently I'm registered and logged in now, right? Just a few of those fill in the circle pages and I'm good to go. On this page (in case you can't read it), Pinterest asks permission to post to my facebook page as me, and to access my data at any time I am not using it. Well, I certainly don't want them posting to my facebook page and pretending to be me, and I don't know why they need to access my data either, so I clicked the "Don't Allow" button.

Next screen:

Ok, that's odd since I've already done this page once. I didn't know if I put the wrong password in before, or if I'm supposed to make up a new password now, or what. So I put in my Facebook password again, it took me again to the screen that said they wanted to pretend to be me so they could post stuff to my Facebook, I clicked "Don't Allow" again, and back again to the Facebook sign in.

So it dawned on me that the deal is, either I agree to let them impersonate me, or I don't get to play in their backyard. So the next time, I clicked the "Allow" button, and was taken to a page to put in my name, choose a Pinterest password, and all that. Then there was a button to click to get started.

And this was the next page:

I tried again. Same screen. And again. Then I gave up.

The next day, I tried again, and managed to finally get on.
This was the next page:

What?!!! They signed me up as follower to twenty people. Twenty people I didn't even know. So I promptly unfollowed.

Now the next thing is to download something that will allow me to pin a picture with a simple click of the mouse. Unfortunately, I was using Firefox at the time and didn't see the point of downloading something when I was going to uninstall Firefox as soon as possible. But I did check out the site, and went to my profile or main page, or whatever it's called, only to see that they had linked this account TO MY PERSONAL Facebook account! With my whole name and photo. AND there was no way to delete the photo. I have no idea how they made that connection, unless it was by cookies or my first name only, or both. The Facebook account name was different and the email was different.

I also saw that a lot of people from my personal facebook account had followed me, and Pinterest had, in return, followed them for me. So I unfollowed all those people too. Then I went to my personal Facebook account and deleted my photo so it would disappear from my blog's Pinterest page.

What a pain. So I'm not really thrilled with Pinterest right now. I can see where it is nice to have all the related projects in snapshot photos in a collage that is easy to see, and so much easier to click one time and have access to the tutorial. It's just that whole invasion of privacy thing. That and I don't like being told what to do unless it's by an employer. And even then....

Another Crossroads for Pawpaw

2012-01-09T12:35:00.000-06:00

Saturday, Pawpaw had a bad day. A really bad day. He had had a bad night, was so disoriented that he tried to get into bed with his roommate, and had trouble distinguishing between his dreams and reality. He has delusions of being in jail and being physically attacked by the nurses. When my mother-in-law got there sometime after noon, he asked her who she was. Even after she explained, she wasn't sure he ever really knew her, and she cried all the way home.

The Best Hamburger in Texas

2012-01-08T19:59:00.002-06:00

During a recent trip, we happened to be in Vernon, Texas at lunch time. Usually, when Vernon is our lunch stop, we pull off the freeway at one of the few fast food places on the service road: McDonald's, Braums, Subway, or KFC. We usually try to time our trips so we don't have to stop in Vernon. But that day I needed to go to the courthouse to do a little research, and it was just before noon so we had to eat there. But this time, we decided to see if there were any other restaurants near downtown, and there happened to be a restaurant right across the street from the courthouse. It's name is Three Hearts Steakhouse. It's on Pease Street. I don't know if that's pronounced like Peace, or like Peas, or like Peasy. But it's easy to find because it's the only restaurant across from the courthouse.

Knowing that my little research often turns into several hours, we agreed that Hubby and Brownie would go eat while I began my research, and they would buy me a burger to go when they finished and I'd eat it on the road as we left. I wasn't quite finished with my research when they came to get me, so I spent a few minutes explaining what I was looking for and sic'd Hubby on the Probate Records while I went to the car to eat the now cold hamburger.

It wasn't quite cold. It wasn't hot, but still a little warm, and oh so delicious. I'm sure the bun was homemade, slightly sweet and flavorful, and grilled just long enough to be lightly browned and crispy on the inside while the outside was still soft. The meat was black angus and cooked perfectly. Hubby ordered fries but the hamburger came with homemade potato chips and they were yummy too. I ate every bite of the hamburger and just about every chip. If they were that good just warm, my mouth waters to think what they must be like hot!

Hubby and Brownie had fried chicken and said it was wonderful also. One of Hubby's side dishes was green beans and he said they were sauteed, tender, and very tasty. Brownie said her side dishes were great too but I can't remember what they were. Sorry. Since I had the camera with me, Hubby couldn't have taken pictures even if he had thought of it, which he probably wouldn't have.

From now on, I'll plan my trips so that Vernon is my lunch stop instead of the place I try to avoid at lunch time. If you are going to be within ~~fifty~~ one-hundred miles of Vernon, it's worth the time to stop at the little restaurant across from the courthouse.

Disclaimer: I'm not being paid to say this, have never met the people, and never heard of the place before a couple of weeks ago. This is just a recommendation from the heart for the Three Hearts Steakhouse. YUM!

On our way out of the Dallas area to go on that trip, we stopped at the bank in Arlington, and Brownie begged to go to In and Out Burger. Branches of that California chain have opened in several metroplex locations, and they are always packed, with long lines. So of course Hubby and I said no. We were in a hurry and didn't think any hamburger was worth that kind of wait. (That was before I had eaten the Best Hamburger in Texas.)

But after we got back from our trip, Brownie and I were out exchanging Christmas presents (yuck), and I agreed to stop at In and Out Burger. We got a Double Double for Hubby (two meat patties and two slices of cheese), a Cheeseburger and Chocolate Shake for Brownie, and a Hamburger and fries for me. Before we even got out of the car, I told Brownie it would probably taste like every other fast food hamburger, only with some weird California ingredient (no offense meant Californians). Sure enough, their standard hamburger came with a special sauce made of ketchup, mayonnaise, sweet pickle relish, and chopped onions. This is Texas, In and Out, we like mustard on our burgers.

So we special ordered all the burgers, two with mustard and no onions, and one with mayo and no onions (what can I say, Brownie is a rebel). When we got our order, Brownie's burger had mustard, not ketchup. Not as bad as having that special sauce though, so I traded her my clean bottom bun for her mustard-laden top bun, and all was well for her, and while not fond of a lot of mustard, I managed to eat it. The buns were grilled a little too long unless you favor blackened buns, but they weren't too bad.

Brownie's chocolate shake was definitely lacking in the chocolate department, but we were on the road before she tasted it. It had just enough chocolate in it to make you wonder if it was chocolate or vanilla. My fries tasted ok, but they had an odd texture, sort of like they had been dehydrated, but I doubt they were. Probably frozen like every other fast food place. All in all, the hamburgers were okay; in fact, they tasted a lot like Steak and Shake which we really like. McDonald's has better fries, and almost anywhere has better shakes, at least better chocolate shakes. I think the reason the restaurants are so popular is because they are cheap. The burgers are fine but given a choice of a cheaper burger and long line at In and Out Burger, or a faster trip through Steak and Shake, I'd take Steak and Shake. Their shakes are better too.

Disclaimer (although I'm sure this isn't necessary after the above review): I'm not paid to say this, nor do I have a beef (pun intended) with the chain. Just my opinion after eating there.

15 Minute Challenge, a New Start

2012-01-03T13:50:00.000-06:00

I did really good this week for a change. We took a trip to my mother's and I carried my paper piecing with me. I either worked on it in the car or at her house nearly every day, and even after we got home. I'm still not sure if I'll finish enough to make a quilt, but I am learning how to do it. I think.

And here is my stash busting report, although I haven't done a thing with it. I already had all the fabric counted in my paper piecing.

See how others did with their 15 minute craft challenge at Kate's Life in Pieces.

Merry Christmas!

2011-12-24T10:32:00.000-06:00

Since I probably won't have time to get online tomorrow, I wanted to wish everyone a Merry Christmas today.

Thanks to Older and Wisor, I figured out how to have the bling (I know, I can't believe I said that either) of a Christmas tree without the hassle of putting up a Christmas tree.

I also finally figured out how to wrap presents in the Christmas fabric I bought several years ago. I originally made a few bags out of it, which resulted in blobs under the Christmas tree. Then I tried furoshiki which was a bit bland for Christmas. But this year I figured out how to use it like paper gift wrap using only the bow to hold it together.

If you've read my blog long, you know I hate greeting cards of any kind, Christmas, birthday, etc. It's the expense of buying a card, sending it, just so someone can look at it and throw it away. Same with gift wrap and ribbon, plus the added chance of throwing away part of a Christmas gift. The fabric wrap and wire ribbon can be reused every year. Reuse, Recycle - part of the three R's. I love it.

Grandma's Crown of Thorns Quilt

2011-12-11T19:29:00.002-06:00

This is another quilt that was in my grandmother's collection. We don't know who made it, as my grandmother didn't label anything. It's probably the next one I will get appraised, to see if it's worth keeping among other things.

It's a Crown of Thorns. All blocks look planned except this one. I guess the maker didn't have enough fabric to make this last one.

The back is a pretty purple plaid, wrapped to the front instead of a separate binding. That was typical of quilts made by my grandfather's mother, but then it was probably typical for a lot of quilt made years ago.

The rest of the blocks look like this one

Pawpaw Has a Roommate

2011-12-10T19:04:00.000-06:00

Pawpaw has been at the nursing home for almost four months and except for a day or two, has had a room to himself. But a few days ago, another man moved into the nursing home, and into Pawpaw's room. The man has Alzheimer's and it is pretty advanced. He used to be a Baptist preacher, so they should be fairly compatible. There's just one teeny little problem. The Rev doesn't want to be at the nursing home.

The first day, his daughter brought him into the room, unpacked his bag, and settled him into the room. Then she left to go fill out some paperwork and go home to her ten kids. Yes, ten, and she is the only relative within fifty miles. After she left, Rev pulled all his things out of the drawers and closets, loaded them into a laundry basket, and headed out the door. A nurse brought him back and unpacked his basket. He told her she might as well leave everything in the basket because he wasn't staying.

Mother-in-law and Pawpaw were sitting on his side of the room watching, and after the nurse left, Rev began packing his basket again. Mother-in-law told him he might as well spend the night since it was getting dark outside and too late to go home. He said, no, he was going home, picked up his basket, and left. Pretty soon an aide brought him back again, and unpacked his basket. They went through this routine at least five times, and it was entertaining enough that Pawpaw stayed awake longer than usual.

The next morning, Hubby visited Pawpaw and said he walked into the room to find the Rev sitting in his bed crying into his breakfast, and Pawpaw already in the dining hall. After breakfast, Hubby and Pawpaw returned to the room and the Rev was lying in bed sobbing into his pillow. Hubby suggested they go for a walk and Pawpaw agreed, so they walked until Pawpaw needed to go to sleep. The Rev was still sobbing when they got back to the room, but Pawpaw dropped off to sleep and Hubby left.

I haven't heard how it has gone today, but I hope the Rev settles in and becomes good company for Pawpaw.

Recycled Fence Posts Into Post People

2011-12-09T20:07:00.007-06:00

After using most of the fence pickets on the faux fence, I still have a lot of rails and fence posts. So I cut a few posts into sections and Brownie and I made post people carolers.

Since my posts were in a very used condition, I couldn't paint them like typical post people. They had to be dressed to cover the dark stains and splintered wood. I just painted a little section on top to make a face. I began giving each post two arms but found that it worked better with the outside post people having one arm each. They also wore a shirt to cover the arm. One shirt bought at the thrift store and one from the box of old clothes we were about to take to the thrift store.

The post on the inside is wearing a curtain panel from the thrift store, strategically stapled to look like a dress. And they all have hair made from the sisal rope the cat refused to touch.

Then we screwed a couple of conduit clamps onto the back, drove a piece of rebar into the ground and slid the post people onto them. To complete the look, I spray painted an old notebook, and wired it onto the two outstretched arms.

Cheap, easy, and fun. However, no one seems to like them except Brownie and me. That's ok. Now I have Christmas yard art to put in front of the "General Store". (Although right now they're in the front yard.)

Total cost: $6.00.

An Update of Sorts

2011-12-08T10:13:00.004-06:00

I started to title this post "Stupid Things I've Done Lately" but some of this wasn't my stupid stuff.

To begin with, I lost my new password for blogger and have been locked out for awhile. Before Thanksgiving, I was visiting blogs that had linked up to some blog parties, and on one of them, a wordpress blog, there was a popup that said something about verifying my password, and there wasn't any way to close it except to put my password in and click ok. So I closed the browser instead. I opened a new browser and went back, and the same thing happened. So I closed the browser again and immediately changed my blogger password, just in case.

I jotted down the new password on a scrap of paper by the computer, and I thought I picked a new set of security questions. I always make up bogus answers for those security questions and keep a list of passwords and answers. But I never got around to writing this one on the list.

Then I did a clean sweep before Thanksgiving and moved my pile of papers and assorted clutter to a back corner of my room. After Thanksgiving, I couldn't find the password anywhere. I clicked on the link to recover password, but without the answer to my security question, I thought I could be permanently locked out, so I didn't try it. I finally did it this morning, and there was nothing about a security question. Whew! But it looks like I am going to have to find my phone number now. I know it's written down somewhere.

****

About that phone number. I have a new number on my cell phone. We dropped land lines years ago and seldom regret it. When Hubby got a cell phone for work, I took over his phone plan, and his phone number. The only drawback was that the area code was not the same as the one where we live, so very few people called me back when I left a message. I switched to a new number to get a local area code. AT&T assured me that the number had been cleared and I wouldn't be getting calls for the previous owner. Wrong! I haven't gotten any personal calls for the previous owner, but I have gotten plenty of calls from bill collectors. Apparently, the previous owner had a lot of bad debt.

I changed my message to something like "This is Marti's new phone number. Leave your name and number and if I know who you are, I'll call you back." The bill collectors never leave a message, but I could tell who they were by the missed calls and most of them must have listened to the message and figured out that their debtor had changed their number (probably to avoid those calls). Then, a couple of weeks ago, another creditor started calling, Nationwide Credit. After a few missed calls from that number, I looked to see who it was, and put it into the phone's address book. Evidently the Nationwide collectors aren't as bright as the other creditors, or they thought it would be just as easy to get some money out of me as the person with the debt, because my message went unheeded and they kept calling every day.

I decided to answer the next time they called, ask them who they were calling, tell them that person changed their number, and to STOP calling ME. They call between 8am and 10am every morning, so you'd think that would be fairly simple, even for me. But one day I couldn't get to the phone in time, another day I was in the car and couldn't answer the phone with my gloves on, and another day my battery died as I tried to answer. But today I finally got to answer. I didn't start with hello, just "Who are you calling, please?" And on the other end of the line, nothing. I repeated my question and they hung up.

So I took the bull by the horns and called them back. When someone answered, I told them that I had a new number, that Nationwide was calling every day, that I was not indebted to them, and to stop calling. The guy asked my name. I told him he didn't need my name, only my phone number so they could stop calling it. Then he told me my first name (as it is on the message). I said yes, and the person who used to have the number changed to something else, and I wanted them to stop calling. He said they would.

If I can remember my new blogger password tomorrow, I'll let you know if they have stopped.

****

Yesterday, I went to the nursing home to see Pawpaw, and hang a wreath on his door. When I got there, he was in the bathroom with an aide. I could hear her shaving him, so I put the wreath on the door, and turned on the battery powered lights. I had also brought a picture for his wall and a Command hook. The directions said to place the hook on the wall and wait an hour before hanging anything. So I asked Pawpaw if he wanted to go for a walk. It's the only exercise he gets and the staff doesn't have time, so if the family doesn't walk with him, he doesn't get any exercise.

He was in his wheelchair when I got there, nicely dressed in slacks and a button down shirt, and tennis shoes for better traction. I brought his walker over and he got up and began walking. For some reason he always turns right out of his room, and there is no where to go that way, so I suggested we turn and go the other way. As Pawpaw was turning, his pants started slipping off. He grabbed them and tried to pull them up, and I said we'd better go back to his room and get a belt. He started walking into the room next to his and then his pants dropped to the floor. I stopped him before he could flash the two ladies who live in that room, pulled his pants up and held on to them, and got him going toward his door. He turned to me, grinned and said, "You know, there was a time when that would have embarrassed me."

Have a Safe and Happy Holiday Everyone

2011-11-22T07:30:00.001-06:00

School seems to be out here and people will be hitting the road soon. My youngest is flying in, and while I know that is probably safer than driving, I still worry. We are having a very informal Thanksgiving dinner this year. I want to be able to enjoy being with everyone, watching tv, playing games, and chatting - not cooped up in the kitchen cooking by myself. So we are having elk roast with the trimmings, and lots of desserts.

My in-laws are coming, and even though I don't think Pawpaw even knows what today is, he has the idea that he will soon be taking a trip from the home. Yesterday when mother-in-law got to the nursing home, she found him waiting in his room holding a cookie box. He had dumped the cookies and candy in the trash, and filled it with the toiletries from the bathroom counter, and had his shoes and jacket on the bed. He was ready to go, though he thought he was moving somewhere.

My house is a mess, I haven't been grocery shopping, and haven't cooked a thing in preparation for Thursday. But that's ok. It will either get done or it won't. Either way, I am going to enjoy every minute the kids and Pawpaw are here. I wish all of you the same.

Puddy Tat Perch

2011-11-21T22:19:00.002-06:00

A couple of days ago I built a window perch in the garage for the cat. He likes to be with us when we are in the garage, but he needs to be out from under our feet. Because we park the cars in the garage and use it as our workshop, there isn't a lot of room for a kitty condo, or even a very big perch. The maximum depth could only be fifteen inches. It also couldn't take up any floor space because there is very little along the walls. So I built a shelf braced against the wall.

Hubby said he would never sit in a window perch; that those are just for indoor cats and this cat can go outside whenever he wants to. But I built it anyway, using scraps we had. I also attached a post to one side and wrapped some sisal rope around it for a scratching post so the cat will stop digging his claws into my tires.

We put a couple of old towels and his food dish on the perch and then put him up there too. He was content to stay there most of the afternoon, but after he got down, he stayed down. Hubby gave me the "told you so" look, but I thought I'd give it some time before I took it down.

Today, Brownie reported to me that she went out to the garage and the cat was on the perch. He likes it, he likes it!

Because he is a big guy, and likes to sprawl out, I put a safety edge on it so he won't roll off. While at a dollar store today, I found a minky blanket in the few remaining Halloween sale items and thought it would be a good cover for a pad on the perch. For now, I covered an old quilt with the minky, placed it on the perch and put the cat on it. He hated it so much that he wouldn't even put all his feet on it, and tried to back off it.

