Color Riot for Late Summer

The hibiscus is providing a little shade for my happy little Buddha. The coleus is nearing the end of its beautiful cycle. Those were the smallest plants when I put them in. I really love coleus. You really get your moneys worth and very big bang for the buck.

Sorry for the odd angle but I had this one draped over a chair. I had enough Holly Jolly pieces to make another little wall hanging and there are still more to make other things with. It's really amazing how much you can get out of those little charm packs and a couple of fat quarters. Roger is taking Fridays off until the end of September. He has some days off coming to him and needs to take them or they will be lost. A 4-day work week sounds like a great idea for him right now. Long weekends are wonderful. I plan to sew the bindings on the mini quilts and put this last one together for binding. That should keep me busy. Well, that and the usual crap like laundry...

Books & Late Summer Light

It's that time of year when the light changes and turns a little blue. Our Chestnut tree is dropping leaves and chestnuts like mad. You can just stand there and watch the leaves fluttering to the ground, all yellow and transparent. Like rice paper. So different from the strong, green, opaque, leaves of summer. While not really a "summer" person, I can't help being a little melancholy about fall. If things go as usual, we will have warm weather well into November so it's not about the temps at all. It's just that even though January is supposed to be the beginning of the year, to me, fall is really the end. Winter is much too close.

I have a couple of books to look forward to though. "The Guernsey Library and Potato Peel Society" looks to be a winner. It's about the German occupation of the isle of Guernsey during the second world war. The book consists of many letters written by residents of the island and I'm looking forward to reading it. The second book is not out yet but I put the picture up for gratuitous yumminess. Your welcome. I don't think Gordon's book is out till November.

I've got a lot of letters to write today for the Pantry so I better get to the grocery store and take care of other errands so I can get to that. Not much sewing going on today. Maybe tomorrow.

Laid back Labor day Weekend

This morning, while it was still quiet, I was catching up with the blogs. I noticed Libby, one of my favorites, showed some adorable, very simple, small pieces she was working on. As she noted in her blog, when you cut pieces for one of these it's nearly impossible not to cut more than you need and wind up with enough for at least one more-possibly two more. Here are the two I put together the other day and they just need binding. I have another not quite put together yet so there will be three. I just wanted something fast and something to do a little bit of handwork on. Simple and fast and cute..no??? I needed to have some small pieces for gifts and this will get me pretty much done in that department. I can move on to finishing other things after the Labor Day hubbub.

We are having a nice weekend just enjoying each others company. The weather is delightful and my BIL Bob has gone into the city for a trip to Ellis Island with friends and then on to a great Italian restaurant. James and Dani are off to Target and other errands. I'm just checking in to say Hi! while I have a moment. Hope your weekend is as much fun.

I'll be back with come book talk soon. I found a bunch of great books on the horizon and that is exciting since, in my opinion, the book world is a little bleak lately. Fall looks to be a bit better.

Talk to you soon

Good book, but now I'm hungry!

I'm currently reading several books. That's nothing new but it drives my husband crazy. How can you read many books at once??? You keep some upstairs and some downstairs and they are very different so you don't really mix up any story lines. I'm a big fan of biography and auto biography. I think there is almost nothing better than a book about someone who lives in another country writing about their life there. Can't begin to name ll the great books that I've read along those lines. Many have a lot to do with travel and cooking. Those are my favorite. This past year I have read several that were really so interesting that I would go back and read them again. "Heat", by Bill Buford is one. It's the story of his year spent cooking in the kitchen of Mario Batali. A very fun read. Mario is just enough of a nut job to make it even more fun. I'm currently reading "Last Days of Old Beijing" by Michael Meyer. It's the story of his life in Beijing in the years leading up to the Olympics and how the government transformed the area surrounding the Forbidden City and Tienanmen Square by razing the hutongs where thousands of people had lived for centuries. In his descriptions of various scenarios he records his daily life there as a teacher in one of the remaining hutong. An old woman who lives in the courtyard nearby cooks for him and daily serves him steaming bowls of noodles or dumplings in hot broth. On another say he visits the noodle shop where another family is waiting the fate of their business. They make shaved noodles in pork broth with scallions, mushroom and spicy bean curd. I don't recommend this book to anyone who is not really interested in the minutia of the changing China. Parts of it are fascinating and parts I have skipped by to get the the noodles and dumplings. All in all a pretty good read though-if you like that stuff and I do. Yesterday I picked up a copy of Sue Grafton's latest, "T is for Trespass" and I'm enjoying it so much I could hardly put it down last night. I read 3/4 of the book yesterday and that should tell you how much other stuff I got done(0).I was happy to find that I really liked it since the last couple have left me kind of cold. This one moves right along and the story interests me because it has a story line that is all too familiar to me right now. One of my friends has an 82-year-old father who is in the throws of dementia and a younger woman has moved in on him and of all things, they went and got married last week. Within 3 days there were thousands missing from a bank account and things are not looking good. Anyway, I had no idea what the plot of this book was but when I started reading I said, WOW does this remind me of that situation. My friend's father lives down south and they are holding their collective breath until they can get down there in a week or so. That'll be some hot time in the south! But I digress....the book is great and an interesting read.

We are getting the house ready for a visit from our dearest friends from Pennsylvania. They were so wonderful when we recently had our problems and hospital adventures that I can't wait to see them and spend some serious time making a fuss over them. For the time being, I'm really not doing much sewing. After our friends leave I'll get back to work again. If you don't hear from me don't worry. Roger seems to be doing well on his meds and we're in a holding pattern for now.

I only have one problem right now and it's not having access to those dumplings you see above. They are soup dumplings and if you go into lower Manhattan to Chinatown you can get a bowl full for a couple of bucks. They are very big and when you bite into them there is soup inside. It's all a big messy thing but my mouth is watering thinking about it. Unhappily for me Chinatown is 45 miles of horrible roads away. Hmmm.

