Quilt challenge

The United Methodist Women put out a quilt Challenge this year. The quilt had to be no more than 40x40, for a baby or a child. All quilts made could be entered into a Peoples Choice contest and all quilts would be given to needy children. The Top winner quilt would be sold at auction, proceeds going to the Atlantic Street Center in Seattle, WA (a non-profit social service agency supported by the United Methodist Women).
I jumped in with both feet. Had these lovely, bright squares that begged to get out of my sewing room and into something useful.























Then I tried just machine embroidering four Red Work planes on a plain white fabric. Hand embroidered the blue birds and sketched in the clouds. Tried my hand at machine quilting. Glad these were not judged by some one who knows what they are doing.

















Saw a picture in a magazine (the picture was about 2 inches square) and said "I've got to try to copy it. Can't be that hard. Just a log cabin." Well it was really quite fun. I've gotten a lot of positive feed back from it. Click on picture to see the cute chick fabric in the triangles.

















Aaron gave me a Noah's Ark paper piece quilt book several years ago. I could not figure out paper piecing so it sat on the shelf for lo these many years. Then I read a pattern book that explained the process in words I could figure out and here is the finished product. I love this one. I call it my Jungle Quilt. Click on the picture to see the animals more clearly. (The Zebra sort of gets lost in this shot).

















And the winner of the competition? You guessed it. Jungle! I'm so thrilled. I was sort of walking up to accept the award so this shot isn't great.

Hawaiian Hospitality

My Water Aerobics instructor is in Hawaii for the first time ever (and loving it). Before she left I asked my "Starter Husband" (a native of Hawaii who resides on the island) if I could give her his phone number, thinking they could hook up and go to Wendy's for a coke or something. She just called to say she had just returned from a fabulous meal at the Willows (my favorite restaurant on Oahu - Koi swimming under your tables, willows dipping in the water etc.) She raved on and on about the food, atmosphere and S H's charm and generosity. She fully intended to pay but he told her that the place only took Hawaiian dollars (she believed him).
So thanks, Bob, for showing my friends such a wonderful time. See you really aren't the tough guy you portend to be. She said this meal and the visit she had with you was the high light of her visit to Oahu.

Sometimes Laziness is OK

Went out and weeded (or started to clean up) some of the back yard last week. But being the wimp that I am, could only last about 25 minutes before my stamina petered out. Rather than tidy up and tossing the pulled offending weeds, I simply left them where they fell. They have been there all week.
But all is not gloom and doom. The quail love the fact that the previously out of their reach seeds are now at their level.
Laziness rewarded!



















And then today a most unexpected visitor.






















Mind you, there are lots of Squirrels in Spokane, just not on this side of a very busy street with no trees to readily hide in on our side. Guess I'll have to get some peanuts for her (him). Won't that make the guy in the unit over me ticked.

One chore complete

I have a delightful earring stand, hand made, that I purchased at the County Fair some years ago. As you can see there are several bars or slats with small slits that easily accommodate pierced earrings. In the middle are pegs on which to hang necklaces and bracelets. The troughs under the bars are handy places to put the odd necklace bob or that pair of earrings you don't want to hang up right yet.
Well, those little troughs get dusty and full of all sorts of earrings, those I've taken off and am too lazy to hang up and those that get knocked off. As I looked at the increasing disarray this spring I thought what a great little project while I'm recovering.


That project didn't happen during "recovery", but I just couldn't handle it any longer. I sat myself down the other day and commenced to get pairs back together again. One would be on this bar and it's mate on another. Quite untidy. Wish this picture showed how great it looks now. The light in the room had changed (long tedious job) and I didn't put the flash on. Anyway, the job is done. But wait, there's more.



















How can I possibly put a nice clean earring rack back on a dresser that looks like this? Answer: No way, No how, No McCain.


















A bit of Endust a lot of reaaranging and changing of the dresser scarf and here you have it. I found that fabric when I was looking for a quick something as placemats for a church dinner. They are rather dark for my dresser but will probably remain there untill the dresser becomes a dissaster area again and I have to get serious about cleaning it off.

Thunder

Great Thunder storm just passed over. We have had some great weather this year. Record snow levels, record no precipitation stretch, late record highs (we usually get record highs in July not the middle of August) and now an air cleaning thunder storm complete with hail and great big rain drops.

