Finished...well almost

This is me procrastinating. I need to get up and clean a couple spots off my quilt. Really I need to do it now, since it has to be dry and clean by 7:30 tomorrow morning.
But I put it off. What if the spots don't come off? What if the red bleeds? How to lay it out with out it getting any dirtier? Keep the dog off it?

Yesterday I got to go to Galveston. A quick run since I HAVE A PUPPY! But some award needed to be picked up at the Scout shop.
Fun Find # 1 

The building was built in 1963 and I bet this sofa

was put in the ladies room and left there then. I asked the receptionist how long it had been there, she has only been there 6 years. Was it old when the building was built? or was it brand new in '63?

Fun find # 2.
The old custom's house often has a quilt exhibit so I stopped there and yes, saw some quilts. So here are some pictures of the quilts I saw there.
Stars;

 close-up;

More stars;

 close-up;

There were a few more...all old but no details of the quilts. I enjoyed my 10 minutes there and then headed home...on my way out of Galveston I passed an old cemetery...I've seen it many times but this time I stopped so I could show you this;

Fun find #3

 Isn't that wonderful?

Irish chain update

I have finished the quilting and am now doing the binding. I took a picture of it but it was awful! You will have to wait until I'm finished with the binding. Have I mentioned that it is BIG? Wrestling it around is a challenge, hence the wait. I also have found some dirt on it and will have to wash it in spots...any one else hesitant to put a red and white quilt in the washer right before it goes into a show? I'm going to wait a couple of years to wash it, then I'll use color catchers and follow Vickie Welsh's advice (found on her blog here.) Unfortunately using a front loading washing machine doesn't work.
Here are a few pictures from my phone;

 a postcard, almost finished, that will be mailed next week or so...Used random bits of shirts that I took out of the trash. Love this method that I adapted from Kathleen Loomis's blog. She uses selvages but selvages are too big for a postcard....and I have bits of shirts that would otherwise go in the trash...although I'm considering keeping a shoebox of them on hand for future postcards. (See my first one using this technique here.)

a bird, cedar waxwing,  Andrew found close to the edge of the pool, he eventually flew away. One year we had a flock of these land in our holly tree and stay for a day while they ate the berries.

I think Dad is enjoying the dog the most. He spends time with him every night training him and walking him. Thanks to him Kepling is learning how to behave. He hates his crate though and we've quit putting him in and am gradually training him to it again. So far he will eat in there and will go get a toy out of it, but he never lays down in it. Now we need to train him to pick up his toys. :)

Insomnia

I have a very hard time getting to sleep. I have been taking Ambien for 2 years but recently quit taking it. It wasn't working very well anymore and if I took it and couldn't sleep I couldn't do anything else either, since it made my brain slow down. (I've done a few very strange sewing things after taking it-enough to know not to do anything.) It took about 2 weeks to teach myself how to go to sleep again.
So I have a routine that I have to go through to maximize my sleep.

• the normal; brush teeth, wash face then read scriptures and
• wait for my husband to be ready for bed (it is impossible to sleep when he is wandering around or brushing his teeth etc.)
• take 2 calcium pills-read this somewhere and since I need to take calcium anyway...
• take a melatonin
• take a hot bath
• keep the lights low, this is new, something Jeffrey read about sleeping that I am trying to incorporate.
• I think it is strange but I have to be toasty warm to sleep but in the middle of the night I need to be cooler, so I kick off anything but a sheet. My husband has to be toasty warm all night. For example he was freezing last night so got our winter feather comforter, doubled it and slept under it all night with our light summer quilt, I was under a sheet most of the time. He would so love to put the thermostat up to 80 every night!
• lay on my right side with a pillow between my knees (Recommended by physical therapist years ago when I had bursitis in both legs.)
• switch to laying on my back with a pillow under my knees.(same therapist).
• check the time (after laying in bed 45 minutes I'll get up and do something else for awhile)
• start counting slowly 1001,1002,1003 etc  Doing it slowly and picturing the number in my head or I'll imagine myself threading needles with black thread and then quilting straight black lines on a black quilt....
• finally go to sleep

If it doesn't work, after 45 minutes I'll get up and go do something for an hour or 2 and then try again. If my feet have gotten cold then I have to take another hot bath......but most of the time it works and when it doesn't I usually get something else accomplished so it's not so bad to be awake.I'm so thankful to be able to sleep!

