Spring Distractions

It has been some time since I post so yes that means our weather has turned nice and I am trying to get the yard under control. So by the time I get my laptop out to type a post, I am sidetracked by email, photos, Facebook to name a few computer distractions.

So what I have I been up to??? No cross stitching which is quite sad as I was on a good role. So no cross stitch updates for my Turtle Trot and TUSAL. Good thing since these are both stitch-a-longs with no pressure. I find quite a few patterns and a whole bag of DMC floss at the quilt guilds silent auction. I even found two large Q-snaps frames. I did find one partial stitched Lavender & Lace project. Sorry I cannot remember the name and I'm afraid if I go digging for it I will be pulled into my sewing room.

Sewing and quilting have been my pleasure lately. I bound several quilts that I had quilted. I normally hand bind quilts but I decided I needed to practice machine binding quilts. Each quilt I get better and better. My last quilt that I bound only had a couple bobbles so I was quite pleased with my work. 

This quilt was the second quilt that I machine quilted on my longarm quilt machine. I used a pantograph as the fabrics were scrappy and had various themes. At first look you would think patriotic but the scrappy fabrics called for something to tie the patriotic, flowers and paisley together. This is why I used Anne Bright's Ocean Froth. I think this will be my "go to" pantograph.

Nice weather means time outside and not in. The spring flowers bloomed and wilted so fast but the lilacs made up for it.

This year all three varieties of lilacs bloomed one after another. The white lilac was first to bloom and it is hidden so I almost missed it. It has so many new shoots this year that I will be able to transplant them so they will be front and center. The lavender lilacs were next. They are the most fragrant and stepping outside was a joy. The last lilac starts very dark purple and the blooms fade to lavender. Their scent is not as strong but still distinct. I was given the starts from a friend's parents (Buddy & Ellie May) place so I refer to this lilac as Ellie May. Since the lilacs were in abundance I was able to make a bouquet hope you enjoy it.

A book cake for the retired librarian

Grandma's shirt says, "At This Age, I Need Glasses"

Last weekend my mom and I drove to our home town to celebrate my Grandma's 80^th birthday. What a party it was. We had great food, drink and entertainment, local singer/songwriter Lindy Gravelle.

What a hoot it was to see my Grandma, Mom and Aunt dancing to José Cuervo.  Oh my! Besides partying, my Mom and I visited a place, Petersen Rock Garden, that is or was a staple to many that grew up in the Redmond and Terrebonne, Oregon areas. More to come on this in a later post.





Have a great week and enjoy the first week of May,

Just Like a Little Kid

Remember the days when you got a new toy for Christmas or your birthday and played with it for the rest of the day? 

Well, that is what I feel like today after getting my new Samsung washer and dryer delivered, which was my Christmas gift from my husband, and yes it was on my Christmas list.  I could not wait to find something to wash to try them out.  It took me a bit before finding something that needed to washed since I made sure to have all the laundry caught up before selling the old set.  As the day winds down, I just put the fourth load in the dryer.  It is amazing how many different settings the washer and dryer have.  I told my husband that they are not the old push the button and go washer or dryer unless I set a favorites setting, which I probably will do just in case my hubby has to do a load of his own laundry.  Before it gets too late, I must prepare a quilt or two for quilting tomorrow on the longarm quilt machine. 

Ta ta for now…

Gardening Runs in the Family

A couple of weeks ago my grandma sent me a package filled with autographed books, souvenirs from the Boys & Girl Conference in San Francisco and an email regarding their garden. I put things away and set the email aside with the thought that I would view the new photographs later.

Let me back track a little. My Grandparents have been gardening for as long as I can remember. They have scaled back from when I was younger but it is still spectacular. They combine both flower and vegetable gardening, and have two greenhouses to keep their gardening season going through the cold winter months.