We're home & Main St.

I finally got Roger home and he's doing well. They have given him new meds and he will take a couple of days to see how that goes. Fingers crossed. Both of us are really beat so I'll keep it short. Thanks to all of you who left nice comments and private e-mails. You really made me feel good.

I've gotten nothing accomplished so I have a few pictures of the village to fill the void. This is a picture looking up from the harbor. Today is Tuesday and if it's Tuesday here it's Family night in the village. They close off the lower part of town and allow some antique car owners to park there for show and have many different types of fun activities. If I'm not mistaken tonight is ugly hair night and I imagine there will be some really wild & hairy folks trying for the prize. There's usually some music-various local groups and , of course, no party would be complete without food vendors and junk food of some sort. Of course if it's Italian night there may be zeppoli and they are great. For those who don't know what zeppoli are-they are fried dough in the manner of doughnuts covered with powdered sugar and in a brown paper bag. The farther away you are from the purchase of the zeppoli the more the bag will be covered with oil and then they are basically belly bombers. No one in their right mind would touch a cold zeppoli. However, hot and crispy, they are the bomb.

We will not be attending this since we have no will power and don't want to wind up in the hospital with zeppoli-related injuries.

I'll talk to you soon.

Take two

We are back in the hospital again with more of the same and no definite answers. Roger is still in A-fib and it's not returning to normal this time and staying there. He's understandably down in the dumps and needless to say, no matter how nice they try to make the hospital experience, it's still an icky place to be. They gave him a hamburger of unknown origin yesterday and a package of artificially flavored no- salt Ketchup substitute...hmmmmm. A hungry Roger is an unhappy Roger.

I'll be back with news when I can. Meanwhile I have errands. My new glasses are in so, on the way to the hospital I will stop and pick them up. Maybe things will look rosier through new glasses?Thanks for all the nice thoughts and comments from last time. It's great to have friends.

oooops! & More Holly Jolly

As you can see by looking at the blocks here, just when you think you're being soooo careful-lookee what happens. This is a perfect illustration of why working with stripes is a little hairy. I even cut out all the components in advance and laid them out in the pattern and still screwed it up. Well, even though they probably wouldn't have me, I guess I may qualify for the Quilt Mavericks group without even trying. Wonky blocks are us!Gwen Marston would be proud. I will keep going and try not to screw up too much more although, in the spirit of having at least one more wonky block(just to make it seem like I meant to do that-Haa!)I may screw up another this afternoon. Watch and see, now that I want to make a wonky block I won't be able to do it to save my life.

In the process of getting all the pieces cut nice and neat and lined up I committed a cardinal sin of quiltmaking. Thou shalt not leave they rotary cutter open or try to do something with it open in your hand. I gave myself a good nick on my left index finger by doing just that. The thing about a cut with a rotary cutter is that initially a small itty bitty nick goes almost without notice until the bleeding starts. You would have thought I hit an artery for cripe sakes. I am now bandaged and I think I'll have a cup of tea and a calming break before I begin again.

Since I couldn't wait to break open this fabric till I had an actual plan-I goofed around and made this little star. I will probably make a multiple bordered little quilt out of it just for fun.

Not much else happening here-the weather is stormy again and it's starting to affect my sinuses with a big time headache. Maybe I'll have a couple of tylenol with that tea. Later gators

Holly Jolly quilt & Good Reads

I got all my packets of Holly Jolly fabric out and decided I needed a little bit of a challenge. So many of the things I've made lately have been simple squares and quick fixes that I wanted to make a block with these fun fabrics that was a little more complicated. It's a modified flying geese and I'm having fun. It takes a bit of paying attention. The picture is clickable. Complicated is a good thing since it keeps me away from snacking and food in general. I'm trying to set a better example for the family. That's really hard. Anyway, I know this little quilt will be very bright and cheery for the holidays. Which holidays are yet to be seen since if you're familiar with my work habits that could translate to some Christmas in the distant future. I'm trying to keep it real and hope to see it up on the wall this year.

If you're a murder mystery fan like me, here are to of my favorite standbys. Janet's books are like eating popcorn. Nothing fancy about them and they make you laugh in the bargain. She's found an interesting formula, in the style of Sue Grafton's ABC Murder series. These are much less complicated and the sort of thing you want to read when your brain hurts. Faye Kellerman is a big favorite of mine and I've loved nearly everything she has written. I'm not crazy about the series that started a couple of years ago which highlights the daughter of the detective in her other books. Can't say why, but I just didn't love it and I love Faye's books otherwise ever since she wrote "Ritual Bath", one of the best books describing that Jewish tradition as part of the mystery. I spent some time as a child living with a Jewish family who kept Kosher and followed the wonderful, rich, tradition that is followed in that faith. Faye Kellerman knows her stuff and has, in my opinion, added a very rich layer to an already great murder mystery. This is a good one. In fact, in recent years, I think Faye has outdone her husband Jonathan Kellerman, another of my favorite writers. The last few books of his were good but a little ho hum. These are, as I said, fun books. A bit of light summer reading.

I must get back to the flying geese and the Holly Jolly....and, of course, the omnipresent laundry drudgery.

Hope you have a laundry-free day and a good read!