So I guess it's back to an old towel wrapped around the quilt.

Oh, and the scratching post? He won't use it either. Now he wants to scratch on the boxes of tile under the perch. *sigh*

Cast of Characters at the Nursing Home

2011-11-18T18:34:00.002-06:00

When you have a relative in a nursing home, and visit fairly often, you can't help but notice the other residents. The nursing home where Pawpaw is makes an effort to keep their residents up so they can be more active. So there are always a lot of people in the lobby and in the halls when we visit.

Some people greet us at the door, hoping to see a familiar face, but ready to talk to anyone. There is one lady who parks her wheelchair near the front door and always asks me if I am there to take her home. I hate to disappoint her but I tell her I am there to visit my father-in-law, and she nods and turns her attention to the next person coming in the door.

Pawpaw is usually in his room, dozing in bed. Fatigue and a groggy, dizzy, sleepiness are the worst part of Parkinson's Disease for Pawpaw. He has good days where he can stay awake for an hour and there are days where he wakes only to doze off again. And on those days, he is never sure whether the stuff he had been dreaming about really happened or not. He is usually sure he has been out building a house or even putting on an addition to the nursing home. But then he will admit that it could have been a dream. I asked him how old he is in his dreams and he said he is about twenty or so. Back when he could do anything, and that feeling is still with him even when he also knows he needs help putting his shoes on.

The last time I visited Pawpaw, it was just before lunch. Normally, the aids begin taking the residents to the dining hall about an hour before the meal is served, so they can get everyone in by noon. But since I was there, I took him in just before it was time to eat.

Like most nursing homes, the residents who are in wheelchairs are encouraged to use their feet to pull their chairs forward, and not push the wheels with their hands. It's to keep them more active, and the foot rests are removed from the chairs. But Pawpaw had on his slippers and couldn't get any traction on the slick floor, so as much as he tried, he was basically walking in place. His feet were so swollen that I couldn't get his shoes on his feet, so he held his feet up and I pushed him to the dining hall. Hubby went out later and bought him some tennis shoes with velcro straps so he can get them on when his feet are swollen and when they aren't.

Once in the dining hall, Pawpaw insisted he sat at a table where no one was sitting. There aren't any place markers, so I thought maybe they did move him to another table. The time before, he had been at the next table, and the place where he sat was empty. But he didn't want to sit at that table so we sat at the other table. Pawpaw leaned over and confided to me that he couldn't carry on a conversation with any of those people in the dining hall because they just weren't with it. I got a chuckle out of that because it's hard to have a conversation with Pawpaw most of the time.

At his regular table, there are two other people, June and PeeWee (not his real name, but that's what everyone calls him). June has a motorized scooter and she is sharp as a tack. She is the one who knows where everyone is supposed to sit in the dining hall and keeps track of all the happenings in the halls. During the last meal, an aid rushed into the dining hall and said they needed the RN in her hall. June's head came up and she watched the nurse and all the aids rush out. She backed away from the table and said that was her hall and she had to go find out what was happening, and away she went as fast as her scooter would go.

PeeWee is a younger man, and as he proudly announces, the only man at the home to walk unassisted. All the other men are either in wheelchairs or walkers. PeeWee is friendly, talks to everyone, and everyone knows him. Even Pawpaw can remember his name.

There is another lady who likes to park her wheelchair in the doorway of the media and game room, and rocks her chair back and forth so no one can get around her without talking to her.

Another woman cries all the time. She sounds just like a toddler and cries while she is eating, while she is watching tv, and while she is out in the lobby. She drives my mother-in-law up the wall. I had heard her for awhile before I realized it was a resident and not a visiting child.

There's another lady who carries a doll around with her. At first I thought she was the lady who cried like a baby, but she just quietly wheels around with the doll. She looks really familiar to me, and I can't figure out why.

Then there's Mr. Nash. He is ninety-five and also pretty sharp. He likes to walk his wheelchair outside and is curious about what is going on outside the nursing home. His goal is to live to be one hundred, and I do believe he'll make it.

There's another woman who Pawpaw thinks is his cousin Imogene, but she isn't. Pawpaw doesn't understand why she hasn't come over and talked to him though. But he also doesn't make any effort to go talk to her either.

Brownie and I made a bird feeder to put outside Pawpaw's window. He wasn't sure Brownie was his granddaughter one day. I think it confuses him that she looks so much like me (or what I used to look like) and that I look so much like my mother. Hopefully he will recognize you when you come visit, Lil. The plan is to bring him to our house for Thanksgiving Day, and being in a familiar place should be good for his memory, but it will also make it harder for him to go back to the home.

See you soon,

(Mom)

I Also Built a Workbench

2011-11-16T12:55:00.007-06:00

For years, our "workshop" has been in the back of the shed, in a 5x8' area. Not fun, and as a result, we didn't do much woodworking. After the kids left home, we talked about moving a wall in the garage that separated the car space from work and storage space. After Pawpaw gave us his big table saw which took up enough space that we couldn't get a car into one spot, it became even more important to move that wall. Before Hubby went to Colorado this year, we started that project, and while he was gone, I finished it and built this workbench. I'm just too old to work on the floor anymore.

I built the top out of 2x12's and 2x4's and the legs out of 4x4's, so it's really solid. The doors are out of 1x12's and stenciled to look like old gun boxes. I thought Hubby would like that and he did, enough that it inspired him to build a cart for the air compressor and he wants to continue the old box look.

I got that idea from Donna at Funky Junk. Check out her stairs. Thanks Donna!

More on the garage later.

I shared this with Common Ground - Vintage Inspirations

Fee Fie Faux Fence!

2011-11-14T17:57:00.062-06:00

Before:

After:

I'm sorry it's been awhile since I posted. I started this project earlier this summer, and after I finally got over shingles, I have been working on it and a couple of other projects non-stop. It's still not quite finished (I still have to put a name across the top) but close enough to finally show you.

I've showed you my shed before - strategically photographed and cropped to only show the front I covered with wood from my grandparent's turn of the century two-room cabin.

What I've never showed (or tried not to show) is what is beside the shed.

Think it doesn't look too bad? Look closer. To the right, a wire fenced area that used to be a dog run.

It doesn't look too bad like this, although I'd prefer not to see any of that stuff, which is overflow from the fenced area on the left side of the shed.

This fenced area has been a bone of contention for the last fifteen years since Hubby built it to hide his junk. Sometimes I think we are one rusting pile of junk away from being featured on an episode of The Hoarders. If Hubby ever stacked anything neatly in there, that ended at least ten years ago. Then it became a mosquito-breeding, snake-hiding, weed-growing trash pit and I refused to go in it.

One day I was wishing, as I often did, that the wood fence was on the right side of the shed so all the stuff was on concrete and hidden behind a fence, and it dawned on me that I could just do that myself. And instead of just rebuilding the same old fence, make it more interesting so it complemented the shed.

I patiently waited until Hubby went on a trip so he wasn't around to stop me. Then I took down the wire fencing, bought lumber to build a new fence frame, and bolted it to the old fence posts. (The center stud was straight when I bought it, and twisted more every day. Fun.)

Then started building the walls by taking down pickets from the old fence, and laying them horizontally on the new fence.

I stenciled "General Store" on the back of a piece of glass, and sprayed all the backs of glass with a variety of black and blue paints so it looked like a shadowy interior, even though there was a board behind the glass.

After I got all the glass in, I followed directions I found online to quickly age the new wood and sponged that on all the new rough cedar. What it did was shrink the new cedar, which cracked the window to smithereens. What it didn't do was age the new wood.

After I bought, painted, and replaced the glass, I didn't try the aging trick again.

And finished!

Junk, still hidden, but better.

Update! I got the name painted on it. Possum Trot was the original name of a nearby town until they decided to change it to something less, um, hillbilly.

Now. It's. Finished.

BTW, I added up my receipts for this project, and without tax, the total cost was $127.

I'm sharing this with My Repurposed Life - Catch as Catch Can, At The Picket Fence - Inspiration Friday, Tatertots and Jello

An Earthquake? Here?

2011-09-26T22:14:00.003-05:00

Yes, late Saturday night, there was a 2.5 earthquake centered less than four miles from us. That is the fifth earthquake in the DFW area this year. I knew there was a fault line running through the area, but until this year, I've never heard of earthquakes in our area.

With all the stuff going on this week, I forgot to announce that we got 1.25 inches of rain on the 18th of this month. It was wonderful. It poured on us in Tulsa too, while we were trying to drive through town, pulling a U-Haul, with headlights that were so oxidized that we could barely see the rain much less the stripes on the road. Hubby announced that he was springing for new headlight assemblies when we got home, and he did. They are wonderful. I might even drive the beastmobile at night again. If I have to.

Life At The Nursing Home

2011-09-24T22:58:00.008-05:00

My father-in-law, Pawpaw to his grandchildren, is doing much better at the nursing home. Now that the methadone is out of his system, he has many more lucid moments which sometimes stretch into hours. The first few days at the nursing home, he was in a continual hallucination or daydream where he thought he was building a house with his friend Dossie. He was having a terrible time getting a wall up and wanted us to help him lift that wall for several days. Eventually, he knew he was at the nursing home, and that "his helpers" were nurses and aids.

He had some stubborn moments with them when he refused to get dressed, or undressed, when asked because he didn't want to be told what to do. Today, he confided to Hubby that little boys were stealing his hearing aids, and sometimes they came in and took them right out of his ears while he was sleeping. Then he said that the little boys came in the next morning and tried to get money for the hearing aids but he wouldn't give them any. He was quite proud of getting his hearing aids back without succumbing to their extortion.

For awhile, he thought physical therapy was where he went to school, but now it's his job. Which it is, in a way. He was glad to have a break from it today, and admitted that he often loses track of days. He was having an especially lucid day today and had a frank conversation with Hubby saying he can't follow a baseball game anymore or most things on tv. He tires quickly but today they played dominoes for an hour before he began getting tired.

Hubby wanted to check Pawpaw's supply of ice cream bars in the community refrigerator/freezer and found another man in the room, making a sandwich. The man struck up a conversation and asked if Hubby's father was there. When Hubby answered yes, the man asked if Pawpaw had gone fishing with them. Hubby smiled patiently and assumed the man wasn't quite there. But then the man went on to say that the director of recreation scheduled several fishing trips every year and the next one is Friday. So it wasn't an imaginary trip after all.

Pawpaw is doing much better with physical therapy and the therapist told mother-in-law (Deedee to her grandchildren) that he should be able to get out of bed and dress himself by the time he leaves there. So they are expecting him to move back home or into an assisted living center. Deedee is in a tizzy about that. She doesn't think she can handle him by herself, but she doesn't want to be the one to make the decision for him to stay at the nursing home. She hasn't wanted to make any decisions since he first had the stroke, so that's no big surprise, but it's my opinion that she wants to be able to put the blame on someone else when Pawpaw hears that he is staying at the nursing home or going to an assisted living center. Another option she can't seem to grasp is that they could have home health care.

In case you are wondering why I didn't go to the nursing home also, it's because the shingles is back. I felt tingling on both sides of my face Thursday; it was worse Friday, so I went back to the doctor. I started a new course of antiviral medication and once again the doctor said that we caught it early and it shouldn't progress. It hasn't gotten much worse today, but there are a couple of bumps forming and the tingling has continued on the right side (where it was before) but has stopped on my left side.

So there's your update kids. Come visit Pawpaw when you can.

Have You Ever Wondered If Anyone Lifted Your Blog Photos?

2011-09-24T22:36:00.003-05:00

I just learned an easy way to check and thought I'd pass it on to my blog buddies. This tip is from annkathryn, a poster at gardeweb.com.

Go to one of your blog photos, right click on it, and scroll down to the word "Properties" in the pop up box. Click on Properties to bring up the Element Properties box. Copy the address of the photo.

Now go to images.google.com and click on the camera icon in the search box. Paste the url of the photo there, and click the search button. Now you'll see websites with a copy of that photo.

Note: Sometimes there is an error message with the pasted url of the photo. If that happens, you'll have to save the image to your hard drive. Then when you click the camera ion at images.google.com, you need to then click "Upload an image" and load it from your computer.

Also, if the photo is really specific, like my painted bench, it will find the websites quickly, although it didn't find all of them that I know are saved on other sites. But if a picture is non-specific, like a sunset, or a multi-colored quilt, it will come up with many non-related items.

Kate's 15 Minute Challenge for September 20, 2011

2011-09-20T19:27:00.008-05:00

It's been a long week, but it ended with 1.25 glorious inches of rain Sunday night. I'm feeling tons better and have even done some sewing this week with the shopping bags, so I'm posting my 15 Minute Challenge Report again. I've continued measuring my stash too and am on the home stretch there I think.

Last Tuesday, Brownie called and asked if she could move back home until she could find a job here, so Saturday I rented a trailer and we drove to Oklahoma to pick up her stuff. It was dry and yellow from here to Okmulgee, Oklahoma where it suddenly changed to green everywhere. So for those of you who have been wondering where the rain is, it stayed north of there behind their invisible wall.

Back in sewing related news, my little portable machine is on the fritz. The bigger machine has had tension problems for awhile, and now the serger is messed up too. So we've been discussing trading it all in on another machine. Maybe I can spend this week checking that out.

Check out Kate's blog, Life in Pieces to see how others have been using their 15 minutes a day.

More Shopping Bags

2011-09-16T23:08:00.010-05:00

After I started feeling better, I got tired of watching tv and reading all day. My face looks like I've been out hunting with Dick Cheney without a shotgun proof facemask and I didn't want to leave the house, so I finished a project I started over five months ago - shopping bags for my little group of childhood friends. I wanted to have the bags finished for our annual summer trip, but part of my procrastination oath was that I would start things and not finish them, and I can't break my oath.

Now I know what you're thinking: This took five months?!! I know because that's what I think too. But you see, I'm not an artist. I'm artistic, but not an artist. The difference being I can think it, but I can't draw it, at least not easily. I knew the picture I wanted to put on the bags, but I can't draw without looking at something, and even then not well.

I had asked a neighbor to sit in a lawnchair and let me take her picture so I could try to make a cartoon drawing from the picture, and she said she had a friend who was an artist and she asked him to draw the picture I described: a pretty woman sitting in a beach chair with a drink, wearing sunglasses and a tiara. It's a nice picture, just not quite what I wanted.

The girl just wasn't quite Diva-ish, and the tiara a little too crown-ish. I didn't know what to do about it, so I did nothing for a couple of months. Then I decided I could take the parts I liked and draw them into what I wanted. So I ended up with a composite sketch that I could draw onto the bags and then paint.

And the back

I only have two bags finished so far. I ran out of the tan canvas fabric. Eeek! I don't even remember where I bought it now. That's one of the drawbacks of procrastination. If I had made the bags right after I bought the fabric, I could have gotten more. Now I have to improvise.

You're probably wondering about the tiara, since it's not really part of the typical Diva ensemble (like I know what is). Several years ago, well nine, in fact, one of the ladies in our group decided we needed to start having an annual weekend together. We had gone on weekend trips together before, but it was usually impromtu and not at all organized. But on this first organized girls' weekend, we met in Dallas, and talked, ate, and shopped. Oh, and laughed. A lot. While on one of our shopping outings, we went into a jewelry/accessories store, and K spotted some tiaras in a glass case. I think the trip must have been around prom time that year. So K pretended to swoon, right there in the crowded store, and proclaimed loudly that she just had to have a tiara - that now that she had seen such a priceless wonder (it was $4.99), she didn't think she could live without one. We all laughed at her joke and at the tiaras, and walked on. All except M, who dropped back and bought the tiara.

The next morning in the hotel breakfast room, M walked up behind K and crowned her with the tiara while everyone else bowed down to her. She hammed it up and let the hotel staff call her 'madame' and 'your highness' and wore the tiara throughout breakfast.

And from that moment on, we were the Tiara Group, kind of like the Red Hat Society, except I think we laugh a lot more.

So you see why my Diva had to have a tiara.

Area Meteorologists Rejoice as Citizens Suffer

2011-09-13T16:18:00.006-05:00

As of today, we have broken the 1980 record for total number of days above 100 degrees. (It is now 70 days if you want to add that to your bucket list.) Area meteorologists have taken off the sackcloth and ashes and can finally quit lamenting the accursed cool front that robbed ~~them~~ us of the record in August. Oh happy day. Now we are the envy of the state, nay, the nation.

It Has Been a Tumultuous Week

2011-09-10T11:17:00.004-05:00

On my last post, I told you that the nurse told us that Fil couldn't stay at the center if he had another combative episode, and they wanted one of the sons to stay with him every minute until the methadone wore off (48 hours). Hubby took the first shift and didn't get any sleep that night. Fil managed to get the bed alarm off and stand up before Hubby could get to him, so the rest of the night Hubby would doze off, jerk awake, make sure his dad was okay, try to stay awake, doze off, and do it all over again.

The doctor was supposed to be at the center between 8 and 9 a.m. I was going to pick up Mil so we could be there before 8:00, but a weekend of eating junk food got to me and she had to go on without me. I got there about 8:15 and the doctor still hadn't arrived. So we all sat in Fil's room and watched him sleep. The doctor finally arrived at the center at 11:00 and started his rounds. We didn't think it would take long, since he knew we were waiting on him, so we opted not to eat lunch, but to have Fil eat in the room while we waited for the doctor. And we waited. And waited. Brother Bear arrived at 11:30 for his shift with Fil, and waited with us. Finally, at 1:00, Hubby asked the nurse when the doctor would be by and she said it shouldn't be long. So we waited some more. At 2:00 there was a shift change, and at 2:30 Hubby went to a different nurse and explained that we had been waiting for the doctor since 8:00 a.m. She took action, went to the doctor and told him to interrupt his schedule and come talk to us. Bless her heart.

The doctor came in about 15 minutes later and was very nice and apologetic. Fil was awake and alert, and even knew what year it was when asked. He was able to swing his legs out and over the bed, sit up, and all without much pain. So that was the end of pain medication for Fil. He has done fine without any since then. The doctor was very optimistic about getting Fil up and around again and said they would start physical therapy the next day.

After that, Hubby and I left, and Brother Bear stretched out on the spare bed to get some rest before Mil left and his shift began. Brother Bear is a chain smoker and he was NOT looking forward to the long night without a break. Everything went fine for him until the next morning when he got Fil into the bathroom. Then, for some reason, Fil decided that the emergency alarm cord shouldn't be there, and he wrapped it around his fist and tried to pull it off the wall. Brother Bear tried to stop him by giving him a towel to pull instead, but Fil just wrapped the towel around his hand and then the cord around that, and pulled harder. A quick thinking nurse came in with a pair of scissors, snipped the cord in half and helped calm down Fil. Even though there are alarms sounding all the time, I'm sure that continuous alarm was driving them crazy. Then, Fil decided the soap dispenser shouldn't be on the wall and he tried to tear that off. Brother Bear did stop him though.