One healthy thing

I checked out a book from our library, The Skinny Rules...by Bob Harper. 

 (If you click to look inside nothing will happen-I borrowed this picture from Amazon)
The first chapter is about water and I decided that I could do the water rule. So my one healthy thing this week is to drink a glass of water soon after getting up..I've found if I drink it too soon I am sick to my stomach but I can do it about 15 minutes later. I've found it harder to remember the second part; drink a full glass of water before every meal.

Years ago I was plagued by back aches; particularly in the morning. I blamed our water bed and decided that we needed a new bed. We got the new bed and my back still hurt. So I did what my Mother had been telling me all along, I tired increasing my water and my back quit hurting. Now I carry a water bottle with me everywhere I go but I don't think I drink enough. The water before the meals will put me up to enough water.

If you want to calculate how much water you need for your weight and climate go here. It will tell you how much you need. I do know people that drank too much water and had problems with balancing their electrolytes. Keep in mind that your food has water in it and that counts too.

My goal this week is to drink the extra glasses of water as mentioned above. I'll report next Saturday on my one healthy thing.

Life is complicated

I was on a roll. Joined a gym. Hired a trainer. Gave up CANDY! Attended gym EVERY DAY.  For a whole 2 weeks. Got deathly ill. Must have been Pneumonia again; I was sick enough to call the dr. on the weekend and so have been taking antibiotics for almost a week. I am still coughing up a lung occasionally but not non stop like it was last Friday night.
I went to the gym again today.You'll laugh but I am working on getting out of a chair without using my hands! And walking on a treadmill for 4 minutes without holding on to the side rails for dear life. Two weeks ago it was all I could do to walk for 3 minutes...so an improvement. This is like physical therapy only more intense since weights have been added for the other core exercises.

School is nearly out. The boys have been busy. Something or 2 things every night.  I'll be glad when school is out.

Coming up with a list of things for the 15 year old to do ....

parchment paper

I've been using a lot of parchment paper lately. But what do you do when you run out?
I'm so lazy I don't want to wash the cookie sheet after using it. Sometimes I can reuse a sheet but this morning I thought I'd try the paper that comes around McDonald's sandwiches.

It worked okay...the cookies came off the paper fine but there is a little grease on the cookie sheet; coincidentally right were each cookie was. But still pretty darn easy to clean. Now who can I get to eat my walnut oatmeal chocolate cookies? Unfortunately they are neither vegan or wheat free; I guess I'll have to eat them myself.

Then I tried Panera breads sandwich wrapper. It smoked in the oven (but don't worry the cookies were fine) and still left a bit of oil on the cookie sheet.
What about plain paper?

plain paper bag; white and brown, and printer paper.

They all left these oil circles. I needed a spatula to get them off the paper. There was still a circle of oil on the cookie sheet....but still pretty easy to clean.

So if you run out of parchment use something else...but get some more parchment.

Say Good-bye

Note the date. I no longer get preferential treatment. I will miss the close parking spots. But I am fine and can do the walking. It's wonderful.
Of course now my feet hurt!

Glass cutting

My son, Andrew, informed me that the head rest on the car moved as fast as glass flows....I had to question that, I know glass is not a 'solid' but how fast does it flow?
If you are planning to cut glass and you do the score with a glass cutter you only have 3 months to make the break, after that the flow of the glass will have dulled the score to the point that it won't break there.
Inquiring minds want to know.

Stupid things boys do

My husband is now Scoutmaster over the 14-16 year old boys in our troop. They had a backpacking trip Friday night and Saturday. For some reason while waiting for their rides home two had to try the hot sauce in the fridge. Like drink the hot sauce. This hot sauce:Evidently this is very hot. Although initially acting cool, it wasn't very long before he admitted that it was burning. My son was eventually compassionate and gave them each a spoonful of butter. That was nasty but it was 'awesome' since it took the burn out.
We've heard and tried to follow the 'take the burn out advice' of drinking milk; but it never worked. I finally read that milk works because of the fat in the milk...but if you are drinking skim there is no fat.... butter works.

