Tommy the Material Girl

Great Balls

2012-05-31T08:08:00.000-05:00

You can certainly tell that this gift I received was from a fellow blogger. My first clue?
The note on top of the package even before I knew what it was or who it was from. My friend Kay knows me well. So, of course, after reading this, my excitement grew.

A gift ball? What in the world is this? I have already received a ball in the mail in the last month and it didn't even come in a box.

Okay, the gift ball is out of packaging and this is what it looks like. I started unraveling.

All in all, all these 'amulets' were secured inside the wound yarn with a lovely key fob in the center. Kay actually makes these beautiful 'amulets' and has a bowl at the ready for when guests come to her house. I haven't had the pleasure of visiting her actual home so she did me one better and gave my more than my fair share. I was tickled pink.

Or should I say, red gold, which is what the ball of yarn looked like when I finished re rolling it. Kay used her leftover yarn and tied the small pieces together. I wanted to give her the full credit, but she said she saw the idea on Pinterest. She was afraid that I had seen the idea myself. I have been very lax in my Pinterest perusing. I get too carried away. It's much like watching tv in the daytime. I never have the tv on unless I have guests because I get distracted so easily. I would get nothing done.

Clean Sweep

2012-05-30T08:39:00.001-05:00

I was gifted some home made pot scrubbers in Florida right before I came back north. I brought a couple with me and absolutely loved them. I showed them to my sister and sis in law and they immediately said that they had to learn how to make them.

The story of their inception is this.

There we were, in our favorite place on the planet (that isn't a restaurant), Joanns, looking for things to use our 40%off coupon and other things because it was 10% off the entire purchase. On our list of things to buy were blades for the Cricuit, and refills for the Xyron along with goggly eyes, itty bitty pompoms, heart shaped brads and lots and lots of marked down and then 50% off Legacy quilt fabric, all the while looking for the ball of what ever it was that the scour pads were made of. We never found them and were talking about the dilemma when the girl who was cutting the fabric said that it was net that they were made of. She said you cut the netting in strips of two inches and use as yarn!!!!

We gathered a bunch of netting (my choice being the darkest; why see junk on the thing after using if you don't have to?) and hustled home to make them. We tried various sizes and ended up with this for their construction. You would think that the stuff would be hard on your hands but it is not at all. It good stuff to watch tv and do.

Scour Scrunchies

One crochet hook (somewhere between H and K)

Nylon Netting: I bought 3 yards and cut them in two inch strips the long way. I figured I could make about nine from that. If you buy less and have shorter strips, you will just join ends together a little more frequently.

To join the strips, take two pieces and line up one end of each on top of each other, Fold the end over about an inch and make a half inch slit in the center of the fold. Now line the two slit ends on top of each other with the other ends going in opposite directions so that the cut ends overlap and the slits line up. Insert the uncut end of the bottom strip through the slits, entering from the top. Pull both strips so that the end result is a knot. You can also just knot the two ends. Just try and have the ends all on one side as you crochet so it is easier to clean up. You will need about five strips joined the way that I cut the net. You can roll it in a ball if you want or you can add on as you need to.

Row 1: Chain 4 – then join with slipstitch to form circle

Row 2: Chain 4 – then 11 double crochet in the center

-then join with slipstitch

Row 3: Chain 4 – then 2 double crochet in each dc

Row 4: Chain 4 – then dc in each dc

Row 5: Single crochet in each stitch around

Row 6: Single crochet in each stitch around

Row 7: Single crochet every other stitch until there is

no opening. Cut a tail and pull through the last loop to knot. Stuff all ends inside the finished scrunchie.

You Ought To Be In Pictures!!!

2012-05-29T12:41:00.001-05:00

Check this out!! My friend Millie just sent me this picture of the blog today that

she can view on her TV!!!! I have never heard of such a thing. My Violet is now a tv star!!!

Livin' On The Edge

2012-05-29T08:26:00.001-05:00

This gal likes to live on the edge. At sixteen months old, every step she takes looks like it is gonna end in some sort of head trama but then, it seems to work for the V. We have two steps on the main floor of the house that we all congregate at and Violet manages to park herself within an inch or so of those steps, sometimes with the butt hanging over and she didn't once take a tumble.