Hubby and I had talked about finding a backup nursing home in case Fil did pull something else and they kicked him out, and I said I would look Tuesday. After hearing about Fil's morning, I figured they would tell Mil that morning that she had to move him. I started calling, first local homes, and then further out, and found that NO ONE will take him if he is aggressive, even those with secure units. He would have to go to a psychiatric hospital, and I got several names from the homes I called. I found that only one psychiatric hospital would take him, and they could take him that day if needed. Mil's meeting with the admissions director was at noon, and I needed all my ducks in a row before her meeting.

Luckily, the admissions director told Mil that Fil could stay. She said the weekend nurse spoke out of turn when telling us that Fil would have to leave if he had another aggressive outburst. She said they had dealt with much worse before and they wouldn't make that kind of decision without a staff meeting. So whew! He can stay, at least for now.

Fil did really well at PT that Tuesday, then again Wednesday and Thursday. He was cooperative, fairly with it, and was making enough progress that he was walking on his own, and they quit using the adult diapers. Then Friday, Mil decided not to go to PT with him, but to stay in the room and rest. That's when things began to fall apart. He wouldn't cooperate with the therapist, wouldn't get out of the wheelchair, and finally they called Mil back there. Fil was in a mood, said he didn't see why he had to do anything, he wasn't getting better, he would never get better, and he was never going to get to leave.

So three steps forward, and one step back for Fil. It's still progress.

I haven't been back to the center since Monday. I was on the phone for Fil Tuesday morning, and on the phone trying to get a dental appointment for me Tuesday afternoon. And then I needed a break. Wednesday morning I woke up with a little pain at the top of my upper lip. I thought at first it was a little cut, but as the day progressed, it felt more like a zit that was about to break through. That afternoon, I was leaving to run some errands and the next door neighbor was standing in front of her car with the hood up. She said it wouldn't go in reverse and she was late for work. So against my better judgment, I let her drive our pickup. I dreaded telling Hubby, but he agreed it was the right thing to do in an emergency.

Wednesday night, Hubby came home from work, dropped into his chair and went right to sleep. By then, I had a spot on my cheek that felt like a splinter. When I woke up Thursday morning, my lip didn't hurt as much, the place on my cheek still felt like a splinter was sticking out, and my eyelids were burning a little and felt like stys were forming on them. My ear was also beginning to ache and I was feeling tired and dizzy. I had signed up for a class in north Dallas, and had to leave by 8:30 am to get to it by 10:00. I got there ten minutes early, only to find that it had been cancelled. To say I was ticked was an understatement. I stopped at a Central Market on my way home so the trip wasn't a total loss, and when I got home, the pickup was gone again. This time Hubby wasn't very happy about it because he needed to get it ready to go to the lease on Friday. He thought she should have rented a car Thursday morning. By the time I got home Thursday, I really didn't care about anything. I was exhausted and the vibration on my face was driving me nuts.

My first thought was shingles, but I had never heard how it started, just that it was a pox like rash that formed along nerves. And whatever this was felt like it was following a nerve. Friday morning, there was a bump on my lip, my eye felt better, but the place on my cheek felt like an electrode had been attached and turned on low. I had called my neighbor and told her Hubby needed the truck Friday afternoon, and she said she would rent a car. She knocked on my door about 11:00 a.m. Friday asking me to drive her to another town to pick up the car. I felt really crummy by then, but I did it since there wasn't anyone else around to take her.

After my last experience at the GP's office, I swore I would never go back there, and my gynecologist suggested I use an internist at their office. So I called and tried to make an appointment. I had to leave a message for them to call back even to make an appointment, and when they hadn't called back by noon, I called my sister-in-law to see if her shingles started out this way, and she said it did. She told me to go to the doctor now. Immediately. Don't wait. So I went to an urgent care clinic, a doc in a box. At first he didn't think it was shingles because I only had one erruption and it was on my lip. He thought it might be a cold sore, or did, until I told him that a line from my lip to my eye was vibrating. He prescribed an anti-viral medication and I went to get it filled. By the time it was filled, I had four more bumps on my lip, two inside, and two on my cheek. The doctor had said it might not progress since I caught it so early, but now I'm not so sure. I have several more bumps on my cheek and the ones on my lip have burst. Of all the places to have shingles, why my face?!!!

So that's how my week ended. Hope yours was better.

We Got Father-in-Law Settled In

2011-09-04T15:16:00.006-05:00

Hubby tried to get Fil out of bed this morning without any pain medication, and it was just too much for Fil. So they gave him a pill and then waited for it to start working before they got him up and dressed. By the time we got to the health and rehabilitation center (which I'll just call the center from now on), he was groggy and so loopy he could barely answer simple questions. The nurse who did the evaluation thought he had dementia or Alzheimer's even though we kept saying that he wasn't like this before the pain medication. She was very gentle with Fil and got him to stand up by himself, and showed him how to help others get him onto the bed. She also mentioned that some patients NEVER heal from a vertebrae fracture, especially if it is a compression fracture, and the doctor at the VA didn't mention what kind of fracture, just that it was on the L1.

Then, while we were eating, she came over to say she had called one of the staff doctors to tell him about Fil's pain medication. The VA doctor put him on methadone because he is allergic to codeine. This staff doctor was shocked and suggested tramadol, or even a cortisone injection. The tramadol should relieve the pain without making him as sleepy and confused, and the cortisone shot would even be better because it wouldn't affect his mind at all. The doctor put in an order to start tramadol tonight and only use methadone if the tramadol doesn't work well. He is also going to meet with us tomorrow - yes, on Labor Day - to discuss all this and to see if Mil wants to switch Fil's primary care from the VA to him.

We are so impressed with this facility and the level of care he is already getting from the staff. If they can control his pain while keeping his mind clear, I think he might make some progress. After seeing him decline the last two weeks, Mil is afraid he is there to stay though. It broke her heart to sign the DNA form, but his quality of life has not been great lately.

So, things are looking up right now. Mil also heard of a condo nearby that is for rent. Brownie, our daughter, is a CNA. We have been trying to talk her into moving back to Texas, and when we told her about this facility, she said she would look into employment there. It would be good for Fil to have her there every day too. And she could share the condo with Mil so neither of them would have to live alone. I know that's a long shot, but it sure would be nice.

Both girls were home last weekend, and I asked them how much they remembered of Fil when they were young and spent a week every summer with the grandparents. Sadly, neither of them had solid memories of their grandfather when he was strong and active. So Hubby and I are going to start reminiscing, and I'll probably record those stories here so the girls can read them and hope that doesn't bore the rest of you too much.

*****

We just got a call from Mil. The center called her and said Fil is combative, and to come right over. So more later.

*****

Back again. There are a lot of fires today since it is really windy and has been dry for such a long time. Two fires were near the center, and they had an emergency staff meeting to explain evacuation procedures if the fires got closer. The aid checked Fil's room as she went to the meeting and he was still asleep. After the meeting, she looked in again and he was gone. The meeting had only lasted ten to fifteen minutes, but in that time, Fil had woken, gotten out of bed, and walked down the hall and into another room.

When they saw his empty room and didn't see him in the hall, they organized a search party and found him in the room down the hall. The head nurse ran to bring his wheelchair because they were afraid he would fall, and he began running down the hall. They ran after him and when they caught up with him, he began hitting, kicking, and grabbing their hands when they tried to get him to sit in the wheelchair. He twisted the wrist of one aid, bent back the thumb on another, and hit two others. The head nurse picked up a towel and held it tight between her hands to give him something else to grab onto. He got the towel away from her and began flailing them with it. They decided he was a very strong man who only looked thin and frail.

They finally convinced him to go back to his room to rest, and that's when they called Mil. So within three hours, he had gone from the man in a groggy stupor, to the man who flipped his lid (at least that's the way I overheard one aid describing him to another).

The head nurse is still an angel, and told us she called the doctor who said it is common in methadone patients to experience aggressive outbursts as the methadone wears off, and that the methadone stays in the system for 48 hours. She quoted the doctor as saying "Who in the h*** ordered methadone for him?!!!" From the research I did in our brief time home today, I can see why he said that. Parkinson's patients often have hallucinations and methadone causes hallucinations, so why on earth would anyone prescribe something that would surely make them worse?

She said they all understood he isn't doing this on purpose, but still, they aren't equipped to handle it and they needed Hubby to spend the night if Fil is going to stay there. Also, if he has another episode like that, they will have to send him to the ER and then back to the VA hospital. That's certainly understandable. We don't want him to harm anyone else, or himself either. But we are also worried that we won't find anywhere else with this level of care.

So I made a quick trip home (the center is about 30 miles from us) to pack some things for Hubby, and make us a few sandwiches for dinner, and went back to pick up Mil and take her home. Now to get some sleep so we can be back at the center at 8 a.m. tomorrow.

I Know It's Been Awhile, But I Have an Excuse

2011-09-03T20:34:00.006-05:00

My father-in-law had a stroke two weeks ago. It wasn't a severe stroke, but enough that he was a bit befuddled and had trouble walking upright. He was listing to the left both walking and while sitting. So Hubby and his mother took fil to the VA hospital where they did a bunch of tests, determined he had a small stroke, a heart arrhythmia, and was having trouble with his memory. They admitted him for observation and more tests and kept him for four days. I don't know if I've mentioned it lately, but he also has Parkinson's. All those things together made him a real treat for the staff there. He was hallucinating almost all the time he was there, and they decided to put him in a room with a 24 hour attendant. There was another man in the same room, who seemed to be either heavily drugged or who just slept a lot.

Fil saw things that weren't there, like yellow jackets crawling out of hole in the ceiling, an airplane that he was on, and even in moments when he was fairly lucid, he thought he was in jail there. He kept his house shoes on so he could make a jail break when he had a chance, and he pulled out his IV twice. He finally got a chance to make his break but the attendant caught him, so fil took a swing at him. The attendant probably weighed 240 and fil weighs 160. It wasn't much of a jail break. Later, when Hubby and I were there, fil said he had called the police and they brought us there. Luckily, there wasn't a phone in his room or he probably would have called the police.

Finally, on the fourth day, he was lucid enough to answer questions correctly, and he even knew that something was really wrong. He told the social worker there that he felt he was at a crossroads. They determined he was ready to be discharged, and they gave mother-in-law the option of putting him in a rehab hospital, or taking him home. Of course he wanted to go home, and mil didn't think rehab would do him any good, so she turned it down.

Father-in-law could walk pretty well with a walker, get up and down by himself, but still had trouble with his balance. Then he fell backwards into the shower. Mil was right there, but the walker was between them and she couldn't catch him, and he probably would have pulled her down too if she had tried. He said he was okay, and he didn't hit his head, so even though mil got Hubby out of bed at 10 p.m. to drive to town and get him out of the shower, they finally decided he didn't need to go back to the hospital. A couple of days later, fil couldn't get out of bed to go to the bathroom, and mil called Hubby at 5 a.m. to come get him up. He was in severe pain and couldn't walk by himself, and they finally got him dressed and took him back to the VA.

There, he had x-rays and a prescription for pain medication, and they sent him home. They had to go back the next day to find out the results of the x-ray. He had a fractured vertebrae. Yeah, that would hurt. The pain meds work, but they make him really groggy and mil can't seem to understand that she needs to give them to him every 12 hours like the doctor prescribed. She only wants to give them to him when he says he is in pain, but then he is in severe pain by the time they kick in.

By then, mil had run out of what little patience she had left, and wanted Hubby to spend the night at their apartment to get up with fil at night so she could get some sleep. She is really impatient with fil, even after hearing about the fracture. And she told the social worker at the VA that she couldn't take it anymore, all the waking up at night to go to the bathroom, his sleeping all day, and not being able to leave him alone to go anywhere. She's suffering caregiver fatigue, and her focus is pretty much on herself right now.

So they made the decision to put him in a nursing home with rehab. But mil didn't want to find one, she just wanted it done. The social worker told her she needed to go to a lawyer who specialized in elder law. She didn't want to do that, and thought it would just be done for her. Basically, she just wanted to put her head in the sand and pull it out when everything was okay again.

So I called on my friends to find out what to look for, then called a bunch of homes, and narrowed it down to a couple, and took mil to see them. She thought the second one was great, and so did I. They do rehab for stroke patients, but with him being on pain meds that keep him loopy all day, I'm not sure what they can do to help him regain his balance. He is being admitted tomorrow, or at least he will be admitted if he is approved after an evaluation. So now Hubby is trying to decide whether to give him his pain med so the ride over there won't be so painful, and have him loopy at the evaluation, or keep him off the pain med so he is somewhat alert and lucid when they do the evaluation.

So wish us luck tomorrow that he is admitted, and that they can help him. We all need him to be there, and he needs to do what they say so he can get better and come home. Otherwise, we have to put him in long term care. He needs a break from mil and she needs a break from him, though the facility we found is 20 minutes from her apartment and that drive everyday will get old. And Hubby just needs a break. He hasn't worked a full day in two weeks, and sleeping on an air mattress, getting up all night, and then trying to go to work is wearing him out. Brother Bear took his turn on the air mattress too, and his father-in-law has also been in the hospital, so he was already exhausted.

It Rained, Kind Of.

2011-08-25T14:26:00.002-05:00

Last night strong winds blew through, tossing deck chairs into the yard and ripping a few shingles off the roof, and dropping the temperature from 104 to 90 in minutes. It thundered for awhile, and finally rain began to fall. It was an anemic rain that only lasted a few minutes and didn't manage to get the sidewalk completely wet, but it gives me hope that one day we will get some real rain. The last rain that did the plants any good was at the end of May.

A Little Southern Ingenuity

2011-08-16T18:56:00.004-05:00

aka Redneck Engineering

So Hubby was working on the laundry room cabinet, and forgot to plug the washer drain. Yep, a nut fell and dropped right into the drain. When the little grabber thingy failed to bring it up, he either had to get creative or tear out the drywall to get to the drain pipe. He taped some rubber tubing onto the end of the shop vac hose, threaded it down the drain pipe, and turned on the vac. Voilà! Or maybe that should be Yeehaw! It worked. Drywall saved.

I Can't Believe My Ears

2011-08-11T16:12:00.003-05:00

Alan Greenspan said what??? "The United States can pay any debt it has because we can always print money to do that. So there is zero probability of default"

Can you imagine walking into Office Depot to buy something, but only having a dollar in your wallet, and then saying to the clerk: Let me just go over to the copier and make a few hundred copies of this dollar so I can buy this whatzit." Do you think you would land on your ear or your rear when they threw you out of the store?

Granted, it's been awhile since I took an economics class, and I probably wasn't paying attention at the time either, but wouldn't that devalue the dollar?

.....

Heard on the radio today: "The record (of 100+ degree days) breaking streak is in jeopardy." What??? We're in jeopardy?!!! I think the news media has been in the sun too long. I want the streak to be over, but apparently there are some who would like to tough it out a few more days so 2011 can break the 1980 record. Today would have been the 41st day in a row of triple digit heat. The record is 42, and it was predicted that we wouldn't see a high temperature under 100 until at least another week. But alas, there is a line of clouds with some rain coming from the north and the streak has been broken. Cancel the parade and dry your tears meterologists. Better luck next year.

Kate's 15 Minute Challenge August 9, 2011

2011-08-10T11:20:00.004-05:00

I haven't done much this week. Still plodding away at the HSTs, and really, if it weren't for the challenge and knowing I only have to spend 15 minutes doing them, I wouldn't be making any progress on them at all.

Tuesday - trimmed HSTs
Wednesday - put blocks together
Thursday - tied section of antique quilt
Friday - Not ONE blooming thing!
Saturday - Nothing again
Sunday - Nothing again
Monday - Nothing again

See how others have met their challenge by visiting Life in Pieces

I don't have anything worth mentioning on my design wall and nothing has changed on my stash count, so it's not worth posting.

What is Happening to This Country?

2011-08-05T17:11:00.029-05:00

No, I don’t mean the national debt or China and Russia circling overhead with saliva dripping from their fangs. Mixed metaphors aside, I am talking about something much more serious. I am talking about crime, folks. Crime caused by adults acting like children. It’s a pandemic that is sweeping the nation. Here are some of the new crimes you should be aware of, and how to protect yourself from being charged.

Crime #1: Shoulder tapping

Did you know that it is now a crime to tap someone on the shoulder in a movie theater? Yep, just ask Brenda Godwin because it happened to her. The big 136 pound hairdresser assaulted the diminutive 220 pound former athlete with her insanely strong index finger and caused the poor man to have whiplash so severe that he had to be treated by paramedics. Meanwhile, she was charged with a misdemeanor. You can read about it here and here. Why would she do such a horrendous thing? Because he was texting in front of her and totally ruining the movie she had traveled 1300 miles to experience.

How can you protect yourself from being charged with this crime? The newspaper article said you should find theater personnel and have them deal with the texter. However, that takes five to fifteen minutes out of your popcorn munching, soda slurping, tear wiping, movie experience. And what is the theater personnel going to do to get the attention of someone engrossed in their texting? That’s right, they are going to tap the inconsiderate slob on the shoulder. And while you are gone from your seat, you missed something vitally important in the movie and you won’t have a clue what is going on for the next hour.

So save yourself the time and aggravation, and deal with the situation yourself, totally hands-off. Just lean in the direction of the texter, and whisper this simple phrase to the person next to you: “Are those bed bugs crawling up that guy’s back?”

Crime #2: Wildlife Rescue

Did you know that it is a crime to rescue a wild animal left to die in a trap? Yes again, and you can ask Bonnie Bradshaw who did just that. This overpowering bully so intimidated some apartment managers that they were struck dumb and couldn’t do anything but nod in agreement when she told them she was taking the animal and traps to a rescue center. She was also charged with a misdemeanor. You can read about it here.

What can you do to protect yourself in this situation? Oh sure, you can call SPCA and let them put the animal on their rescue list and hope they get to it in a few days. Or you can stick your bare hand into the cage with a thirst-deranged wild animal, snap a leash onto it, and take it to the SPCA yourself. Or you can save everyone the trouble with these simple questions to the apartment personnel.
“Do you have enough insurance to cover the kids who stick their hands in the cage? And by the way, has everyone here had their rabies shots?”