Stormy Weather & Quiltathon

This is about all I accomplished for the Quiltathon. Life has just gotten in the way. I began this as a piece for over the bed in our room several years ago. It has been a learning experience for what not to do and why the rules are sometimes very important. I am the Queen of not reading directions and also the Queen of carelessness. Does it matter if you do paper piecing and not all the paper is off the seams-YES! yes it does. Especially if you plan to hand quilt it. Does it matter if you don't trim the multiple layers behind the paper carefully? YES! It does matter and if you don't you will have a big hairy mess of fabric to try and pull a needle through resulting in many un-lady-like angry words and bloody fingertips. I have a dear friend who loves this piece and it is pretty so I can't seem to let it go. Stitches have been ripped out and it looks like I may just tie it to death. Possibly just outline quilting the lanterns. It will always remind me of how important basics are and a shortcut will cost you in the end. "Sloppy work habits are us!" That's my new motto. Well...that and stop eating crappy food, but I digress. This is the only Quiltathon-type work I accomplished but I was sewing along with you all. Sorry about that Judy. I will be prepared for the next one.

Yesterday, we had another wild summer storm. Not all that unusual for summer by the sea. This one, however, was very violent but not in the usual way. First it got so dark I couldn't see from one room to the other. It was like midnight. Then the wind kicked up and thunder & lightening....but wait....what's all that noise??? Wow, it's walnut and quarter-sized hail coming down in buckets. It banged and pinged off of the roof and the noise of it hitting my car didn't make me feel too good about the possible pits in the gelcoat. The yard looked like it does after a hurricane. Branches and leaves and actual walnuts all over the place. I grabbed the phone and a pillow and got ready to head to the basement since they were warning of tornadoes. It was a doozy. I never had to go to the basement, thank goodness, but it did give me the creeps..a lot!After it ended the air was so clean and it was chilly. The temp. was about 63. That's unheard of in August on the Island. Real crisp fall-like air. Just beautiful. When Roger came home he found the garbage can but the lid was about 3 blocks away in a stormy puddle of leaves where someone had kindly run it over several times.

The picture is clickable and that is big white blobs of hail. We didn't lose the power so I kind of enjoyed all the excitement.

I'm aiming for a more quiet experience today with some possible sewing thrown in.

Thanks for stopping by.

happy dance

Thank you all so much for your kind wishes and prayers for Roger. We have much to be thankful for. There are no blockages in his heart and he will see the cardiologist to get meds for the A-fib. Aside from a really uncomfortable wrist where they went in with the catheter to his heart, Roger is feeling really well. We are both so tired mostly from the mental strain of these past couple of weeks. Five hospitals in 2 months is a record we hope not to repeat anytime. Since the lesion on his wrist has to be handled very carefully and he really can't do much with that hand, I've been trying to help as much as I can. Considering what could have been it's a small price to be paid and I pretty much love making a fuss over him anyway.

Thanks, again, for all the good vibes and I'll be checking around soon to see what everyone is up to. Bless you all for thinking of us.

virtual toe-tapping here....

I'm tapping my toes and thanking goodness I don't bite my nails or my fingers would be bleeding. Roger is going in for a cardiac catheterization tomorrow morning. I have a million things to do and can't focus on anything so I imagine his head is just about spinning right off his head as well. We are hugging each other close and praying for all to be well. Thanks to all of you who were nice enough to send me e-mails with good thoughts. You make the day much brighter. In an effort to keep my mind from going in even more weird directions than usual, I have been checking out what everyone is up to and looking at the stash enhancement that came home with me from Pennsylvania. The bag was still sitting on the floor untouched so I opened and fondled a bit this morning. Above you will see only two of the things that jumped into my bag. The applique-looking square was all by itself and looking for a home. Since I doubt seriously that I'll be doing anymore intricate applique-this will fill the bill and look pretty hanging on the wall without too much more than a bit of a border. They attached panel with a bunch of leaves as part of the purchase so I'll probably just machine applique them down on a small border and call it pretty. I found the Posh fabric by Moda that I had been looking for(yay) so I can attempt to make a basket quilt that looks even half as good as Nicole's of Sisters Choice. I have coveted that quilt ever since I saw it months ago and now I can make one myself..sometime. Posh fabric is not available anywhere but some nice lady from Virginia had one fat 1/4 pack left and I hemmed and hawed about it and finally ran back and bought it. I also got a couple of white on white small pieces just because I love having them to work on between things and then they look so pretty. One of several that I got is a Christmas wreath and I'll try to get that sandwiched together soon. It's a great take along project and they are only a large 12 inch square so it's mindless stuff when you're looking for that kind of relaxing thing.

This morning my friend Tommy has pictures of her yearly golf outing and they not only made me laugh but for a while I was speaking in pirate lingo since that was the theme of the costumes this year. I'm not sure but I think last years costumes were medical themed- I know they were funny as well. Anyway, I've since calmed down a bit but once you start that "ahoy matey" stuff it's very hard to let go...yarrr. The pictures are hilarious and make me wish even more that I lived near Tommy. Between the cooking and the parties there's never a dull moment around the Fitzsimmons house.

I could show you more stuff but since I've accomplished nothing sewy or quilty I'll parcel out the pictures more another day. If you have a minute and feel so inclined, say a little prayer form my darling. He's everything to me.

Hope your day is a lovely one.

back next week

Our internet connection is up and down and a repairman can't come till Monday so I won't be around till next week.
Talk to you soon.

Hershey gets no kisses from us

Before I begin the rant on Hershey Lodge I want to thank my friend Cindra for this sweet award. She said such nice things about me on her blog it made me blush. Thanks Cindra! I have such wonderful friends in the blogosphere that I really can't single out any one and of course sending it back to Cindra(who would certainly be one) seems silly. My favorite folks are listen in my links and too many to name here cause I want to make lots of room to tell you how much Hershey Lodge sucks! Anyway, love you Cindra and tell us about your diet because I really need to be the food police around here from now on.

And now for something completely different. Let me just say that the Hershey show itself is pretty much fun. It's fairly typical, not too big(about like Lancaster) but the vendor area is very large and fully stocked with lovely things to separate you from your money painlessly. Many dollars later, I enjoyed it a lot. My husband took lots of pictures but there was a sign indicating that pictures were not to be used for blogs. I'm unsure how much I could get away with so for the time being I'm going photo less. The one thing I did see which made me smile all over was "Mother Earth and her Children" What a piece of work that is. You could just stand and look at it all day. Amazing. It's been on other blogs and I'll look for a picture later but if you get a chance to see it...wow what an amazing quilt. The detail and perfection of that one piece was inspiring.