This is the first time this year that Violet has crossed the Illinois state line and so sleeping somewhere other than her own bed has been a challenge. She decided that she had enough sleep and so got up at five a.m. yesterday. Parents? Not so happy. She didn't exhaust herself enough until almost noon and then, to try and salvage some sort of a schedule, Maria and Peter woke her up after three hours of napping.

This is what came out of that nap. Apparently someone decided to get her ready to be cast in a new baby version of 'Annie'.

She would make a perfect homeless waif, don't you think? You couldn't replicate this hairdo if you tried. And that vacant 'Why did you wake me up' stare. I know her parents are actors but I definitely see a star in the rising.

Roll Out The Table

2012-05-27T09:27:00.001-05:00

We didn't have everyone for dinner last night. G had to represent us at a friend's kids wedding just over the border in Wisconsin. It was Maria and Peter's fifth wedding anniversary and Maria was preforming in a play she is currently in. So we decided to do something different for dinner.

I had seen this type of thing done on the Food Network's Michael Chiarello's show.

We did a variation of that show. Maggie covered the porch table with kraft paper and Evan served each place setting a ladle of soft fontina polenta as our plate.

In the center of the table was a combination of various colored bell peppers, grape tomatoes, onions and jalepenos that were oven steamed with oil, fig and balsamic vinegars and s and p. I steamed sweet italian sausage and brother Bill finished them off on the grill, along with sea scallops.

This was my first helping. We had a bowl of pesto and more polenta on the table. We served red wine in pint ball jars. It was fabulous and everyone loved it.

And talk about cleanup; just remove the dishes and roll up the mess. My kinda cleanup.

We started discussing when we thought G would get home. He had said that he would see us in the morning because he predicted he would return home at about 2 a.m. I said that I know he wouldn't stay that long, especially after everyone was drinking and he's not much of a booze lover. So we decided to put five bucks each on it and each guessed what time he would come through the door.

It was pretty exciting. We were all huddled together watching The Big Year and my time for his arrival came and went and it was almost out of Mike's time frame and into Bill's, when like a mirage, my sister's face lit up and with a minute to go, she greeted G at 11:46. The money is burning a hole in her pocket.

Animal Antics

2012-05-26T09:20:00.000-05:00

This was yesterdays post. I don't know what happened but this morning I was telling my sister that my brother is going to be upset because he said that his dog here, Bea, would get more comments than the last post of Violet. I said that he had none and my sis in law said that something was up because she checked the blog and the new one never showed up. Well, here it is for what I thought was the second day. I will be more careful in the future.

The house is starting to fill up for the weekend. Yesterday my brother Bill and Claudia arrived. They got here in record time from St. Louis, and I think I know why.

They let Bea drive!

My sister in law swears that they only let her drive on small back roads but I find that hard to believe.

Bea does seem to take direction tho'. When she takes her eyes off the road, she gets reprimanded and then really pays attention to the open road.

Chai is here with sis Mike and the kids will be coming in too. It should be a great Memorial Weekend for us all. Enjoy yours too.

2012-05-26T09:19:00.002-05:00

You Are My Sunshine

2012-05-24T08:32:00.000-05:00

I took this diva to the park. She starts to howl for joy when she sees where she has ended up after a stroll. Sixteen months old and she is ready to take on the world; teetering of course.

Gotta Go

2012-05-23T07:50:00.000-05:00

I have one minute. We changed to Xfinity yesterday and it took away my links to anything for the morning. We couldn't change because of our security system at the house but we got that resolved so now we could ditch AT&T!!!! Then once I sent two emails, the email went out. I was gonna blog a darling gift I got from my friend Kay but I am leaving now to see my Violet and have an Apple class so I can't take the time this morning. That's it for now.

My Musings

2012-05-21T09:31:00.000-05:00

I got an email form my sister in law saying something about arriving at my house this week and so I had a look at my calendar, and she was right. I thought Memorial weekend was a week later. Maybe because the 31st is on a Friday. I couldn't even believe it. I wanted to make some frozen food for the masses to take home and now I have little time. I have a full day already spoken for on Wednesday and the family starts arriving on Thursday. Yikes! I have three turkey breasts in the oven now and I can smell them all the way from the kitchen so I probably should check on them.

Oh well, it's only food. Every time I look at this new thread catcher that my friend Peggy gave

me, I think it's looking at me and it looks very much like a bird of some sort. I even had a dream about it; something about a tree and Johnny Depp and this thread catcher. I bet a shrink would have a field day with that!