Crime #3: Growing vegetables

Did you know it’s a crime to grow vegetables in your own front yard? Sad, but true. Just ask Julie Bass who willfully and knowingly planted such with the malicious intent and purpose of going green and eating healthy. This pushy rule breaker had the audacity to call the city to make sure the garden complied with restrictions, and when they told her the code said she could plant “suitable live plant material”, she planted live veggies that indeed suited her space. Then she was charged with a misdemeanor. You can read about that one here. Who turned her in for this crime? Probably the cookie monster, The Burger King, or some other lachanophobiaist.

How can you protect yourself from this crime? Plant marijuana (or have some other illegal activity) in your backyard and I guarantee all the attention will be diverted away from your front yard, no matter what is growing in it. You'll still be charged with a crime, a felony this time, but at least it will be deserved.

Crime #4: Drinking soda at the airport

Did you know it’s a crime to drink soda in front of TSA officials? That and smuggling applesauce was the charge against Nadine Hays. This 58 year old terminator and her 94 year old terminally ill mother wrestled a TSA official to the floor to get the applesauce out of an ice cooler and then beat the official to a pulp with the cooler. This offspring of Ma Barker was also charged with a misdemeanor. You can read about it here. Why did she do it? She claimed the TSA’s own restrictions allowed carry on food for people with special dietary needs and that she notified them in advance, but we all know it was to flaunt real food in front of people who only get to eat peanuts on the flight.

How can you protect yourself from this charge? Oh sure, you can leave the cooler at home and buy food at your destination, but if you insist on taking your own food on the plane, just be ready to go into this act. When the TSA officials see the cooler, make sure mama has a great, big, falling-on-the-floor, writhing fit. And nothing will help except the magic applesauce in the cooler. Have mama practice at home on the bed so the bruises won’t give away the act.

. . .

And what side am I on, you ask? Neither. Both. It doesn’t matter. My intent is just to poke fun at people, at government, and at silly situations. And yes, there was rampant use of literary license in the above stories.

Now let me take my tongue out of my cheek for a moment to ask a few questions and make my last comments.

What is happening to people that we need to have an intermediary for every encounter between another person? Why can’t we work things out person to person without involving the police or suing each other? Something is rotten in the state of America, dear Marcellus, and it is us. And perhaps that IS why our economy is in crisis, and why China and Russia are lying in wait.

I dare you, no, I double dog dare you to do something. The next time someone annoys you about something, grit your teeth, smile, and tell them it’s okay. Then wish them well, and go on your way. Now I’m not talking about being rear-ended on the freeway, I’m talking about about someone who brings their shrieking kids to the restaurant (my personal peeve), or someone who slows down the line ahead of you by digging through their pockets, someone who blocks the whole aisle at the grocery store, or something equally harmless but annoying.

Have a good day my friends.

I Made Another Ottoman

2011-08-02T19:37:00.008-05:00

I originally planned to make two ottomans, one to hide the Roomba, and one for storage. Then I forgot what I planned to put in the storage ottoman. Still, the storage will come in handy, so I went ahead and made it. I did have to buy a sheet of plywood for this one too. I thought I knew how I wanted to build it, but checked Ana White's website, and saw that her plan was a little easier, so went with it.

I did make a few changes though to make it work for me.

I used plywood instead of 1x12's for the sides because I wanted mine to be a total of 21 inches tall.

I also nailed a smaller piece of plywood onto the inside of the lid both to give it extra strength and to keep it in place.

I put stick-on sliders on the bottom instead of legs because I didn't want to worry about cleaning under it, and wanted to make it easier to slide across the carpet.

I sanded the box, but didn't put any paint or sealer on it since I was going to be upholstering most of it anyway. I just put the good side of the plywood to the inside. I also just stapled the skirt onto the inside of the box. I would have wrapped the cloth around the cardboard edge, but I didn't have enough fabric, so just stapled the cardboard band on top to keep it in place. I did the same with the lid since this probably won't get much use. However, if I were making it for a child, I would have wrapped the band and upholstered the underside of the lid also.

I also did the "cording" with batting again, partly because I still don't have any cording, and partly to match the other ottoman. The next time I recover it, I'll definitely buy some cording, or leave it off altogether. I'll also use 3 inch foam next time too, but all I had was 2 inch, so that's what I used. Like I said, these won't get much use, they are mainly to throw the bedspread and pillows on at night, and to keep the Roomba out of sight.

This is where I'd really like to put the ottomans, but you can see there just isn't enough room between the bed and the dresser, and there isn't another place to put the dresser. So for now, I'll put one on each side of the dresser.

Kate's 15 Minute Challenge for August 2, 2011

2011-08-02T11:16:00.006-05:00

I didn't sew a stitch all week. But I did use the 15 minute principle to begin clearing out a kitchen cabinet, and cleaning the kitchen and garage. I guess my focus right now is more on the house than quilting or sewing, though with this heat, I really should be spending more time sitting under air-conditioning. All indications are that we are going to break the 1980 record of 42 consecutive 100 degree days. That year will probably remain as the record of 69 for total number of 100 degree days. I'd just as soon not break either record this year.

(Yeah, it's August, not July)

To see how others are using their 15 Minutes to get things done, visit Life in Pieces.

And my stash report hasn't changed much either, although I did include fabric for both ottomans even though the second isn't finished yet.

The Joke Is on Me

2011-07-30T11:20:00.007-05:00

This spring I bought a stevia plant from one of those big box stores. I was rather excited to find it since I was trying to cut out all sugar. The leaves looked quite a bit like another plant in my garden, one that I would never taste the leaves but I wondered if they are in the same family. I planted it in a narrow bed beside my front sidewalk and it struggled at first.

I tasted some of the first leaves and they weren't sweet at all. After some research I found that they reach their maximum sweetness in the fall, and some say it is best to let them flower and reach their full height before harvesting seeds and leaves. So I watered it every other day, watched it grow, and then bloom.

And then, today, I noticed....

The reason it looked like that other plant in my garden is because it IS like that other plant in my garden. It's a jalapeno pepper plant!

With a stevia plant tag, of course.

Tropical Storm Don. What a Tease.

2011-07-27T17:01:00.002-05:00

Or maybe it's the local meteorologist who is a tease. First he promised a chance of rain and cooler temperatures, and then he said the storm is going to track across Corpus Christi to the west, and we will be left high and dry.

A Small Chest Makeover

2011-07-27T07:20:00.004-05:00

From the first time I saw this little chest, I knew it had potential. But first it had to do some time at college with Lil. When I got it back, I knew I wanted to turn it into my tool chest and put it in the garage until I could work on it. When I cleaned it out the other day, I found an old Bugs Bunny toy that the girls used to play with when they were little. I don't know what it was doing in the drawer, but I pulled the string and it still talks!

Before: (I forgot to take a Before photo until I had already primed two drawers)

After:

I wanted these drawer pulls:
But at almost $20 each, I couldn't do that. So I bought a piece of 1x2 oak for $6 and made my own drawer pulls and handles. I cut the oak into 10x1x1 strips, painted them silver, and used aluminum spacers to hold them away from the drawer fronts.

I also had to build supports for the wheels as there was no base on the cabinet.

After the wheels were on, everything was painted, and pulls put on, the last thing I did was put in rubber drawer liners so the contents wouldn't slide to the back every time it was moved.
Painting it was the real challenge. I began painting the drawers outside, but the heat made the paint dry fog before it coated the surface and it looked terrible. So Hubby rigged a spray booth in the garage and I sanded and repainted everything. Note to anyone attempting to use a spray paint in a small, closed space: Don't forget to wear a respirator. Suffice to say, nose hairs are not the best paint filters.

Hubby thinks I have gone paint crazy, because I also painted some metal containers I had. I intended to use these in the laundry room, but that didn't work out. But I think they'll work just fine in the garage for all that stuff that won't fit in a drawer or pegboard.
Before: (and again I already had one painted before I thought of taking a Before photo)

After:

A Decorative Topiary Would Be Wasted on The Cat

2011-07-26T13:12:00.004-05:00

But a food dish... now, that's the ticket.

For some reason, the cat will not eat all the food in his bowl and then the ants find it and the remaining food has to be thrown out before the cat sticks his head in it again. The only thing that works is to put the cat food bowl inside a larger bowl of water, as long as the cat doesn't push it to the edge.

So to thwart the ants and keep the cat from eating ants, I wanted to permanently attach a bowl to the center of a pie pan, so I can fill the pie pan with water. The hardest part was finding a flat-bottomed glass bowl that the cat could get head into. I finally bought an ashtray at the dollar store. The cat doesn't care as long as it is filled several times a day.

Most glass topiaries are glued together with regular silicone adhesive, but that isn't food safe and it is possible the cat will drink the water out of the pie pan. So I bought aquarium adhesive from the pet store.

I wanted a picture of just the bowl with food and water, but the cat thinks he has to eat every time someone touches his bowl, so I couldn't get a photo without his big head in the middle of it.

The cat has also discovered the luxury of air conditioning. At first he wasn't sure he really liked it, but now if he is out and hears it on in the garage, he meows at the door until someone lets him in.

15 Minute Challenge July 26

2011-07-26T13:00:00.004-05:00

I didn't get any sewing or quilting done this week, but I did get a lot of crafting done.

Tuesday - Made fire-ant-proof cat bowl
Wednesday - Sand dresser, drawers, and fill nail holes
Thursday - Build drawer handles
Friday - Build base blocks
Saturday - Paint primer
Sunday - Install wheels and paint first coat
Monday - Drill holes for handles
Tuesday - Paint second coat

Actually there were a lot more days of painting, but I started by trying to paint outside and had to do all that over again.

I hope to show the chest tomorrow.

To see how others have done with their 15 minutes, check out Kate's blog, Life in Pieces.

15 Minute Challenge July 19

2011-07-20T09:27:00.002-05:00

I'm a day late on this. How time flies when a deadline looms.

I didn't get a lot of quilting done this week, but I did get a lot of crafting done.

I spent a few of my 15 minute sessions working on the HSTs, but most of the week was spent making the ottoman. 15 minutes worked just great when gluing the pieces together. That was just about how long it took to make a few cuts, glue, and clamp.

See how others have used their 15 minutes at Kate's blog, Life in Pieces.

Meanwhile, the heat dome stays over us, and most of the central U.S. and we continue our 100+ degree days. Fun.

Mrs. Roomba Finally Has a Home

2011-07-17T15:05:00.011-05:00

For a long time, I have been thinking of building a set of tables or ottomans to flank our dresser and hide the Roomba, and I finally got around to doing that. I need somewhere to put the bedspread and pillows at night and I wanted a skirt on it to cover the Roomba's lights at night.

I thought I could build it out of scraps, which would be a good thing since I also wanted to learn to do some things I've never done before and I would hate to buy material and then mess it up. And there were mess ups. The frame is anything but pretty, but who cares as long as it is sturdy and covered with fabric?

So I have the requisite BEFORE picture:
And the AFTER picture:

And a few during pictures:
I used a biscuit joiner to put the legs and rails together. My supervisor liked to watch glue dry.

Final clamping. Or so I thought.

When I started nailing the plywood top onto the base, one of it's joint's broke open. I guess that's what I get for using a piece of plywood that was in the attic for twenty years. So I joined it back together and made an extra brace - just in case there is another place like that.

Last step before upholstering the top and adding the skirt was to make sure the Roomba could get out and back in again. Success!

I also had enough leftover fabric from the bedskirt to cover the ottoman, and I also had some foam rubber and batting so didn't have to buy a thing. It would look better covered with upholstery fabric, but since I was learning here, I didn't want to spend any money on it. It's a tad too long, but I just didn't feel like ripping out the hem and redoing it right now. I also didn't have any cording, so made do with some batting folded in half. I will definitely buy cording if I ever recover this.

Soooo, what's in your scrap pile?

Unrelenting Heat

2011-07-16T10:42:00.002-05:00

I think the meteorologist on one of our local channels is enjoying the heat wave we are having. Every day he talks about how close we are to breaking a record for the number of days over 100 degrees in the season. We are under a heat advisory today and so far today I have heard the weather described as furnace, flame thrower, scorcher, extreme heat, and heat blast.

This morning in the garden I noticed the tips of my rubber gloves were getting longer and longer as they filled with sweat. I only wear the gloves to pick peas which the ants seem to love, but it looks like I am going to have to do that earlier in the morning.

Try to stay cool today my friends.

15 Minute Challenge July 12

2011-07-12T20:47:00.003-05:00

I did a little better this week; at least I have something to report. The unrelenting heat has slowed the garden production so I'm actually spending less time outside every day. I water and the next day I can't even tell it. The poor cat goes into the garage about 10 a.m. and won't come out until 6 p.m. I shouldn't have bragged that he never leaves our yard anymore because he has been disappearing at night. I hope he's in search of a cool place to sleep and not out looking for trouble. So far, he is none the worse for wear the next morning.

Tuesday - Worked on HSTs
Wednesday - Worked on HSTs
Thursday - I have no idea what I did
Friday - Worked on HSTs
Saturday - No sewing
Sunday - No sewing
Monday - Worked on paper pieced stars

To see what others are doing with their 15 minutes, check out Life in Pieces.

You Can Lead the Cat to a Carrier, But You Can't Make Him Get In

2011-07-02T14:53:00.012-05:00

There are some things that just shouldn't be attempted by the non-professional, and taking a formerly feral cat to the vet is one of them.

But there is something wrong with the cat. He is losing weight and getting little bald patches on the back of his neck. The skin there is perfectly smooth and white, so I've ruled out fighting with another cat, ringworm, and eczema. Hubby is convinced it is fleas so I bought some over-the-counter flea medication and spent an hour chasing the cat around the garage to get that on the back of his neck. But the bald spots are spreading, the cat is scratching, and the only creatures it is bothering is us.

So I bought a cat carrier and hoped I could convince him to go in of his own free will. He was fine with the carrier when I pulled it out of the car and it looked like a tub, and he even rubbed against it. But when I put the two halves together, he recognized it as a cage and took off like a shot to hide under the pickup outside. Luckily, it was hot outside and I sweet talked him into coming into the shade of the garage. Then I picked him up and carried him over to the waiting cage, Flintstone style, so he couldn't claw me. I shut the garage doors so he couldn't escape again either.

Since he wouldn't go in the carrier on his own, I decided to prop the carrier up on end and just drop him into it. That is, until he sprouted four more legs which were pummeling me, the carrier, and anything within three feet of us. Finally, I managed to get his back legs into the carrier and started lowering his body into it. Then he reached out and grabbed an old bath towel with his front claws. I couldn't shake him loose from the towel so thought I'd just put it in the carrier with him. That's when he turned into supercat and climbed the towel to the top of the box it was on, with me hanging onto his middle section.

By then, he had knocked over the cat carrier, and I thought the easiest thing to do would be to just put him in a big plastic tote so he couldn't grab anything as I put him in. Since I had the cat gripped in both hands, I knocked over a tote with one foot, dumped out the contents, and set up back upright. Then I very gently (yes, really) placed the cat in the middle of the tote. He stood there looking at me wide-eyed but unmoving, until I took a hand off him to pick up the lid. When the lid started coming over his head, he launched out of the tub, over my head, and headed for the safety of the tiny opening under the tool bench.

By then, I was hot, mad, and didn't give a hoot whether the cat scratched himself silly and went completely bald. I may have yelled a thing or two about his lack of gratitude, then helped myself to an ice-cold fudgsicle and spent the afternoon in the air-conditioned coolness of the house. I didn't see him again for the rest of the day, and when he finally showed himself that evening, he followed me around meowing and acting contrite, but I didn't fall for it. I'm on to him now. He knew the vet wouldn't be back in town for another week.

Ninth Annual Girls' Weekend

2011-06-28T15:19:00.011-05:00

This year we went to Sedona, Arizona. We flew into Phoenix Sky Harbor International Airport and I think it was 109 degrees and felt like walking into a furnace. But Sedona is a two-hour drive into the mountains and it was cooler there. It was supposed to be in the low 90's while we were there, but it was in the high 90's. It might have been a dry heat but hot is hot, with or without humidity. The only bad thing was that those of us who are used to humidity suffered from dry noses (and that hurts) and eyes. One of the group even had her soft contact fall out of her eye since it was so dry.

We stayed in a cabin on the bank of Oak Creek near Slide Rock State Park with park-like landscaping.
It had been remodeled recently and had all windows across the back overlooking the spring-fed creek. The sound of rushing water was so peaceful. It covered up the sounds of the traffic and people at the state park across the creek. However, it didn't cover up the sounds of a small animal that ran across the roof one night. Only D and I heard it and we both sat bolt upright in our beds, listening, and trying to figure out if it was on the roof, in the walls, or in the room with us. We finally decided it was on the roof, but it took awhile to get back to sleep after that. Other than that and a couple of close encounters with spiders (they were really BIG spiders), it was a great retreat.

This is the view of the creek from our balcony, though it was much prettier than my camera could capture.

There was no air conditioning, but we were gone during the heat of the day and it dropped into the high 50's or 60's at night. It was wonderful waking up to the chill while snuggled into a soft comforter.

The first day we went to Sedona, visited the Chapel of the Holy Cross, the shops in town, and ate at terrific restaurants. The Chapel overlooked this fantastic house which was built by the Romanian guy who patented lasik. After seeing his yard, I told Hubby I wanted a pond like that. *giggle*

Then in the afternoon, the rest of my friends went on a pink jeep tour of the mountains while I went to a chiropractor. A tense plane ride and a soft bed apparently worked together to pinch my sciatic nerve and I wasn't comfortable standing, sitting, or walking. But after an adjustment and ice pack, I was good to go.

On Saturday, we drove up to the little town of Jerome built on the side of a mountain. The houses and a lot of the buildings were literally hanging off the side of the mountain, even the garages. It had been a big copper mining town, then a ghost town, and was revived by artists in the 1970's.

Not only are the evenings cool and pleasant there, but when the setting sun hits the mountains, it is spectacular.

We drove back to Phoenix on Sunday, and ran into a traffic jam on the highway. We were sweating bullets as we turned in our rental car and rushed to the airport to get the first of our group to her flight on time. Even after she got her boarding pass we weren't sure if she would make it to the terminal in time but she texted that she just made it. Whew! That was cutting it close.

It was nice to be home and sleep in my own bed, but it sure seemed hot the next morning.

15 Minute Challenge, June 28th

2011-06-28T13:55:00.005-05:00

I don't have much to share today. I worked hard on the bow tie quilt until the top was finished. Then I cut fabric for backing and binding and put it away until I know who I am giving it to and can make the label.

It was my Girls' Weekend, so I don't have much on my 15 Minute Challenge. I didn't even look at quilts on our trip.

Take a look at Kate's blog, Life in Pieces to see how others have taken up the challenge.