I'm thinking that a lot of the readers of this blog probably do not have a blog site. So if you would like to participate in the "Pay it Forward" challenge just let me know and I'll include you. I only have room for three participants and one spot is taken already. Who wants the other two?

Did something to my lower back either at yoga last night or I slept wrong. Anyway, I'm having trouble bending and stretching today. Guess that rules out getting into the garden and tidying up a bit.

Casey went in to get wisdom teeth out this morning. They left the uppers alone for now and took out three lower wisdom teeth. She is recovering on the couch while Jerry is out shopping for soft foods.

Pay it forward

"Elsie Quilts" challenged me to get involved in a Pay It Forward Exchange. It’s based on the concept of the movie Pay it Forward, where acts or deeds of kindness are done without expecting something in return, just passing it on, with hope that the recipients of the acts of kindness will continue to pass it on.
Here’s how it works: I will make and send a handmade gift (quilted or something else) to the first 3 people who leave a comment to this post requesting to join this Pay It Forward exchange. I will email each person for their mailing address and send the handmade gift when completed.

What YOU have to do in return, then, is Pay it Forward by making the same promise on your blog to 3 different people. Unfortunately, this is only possible for those of who have a blog.

So, who wants to Pay it Forward? Leave me a message.

Where was I?

These past two weeks have flown by. It was Sewing Camp for the two granddaughters and my refugee friend Malita. The grand girls knew the ropes and did quite will on their own. Casey designing bags out of old t-shirts and Sydney completing three sets of Cafe curtains for their cabins before launching into a bag she designed (actually drew a picture of and constructed) then on to a couple of paper pieced pillow tops. Malita, on the other hand.... Attention span of a four year old (she is 12). Figured out the operation of the machine quite readily but was not interested much in making anything until she was pretty much ordered to "get to work". She would bring fabulous African printed yardage and spend the day hemming the raw edges. Then one day she commenced to CUTTING, with a rotary cutter, willy nilly, a lovely piece. I told her that was unacceptable and we salvaged the cut off ends and turned them into a blouse. She was pleased with that. I was hoping her mom could come to the last class so she could get some instruction on the machine but she was called into work.

All in all it was a tiring but very rewarding two weeks. Malita got a brand new sewing machine out of it. The grand girls got their mechanical machines upgraded to electronic ones.

Goldfinch

The birds that regularly come to my bird feeder are sparrows (little brown birds) and an occasional house wren. The sparrows kick the sunflower seeds out of the feeder, which the quail delight in scratching around in. This also causes some of the seeds to be "planted" and the consequently grow into lovely gold sunflowers.

















We have just recently been visited by a pair of Goldfinch. Jerry noticed the first one a couple of days ago. Pretty amazing since he claims to be colorblind and these little birds blend in so beautifully with the golden sunflowers. Today I was glancing out the window and watched as these two birds hopped from sunflower to sunflower snacking away. This is a great show and will definitely make sure they have sunflowers to feed on next year.

We have had Flickers when I have the suet blocks out in the winter, which attract Magpies. A Peregrine Falcon visited one winter. I think he was looking for the mice that were feeding on the scattered bird food. Curiously, the Robins don't come around. Guess they prefer worms. Starlings horn in but can't ride the bird feeder. And Jerry wants to count the turkeys that came into the lawn of the condo even though they didn't make it into our enclosure.

it's a jungle out there

It's been eight weeks since I was last able to do anything in my small garden.
When I left the plants were tidy and orderly. The weeds were under control. The sprinkler system was set (set it and forget it comes to mind). We had a late spring so things were growing at a reduced rate.
Now comes 8 weeks later. Some of my flowers have had their blooming season and now are screaming at me to release the seed pods from their stems. The volunteer sunflowers (from the bird feeder) have taken over. There are some plants under there but they are being choked out.










The clematis is a mass of purple. Great to see them from the other side of the fence. The cheerful yellow of the sunflowers and the exuberant purple of the clematis poking over the top of the plane boring fence.
















My tomato actually has a couple of fruit. But it is so small... I really need to get out there and fertilize. It would probably help the pepper and cucumbers to be fed too.

















One of the two Bat plants I got from a nursery in Bloomington, IL is growing. I think the other one didn't get any water. Hard to monitor that stuff from the patio door.



And there is the lovely deep red day lily. I did have a purple poppy bloom for me but before I could get a picture of it, it faded. I'm letting the seeds do what they do best and maybe next year I'll have more.

