Giving Credit Where Credit is Due

In my last post the pictures shown were from Debbie Mumm's site. These are NOT our finished projects, there is NO way we can even dream about coming close to her/her staffs talent.

If you are a country type gal, save Debbie's site to your favorites, she has some wonderful home decor ideas, and currently there is a cute watering can wall hanging as one of her projects.

As Good As It Gets...

for now at least. I am done tinkering with my template at this point in time. Like it? I do. I am country at heart and these graphics speak to who I am.

It has been a busy few days, a good busy. While my niece, Mandy, and her daughter, MacKenzie, were here we managed to do a few crafty type things..but no sewing. We made candle holders out of old bed springs, can't invision it? I will post a picture as soon as I get them hung from the ceiling, then we painted some clay pots in which to make a couple of these bird baths and a set of lamps. The lamps are for my newly re-decorate/re-modeled bedroom, the birdbaths are gifts my niece will be giving to a couple of her friends for Mother's Day gifts.
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We also managed to get a few cards made but not nearly as many as we had hoped to.

Two summers ago I claimed the strip of lawn that connects our front yard to our back yard...named it my Courtyard and started creating a place to call my own. Put in a park bench, scalloped the lawn, added 2 wonderful topiaries, some yummy scented honeysuckles, beautiful clematis', a little of this and a little of that...a wonderful place to have my morning cup of coffee or a fresh glass of iced tea on a hot summer evening. Since I have added a couple of other Mary Engelbreit (my fav of all fav whisical artists) touches to my Courtyard I will be making one of these birdbaths to add as well.

On a quilty note: I got nothing to share NADA...ZIPPO...ZILTCH... but I am looking at patterns for a table topper. That is the best I can do. I have 3 quilts pinned and ready to zoom, they will be a quick finish --- so why am I stalled at getting them done? Your guess is as good as mine!

Well, it is almost the end of March..and thus far I have managed to be successful with my March goal: to keep my sanity! Today the call came that the second set of cabinets are not expected to be delivered until April 7...which is a Friday so they will not be here to uninstall the first set and install the second set until Monday the 10th. UGH...Another few wks yet. Looks like my April goals will be the same as my March goals. Let's see if I can do this gracefully.

Under Construction...Please Pardon The Mess

Sorry about the colorful page...I might even qualify to be a Maverick with all the different colors going on here!! It got late last night and I just couldn't keep my eyes open one more second to fix this mess...it'll happen...and it's gonna be good~well, at least it'll be what it will be!

You would think I had all the time in the world....

....to do nothing but play with my blog template for days on end. Actually, yesterday I wasn't feeling too good so I came home from the office a bit early, got into my jammies (Mary Engelbreit - scotty dogs & cherries), turned on the computer, the basketball games, grabbed a glass of water and parked myself right here...and did nothing at all...nothing but play with my template and chat.

I think it is my OCD showing! LOL.

I really enjoy knowing how things work. What makes things go. As a child (and yes, sometimes even now!) I would push a button or turn a lever not fully knowing what the consequences might be. Push this button - drinking water would come out that hole. But how? Turn that little silver thing, keep turning, keep turning - oops, now no water coming out that little hole??? So this little silver knob on this pipe is connected to the water that comes out of that hole...Oh my mother knew not to turn her back on me. Much later in life I actually took apart my sewing machine, put it back together and did not end up with extra parts!! Yay me! As long as it doesn't have anything to do with auto grease I am game!

So...with all that imbedded in me of course I had to dig into the workings of my template. I actually have had some instruction, our youngest son is an IT and streamlined his education to graduate high school with several computer education certificates as well. He has been a great help to me from time to time, but he lives in San Diego - he gets bugged by so many people about computer issues as is, so unless it is an emergency I try not to ask too many questions until he comes home (He will be home May 18...I am making a list!)

I have played with this template for a while, (actually have 2 other blogs that I contribute to and have played with those a bit too) and now I am thinking of stepping it up a bit and designing my own template (did you hear my son just groan??)...again...can we all say "OCD"?