Last year Mark Turner from Inland Northwest Gardening asked my Grandparents if he could photograph their garden. The weekend that Mark stopped by was a busy weekend with lots of visitors so Mark strolled through the garden taking photograph after photograph. When he posted the photographs on the Inland Northwest Gardening in the Swift Garden Gallery, he email my Grandma, who forwarded the email to me. The pictures are wonderful and it is to bad that he could not be there for the whole season to bring justice to their garden. The last I heard he was going to come back in the spring since my Grandma has a beautiful spring bulb collection. So I figured that the email was regarding the spring bulb spectacular. I was a bit disappointed not to see a sea of daffodils and tulips, but I was delighted to see the bountiful garden that my Grandparent produced this summer. So I thought I would share the bounty with you through Mark’s photographs. Swift Garden Enjoy!!!


The photographs in this posting were either taken by my Grandma or myself.

Remembering

Today would have been my mother in laws 80th birthday. It is hard to believe it has been two and a half years since she left us, and not a day goes by that we don’t think of her.

Here is one of my favorite pictures of her and Don. She was so tickled to see Don unexpectedly and then get into his semi-truck.

We miss you dear sweet Corienne Louise.

Here is the finished piece that I had started for Corienne after she moved out here in 2000 after her husband, Dick, suddenly passed. Back at her home in Kansas, she loved to watch the birds eat from the feeder that Dick strategically placed on the deck so Corienne would have something to do when her MS flared up.

Pattern: Rain Drop (now Stoney Creek) book 11, Peace on Earth. I believe that my fabric is 28 ct Waterlily.

Long Time No Post

Goodness, I am not sure where the last nine months went to...let’s see if I can do a highlight of those months.

December
Now I remember, this is where all the fun started. I think it was the 13th around 11 am when I got a call from the temp agency asking how soon I could report for work. By 2 PM that day, I was filing a huge stack of paperwork. To make things interesting, I had barely started my Christmas decorating and still needed to do all of my Christmas baking and shopping. The later part is the most unusually thing for me not to have done before Thanksgiving. So needless to say, I played catch-up for the rest of the month.

January
The New Year started out recovering from the horrible cold that my mom brought over at Christmas time. It was not long after I started to feel better that Don felt like he ran himself over with the semi-truck and the snow really started falling in the mountain passes. The last weekend of the month was Don’s 60th birthday, when the worst storm of the season hit our area. Don was still 200 miles away from home with one mountain pass in his way. Here at home, the night started out with freezing rain then a bunch of snow and by morning freezing rain again. With the roads closed, Don was lucky enough to be within walking distance to a town with a motel. Boy, was he antsy the next morning waiting for the roads to open. As soon as they did open, he slapped every chain that he had on the truck and trailer and headed home. Normally it would have taken him an hour to get here, but it took 2 ½ hours.

February
Hmmm...nothing significant comes to mind except that our snow melted and left us with a muddy mess.

March
Another month that did not leave a lasting memory except the question of whether spring was ever going to arrive. Finally by the end of the month, we started to get some nice days and the spring bulbs started to show their color.

April
During the first week, our outdoor cat population had a boom...from 2 to 10! Emmy and Boo had their kittens within 24 hours of each other. After a bit of a traumatic start, both moms and nine kittens found safety and a great home in the kitty camper. The last week of April was the most memorable. Don and I finally made it to a Mariners game and they won!!! It was an exhausting trip with all the unplanned site seeing that Patrick, my moms new husband, took us on prior to the game that also made us late for the game. That weekend marks when my relationship with my mom became rocky for the first time since 1989. Even though four months have passed, I am unable to see how it will ever be mended. This has me not looking forward to the upcoming holidays. Besides this, my work assignment ended and another kitten passed...hence my emotional low.

May
Another month with not much to report except I completing the third RR square for Jodie’s project. Since several stitchers had fallen out of this RR, I volunteered to stitch for those absent members and only had one taker. It really felt good to help another stitcher out. In the garden area, Don helped me spread the manure and till it in until the tractor would not turn to the right. We sure have bad luck with our outdoor equipment but I guess you can expect some breakdowns for as old as all of it is.