I love flowers and like to have them around me all the time. Sometimes the combination of certain flowers just hits me somehow and I can't stop looking at them. This grouping is one of those. There is a pure yellow calli lily that just makes it perfect. I guess I am rambling today. Time for a grocery list to be made.

Anal, Yeah I Said It

2012-05-20T10:22:00.000-05:00

You can always steal my ideas. That's one of the reasons I put them out here!!! We're all friends, right? The wedding invitation idea was not my original idea; I saw it on Pinterest.

I found myself making yet another of them yesterday. I even have the perfect box

to wrap them in, thanks to my sister who, when she buys things she buys them by the case (most likely because it's much cheaper and free shipping, just like me). I have enough to last me quite awhile. While I was getting all the supplies to make the ornament I decided to cut all the ribbons for all the remaining 10 glass balls.

I had the scissors, and the four ribbons right there with the opened ball box so I took an extra two minutes and probably saved myself a half hour over the next couple years. Is that OCD? I wonder.

Side By Side

2012-05-19T09:19:00.000-05:00

First off, thank you Melody Johnson for your endless help on stuff 'over Tommy's head'. I spent the good part of a day on learning how to place pictures side by side and here is the proof that sticktoitevness sometimes works. This is the way to showcase the 'slices'. Enjoy this; I had the pleasure of manhandling them for almost two weeks, out of love of course!!!

This first one (these are not in the order of the original photo. That's just asking waaaaay to much of me) is Kay's and she chose to use the modern art of photo copying some of her piece, hence the car that is unquestionably better than I could have done in my wildest dreams!

Suzie did this one. I love the detail she added to the house. I have a feeling there was a little fabric sharing because she has the same commercial tree fabric as the slice next to hers. That is completely fair game. We have no rules as to how each person makes their piece. It just has to somewhat match the placement on the original picture and not be so dense that I can't do the finish work on it.

Anne did a bang up job on her piece. We were comparing our slices and realized that we had an almost identical stitch in our grass area. Great minds think? Well, she does anyway!

Mary Ann was worried that the antenna was no good so she tacked it on and left me the choice of keeping it or chucking it. It is made with thread work on some filmy stuff and is stunning. It's one of the best parts of her slice if I could even fathom picking a favorite.

This is mine.

Gayle does such a wonderful job in free motion trees and things that this was the perfect block for her. She was the perfect neighbor for my block. And she has a Violet too so what could be better!

I can't believe how Judy captured the ground coverings here. I is spectacular. I am sure the statue right in front of the door was a problem for her but everything looks great. The original photo was her DIL's.

This is Penny's slice. She did some clever things on her piece and I particularly like the fact the she kept the selvage on her roof fabric, adding to the look of the branches behind the house. These girls are so smart!

Irene did a wonderful job on her slice to begin with, and that's even without knowing that she was just out of a cast for her broken arm. Ya know, if there's a will, there's a way. Great job.

And last but definitely not least is Robbie's slice. I hope you can click on hers and see the detail. The car door handles are beads as well as the light on the pole. Her bush is made with thread bundling on her sewing machine. I would show you it in her blog but I am so scared of loosing these side by side pictures that I won't leave the computer from right where I am.

I hope you enjoy checking out the beginning to the end. I sure did.

A Street In Ireland

2012-05-18T09:18:00.000-05:00

I couldn't be happier with the outcome of the group slice quilt. It took me a good week to tweak it but it is in the mailbox, waiting for the postmistress to pick it up and send off the entry to Houston. Let's go back for a minute.

I was discussing another group quilt for a few months and was getting nowhere until my friend Judy sent me this photo that her daughter in law took while visiting Ireland.

It seemed perfect to me for a group quilt; there was room on top and room on the bottom so that if I needed some wiggle room to match stuff up I would have it. Plus, with the different colors, it made for friendly colorful piece to work on. I used a program that Judy suggested called Perfect Resize and came up with a 70 some inch blow up. It was around 34" tall.

Here it is, on the dining room table in Florida. I didn't even start the cutting because it was too tightly curved. It needed to rest. This was March 22nd.

Here is the first half cut into five parts, all equal. It was scary to cut it up and all the while I was thinking, don't screw this up. These blown up pics aren't cheap plus I was running out of time in order to make the Houston cutoff.