120 million

Headline news! 120 million Americans DID NOT WATCH THE superbowl. I was one of them. I did look up who was playing...but really I don't care I just thought Roger might be embarrassed if he had no clue there was a football game yesterday and who were playing, ya know, around the drink cooler at work....

Price of ink

Just a random bit of knowledge that my husband figured out.

Ink for our printer is $2,000 @ pound!

Raincoats

How many of you have every made a trash bag into a raincoat?

Last night my husband came home from a 'roundtable scout meeting' with a new plan for the quickie rain coat. Here are my sketches;

This old design has serious drawbacks: rain drips down your back, your backpack doesn't fit on your back under it, your sleeves get wet.

This new design is much better:

the head hole creates a hood to cover your head! No rain goes down your neck. Don't cut the holes for the arms until the boy scout is in his rain coat then cut the sleeve holes down low enough to cover their short sleeves. The letter A is one bottom corner of the trash bag and it will cover the laden back pack (or the hunchback of Notre Dame).

Go and put some trash bags and a pair of scissors in your trunk for one of those unexpected rain storms. Be Prepared.

So neat and easy; why didn't I think of it?

700 licks

Did you know that the tootsie roll inside a tootsie roll pop is not a sphere? It's a misshapen blob; and it takes about 700 licks to get to the center. 

Inquiring minds want to know.

How many licks does it take to drive a Mother mad? About 100.

what I missed

Most of you know that I was in California for 3 WEEKS! a long time to be gone and I couldn't have stayed so long if my boys hadn't come for the last 2 weeks of the time. My job was mainly relief for the weary mom ... and dad and being chief cook. So here are some of the things I missed:

This is a new gizmo to me. While in Denver I used one that my Dad had bought (My 80 something dad went shopping for and found this at a Bed, Bath and Beyond. I would have said my dad had never been in a Bed, Bath and Beyond in his life I know my husband hadn't until Saturday night.) I loved it so went and bought one as soon as I got home. My Dad likes it well enough to clean it, by hand, every day. I love it because it comes clean in the dishwasher and....

...it chops the onion up so small and even. I've also used it for red peppers; I don't think tomatoes would work in it. But I chop an onion almost every night so it's worth the almost $20.00 I spent. It is almost like I can chop an onion, some garlic, even red peppers and THEN decide what I'm cooking for dinner. Maybe I'm in a rut...

This is called a 'garlic twist.' I LOVE love love garlic but hate hate hate cleaning garlic presses. I've had this for a few years and it works like a dream...although at times I need to use some no slip carpet pad squares to keep my hands from slipping on the plastic. The garlic smooshes great and it gets clean in the dishwasher!


Notice my 3 heat tolerant rubber spatula's! I missed having so many nice spatulas. Melissa had one (that I'd gotten her) but the way I cook I need MORE.

Not a very long list and I loved loved being there the weather was great the family was great.

avocado

I was at a friend's for the 4th of July and watched her cut up an avocado. I hesitate to say she did it 'wrong' because it did work; they got to eat it. There is a neater, faster way to do it. Melissa and I decided to do a tutorial but her avocados are not ripe yet, so I decided to look and see if someone else has already done a tutorial and there are many. This is the first one I looked at; the best of the 3 I took the time to look at.

So if anyone out there, among the 5 that read my blog, were wondering how to cut an avocado click on the link! Enquiring minds want to know.

random

Did you know that cow's can't roll their eyes? That skill is courtesy of 8 eye muscles; cow's only have 4. And their eyes are always brown.