June
For most of the month, I was filling out job applications, sending my resume to possible employers and a couple of interviews. To help lift my spirits, I started a new project since I could not muster up any ambition to stitch on my long list of WIPs that are falling into the UFO category. So what was my new project... an embroidered dishtowel. It was amazing how much I remembered from thirty plus years ago. On the garden front, I leveled the spots that Don & I got a little wild with the tiller. Now if the weather would have cooperated so I could plant some veggies. I also picked, prepared and froze 7 bags of pie cherries. This equals 7 cherry pies this year!!!

July
Instead of getting 100 degree weather during the 4th of July holiday, we had pleasant weather to watch the fireworks from the front yard and start a couple of home improvement projects - a fence for the front of the property and remodeling one of the spare bedrooms. Still no job, but lots of job hunting activities. In the garden, a hostel take over was occurring. Weeds and more weeds!!! So I fight back by spraying them except for one small area that I was going to flat hoe.

August
I still cannot believe that eight months have passed and it feels like very little progress has been made on our projects. We are at a bit of a standstill on the bedroom remodel since we have old electrical wiring that runs through the attic needs to be replaced. I did discover that we have hardwood floors underneath that hideous 70s carpet. Unfortunately it might take too much elbow grease to get them to look respectable even for a vintage farmhouse look. Don almost has the fence finished and it looks soooo good. I have finally picked up one of my WIPs that was starting to slip over to the UFOs...and the good guys prevail again. It is the Smokey Joe a Pam Kellogg design that I started four years ago. I am determined to complete it before picking up one of my other WIPs that think about slip over to the “dark side”. hehehe

Happy 50th Birthday Aunt Jude

Best wishes today and may you hit a hole in one while golfing today. Check out this photo...we were some bathing beauties back in the day. This photo was taken of my mom, Nae, my aunt, Jude, and me, Tone at my grandparents home in either 1973 or 1974. I am not sure any of us would be caught topless, in the curlers, or in a bikini now days.

Stitching Finish

Hooray and yippee were followed by a little happy dance after I finally completed a project and in 17 days. The only downside is that it was not from my long list of UFOs or WIPs. It still feels good to have a project done plus I had to finish this one before June 2008 when my cousin, Ashlie, graduates from high school. Ashlie has been involved in 4-H and FFA with sheep since she was old enough to join 4-H and her involvement lead to the start of a family business. Ashlie and I are twenty years apart in age, which was prefect for our grandparents who were able to spoil each of us as if we were the only granddaughter. Ashlie was always interested in my stitching projects. Hence, the reason I picked out this pattern. Now I need to figure out how to finish it – either matted and framed like the pattern shows or making a small quilted wall hang out of it.

Details: Cold Toes...Warm Heart from Sisters and Best Friends. I stitched it on 10 ct Betsy Ross and I think the color is natural or raw. I used DMC floss for the colored areas on the sheep. Since I love to work with the Rainbow Gallery fibers, I used the recommended Artic Rays and Wisper for the sheeps wool. On the wording, I opted for the suggested overdyed floss. When I noticed I did not have any Weeks Chrysanthemum, I searched my overdyed floss stash and found Gentle Arts Tarnished Gold to be a close match.

Happy Birthday to Me

If I did not know any better, I could swear that this year was a major birthday. I have been celebrating my birthday for the last 10 days with different family members. So today for my birthday, I am calling a lazy day for myself. =)

Here is the fruit and vegetable sculture that the chef at the China Buffet in Albany, Oregon made in honor of my birthday and wedding anniversary. Just to clarify the orange is an eagle.

Just under 1,000 miles

Last Saturday, Don and I got the news that his former boss had died of a heart attack. We knew that we needed to be at his wake on the 29th. After some quick thinking, I came up with a great plan to visit lots of family and friends, got to a wedding and the wake. The only down side was the trip was going to be just under 900 miles. This is when Don & I decided it would be much easier to do if we took an extra day for all of this traveling. This was extremely important since neither Sadie Jo nor Cash had traveled outside of the Tri-Cities (a 30 mile radius). So Friday morning, we packed the car and swayed the kids that it was time to go. Our first visit was with all of my grandparents in Central Oregon. We also stopped at Gibb’s Bakery to pickup a scrumptious cake fro our anniversary and some maple bars (long johns) for my Dad.