Here is the second half, which you can see is much more complicated that the first half. I randomly gave out the slices except for three. I knew one person was heavy into tax season and being an accountant, I chose to give her a less complicated block. I chose what I thought was the most detailed block for myself. This is not to say that I am any better than any one else in doing these things; far from it, because it is not in my comfort zone. I chose it because I couldn't, with a clear conscience, give it to anyone else. Now, after getting all the slices back and spending some quality time with them, I no longer think my block was the most complicated. Oh, the last one I didn't pick randomly was the big tree. I know a gal who is great with thread work and I was not disappointed. Every participant got their slice picture with backing, batting and a list of a thousand directions. Their deadline to have it to me was May 7th. I had them all waiting for me when I returned north. I actually think that the shorter deadline is better because there is less time to fret and procrastinate.

This is the finished work. I decided to give the bottom an uneven look and I like it so much better than the first time I did it and cut them off evenly. I wish this picture was bigger but I suppose you can click on it and see detail. Better yet, I will take pictures of each slice individually and blog them tomorrow. Right now I need more coffee!

The Good Earth

2012-05-17T09:33:00.000-05:00

Since I did the upgrades for the computer I have this spell corrector on everything; that's new to me. I have had it on my phone for texting but my tendency for texting is similar to my wanting to bang my head against a concrete wall; repeatedly. Now I have it in Word, the blog and every other place. I am afraid that I am going to use it unwisely. I tend to not check spelling, counting on my brilliant brain and typing skills to get me through. That may be a thing of the past.

It's that delightful time of year when I can't wait to go outside and dig in the mud in my palatial garden. Actually my garden consists of five of these
square planters. I always think I will like doing the planting but not so much. I find it even harder to go to the store and get the flowers. I think about the dirt issue, possible irritants on the floor of my trunk, and just the icky having to haul one of those squeaky, bad wheeled trolleys

around to gather the components for the planters up to the checkout. This is my haul this year. I got coral geraniums, little violet snowflake somethings that are very similar to bocapa. I also got a variegated sweet potato vine to trail down the container and a little fern just to be traditional. I bought this grouping on Monday. I'm thinking that with watering them a couple times, I can put off the planting for ten days. I will probably gather enough strength to do it by then.

Thankfully G does the tomatoes and although I plant the basil (scowling the whole time), G buys it for me. It's our way of compromising. Ain't love grand!!!!

Tucked Away

2012-05-16T09:00:00.001-05:00

I was walking down a normal street in Chicago, on the way back from the park with Maria and Violet and was more than a little surprised to see something you don't normally see in the city. In between two buildings was a wonderland of 'stuff'. This little area wasn't bigger than ten feet if that.

It kinda reminded me of a yard sale that was staged to be attractive.

I don't know if you can zero in on some of the things in here if you click because I took these pictures with my phone camera but there are crazy things in here. Yes, straight ahead is a bikini clad sculpture. There are sayings and flowers and

lots of crazy heads. I could not stop looking at it. I think I would like to hang with whoever created this play land. Or, on second thought

maybe I could just visit them wherever they are having treatment. Property in Chicago normally isn't used for such things when you could probably put a high rise in the space!!!

Easy Street

2012-05-15T09:02:00.002-05:00

I have not been on Pinterest in a very long time. It's almost like I burnt myself out from it. I tend to want to do every thing that interests me from it and of course that isn't possible and live a normal life so I stepped back for a bit. I went on it for about a half hour yesterday and that seemed to work well. Why I am rambling is that I saw something (actually two things) that I simply have to do. One of them shall remain in my brain alone until a more appropriate time. But this thing? I will share.

This is a clear glass ornament that I purchased at Hobby Lobby at the cost of 12 for $7.99. Inside it I placed slices of a wedding invitation for our nieces wedding. I cut out all the important stuff, like date, names, church, etc. I first curled these strips (starting from the beginning of the line at the top so you don't have to read it backwards) around a pencil, but all the pencils I have are six sided. I wanted a smoother curl so I grabbed a knitting needle and curled the important parts. I opened the top of the ball and slipped them in. I closed the top and added some white, silver, ecru and gold trimmed ribbon on the hanger thingy.

I think it's a wonderful momento for the bride and groom that they can hang on their Christmas tree or HHanukkah bush. This will be a part of their traditions. I love this idea and plan to do it for every wedding I am invited to.