Lets chat about the Hershey Lodge. I'll be brief...don't go there. If you must go there-bring food with you. They are un-equipped to feed large groups of people and the chef should hide his head in shame to call himself a cook of any caliber. Apparently we were told that he is new and very much disliked by everyone and can't cook. We had a mess of problems with the place including the fact that they charged $17.50 for what I'll laughingly call a luncheon buffet and they don't serve diet soda. Have you ever been anywhere where you can't get a diet soda???? Anyway the "buffet consisted of a giant bowl of tuna salad, some tired looking plates of baby spinach, cole slaw, potato salad, and a hero with virtually no meat on it. It was dry and gaggy-horrible and outrageous. We couldn't get into a restaurant for dinner because they have only one place that serves sit down dinner and the wait was an hour and forty five minutes for a $45 steak-nothing else-just steak. Everything is ala carte. We went back to our room and ordered room service(only 45 min. there) and had very little served on a plate, cold and un-appetizing. Again, no diet soda and nothing without sugar. Roger is diabetic. I could go on but suffice to say we will not go to stay in the Hershey Lodge again. Hideously over priced and very poorly run. It's sad really. It used to be a nice place. By the way. It doesn't smell like chocolate anymore and there are no Hershey bars on checking in. The Hershey family sold out to a giant conglomerate and the place reeks of being run by bean counters now. I can just see a bunch of talking heads estimating the cost savings of removing the free chocolate bars at sign in. Very sad state of affairs in Hershey.

I have many things to catch up with such as the ever present laundry back up so I'll keep it short(ha!). We went to see our friends in Lock Haven and my darling boyfriend had another A-fib. We wound up on a medical adventure in the midst of Pennsylvania. Our friends drove us to one hospital nearby and they didn't have a cardiac care unit so they didn't want to chance doing much but stabilizing him. They transferred us by ambulance to Williamsport hospital where there is a wonderful unit with people on the ball and so we had what is being described as Roger's Big Pa. Adventure. My BIL Bob and son James drove out to bring us home yesterday and Roger sees his cardiologist today. I don't know what we would have done without Rich and Diane. They are more like family all the time. Actually they're better than family for me since my family(except for my brother Pete) are all lunatics. They are the kind friends that you thank God for. What a gift to us both to have them in our lives.

I'll keep you posted but for now Roger converted back to sinus rhythm and is feeling pretty good.

We are home and ten minutes from the hospital and his Dr. so we could sleep last night again.

I'll be back as soon as I can stuff my heart back down into my chest.

Here's where I'll be.

Two days to Hershey! Wahoo!! I'll be a little busy for the next day or so and then we will be in PA at the Quilt show and visiting friends. I'll take pictures and be back next week. Hope you are doing something fun that involves staying cool and happy!

Additional Passion needed

I need about 3 more rows of these squares for the Lavender Passion. This is the result of sloppy planning and not following a pattern. That would be me all over. Not a problem. I have enough fabric to make a few more rows. and I'll tackle that soon. I'm showing this because I was sewing in the Quiltalong with Judy. Wish I could say I got more accomplished but just getting all the rows together is as much as I could get done these past couple of days. I did a lot of work on a redwork embroidery piece as well but I don't have a picture of that to show yet.

I just got to thinking and wondering if I'm supposed to be sewing the quilt that Judy is making or is this a day for just sewing anything? I'm so confused. She has both these things going. Oh Well! I'll have to go back and check her blog.

We had our Thurs. quilting evening last night and despite the super heated temps, it was a funny night. We were all very silly and had a lot of laughs. It was really good to be together. My friend Terry is finishing a Christmas stocking for her son that she started when he was little. He's nearly 30 now and she's having trouble seeing the cross stitch. I mentioned that I had a table cloth given to me to cross stitch by a former MIL from another marriage-I won that round!Of course being older than both of them gives me a somewhat unfair advantage. I've had longer to accumulate crap.

Well, I'm off to the store for some veggies and such. It's a million degrees and humid so a nice salad is called for.

Hope you have a great weekend.

Hangin' in the ER with my Honey.

Here's a picture of the newly renovated Huntington Hospital. We had made it our business not to go there for any reason for a very long time. The other night Roger got strange fluttering heartbeats and racing pulse so I took him to the ER. Unfortunately we picked a night when they were so over-loaded with patients that we wound up at the front desk. Roger on a gurney and me waiting. They did put him right into the action since cardiac patients are triaged first. Got him hooked up to various machines and turned out he had A-fib. That's where his arterial chambers were not firing in sync with the others. We got there around 8 Sunday night and I finally saw him stabilized and left for home at about 4 am. It was a long evening and the hospital was so full that he wound up in the ER room where I picked him up in the a.m. after a visit from his cardiologist. He was most happy to see me. Among the other visitors to the ER while we were there was a screaming 17-year-old crack addict who called the nurses really vulgar names and had to be restrained by several of Suffolk Counties finest. It was quite the night.

Good news is that we were out of there by 11 the next morning and now Roger has to go for a nuclear stress test tomorrow morning. Other than that he feels good and it was not a heart attack-best news ever. Apparently this has more to do with a racing pulse and he is now being medicated for that.

It's so very interesting how we take each other for granted sometimes-until something like this happens. He's a wonderful husband and father but also the best friend I've ever had. I never knew the meaning of true friendship until I married Roger. He is devoted and loving and always on my side. That's a gift greater than words can express. I am thankful for him every moment of every day and ashamed that sometimes I forget to appreciate how very much he means to me.

