Rhythm

I don't have much rhythm.  At least not much as far as blog-writing goes.

Our Thanksgiving was very nice.  We went to my brother's home in the dessert where he and my SIL, Mary, orchestrated a lovely, delicious, relaxing day. 

We are such an electronics-crazy family that at one point, all of us were sitting playing with some sort of electronic device or another.  My DH mentioned to my brother that we are going to be buying a new Droid X for him before our vacation at the end of December. DB said, "Oh we have one that Mary didn't like.  You can have it."  After we picked ourselves up off the floor, DH hurried my brother out of his house and into the car before he could realize what he had said.  They whisked off to pick it up at my brother's office.  Before I knew it, they were home and his new Droid X was plugged in and charging itself.

I don't think I've had a conversation with DH since Thursday that hasn't included the words "my droid."  Thanks, Rob.  You made Scott's year.

THIEF!

 That darned dog.  She is so entitled.  She believes if she can reach it, then it must have been put there for her!  My sister emptied a can of Chachi's dog food and left the can in the sink.  IN the sink.  Five minutes later she noticed Izzy walking casually by her.  Seems she might have had something in her mouth.  Hard to tell since Izzy's mouth is so large. Here is what she saw outside.

I dare you to take this from me.

I LOVE this can.  It is all mine.  You hear me MINE!

You can't get me.

 

There's nothing here to concern you, woman.

Must rest now.  Stealing cans is hard work.

Signature powered by WiseStamp 

Game On!

First an introduction of the cast of characters:
Me
DH
Sister who lives with us
Chachi - sister's very small dog, a Bichon Frise
Izzy - my (not so) Great Dane

Izzy was only 4 months old here with Chachi

It all started Halloween weekend when my sister was sure she had heard a mouse in her room.  "NONSENSE, we don't have MICE!!"  Later that day I heard shrieking from the laundry room.  OMG, she had seen an actual MOUSE IN MY HOUSE. 

Game on!  We set mouse traps.  We caught nothing but our own fingers. Finally, Sunday morning we very timidly peaked behind the couch.  OH YES!! We caught the little bugger.  The problem was that my DH was in OHIO. WHO was going to remove the offender from the HOUSE??  OKAY, Big Breath.  The last time this happened in the garage DH used his big pliers and work gloves to pick IT up and throw IT in the trash. (I can hear you all laughing about what a Big, Strong, Man my DH is.  I'm OK with that.).  I made my sister hold a bag open while I picked IT up with the BIG pliers and dropped IT in the bag.  SHIVER  But we were happy and safe in the house once again.  Until THIS weekend. 

We found a bag of dog food chewed open.


OH NO.  DH was gone for the day - AGAIN.  Based on the dogs' behavior, we figured the new IT was still in the laundry room.  We commenced, after much shrieking, to trap IT in there.  But, the DOG food was in there and Izzy was hungry.  A hungry Great Dane is a fearsome thing so I pulled on my Big Girl pants and went in.  IT ran across the room right in front of me.  I shrieked but managed to get Izzy her breakfast.  We set a few traps by sliding them in.  Every time we checked, the bait would be gone but there would be no trapped mouse.  Dang, how can a mouse be so smart?  

DH got home and he devised a plan. We would herd the mouse into the small bathroom where we set up about SIX traps. We were gonna get this thing!!  When we finally opened the laundry room door I could see the little thing all curled up behind the door.  He wasn't moving.  DH threw a towel over him, picked him up and dispatched him to a better place.  Did we bore him to death or did our ferocious dogs scare him?  We'll never know.

I'll be danged if we didn't find evidence of a THIRD mouse the next morning.  More traps.  We baited these with cut up hot dogs. Next day -  NO hot dogs and NO mouse.  Time to get tough.  That night he GLUED the bait to the traps.  Oh yeah, baby. We caught IT.  Sadly, we left one trap in the living room and Izzy found it.  Now she's afraid to go near that side of the room.

I double-dare another mouse to show himself here.

Signature powered by WiseStamp 

My Christmas Quilt Entry

I was very excited to read that SewCal Gal is having a Christmas Quilt contest, you can read about it here.  I had just finished two christmas quilts and thought that one of them would make a cute entry.  I took my photos, cropped, sized, all that good stuff so I could post them here.  Here is what I get from Blogger:

I have tried EVERYTHING to get it vertical.  HELP ME!!!
It's called "Snow People Have lives, Too".  If you turn your head to the side, the quilt tells a little story.  Here is my DH's version: The snowman in the top is a poor pathetic guy, he meets someone, gets married but inevitably goofs off and makes her mad.  In the final block, the snow woman is happy, she is with her child and they are getting ready for Christmas.  To my DH it's obvious that she dumped the loser snowman.