This random bite of knowledge was brought to you by Jeffrey.

random bites of knowledge

DS12, 'Mom, what does the acronym LASER stand for?'
Me; 'Laser isn't an acronym, son, it's a light.'
DS12; 'Mom, it stands for "Light Amplification by Stimulated Emission of Radiation"'
Me; 'What?
DS12; 'It stands for "Light Amplification by Stimulated Emission of Radiation"'
Me; 'Are you sure?'
DS12; 'Yes '
me; 'So saying give me a laser light is redundant?'
DS12; ' Not exactly because laser is a verb. It is a verb because it is light amplification which is an
action and not light amplifier which is an object. So the acronym LASER should not be used in context such as "Warning laser radiation" of course that is assuming that the acronym laser is not also a word which it probably is by now.... So now, 'warning laser radiation' would be grammatically correct instead of incorrect.'

give-away and sign

I was wandering around blogland and read a posting of BJ's about signs. I thought the sign by my front door would be a more appropriate 200th post than the last couple of paragraphs that I typed first.

This is just a postcard that I put in a gold frame. I set it by the front door hoping that my family would see it and it would remind us of what is really important. Return to this house with honor; certainly but Return to God with Honor is the more important goal. THAT is what we are trying to do.

It's been a long time since I posted a random bite of knowledge. Andrew came up with another last night; 'Did you know that a cut in an avocado seed turns red?' It does. How do we know?

• First Mom eats an avocado and leaves the seed on the counter.
• Son sees the seed and peels it (why? I've seen many avocado seeds and NEVER thought of peeling it).
• Then cuts it into quarters;
• then because he may want to reassemble the seed someday he assigns a number to each quarter and cuts a roman numeral into the side.
• It turns red.
• He cuts more Egyptian hieroglyphics on it, they all turn red.
• Then both boys start hitting the avocado seeds with the wrong end of the knife to see what happens and how long it takes...

This is what I came up to write about in my momentous 200th blog!

(Wow! I spelled hieroglyphics correctly on my first try!)


I also had request for this recipe 5 years ago and couldn't find it. I found it in my daughter-in-law's notebook of recipes I gave HER 5 years ago. Would have been nice to make these for Christmas but, well, I didn't. Actually the first time I made these was for the wedding. Since then I have tried a couple other recipes but didn't like them as well as this one.

Spiced nuts
(served at Mel's wedding-a BIG hit)

2 egg whites, beaten then add
1/4 cup brown sugar
1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
1/4 teaspoon ground cloves
1/2 teaspoon freshly ground nutmeg
stir together then toss in
4 cups Pecans
Stir until coated and place on a greased cookie sheet, keeping the nuts in one layer and bake at 250 degrees for 45 minutes. Stir every 15 minutes.

There I've kept that piece of paper, moving it occasionally since July, now I can toss it.
This is my 200th post! drum roll please.
The give-away.

I have seen some cool give-aways in different blogs, this is not one of them. It's an 'okay' give away. I hesitate to send anyone more junk for their lives but here's a picture of the 'okay' things I've been making. Tuesday I will do a drawing of the 10 or so people that have posted on my blog since I announced the give away. At that time, Tuesday, I will post a better picture and the winner gets to choose which heart pin I send her.
Most of these pins are made from a red cashmere sweater I found at a thrift store. The burgundy one is just acrylic, I think, (no label) and is my sample heart. The striped one and the cross stitched one are from wool sweaters. (I've been waiting for the sun, but gave up. Hopefully the weather will cooperate and I'll be able to get a better picture later.)

angel penguin

Have you ever heard of an Angel Penguin (also called Little Blues)? I hadn't until.. oh, about 2 minutes ago. My 10 year old wondered if a visitor to my blog, from New Zealand, had ever seen one. Stumped me again, but they probably have seen one, if they ever visited a zoo there or even went to see them in person. I don't think the zoos I have visited in the U.S. have them. I learned when I googled it that they are not angel but Fairy Penguins. 'The Penguins' is a band from the 50's whose greatest hit was 'Earth Angel.' I actually remember that song, don't remember the band though..Back to Fairy Penguins; I am amazed at the information that keeps coming out of A's brain. He learned about these Penguins while in first grade, 4 years ago. I can't remember where I layed down my cool snowflake bracelet 4 days ago; let alone the IMPORTANT papers from last years taxes, that haven't been seen since April. If I could just harness his brain to help me remember the things I need to I would never loose anything again. ;)

reading level

I have learned that to understand my blog you need a college degree.
I learned about it in a new blog I was reading. I'll have to work on my vocabulary. At least it didn't say you needed a third grade 'degree' to read it.