Anyway, all is well and that's what I've been up to. Hope you have had a few peaceful days with no medical interruptions. I'll be back soon to chat.

How Did It Get to be Friday?

These beauties are calling to me. Not sure what I'm going to do with them but I will leave them laying around today in case some brilliant idea pops into my mind. It certainly won't be anything very large since this is all there is. Just 5 fat quarters.

Last night the quilt gals & I compared notes on things we are working on. I finished those little Christmas houses and wanted to take a sepia fine-line Sakura pen and write Christmas 2008 above the houses. My friend who has the Bernina embroidery machine, volunteered to do it in old script on the machine for me. Wahoo-one less thing to do for a finish. I will pick it up next week. Ain't it great to have friends? The weather here varies between blazing and sort of blazing and humid. I know some of you have much worse to deal with so I'll quit bitchin' now. At any rate, I've been hanging out inside with books and sewing and enjoying visiting you all to see what you're up to.

In a couple of weeks I will be heading out to Pennsylvania. First, we got a room at the Hershey Convention Center for the big quilt show there (whoohoo)and then we are heading up to visit our dear friends, Rich & Diane who live on a mountain top in Lockhaven. I'm really looking forward to both those things. Rich and Roger go all the way back to grade school so it's a lot of fun for him to see his good buddy plus we adore his wonderful wife Diane and their 2 girls.

Yesterday Dorothy asked us what's on the fridge. I think mine is always a mess since I have a million scraps and pictures some from...Christmas...gad. It's just one of those things I walk past forever and don't think about. It had many train items(Roger's hobby) many little art pieces(me) and some funny pics from James when he worked at a local gas station. I guess I really should do some culling. All pics are clickable-there are two pics of my beautiful nieces, little Tatum, and the lovely Michelle.

I'm off to throw in a load of the omnipresent laundry and then some sewing. Yesterday they had a mini marathon on TBS of Burn Notice-my all time fav program lately. It's so good it makes me giggle. The new season began last night so I'll try to catch it on-line today while I sew. Hope your day is a great one. Talk to you soon.

Pssssst...wanna buy some coffee???

For Dorothy, who lives in the Green Mountains.

This morning I was planning on doing some cutting and sewing when who should appear at my door with an undercover delivery for the old man. This guy showed up with the monthly delivery of Green Mountain Coffee. If my husband was home I would make him stand up and say "My name is Roger, I'm a coffeeholic"

He got himself one of those Keurig Coffee makers. In truth, he had been buying Green Mountain for some time. The coffee maker was a special treat for himself. He loved it so much another was purchased for his office. Now we get the daily coffee stash report. Things are mumbled, such as, "Only 5 more days to Mountain Blueberry delivery." You get the picture. He's main-lining the stuff.
Seriously, Now the deliveries are taking over my sewing area. I must re-establish my authoritay!

I'm really kidding since I have taken over every square inch of space with fabric and sewing supplies. I will remove the boxes in a few minutes and do some work on the Lavender thing that will hopefully then leave it in flimsy condition. It will have to stay that way until I am able to find a table somewhere to lay it out for sandwiching. At that point I hope to move on to some other UFOs with a more holiday theme in mind as well as a couple of gifty things for friends. I'm working on a redwork piece but I cannot for the life of me figure out how to photograph it. Every picture I take comes out glaring white. A photographer I am NOT!

Tonight is the Thurs. quilt gals so I should come up with something for dinner so I can scoot out of here at 7. Talk to you soon.

Summer Casting It's Spell Over All

On our property, there are few flowers that grow well. Black

eyed susans, daffodils and some hyacinth. In spring, the occasional tulip pops up. We have a lot of sand and clay so most anything pretty is store bought in a pot and aside from a small bed and some flower boxes that's the tally around here. We excel in growing vines and lush bushes all over. Lots of ivy and, although they have thinned dramatically, we once had a whole section of the driveway(the endless driveway) filled with lovely ferns. They were a favorite of my late FIL Jim and, sadly, we've managed to ruin them by raking them out when we had blue stone in that section. Ferns have an underground lace network that does not like to be disturbed by things like raking. If you could see under the ground there would be a network that looks like fishnet under ferns. Sadly, I didn't find that out until the boys had done many rakings. Of all the things in the yard that are nice to look at there are only two things that make me really smile. The wild cherry and a bush that no one can name. It has very tiny pink flowers( I mean really tiny) in the spring followed by small green oval berries all summer and slowly turning to bright red larger oval berries in the fall. The bush is an object of many family stories and amusing conversation. It grown over the part of the driveway nearest the house and I can see it outside my kitchen window. Since it has a weeping branch effect, it tends to grow over an area where the guys like to back up their cars and so, of course, the bush gets in the way and needs trimming. I came from the "loves the lush green jungle-don't want to see the neighbors anyway" school of gardening. We are far enough away from all neighbors that it doesn't matter socially anyway. My boys are from the guerrilla slash& burn school of gardening. The trick is to get the loppers, cutters, chain saws, and pruners well hidden from them. Once in a while I fail at my task and then all hell breaks loose. Several years ago Roger took the loppers to the bush. He was just going to trim......I believe I may have threatened him with something physically painful if I saw him near it again. Harsh words were spoken...harsh! The BIL Bob decided to give it a haircut a while back- I wept, but for the sake of peace said nothing. Only angry glances in his direction and sniffles with the occasional whimper and growl. The main reason I couldn't really get too mad was that in the weeks previous to his haircut something strange happened. After 20 years of living here and feeding the squirrels liberally, peanuts, corn, seed, etc, they decided they would like to try a diet of the green berries on the bush. Not only did they eat the berries they, quite literally climbed inside the bush, picked a weeping branch and slid down it thus shucking the entire branch of berries and leaves. This was not only a squirrel delicacy but apparently oodles of fun. The news travelled fast in the squirrel Daily Times. Swarms of squirrels filled the bush and decimated it. Pieces of branches flew and landed all over the driveway. In the begining I thought I could simply chase them away with angry shouts and a broom. Wrong. They came in numbers. They would launch themselves from the top to bottom like a cartoon. They sat up at the top and reclined(seriously) on other branches and waved at me, cheeks stuffed with green berries. Our house became Six Flags over Squirreldom. All of this took place in late spring. The bush recovered somewhat and had some little pink flowers. I just resigned myself. This year-no squirrel assault....insert dark creepy music...until last week. I was washing some cups and enjoying the view out the kitchen window when who should be waving at me from the top of the bush? Yeah....furry, gray, possessed, overstuffed little vermin. The only bright light is that they seems to have only wanted a few berries and only a few squirrels this year and so far they are not swinging from the branches...so far. I'm sure they have put in a call to the relatives so I'm resigning myself to just living with the horror. It's hard to get mad at the little beasts when they make me laugh out loud while sliding down the bush. They do everything but scream WHEEEEEEEE!