July 10

Got the cast off yesterday. All my dreams of being able to "walk" out of the office in my shinny new boot ... didn't happen. I climbed back on my scooter and wheeled my way back to the car. This healing bit is harder than I expected. Things went well, surgically and healing wise, I just underestimated the amount of atrophy that went on in those six weeks.
When the nurse removed my cast I was intrigued with the amount of dead skin. It was like a pealing sunburn without the pain. I love to peal skin. Flakes for a day now. Should be pretty much done. Oh, wait, there are some more loose bits. lol
My first step on my left foot jarred me into reality. Now I can hobble around the apartment with a crutch under my right arm and very carefully shift my weight onto my left leg. It is getting better, don't get me wrong. I am glad I did it and know that I just have to be patient.
On a brighter note, I can sit now with my foot on the floor for longer periods of time. I've started physical therapy on the foot. And I've been cleared to go back to the pool. Yeah!!!

July 3

Only 6 more days in this cast (I hope). Won't know for sure until Dr. takes an x-ray to see how things are healing. I am really getting tired on not being able to walk (I even dream of walking again).
While I have been house bound, well I'm not really. I can go down the one step to our side walk and the one curb step out to the car. I have not been able to maneuver the two steps that go down to my patio, hence my back yard. During these 6 weeks my how the flowers have grown and of course the weeds too. My purple daisy has bloomed and needs to be trimmed. The white daisy is almost finished. The birds have planted several sunflowers which are higher than the fence and blooming (to the delight of the honey bees). 7The clematis is having a great time with wonderful splashes of purple. I have one or two (not sure, there were two this spring) purple poppies. One of them bloomed and before I could get a picture of it, it was gone. I'll let that go to seed and hope for more next year. I put my amaryllis out (after drying it up quite thoroughly) and it is about to burst forth in bloom. Never had before, been able to get one to bloom a second time. What I can see of the cucumber and tomato does not look promising. Maybe they need food.
Happy Fourth. Have a safe weekend. We will be serving hotdogs and hamburgers (not from the grill as we don't have one) for my kids. It's a way for us to get together and the food prep isn't that much of a strain on me.

Massage

I had a massage Tuesday from my yoga guru (who teaches touch/energy healing) and I was wiped out for the rest of the day. Guess I didn't drink enough water. Twas quite pleasant, out on her patio on her massage table, just the sounds of nature, and the colors she conjured up on different parts of my body.... (With my eyes closed I saw colors. Really. Not Tuesday.) While she was massaging my right arm and shoulder I got bright oranges - saffron, gold, yellow. While on my left it was more cool colors like greens, teal and light blue. Then over my brow I saw deep rosy pink. Quite fun actually as I most often only see the royal purple of the God-head. She says the oranges were for my creative side. I didn't ask about the others as I was just enjoying the show.
Today I got the pin taken out of my toe. It felt rather like removing a pierced earring that had sort of got grown in. Then I should only have two more weeks in this cast (depending on how well I have healed). I really am getting achy scooting everywhere. You would be surprised how much energy it takes. You can't just turn around, you have to back and turn, like turning a truck. Oh, well. First Sister says I'll be very happy with the results once everything has healed.

Friday

Every day gets better. Three more weeks in this cast.
DH has passed his kidney stone and is regaining his strength.
I am driving (DH does not like to drive and I do not like to not be in control of the car.) This morning we went to the grocery store (first time in three weeks - we really needed to do this) and I got to ride around in the little electric cart. I can see the problems of wheelchair bound in a grocery store. Everything was out of my reach. (Well, not everything but you get the idea). DH dutifully fetched when I pointed. He even got out and pumped gas - something that I am usually assigned since I do all the driving.
I have finished two UFO's (baby quilts for church event) and have another one on the way. Can only sit at the machine for short periods every day then have to get the foot elevated. Like I said above, only three more weeks.

Promotion ceremonies

On Thursday, Casey's school held their 6th grade promotion ceremony. There were 52 students promoted to Junior Hi. Each student was presented with a certificate of promotion and some other goodies. When they processed out they took a rose from a vase and went into the audience to present it to a person who they wanted to honor (insert mother or father here).

Carrie and Dave brought her a lovely bouquet of roses. That evening we went to the Olive Garden for dinner.