Be watching...you never know what changes you might see.

On another note: I called in to the office today. Yep, taking the whole day off. I never do that and already feel a bit guilty. We have out of town company coming tomorrow, our house is still in limbo, MCM looks like a bomb went off in it, the guest room is still a storage area for half of our kitchen...blah blah blah...so I stayed home to try and make a dent in this mess before someone shows up to declare our home a national disaster area. I really don't feel 100% better so am justifing it that way...and I have sick time stocked up so isn't that what it is there for? Ok, just trying to convince myself it is ok to be home when I should be at the office, hubby has been known to call me a work-aholic from time to time.

On yet another note: it was sad to see Gonzaga lose last night, we have watched them move up the ranks over the last few years and we were really hoping they would continue on a bit further, maybe even to the final 4.

OK, on with the day...would have been an easier day to go to the office, but then I would have still had all this to do once I got home...so better get at it and make the most of the day.

My Baby Boy is Home

OK, so lately I haven't been posting many quilty related messages...sorry, but you all already know I have had other things going on in my home...so bear with me a bit longer...should be over in the next couple of weeks and I can get back to a normal (what is normal??) routine and this blog just might return to being a quilt related blog.

In the mean time....here is what happened at our home last night....

Our oldest son, Roy, is a fisherman...not a "grab your pole and head to the pond for the afternoon" type fisherman, but the get on the ship and don't get off for 3-4-5 months type fisherman. His ship arrived in port this past weekend, last night we were finally able to talk with him...it is always good to hear about the latest antics of 500 people stuck on a ship out in the middle of the Bering Sea for months on end, but I love to hear about his reunion with his wife and 2 young children. Instead of them heading back to their home (90 minutes from the shipyard) they usually spend the first couple of days as a family holed up in a motel~just the 4 of them, catching up before they make themselves available to others.

Our grandson, JJ(Jason), is 3 years old and what a card he is...and a charmer to boot!!! We don't get to see JJ and his 4 yr old sister, Maddie(Madelyn), very often because they live so far away, but we do spend an incrediable amount of time talking to them on the phone. So...last night, after I spoke with Roy for a while JJ was insisting that he get to talk to me. OK, JJ gets on the phone and says, in his sweet precious little 3 year old voice, "Grandma, your baby boy is at my home." ??? Huh??? What was he trying to tell me, I didn't get it. "My baby is home?" "No, grandma, your baby boy is at my home." This went on for a few minutes and soon Roy and Naomi were on the other end of the conversation trying to figure out what JJ meant, and Ed and I were trying to figure it out as well. The more we worked at understanding him the funnier he seemed to think it was, but he stuck with it until we figured it out!

All of the sudden I remembered a conversation JJ and I had back in September, shortly after Roy had arrived home from a 5 month trip. I asked JJ what his favorite part about having daddy come home was and he said (in his then 2.5 yr old voice) "wrestling" to which I told him to please be careful with my baby boy. It took a while but I worked hard trying to explain to him that baby boys grow up and become daddy's, trying to get him to understand that his daddy was my baby boy. Oh good grief, I might as well have been telling him that his sister was a monkey...that would have been a bit easier to convince him of, I am sure! Now...7 months later he is telling ME that my baby boy is home!

As soon as I realized what he was saying I just cracked up!! That little guy had stored that info and saved it up...then when his daddy gets off the ship the next time, 7 months later, he pulls it out of his memory and teases me with it!!

My oldest baby boy and His baby boy

Have I mentioned I love being a grandma??

Keeping me company

This is Akria, he is our Master...and would tell you so if you asked him! This is how he keeps me company in My Creative Mind....It took him a while to get used to his perch...but now this is where you can find him if he is in the house and not bugging us.
As soon as I get on the laptop this is where you will find him. He gets up here and will not budge! If there is an animation on the computer, or if my blog is open and the crawl is showing at the bottom he will bat at the screen...good thing he is de-clawed. So...now you have met the Master. (BTW, Akria means King...and yes, he knows it!)