Here is the second quilt I just finished.  It's called "Audrey's Gift."  One of my fellow guild member, Audrey, knowing my fondness for 1/2 square triangles, gifted me a box of them.. A box the size of a ream of paper STUFFED with them.  It wouldn't seem that you could get much from a box that size, but so far I have made a bed-sized quilt, a small wall hanging (UFO :( still) and this one.  I had a lot of fun combing through the squares and trying to come up with a color scheme.The borders are actually even -- my photo skills are NOT!

Check out the contest. There are some Fabulous prizes that will be given away.

Enjoy.

Signature powered by WiseStamp 

Herman II

I read a lot of blogs.  It's my second favorite hobby.  Quilting is my first but it's not nearly as voyeuristic as reading about other peoples' lives.  In fact, some days I spend much more time as a peeping tom than as a quilter.

 Today I was reading Ree Drummond's blog and she had a post about Herman.  Her Herman is a friendly black snake who ingratiates himself by eating rodents around their ranch.  It stirred a memory about  Herman from my childhood.  My Herman wasn't nearly as helpful or friendly.  Herman was a pair of disembodied, dessicated chicken feet, held together by a string.

Herman would show up in unexpected places and scare the bejeebers out of us. I can't really remember how Herman came to live at our house but I do know that my younger brother took to him immediately.  Younger brothers live to scare the bejeebers out of their older sisters. 

Sometimes I'd open the medicine cabinet and Herman would be patiently waiting for me.  Sometimes I'd slide my hand under my pillow and disturb Herman from a nap. I still get the shivers when I remember touching those scaly things.

Do you have a "Herman" from your childhood?  Is there anything that still gives you "the shivers?"

Thursday is my Friday!!

I only go to the office four days a week so that means I have to rustle up some wisdom for my weekend.  YIKES!  No one would ever accuse me of being wise.  I guess I hoped the title might inspire me.

 

I was asked the name of my "thread stealer."  Her name is Isobel.  We call her Izzy most often or Esmeralda when she is being bad.  She is the 6th Great Dane I've had.  She is by far the most willful, stubborn, and fun dog we have ever had living with us. I take her to work with me.  She is a good dog most of the time but by evening, when I am finishing paperwork or just wasting time reading blogs, she gets antsy and starts to misbehave.  Tonight it was her favorite game "Make the human fetch my ball."  It goes like this:  She finds one of her many balls, bounces it around for a while then throws it under a piece of furniture just out of her reach.  The whining and woofing commences and continues until one of us gets on our belly and fishes it out for her.  Because I am gullible and trusting, I give it back to her.  Repeat.

I just snuck her into my husband's office (with him) so I could finish up my paperwork and write this post. Five minutes later my office door s-l-o-w-l-y opened as he returned her to me.  This went back and forth a few times but I finally whined slightly louder than Izzy "I have paperwork to finish" and he took her back with him. 

The top picture shows her at about 5 months old "at work" sitting in my chair.  The bottom photo is more recent. She is on her couch at home, evidently exhausted after a day at work.

No quilty pictures today but I spent all day yesterday at a fun workshop by Karen Cunagin.  She taught us some free-form string piecing.  I'll post a picture of what I did in class later.  It is certainly out of my comfort zone but I think that is what helps us grow.  Eleanor Roosevelt is quoted as saying, "Do one thing everyday that scares you."  And that's my wisdom for today.

Once a week is not TOO bad - is it?

I really get perturbed when bloggers I like to follow don't post every day.  I need to practice what I preach even if I am the only one who reads this blog.

Finn's UFO challenge really gave me the boost I needed to settle down and clear some unfinished things out of my Studio Q.  I find that nothing stalls my creativity more than having a bunch of "stuff" lying all over my studio.  It seems to absorb any creative energy from the air so it never reaches me. 

So far I have TWO finishes to report.

The first is a string quilt top that I finished a very long time ago.  It had been quilted and shuffled from pile to pile while it awaited binding.  I dug into my bin of 2.5 inch strips (thank you, Bonnie) and had binding made in no time.  Since the top is so scrappy, I thought scrappy binding would be perfect.  I think this one is bound to be a Quilt of Valor donation (sorry about the pun!).

The second finish I have is a sampler quilt I made for my guild.  I am showing it off tonight.  It's a bit wild.  I made it from a jelly roll that I fell in love with a few years ago.  I think I like the jelly roll better.  I can see why die-hard bloggers invest in expensive cameras.  This photo does not begin to do justice to the colors.

Finally, I thought I should show a picture of my Great Dane.  Normally she steers clear of my studio - unless she is stealing a new spool of thread.  But, get a camera out and she is RIGHT there.
                                                                          

I hope you have a productive day.