There is something else that I have done for many years for young couples that we send wedding gifts to. Everyone gets a scrap quilt (queen/king) and tucked inside it's folds is an

easy button. I buy them from Staples by the case. I don't wrap it or anything because then it would get too complicated. Right next to the button, cozy in the quilt folds, is an instruction sheet. It reads as follows, with just the names changed.

Rachel and Julian,

The Easy Button

This little device is to help you as you travel through life together. Simply follow these directions and you will sail

through married live with ease and comfort.

Step 1. Identify a difficult situation

Step 2. Press your Easy Button

Step 3. Listen to the reassuring message.

Step 4. Smile and get on with your life.

Step 5. Repeat as necessary.

Love,

Gordon and Tommy Fitzsimmons

I think this is one of my more clever ideas and as far as I can remember, it was my original idea. I have done it for years and probably at least four times a year a young couple gets my guidance. Do you know that I can't remember, except once, anyone commenting on it in their thank you or just in conversation. I think it is the bomb and will continue doing it, even if everyone I know has no sense of humor. I laugh every time I am taping up the box and every now and then I turn the box sharply or quickly and I hear 'that was easy'. I'm laughing (on the inside) now.

Ladies Lunch

2012-05-14T08:27:00.000-05:00

We had a delightful weekend. I hope you all did too and were surrounded like I was by adoring offspring and ladened with treasures and breakfast in bed. Too bad Mothers Day isn't a season like my birthday is!!! Ha ha. So I embellished a bit. I love a bit of drama.

This is a sign that I will have to recreate and put it right beside the sign on top of it that is always on my design wall. When I first started dyeing fabric I never wanted to cut into it and so I had to place a reminder right in my face to remind me that I can always get or dye more!

After a jaunt to a neighboring town's quilt shop, the girls came back to my kitchen for some delightful food my sis put together while I was fussing with boiling water to cook the Pasteles for lunch.

Canned champagne was followed with a lovely appetizer of

triscuits and cheddar

and a bowl of pork rinds. They didn't go over as well as I had hoped.

To kill time while the Pasteles were boiling for 50 minutes, I whipped up a salad of what I thought might have a Puerto Rican feel. I used mixed greens, black beans, corn, olives, diced tomatoes and a vinaigrette.

Everyone loved the Pasteles. Thank you for teaching me how to make them MM. I should have taken a picture of the girls unwrapping them and then a lovely untouched picture of them before the eating started but I looked up and they were half eaten!!!! Okay, not the most appetizing picture in the world.

This lunch is definitely one that needs a garbage bowl. With each Pastele wrapped in a uneatable banana leaf and wrapped in paper and string, the garbage bowl fills up fast.

We were stuffed. No dessert for us.

It's Mom's Weekend

2012-05-12T08:30:00.002-05:00

I thought I would share some eye candy with you while I drone on this morning.

I want to take that little face and eat it up. I talked to Maria last night and she told me that she and Violet (bad english, but I don't care!)wore the dresses I brought them from Florida yesterday. I am dying for a picture. They were the same dress only obviously different sizes and the baby's was coral with grey embellishments and Maria's was grey with coral. They were from that same trunk show of the company from Spain which is Flamenco. Internet has been on the fritz for a couple days. My sister Mike got here Thursday morning and we have been cranking out stuff. There's been some quilt piecing, Cricuit cutting, heavy thinking (working on the slice quilt) and watching the Food Network while pretty much laughing until our sides hurt. G is fishing with my brothers in Minnesota (yeah, why? when we had a perfectly manageable little boat and water in our back yard for the last 4 1/2 months? Guys!) My quilt buddies, Anne and Peggy are coming for a day visit. I think I will take them to a quilt store in the next town that has moved locations. I plan on serving them the Pasteles I made with my BFF Millie in Florida to see how they like my Puerto Rican cooking skills. Maybe a little salad on the side and my day will be complete! Happy Mother's Day Weekend! I just looked at this blog post and my paragraphs aren't showing, I can't seem to make permanent the left side margins. and half the time the tool bars of how to change it aren't even available. I will muddle through this but why can't they just leave stuff alone?

The Windy City

2012-05-10T09:00:00.000-05:00

My mini Mac meltdown has settled a bit. Yesterday I left first thing in the morning and went into Chicago to see

my sweet little Violet and

to take her and her mom out to lunch. Notice that she is sporting one of her new headbands that Grandma made for her.