Spontaneous Quilting Sesson

A group of friends here in town decided at the last minute to sew together this wknd. Everyone is making quilts for WTIL, we are working towards the goal of 100 quilts. So, last night my granddaughter and I joined a few others and "a sewin' we did go"!

I found a couple of old kits and gave KatieBug the one with no bias pieces....she is no way near ready for bias but sure she does have a mean straight and even 1/4 in seam for an 8 yr old! (yes, that is a prideful gma speaking)

I had a set of JoAnn's BOM kits from several years back, paid 50 cents for them on clearance. They are bowties and did not have the heart to send them to LindaJ since she has done so many bowties lately.

I have 2 tops to pin, Garden Pinwheels and the 1999 Friendship Stars, so will do that when I pin whatever tops we manage to get done this weekend, then it will be zoom lines or outlining to get the tops quilted and do the binding by machine. These next 70 days (before we leave for our vacation and to visit an orphange) will go fast and I am already feeling a bit of pressure to get as much done as possible.

Kitchen update:
Thursday night we met with the shop owner. He totally admitted 100% fault and reordered our cabinets as well as paid the plumber to install our sink temporarily, which happened yesterday morning. A SINK~~~~~oh the pleasures of water in the kitchen!!!

I am sorrry he has to eat the cost of the added labor and materials...but like I said, he admitted fault. He did offer us a huge discount if we would keep these cabinets, to which my dear hubby basically said, thanks but no thanks.

I really wanted (and expected) this to be over and done with by now, but the new cabinets will not be in until April 7...ugh...another 3 wks of this, but like I have said, I am immune to the boxes all over the livingroom and kitchen...I have enjoyed using up the leftover paper plates from various holidays...at least now we have a stove, oven and sink!

Maybe a pic or two posted later this evening...for now, my granddaughter is itching to get back to the sewing machine and I am still in bed, enjoying my second cup of coffee and a nice chat with LindaJ online.

When the Going Gets Tough, the Tough Go Shopping!

Table topper? Hot pads? Placemats?

This, That and Something Else

Yes, I have been AWOL for a few days....our server is freaking out...not sure what is going on but I am seldom able to get online. I attempted to contact a service representative but there was a language barrier...I won't even get into that!

No sewing at my house. I did manage to get the blocks done for a L&E project, but the top is not together. It will be waiting for me when I can get back to it.

Bedroom Update: we are moving right along with that project, minus the painting and hanging of pictures, which is on our summer project list. It is amazing how many pairs of socks one can have...how many pairs of blue jeans...how many neck ties. The socks are gone...the blue jeans are now in a bag for my niece who has been collecting jeans for a beach quilt...the neck ties are waiting for a few more neck ties and then will be made into a quilt for one of my boys. We removed a couple of pieces of furniture, and moved the rest of it around. I have the old closet door to sand down and then we will mount it on the wall as a headbord (turned sideways, I have been looking for an old door for months! Hubby asked me the other day why our no longer needed closet door wouldn't work DUH..it is EXACTLY what I was looking for, right under my nose!)

It was a joy to work on our bedroom all day yesterday because...

Kitchen Update: Upon arriving home from the office on Friday evening, I walked into a house with beautiful new cabinets and almost but not quite finihsed countertops. As I stepped over and around the tools and whatnot on the floor, admiring our new kitchen, something just did not "feel right". Ed had called earlier in the day to tell me the cabinet doors were wrong, and they would order new ones and just switch them out, so I figured that was what was wrong. The 2 guys installing the countertops were out in the yard when it dawned on me, I about threw up...these are not the cabinets we ordered. These are beautiful, but they are NOT the ones we ordered!! Wrong color, wrong style. How this happened and how it got this far without someone noticing I will never know.