So, nothing on my design floor, nothing added to my stash, and only two yards used.

Rain!

2011-06-21T12:07:00.002-05:00

When I woke this morning, the deck was wet and there was a big puddle on the driveway. At first I thought Hubby had been running water and it actually took me a few seconds to realize it had rained. We got a half of an inch of lovely rain! A cool front came with the rain and our temperature dipped into the 70's. It didn't even hit 80 until after 10:00 this morning. And best of all, there was no wind early this morning. There is a gentle breeze outside now, but nothing like the howling wind we have had the last few weeks. It is wonderful and the cat and I have been sitting on the deck enjoying it.

15 Minute Challenge, June 21

2011-06-20T21:37:00.009-05:00

First a big happy birthday to Brownie. Love ya little girl. Mind you, she's creeping up on thirty, but she's still my little girl.

Even though I didn't manage to get in 15 minutes some days this week, I think I at least did something quilt related each day. I didn't keep track though and really can't remember.

Last Wednesday, I flipped on the tv when I woke up and the weatherman said the wind we had been having (for weeks on end it seems) was going to let up that day but come back for the next six days. I was so happy because I had things to do in the garden that needed a day without wind, but when I opened the back door, the wind was blowing as usual, ten to fifteen miles per hour. I thought the weatherman really missed it - until Thursday when the wind was howling. It didn't let up at night either, and wind continued to howl through the weekend, gusting up to forty-five miles per hour. Working outside was miserable, so I did the minimum amount of watering and weeding, and on Friday mowed just enough to clip off the top of the tall weeds.

I spent all day Saturday and most of Sunday working on the Baby Bow Tie Quilt, and was making great progress until I picked up the remainder of the muslin to cut my inner border, and the last strip was a quarter of an inch shy of the 1-3/4 inch width needed. If I hadn't cut a strip for some practice blocks, I would have had enough. Argh! So off to the quilt store today in hopes they still carried the same muslin. They did. Whew! I'm not sure what I would have done if they didn't have it.

So here is my report as best I can remember.

Tuesday - Cut strips for bow tie blocks
Wednesday - Nothing
Thursday - Trimmed some HST's
Friday - Nothing
Saturday - Sewed bow tie blocks
Sunday - Sewed bow tie block together, cut 3 borders, and outer border strips
Monday - bought fabric

On the design floor is the Baby Bow Tie Quilt

After seeing the movie The Bucket List a few years ago, I thought of the few things I really wanted to get done before I kicked the bucket, and one of them was to make a baby quilt for each of my girls and for Hubby's niece and nephew and have them finished, boxed, and ready to gift so Hubby just had to get them out of the closet and give it to them. I got one made. So when I finished the top and backing for the Green and Yellow Baby Quilt last week, I decided to get in gear and get those four quilts done. This is number three. Brownie had picked out a specific pattern several years ago, so hers won't be made out of scraps.

I also bought quite a bit of fabric this week. Although most of it isn't for quilting, I still added it to the stash report and that hurt the bottom line. I want to learn to sew clothing for myself and bought some cheap fabric so I can practice on a couple of patterns before using good fabric. Over the next few weeks, I hope to have that fabric out of the stash, but for now, here are my new and not improved numbers.

Hope you all have a good week. Check out Kate's 15 Minute Challenge linky party at
Life in Pieces to see how others have taken up the challenge.

Runaway Blog

2011-06-20T18:11:00.006-05:00

For the last month or so, when I look over my blog, I'm not happy with it. I wouldn't say it's a runaway, but it definitely got off track. Part of it is because I've been too busy to give it the attention I used to. I think of something I want to write about, but by the afternoon when I can finally sit down and write, I've either forgotten or am just too tired to put that much effort into an article. Also, I haven't been feeling well lately and my doctors have not come up with either diagnosis or treatment. So far they have ruled out a UTI or uterine cancer, and in two weeks I will be screened for ovarian cancer, cysts, or uterine fibroids. I'm the world's worst worrier, especially after dark, and when I worry, I get irritable, and less inclined to write cheerful, entertaining, or informative posts. As many times as I've turned it over to the Lord, I've pulled it back to worry over when I'm awake and alone at night. So my apologies to my children, husband, and friends who have quit reading my blog. I don't blame you a bit.

But that isn't the only reason my blog has taken a turn in the wrong direction. I got caught up in blog reading and commenting. It started when someone, and I can't even remember who now, had a linky party - something craft related as I recall, and I posted a link to something I had just finished. I got a lot of responses to it and quite frankly, I was smitten with the flattery, which just goes to show how dull my little life is. I also felt I had to comment on the blogs of everyone who had commented to me, and to everyone who had posted to that linky party. Then the next week, I had to post and comment again, and since I'm not the most creative person in the world, it took me a good while to even think of something worth linking, and then by the following week, I couldn't think of anything to make that wasn't just a copy of someone else's craft. Two weeks and I had hit bottom. I told you I wasn't creative.

About that time too, we had work done on the house and I had to get down the ten plastic totes with all my fabric and half-finished quilts. Since I had taken apart my sewing room, all those totes were stacked in the den, in the way, and totally unorganized. That's about the time I stumbled across a blog with a weekly linky party to show progress on quilts and using fabrics. Just the inspiration I needed to get that stuff organized, start working on it, and get it out of the house. And once again I got caught up in the comments. But this time I found that I was spending a lot of time commenting on other blogs, and getting few comments in return; not even the blog owner ever returned my comments. After that started bothering me, I slapped myself on the forehead (figuratively of course, I didn't want to give myself a headache) and asked myself why I was wasting time commenting on blogs where I never got a return comment and didn't know the people anyway. I guess psychologically it was something to do instead of worrying, but it had actually turned into something that added stress instead. So I won't be doing that anymore. I found some great blogs through that blog's linky parties, so it wasn't all for naught.

I once read an article about blog etiquette that made me realize that I was doing everything wrong on my blog. Since then, I've changed most of the things that other bloggers seem to find annoying, and I've thought of doing a post on blog etiquette, but I don't think I have anything to add to those that have already been written. Do a search and you'll get a lot of links. I'm sure there are still things in my blog that annoy a certain number of readers. One thing I'm working on is the load time. This entertaining article, Goldilocks and the Three Bloggers at Life...With Books links to the website Pingdom which tests the load time of a web page. Sometimes my blog loads at four seconds and sometimes over ten, and I can't figure out why the same link has such speed variation. I have wondered how quickly or slowly my blog loads for other people, but other than taking out some of the photos, I'm not sure how to speed it up.

Originally, this blog was just going to be a diary of my attempt to get healthy and renovate our home. Then my children left home and it became a way to let them keep up with our everyday lives. I let a few friends know about the blog and found new blog friends through other blog lists and before I knew it, my focus wasn't on our everyday life at all. After seeing other blogs that made money just by providing space to advertisers, I toyed with that idea. I didn't think about it long, less than an hour even, but making a little money is an intriguing idea when you are a stay at home mom. But other blogs seem to start with a few ads on the side and then progress to posts devoted to their advertisers; that is so annoying that those blogs aren't on my blog roll any more, so I dropped that idea.

Speaking of my blog roll, the blog etiquette rule makers have declared that the purpose of the blog roll is to let the blog's readers know of interesting blogs, and not posting any blogs that have linked to your blog causes hurt feelings. I didn't know that as I used the blog lists to see when new posts were added. But it does make sense that others could get their feelings hurt, I mean look at me with my hurt feelings over comments, so I moved my lists over to my test blog.

So, to conclude this commentary to anyone still reading, I'm going to start writing about our lives again, showing progress on the house and garden, and of course talking about the cat. I'll show you things we've made and explain how to make them, especially if it's something I may want know how to repeat sometime. And I'll limit my quilt progress reports since the kids seem to find them "real yawners" but I will combine them into one weekly post so I can continue linking to Kate's blog, because 1) it's good for me, and 2) I like her blog and the people who also link to it.

I have some long dry spells between posts; I don't want to spend every post whining about doctors, waiting rooms, and out of date magazines. But have you ever noticed that the longest waits are at doctor's offices with the worst magazines?

15 Minute Challenge, June 14th

2011-06-14T06:30:00.005-05:00

Since it's unbelievably hot for the beginning of June, the weeds are also struggling to live, and that has made my morning gardening easier. Sure, I still have to drag the water hose all over the yard watering this spring's new plantings which are also struggling to live. My goal was to be out in the garden by 7 a.m. and in by 9 a.m. but I manage to putter around, pulling weeds here and there, moving rocks, setting pavestone, and I'm usually not in until at least 11 a.m. Still, I'm not as tired as I was and I've been able to get some sewing done in the afternoon and weekend.

So here is what I got done when I pushed myself to spend at least 15 minutes a day on my sewing.

Tuesday - Trimmed down white borders
Wednesday - Put on green side borders
Thursday - Finished green borders, top is done
Friday - Made back for the green & yellow quilt
Saturday - Trimmed HST blocks, cut strips for bow tie
Sunday - Sewed HST blocks & bow tie blocks
Monday - Trimmed HST blocks, washed new fabric

Hop on over to Kate's blog, Life in Pieces, to see how others are challenged to spend their 15 minutes a day.
We have almost all the onions in, and have gathered bush beans, squash, zucchini, cucumbers, peppers, and a few tomatoes. We battled squash bugs, and then the evil squash vine borer got one of my zucchini plants, and I gave up trying to grow squash organically and bought some Sevin spray just for them. The remaining squash plants are thriving, and the rest of the garden is still organic. I just hope the squash bugs don't move over to one of the organics next. If anyone knows how to grow squash organically, let me know. I do know now that radishes do not bother squash bugs in the slightest, even though they were recommended in my companion gardening book. I planted a circle of them around each squash plant, and still the squash bugs invaded. Hubby did surgery on a couple of the squash with borers and dug out the worms, but they kept coming. In years past we have drenched the soil with beneficial nematodes, but it's already too hot this year for that.

Design Floor Monday and Stash Buster Report

2011-06-13T06:00:00.005-05:00

I have a lot to show, but there isn't actually that much on my design floor today. I made a pieced back to go with the green and yellow baby quilt. I had to put the pieced piano key border on it because I didn't have enough of the floral fabric to do the entire back. I also left out a section of the border on purpose. It is for the label as soon as I know the baby's name. Rather than call it a UFO, I'm calling it a CP (Completion Pending).

I've made some progress on the Depression Block, but trimming the HST blocks is both tedious and hard on my back, so I do a few and then work on something else. I'm not sure I even like this quilt either now. From a distance, the design shows up, but any closer than six feet from it and it just looks like a bunch of scraps sewed with no particular pattern.

And then I started a new quilt, also a scrappy one, but one that uses larger pieces and can be strip cut and pieced to some degree, so it is a lot easier to make. It's from the Quick and Easy Scrap Quiltsbook from Leisure Arts.

I'm also going to put my stash buster report in this post. My girls aren't terribly interested in design walls and stash reports and I haven't had the energy or motivation to write about what is going on with our lives right now. So for them, I'll combine these two topics so they can skip over it easier.

It feels like I've used more fabric than the numbers show. I've cut a lot more fabric into squares for the bow tie than I've actually made, but I'm counting that since it is cut and waiting. Also, I bought some fabric so I can make a project tote bag, so that wiped out most of my progress.

15 Minute Challenge, June 7th

2011-06-07T17:54:00.007-05:00

I did pretty well this week, in that most days I did something that related to sewing, though I actually only turned on the sewing machine on one day. I took yesterday off as it was our anniversary and we celebrated by entertaining one of Hubby's customers.

Tues Trimmed HST blocks
Wed Buy, wash & iron fabric. After all that, didn't like the fabric with the quilt.
Thu Buy more fabric
Fri Wash fabric, iron, cut borders, sew on borders
Sat Cut out binding strips
Sun Cut out new border strips
Mon Take me out to the Ballgame!

To see what everyone else has done with their fifteen minutes, visit Kate at Life in Pieces.

And since every post looks better with a picture, I'll end this with a dragonfly that followed me around the garden this morning.

Design Floor Monday and Stash Buster Report 23

2011-06-05T23:16:00.009-05:00

Not much progress on the design floor. After several trips to the store for border fabric, I finally decided to make the border white. But once the fabric was washed, dried, ironed, cut into 4.5 inch strips, and attached to the quilt - I didn't like it. I had already begun cutting the last of the green into 2 inch strips for the binding, and laid it alongside the white to see how it looked. I decided I would like the white if it weren't so wide and if the green was used as an outer border. I cut the rest of the green into 3 inch strips and barely have enough green to do the outer border. Now it's bigger than the average baby quilt, but so be it. Maybe the larger size will be a bonus somehow.

All that indecision resulted in 4 yards purchased, and only 1/4 yard used. Word to the wise, the pink fabric with the white stars bled like crazy.

Quilt Borders, the Bane of my Quilting World

2011-06-01T17:30:00.004-05:00

I don't know why, but I struggle with borders more than anything. Last night I pulled out a UFO or WIP if you prefer, and then started trying out fabric from my stash for the border. I didn't like anything I had, and Hubby agreed that it needed a pink, a dusty pink to be exact.

So off to Walm*rt I went this morning after I finished my garden chores. I took a 4x4 square of the floral fabric with me so I could match the pink, and found the perfect match. At least it looked perfect in the store. Now that I have it home, I'm not that thrilled, and I pulled one of my pinks out again to have a comparison.

After yesterday when I stole someone's cart there, I wasn't sure I wanted to show my face at Walm*rt. Well, I didn't steal it on purpose! There was a lady and her cart in front of the tomatoes and I parked my cart beside her waiting for her to move. Then I noticed there were no plastic bags anywhere near the tomatoes, so I left the cart there & walked over to the far side of the produce section to get a bag, and I picked my tomatoes, put them in my cart, and left, with the lady still looking for the perfect tomato. I was halfway across the store when I heard "Ma'am?" "Ma'am?" and I turned around to see her following me. I had put my tomatoes in her cart instead of mine, never noticing that the contents were a bit different. I still don't know if she switched out our tomatoes before she gave my cart back. I may have bought her carefully selected tomatoes while she was stuck with my quickly grabbed ones.

Weigh in Wednesday, and Thoughts About the Diet

2011-06-01T14:40:00.004-05:00

Two more pounds lost, making it a total of 11 pounds. While that sounds pretty good, Hubby has lost 15 pounds and all he cut out were his daily sodas and sugary treats. Another unexpected benefit is the acne I have had on my chest for years has completely cleared up.

I've been on the diet for three weeks now, and while I am losing weight, the main reason I was doing it was to feel better, to have more energy, but if anything, I have even less energy than before. I feel ok in the morning, but by afternoon I am beat, whether I have worked out in the garden, or have done nothing at all. My legs feel trembly, weak, and heavy, and even a short walk to the mailbox at the end of the driveway feels like walking through quicksand. I think it's the diet though I do have another health issue going. I will get the results of that biopsy tomorrow.

Even though I have another week to go on the 30 days of Level One, I am going to stop it at three weeks and start the two week interval where complex carbohydrates are allowed. There's no use sticking to a diet that leaves me completely fatigued every day. I never really understood why vegetables like white potatoes and corn were not allowed. I do understand the concept behind not allowing grains, but again, I don't understand why NO grains instead of just less grains.

If the next two weeks show an improvement in energy while still losing weight, I'll reconsider going on to Level Two. But for today, it's time for a treat! I just can't decide what that will be.

15 Minute Challenge

2011-05-31T21:06:00.006-05:00

I must admit, I have done absolutely no sewing in the last week. I was going to show the paper piecing I did while on vacation, but I can't find it!

Update, I found it. These were so easy, it makes me wish I had taken the Paper Piecing plunge earlier. There is a way to stitch them only on the back so the stitches don't have to be pulled later, but this was the easiest way in a moving car on rough roads. It went really fast too.

Kate asked why we are doing the 15 Minute Challenge. There are several reasons I do it, but mainly it gives me the motivation to get started when my inclination is to just sit in front of the computer or tv.

However, the garden is just about under control, and it's getting so hot now that I want to be finished outside by 9 A.M. so I plan on getting in my 15 minutes (at least) every day now.

To see what real quilters have accomplished this week, visit Kate at Life in Pieces.

Stash Buster Report Week 22

2011-05-28T23:21:00.008-05:00

Thanks to my neighbor, I finally have something worth reporting. She wants to learn how to upholster her banquette benches so I gave her some fabric so she can practice. Otherwise, I just used a measly .5 yards.

Oops, I just remembered that my neighbor gave me some fabric also. Oh well, I'll count it next week. I'll have to use some to keep my numbers from going back up.

Stay, Cat, Stay!

2011-05-26T15:49:00.005-05:00

After being gone for a week, I was told the cat might not be glad to see us when we got home. But he was. In fact, he stuck to me like glue the day after we got home. He knows he isn't supposed to be in the garden, but if the gate isn't latched, sometimes he will take a few steps in before I notice and order him out. Sometimes he will obey, and sometimes not so I don't know if he understands the word or just felt like leaving. But I know he hasn't a clue what "stay" means.

I was working in the garden one morning and the cat plopped down into a patch of Indian blanket (Gaillardia pulchella). I ran into the house to grab my camera and of course he jumped up when I walked over to the flowers. I placed him back where he was, and well, I'll just show you.

And again.

Finally.

So much easier to get a photo of him through the window.

Another New Diet

2011-05-25T17:03:00.004-05:00

A week before we went on vacation, I went to the doctor to discuss my osteoporosis medication. My OBGYN put me on Evista last year, but it caused horrible hot flashes, and that's what I wanted to discuss. That took about two minutes and then the discussion inevitably turned to my weight. That discussion/lecture lasted at least fifteen minutes, and in the end I agreed to try his diet for a minimum of thirty days. Even if I didn't lose weight on it, I hoped I would just feel better and gain some energy. His diet sounded fairly simple, plain fruits and vegetables, lean meats with no skins and all the excess fat cut off. No sugar, no dairy, no processed foods, no carbs.

So after we returned, I weighed and began the diet. It was harder than I thought because I had no recipes to turn to. Finally, I checked out some diet books from the library and found that his plan was very much like a combination of the Fit for Life Diet and the Paleo Diet, and recipes from those plans work.

The diet I am on has three levels of thirty days each, and a buffer zone of two weeks between each level. Some people begin on the high weight loss level three, but I knew I would have to work into it, so I began with baby steps on level one. All levels begin with fruit for breakfast, a break of an hour between breakfast and lunch, and a minimum of sixty-four ounces of water per day. At level one I can saute in olive or coconut oil, and have bacon.

Even though I can eat all I want, not long after eating, I feel hungry again. I've wondered if bread and other empty carbs are just filler that keeps expanding long after eating.