We headed out of Central Oregon and noticed that there were some nasty looking clouds hanging over the Cascades. So we knew that at some point driving through the mountain pass that we would have rain. Well, we got a little more than that...snow, rain/snow mix and sleet. We were greeted to the Westside of the state with a divine rainbow that was hovering above the reservoirs water surface. Shortly after that we arrived at my Dad & Sharon’s place.

Around mid-morning the next day, we headed north on I-5. Thank goodness for that since the southbound side was bumper to bumper traffic. At first we thought we had missed an accident scene until I saw some proud OSU (Oregon State University) Beavers waving their black and orange colors. OSU campus was just south of where we entered the interstate...Go Beavers!!!

The friends and family of Adolph had a lovely tribute to him. Lots of great stories were retold for all in attendance. Trudy was brought to tears when she saw that Don & I had made it to the wake. Don was able to visit with several of his old truck driving buddies. Adolph and Trudy were more than employers...they had accepted us into their family when Don started driving for them. We will truly miss Adolph...a man with vivid and twinkling blue eyes that could bring you to tears with a joke or one of his funny stories.

The day did not end there...we then headed west to a small and quaint town just in time for my second cousins wedding. Now there are three of the second cousins (Kevin, Mark and I) who all have the same wedding date, which was also my grandpa’s birthday. Since it was our anniversary, we meet my Dad & Sharon at their favorite Chinese Buffet. Once again we were thankful to be going the opposite direction of the game day traffic...bumper to bumper. After a filling dinner, the staff presented an exquisitely craved fruit and vegetable sculpture that their chef had prepared in honor of our anniversary and my birthday (9 days early).

We started our day at the crack of down for our return trip home. This also allowed us to make an unforeseen trip south to see my two brothers, future sister in law and our 9 ½ week old nephew, Wyatt. Don was the first to snatch Wyatt out of his bouncy seat and then handed
him off to his aunty. There was not very much time that was not holding him during our visit. Actually I only let him go to have something to eat, pictures and a little more time with his uncle. I think his uncle was promising him some future Lego time for the two of them. Years, ago Colt, Wyatt’s daddy, and Don used to spend numerous hours building different Lego buildings, equipment and whatever else came into their imaginations.



Somewhere around noon, we said our goodbyes. I got myself a couple more bear hugs from both of my “little” brothers. After a two hour drive north, we stopped at our friends place near Vancouver, WA. They took us to dinner at one of their favorite pizza places that had a lunch buffet. Then it was time to start heading west towards home. Don and I decided that we wanted to stay on the Washington side of the Columbia for our drive back home. I am glad that we took this path because we stopped at Beacon Rock State Park, which was just a short walk from where we used to live some 15 year before. It gave the dogs a chance to get out and run. We were amazed to see all the improvements and expansion that they had made to the park. As darkness fell, I took over the driving and got us safely home just before 10:30PM and the cars odometer was eleven miles short of 1,000 miles for our trip.

17th Wedding Anniversary

September 29, 2000











1st Picture: Don & I toasting to many happy years together 2nd Picture: My sweet little brother and so handsome 3rd Picture: Wow, was I the glowing bride.

And 17 years later....








1st Picture: Don & I celebrating 17 years of marriage 2nd Picture: My sweet little brother that you just cannot resist snuggling up with.

Welcome to the Family

Introducing Cash. He is our latest addition to the family. He is a registered Australian Cattle Dog (ACD) also known as a Heeler and is 5 months old. Now to convenience Sadie Jo that Cash is her mate or “sweetheart” as I keep telling her.

Welcome to the family, Wyatt

Our nephew, Wyatt David arrived at 9:13 AM today. He is the spitting image of my brother. Our family resemblance is strong. I am looking forward to spoiling him rotten like any good auntie should do and of course his uncle has lots of experience building Logo forts and vehicles.