At first I was not too frustrated over it, but as the wknd has moved along I am just sick about it-can't even walk into the kitchen without crying. The owner of the company (who helped us design the kitchen and took our order) is out of town until Wednesday, it takes 10 days to make the cabinets, 2 to install...we are looking at over 2 more wks before this will be corrected. Another added "bonus" we have been without a washer because it is connected to the kitchen sink line. Undies washed by hand again this wk! At least we have a dryer and we can always go to the kids' house to wash clothes.

So...there you have it, the long and short of why I have not been around...and most likely will not be around for a while. I just want to hole up in My Creative Mind and not come out for hmmm, let's say 3-4 wks!

Oh, did I mention we have out of town company coming for a week on March 24th? And it is our year to host the Final Four Championship Game? Joy Joy Joy!

It Was Bound to Happen

For a while I could post comments on blogs, and could even create a new post for my own blog. Then I could create a new post for my blog but couldn't post comments to others blogs...then I couldn't post to my own blog...now I can no longer view "personal pages" on my system at work!!! I knew it was only a matter of time.

I work in the field of investments and banking...knew we had a high security setting on our systems but really didn't think they would go so far as to block personal pages from being viewed...but they did...so now I can't even read from work! I guess I am not getting paid to see what everyone is up to each day, but it sure was nice to be able to check in from time to time when there was a lull at the office.

Such is life!

Not much quilting is going on at my house. I did get 12 blocks done from some leaders and enders before going to bed last night, and no, it was not on my March to do list, but nothing on my March list was calling my name for the 20 or 30 minutes I had to spend sewing. I think I will remove my to do list for March. The kitchen/bedroom remodel is calling my name and I can't settle down to anything that requires brain cells.

Kitchen RemodelUpdate:
Yep, they are about a day and a half behind schedule. Isn't bugging us too much as we have so much to do in the bedroom that we don't really have time to be frustrated YET. Tomorrow we are suppose to be able to start painting. If we can get the painting done they will hang cabinets on Thursday~pending the cabinets arrival in our teeny tiny, out-in-the-boonies, town.

We had hoped to paint over the wknd...when that was not possible we just made up our mind that it was a good thing so that we could concentrate on the bedroom. We made great progress and feel that we are ahead of the game in there ~ so are about even for the whole remodel.

Momma and Her Flower Fairies Quilt

Finally Blogger has decided to be nice and is allowing me to post some pictures of momma recieving her Valentine's Day gift. I have been trying to remember what year she began working on this quilt. The best I can narrow it down to is 1998. My parents, my hubby and our youngest son had gone to Seattle to visit with our oldest son while he was in college and of course momma and I had to take a quilt run! She saw a beautiful quilt hanging on the wall and decided that was the one she and daddy would have on their bed...she purchased everything she needed to make it exactly like the one in the shop (with the exception of the backing - - only because the shop did no have enough and it was out of print!) took it all home...washed, ironed and squared up her yardage, then cut the whole thing out...all of it...for a queen size bed. Labeled each section of cut pieces and stacked them all in a couple of pizza boxes. She went to work right away on getting the double 9 patches done and then added the setting squares and got it all in strips. Then she suffered a major stroke. This is the only bed quilt she ever started for herself. Rarely did she make anything for herself, there was always a project on the machine for someone else. When I packed up her sewingroom, and removed the pieces of this quilt from her design wall I thought maybe I would bring it home and get it done ASAP. Then life happened and I did not get to it for a couple of years. My father's health declined, we moved them both to a facility where they could still be together, daddy died exactly one month later.


This first picture is of her opening her gift,
with the sudden realization of what it was. He expression is priceless.

Why don't I ever remember the video camera setting at a time like this? I would have loved to share her complete reaction with my sister.

Here she is examining it,

it is beautiful!

I may have finished this, but she started it.

I applauded her over and over again

for her workmanship,

I think she was pleased with herself.

Since she had strips done all I had to do was sew enough of them (5 strips) together and then add borders. The borders are not what she planned when she started making this, but this is the adjustment I needed to make to get it to fit the extra long twin size bed she now has at the care center. It sure has brightened up her room!