Today, I have been on the diet for two weeks, and I have lost nine pounds and am comfortably wearing jeans that I could barely button two weeks ago. I have good energy in the morning, but still have afternoon wilt, the four o'clock fold. I thought it was because I was working in the garden every morning, hoeing, moving big rocks, and bending and squatting pulling weeds. But even with my break today, I had the late afternoon energy drain. The cravings continue, but not as bad as last week. Last week I dreamed I ate a carrot cake with frosting an inch thick. Oh, and that two week buffer after thirty days? On the first day, I get to eat one prohibited thing. So on June 10, I will be eating cake, and it'd better be good.

Weekend in Branson

2011-05-25T09:04:00.007-05:00

We finally had some rain last night! Our last measurable rain was May 2, so this was dearly needed. As a result, I can't work in the garden this morning and have the day off. I feel like a kid on a snow day and have a million things I'd like to do, but first I want to catch up on blogging. Not only have I not made any posts in awhile, I haven't got to read any others.

Update, Wednesday evening: While it sounded like we had a good rain, and we had a big puddle on the driveway, I worked in a front flower bed this evening and it was dry as a bone. So I took the day off for nothing.

I left off with our trip to Arkansas, so I'll take up with our visit to Branson. We stayed at a condo at Still Waters Resort with a view of Table Rock Lake. Still Waters Resort is out by Silver Dollar City. The drive from Little Rock to Branson was on a small highway that went through small towns and beautiful scenery. So much nicer than driving the interstate, and our weather was fine until just south of Branson, when it began to rain. That evening we had dinner with childhood friends who own a condo in Forsyth. That's when we learned of the one disadvantage of staying near the lake: there's only one way in or out. Somewhere between the condo and the first intersection, there was an accident. We finally got there, though over an hour later. It was dark and foggy when we began our drive back to the condo, and it seemed like there were twice the number of hills than when we drove in. Hubby drove like it was broad daylight and my heart was in my mouth the entire way.

The resort even came with a wake up service. These guys came by the condo early every morning for breakfast. I'm not sure if their honking was to let the others know what they found or warn them to keep away.

Keep away I think.

These little cuties were down at the loading dock.

Since we had a full kitchen in our condo, we needed to make a grocery run the next morning, and wouldn't you know it, the first store we found was Walmart? Drive 175 miles just to wind up at a Walmart that looks just like the one at home. But we stocked up for the weekend, and then met some friends at Lambert's Cafe just outside Springfield. Lambert's is a real treat, both in the food they serve and they way they serve it. We ordered an entrée and two sides, and waiters came around every few minutes with buckets of fried okra, blackeyed peas, and fried potatoes. Another waiter had a tub of fresh rolls, but instead of bringing them to the table, he watched for people to signal him and then he threw them from across the room. It was all delicious and portions too large to finish.

That afternoon, Brownie drove in from Tulsa and we ate dinner, and later, Lil and her boyfriend GW arrived from St. Louis. The next morning we all went to Branson Zipline and Canopy Tours. There was a problem with a previous tour so we had to wait awhile for our tour to start. I don't know what I expected, but it really wasn't as much fun as I thought it would be. There were twelve in our group (which is the maximum), and the course we signed up for had five towers with lines between and a suspension bridge. We had two guides, a leader and a follower, both friendly and helpful. Except while standing on the towers, which was how we spent most of the time on the tour, there isn't a lot of time to look at the scenery, especially while on the zip lines. The lead guide went ahead to the next tower to aid those coming in, while the follower guide gets each person ready to go. We were supposed to watch the lead guide as he gave signals to help us go faster or slower as we came in. The time of actual zipping was at most five minutes, but the time standing in the towers was about ninety minutes. My back was killing me from all the standing by the time we finished.

That night we went to the Dixie Stampede because that's where all the kids wanted to go. I could see why as there were more young people there than at other shows we've seen. It's a cross between a rodeo and a horse show with some competitive events, an announcer, a clown, some comedy, and a full dinner. They get the audience involved by creating a Civil War atmosphere, half the audience was assigned to cheer for the North and half the audience was to cheer for the South. But as Hubby pointed out, they had the U.S. flag on both sides. There was a pregame show with a juggler who was really good. The stampede show was good, especially if you like rodeo events like pole bending and barrel racing. The meal was served without utensils. I suppose that's part of the fun but I wasn't crazy about eating a whole rotisserie chicken with my fingers. It did make me grateful to whoever invented the knife and fork though.

The next morning after breakfast, the kids and Hubby went down to the lake and made use of the free paddleboats, and I went for a walk around the neighborhood. We all came back tired - walking up and down those hills is as tiring as paddling. After lunch, the kids headed home and we decided to stay one more day. That evening we went to Branson Landing which had flooded just days before. It was cleaned up and everything seemed to be open again.

It was really hard to leave the next morning. I think I could have stayed there all summer.

Days Two and Three of Our Vacation and More Research

2011-05-16T11:40:00.001-05:00

We spent the night in Hope and went to the County Court House. We started at the County Clerk's Office, but soon moved to the Circuit Clerk's Office where the deed records are kept. Since there is no 1890 census (drat that fire!), we began by searching for my great great grandfather's name. We hoped he owned property at the time of his death and that there would be an affidavit or will which explained what happened to him. No such luck. However, we found where his widow bought forty acres in August, 1895, probably the land they were renting at the time of his death.

Let me give you a review of the family. My great great grandfather Billingsley married in 1887 when he was twenty-seven and she was nineteen. Their first child was born ten months later in 1888, and their fourth child was born in February 1895. He was shot in April at their farm in Hempstead County, and he died a few days later in Nevada County where they had taken him to the doctor.

What my great grandmother remembered of the incident was that her father had some cattle and made a deal with another man to drive the cattle to market and sell them. The man had been seen in town but hadn't come to pay her father his portion of the money. They lived in a dog trot house, which is really two log cabins connected by a breezeway. On one side is typically for cooking and eating and the other side for sleeping. So it's understandable that someone on one side can't see the people on the other side if the doors are shut. As my great grandmother told it, one night she heard a knock at the door and her father answered it. She heard him say something like "Oh, it's you. Have you come to bring me my money?" And then she heard the gunshot. She was four months shy of her seventh birthday at the time, but I'm sure the event and those that followed were talked about in front of her by many people and probably for many years, so I think it's pretty accurate.

After my great great grandfather died, the man was charged with murder, tried, and hanged. I wanted to find written verification of that. However, other than the deed to my great great grandmother, we found nothing. What is interesting, at least to me, is that my great great grandmother would buy forty acres so soon after his death. My conclusion is that she was paid the money the man owed my great great grandfather or restitution for the murder, and went ahead with the purchase of the land they had been renting. The reason I think that is because she bought the land from an E.(Earnest) H.(Helmer) Amonett and he continued to pay the property taxes on the land through 1898. My great great grandmother paid them from 1899 through 1902 and then they are paid by T.(Thomas) D.(Dolphus) Chambless, brother-in-law of E.H. Amonett.

After that, we couldn't find anything, not where she sold the property, not a quit claim, not a sheriff's deed. Nothing. In desperation, we went across the street to Hempstead County Abstract Company. I told my story to the lady there and she went back to look at her books. The nice thing about abstract companies is that they can look up the ownership by property description, not just by name. She said there was no deed where my great great grandmother sold the land. The next deed is from a man named Hicks, which she said looked to be a family member of Chambless. I don't know, and may never know. The next record I have of my great great grandmother is in the 1900 census where she is listed as a farmer who owns her land free (without a mortgage). So where is the deed selling it?

From there we went to the Hope Public Library to see if their microfiche was any better than the SARA. It wasn't. But armed with the date in which my great great grandmother bought the property, we headed back to SARA to see if we could find the trial record in the criminal records. Still no luck but we did learn some interesting trivia. Some of the crimes that people were tried for were breaking the Sabbath, disturbing a church service, gaming, and bigamy. I didn't think there would be a lot of murders back then, but there were a surprising number of them, and many more listed as Assault with Intent to Kill. Violent times back then. But here is what I find interesting. It was also a crime to carry a pistol. And yet, the man who killed my great great grandfather was doing just that, or carrying some kind of gun, probably concealed or the first words my great grandmother would have heard would have been about the gun. And what that means is that it was a premeditated murder, not just an argument that got out of hand.

Land in Arkansas is divided into quarters of Townships and Ranges, so it was easy to find the forty acres on a map. With that map, we decided to drive out there and see if we could find it. Unfortunately, it was now part of a larger piece of property and there was no road through to the forty acres. However, we did find the nearby cemetery where there are headstones for his sisters. He doesn't have a headstone.

We spent that night in Little Rock and then got up early so we could go to the Arkansas History Commission and Archives. We hoped there would be a mention of the murder in a state newspaper. If you've ever read newspapers from the 1800's, at least in the south, you'll know that they aren't big on bold headings. They tend to run most news together in several long columns so we had to read most of the newspapers from April to August, and all for naught. We spent a few hours there (which was a few hours more than Hubby wanted to spend) and only got completely through two papers, and skimmed the third.

So with that, we gave up, ate lunch, and headed to Branson for some fun.

As frustrating as our search in Hope, Washington, and Little Rock was, I have to say that the people working at most of the places we went were extraordinarily friendly and helpful, from the security guards at the Hope Courthouse to the ladies working at the History Commission.

What I Did on My Summer Vacation

2011-05-15T16:50:00.003-05:00

Or pre-summer vacation if you will.

Our first stop was Hope, Arkansas, not to see the birth place of Former President Clinton, but to try to find something about my great great grandfather, and the story of his murder. We got there late Monday afternoon, and drove on to Washington, Arkansas where the Southwest Arkansas Regional Archives is located. We only had one hour before they closed. They had one roll of microfiche for 1895, the year he died. With great anticipation, I loaded the film on the viewer, only to find that there was only one issue for 1895, and it was February. He died in April.

Hubby was a real trooper and looked through the criminal court trial books while I checked the cemetery books and criminal court fee book. There was no index for any of these other than the cemetery books, and the criminal books weren't dated well, so it was time-consuming and frustrating to try to find anything.

The criminal court fee books had the name of the person on trial, but not the victim. It also had the nature of the crime and the verdict in most cases, so I scanned the pages for murders, and Hubby scanned for my great great grandfather's name. I found one murder trial that ended with an execution, but there was no record of it in the trial book. So when they shooed us out of there at 4:30, we hadn't learned anything.

We spent another hour looking around Washington. Established in 1824, the town was the county seat, and in 1836 the first courthouse was built. Washington was an important town at one time. It was on the Southwest Trail which was the main route pioneers took to Texas, and many of the important men who fought at the Alamo stayed there. It was even said that Sam Houston did some of his planning at one of the taverns in town, and it is also reported that a local blacksmith forged the first Bowie knife while Jim Bowie stayed there.

Choctaw Indians were taken through there on the famous Trail of Tears. Men who were going to fight in the Mexican War gathered there. During the Civil War, the Confederate government made it the Capital of Arkansas. It's decline began when the railroad that connected the state to Little Rock was built through Hope, and the county seat was moved to Hope in 1939.

Please excuse the quality of my pictures. It was near sunset and all the buildings have fences around them that make it hard to get a good shot of the building.

A bigger and better courthouse was built in 1874. It served the county until 1939 when the county seat was moved to Hope.
This would probably be the courthouse where the trial was held. Since it was after hours, we didn't get to go in, but there is a court room on the second floor, and I imagine that is where it took place.

From there we went to the old jail. At one time it was a bed and breakfast inn, but now it is a private residence. This would be the place where the man who killed my great great grandfather was jailed and later hanged. It doesn't look at all like a jail, does it? Both it and the old courthouse eventually became residences.

Most of the buildings in town are part of the Washington State Park, and have been restored. They are open on tour, but we didn't get to do that. It's a beautiful little town and gives an ideal look at life in the 1800's. I love the board sidewalks through the town.

We stayed in Hope that night, and next door to the hotel was the Dos Loco Gringos restaurant. For those who aren't familiar with Spanish, that translates to Two Crazy Foreigners (foreigners when in Mexico, not in Hope). The food was fine, and I probably would have remembered it better if it weren't for the cake. Chocolate Fudge cake, a huge slice of it, about five layers tall, with thick frosting, whipped cream, and drizzled with chocolate sauce. It was more than two people could eat, and it was to die for. I mean, seriously, it's worth a trip to Hope just for that cake. Remember that the next time it's only an hour out of your way to stop by there.

An Evening at the Waxahachie Chautauqua

2011-05-15T10:51:00.013-05:00

A few weeks ago, my in-laws bought tickets for an Old Fashioned Singing at the historic Chautauqua Auditorium in Waxahachie. All I knew was that all of the hymns would be pre-1950. Not something I would normally go to, but the in-laws, especially my mother-in-law loves gospel singing, and she didn't want to go alone, so we agreed to go. I had forgotten about it until Hubby reminded me while we were out shopping yesterday afternoon. By then I really didn't want go even though I'd always wanted to see the inside the building too as this is the oldest Chautauqua Auditorium in the state. But since the in-laws get out so seldom, go we did.

This photo was taken about thirty minutes before the performance started, because the in-laws wanted to be early. The interior really is something to see, as much of it appears to be originial, although I know it underwent restoration in 1975. It smelled of memories and old wood, not an unpleasant smell at all.

The Chautauqua Auditorium was built in 1902 in a time when there were many like it. For two weeks every year, the Chautauqua Assembly provided education, art and entertainment for local residents. The last in Waxahachie was in 1930. During it's heyday, they had entertainers such as Will Rogers, William Jennings Bryant, and politicians and performers from around the United States. People came by train and set up tents on the grounds to be near the events. It must have been great fun and a break from their everyday farm lives.

I didn't really know what to expect at this event as mother-in-law only said it was a singing, and just hoped it wasn't like the off-key singing of the 5th Sunday Singings of my youth. I was pleasantly surprised to find that it was a concert type performance and the singing was wonderful. The singers were local people and at least two of them were from mother-in-law's church, which is where she bought the tickets. There were moments of humor between songs but the focus was on the beautiful harmony of the group, and their solos. The singers were in semi-costume, although I'm not sure what era they were trying for.

When we picked up the in-laws, mother-in-law came out carrying a quillow which she said she was going to sit on unless it got cold. She said another woman in the church told her the benches are hard and she should take a cushion. She should also have passed that information on to us so we could have brought the cushions from our patio chairs. The benches weren't bad at first, but they are not built for people with bad backs. At the end of the first hour, my sciatic nerve was screaming and no amount of turning could relieve it. I looked around and no one else seemed to be squirming in their seats, and very few brought cushions. I thought I could stick it out to the end, but when the end came, my left leg was numb from thigh to toe. I felt sorry for the performers who were also sitting on hard benches on stage. But as Hubby pointed out, they stood up every few minutes and we didn't have that option.

I took a naproxen when we got home, and rested on an ice pack, and today I am much better. At least I can sit in a chair again. If I ever go again, I'll know what to expect. They will have more performances this year which I assume will be the same as last night: June 10-12, September 9-11, and November 11-12.

More Lilies

2011-05-06T07:15:00.001-05:00

We finally had a good, long rain Monday, and the lilies love it. Arc-en-ciel and Alba are also blooming, but I like this cluster of pink lilies.

I still haven't cleaned the pond this spring, but so far the lilies are forgiving and blooming wonderfully.

Home is Where the Food Bowl Is

2011-05-04T08:23:00.002-05:00

Next week we are going on vacation, and I've got every detail planned - except what to do with the cat. I asked a neighbor to feed him, so I know he won't go hungry, but he is more than spoiled now and I can't think of any way to let him keep his routine. I know. I can't believe I've spent so much time worrying about this silly cat. Good grief, he was a stray fending for himself for years, a few days won't hurt him. Actually, I'm not worried about it hurting him as much as him taking revenge on us when we get back.

Let's face it, he's not a sweet, lovable cat at his best. If leaving a dog for a few days results in poop in a shoe and chewed up pillows, I'm afraid to think what the cat will think up. Hubby calls him my cat, but the other day he rushed into the room wanting to know where the camera was. I told him, and he grabbed it and dashed back outside. Why? To take a picture of the cat. Not his cat? I think he's in denial.

So what's his routine? He comes out of the dog house when he hears Hubby open the back door and runs to his food bowl meowing every second. Hubby feeds him some milk and opens the regular door to the garage where the cat has a pillow in a box, then puts dry cat food in the bowl. If Hubby doesn't do all of those, the cat either sits at his bowl or at the door looking at it and then Hubby, and of course meowing, until Hubby obeys. Then the cat spends the rest of the day in the box waiting for us to scratch his ears when we walk by. He might come out to eat or drink, but he usually just snoozes in the box all day. In the evening, he comes out and wants the canned food and then more dry. In that order. Then he wants to be petted and follow us around. The cat spends the night in the dog house where he has another pillow in another box.

I consulted other cat owners and my neighbor and decided to take his food and bowl over there this week. She will feed him in the morning and evening, and I'll take him over there at meal times so he will have time to get used to this new routine before we leave. I took the food over there last night at dinner time, and gave him the canned food over there. Then I came home while he ate. I really expected him to be back here soon after, but we didn't see him the rest of the evening, and he didn't show up for milk this morning either. I began to wonder if I had somehow locked him in the garage overnight, but he wasn't in there, and he didn't come when I called. I finally got curious and walked over to the neighbor's house and there he was asleep on a chair. That ungrateful little mooch! It didn't take him long to jump ship.

However, when he saw me, he began following me even though I decided to go ahead and take my walk. When a car went by, he dove into the poison ivy lining the bar ditch and I thought he would go home after that. But he didn't. He was still behind me two blocks away so I gave up and came home. If you've ever noticed how walking a dog stirs up the neighborhood dogs, you should walk a cat.

He came home with me, and he desperately wants me to pet him. Uh no. Anyone know how to get poison ivy germs off a cat?

15 Minute Challenge

2011-05-03T06:13:00.002-05:00

I haven't done much this week. You'd think I would be on a roll from last week. But I did do something besides work on the HSTs. I decided to take the leap into paper piecing. It seems like a good thing to do on trips, so we'll see.

Tuesday, April 26 - No sewing. I think I went shopping.
Wednesday, April 27 - Sewed HSTs into strips
Thursday, April 28 - No sewing. Worked in garden
Friday, April 29 - No sewing. Worked in garden
Saturday, April 30 - No sewing. Cleaned house
Sunday, May 1 - Cut diamonds out of paper.
Monday, May 2 - Cut fabric into strips for paper piecing.

Check out Life in Pieces to participate in Kate's challenge.