The second spooky happening is in the house. Last year the guys put in a new ceiling fan upstairs in our bedroom. The old one was making noise and seemed shaky so up went a bright, shiny new one. It has a remote control and a brain. It reminds me of Hal in 2001-Space Odyssey. It turns itself on and off at will. A couple of nights ago I awoke to what seemed like a hurricane in the bedroom. I was shivering and got up found a quilt and wrapped myself in it. Not a clue where the remote was and didn't want to wake R in the middle of the night but I knew that that fan was on the twister setting. When I woke in the morning...da da dahhh...the fan was off. It does this all the time. The intellectual side of me knows that it's receiving an infrared signal from some other remote located almost anywhere. The neighbors, whatever. Very frustrating. Our ceiling fans assist us in cooling the house down really well even in areas where there is no air conditioning. Works really well-when it works....I may have to have a chat with Hal and see what his demands are. Maybe he doesn't like being dusty. The thing could use a cleaning. It's one of those things that fall into my personal cleaning category of "if it's over my head I don't see it. lalala" Now and then I look up ad find I'm horrified.

Falling into the Good Things category is Turner Classic Movies. A channel I knew would be wonderful before I even had it. I have watched more wonderful old movies in the month we've had it than seems possible. What a great channel. Ted still sucks for trying to colorize classics and glomming onto the entire stash of MGM and Warner movies for himself but I can learn to live with it the same way I will learn to live with the festival of hairy lunatics in my yard.

On the reading front, I am still working my way through the Jack Valenti book and enjoying his years in Hollywood more than his years in Washington. I did just finish a total escapist novel called "Garden Spells" by Sara Addison Allen. I think it's been out for a while but she's new to me. Her new book "The Sugar Queen" is out now and I hope it's as good. If you want to dream away an afternoon read Garden Spells-If you liked "Practical Magic" by Alice Hoffman you will enjoy this book. It's kind of similar and very light, fun, and the best character is a fruit-throwing apple tree with a wicked sense of humor. Since we all know my obsession with apple trees how could I not love this book.

Today I will begin sewing another row onto the Lavender Passion and I have some ironing to catch up with and pants to hem(yes, still)

Don't know why but Blogger seems to like to space thngs the way it wants to so I'm sorry for the layouts lately.

Hope you have a great day and the weather is less hellish than here.

Happy 4th to you

We are supposed to have rain by the time dinner rolls around so we may be having Chinese with our fireworks. Fine with me, less work for Momma is always a plus.

We're hoping that weather is good enough for BBQ tomorrow-if not I'll be making the The Pioneer Woman Cooks, Husbands favorite sandwich for the gang. Again, either way, yum. Her blog is on the left in my links. Check it out-she's funny and she cooks great but simple food and no bitching about the butter. Just enjoy.

Hope you all have a great weekend. I'll be back Monday with Chapter one in a novel I'm writing about paranoia and my relationship with things that don't work and are screwing with my head in the house and garden. Or, Why my life appears to be possessed by demons in the electrical appliances and garden creatures that conspire against me.

Peaked your interest-stay tuned for things that go bump in the night(Oh alright, in the day too!)

Stay safe and...... watch your back.

Friends, family , books, and Wips

Good Morning! Rose asked for a closer picture of the Holly Jolly and I found this pic that shows some fabrics better and in the upper left are the food fabrics I got for a kitchen wall hanging to be. I just love the bright colors and it will perk up the room a lot....someday.

When I got back from the trip my two quilting buddies took me out for dinner and gave me this lovely necklace. It's very beautiful and I was so touched that they made a fuss over my 60th. One of the ladies asked me how I felt about reaching this milestone(or is that millstone?) Seriously though, I feel pretty good and a lot more....happy...yep that's the word. I think there is a certain amount of relaxation of angst that comes with this time in life. Somehow I feel more ready to stop and smell the roses. Speaking of that, my son's MIL to be gave me a beautiful yellow rose bush. Very pretty. I must find a nice place in the yard to plant it.

I got some books I had been wanting including the new Jack Valenti "This Time This Place" which was released shortly after his death. Jack was around from the Kennedy era to wearing several prestigious hats in Hollywood. I'm going to crack that one open as soon as I finish the one by Marie Brenner called "Apples & Oranges". Marie has spent many years writing great articles for Vanity Fair and since I have been a faithful reader for many years I was interested to know a bit more about her. I enjoyed this book very much. It's basically the story of her relationship with her brother up till his untimely death. They had a life-long contentious relationship partially due to his OCD behavior. He owed one of the largest Apple orchards in Washington State and was a pioneer in bringing Asian pears to the American market. It's informative and funny and, inevitably, sad. I also got the new Andre Dubus "The Garden of Last Days". I loved his book "House of Sand & Fog" so I hope this one is as good. I'll let you know. I'm continuing my readings on the Tudors with "The Children of Henry VIII" by Allison Weir. Unless you are a devoted history nut(like me) you probably would be bored silly. I continue to be fountain of useless information and love history.