I brought her a few little outfits I purchased at a spanish clothing line

trunk show. They were a little different than baby clothes you see every day. Now I don't think she is trying to see what I paid for them (she'll never figure it out anyway; the prices are in euros!!!) but more likely she is trying to see if it's size 18 months, because that is the size that's coming up next.

Violet's mom, Maria, as she now calls herself (G has always introduced himself to anyone as Tommy's husband!) just so happened to have an commercial audition yesterday morning so it was perfect timing. I got to spend quality time with the little lady and Maria could take off and not worry. When she returned we went to a lovely lunch and then hit the local park which is fast becoming V's favorite place. When she saw us walking toward it she started to giggle in delight! She is a very cautious little girl and takes care to go up and down the various stairs and slides. She is still 'toddling' and looks as cute as a button walking around her park.

I left them after the baby was down for her nap and headed over to a relatively new Apple Store in the neighborhood that I lived in when I lived in Chicago, called Lincoln Park. I was very comfortable, knowing the area as well as I do. I went in the shiny glass

and steel building with lots of rehearsed excuses why I was in there, looking for assistance without having an appointment with the Genius Bar. I played the old lady/lives in Indiana/just came in the city at the last minute to babysit. I think I only needed to say I was incompetent and one of those people that just try and muddle through without reading any directions or doing the necessary research.

I was there for two and a half hours. My problem was mostly that I haven't updated for a long time; I've done the stuff that comes up on the system that tells me that updates are waiting but I seriously didn't know that you needed to update the whole system, with an update called Snow Leopard. That is what took so long. I was left with other things to update at home, including Mac OS Lion (which updates most of the applications on my computer) and an iPhoto update. Now every program looks different and I have a whole new learning curve with each of these changes. I am going to be a grownup and go slow and figure it out. I am also going to take a couple classes, one for sure being figuring out this iCloud, which I haven't a clue other than all my stuff would be floating? Something like that.

I had no intention of being gone so long and so leaving the city during rush hour put brutal time on my commute. I ended up having to call Bella's doggie day care and have them feed her and board her for the night. I couldn't make it back any time near the closing time. She's still there, because I may as well add a few more hours to her misery and have her bathed!! She's gonna kill me!!

Mac Crisis

2012-05-08T12:13:00.002-05:00

I am begging for help. I have a 12" block that I take a picture of with my new slr 35 mm with the menu for image quality at fine and the size of the image at large. I have a Mac and I automatically download pictures into iPhoto, the Mac photo software. I can view the photo info that the picture I just downloaded and it has enough pixels. When I straighten the quilt and crop the background to where I want it and click done, the pixels change and go down to an unacceptable size. This should not be rocket science.

I thought maybe I need some updates but when I go to the Apple icon there is only an update for iTunes. I know there are newer versions of iPhoto but it appears that to get an update I would have to update my hard drive for $499. Does that sound possible? I don't know what's going on but I am at my wits end. Anybody out there know what's with this?

Going Postal

2012-05-08T09:11:00.000-05:00

I am a little overwhelmed with all the packages, gifts, cards, to deal with not to mention the reinstalling my studio because the tile floor was changed to wood. I am going to do baby steps but want to show you a few of my goodies. By the way, I have the majority of the slice quilts and they are AMAZING!!!!! As soon as I come up for air I will send participants pics before everyone else sees them. We are still hoping for a visit to Houston by our quilts!!!

These are two gadgets that I got from my sis for my big birthday. She is a fan of the website joseph joseph for cool, out of the norm gadgets. This top one is a rotary peeler that is first a normal peeler, then you can rotate and get a new blade that will julianne and another that shreds. She knows I love this stuff.

This other thing she got me was a grater but it folds down to just lie flat and not take up lots of room. What a brilliant idea. Check out the website. I sure am.

Penny, one of the slice quilt participants was a doll and sent me a copy of her current cookbook. I haven't given it much attention as yet but I certainly will soon!

Gordon brought in the mail (we get out mail at work) and threw this ball at me and said it must be advertising. I figured he was right and went on to all sorts of other goodies to check out. Then a little while later I looked again and what do you know!!!!! Robbie, a slice participant and a cyber friend sent it to me through the regular mail!!!