Vintage Grandmother's Flower Garden Quilt

2011-05-02T20:30:00.007-05:00

This is another quilt from Grandma's house. Like most of the other quilts in the bunch, this one reeked. I tried airing them out, and it helped with the cigarette smell, but there was a urine odor that lingered. It was well worn, and appeared dirty too so I thought washing couldn't hurt it, and it probably wouldn't run. I washed it in Orvus. When it got wet, the smell of moth balls became overwhelming, and it hadn't even smelled of moth balls before. I was really relieved that that smell went away when it dried.

It still looked dirty though, and closer inspection revealed that it was the batting showing through the thin white fabric. There was one block with torn pieces and batting showing through, and I pinched a piece off and did the burn test on it. I thought from the color and texture that it was probably wool, and the test confirmed that.

Now for the hard part: dating it and determining which great grandmother made it.

Some of the fabrics:

2011 Garden

2011-04-29T21:23:00.004-05:00

Think of this as an administrative post and just skip it. But I find it really helpful to look back at previous year's garden plans when I plan the next year.

Last year:

We didn't allow enough room between squash last year and also found that climbing beans don't work well next to okra. As good as the three sisters plan sounds, it makes for a big mess when trying to get to everything.

After the beans were finished, volunteer watermelon came up in that area and we let them go. Another mistake as they tried to take over the garden, and grass grew up among the vines and was impossible to control. So this year, I expanded the garden to the west, covered the area with black plastic and cut holes in the plastic near the soaker hose for the watermelon. Since cucumber is also a sprawling vine, we put it out there too.

This year:

We have had such strange weather that our onions have started bolting but not ready to harvest, and the okra didn't sprout well, and I recently replanted. I thought okra was indestructible but apparently not. I also haven't planted marigolds yet as they grew more quickly than the surrounding plants and kept them from growing well.

Sometimes, Genealogy Happens in the Strangest Places

2011-04-26T20:38:00.007-05:00

When you have an unusual surname in your family tree, your genealogy antenna go on full alert when you hear that name. At least, if you are like me they do. So last weekend when we were at the airshow, my antenna perked up when I heard the announcer say that one of the pilot's names was Sledge. Sledge isn't the most unusual name in my family tree, but it's not terribly common. And being the curious sort, I had to do a little research when I came home. The website for his flying team said he was from Mississippi. It didn't say Sledge, Mississippi, but it sure narrowed the odds. It did have the name of his college, so I turned to ancestry.com and found his college yearbook picture and description. Then I turned to the Sledge book and found his entry. Everything fit. The neat part is that his air team is based not ten miles from my house.

From the website, I emailed him and waited with anticipation for a return email. Unfortunately, there has been no return email. It could be the email went to their spam folder, or it could be that he is just not interested in making a family connection. That's the sad part of genealogy. How many times have we found a long-lost branch of the family, only to find that the interest is one-sided? More times than I can count I'm afraid.

But since I told mom, she pulled out all her Sledge records in anticipation of filling in some missing information. Sorry mom. But I did get video of his part of the airshow, so copy this to your program if you can.

Should I rub it in that this man is only six years younger than mom? Yeah, I thought so too.

15 Minute Challenge

2011-04-26T09:37:00.003-05:00

I finally did it! I did at least fifteen minutes every day this week.

Tuesday, April 19 - trimmed HSTs and sewed blocks together
Wednesday, April 20 - same
Thursday, April 21 - same
Friday, April 22 - same
Saturday, April 23 - same
Sunday, April 24 - same
Monday, April 25 - same

Yippee!

Yesterday I said it was finally raining. It lasted all of two or three minutes. Every time the radar shows a big storm coming this way, it either separates and goes around us, or it changes direction before getting to us. That was probably a good thing yesterday as there were a reported 18 tornadoes in the area.

Check out Kate's blog, Life in Pieces to see how many people have taken up the challenge.

Design Floor Monday/Stash Buster Report

2011-04-25T06:33:00.012-05:00

Oops. Fixed.

Thanks to Kate's 15 Minute Challenge, I am finally making headway on the Depression Block Quilt, and it has enough blocks to move permanently from the wall to the floor.

*****

I have to break into this quilt report for a big announcement. It's raining!!!!! Hallelujah, it's finally raining! I hope it continues for more than a few minutes. Now back to the regularly scheduled post.

*****

I am including my stash report here too, not because my totals have changed, they haven't. But I have continued measuring my stash and wanted to keep it current.

I hope I don't step on any toes, but I want to say a few things. I would venture to guess that all bloggers like to receive comments. Some people like to reply to comments via email, some people reply by commenting on the other's blog, and some people don't reply at all. I hope you are not the latter. I've turned off my email on my profile; spammers found it much too easily. I miss the interaction with other bloggers, but I really really don't need any V*agra, free money, secret shoppers, or to know what Heather, Misty, Kirsten, or Keri (why was it always women?) are wearing, so it had to go. It's amazing how fast those annoying spamails stopped after I turned it off. I'm sorry for the inconvenience for those of you who like the ease of replying that way and hope the folks at blogger will find a way to have the email show to the recipients of a comment without being vulnerable to spammers.

Granny's Old Quilt

2011-04-24T20:43:00.008-05:00

Many years ago when we were moving some furniture, my mother-in-law gave us a couple of old quilts her mother had made. She thought we could wrap the furniture in them and then throw them away. They were utility quilts made from single pieces of ticking, and I kept them because I thought they were the only quilts she had from her mother. Turns out she had another quilt that belonged to her mother. It was a signature quilt made by her mother's Sunday school class. It was in perfect condition and as my favorite type of quilt is signature quilts, I told her that was the one thing I would really like to have when they passed down family heirlooms. Some time later, when we went to visit, I noticed the quilt was gone, and she said a great niece had admired it so she gave it to her. Mind you, this was a great niece she had never met before that day. To say I was crushed was an understatement. But, it was her quilt, her family, and her decision. Mother-in-law has a huge need to be loved and this was her way of trying to buy that love from this newly met grand niece.

When the in-laws were moving here, mother-in-law showed me another quilt made by father-in-law's mother. She didn't know whether to put it in the auction or throw it out, and she asked me if I wanted it. I took it without hesitation. It's not in great shape, but it's not a cutter, and most importantly, my girls will have a quilt from their dad's side of the family as well as all the quilts from my side.

I don't know why there is a strip of aqua on one side. I thought at first that it was just a filler to make the quilt fit a bed, and maybe it was. But the more I look at it, the more I like the offset way it accents the blocks. Another interesting thing is that some of the fabrics in it are very similar to some quilts my great grandmother made. Ok, maybe that's not terribly interesting, most fabrics from the 1930's have similarities. But what is interesting is that in the 1930's his grandmother and my great grandmother lived less than fifty miles apart. It's fun to think they might have even met one time.

By the way, I love these websites to identify quilt patterns: Blockcrazy.com, McCalls Quilting

I didn't find this pattern at either website though. If anyone knows it, please let me know.

The Howling Wind

2011-04-23T10:43:00.000-05:00

It's wearing me down. It makes it so hard to do any yard or garden work. Driving against it is also wearing. Please make it end! On another note, Governor Perry asked people to pray for rain. I don't think I've ever heard of a governor asking for prayer before.

Resist the Urge

2011-04-21T21:40:00.008-05:00

This is my public service post of the year. I wanted to get a celebrity to do it, but none returned my emails; I can't imagine why not.

This may sound like a top ten list, but I didn't put that much thought into it. These are just things that popped into my mind this week, and in no particular order.

1) When driving down the road with a dirty windshield in a light drizzle, DO NOT turn on the windshield wipers if you are not 100% sure you have fluid in the reservoir. You might think the windshield is wet enough to wipe off the dirt, but trust me, you do not, and the resulting dirty smear will be worse than trying to see through a million little droplets on the windshield. The life you save may be mine.

2) If you are wearing a white shirt, DO NOT order a hamburger with mustard at the drive-thru. Those little pieces of mustard-covered lettuce WILL fall on you no matter how hard you try to hold the bun together.

3) Again with the white shirt. If you order tea (or any dark iced beverage) and it does not come with a straw, DO NOT try to drink the last bit. The ice WILL stick to the bottom until you have the glass tilted up, and then it will come crashing down against your face, splashing tea (or the other dark beverage) onto your shirt.

4) DO NOT touch up your hair color yourself the night before a big event, like a wedding, or Easter. There isn't enough time to buy a wig or a hat if you turn your hair green. You can wash your hair ten times and the green still won't come out.

5) Do NOT get a hair cut in a new style before a big event. If you don't like it, there's not much you can do about it. You'll know it's bad if the photographer asks you to stand at the end, and when the pictures are printed, you aren't even in them.

6) If you are standing in front of the mirror wondering if anyone else can tell your pants are too tight, DO NOT wear them. The answer is YES. If you can tell, so can everyone else.

7) DO NOT drink a glass of water before going on a long walk. You don't want to be thirty minutes from home, on foot, and in a desperate situation. Better to walk up and down your block and have your neighbors think you are stalking them.

I hope you can learn from ~~my mistakes~~ my observations. And tips for those who don't listen. Wet wipes will remove tea from a white shirt but you will have a big wet spot on your shirt for awhile, Prell shampoo will eventually strip the green from your hair, and T.J. Maxx has some lovely hats right now.

Happy Easter, y'all! I'll be the one in the big hat.

15 Minute Challenge

2011-04-19T10:55:00.002-05:00

This was a busy week, and I didn't get much done.

Tuesday, 4/12 - More HST trimming
Wednesday, 4/13 - Sewing HST together
Thursday, 4/14 - HST trimming and sewing
Friday, 4/15 - No sewing, just cleaning and sweeping stuff under the rug
Saturday, 4/15 - No sewing, trip to air show
Sunday, 4/16 - No sewing, enjoyed company
Monday, 4/17 - No sewing, dr appt and errands all day

Whew! Need to get busy this week. Linked to Life in Pieces

Air Power Expo

2011-04-17T11:04:00.039-05:00

The other day Hubby asked if I'd like to go to the air show at Carswell. I haven't intentionally been to an air show since I was a kid; we happened to be in San Francisco one year when we saw an air show going on overhead and we have a neighbor who is a stunt pilot and practices his moves over our neighborhood from time to time. But we hadn't taken a weekend off in months and I thought it would be fun for a couple of hours. I started to get cold feet before we left though. The thought of porta-johns, long lines and crowds made me reconsider. Plus the wind has been horrid lately. But Hubby had already reserved our spots, so I was committed. Just for a few hours, right?

The day started off a bit chilly and with a slight breeze, but it warmed up quickly and the breeze dropped to a near standstill, so it was a really nice day. The wind kicked back up today, so yesterday was the day. The show started off with the salute to the flag, but in true aviation fashion, the flag came through the air.

There were people out there with enormous lenses on their cameras. After trying to get pictures with my little pocket camera, I could see why. Oh well, that was ten pounds I didn't have to carry around.

There were several exhibitions with F-18 Hornets. They are amazing. Lil and her boyfriend both work on the F-18, she from the design side and he from the building side, but they never talk about the plane itself. I had no idea it can do such precision moves. And of course, the Blue Angels fly the F-18, but more on them later.

There were also several exhibitions with smaller planes. This one is Tim Weber in an Extra 300, a German monoplane, zooming down from a loop.

Then he rolled into a loop from the other direction.

The coast guard did a rescue demonstration, but the Blue Angels were parked in front of us so we didn't get to see it. Don't worry, I'm not going to post every picture I took, though the AV8 Harrier was spectacular. Photographs don't do it justice, but it can hover, turn in place, and even back up. It reminded me of the Schwarzenegger movie, True Lies where the jet suddenly appears hovering outside the skyscraper window.

I don't know who this next pilot is, the name isn't on the schedule, but this pilot was a thrill a minute. He began his part of the show with a a twisting spin that couldn't have been more than twenty feet off the ground. I barely got this picture before he took the plane straight up and than down in a spiral, pulling out at the last minute, barrel rolls, and even going straight up until the motor quit, dropping down tail first, and turning end over end, again just pulling out in what seemed to be in the nick of time. What is even more amazing - this pilot is 76 years old! I got a little of his show on video and plan on showing it to my mother-in-law every time she says she is too old to do anything.

With my pocket camera, I videoed some of the more memorable exhibitions, the Harrier, the Blue Angels, and a couple of World War II planes. Most of videos I took, especially of the jets, look like they are videoes of UFOs - kind of fuzzy with a funny glow around them. But this one is slightly better in that you can tell it is a real plane and that it is red. And that's about all you can tell. The pilot is sponsored by Hubby's company and he was fantastic.

The Blue Angels closed the show with style. I thought I had a picture of two of them crossing, but with my camera zoomed all the way, the shutter didn't snap quickly enough. The below picture is the only one I got of them out of all I took. Toward the end of the show, the five F-18 Hornets got into formation and each split off the formation into a fleur de lis pattern.

We got there just before the show started at 10 a.m. and of course, my first stop was the line of porta-johns right inside the gate. Already out of toilet paper. No where to wash hands, but they did have stations with hand sanitizer.

Now here's the good part. Because Hubby's company sponsors one of the pilots, we got a VIP I.D. card and parking. What that means is that we parked a mere sixty feet from the front gate, which was wonderful coming in, but not so much leaving. The VIP I.D. card gave us admission to a big tent canopy set up next to the runway, with seating in the shade or right next to the runway. This was a tent that was also for pilots and their families, so we got to hob knob with these celebrities. I actually didn't get to hob or knob with any of them, but one of their kids did bump into me once, does that count? And when the Blue Angels took flight and everyone crowded to the rail, I got to stand behind them.

Mere commoners had to bring in their own chairs, and carry them at least a quarter mile to the viewing areas. If they didn't bring a chair, they had to sit on the pavement or stand. Those who got there really early got to sit next to the runway, and those who only got there on time had to sit quite a way back. There wasn't a lot going on right at the runway, so there were really no bad seats for viewing. But in the afternoon, shade was nice. Really nice.

This is them:

This is us:

Commoners had to fight the crowds to buy their lunch:

We had a catered lunch:

But the very best part - drum roll please.

They had porta-johns, long lines and no toilet paper:

We had a trailer with real flushing toilets and sinks with soap! See the air-conditioner and no lines?!!!

I'm usually one of the peons standing in line for an hour. I could really get used to this!

The only drawback to parking sixty steps from the front gate was being the last ones out of the parking lot. But Hubby had a deck of cards in the car so we played blackjack while waiting for the line to move. I won.

A very good day.

I Finally Did the 15 Minute Challenge

2011-04-12T10:36:00.002-05:00

Kate at Life in Pieces has a weekly 15 minute challenge. It was just what I needed to help me keep working on this Depression Block Quilt. Trimming the HSTs on a low table was killing my back, and I considered stuffing the project in a bag and putting it in the back of the closet. But I didn't. Instead, I decided to work on it for at least 15 minutes, part of it trimming and part of it sewing blocks. It worked. I am finally making progress. Slow. But progress.

Tuesday, April 5 - Trimmed 8 HSTs and sewed together
Wednesday, April 6 - 8 more HSTs, and finished a block
Thursday, April 7 - 8 more HSTs, sewed together
Friday, April 8 - 8 more and finished a block
Saturday, April 9 - No quilting - worked in garden
Sunday, April 10 - 8 more HSTs
Monday, April 11 - No quilting - no electricity after storm

And what a storm it was. I've got pictures for the next post.

First Lily Bloom

2011-04-06T15:45:00.004-05:00

I hate to admit this, but I haven't cleaned out the pond yet this spring. The lilies haven't let that stop them and have been putting up pads like crazy. True to form, Ellisiana is the first to bloom.

More Adventures of The Cat

2011-04-04T19:46:00.007-05:00

Long time, no blog. Sorry about that. I've been trying to find a life. I've been searching and I just don't know where I left it.

One thing we've been doing around the old homestead is planting the garden, and trying to attract purple martins to our martin house. Hubby has a CD with purple martin sounds and he plays it morning and night. The martins have made a few fly-bys but none have landed as far as I know.

If you have a martin house, you know that there is a constant battle to keep starlings and sparrows from a) roosting in the house, and b) pulling baby martins out of the house. Since we have no nesting martins, our focus is on keeping the sparrows out so the martins will have a place to go. To that end, we have a wire cage trap set up not far from the martin house. It is beside one of the fence posts on our veggie garden, and the fence is chicken wire. The top of the three foot fence has no support as I thought the floppy nature of the wire would prevent the cat or squirrels from climbing into the garden.

The other day I noticed the trap door was down and I could see a bird inside, so I went out to investigate. Of course the cat tagged along, and as soon as he saw the bird fluttering in the trap, he ran to the fence, and instantly climbed to the top. By the time I got there, he was clinging to the top of the fence which was swaying wildly back and forth beneath his weight. His eyes were still glued to the bird in the trap, but when he tried to put a paw toward the trap, the fence jerked the other direction and he had to wrap his foot around the chicken wire instead, until he couldn't climb up, down, or even let go. He was meowing pitifully when I grabbed him around the middle and pried him off the fence, then dropped him to the ground before he could bite me.

With him safely down, I pulled down the trap and let the bird go. It was a female cardinal and glad to get out of there. After I let it go, the cat paced back and forth in front of the trap, meowing pitifully like a kid who just broke his new toy.

There was another cardinal in the trap today, and I took the video camera along with me in case the cat tried to climb the fence again. He didn't. I guess he's smarter than I give him credit. Too bad, it really was funny.

Design Floor Monday

2011-03-21T01:31:00.006-05:00

Not much progress on the Depression Block. I got one more block put together, a lot more HSTs put together, and only 240 more to go.

Gardening is priority right now, and probably will be for awhile.

And the Winner Is

2011-03-20T12:00:00.003-05:00

Krista at While He was Napping!

Check your email, so I can get a few details.

Congratulations Krista and thank you all for entering.

P.S. I jumped the gun on the drawing. I had it in my mind that I said Sunday, until I reread the post on Monday.

Stash Buster Report Week 12

2011-03-20T10:19:00.014-05:00

My miscalcuations have finally worked for me! On my last report, I said my net was a negative 21 yards, but 31 minus 20 is 11, not 21. I was pretty discouraged after that. I feel better after seeing it corrected this week. And finally, I can report that I didn't buy any fabric this week.

I need to get back to my game plan and start sewing every day. I'll admit the HST's are getting to me, and I've really slacked off lately.

A Day Spent Outside

2011-03-19T18:25:00.009-05:00

That sounds lovely, doesn't it? When I hear other people say they spent the day outside, I envision a walk around the lake, or even boating on the lake, cookouts, golf or tennis, something like that. Not a day of work. But that's what we've had today.