I'm working on the Lavender Passion but today I have several projects that include the most boring jobs in the history of sewing- hemming pants and sewing on buttons. I hope to make quick work of that and move on to possibly watching "The Other Boleyn Girl" on the computer while I sew.

Talk to you soon.

More travels with Dee

Here are the adorable 92-year-olds. Miss Mattie & Uncle Don. I hope if I'm lucky enough to get to that age I am as with it as these two. Of course, it probably comes from good living so I most likely blew that one.

The real occasion for the trip was two fold. To celebrate their 25th anniversary(second marriage) and to celebrate my 60th. If you call doing a lot of spending celebrating then you could say I had a sweet old time. Our house was(seriously) off Beaten Path in Mooresville so you could say we were off the Beaten Path (har). If this place is off the beaten path then Lord let me wind up there. We saw houses that made your mouth drop open and one in particular that had turrets covered in copper. Holy Moly gang. There were about 15 workman's vehicles in the driveway. Just imagine that bill?? Anyway, there were miles and miles of breathtaking places. Many on golf courses (Hi Rian). I could just imagine her driving by in a golf cart. I could also imagine someone having to marry a Saudi Prince in order to afford just the help needed to clean these 6 bedroom/w guest cottage mansions.

Our house was very beautifully located on a little finger-like tributary of Lake Norman. Very pretty area.

Here is the captain and deckhand of the 9 passenger pontoon boat that was rented for the week. Roger misses the boat we used to have. He doesn't miss the work it took to keep it in shape for using.

Unfortunately her Daddy couldn't make it up from Florida so she had to suffer through everyone ooooing andahhhhing to make up for it. Miss Tatum is a natural ham.

Blogger is being mean and giving me a hard time so I better move on to the loot while I can. Here is some of the stuff. I wanted to make a Christmas quilt out of the Holly Jolly Moda fabric and so I stocked up on that stuff and will work on it soon. Lets see if I can make something for this Christmas before it actually arrives. I got a 20-pack of Robyn Pandolph fabric in her beautiful soft tones to add to the collection that I already have. Something large and bed-like will be happening there. The Posh fabric by Moda is for a quilt I haven't worked out in my head yet. I so loved Nicole's Posh Baskets that she showed on Sisters Choice blog that I sat and stared at it for days on end and I'm going to get myself a basket pattern that will hopefully look one tenth as great as hers.

There's more to show since I made trips to the ten thousand malls around the area with the girls and stopped at Barnes & Noble and Home Goods and several other places. I'll be back with some more tomorrow. Right now I have to finish sewing another row or two on the Lavender Passion since I sewed this weekend in the Quiltathon with Judy and friends. Not much accomplished but I did get a few rows done in between the mountains of laundry. Anyway, back to that. Talk to you soon.

I'm back...didja miss me?

I missed you!. While I was missing you all, this is where I was hanging out. A view down to the dock on Lake Norman, NC. The lone hiker is BIL Bob after the boat trip of that morning. I have a bunch of pics to show but of course Blogger is verrrry slow today and I have much to do. Maybe tomorrow I can show you some of the birthday loot I managed to scam for myself in Mooresville at a cute little quilt shop I have found a couple of years before and managed to locate again. I had my fist full of money and left smiling ladies behind after making a mound of fabric on the counter and some of this and a little of that. Very fun day out with my husband. We went on to lunch near Spencer at Hendricks BBQ for the pulled pork where Roger took one look at my face taking a first bite and said the whole trip was worth that smile. We last ate at Hendricks 8 years ago and were leery that it could possibly be as good as we remembered it. It was!

All in all the house was very nice and very big. It was too cold in the downstairs for the rest of the Florida cousins and the North Carolinians, so we had the whole downstairs to ourselves. Believe me when I tell you it was a very, very, good thing. Oh how we suffered through the large screen TV, leather couches, pool table, air hockey table/game room. Sometimes you just gotta bite the bullet and suffer(not). Our king sized bedroom was comfortable but since it was downstairs there were no windows and it got a little cave-like at night. No big complaints though. Believe me, there was enough complaining going on upstairs for an army. Some people are just never happy. I just kept busy and did a lot of reading and such. We picked up Aunt Mattie and Uncle Don(the 90-year-olds) from their place several miles away and did a lot of dinners and one really great lunch. The best part was meeting little Miss Tatum at 2 1/2, who I had yet to meet. The most adorable child you can imagine. Sweet and well behaved. Only one small incident and I've seen much worse. She was over-tired and bored and, frankly, if I could have gotten away with it I would have pitched a fit myself.

Here she is in all her sweetness.

Well, I have a ton of stuff to do and I plan to bore you with pictures of fabric tomorrow. Hope you come back and find me again. I clicked around and see that not an awful lot has happened while I was gone. I'm enjoying seeing the new art being made and catching up with every one's stuff. I'll be back with my stuff tomorrow. Missed you guys!

So long for a while

The coming week is full of so much activity and preparation that I'm saying goodbye to blogging for a while. For the few pals that still pop in I just thought I'd let you know.

