what's up with Blogger??

I'm not sure this will get out there in the ether at all. Blogger seems to be having even more issues than usual. Is anyone having similar problems? I can get half of my favorites on my sidebar to open. I keep getting this message

We're sorry, but we were unable to complete your request.
When reporting this error to Blogger Support or on the Blogger Help Group, please:
Describe what you were doing when you got this error.
Provide the following error code and additional information.
bX-vjhbsj

O.k.-All that aside, I went to Support and help group and got a bunch of crappy indecipherable non answers.
I know there are some of you who use different services besides Blogger-if you do, are you happy with it? Which one are you happy with. I see a lot of TypePad and it never seems to have problems. Is that a better service and does it cost a lot?
I realize that you may never actually read this since Blogger might be confounding you as well. This is really frustrating. Everyday there's some problem with them. Let me know and if you're not hearing from me it's not because I am ignoring you-Can You Hear Me Now?........Hellooooooo, Love you, Hate Blogger, Dee

Wip-less with stuff

Sorry about that-my husband took the camera to work to use for actual business related needs. PPFFT! The nerve of him taking HIS camera....This is a pic of some fabric I got this month from the Keepsake quilting medley of the month. Meh!

Anyway, what I'm working on is the final construction of my son's Asian inspired quilt, which I showed you all recently. Yesterday I went to JoAnn's and took the gift cards my BIL Bob gave me. The selection was so poor that I came home with more than half the cards and was hard pressed to find a good backing for the quilt. I obviously didn't want something with little flowers on it. It didn't have to be Asian and that's a good thing because even the Asian fabric they had was sucky. I finally found a nice deep rich red with black outlined ginko leaves. At least it will give him the option of having a nice backing. I also got a bunch of cream and beige that was on sale. I should have remembered that after the holidays it's "clear out the crap days" at JoAnn's and I need to wait a few more weeks for new stuff to come in. Disappointing. I did have better luck at Borders....OH BABY, did I have fun there. Again, thanks to my BIL Bob and my husband's generous gift cards and cash, I was able to find a whole mess o stuff. So I'm all stocked up with stuff to do because, as you all know, I had absolutely nothing to do before(NOT). I guess I better get moving since I have a few things I need to accomplish so I can begin work on the Asian quilt finish. See you tomorrow.

for Pam

This picture is for Pam. These are the prple fabrics I could find. The last two on the left are Aunt Grace 30s repros in fat quarters. The dark miffle piece is a Ginny Beyer and there's about a half yard-the next 3 are quarter pieces of hand dyes and the one on the end right is a deep purple by Marcus Bros with gold vines running through. It is 100% cotton but it has a chintz feel to it. it's never been washed so that may change. The 30s repros are brand new. I would send you whatever you like. If you don't like these I will have to search further tomorrow. Just let me know. here or e-mail me. I'll do a real entry tomorrow for WIP Wed. Hi y'all

Apple Trees and larceny

No quilt content today- I did finsh the quilt top for my son and later I will get the backing with my gift cards from JoAnns. If any of you have the opportunity to-please go to Deb Geyer's blog-it's down ther in the list on the right-she finished the quilt I donated and I am at aloss for words. It brought tears to my eyes. So pretty, Thanks Deb.

Gray Monday, at least we didn't get the snow that was predicted. I think that if we get a typical winter in the years ahead, which is a certainty, we will be freaked out. Most years we have so much snow that we run out of places to put it. Not to mention the ice dams that form in parts of the yard. Before we had the blacktop-the guys would have to go out with fat iron rods and break up the ice blocks. When spring came, there would be a constant river of mud, a lot of which would wind up on the floor in our house. It's one of the things that I admire about my MIL Dot. How she managed to live a lifetime with so much muck and silt to clean up. With 3 boys, I imagine it was pretty much a constant struggle.