I began my day beheading errant dandelions and other weeds in the yard, then I moved on to trimming back brown leaves and dead limbs. The cat abandoned me and became Hubby's best friend when I started the riding lawn mower. He ran to Hubby and followed him into the shed, meowing and looking back at me. Not sure what he was telling Hubby, but it wasn't good. I've never heard a cat meow so much. If this cat isn't eating, sleeping, or being petted, he is meowing. Sometimes it's a whiney 'pet me' meow, but sometimes he just runs after us meowing. Hubby has started referring to him as his little gray dog. I also never knew that cats followed people around so much. Until we got him fixed, the cat spent most of his time sleeping or ignoring us.

The big Saturday ToDo list started earlier in the week when Hubby accidentally broke the pond skimmer.

Oops.
The old one was made out of a utility sink, but it was a bit of a problem at times, so he ordered a new skimmer and it came in today.
It goes in here, but it's a different shape than the old one, so some digging and plumbing adjustments had to be done first.

Hubby worked on enlarging the hole for the skimmer. I looked over one time, and saw both of them totally engrossed in the hole.

Earlier this week, one of our apple trees began blooming. Notice I said one? The other one was dead, and it takes two to tango, even for apple trees. So off I went to the nursery to get another tree. But not just any apple tree, it had to be a blooming apple tree of a different variety. I had called around and finally found a nursery that had a good selection of apple trees, and they thought there might be some blooms. The last tree they showed me was the only one with even a bud; I think it had two buds. Budding, not blooming tree - a Granny Smith. Sold.

I planted the new tree, and now we're waiting for the buds to open. It had better hurry; the biological clock on the other tree is ticking.

Sometimes, We Get Just What We Paid For

2011-03-18T09:58:00.007-05:00

No, that's not frosted privacy glass. That is a window fogged with condensation. When we built the garage, we bought most of the materials at a big box store, including the aluminum insulated glass windows. On the rest of the house we had the original windows topped with storm windows, and while they worked, they were hard to keep clean between the two windows. We thought any thermal pane windows would be better than those. We were wrong.

The windows we put in the garage don't have a thermal break which separates the inside metal from the outside metal and keeps the outside temperature from transferring through the frame. As a result, on a cold day, condensation formed on the glass inside the garage, and ran down to the window sill causing mildew and some water damage. And this window is worse than the other two windows in the garage, not only is this window fogged, there is about an inch of water in the bottom!

Hubby ordered a new window, hopefully one with a thermal break and better glass, and we'll add Replace garage window to our ToDo list.

Product Review - Computer Cooling Pad

2011-03-17T22:42:00.008-05:00

I want to tell you about this thing because it has made my life sooooo much better. My laptop gets hot, and it's not just the battery. Even with the battery out, this puppy gets hot. Too hot for it to ever be in my lap except on the coldest winter day and even then on top of a blanket or it would burn my legs. I used to sit in a chair with it on the table, and I noticed that it crackled the finish on the table top in that spot. I tried putting things under each corner so it could get air under it, and then it was too high to type comfortably. Plus, it made me sit with my back to Hubby while he sat comfortably in his recliner with his laptop in his lap. Even with the computer on a desk or the table top, the heat from it made me uncomfortable. Add a hot flash to that, and I was one miserable woman. Also, I had to replace the computer's fan this year because it overheated, and the tech said I was lucky I heard the sound in time and turned off the computer before something in it fried - only he used some technical geek speak that meant that.

I thought surely I wasn't the only one with a hot laptop, and I started searching for a solution. I found a lot of cooling pads, but only one with rave reviews about how quiet it is. It was pricey - compared to the others - but I bought it. It was about the same price as a new fan, and hopefully will save my computer. The fan in it is whisper quiet and it works like a charm.

It has a cushion on the bottom, so it's comfortable on my legs, and it has these two little tabs that flip up to keep the computer from sliding off, which is really nice when I have to move it to get out of the chair. You can see those in the top picture.
You can see in this second picture how it is powered by the computer and plugs into a USB port on the laptop. (with the red arrow) So there isn't another cord you have to plug in somewhere. And if you need even more air flow under the computer, it has little rubber bumper type things that pop into slots in the top. (with the red circle). It also has speakers, which I could do without, but there is an on/off button for them. There is also an on/off button for the fan, but I don't know why.

I'm not getting paid for this endorsement; I should be so lucky. I'm just so happy with this thing, I wanted to tell anyone else who is still suffering from hot-computeritis. As you can see, I am sitting in my recliner in front of the tv. Well, you can't see the tv, but it's there and the Ranger game is on, although they are getting smeared by the Padres.

Don't look at my junk back there - of course now that I said that I know you will. I have quilt blocks laid out on the floor, and pictures leaning against the wall that I need to hang somewhere, and my little baby tomatoes that refuse to grow.

Oh, I almost forgot, this is a Logitech N700, and it's actually called a Speaker Lapdesk. I bought it at Best Buy and the sales guy didn't think it was a cooling pad because of the name, but it is. It should be called a Cooling lapdesk with speaker, but they didn't ask me. Here is a link to Logitech where if you want more information and where they probably don't call all the parts "things".

Thrifty Thursday Wreath Makeover

2011-03-16T15:03:00.018-05:00

Yes! This is the place to enter your $1 or less makeover! Just put a link to your project in the comments of this post. Challenge ends Sunday at midnight, and I'll draw a name Monday morning.

Now on to the story of the wreath I bought to enter a different contest.

I stopped by the thrift store this morning on my way to the grocery store in a last ditch effort to find something for a craft contest. When I saw these wreaths, I figured even I could do something with one of them. I bought the round one for the contest and the heart one for, um, I dunno, but I'll think of something eventually.

I've never entered an item before. I'm not good with deadlines (as you can see here), and I'm not creative on demand. I do admire those who can just look at something and see lots of ways to do something with it. I'm sure I'm a big disappointment to all those creative people. But they need an appreciative audience and I can do that well. hehehe

I thought I'd make the effort to do something and thought it would be fun to challenge the few people who read my blog too. My rules are that you can buy an item for $1 or less, or get an item for free and you don't have to show the receipt (which would be really hard with a free item). To enter, post a link to your project in my comments. And my prize is a personalized notepad like the ones I showed yesterday. Now I get to find out if anyone is even interested in making something in a week, or if everyone is a procrastinator like me. And I have to do something with this wreath in the next few hours. By the way, I am not entering my own challenge. My wreath is for another contest.

This is what I ended up with, which is probably why I will never enter another contest. Too much pressure for a procrastinator, and would you believe it - Hubby actually wanted dinner tonight.

I wanted to wrap ribbon around it, but I didn't have any. So I cut some fabric into strips - wide strips because I was in a hurry. Kind of boring, so I made a few fabric flowers. In case you can't tell, it's supposed to be a trailing bouquet. The good thing is that I used 1/2 yard of fabric from my stash, along with a bunch of scraps that I don't have to measure now.

Seems like it needed something on top so I stuck from fabric in the hanger and fluffed it to look like a bow. What do you think, make a real bow or no bow? (and in case anyone noticed, I rearranged the flowers)

It dawned on me as I was working on this wreath that some of the ladies I know might not want any information about them revealed, so I have deleted most of this post. Kind of put them off from posting anything, so I apologize and hope they will post again sometime.

Jane asked how I made this wreath, mainly the flowers and leaves. As I said earlier, I cut three inch strips of fabric and wrapped the straw wreath. The only thing holding the fabric on are a couple of drops of hot glue on the very end. The other strips are held on by the overlapping strip. I can't take credit for the flowers. I followed the directions here written by Sachiko at Tea Rose Home. It took me awhile to get the hang of it, and I think every one I did is different, and none as good as hers. I had already cut my fabric into one inch strips, so I sewed the basting stitch 1/4" from the edge instead of down the middle, and then gathered them like she did. For the leaves, I just cut leaf shapes, ironed a fold in the center, and then put a basting strip down the fold so I could gather them slightly and give a little shape.

Hope that helps.

Linked to:

Quick Notepad Gift Tutorial

2011-03-15T14:28:00.050-05:00

What? You don't iron your money?

If you do, you'll probably have a conversation much like this:

Hubby: What are you doing?

Me: I'm ironing money.

Hubby: Why?

Me: Because the bank didn't have any new bills.

Hubby: So why are you ironing old bills?

Me: So they will be nice and flat, of course.

Hubby, mumbling something about lunacy and heredity as he walks away.

Money is always a good graduation gift, but it's so boring to just write a check. This is a fun way to give your graduate a gift he or she will remember.

If you can find new bills, you won't have to have that conversation with your spouse, but it seems that banks in my area don't always have nice, new bills, so I had to get the best they had and then iron them.

Once you have twenty to twenty-five crisp one dollar bills (or any denomination you wish), you can make a graduation "notepad". It's really easy. In addition to the money, all you need are a couple of pieces of cardboard, some padding compound, and a top-sheet you can make on your computer.

You can buy padding compound any place that sells printing supplies. Online it's about $14 for a quart. I don't use it often, and have a few ounces that have lasted for years. You can also buy chipboard at these places, but it's just as easy to use cardboard from a thin box, like a cereal box.

Cut two pieces of cardboard the same size as the bills. Place one with the good side down and place the bills on the printed side.

The top-sheet is optional, but I think it's fun. If you don't use a top-sheet, you can make a money band to go around the finished money pad. For my top-sheet, I just used Microsoft Word and made sure everything fit between the perimeters of a dollar bill. I used Word Art to make the heading, and then wrote a message to the graduate. It looked something like this:

Cut it down to the same size as your money. I don't have a paper cutter, so I just use a quilting ruler and an old blade in my rotary cutter. I put a bill under the ruler to measure.

Then put the top-sheet on top of the bills, and top with the second piece of cardboard. This second cardboard is just to protect the top-sheet.

For a thin pad, like this one, you can use big paper clips, or clamps on the sides. For a thicker pad, or multiple pads, a better clamp is needed. I'll discuss that with the next project below. The red padding compound does stain, and even the white will drip, so do this over a surface that can be easily cleaned or put some papers on the floor. Extend the clamped pad over the edge of your counter, and then just paint the padding compound across the top of the clamped sheets and let dry. You can use a small brush, or even your fingertip. Wash out your brush with water. It takes about thirty minutes to dry, and then use a knife with a flat blade to cut off the top piece of cardboard.

You can make a lot of gifts with your printer and padding compound. The end of the school year means teacher gifts as well as graduation gifts. As a former teacher, I can tell you that practical, consumable gifts are very much appreciated. And who can't use a notepad? You can make them for teachers, friends, and even yourself. I love lined notepads, and like to keep one on my refrigerator for grocery lists. When I saw this pack of multi-colored notebook paper, I knew I had to make some shopping list pads out of it.

I started by cutting off the hole-punched side, leaving me with a 7x10.5 inch sheet. I used WordArt again to make two personalized sayings, and printed twenty-five of them. Then I cut the sheets in half, and then repeated with another set of sayings. That gave me enough for four sets of notepads.

I cut five pieces of cardboard 3.5x10.5 and placed them as I did the money pad, good side down, with the twenty-five sheets on top. Then I stacked the four sets on top of each other and placed the last piece of cardboard on top of the stack.

I tapped the stack against the counter to align all the pieces, and carefully placed a painting stir stick across the top and another across the bottom, and secured them with clamps. Just a clamp on each side here would have made them bulge in the middle. The stir sticks keep it uniformly flat.

Then, I painted the padding compound across the end, and waited for it to dry.

After it dried, I cut the four pads apart with a sharp knife and also cut the top cardboard off. To finish, you can glue a magnet on the back, or leave plain. Those freebie flat magnets work well for this too.

And that's it. You can put together any number of paper crafts: Page a Day Calendar, Chore Coupons, or Award Coupons. You can even put your business cards into a pad to keep them together.

I've linked to these linky parties:

Design Wall Monday

2011-03-14T01:22:00.011-05:00

I've made very little progress on the Depression Block. I don't mind sewing the triangles together, but trimming them on a low table is a pain in the neck. Literally. So I dug out a UFO that I had put away quite a while ago. I'm pretty sure I was going to make a twin size out of it, but after a few people on an online group told me it was too blah (not those words exactly), I put it away. I could make it into a rather large baby quilt, or I could continue with my original plan. I guess I'm rather blah myself because I still like the colors as they are.

On the subject of the makeover contest, I still haven't found an item to makeover. I've been to the thrift store a couple of times (the rules are that we have to buy an item during the week for no more than $1 and have it done by Thursday) but I am overcome with a lack of inspiration when I am there. I also think some people must have cheaper thrift stores than I do. On Saturday I only found one item less than a dollar. It was a caster wheel for 50¢, but for the life of me I couldn't think of anything to do with it.

If you are considering entering my challenge, you don't have to run out to buy something for $1. You can also use anything laying around the house or something you get free.

A Day at the Quilt Show

2011-03-11T16:31:00.033-06:00

I'm going to get my stash buster report in early, because I haven't done a thing this week. 0 in and 0 out. To see what others have accomplished this week, check out Patchwork Times

I went to the Dallas Quilt Celebration today. I was going to take one of my great-grandmothers' quilts to see if they could help me narrow down the time period, but when I emailed with that question, I was told that they only give a valuation. So I didn't take anything. While there, I went over to the appraisal area and talked with a few ladies who were waiting to do appraisals, and they said dating the quilt was part of the appraisal, and there is one appraiser who is an expert in antique quilts. So I made an appointment to take a quilt tomorrow. So now the question, which quilt?!!

Which of these three would you take?
1. (click the picture to to go to the post about it)

2.

3.

I'm leaning toward #3 but I'd like to know more about all three. I hope she can tell me something that will lead to an answer.

I think I got a clue about quilt #1 today too. This is a block from my quilt:

And this is a block from a quilt at one of the booths at the show, dated 1880, the double pink fabrics aren't exactly the same, but very close:

But for now, I'm kicking back in the recliner with a heating pad on my neck. Carrying a purse and camera were hard on my neck and back today.

Update: Saturday, March 12. I just got back from the appraisal. I took the #3 quilt, and I know just a little more than I did before. First she said that the magenta fabrics in this block, weren't available before 1880, so that date set the lower age range.

I was trying to find something about that online and found that the color magenta was actually discovered in 1856. It was produced by Hofmann and very popular in Britain, but it was a fugitive dye and unstable until a new process was developed in 1862. So I wonder if 1880 is a realistic lowest date, or if it could be lower. I guess it depends how long it took the fabric to make it's way to across the U.S.

She also thought the blue and yellow fabrics were one of the oldest in the quilt.

She said the red on white shirting used in each block, indicates the quilt was made around 1910, as were many of the fabrics, since there was enough of it that it was probably bought for the quilt, and not from scraps. There were a couple of panics followed by recessions in the years between 1907 and 1911, and the quality of fabrics went down with the economy. This red on white fabric is obviously a looser weave than many of the other fabrics in the quilt. There were several recessions in the 1890's and those first years of the 1900's, and to cut costs, print fabrics only had two colors. And most of the fabrics in this quilt are two color prints.

She also said it was a variation of the Wheel of Fortune.

She did say a couple of things that make me think this quilt was made by Mother S. First, several of the fabrics are the type that would have been in a farmer's workshirt - the blue print in the center of each circle and the blue stripe. There are a couple of shirtings she called lacy because the print on it looks like lace. After Mother S's father died, they probably would have remade the shirts so Mother S's mother could wear them since she now had to run the farm; remade the nicer shirts for Mother S's younger brother, or used the shirts for other things, keeping the scraps for the quilts. Also, the quilting is done in the Baptist fan, which was Mother S's favorite pattern, and one that was done quickly. She said that while the pattern looks difficult, it really wasn't, except for the circle of triangles around the wheel, and even that wouldn't have been too difficult for a teenager who had been quilting since she was young. Mother S married in 1906, so this could be a quilt she made for her hope chest, and that would also explain why I haven't seen any of these fabrics in her other quilts.

I also asked her about the stains. I thought the blacks had run since most of the brown stains are around them, but she said no. She said it looked like water marks. She said a couple of the brown prints might fade in washing, but I can test all the fabrics to see if they are colorfast, and then she suggested washing it first in Orvus to remove any dirt, and then soaking in Biz to remove the stains. I asked her about Vintage Quilt Soak, and she said that Biz was the same thing. She cautioned me not to dissolve the Biz in water before pouring it on the quilt though or it would cause damage. She also said that she has soaked quilts for two or three days before to get out the stains. So wish me luck, I'm going to try it tomorrow.

Now a look at the rest of the fabrics in this quilt. If you recognize any, please let me know.

Final update: I got the appraisal and she listed it as circa 1900, and valued it at $750 in today's weak market.

Thrifty Thursday

2011-03-10T17:45:00.005-06:00

Since Thrifty Thursday is all about reusing and recycling, I want to challenge crafters to use their creative energy on reusing or remaking. Here are my rules: buy something with a cost of $1 or less, or get a free item, and remake it into something useful or beautiful. Bonus points if the finished item is so great it's hard to recognize from the original.

Anyone who wants to accept my challenge should post a link to their project in my comments next Thursday. If anyone does, I'll put the names in a hat & choose one who will get a prize - a personalized refrigerator note pad.

Ready. Set. Go!

Eat Those Leftovers!

2011-03-09T17:32:00.009-06:00

Every time I clean out the refrigerator and see the food containers that have become makeshift petrie dishes, I resolve anew to eat leftovers and leave the science experiments to the experts. And then things get pushed to the back, I forget about them, and it starts all over again.

So today I made a couple of refrigerator magnets to remind us of those leftovers. I used a couple of those thin, advertising magnets that often come in the mail. I happened to have two from the same company, and they were the same size. Otherwise, I would have cut one of them.

Then I printed two messages on a sheet of scrapbook paper. It's thicker paper so covered the advertising better than regular printer paper.

I cut them apart and glued them to the front of the magnets using ordinary school glue which I spread evenly across the surface. To center the print, I just held it against the light. Then stacked books on top until dry and trimmed the paper to the edges of the magnets. (They weren't quite dry when I took the picture so I snapped the pictures and put them back under the books, and I also printed them on yellow paper so they would show up on the fridge better.)

Then I cleared the refrigerator and put them front and center. What is nice about these thin magnets is that they can be stacked on top of each other.

And that's what I did here. When there are leftovers in the fridge, this one is on top and the "No Leftovers" is under it. When there are no leftovers, I'll switch them.

I could have made them more permanent by using Mod Podge, with a protective layer over the top to keep them clean, but knowing me, I'll want to redo it, and this way I can.