More Holiday stuff

I really must spend some time this year learning to use the camera to take a better photo. My dear friend Diane, who lives in north western Pennsylvania and has mad crochet skills, went me this lovely piece. I'm so lucky to have thoughtful friends. It's so much prettier than this picture and along with it she sent a linen piece with beautiful embroidery that I can't seem to get a picture of at all. I know you're supposed to turn off the flash to photograph very light items but I just can't seem to make it happen. I will see if I can't entice my favorite photographer to help me sometime soon.

Along with this I got a beautiful porcelain hand painted bird from Dani. It is currently wrapped with care and resides with the ornaments in the attic because I'm too dumb to remember to take pictures before putting stuff away. It's really beautiful and I loved getting something so pretty from her. My son gave me new speakers for my car. According to him they are replacing the ones he blew out by cranking up the volume a while back. The sound is fabulous and now I can be stylin' with my homeys while driving to the grocery store...word.

I got this book from Roger who is brilliant and just follows the list I give him from Amazon. Smart man that! Anyway, the book is fun for anyone who is a big foodie and lover of all things Asian like me.

Well that's about it for today. It's verrrry cold here and going to get colder tomorrow so I'm in and don't plan to venture out. I will go back to the baby quilt and get some progress on that. Hope you're warm and toasty.

The Grace of Friendship & Family

Work still progresses on the baby quilt but I see now that I don't really like the solid-looking barn red squares. They seem to take over the whole thing. Tell me what you think?

This really cool guy who came from Dani's Mom. He's a music box and I don't want to put him away yet. Such a thoughtful gift. Cheryl said she saw that he was wearing a quilt for a coat and she thought of me. What a lovely woman. I can't tell you how much pleasure it gives me to see him each day. I must try and kidnap Cheryl sometime when the weather warms up and take her out for lunch so we can continue to tell embarrassing stories about our kids. Really such a good time and needless to say, lots of laughs. Dani's Dad is one of the nicest men we've met in a long time. So positive and full of funny stories. We really enjoyed our time with them and look forward to much more.

I really worried about meeting them since I'm basically very quiet and it is often mistaken for coolness. None of that with them. They are so welcoming and really genuine people. It's no wonder that they have a daughter like Dani. She's gracious, sweet and very kind...just like her parents.

The other pictures are of Christmas Booty...HAR! I got a few generous gift cards from my BIL Bob and these are a few of the books I got. Roger gave me bookmoney as well so I still have plenty of chances to go crazy when I need to. Dearest Pal Terry gave me a subscription to the new Food Network Magazine. It's really fun(except for the part with that fool Sandra Lee and her stupid tablescapes etc. Don't get me started. She clearly went to the Thomas Kincade(painter of light,pppfffft!!!)school of loveliness . Removing my finger from my throat, I continue. The rest of the magazine is really fun and has plenty of recipes by actual people who cook real food.

There are some books I got. B&N was having a 50% off sale and I got Marcella Hazan's biography...lovely walk down an Italian childhood and fabulous cooking career. The others are escapist travelling postcard-type books from good writers.

Got myself a copy of Jane D'Avila's wonderful book on making art quilts with less stress and lots of great info on simplifying techniques you might not be familiar with. Got it because I never fully give up on the concept of breaking away from the traditional.

I am very blessed to find myself among a collection of really wonderful people who inhabit my life. It really doesn't get much better than this.

Quiltathon saved me!

Thanks to Judy L and the quiltathon I've been busy with the baby quilt for our niece Kristy. The baby is due in February so I'd better get a move on. I found this cute Debby Mum fabric last week at JoAnn's and I'm just making simple blocks-large squares surrounded by accent fabric. It was really fun to get back to something creative even if it is just a simple thing. The big snow storm predicted for yesterday was ,happily, a bust. Just a couple of inches. That's our favorite kind. A little snow, no ice pellets. By next week we are to be in the deep freeze though. I made a big pot of soup and biscuits for dinner last night-everyone was happy.

I took my lovely Christmas gift cards for Barnes & Noble out for a ride Friday. I will show some of those titles tomorrow. Lots of good reading. We have a new B&N just opened nearby and so it's pretty well stocked with good stuff. Borders is going downhill fast. Nothing but coffee table books and crap. It's a shame what has happened to them. I always liked them more than B&N. They offered more unusual things and lots of historical work. Well, I guess any book store is better than none.

That's about as exciting as my week got. Today I will try to get the top done and during the week I'll get it finished.....yeah..that's what I'll do...finish something.

As soon as you all stop laughing get a load of these two guys. There were rumors of an alien invasion last week and I think these two are safe from mind-melding and such. I'm putting down the camera and backing away slowly.