This picture is of an area which runs between our house and the neighboring property. It's a kind of a no-man's land. It's on the backside of our property and the neighbors house. They have a yard service that comes and cares for the property, mows the great lawn but for the most part this piece of land is just a thicket of vines and fallen trees and shrubs. In the spring-this will be so thick with vines and berry bushes that you almost can't see the ground. It becomes the place where all the squirrels, chipmunks, birds and even some turtles and such, have free run. There used to be apple trees out there, unfortunately they were old and finally had to be taken down or fell by themselves in storms. The smell of apple blossoms is intoxicating. I miss it. I have this weird thing that would qualify for one of the "6 weird things" meme but I don't have time today for that. I try to be an honest person in my life. Dealing with others, and in my personal life. It's not easy. Life is full of temptations, as we all know. The thing is, when I was a kid, my Mom brought me from Germany to America when I was 3. She had little money and needed to work.She was a dentist in Germany but had no license here- Lacking anyway to care for my daily needs while she learned the language and got a job-she temporarily stuck me in an orphanage in the countryside of a suburb of St. Louis, Mo. It was the Methodist Children's Home on Kings Highway. I remember that for a number of reasons the biggest of which was when she was able to get a free few days, she would have me picked up in a cab and brought to her apartment for the weekend and then returned Sunday night also by cab. I was new to English at this age(new to any language at 3) and they made me memorize my address and where I lived so that if anything happened I could say where I belonged. Anyway....I digress, there was an apple orchard next door and a pear orchard across the road. Some of the apple trees had self generated on the orphanage property and there were also crab apple trees. I remember clearly climbing the trees and eating the fruit. I can remember raiding the trees next door for really good apples and I still have a vivid memory of the tornado that took down the huge pear tree across the road. I think they must have been given permission to pick whatever fruit remained for the children because I remember going across the road with baskets and getting the pears. Along with this, my memory holds being stung by the yellow jackets who wanted the fruit as much as we did. Funny thing, this was back in probably 1953-54 ish and I had always wondered what happened to the place. A number of years ago, when I was searching for my father, I decided to call our local Methodist church and the pastor who married my husband & I. I wondered if there was a way to locate this place and get any records they may have had? Eureka-It still existed and a very nice man said he would look for my records but that all records that old had been left in boxes in the basement and never processed to computer so he didn't hold out much hope. Sure enough, a couple of days later, this nice man called me and said he found all my records-thus allowing me to find my father in Kentucky. It was a long strange trip, as they say in the song. It was the moment that I realized that no matter what my mother had done or failed to do later in my life-she had done the right thing by taking me out of Kentucky. Going to visit my father was like stepping back in time. I could barely understand the accent and I'm sure they could hardly understand me. No one had an education past the 8th grade and many had been in jail for various offenses. They were tobacco farmers. My half-sister once told me that it was alright that I couldn't make it to the annual reunion in July since everyone would get drunk and be arrested by sundown anyway..I had a major case of culture shock. Please don't get me wrong, but I was raised to love education and reading and culture. I didn't know what to do with this group of people except to use them as a cautionary tale for what could have been. It was then that I realized what could have become of my life if she had stayed with my father. He was a very kind and loving man but it was clear ow things would have turned out. I hope that doesn't sound selfish-it's just the truth.He's gone now and I know he was happy to have seen me. He said so often to my relatives. That's really all I wanted to accomplish when I tried to find him, since my only memory of him is of him picking me up from my bed and telling me how much he would miss me always.

Anyway, I'll leave the rest of the tale for another day since you are probably snoring and just finish by saying that whenever I am anywhere near apple trees, fruit trees of any kind really-I become larcenous. I am willing to jump out of cars and steal fruit on the run. Guard your trees.The funniest of these incidents was when we went to the Shelburne Museum and the parking lot was full of fruit trees-I waited till no-one was around and scammed myself an apple-or so I thought. I took a bite and it turned out to be a crab apple that nearly choked me to death-such are the wages of sin! This is what happens when I stand at the window and remember the smell of apple blossoms and the beauty of those lost trees. It's a long road from there to here and the ride has been fine.