I'm leaving you with a recommendation for a fabulous read and I hope you will follow up on this one. It is the diary of Eleanor Coppola during the time she was raising a family and simultaneously following Frances, and later, Sophia to movie locations. It is so much more than that. It's the diary of a woman who is conflicted by family love and devotion and artistic calling left fallow. A story that most of us can relate to at some point. Being torn between the very essential desire to be everything to everyone is natural for women and it is both a blessing and a curse. I have found so much to love about this book it is one I'll re-read again and again. Aside from the mothering stuff, there is also the really fascinating story of a woman surrounded by unbelievable talent. Her tales of being on the set for the all the Godfather movies, the journey of her film diary of Apocalypse Now, called Heart of Darkness, and for her daughter Sophia's movies "Lost in Translation" and "Marie Antoinette" are worth the money alone. The eventual re-discovery of her artistic self begins to evolve throughout the book and I really wanted to make it go on to see where else Eleanor has gone since. I hope there is another book of diary pages to come. She has a sweet, simple style that is set down without conceit or verbal boasting. I love her voice and I think you will too. One of her pieces art installation art, made in conjunction with several people, is a tribute to those we have lost. Her son Gio was killed in a freak accident in his 20s. It is such a touching story to hear about this installation that I wish I could go and see it. It moves around the country to various places and sounds like it would be well-worth a trip to visit.

I am packing to leave for a while and my birthday(the big one) is Tuesday. I've dreaded this one for a while but oddly enough along with it's arrival, I have found a certain sense of peace and a small, but strong, developing, fountain of artistic energy. Maybe you just need to get to "your time" in life and it begins to unfold in lovely ways for you. Letting go of certain angry things and seeing what is important with new eyes makes for a sense of peace. To a small degree, I am doing what I advise others to do when faced with possible unpleasantness-I think of it as theatre. I have begun to write ideas for art down with a little detail included so that I will remember them fully when I return and begin a hopeful, creative, year ahead. I'm not sure what happens to others when they reach this age but so far for me, I have begun the important job of ceasing to care what other people think and I imagine that's when the real creative process can begin. A few ideas with a common theme are rolling around in the caverns of my brain. Some are fabric related and some are back to the basics of artwork that I began so many years ago.

At any rate, since there is so much prep for this longer than usual trip and few friends are stopping by anyway(can't blame you-nothing artistic gong on here)I will go on a blog hiatus for a while. I'm not sure if there is any computer connections where we are and I don't have a laptop anyway.

It's over 90 and humid here. Very unusual weather for here this early. Anything over 80 is pure hell to me and for good measure I'm heading down south in a week. Bah!

Take care and I'll see you later if I don't melt. Hope I don't run into any flying monkeys....I'mmm melllting...melllllting

Checking in with sniffles

Since I have nothing note worthy to show on the quilt front, here are some pictures of the local atmosphere.
I have caught the current crud that is circulating through our house and the area in general. Much coughing, sneezing, sore throat and, as a result, not much sleeping. All of this makes for a crabby Dee. I feel better today so this thing seems to be quick to come on and not too long lingering. I'd really just like some solid sleep. Enough bitching and moaning.

The weather has turned quite warm, and as is the norm on an island, pretty humid too.

I wish I had something arty or quilty to show but life is getting in the way big time right now. I'm hoping that July will bring a lot more quiet time for finishing things and playing with fabric. In the mean time I'm enjoying checking out what you are up to. Many women designers have just finished coming back from Portland Quilt Market where they showed off their gorgeous designs and many of the new fabrics coming in the next season. Check out Anna Maria Horner, who has fabric and designs to drool over. Also in my links is Pam Kitty Morning who stunt-sews for Alex Andersen, among others. It's fun to see what they are showing. The best and certainly most fun lately is Nicole of Sister's Choice. Nicole makes the most beautiful quilts you can imagine with very yummy fabrics but what I adore most is her dog Ozzie. Ozzie's adventures are hilarious. He has more personality than 3 dogs and major attitude. Ozzie is the juvenile delinquent of the dog world. Just scroll down and see what mayhem he can cause and while you're at it enjoy the work of a fabulous quiltmaker. By all means keep scrolling until you see her Posh Baskets. I could be talked into doing bad things for that quilt. hmmmm. Maybe that's why I like Ozzie-I see a bit of the larceny in my hairy little friend.

Have fun- I hope you have weather like ours. It's beautiul.

Lovely Weekend & Critters

This is one of the many chipmunks that live in my yard. The actually live in that cement wall in the background there. There must have been a population explosion recently since the tiny heads that pop out of the cracks look to be babies. They are so much fun to watch. Anyway my husband was swift enough with the camera to get this shot of a little guy who came up on the plant table for a drink. He got some good Goldfinch pictures as well but I'll show them another day since Blogger seems to be having a bad day.

Our weekend was really nice. We celebrated Roger's birthday with a BBQ at our friends house. Good food and very nice friends. Yesterday we just had a BBQ here and our traditional root beer floats to begin the season. Yum.

On the car front-James has found a car he wants to buy and it seems like a good deal so he will be occupied with those details this week. Cross you fingers that all goes well for him. James and no car =unhappiness. I'm just happy it looks like he'll be getting a car that is much newer and doesn't require months of work before it's road worthy. Not that it will stop him from the endless additions he will no doubt make over the next months. He is, after all, a car guy. I'm also happy that it will be settled before we go away in a couple of weeks.

James girlfriend's Mom, Cheryl, had a birthday the same day as Roger so I made her this little wall hanging. Her house is newly re-decorated and she loves this type of thing. I added another border using the red fabric in the roof and hand quilted a little in the red border.

I also found a new Quilt Sampler at the store last week. Love all the great shops they show and always look forward to the latest issue. Funny thing though. I have never made a quilt from any of the patterns in any of these issues. Mostly because they are full sized quilts and I have that "no room" factor to consider.

Lots of hemming to do today. A couple of pair of pants for Roger and a couple for me. It is verrrry humid here today and not all that cool. I finally had to turn on the air conditioner upstairs. I have a lot of laundry and drying to do today and the heat up there will just make the upstairs very warm. We've been unbelievably lucky with our weather so I have no complaints. By last night though, it was pretty humid and sticky sleeping weather.

Hope you have a good day and something fun to do.