It appears that the 'Have a Ball' is on the ball already and you can add whatever you want with a permanent marker. I would like to see my postman juggling a bunch of these balls. Talk about going postal!!!!

Home Again

2012-05-07T09:40:00.000-05:00

It's always very strange to come home after being gone for so long. Everything feels different and it's almost annoying because your comfort level has left the building. The drive was uneventful which is always a good thing. I did something that I never do for part of the drive; nothing. I don't know why but I didn't feel the need to constantly be entertained by doing something or reading something or listening and doing something. The sun wasn't harsh and beating down on me and that is always good. I am one of those travelers that hope for a cloudy day. Bella got to spend a lot of quality time on my lap. The temp was in the high 80º's for the whole trip. From Florida to northwest Indiana, we had just about the same weather.

G is big on unpacking the car immediately upon arrival. Me? not so much. I just want to go from sitting in the car to sitting on my butt in the studio. This time was no different. I first wanted to see if any of the thirty four things on my list of things that need to be tended to while we were gone were done. Some were completed; the big stuff - new carpeting and new flooring in the studio and laundry room along with resurfacing of the kitchen cabinet fronts. We had them redone about ten years ago and evidently there were not enough coats on them because the finish was wearing away at the handles on the most grabbed with dirty hands cabinets. I also had a couple doors that had some 'freezing'? I think that's what it's called when the surface isn't smooth but rather has a part that shines? All that stuff looks great.
Other stuff isn't completed which is always the case. The excuse is always the weather but having a month of mostly eighty degree weather is not gonna work too well this year. There was barely any snow and all the outside stuff could and should have been done. G is on the war path.

Safari is not working at all. I use it almost exclusively and never even thought to use Firefox until G suggested it. I am guessing that my Scrabble partners are having a hissy fit because I haven't played for lack of access. Oh well, it gives me time to unpack as well as pack up my Silent Auction SAQA donation and get it on it's way. I have a couple of wedding quilts that need to go into the mail also. We have two weddings in the next month. I'm back in the real world!!!!

'Pie In The Sky'

2012-05-04T09:05:00.000-05:00

Blogger has been very difficult since it changed a bunch of stuff. I have written the same thing more than a dozen times this morning and am growing very weary. I have now decided to type in Word and cut and paste and see if that works.

I had a lovely birthday and don’t plan on ending it just because the actual birth date has come and gone. I normally have a birthday season. Why not, because who’s gonna stop me? We had a lovely dinner with friends and best yet, we have leftovers from it for today. Yeah!!!

We are packing up to go north tomorrow. It’s not a major thing to do because I don’t cart clothes and shoes and anything like that back and forth. Just the stuff like the computer, camera, dog, G and the like. With blogger being on the blink and the fact that I always have difficulty posting on the road, I think I will give up the ghost and forget trying to blog for the next two days.

I have managed to finish the last thing I wanted to complete before I left. It’s this 12” block for the SAQA Benefit Auction that has been running each fall for several years.

It is called ‘Pie In The Sky’ and is a whole cloth glue resist quilt. The deadline is in June so I needed to get it done. When I get home I will have my hands full getting the group faced and sleeved and photographed so that we can possibly make it into the International Quilt Festival in Houston this fall. I can't wait to see the slices of the quilt that await me when I get home!!!!

A Benchmark

2012-05-03T08:33:00.000-05:00

Today is the day I can sign up for Social Security. Who knew, back when I was 15 that that card would mean anything to me. When you are young you think you will never get old and then all of a sudden you are. Wow. I am going to get a check in the mail!!!! Who knew?

At The Zoo

2012-05-02T09:37:00.001-05:00

There is something about the sun reflecting on one of the sliding glass doors in my studio because four birds have flown

into it and died in the last month. I didn't have G dispose of it right away because Bella was at the groomer and I didn't have any reason to go out of that door. Then it started to rain a bit and all of a sudden the bird was gone. We have no idea what happened to it. It was a light rain so that wasn't it and the bird was dead for hours so it wasn't that. G said it must have been a big snake. Yikes!!

About twenty minutes after the bird disappeared and the rain dried up, I look out the same slider and see two gecko's going at it. I feel like I am living in a zoo!!!!

I am busy getting all my stuff ready for the return north this weekend. I like to start gathering so that I don't wait until the last minute and then forget something. All I have to finish before we leave is the 12" block for the fall SAQA auction. I almost forgot about it!!