Friday was the ceremony for the students at Stevens school. Malita and Fiston are my special friends from that school (Malita is in yellow). Their ceremony was much more low key. Kids were not all decked out. No special awards for academic prowess. These two refugees looked lost most of the time.
Needless to say, my foot did not like being dragged out for such long expanses of time. I spent all of Saturday on the couch, feeling like my foot was about to explode inside the cast (well actually only the toes, which are really not in the cast at all.)

cast change

This is a picture of my left foot before the surgery. Quite a bunnion bump and a hammer toe.
This is what it looked like when the soft cast came off. Blue pin still in for another two weeks. The stitches came out and xrays showed good alignment. I got a new purple (of course) fiberglass cast. I'll be in it for another four weeks. No walking, climbing stairs etc. BORING


It was so good to get outside. The sun was actually shining for a while. Now it is back to cloudy and cold. Did you see that we had snow in June in the Paloose? And an all time cold of 36 the other night. 36 in June? Now it is only up to 59 in the middle of the day. I suppose when summer gets here we will be sweltering and bitching about how hot it is.

Stamina

Seems I am getting better. I can at least have my foot down for longer periods of time without it swelling up. Took the ace bandage off last night (just to have a look). My this cast really is soft. Only hard part is on the sole of my foot and up the leg. The whole top of the foot is just covered with cotton. My, my. Put the bandage back on a bit more snugly than it was before and had to readjust this morning, much to Jerry's dismay.
Get the soft cast off on Wednesday and the fiberglass one put on. Sure hope it has a walking foot (or the promise of one in the near future). I'm getting sick of laying about on the couch.
On a brighter note, my yoga guru came over yesterday and gave me a "touch for healing" seated massage. It felt sooooo good. She is the greatest.
Aaron, I don't have one.

catching on

Looking back at previous posts, I found I had no one commenting. Bummer. Then I looked at the Moderate Comments tab and found lots of people had commented. Yipee. Looked around in settings and turned that switch off that made me look somewhere else for comments before they could be seen on my blog. If a bad one comes up, I'll just delete it. I think that is more effective. And I'll get to see who pays attention to me easier.

Booring

Day 8. I do not make a very good invalid. I see things around here that need to be done (dusting, bed made, plants to be watered etc.) and can't do them. I get up off the couch to go pee and them scoot back to the couch, exhausted. There is NOTHING on TV. If I try to listen to my ipod for very long it puts me to sleep.
The foot doesn't hurt, I just have no stamina but if I leave it lower than my heart, it starts to swell up - then it hurts. I would love to scoot into my sewing room, but fear I would have no energy to do much in there. Besides, where do I put my foot?
On a brighter note, I just finished listening to "Walk in My Shoes" by Alwin Evans. What a great read. It is about a refugee family from Afghanistan and their trials relocating in Australia. It should be on your short list of books to read this summer. I kept seeing our Burundi family in it. We have so much here and all these people want is a safe place to live and get on with their lives.

I'm getting better

Here you are. A picture of my toe with a metal rod sticking out of the end. It only hurts if I bump it or if I leave it lower than my heart for any length of time. The great toe is now on straight and is not overlapping the second toe like it was last week. I can hardly wait until July when I can see the fruits of Dr's labors

Five years

Anniversaries -- a time to reflect on the time spent with a friend/family member. And so it is with Jerry & myself. Five years ago we went on our first date. How many guys do you know that can recall your first date? For that matter, what did you do on your first date with you present spouse?
Five years ago we went to the Outback Steak House. This has become "our" place. He had steak, I had salmon. So, tonight we followed tradition and he had steak and I had salmon. I dressed up five years ago. Tonight I was in jeans and a T shirt. I guess I should explain that our real first date is the 23rd of May and today is only the 22nd. But I have an evening class on the 23rd so we were going to celebrate on the 24th. Changed our minds at four o'clock today while we were babysitting.
Another tradition of this week is Jerry getting three bird of paradise for me. He brought me 3 bird of paradise five years ago on the 21st of May. So every year he orders the same -- "Tradition".
This guy is not one for surprising me with flowers or gifts. Is at a loss what to get me for birthday or Christmas. Doesn't make much of any other holiday but does like celebrate the anniversary of our first date. Even our wedding anniversary doesn't' get much attention. That's fine with me. I love it that he wants to celebrate May 23rd as the beginning of the rest of our lives.
He says these have been the best five years of his life. I will have to agree that these last five years have been great. Our arguments have been few (we counted up three), our understanding of eachother has been enourmous. Our love for eachother is growing stronger with each passing day.
Five down, pleanty more to go.